With the first screenshot you must have been clear that, some videos, even when there is no copy-right issue with them, appear as “Not available”. Second screenshot, I tried to change the url of youtube video from
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgEo_7rMH0Q to
http://www.youtube.com/watch/v/PgEo_7rMH0Q which inturn is a way to access blocked youtube videos(videos, which need you to be above 18) here in UAE , but that also didnt work. So any guesses what solved the problem ????

Solutions to this problem

Watch the video working,

There are two solutions for this problem :

1. Hotspotshield : This is a free vpn service, which connects to US network. Hence you get assigned a US ip address and hence, you can watch youtube video without any problem. This clearly state that this problem is only for a particular region. Download hotspot shield from here.
2. Youtube High Quality video option to the rescue :If you want to save yourself with the hassle of switching on hotspot shield, then here a better option. Append &fmt=6 or &fmt=18 or &fmt=16to the end of the url and watch the video getting played. For example the above url will become :

   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgEo_7rMH0Q&fmt=6 or
   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgEo_7rMH0Q&fmt=18 or
   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgEo_7rMH0Q&fmt=16

3. Only for UAE ( Etisalat Proxy ) : This option will work for Etisalat Internet Connection. If you are using IE then go to Menu >> Tools >> Internet options >> Connections >> Lan Settings >> and check the option use proxy. In proxy text box enter 213.42.1.19 and port enter 8080. Click ok in all the dialog boxes and now your youtube videos will start working.

Did you ever encounterd such problem , or its just UAE ??

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Linux Vs Mac OS X Vs Vista

CanSecWest security conference started a contest : Linux versus Mac OS X versus Vista. Who will get hacked first?
The participants were supposed to use a brand-new ‘zero day’ attack that nobody has seen before. The prize? US$20,000, plus you get to keep the laptop.

Contest is called PWN 2 OWN.

Pwn (which rhymes with own) is a hacker term meaning to take control of a computer.

The first day passed and nobody was able to hack into the systems as the contestants were only allowed to attack the computers over the network, but on Thursday the rules were relaxed so that attackers could direct contest organizers using the computers to do things like visit Web sites or open e-mail messages.

And this rule relaxation on the second day earned Charlie Miller $10,000 in just next two minutes. Well this must the be the fastest money earned by any Hacker ( might be ).

Quoting from the article at Washington post

Miller, best known as one of the researchers who first hacked Apple’s iPhone last year, didn’t take much time. Within 2 minutes, he directed the contest’s organizers to visit a Web site that contained his exploit code, which then allowed him to seize control of the computer, as about 20 onlookers cheered him on.

For those who want to know how he did that would be disappointed as Miller was quickly made to sign a Non Disclosure Agreement , preventing him from discussing the flaw in Public. Since the contest allow to exploit the use of any preinstalled software on the machine, it is pretty likely that he must have exploited a flaw in world’s fastest browser, Safari (its not yet confirmed ). Quite possible, like the antivirus site installed malware by exploiting iframe property in browsers.

Last year’s contest winner, Dino Dai Zovi, exploited a vulnerability in QuickTime to take home the prize.

Considering the security flaws in Mac , I hope this would give you a second thought on not installing Windows Vista on a Mac. While apple is targeting Windows market share by providing an option of installing Vista, its actually trying to hit two targets at once ( selling a MAC PC and keeping it secure with Vista ) . So whats your take on Mac’s security. I hope Ashwin and Mayank are listening to me .

Also read : $84 million porn filter hacked by a 14 year old kid.

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Hacking technique used , is not new !!

Seems like the technique or the way used to hack the site is not new. In the past also many websites have been hacked and used to install such kind of malicious codes. Here is what was done

The attackers open an invisible iFrame Window within the victim’s browser, which redirects the client to another server. That server, in turn, launches attack code that attempts to install malicious software on the victim’s computer.

The malicious software is a variant of the Virut virus family.

Quoting more from the article :

The iFrame pages are commonly used by Web developers to insert content into their Web pages, but because it is possible to create an invisible iFrame window, the technology is often misused by hackers as a way to silently redirect victims to malicious Web sites.

AvSoft, based in New Delhi, sells an antivirus product called SmartCOP and has sold a second antivirus product called Smartdog. The company, which is not well-known in the U.S., also specializes in recovering data lost due to virus attacks. The company could not be reached for comment.

That data recovery service could come in handy for some, as Virut is known as a “parasitic infector” virus that is extremely difficult to remove. It infects all of your programs on your local hard drives, and then it starts hitting your network drives as well the first time you run.

Fortunately, the malware used to install Virut exploits only well-known bugs, meaning that users who are running antivirus software on fully patched systems will probably not be infected by the attack in its current state, security experts say.

Nobody is aware how the virus got inside the website as of now. The news is really shocking and do ring a bell about the highly insecure online world.

Moreover, it also give me an evil idea of marketing a product to create buzz all over the web world. Imagine, apple’s website getting hacked and publicizing Nokia or Sony. Similar way Microsoft’s website gets an advertisement of Linux !!! evil, isnt it ??… Well !! jokes apart, and I hope the webmasters find a solution to this frequent occurring problem and prevent such kind of incident in Future.

Remember the news about 16 year old kid hacking $84 million porn filter in just 30 mins ??

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So here is the solution. Head over to this Nokia blog where the guy hacked S60 browser and now his s60 phone disguise itself as Iphone while browsing. Quoting from the blog,

Sometimes I envy iPhone owners. It doesn’t help that my phone – unlike iPhone – has an open platform, tons of 3rd party applications, embedded GPS, good camera, 3,5G connections etc. What my phone doesn’t have is the marketing buzz that pushes major web sites to make special optimized pages for iPhone users. I’m a big fan of Google’s solutions and when they launched a special service for iPhone, I made a quick software hack and changed the N95 browser to introduce itself as iPhone’s browser.

