StageFright Android

This  is  an  emergency  post  for  every  Android  user.  The  topic  is   "Stagefright" . The  importance  of   this  post   was   so   much  that   I   had   to  divert    from    my  regular                "Smartphone  Prologue"                                      

Heard   of  it   or  read  it  in  the news  two  days  back? If  not  I  strongly  recommend  to  read  this!   

   
 ( all  the  images  shown  here  have  their  source
     from  Google  Images  )



Now  what  is  this  Stagefright ?


No its  not  about  the  nervousness  a  speaker  experiences  during  a  speech!   In  technical  terms  it  refers  to  a list  of  serious  bugs  in  the  Android  OS  (v 2.2 and  up)   recently  uncovered  that  can  trigger  any  device  to  permanently  freeze  by  receiving  only  a  text  message  from  a  hacker!!!


Technically  this  set  of  bugs  got  its  name   from  the  native  media  playback  engine  of  the  same  name  that  the  Android  media  library   possesses   which  is  loaded  with  the  default  software  codecs  during  its  manufacture.   


                      

It  was  recently  that   cyber  security  giant   Zimperium  zLabs  researcher   Joshua  Drake   found  out  this  major  bug  in  the   Android  program  codecs  which  is  part  of  the  AOSP (Android  Open  Source  Project).  This  is  the  biggest  Android  bug  till date !!

According  to  current  statistics  over  950  million  users  all  over  the  world  are  at  a  grave  risk  of  a  dangerous  hack!


What  does   Stagefright  do??


The  Stagefright  engine  in  the  media  library  is  responsible  for  unpacking  of  the  media  files  like  photos, videos  and  audios.  It  is  also  responsible  for  retrieving  the  MMS  files.

Now  what  the  hacker  basically  needs  is  just  your  phone  number! Yes that's  it! Next  he  sends  you  an  MMS  file  which  contains   the  malicious  code  wrapped  up  in  a  media  file ( possibly  a  Matroska  file  i.e.  .mkv).  Once  you  receive  that  message  its  curtains  for  your  phone. The  hacker  now  has  full access  of  your  phone! He/she  can access  all your  personal  data,  photos,  videos  and  most  importantly  your  call list. He/she  may  perform  dials  to  numbers  and  earn  you  a  bad  reputation.  A  video  recording  may  also  be  started  without  your  knowledge.                 

            

A  grave  possibility  is  that  file  may  cause  the  library  to  suffer  from  an  integer  overflow  while  unpacking  the  media  file  leading  to  a  crash  of  the  OS  permanently!

Moreover  you  need  not  open  that  MMS  file  to  get  infected!  Once  your  phone  receives  the  message  it  automatically  falls  prey  to  the  trap. Even  the  hackers  are  equipped  to  delete  that  file  from your  phone  so  that  you  do  not  even  notice  that  your  phone  is  sabotaged!


Yes  sounds  frightening  !  I  know ! So  now  what  to  do?


We  should  be  thankful  to  Joshua  to  say  the  least. He  decided  to  inform  Google  about  his  patches  that  can  fix  these  bugs.  And  yes, he  even  sold  them  to  Google   whereas  he  could  have  sold  it  to  bad  hands  for  a  heavy  ransom!


Google  though  has  already  released  its  patches !  But  there  is  a  big  problem  here.  Apart  from  its  own  Nexus  Devices,  Cyanogen  Mod,  Mozilla,  Silent  circle's  Blackphone  every  other  device  is  still  at  risk!  Why?????  This  is  because  Google  Android  relies  on  its  partners  i.e..  the  phone  makers  (like  Samsung,  Motorola,  HTC,  LG,  Sony  etc)  for  the  software  update  of  its  released  patches .  This  is  because  every  device  uses  its  own  tweaked  version  of  Android! And  as  far  as  the  phone  makers  are  concerned  they  are  yet  to  release  a  patch  for  the  fix.




