The BackTrack Project is funded by Offensive Security,
a professional training service for information security specialists in
a wide range of industries. The distribution itself is on its fourth
release and is aimed to be a one-stop shop for every security tool on
the market. As the distribution has gained notoriety, it has seen over
four million downloads of its latest version. While BackTrack is aimed
at being used as a live distribution either from a USB or DVD medium, it
can be installed as a computer's primary operating system. Although Ubuntu-derived, it uses KDE by default, unlike Ubuntu's adoption of the GNOME desktop environment.
Usability :
Since
BackTrack uses the KDE environment by default, the interface is
intuitive, graphical, and extraordinarily easy to set up and use. There
are a number of applications already installed that make it easily
configurable on just about any type of network, allowing you to add
Windows file or printer shares using Samba or even connect easily to
some of the more advanced wireless networks since the system comes with
Wicd as the network manager. Wine also comes pre-bundled with BackTrack
4, allowing you to run Windows applications right out of the box. Along
with the basic KDE tool set and application suite, BackTrack has a
variety of applications for both penetration testing purposes and user
accommodation.
Applications :
For Web browsing, BackTrack includes Konqueror and Firefox along with Lynx, the popular text-only Web browser. Other Internet
applications include the XChat graphical IRC client and Liferea for RSS
news feed reading.
Kopete is the default instant messenger, but since
Backtrack uses the Synaptic Package Manager, you can easily replace it
with the more popular Gaim or Pidgin clients if need be. Most uses of
BackTrack do not include chatting however, so this function will most
likely not be an issue for you. BackTrack also comes with a number of
Internet services including HTTP, MySQL, SSH, and VNC servers for the
quick and easy implementation of network services when needed. Where
BackTrack really begins to make an impression though is when you begin
to look at the wide and varied tool set that the developers have decided
to include.
Tools :
Backtrack
comes with hundreds of tools, including both command line and graphical
versions from a variety of assessment and analysis projects. The main
tool category is composed of twelve sub-categories with many of the
options overlapping. However, despite the amount of overlap, BackTrack
comes with a few hundred security tools, enough to keep anyone chock
full of information regarding the networks or systems they are currently
using.
Wireless :
By
far the most popular use of BackTrack is for cracking wireless
network's WEP keys on the fly. The current release comes with many
of the patched drivers that support packet injection, enabling users to
inject ARP packets and speed up the cracking process. Popular programs
such as aircrack-ng and Kismet are included, but BackTrack comes with
close to one hundred wireless auditing tools, including Bluetooth and
RFID tools. The list of radio tools is above and beyond what most people
would ever need to use, but provides a lot of tinkering room for the
curious. This tends to be the theme for much of BackTrack's tools
however, above and beyond to encompass any tool set a user might wish to
play with.
Exploitation :
Another
popular use for BackTrack is for the delivering of exploitation
payloads through penetration frameworks such as Metasploit or FastTrack.
This is where BackTrack becomes truly useful for security researchers
and hackers all along the slide of the ethical spectrum. With a massive
exploitation database and a number of online resources for expanding
that database, BackTrack comes with all of the necessary tools to
practically point-and-click your way into a system. Once inside,
BackTrack goes further and has over one-hundred tools for privilege
escalation, access tunneling, and digital forensics. If most of the
tools were not console-based, it would certainly run down the system to
use too many of them at once. In any case though, BackTrack is packed to
the gills when it comes to exploitation.
Information Gathering :
BackTrack
also shines when it comes to the number of tools available for
information gathering and network mapping. While sporting some of the
most valuable mapping and organizational tools, such as Maltego or
Dradis, BackTrack also comes with a number of search engine and data
harvesting tools for developing a large database on any target. While
including the basic network mapping utilities such as Hping3, Nmap, and
Unicornscan, it goes above and beyond in providing another dozen options
for a range of uses from service and OS fingerprinting to VPN scanning.
Furthermore, Backtrack includes a number of Cisco auditing tools along
with OpenVas, the free GPL fork of the popular Nessus vulnerability
scanner.
Community :
A
Linux distribution is defined by its community and user base. These are
the people that maintain the forums and wikis that help new users
figure out what is different about the way this distribution does
things. These are the people that populate the IRC channel twenty-four
hours a day to help new users get settled with a system. Many members of
the BackTrack community use BackTrack as a secondary operating system
and tool in their day-to-day work. Others are simply kids looking to
become hackers because of the romantic way the hacker has been displayed
in popular culture. This dichotomy has caused the community to be a
little pompous, but rightfully so. The leaders of the BackTrack
community have spent a lot of time to become security veterans and are
not there to give instructional seminars on how to use the most basic of
tools. In the past, BackTrack developers shut down the forums for the
very reason that they were overgrown and below the standard that they
were looking for. The community does not tolerate someone who is not
willing to take the time to read up on and discover how to properly use
the operating system themselves.
