- Password Crackers

THC Hydra

Aircrack

For the last few months i have found myself relying on the only usable piece of hardware at my disposal, an old ass macbook. I have found using the mac simple and straightforward for simple tasks, such as internet access, email, using calculators and word processors, et cetera. I have also found using more advanced system functions, such as bios and command line functions much more difficult. I feels as though macintosh put safety locks on everything, much like childproofing a house, they have childproofed their operating system.

I have been around "fringe" software or software that exists along the border of legality and enforcability for some time now, and this is my first use of a password cracker tool. I started with a simple google search and came across a page listing all of the best crackers, each specialized for various functions. The two i chose to use were the two listed links above. I chose these two because i wanted easy mac use. I didn't want to be forced to screw around with drivers, as all of the varying hardware drivers, and software drivers, and mobo conflictions that are likely to erupt, just make me a sad panda. This task i found giving me a headache just thinking about, windows is so much more accessible for this more complex stuff.

After getting into the nitty-gritty of all of the stuff I needed to learn to use more windows friendly software on a mac, the first problem i cam across is that mac has no means to compile code. All of the password cracker programs i came across, brute forcers, WEP, and WPA password crackers, all require compiling. In layman's terms, compiling is turning programming code into a workable and usable file, it turns people code, into computer code. Apple has on their main sight all of the files they think a typical user has to have.

After creating a specific "designer" account and re accessing the sight, cruising through clumsy web design and finally finding the download link i needed, downloading, and installing I was finally able to use the actual software i wanted to use, or so i thought. 

After spending some time screwing with UNIX commands that I now realized i should learn if i want to take this seriously, I came to a new conclusion. I needed to change my wireless card driver. Something that discouraged me from the start. After looking into the problem a bit more, it turns out that the feature i needed to use from my card, packet sending, is disabled by corporate mac. Disabled meaning, has complete functionality but is purposely handicapped by the developers.

With a little more digging it turns out that the way to change the functioning of the wireless card is available and usable, but is only available for firmware designers at apple.

In summary I have found that apple for the sake of improving the daily use for the typical user has sand-bagged the whole experience for a more adept user. It feels less like apple is helping me by pointing me in the direction of more stable processes, and more like i'm a grown man who has spent his own money buying a product i don't even have full rights to. This whole experince has just re-entrenched me into my staunch offense on apple's distribution (lack thereof) of dumbed down hardware and software.

If you have any confidence in your ability to use a computer or program, and are curious about either of those things, stay the fuck away from apple.

- Flash Game

flow

Hands down the best flash game i've ever played. The game is visually and musically very minimal, but this combination is very complementary and actually makes game play almost.... soothing. The game stays constantly engaging as you battle other species. You start out as a tiny eel and eat, grow and evolve. In your quest for food you encounter various creatures and dive deeper and deeper into the ocean. After eating the last morsel of food available, you return to the surface to begin again as a different species, a jellyfish. A downloadable mac or windows version is available without much googling stress.

The game was also released for PS3, which allows for play as more than just the two organisms the flash game allows. If I would have known this it would have definitely made an impact on my decision to buy an xBox360 instead of a PS3.

- Youtube to .mp3 Converter

Dirpy

flv 2 mp3

The best couple Youtube to .mp3 music converters I could find. 128 kbps bitrate isn't amazing sound quality, it sounds the same as youtube quality (hey, at least it didnt lose any quality!) but for downloading music for free on something as ubiquitous as youtube, it makes for an awesome web tool.

- Streaming Site

Ninja Video

Lots of working links! That is the number one thing I look for in a good streaming video site. I just finished watching the full "Sons of Anarchy" Season 1 on this site. Definitely a good site to bookmark, and add your existing repository of streaming sites. Use these links before the Internet police get them!

The Pacific is also on here, great show. 

- Virus Prevention

Spybot

Adaware

To take full advantage of all of the tools and information the Internet has to offer, you are going to inevitably find yourself stumbling upon some malicious programs, viruses. It is important to protect yourself before engaging in advanced Internet activity. More important than virus protection, is virus immunization. There are several programs that I have come in contact with that claim to protect your computer from viruses, trojans, keyloggers, and various bloatware and only 2 remain as a staple on my system. Those two are "Adaware", and "Spybot: Seek and Destroy".

Spybot has a malware prevention function called an immunization. The program downloads from the site's server the most up to date database of existing viruses, and prevents those viruses from ever entering your computer. Adaware removes all of the irritating web browser clutter that existed because you clicked "O.k." too fast while you weren't paying close enough attention to one of the many pop-up ads you see everyday.

This combination of programs has freed me up tons of available memory, makes my computer run faster, more efficient at not only video but processing levels. It ALSO has an anti-virus feature which I find myself never needing to do with an up to date virus immunization database. It doesn't stay running in the background like most protection programs, eating up all my processing bandwidth.

Over the several years I have spent surfing, streaming, downloading, and pirating every available media able to be put into a computer, these are the only security products I have found worthy of putting on my basic startup program installation disk. Highly recommended.

- Viruses

The Internet is very new in terms of available human technology. Considering how much information is available at your fingertips I feel obligated to catch those up who are either intimidated by the rumors of Internet viruses, or those who do not see a need to use it for anything besides social networking and killing time at work or school. For the first time in the history of the world a seemingly infinitude of information can be used to meet any question, want or whim. Knowing where to look to find the good stuff and not the ads, spyware, adware, link redirects and viruses certainly helps.

I've been downloading from the Internet since 28.8 modems were top of the line, I think I was in 6th grade, maybe earlier. I have downloaded everything from music to videos to movies to pictures to games to programs to books to everything I wanted or could use. I even downloaded things I had no use for, just because I could. 

I'm going to use this first post to catch you up to speed on some of the things that may scare you away from Internet use, first up VIRUSES.

This was a primary concern when I helped my grandparents set up their home network, security, security, security. Over the course of my use i have encountered several viruses, and as a result had to reformat, reinstall and reupdate multiple computer rigs. the keyword here is the prefix "re-". Problems with viruses for me occurred most frequently using P2P networking clients (a client is a program, dont get all jargoned out already) such as limewire, emule, edonkey, kazaa, napster, etc.

The way these networks work is that when you search for a song, say for instance "Led Zeppelin - Stairway to Heaven", the client searches for users who have allowed access to their hard drive databases, and shows you a list of files. The more people have the file, the more people you can download from, the faster the transfer rates, and the more reliable the completion of the download. There are tons of search results, and in order to download a more obscure song saaaay, "Yimanya - Filterheadz (Markus Schulz Coldharbour Remix)" you may find yourself downloading multiple search results. These clients dont take into account the file name in the search results, so when you think you may be downloading an *.mp3, you may really be downloading a *.pdf, *.doc, or worse case scenario a virus *.exe, or a trojan virus embedded in your *.mp3. These corrupted files are not filtered by the client and the files available for download are exactly the files on the host computer.

P2P Clients have their uses, that usage should be limited to being used as a last ditch effort, for downloading extremely obscure files, or if time is an urgent concern. And if you do choose to use it, be aware of the viral risk you are taking.