So  in  the  meantime  there  are  two  big  ways  of  staying  safe.....................

•  Open  your  default  messaging  app  in  your  phone  and  click  on  the  Settings  option.  Then  click  on  the  MMS  settings.  You  will  find  an  option  called  " Auto  Retrieve  MMS  messages".  Uncheck  that  box.  Do  the  same  for  Google  Hangouts  also.  In  this  way  you  protect  the  malicious  file  from  automatically  infecting  the  system. Although  if  you  open  the  message  the  code  will  start  its  work.  Hence  I  advise  you  to  instantly  delete  any  MMS  you  receive  on  your  phone.  Do  not  open  any  such  file.  If  you  have  to  share  media  files  with  friends  use  Whatsapp  for  example.

• Mobile  antivirus  softwares  like  Trend  Micro  and    Zimperium's  zIPS   already  boast  of  their  updated  technologies   to  detect  the  Stagefright  bugs  and  nullify  them.               

                                               

So  lets  just  hope  that  we  receive  a  fix  soon!  I  would  insist  you  readers  do  share  this  information  with  anyone  and  everyone  to  make  people  cautious  of  this  situation. Please  recommend  this  post  on  Google+  or  share  it  in  Facebook  or  other  social  media  so  that  this  message  reaches  to  every  corner  of  the  smartphone  population.

The Smartphone Prologue

The  mobile  platform  has vastly  progressed  in  the  past few years. Ten  years  back  how  many  of  you  actually knew  what a  smartphone is?  I  am  not  quite  sure whether  any touch  phone  was  there in  the  Indian  market at all!  Today  we  almost  spend  our  every  bit  of our energy  in  scrutinizing  the  specs  of  a  phone  before buying  it.

Source: Google Images

Gone are those days when people would call you a freak if you discussed about a phone's ram or processor. These days RAM and Processor are quite common terms among the tech lovers. We all are driven by the Bandwagon Effect  of checking the specs properly before buying any flagship phone.

 
What is a smartphone?

"Defined in Wikipedia as a mobile phone with an advanced mobile operating system. They typically combine the features of a cell phone with those of other popular mobile devices, such as personal digital assistant (PDA), media player and GPS navigation unit. Most smartphones have a touchscreen user interface, can run third-party apps and are camera phones. Most Smartphones produced from 2012 onwards also have high-speed mobile broadband 4G LTE internet, motion sensors, and mobile payment mechanisms."

Source: Google Images

DID YOU KNOW?

The world's first smartphone was launched way back in 1994 by IBM. Click this link to find out more!



Mobiles and other handheld devices are now even considered as a secondary  replacement for laptops and desktops since -
 

Source: Google Images

1. They are handy hence portable.
2. They are less bulky compared to laptops.
3. They are generally cheaper.
4. They are fashionable and are the latest trend.

So what the essential requirements of a smartphone ?

• They should meet the primary criteria of quality voice calling and texting.
• They should ensure high speed internet usage.
• They should afford multitasking.
• They should meet the daily needs of professionals, service men, office workers like word processing, powerpoint presentations, email, mms facilities, printing, storing valuable data etc.
• They should be ideal for watching movies, pictures and listening to songs for full on entertainment.
• They should enable  social networking , update us on daily news and progress etc.

  

  Source: Google Images

• They should be capable of capturing pictures (#selfie is a popular twitter trend)

  

  Source: Google Images

• and lastly the most necessary for many of us ----- GAMING.

Now that was a long list...............

 

So what are the aspects of a smartphone that needs to be looked at -

• The processor - the soul of a phone. It should have multiple cores along with high CPU frequencies for lag free performance. Ex :Snapdragon , Mediatek ,Exynos etc. 

•  RAM - The performance largely depends on this.

