It's getting harder and harder to escape ad tracking by the day. For the latest example, look no further than T-Mobile. The No. 2 carrier updated its privacy policy on Feb. 23, 2021, indicating that it would start sharing customer data with advertisers under the guise of more relevant ads starting April 26. If that's not something you'd like to participate in, there's a way to opt-out.
Apple released iOS 13.0 on Sept. 19 and announced on the same day the release of iOS 13.1 on Sept. 30. But that deadline was pushed up to Sept. 24, and that's why we have 13.1 just five days after 13.0. But that's good news since we don't have to wait any longer for some of the features promised in iOS 13 that didn't make the first cut.
When it comes to texting, Google's Messages app for Android is absolutely top-notch. The app gives you the ability to block those annoying spam text messages that have been plaguing us for so long, send messages from a computer, and can even provide RCS features if your carrier supports the Universal Profile.
As I've mentioned in recent days, it was refreshing to discover that Microsoft's HoloLens 2 stage production was every bit as accurate as presented (check out my hands-on test of the device for more on that).
Signal is one of the best end-to-end encrypted messengers on the market. It offers robust security, keeps minimal information about its users, and is free to use. Switching to it as your main messenger can be a bit daunting, so to help, we created a guide to walk you through the process.
A relay is an electrical component that works like a light switch, where it's turned on or off with an electrical signal. By connecting a relay to a Wi-Fi connected microcontroller like an ESP8266, you can build a connected switch that can be controlled from the web browser of any device connected to the same Wi-Fi network — all for just a couple of dollars.
Smartphones and other Wi-Fi enabled devices send radio signals called probe frames to locate nearby wireless networks, which makes them easy to track by listening for their unique MAC address. To show how this kind of tracking works, we can program a NodeMCU in Arduino to sniff the air for packets from any device we want to track, turning on an LED when it's detected nearby.
Three new iPhones means you have to make a choice: Do you go with the smaller iPhone XS, the larger iPhone XS Max, or the cheaper iPhone XR? There's lots to like about each model, but if you want to make an informed decision, it's time to learn what each has to offer. Here's what the iPhone XS Max brings to the table.
You can feel it in your bones. You may die if you don't get this phone. There's just one problem — the price. Suddenly, you come across what seems like manna from heaven. That very device, at a deeply discounted rate, can be yours.
When you can't reach your iPhone or don't have it on you, how do you get help from emergency services? Unless you have one of those life-alert mobile triggers, someone nearby, or some amazing telepathy skills, hope might be the only answer — unless you wear an Apple Watch, that is.
TouchWiz might not be the Android skin of choice for hardcore aficionados, but the Galaxy's OS still has a ton of great features up its sleeve that help provide one of the most enjoyable smartphone experiences out there. Many of these are relatively hidden and overlooked features that you may not be aware of.
Design flaws in many routers can allow hackers to steal Wi-Fi credentials, even if WPA or WPA2 encryption is used with a strong password. While this tactic used to take up to 8 hours, the newer WPS Pixie-Dust attack can crack networks in seconds. To do this, a modern wireless attack framework called Airgeddon is used to find vulnerable networks, and then Bully is used to crack them.
Conducting phishing campaigns and hosting Metasploit sessions from a trusted VPS is important to any professional security researcher, pentester, or white hat hacker. However, the options are quite limited since most providers have zero-tolerance policies for any kind of hacking, good or bad. After researching dozens of products, we came out with 5 potentials that are ideal for Null Byte readers.
Even though most phones don't have Oreo yet, Google has released Android 9.0 Pie. It's available on Google's own Pixel devices, and updates should soon be available to partnered devices from Essential, Nokia, Oppo, Sony, Vivo, and Xiaomi. We're already digging into it to highlight all of the features and changes.
The Watch Dogs video game series came out in 2014, enamoring audiences with the idea of a seemingly magical smartphone that could change traffic signals, hack web cameras, and even remotely control forklifts. This may sound like science fiction, but The Sonic uses a customized flavor of Kali Linux to allow you to unleash the power of Kali from any smartphone — all without the need to create a hotspot to control it.
Armis Labs has revealed eight vulnerabilities, called "BlueBorne", which put 5.3 billion Android, iOS, Windows, and Linux devices that use Bluetooth at risk. With it, hackers can control devices, access data, and spread malware to other vulnerable devices through networks. In this post, we will learn about the vulnerabilities, then look at how to find devices that have them.
Every time you make a call or send a text, you're giving the recipient your phone number. This can be quite the security vulnerability, opening yourself up to scammers, spammers, and the feds. In this how-to, we'll look at what a burner phone is, why you might want one, and how to get started using a free second phone number on your regular smartphone.
Equifax reported on Sept. 7 that it discovered a breach on July 29 which affects roughly half of Americans, many of whom don't realize they have dealings with the company. Hackers got away with social security numbers, addresses, and driver's license numbers, foreshadowing a "nuclear explosion of identity theft." Let's explore what really happened and what you and those around you can do to protect yourselves.
A PirateBox creates a network that allows users to communicate wirelessly, connecting smartphones and laptops even when surrounding infrastructure has been disabled on purpose or destroyed in a disaster. Using a Raspberry Pi, we will make a wireless offline server that hosts files and a chat room as an educational database, a discreet local chat room, or a dead-drop file server.
