Russian PM's Twitter account hacked by Hackers ~ Hack4friends

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev's Twitter account was apparently hacked on Thursday and used to criticize the Russian government and President Vladimir Putin.

Russian PM - Dmitry Medvedev

The first tweet, published on Medvedev's official Twitter account @MedvedevRussia, said -- via translation by The Interpreter -- that he was "resigning," and added that he was "ashamed of the actions of the [Russian] government." Not long after, Medvedev's account put out a series of tweets criticizing Putin and retweets from anti-Russia protesters, including praise of Yale attorney and activist Alexei Navalny, an influential anti-Putin activist.

The tweets were scrubbed from Medvedev's Russian account, which has more than 2.5 million followers, within an hour after they appeared. No tweets have since been published acknowledging that the account was hacked. Medvedev's English language account, @MedvedevRussiaE, does not appear to have been affected.

The Russian government has not commented on the supposed hack.

As prime minister, some see Medvedev as little more than another mouthpiece for Putin. In 2012, Putin appointed Medvedev, who previously served as president of Russia, as the prime minister and the official leader of the United Russia Party. Medvedev also acts as the international face for Russia at meetings with foreign governments.

It's not clear at this point how his account was hacked. Russia has increasingly become a focus for activist hackers as the government continues to tighten its control of the Internet. So far, no activist groups have taken credit for the hack.

Source:BusinessInsider

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Google preferring HTTPS over HTTP in google ranking (SEO) ~ Hack4friends

Google announced that websites using HTTPS, the secure version of HTTP, will have a better chance of ranking well in Google searches than those that don't.

In the vernacular, HTTPS is now a ranking signal for SEO (Search Engine Optimisation). It could be an inflection point for web security.

Security is a top priority ... over the past few months we’ve been running tests taking into account whether sites use secure, encrypted connections as a signal in our search ranking algorithms. We've seen positive results, so we're starting to use HTTPS as a ranking signal.

By making HTTPS something that impacts search results Google are applying the stick to an enormous security push that's been all carrots up to now.

Everywhere you look, from better SSL to the tricky business of end-to-end email security, Google are busy rolling out encryption or giving people ways to encrypt things.

Anyone who doubts the energy and seriousness that Google applies to this kind of thing or the effect that it can have need only wind the clock back five years.

In 2009, Google announced they wanted to make the web faster.

Google HTTPSIt wasn't a soundbite, a speech, a project or a campaign - it was a sea change.

Since then Google has created, amongst many other things, a fast public DNS service, a faster web protocol, tools to speed up websites, tools to make code smaller, an image format to make images download faster and a global content distribution network for commonly used code.

They even built their own web browser with a very fast javascript engine and spent millions and millions of dollars banging on about how fast it was.

Most importantly of all they made speed a ranking signal for SEO.

Making speed a ranking signal punished slowness. It's what made organisations care.

To understand why, you need to understand a little of how search engines work and how companies approach getting their websites noticed.

Google uses computer programs (referred to as spiders) to read the world's web pages and index them. The spiders try to determine the subject and quality of each page by measuring a multitude of different factors, known as signals.

The strength of the signals determines where those pages will rank when somebody types a search into the Google search engine.

Good signals means high rankings, more traffic and more revenue. Poor signals can put you out of business.

There are hundreds of signals but they aren't all equally important - some have far more impact than others. To prevent people from gaming their system Google is deliberately vague about how many signals it cares about, what they are and how much each one matters.

Thanks to a lot of research and some vague pronouncements from Google we have a pretty good idea of what some of the signals are and some idea of their weighting.

According to their blog, HTTPS will start off as a weak signal:

For now it's only a very lightweight signal — affecting fewer than 1% of global queries, and carrying less weight than other signals such as high-quality content — while we give webmasters time to switch to HTTPS. But over time, we may decide to strengthen it, because we’d like to encourage all website owners to switch from HTTP to HTTPS to keep everyone safe on the web.