• Graphical Processing Unit (GPU) : Now for 3D games , 4K videos, 4G connectivity a top class GPU is an elementary necessity.
• Operating System (OS) : The brain of the phone. Collaborates and necessitates all the activities.
• Camera: If you are a photo freak consider the camera before buying a phone.
• Connectivity : In today's generation Bluetooth, Wifi , USB connectivity are must for a phone.

 
I will give you the latest information on the best processor , RAM and other aspects of the modern generation phones. Along with it I will recommend the the budget phones with good specs and give an info on the best phones in the market.

 
Stay tuned for my next post since this is just a Prologue to something exciting!!!!!!


If terms like Snapdragon, Mediatek  ,Adrenos fascinate you, wait for my next post specially for the discussion of a phone's architecture! 

Source: Google Images

Why Internet Speed Not Same As Advertised

Hey everyone!

Ever wondered why the various internet plans you subscribe to do not give you the speed they promise? Hmm did my question just match your long unanswered query? Yes? Okay I will explain it.

Image Source : Google Images

I had subscribed to a connection from local cable some days back. I was promised a download speed of 24mbps!! Just imagine!! That kind of a speed meant I could download a whole Game Of Thrones season approximately in five minutes! Sounds like euphoria!     

Image Source : Google Images

But I was jaw dropped when I found that my download speed reached a maximum of 2.8MB/s only. About one eighth of what they promised! Just imagine my situation. I am sure many would have faced the same problem and thought that they have been cheated. But believe me the ISPs are not lying to you!

Let me explain to you the concept here. The internet service providers market their speed in bits per second. So when they say that your download speeds will be 24mbps they mean 24 megabits per second!
But the catch here is that the computer browsers measure the speed in bytes.

Image Source : Google Images

And almost anyone knows one byte equals eight bits. I am sure now it is clear to all as to why the speeds do not match with the ones promised! When they say 24Mbps(mega bits per second) they mean 3MBps(mega bytes per second). Any file that you download  will show you the download speed in mega bytes per second; Hence if you have a download speed of 3MBps for a promised speed of 24mbps , the ISPs are well and truly playing a fair game with you !

Now comes the practical part ! Remember I said that I received speed only upto 2.8MB/s for a promised speed of 24mbps? Why not 3MB/s ? Here comes the term " Bandwidth" .      

Image Source : Google Images

"Defined in Wikipedia as the amount of information that can be transmitted over a network in a given amount of time, usually expressed in bits per second or bps. It is often confused with speed."

  
Generally there are a lot of factors  (listed below) which interfere with the bandwidth of a network and hence results in lowering of the maximum possible speed.

By far the civilization we are living now , having an internet connection  is similar to having a kiss scene in a Bollywood movie. Yeah that is funny! So amidst all the network traffic if you get a speed of 480 KB/s for a promised speed of say 512 KB/s you should be more than satisfied. Trust me! 

Now let me come to the factors that interfere with your internet speed :

•  Hardware Issues: Suppose you have been using a router or a modem for a long while you cannot it expect it to catch high speeds and updated configurations as it used to. Further a poorly configured wifi connection can also result in lower speed.               

  

  Image Source : Google Images

     
• Congestion:If you are trying to use a connection that is being used by several others in your neighborhood , naturally you end up suffering  to a congested connection. So expected speeds are obviously less!

• Time of Usage:Since you are using a shared connection, naturally there is congestion during the peak hours say from 6 pm in the evening. Therefore the server speed will be naturally slow.

• Throttling: Internet service provider may slow down (or “throttle”) certain types of traffic, such as peer-to-peer traffic.They have a right to this especially when you have exceeded a certain data limit (this is applicable even for unlimited internet plans).

• Server-Side Issues:Sometimes the download speed depends on the server you are downloading from! If the source server has a slow data connection naturally your download speeds will be slower than expected.

How To Capture Your Screen

Hello Readers!!!!!!

Ever wondered how, the various tutorials you watch on Youtube or anywhere else get captured? Let me share my experience- Some years back I always speculated as to how the various videos I searched on Youtube got captured by the respective uploaders on their computer screens.