The dark web is an intimidating place for a newbie hacker, but it's a powerful tool once you've learned to navigate it safely. To help you out with that, this guide will cover some need-to-know information for traversing the dark corners of the internet while keeping your identity and data safe. (Hint: Using Tor is not enough.)
In five short years, three generations of ultra-low-cost Raspberry Pi devices have challenged the boundaries of what a person can do with a $35 computer — especially with Kali Linux.
When WhatsApp first came out in 2010, it quickly gained notoriety as a great way to meet new people all over the world thanks to group chats, which allow multiple admins for each group that can all add participants from their own contacts lists.
Black Mirror, Netflix's technology-horror anthology, never fails to provide thought-provoking entertainment centered around emerging and futuristic technologies, and the third season's second episode, "Playtest," delves deep into the worlds of mixed, augmented, and virtual reality. While designed to leave you haunted by the end, offering a more "evil" narrative than we'll likely see in our actual future, the episode explores possibilities that aren't as far off as one might think.
Welcome back, my fledgling hackers! Hacking has a long and storied history in the U.S. and around the world. It did not begin yesterday, or even at the advent of the 21st century, but rather dates back at least 40 years. Of course, once the internet migrated to commercial use in the 1990s, hacking went into hyperdrive.
Whether scheduling meetings, events, tasks, or even keeping tabs on the weather, a good digital calendar can help you stay on top of your game in ways that a normal calendar could never do. Indeed, there are many calendars to choose from, but Google Calendar is one of the best due to Google's excellent cloud service, feature-rich web-client, and their easy-to-use Android and iOS applications.
This time it's serious. Really. The largest web security vulnerability of all time went public on Monday, April 7th, 2014, resulting in widespread panic throughout the Internet as system administrators scrambled to secure their websites from the OpenSSL bug known as Heartbleed.
Editing out unwanted objects, people, and distractions from your photos just got a lot easier on your iPhone, iPad, or Mac. Before, you would have to use apps like Google Photos or Snapseed to erase background distractions or perform spot healing, but it's now a native feature in Apple's Photos app for iOS, iPadOS, and macOS.
Things just got a lot better in your iPhone's Messages app, and the most significant change lets you text Android users with iMessage-like features such as typing indicators, read receipts, large file sharing, high-quality photos and videos, and even emoji reactions.
In less than a month, WWDC, Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference, will reveal the company's plans for the upcoming iOS 18 and iPadOS 18 software updates. But we already know what accessibility features will be hitting iPhones and iPads later this year, and many of them will be helpful to everyone, not just users with accessibility issues.
If you're doing the same tasks on your Android phone repeatedly each day — like playing a specific playlist at the gym, viewing work documents, or watching your favorite music video — you can save some time by automating your routine, turning each task into a one-tap gesture on your home screen.
Everyone should know that assigning complex passwords to sensitive digital accounts is the best practice for protecting yourself against hacking. Those who adhere to password creation best practices also know that keeping up with passwords for every account is nigh impossible, even when using passphrases. This is why using a password manager is highly recommended.
With the holidays right around the corner, it's easy to miss a big software update on your iPhone, and by that, I mean iOS 15.2, which was pushed out Monday, Dec. 13. There's a surprising amount of new features and changes in the updated firmware, and there are a few big ones you need to know about.
Over the past week, practically every major tech company working on augmented reality has held their quarterly earnings calls with investors, and each addressed or at least mentioned the role of AR during their prepared remarks. However, Facebook's earnings call had some of the spicier commentary on the technology.
The close of the second quarter of 2021 brought about a flurry of merger and acquisition and financing activity in the augmented reality industry, headlined by the acquisition of Ubiquity6 and JigSpace's new multimillion-dollar funding round.
Malevolent hackers can divert your incoming calls and texts to any number they want, and they don't need to be a criminal mastermind to do it. Even friends and family members can reroute your incoming calls and messages so that they know exactly who's trying to reach you, and all it takes is seconds of access to your iPhone or wireless account. These secret codes can help uncover them.
Next to spam calls, few things are more annoying than being inundated with spam, scam, and smishing texts. Your iPhone's Messages app should be a place for your friends and family to stay in touch, not a minefield of phishing attacks, malicious links, and viruses. Luckily, there are quite a few methods to block and report your way to a more spam-free iPhone.
If there is one constant in currently available AR headsets, it's that, for a quality experience, they'll carry a high price tag. Price is one of the reasons these devices are mostly marketed towards enterprise customers for now.
Amber, emergency, and public safety alerts on an iPhone are loud — startle-you-to-death loud even. They can happen at any time, day or night, and sometimes back to back when you're in a big city. Those blaring sirens can wake you from sleep, interrupt an important meeting, or disrupt an entire movie theater mid-movie, but you can turn most of them off if you're tired of hearing them.
What does it mean when a software company obsessively focused on innovating the way we use our mobile devices to see and communicate with the world adds virtual voice agents? Possibly e-commerce magic, with a powerful layer of augmented reality.
While Google Play Music fans mourn its demise, its replacement, YouTube Music, is gaining some neat features that its predecessor never had.