In reality, in my experience at least, even low strength signals get plenty of attention.

Because Google is cagey about what signals are worth, because organisations can't easily test and isolate their website's signals and because there is intense competition for good Google rankings those that care about SEO will generally act on any ranking factors that are well defined, regardless of how small their effect.

Companies like nothing better than lists with ticks next to them so if a ranking factor comes down to a simple yes or no choice it gets done.

Before Google made site speed a ranking factor I hardly ever had conversations with organisations about how fast their websites were. Now we always talk about it.

From now on they'll have something else to talk about - a simple binary choice: "Does our website use HTTPS?"

Increasingly the answer will be yes.

Source: compiled from online sources

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Foursquare android app tracks your location by default everytime ~ Hack4friends

Foursquare, makers of the popular app that lets you "check in" wherever you go, unveiled a new version this week that the company hopes will make it the go-to service for local search.

In fact, Foursquare founder and CEO Dennis Crowley hopes the new Foursquare app will become indispensable, providing users with tips and recommendations - more like targeted ads - based on their location.

"To actually get an app to talk to you like a friend would talk to you. That's what we're going at here," Crowley tells Wired in an interview.

In order to make this vision become a reality, the Foursquare app tracks users' "background location" - using a combination of GPS, nearby Wi-Fi signals, and cell towers - even when the app is closed.

Gone is the old "check-in," which required you to tag yourself at a location (this formula has been shunted off to a separate app called Swarm).

Now the Foursquare app pushes out notifications based on where you are and what you like - if you've told the app you like vintage clothing, it will alert you to nearby thrift shops, for example.

Admittedly, this sounds kind of cool - an app that knows what you like and makes recommendations tailored to you and your location.

But there's a problem that should alarm anyone concerned about their privacy.

Giving up your location whenever your phone is on - even without the app running - is the default setting (versions of the app older than 8.0.0 required users to "opt in" to get this service).

If it makes you a little uncomfortable for Foursquare to track your every move, you have to "opt out" and disable the feature in the app's settings or in the privacy settings when you log into the Foursquare website.

Foursquare location settingsHow to opt out

When you download the Foursquare app or update to the new version, the app tells you that your phone's background location will be tracked, and points you to the settings to turn it off.

To opt out, open the app and go to  Settings | Location Settings and un-tick the box next to Location Services.

This screen tells you that the feature will be turned off automatically if your battery is running low, but it somewhat obscures the fact that the feature is otherwise always on.

Foursquare uses your phone’s background location to help you find great places, even when your phone is in your pocket. When you arrive at a place with interesting tips, we'll send you a notification. Your location is never shared.

To disable background location from the Foursquare website, go to Settings | Privacy settings.

Un-tick the box that says:

Allow Foursquare to use my device's background location, even when the app is closed, including for features like sending you notifications with local recommendations or tips.

Now that's pretty easy. So why not let users opt in instead of opting out?

Based on Foursquare's business model of giving businesses a way to share recommendations and deals with users, it's probably a good assumption that the answer is "money talks, [user] walks."

As Crowley told the Wall Street Journal, the constant collection of data on users can reveal trends that can be useful to advertisers, who "might be really excited about getting their hands on that data."

Opting in means having options

You might be thinking, "What's the big deal? Users of Foursquare choose to tell everyone their location anyway."

True. But in previous versions of the app, it was the user who made the choice to broadcast their location, and only when they wanted to check in.

Now, Foursquare assumes you want to share that information with the app all the time, and without asking for your permission.

In the current climate of government surveillance, data mining, and social media oversharing, there's a growing resistance to invasions of privacy - even among people who don't hesitate to share what they're doing and feeling at every possible moment.

Even if you're comfortable giving away your privacy for convenience, it's more than a little naive to assume your personal data is well-protected and only being used in your best interests.

Look at the current crop of mobile messaging apps like WhatsApp and Viber - both were storing your messages in unencrypted form, until security researchers discovered that anyone could use Wi-Fi sniffers to intercept messages and see everything that users shared via the apps.