Usage :
As
a recovery or penetration environment, BackTrack is an excellent
operating system.
BackTrack overshadows any other distribution of its
type since it simply eliminates the competition with its wide tool base
and huge user community. With that being said, BackTrack seems like it
would be too much for someone to have installed as their main operating
system. Since even a veteran security researcher would only use a
fraction of these tools, it seems like quite a bit of overkill, unless
you are simply experimenting and learning, to have BackTrack as your
system's primary OS. A slimmed down version of Kubuntu or even another
system like Arch would be best for someone looking to run a fast and
responsive, day-to-day Linux environment. BackTrack should be used as a
tool, a swiss-army knife to pull out when needed.
The Kindle Fire is a mini tablet computer version of Amazon.com's Kindle e-book reader. Announced on September 28, 2011, the Kindle Fire has a color 7-inch multi-touch display with IPS technology and runs a forked version of Google's Android operating system. The device—which includes access to the Amazon Appstore, streaming movies and TV shows, and Kindle's e-books—was released to consumers in the United States
on November 15, 2011. On September 7, 2012, upgrades to the device were
announced with consumer availability to those European countries with a
localized version of Amazon's website
2. Wii U
There's
no doubt the Wii sparked a motion-control revolution when it launched,
with all three major consoles now sporting some sort of wavy-arm option.
However, despite phenomenal sales for much of its life, it isn't still
banging out the hit games in the way the Xbox and PS3 are.
Enter the Wii U,
then. The Wii's successor looks set to be a powerful HD console,
offering 1080p output and 3D support, with yet another interesting new
controller. The Wii U comes with a kind of small tablet - a controller
with all the usual buttons, but a touchscreen in the middle as well. The
touchscreen can be used to control games, or you can actually play the
game on that screen, leaving your TV free for Masterchef.
Nintendo-quality
games, awesome HD graphics, support from lots of third-party games
developers, and a handy way to play in any room in your house? Count us
in.
3. Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime
This
is where tablets really start to grow up when it comes to horsepower.
The Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime is the first Nvidia Tegra 3 tablet,
which means quad-core processing and amazing graphics performance for a
portable device. Somehow, it's also unbelievably thin and light, and
comes in a bundle with keyboard dock for typing on the go.
Our Eee Pad Transformer Prime review
found that it had good battery life, a great screen and amazing
performance, especially for games. It's probably going to be just the
first step in what's to come for Tegra 3 tablets in 2012, but it'll be a
hell of a way to start the year when it's released in January.
4. Windows 8 tablets
There are still a lot of unanswered questions when it comes to Windows 8 tablets,
but the information is starting to come out, and there's no doubt
Microsoft is prepared to make a real go of this tablet malarkey.
Windows
8 will use a Metro interface that's much like Windows Phone 7 for when
it's used on touch devices, with separate Metro apps. It will support
ARM processors, such as Tegra 3, as well, which means manufacturers have
options for the hardware they include.
Whether the addition of a
new touch interface on top of the traditional Windows look will entice
developers and customers is hard to say, but it seems to have the
manufacturers on board, and we'll be able to see more when the public
beta arrives early next year. If Microsoft pulls it off, it may suddenly
become a big mobile player again.
5. Apple's 2012 tablet
We
could fill this article with what Apple's supposedly got in the works
for next year, but since they're all officially fictional until the
moment Tim Cook walks on stage and reveals them to the world, let's not
get too wrapped up in them. Rumours of an iPad 3
with a Retina display are stronger than ever, and it's fair to say that
we'd be drooling all over a tablet with a screen as highly detailed as
the iPhone 4S's. iPhone 5
rumours persist too, though at this point we suspect it'll be called
something else, since it won't be the fifth iPhone. A thinner design
with a larger, possibly edge-to-edge, screen is supposedly the order of
the day, which will be unusual, but we'd love to see if Apple can pull
it off.
And then there's the Apple TV. No, not the Apple TV you can buy now, the new Apple iTV
television set that's supposed to be in the works. Of course, it's hard
to say how good an Apple TV would be from a visual point of view, but
we like the sound of a TV with AirPlay and iCloud built in, with Siri
functionality as a remote control option.
iPhone 5 review: Apple iPhone 5 hands on impressions: It doesn't look it, but it's incredible
# One of the more striking things about holding a new iPhone model is
how your old iPhone, which seemed perfectly sleek and adequate just an
hour earlier, can suddenly feel slow, clunky and heavy. It's a neat
trick, one that Apple is betting on to help it ship new units to
exsisting iPhone owners in the coming year.