Upon some searching on Google I did come up with a software which I am very excited to share with all of you.

Requirements :

1.  Internet Connection
2. Camstudio Application ( Click Here to download)
3. Xvid Video Codec       ( Click Here to download)

Functions of Camstudio :

• Note that there are many applications available on the internet for capturing your screen but here I will use my personal favorite which is Camstudio. It is very simple to use and completely hassle free.

• It can be used to capture your screen frames so as to produce a video of your activities on your computer screen. It is specifically programmed to design tutorials at home on your computer screen. Further you can capture a portion or the whole of your screen.

•  You can even capture videos or movies that you watch online. Unfortunately it cannot be used for screen capturing when high resolution games run on your screen. It comes equipped with a video player although I recommend that you run the captured videos using a good video player like VLC, KM player etc.

•  The Xvid Video Codec is crucial as it improves the quality and the frame rate of the videos and is essential in capturing videos in 1080p.

 

Process :

•  Once installed open camstudio and u get a dialog box like this : 
  
  
  
  
  
   

Description:

1. The red circular button when clicked starts recording your screen. The two buttons beside it are used to pause and stop your recording respectively.
2.   The button beside the stop (blue) button is used to toggle your view of the application and the button beside it is for screen annotations i.e. if you want to add text in certain portions of your screen or diagrams during recording. Camstudio features with a lot of different layouts for screen annotations. Lastly the SWF button is for converting the recorded format from .avi to .swf .

 

• The next step is to configure the recording quality by inserting the Xvid codec. Click on Options on the menu bar and then press on Video options and make the following changes there as listed on the image below:

 

• Click on Configure button and make the following changes as listed in the image below:

 

• If you take a quick peek into the menu bar of the application you will see six options- file, region, options, tools, view and help. When you click on them you can easily understand their functions. Also some of their functions also match with the button functions that I explained above.

 

• One important option is the "region option". You will see that it has three subtypes-  region, fixed region and full screen. These are self explanatory and you may choose the option that rightly suits you!

 

• Note that when you record with the settings I described above you will observe a black screen when you play your recorded video in camstudio video player. So I suggest you to play using KM or VLC or any other player.

 

If you have any doubts you can comment in the comment section. Further if you discover any flaws or innovate any settings other than these, feel free to comment! I will respond to you and correct my mistakes !

 

 

So just begin making your own tutorials and open a channel on Youtube!!!!!!!!!!!

How To Download Videos From Youtube

Hello Readers!

Those of you who had thought that youtube was meant only for viewing videos and clips online or those who got tired of the endless buffering that takes place due to a slow internet connection just chill out ! Because I got a unique solution to it.

Yup you read it right! I will show you how to download videos from internet not only from youtube but also from other websites that get featured with videos. Yes you can view videos offline without the requirement of your internet connection once you have downloaded it from youtube or any other website.

Without much delay lets head straightaway to your topic of discussion !!!

 

Requirements :-

1.  An internet connection (obviously!)
2. Youtube Video Downloader Application

 

STEP 1 :

• Download the application and install the program in your computer.
• After you have installed , run the application and you will see a dialog box appear like the one shown below:

 

 

STEP 2 :

• Here I will show you how to download the video "Call of Duty Advanced Warfare Reveal Trailer" from Youtube.
• Just log on to youtube.com and type the above.

• Here I will download the second video shown in the image. The next step is to just click on the video and you get the following screen.

• Just copy the full link address in the address bar as shown by the red rectangular box in the image above.  

 

STEP 3 :

• Open youtube video downloader and click on the "Add Download" button.You will see a dialog box appear like the one shown here.

• Description :

1. The Green Box in the image is the location where you will paste the copied link.
2. The red arrow specifies the quality of the video that you want e.g. 720p,1080p etc.
3. The blue box in the image refers to the facility of converting the video in your desired format along with its quality. The "Settings" tab is for specifying the required video codec, frame rate, bit rate , audio codec, channel rate etc. ( These are not required for beginners)
4. The black arrow points to the location where you want your video to be stored. Choose your desired location.

