In the previous post, we discussed about the concepts of quantum encryption and black holes. We also talked about how we do cryptography in the subatomic world. This blog post is a continuation of that discussion. As the title suggests, the overarching theme is the relationship between quantum encryption and black holes. Let’s continue talking about it then. Although quantum encryption looks extremely robust in theory, how practical is it? What do we know about its security and how is it related to black holes? We know that nothing can escape from black holes, so we need a way to understand more about the black holes. Continue reading “Quantum Encryption And Black Holes – Part 2/2”
Tag: Hacking
Quantum Encryption And Black Holes – Part 1/2
Is that really the title? It looks like two random things mashed up together. Doesn’t make much sense, right? Well, recent research suggests that quantum encryption and black holes may be related. A proposed mathematical proof outlines the way in which information behaves in coded messages, and this may have implications for black holes. The proof basically suggests that the radiation spit out by black holes may retain information about them. The research not only focuses on encoding communications in quantum mechanical systems, but also addresses a long-standing question for theoretical physicists: What exactly happens to all the stuff that falls into a black hole? Is it possible to retrieve any information about the black hole? Continue reading “Quantum Encryption And Black Holes – Part 1/2”
How To Reset The Admin Password In Mac OS X
So you have finally gotten yourself in this situation! You have a Mac in front of you and you have forgotten the admin password. You don’t have the cd either. What we do we do now? Well, as it turns out, there is a simple procedure to reset the admin password: Continue reading “How To Reset The Admin Password In Mac OS X”
Steganography
Let’s say that we want to communicate with someone secretly. We prefer that only the intended recipient have the ability to decode the contents of the communication. We obviously want to keep the message secret. Sounds familiar? A common solution to this problem is to use encryption. An encryption scheme takes a message and transforms it into an unreadable format so that an eavesdropper can’t read it. Now what if we don’t want anyone to find out that there is communication going on? As in, if the attackers don’t know that something is going on, then there are lesser chances of getting attacked right? How do we achieve this? Are there techniques to that allow us the hide this information? Continue reading “Steganography”
Operation Aurora
On January 14, 2010 McAfee Labs identified a zero-day vulnerability in Microsoft Internet Explorer that was used as an entry point for Operation Aurora to exploit Google and at least 20 other companies. Microsoft issued a security bulletin and patch immediately. Operation Aurora was a coordinated attack which included a piece of computer code that exploits the Microsoft Internet Explorer vulnerability to gain access to computer systems. This exploit is then extended to download and activate malware within the systems. The attack, which was initiated stealthily when targeted users accessed a malicious web page, ultimately connected those computer systems to a remote server. Now this connection was used to steal company intellectual property and additionally gain access to user accounts. Why did the users visit the malicious web page? Likely because they believed it to be reputable. This attack became particularly famous because of the level of sophistication and the obfuscation methods used. Continue reading “Operation Aurora”
Command Line Within Python
One of the cool things about Python is that you can do absolutely anything and everything with it. This blog post deals with using command line within Python. When you are writing your code in Python, you might want to access the command line to run a couple of commands like ls, grep, make etc. If it were a shell script, you could directly write that command and it will get executed as if you were on the command line. But shell scripting will only provide limited functionalities. So how do we do it in Python? Continue reading “Command Line Within Python”
What Is SSH?
Consider the following situation. You are at your friend’s place with your laptop and you want to access your home computer to do something. May be you want to start a download or you want to run a program right away. What would you do in this situation? Will you go all the way to your house just to start a download? You already have a laptop at your disposal, so you should be able to use it somehow. You can just connect to your home computer through internet. But what if someone else hacks you while you do that? This is where SSH comes in. Continue reading “What Is SSH?”
Automatic Downloading
Let’s say you are surfing the web and you come across a cool website with a great collection of pictures. Some of them are located on that page and many more can be reached through various links on that page. There are hundreds of pictures and you want to download all of them. How would you do it? Would you click and save each image separately? Let’s say you really like the design of that site and you want to download the whole thing along with the source code. How would you do it automatically without wasting time? Continue reading “Automatic Downloading”
Rooting Your Phone
A lot of Android devices are being activated everyday. We hear the term ‘rooting’ floating around all the time. Most of the people don’t bother to tinker with their phones. They just want to enjoy their device as it is. Some people think that rooting their phone will break the software or damage their phone in some way, and so they don’t want to mess around. What exactly is rooting? Do we even need to root our phones? If so, why exactly do we need to root our phones? Continue reading “Rooting Your Phone”
Decrypting Cryptography
What’s the first thing that came to your mind when you read the title? How do you perceive the term ‘cryptography’? It has something to do with secrecy and hiding right! Anyway, cryptography is the art of protecting information by transforming it into an unreadable format. Only the people who have the secret key can decode this message. The process of transforming the information into something unreadable is called Encryption and the reverse process is called Decryption. Let’s say you have a message you want to send to your friend. The message to be encoded is called plaintext and the encrypted message is called ciphertext. The goal here is to find the most secure way of transforming the plaintext into ciphertext. How do we encrypt it? How do we make sure it remains safe even if someone happens to see it? Continue reading “Decrypting Cryptography”
Perpetual Enigma 