# After the Apple press
event, we were given some hands-on time with the upgraded iPhone 5, as
well as the iPod touch and iPod nano. Here are our first impressions of
the taller, lighter iPhone 5, which we tested next to a crusty,
pratically fossilied iPhone 4.
# The iPhones and iPods were laid
out on tables in the dim, windowless hall at the Yerba Buena Center for
the Arts. Protective Apple employees made sure the devices weren't
pilfered, wiped off journalists' finger prints and visibly flinched
every time someone dropped a phone (which happened quite a few times
while we were there).
# From the front, the iPhone 5 looks just
like the iPhone 4 and 4S. It actually takes a moment to register that
it's taller (holding it next to a previous iPhone model helps bring it
home). The display is the same retina display found in the iPhone 4,
iPhone 4S and now, the new iPod Touch, but is now 4-inches instead of
3.5-inches.
Then you pick it up. The phone is incredibly light, and that weight
is its most striking and memorable feature. It feels almost delicate in
the hand, naked without some sort of protective case to prevent it from
snapping in half. Of course, the iPhone is not nearly that fragile. The
body is made out of the same aluminum found in MacBooks, as well as
glass. It feels expensive, not like a plastic device that could break
easily. (We look forward to the inevitable drop tests.)
# On their
own, thinner and lighter are interesting selling points. Yes, it feels
incredible in the hand, but the iPhone 4 wasn't exactly weighing anyone
down, and consumers weren't clamoring for a thinner smartphone. On the
other hand, Apple prides itself on delivering features people will want
before they know they want them. There has been demand for more screen
real estate, and on that front the iPhone 5 delivers, but it might still
not be enough for those hoping for a 4.5-inch screen like what's found
on many Android devices.
# The new iPhone has a faster, A6
processor. It did feel zippy as we flipped through the new Passbook
feature, watched movies and scrolled through websites, however these
tasks weren't exactly lagging on the iPhone 4. Games were a great place
to see the processor in action, where detailed graphics are rendered
incredibly fast.
# Also noticeably speedy was the new panorama
feature in the camera app, which processed a 360-degree image of the
room almost instantly. For many similar third-party apps, there's a
short wait time while the images are stitched together.
# The demo devices were all running the new version of Apple's mobile
operating system, iOS 6, which has Apple's first Google-free maps app.
The Flyover feature turns cities into interactive, 3D images. You can
drag a finger to spin around a skyscraper and zoom in and out of the
city from any angle, not just the straight down satellite view. There is
a bit of lag on the loading time when you move to a new area, but
somehow the features still feels shockingly fast. Flyover is more fun
than functional, but perhaps the stunning graphics and turn-by-turn
directions will distract consumers from what's newly missing from the
Maps app, like the very useful public transit directions feature.
# The
room was too loud to test out the Siri voice assistant, which has
turned to third-party services to improve results. Restaurant results
are now powered by Open Table, movie times and reviews by Rotten
Tomatoes. It has also added Facebook integration. And the devices were
all connected to WiFi, so tests of the new LTE cellular connections will
have to wait until we have devices in hand.
# We also spent a bit
of time with the iPod touch. The iPod touch is like the iPhone's kid
brother, always inheriting old clothes and toys. It has the 5 megapixel
camera from the last version of the iPhone, as well as the A5 processor.
It finally got a Retina display, Siri and front-facing camera. But this
time the iPod touch got two of the iPhone's most stunning new features
at the same time: The taller screen and crazy thin and light body (the
iPod touch is actually .06-inches thinner and weighs 0.85 ounces less
than the iPhone 5).
# During the hands-on time, Apple executives
milled about the room, including smiling CEO Tim Cook, who was shaking
hands and giving a lot of hugs. He had good reason to be happy; the
phone appears to be top-notch, its new body an impressive feat of
engineering. It may not be the most mind-blowing upgrade, but that
doesn't diminish its level of quality.
5 Free and Open Source Web Browsers That You May Have Never Heard Of..
For web browsing, most of us would prefer Firefox
or Chrome because of their speed, security, stability, and overall
features. While a handful of people may like surfing the web with some
of those terminal-based browsers.
For
a change, why not try some web browsers that would perhaps cater to a
few of your specific needs and would serve as an alternative to your
existing browser. Why not try some of these Free and Open Source web
browsers that you may have never heard of: ~> Kazehakase
Named after a Japanese short story, Kazehakase
supports Unix-like operating systems that use GTK+ libraries.