• After following all the above steps click on the "Download Now" option. You will see a screen like this:

• You can see that the application is looking for your video from the directed link. The video gets located in 10-15 seconds approx after which you will be able to see the download speed and the percentage of the video downloaded in the section marked by the yellow box in the image.
• The section marked by the red box allows you to add further videos, play or pause or remove any one or more videos and much more......
• Finally you need to wait while your video gets downloaded!!!!!!!!!! You can use this application and the method shown to download videos from any other site as well other than youtube.                        

       

                            ***********HAPPY DOWNLOADING************

 

NOTE :-  Be careful of the videos you download since some videos have copyright permissions so you may fall into trouble for violating others' rights. 

How to download from torrentz.com in 3 simple steps!!

Hello readers , today I will show you how to download torrents using your internet connection.
It has become a phenomenon nowadays to download music, recently released movies and computer games for free without any prior investment. Buying from shops is slowly fading away as the cyber space constantly improves and rejuvenates everyday.

Requirements

• An internet connection
• uTorrent application ( Click here to download )

 Step-1

• Click on the link above and download the setup file in your desired location.
• Double click the setup file and install  uTorrent in your computer.

Step-2

• Open your browser and type www.torrentz.com or click here
• Click on the link that says "Torrentz Search Engine" and you enter the search page which contains a search box. 

Torrent Search Engine Page

• Here I will show you how to download GAME OF THRONES S5. Just type it in the search box and click the search button. You will find a page that appears similar to the one shown below.

                           

       

•  You will find several links as shown in the picture named as you had typed along with some technical specifications on the right. The "age" encircled by a red box refers to the age of the torrent i.e. how long it has been uploaded to the website. The "quality" encircled by the green box refers to the quality of the torrent file while the "order by" encircled by blue refers to the order in which the torrent is arranged.
• One important concept of torrent is of seeds and peers.

1. Seeders : Are the people who have completed downloading the file and are basically distributing it to the peers. Without them downloading a file completely is impossible.
2. Peers/Leechers : Are the people who are currently downloading the file like you.

• So coming back, the various links that are ordered in the page are by default done according to ratings. Generally the most rated file has the maximum number of seeders and leechers. But that may not always be the case so try to find the right balance between ratings and the seeders and leechers.
• Here I will click on the first link according to the ratings doing which the following page loads : 

• You will find many links like the "thepiratebay.se", "extratorrent.cc" etc etc (shown on the top image) and some user comments below (shown on  the second image). Check the user comments to verify the authenticity of the file. And then click on any of the  above links. 
• Here I will click on "yourbittorrent.com" upon which the following page opens :

• Click on "Torrent file" and a dialog opens as follows :

 

• Click on OK and save the file in your desired directory. (hardly a few kbs)

Step-3

• Open uTorrent application from the directory where it was installed. I have uTorrent version 3.4.3 which appears like the one shown below :

• Here upon clicking the add button (as has been encircled by the red rectangular box in the picture) a dialog box opens. Find the required directory where you had saved the torrent file and select it to open. When you do this a dialog box appears as follows :

• The region surrounded by the red box in the image refers to the location where the file you are downloading will be saved while the region surrounded by the yellow box refers to the torrent contents. Click on the OK button and you see this on your screen :

1. You can see the torrent file is downloading. There is a tab which tells the percentage of the file that has been downloaded along with download speed and many other details. The region enclosed by the blue box allows you to start , pause or stop your torrent. 
2. The region enclosed by the orange box gives details on the contents of the file,info,download speed, comments and the tracker list.

• When the download gets completed the file automatically starts to seed( as discussed before). You can click the stop button if you wish and your download gets completed!!! Now you can open the directory and start running the file you just downloaded!!!!