Download the installation file from nokia blog or directly from here.

Nokia is going to do it

I sometimes used to wish that I could shout to the mobile companies that being so long in mobile field, have you given up in front of iphone. Come on , and design something creative and more innovative than Iphone, and guess what Nokia is going to do it. Rush to the article at symbian freak which talks about the upcoming Nokia UI .
A quick excerpt

The good thing is that the Finnish giant promises that the upcoming S60 touch interface will offer much more than vibrations and click sounds. Nokia is working on a real button-like response enabled with the two small piezo sensor pads under the screen that provides a "0.1 mm movement in the screen itself with exactly the same sort of fingertip feedback as with a conventional keyboard.

I hope you are aware of iphone effect 1 and Iphone effect 2 .

Just one more day to go .. Participate and win a free ad space on tecfre.com

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With orkut and other torrent sites blocked in UAE, I normally access it with proxy website www.pagemod.com at office. I have added it to my search bar and hence now I need not visit the site.

Same is the case with blogs also. I am in process of adding blogs and hence search for wordpress plugins, themes , and various blogging tips are just a search away.

Hope you will find this Firefox extension useful and yeah, if you are Using Internet Explorer you can download firefox by referral link at the top of this page and download the extension from here.

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Incident took place in Melbourne where schoolboy, named Tom Wood, said it took him just over 30 minutes to bypass the Government’s filter, released on Tuesday.

Amazing hacker – Did things differently

Normal hackers when crack a website or a software, always tend to leave their footprints, either in the form of defacing the website or changing the ownership of the software with some weird names. But this guy did it with style.

His hacking technique ensures that the software’s toolbar icon is not deleted, leaving adults under the impression that the filter is still working.

It took him 30 minutes to bypass the filter and 40 minutes to crack the upgraded one. Well now thats pretty fast. Isnt it ??

Tom, who spoke to Communications Minister Helen Coonan about cyber safety during a forum in May, said the Federal Government should have developed a better Australian made filter. According to him it’s a horrible waste of money.

Cracking of a $84 million filter is obviously a serious money wastage from Australian Federal govt. point of view.

In my opinion Tom, has really made a point that once you are computer-savvy, and focus yourself, you can just do anything over the internet. Whether its about hacking , gaining popularity or simply making money online. Nothing is Impossible.

I hope we get someone like Tom over here at UAE who can get us rid of the damm website filter applied by Etisalat ( the ISP provider at UAE ).

Dont you think cracking a $84 millon filter in 30 mins and upgraded filter in 40mins is an evil accomplishment by this 16 year old kid ??

Read more at news.com

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Recently I posted the news of unlocking the iphone, and as per me it was kind of complicated process. Well so here is an alternate method using the turbosim. The few things you may require (as stated by the site ) will be :

• Jailbreak (link applicable for Windows users)
• SSH enabled (link applicable for Windows users)
• iPhone activated using your own AT&T SIM’s token (DVD Jon’s PhoneActSrv will not work!)

  (eg. iASign method using AT&T’s ICCID. Link applicable for Windows users)

• You have the Turbo SIM – Blank Version available from Bladox or Votech

The whole article is posted here at simbunch. Have a look if you want an unlocked iphone. And yeah !!! This time we have proof also . The following video of working iphone at HongKong will prove it

via : intomobile

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Just read this on labnol’s blog that whether alexa is changing ranking system for blogs. Well after reading it , I thought let me check for gizmodo and engadget and other blogs. Well i was pretty amazed that “yesterday ranking” of alexa for these blogs have come down to in between 7000 – 8000 . Well I just wondered , ok what about johnchow , Since johnchow.com holds a rank nearly 3000 – 4000 in alexa , does the traffic graph of johnchow crossed these blogs ???
Well again was the time for amazement, johnchow’s blog was no where seen close. The “yesterday traffic ranking” of johnchow shows N/A which means outside 100k .

Well !! I never agreed or believed alexa and I had reasons to hate alexa’s details .Johnchow bombed google and hence got kicked out of it. Well !! but what is alexa upto ?? Is alexa now trying to get the actual traffic details similar to google or some bug has crawled in ??? Any comments !!!

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As far as i believe Iphone will be available in UAE by the end of this year. Moreover , now you can customize your Iphone and make it more beautiful at colorware.So what do you think ?? Now you will be able to unlock “The Iphone” !! , so have any plans of buying or ordering ??

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Plagiarism : Copying someone else’s work and then passing it off as one’s own.

I posted an article recently on how my blog content got stolen . Ram from Teknobites was another victim. On his post today, I learnt how a picture per post can help you fighting plagiarism.

Since these blogs just copy paste the articles source code, it is very likely that the picture will actually link to the original blog content.

Just check how are the pictures linked to my blogs show up on roboticdegree blog.
( I know this picture looks pretty amateurish , but its ok till its not on my blog )

learning from what was done by Ram :

Here are the links

1. So its better to include some related picture with every post on your blog. And when you find that someone has stolen the post , Ram’s post on Plagiarism has the answer, how to change them by changing your .htaccess file.

2. Sizlopedia by Dj Flush has excellent article on how to track and recover copied blog content

3. After tracking what to do ?? Report it !! This article from Quick Online tips has the answer to report it to google and search engines.

4. Installing wordpress plugins to combat sploggers. Arpit has posted 3 plugins which could help you in fighting sploggers.


Also if you have been thinking about ways to learn HTML? It’s easy with all the online learning resources out there! Just find the best educational resource and gather your school supplies and you’re on your way!

I hope these links will be very useful in fighting sploggers who are stealing others hard work buy just the combination of Ctrl + C and Ctrl + V . If you know any other way of fighting these sploggers , do share with comments.

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