Then there's the 800 pound gorilla of social networks, Facebook, which is under fire from regulators and the subject of lawsuits from users for its aggressive data mining.

Facebook even copped to an experiment on non-consenting users.

If we don't expect the apps and websites we've come to rely on to give us control over how our data is used, one day we may wake up and have no choice at all.

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Website hacking using manual SQL injection explained by TheRootCoder [Video Tutorial]

Hello guys today i m posting some good stuff after a long time .. this tutorial is made by our friends TheRootCoder so all credits goes to him...

Last Updated : 07/08/2014

Just watch this video tutorial............ and it is Self-Explanatory so i think no need to write long text still if you face any problem then comment below i will resolve your problem..

Caution: This tutorial(video) is only for educational purposes so don't misuse it because it is illegal to penetrate into others system without their permission .And you are also bounded with your state/country's cyber laws.

Direct link to youtube videos  Click Here and also subscribe our channel.

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A complete guide to start programming with any language by Harpreet Sandhu ~ CodingBaba [Partner Blog]

Are you new to programming ?... And don't know how top start it ?... which language should be used at beginning time ..? 

Just Read this Article.... Click Here..

This article is of our partner blog ~~ CodingBaba

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CHINA charges Microsoft windows 8 for backdoor-spying

Microsoft and China are at odds over the issue of cyberspying, with Windows 8 caught in the crossfire.

State-run broadcaster China Central Television lashed out Wednesday at the latest version of Windows and charged that it's capable of collecting a huge amount of data on Chinese society. In a transcript of the CCTV interview published by the Wall Street Journal, an academic shared his opinion on the type of data that Microsoft can allegedly collect through its OS.

"It's very easy for providers of operating systems to obtain various types of sensitive user information," Ni Guangnan, an academician at the Chinese Academy of Engineering, told the interviewer. "They can find out your identity, your account information, your contact list, your mobile phone number. With all that data together, using big data analysis, a party can understand the conditions and activities of our national economy and society."

Adding fuel to the fire, Guangnan pointed to the classified documents leaked by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden as proof that Microsoft has worked with the US government to obtain encrypted data over the Internet.

In response, Microsoft used its own Weibo account to refute the charges and deny all allegations of backdoor spying in collaboration with the US government. As translated in a story by Neowin, Microsoft's denials break down into five points. According to Neowin, Microsoft said it has:

• Never "assisted any government in an attack of another government or clients."
• Never "provided any government the authority to directly visit...products or services."
• Never provided a "backdoor" to products or services.
• Never provided client data or information to the US government or the NSA.
• Never "concealed any requests from any government for information about its clients."

Microsoft's war of words with China is part of a larger skirmish between the US and Chinese governments. Charges of cyberspying between the two countries is nothing new. But since the revelations of NSA spying activities were leaked last year, China has used the opportunity to accuse such companies as Microsoft, Google, and Apple of cooperating with the NSA to gather data and steal state secrets. Tech companies have acknowledged that they are required to share certain customer data at the request of the government but have denied that they collaborate with the government or build backdoors into their products and services to allow data to be siphoned.

Such charges can damage a company's reputation and bottom line. In the case of Microsoft, China last month announced a ban on Windows 8 for government computers. At the time, China's state-run Xinhua news agency said simply that the ban was designed to improve security. However, China likely has another motive for wanting to put the kibosh on Windows 8 beyond security fears.

Microsoft has long accused China of widespread piracy of Windows. In 2011, former CEO Steve Ballmer told employees that Microsoft's revenue in China represented only 5 percent of sales in the US although the two markets were about the same size, according to the Journal. As such, a significant number of the PCs in China still running the now-unsupported Windows XP may be using illegal copies.

Microsoft wants to implement a server-based licensing system in China as one way to fight software piracy, the Journal added. And since the software giant no longer sells or supports Windows XP, Chinese consumers would be forced to upgrade to a more modern operating system, such as Windows 8.

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