Kazehakase embeds the Gecko layout engine as well as GTK+ WebKit with
plans to add the ability to switch between additional different
rendering engines (e.g. GtkHTML, Dillo, w3m). Some of its main features
are:
* Tabbed browsing
* Remote bookmark (e.g. RSS) in menu or sidebar
* Variable UI (menus, toolbar etc.) on user level
* Customizable mouse gestures
* Customizable key accelerator
~> NetSurf
NetSurf
is a light-weight and easy-to-use web browser that is capable of
handling most of your basic online tasks. Originally written for low-end
computer hardware, it can run on ARM 6 computer with just 16MB of RAM.
NetSurf is written primarily in ANSI C, and implements most of the HTML 4
and CSS 2.1 specifications using a bespoke layout engine. Aside from
rendering GIF, JPEG, PNG and BMP images, the browser also supports
formats native to RISC OS, including Sprite, Draw and ArtWorks files.
Unfortunately, NetSurf still has no support for JavaScript.
~> Arora
Arora
is a minimalist QtWebKit-based web browser whose feature list includes
things like tab management, simple history, a bookmarks system and
global user CSS. The original codebase was written for Trolltech by
Benjamin C Meyer ("icefox"), a Qt developer. It was released as the Qt
Demo Browser as part of Qt 4.4.0, demonstrating the capabilities of the
then-new Qt-WebKit integration. After the release, Meyer forked the code
and continued working on it independently, under the name Arora.
~> SRWare Iron
SRWare Iron
is based on the Chromium-source but eliminates usage tracking and other
privacy violating functionality that Chrome includes. In contrast to
Chrome, it implements the latest version of the WebKit rendering engine,
and includes a built-in ad blocker. SRWare Iron is fast and with an
interface similar to that of Google Chrome.
~> Midori
Midori
web browser is known for its lightning speed. It uses the WebKit
rendering engine and the GTK+ 2 interface, and is part of the Xfce
desktop environment's Goodies component. Some of Midori's main features
are:
* Tabs, windows and session management
* Supports Netscape Extensions
* Flexibly configurable Web Search
* User scripts and user styles support
* Straightforward bookmark management
* toggle full image zoom
* Speed Dial
Here is the list of top 5 web browsers presently available on
internet. Chrome tops the list with its ultimate features and Firefox
follows it. IE, Opera and Safari are the rest of the browsers in the
list. Many other browsers like Maxthon, Epic, Avant etc are also
available.
Google Chrome is special as it got integration with the most popular search engine Google. Chrome loads web pages with lightening speed and gives better browsing experience. Skins, Apps and Themes are available for free from Google Chrome Store. Google also released some exclusive apps for Chrome like Using gmail offline and Remote Desktop App.
Mozilla Firefox is no doubt, the best browser for web designers and
bloggers. Many top Add-on’s are available for firefox users .Firefox got special and extreme options like bookmark management and persona, which adds a colorful theme to Firefox.
After
losing its market share to Firefox and Chrome, Microsoft upgraded
Internet Explorer to 7th version and later introduced features like
tabbed browsing, add-ons etc. It is mostly used to view sites that are
designed before 2004 and is now almost forgotten by every one. With the
release of Windows 8 pre developer version IE is upgraded to version 10. Download here direct...
Opera announced itself as the World’s most fastest browser after
beating Google Chrome in a test. In my view market share of Opera Mini,
used for mobile devices is more compared to Opera desktop. It can be
used in special cases to browse sites that are UN-secure and got many
java scripts. The look and feel of Opera is getting improved a lot and
not easily letting off the competition.
Safari is the most powerful browser created by Apple Inc. It is mostly
used by Apple fans and it got all browser options like PDF reader,
tabbed browsing, bookmarking etc. It is mostly used on Mac and on its
latest version it adds support to all types of CSS effects. It also got
250+ innovative features and worth trying it.
comes with many
of the patched drivers that support packet injection, enabling users to
inject ARP packets and speed up the cracking process. Popular programs
such as aircrack-ng and Kismet are included, but BackTrack comes with
close to one hundred wireless auditing tools, including Bluetooth and
RFID tools. The list of radio tools is above and beyond what most people
would ever need to use, but provides a lot of tinkering room for the
curious. This tends to be the theme for much of BackTrack's tools
however, above and beyond to encompass any tool set a user might wish to
play with.
After
losing its market share to Firefox and Chrome, Microsoft upgraded
Internet Explorer to 7th version and later introduced features like
tabbed browsing, add-ons etc. It is mostly used to view sites that are
designed before 2004 and is now almost forgotten by every one. With the
release of 
Safari is the most powerful browser created by Apple Inc. It is mostly
used by Apple fans and it got all browser options like PDF reader,
tabbed browsing, bookmarking etc. It is mostly used on Mac and on its
latest version it adds support to all types of CSS effects. It also got
250+ innovative features and worth trying it.