[Porting to Linux] Run Chrome as Root

Recently I removed my Windows 8.1 student licensed OS and switched over completely to Kali Linux. So in the next few blogs I might be only writing about all the configuration changes I did which might be needed by every Windows addict, who in time would face the "side effects" of using windows, and crib about the numerous differences and the ease to use. However, if you are able to understand the basic configurations you are required to do as a Linux user, your life would be made a hell easier than what you'd expect in case of any type of error that needs debugging. Also, the security is "imba" compared to Windows.

This post is focused on Google Chrome. As a windows user, there was basically no problem in installing and running chrome! As a result, I got my browser sync'd to my email, and the bookmarks, the addons, the data is basically my life.

Installing Google Chrome:

The install setup can be got by going to the webpage of google chrome and downloading the setup for your system. As I am using amd64 Kali Linux, which is a debian based distro, I'd continue with the amd64 .deb package. To install, just traverse to the setup directory via terminal and type

1. dpkg -i filename.deb

With this, the installation is done. However, there is a problem! Google chrome doesn't run as root. To fix this, we follow a few simple steps:

1. Open Terminal
2. Traverse to the chrome directory
   cd /opt/google/chrome
3. Open the Google Chrome file on your favorite editor
   nano google-chrome
4. Traverse to the end of the file and at the last line, add
   --user-data-dir
   So, the last line should now look like
   exec -a "$0" "$HERE/chrome" "$@" --user-data-dir

That is it. With this change of settings, you should be able to run chrome as root, without any problem.
Now enjoy surfing on your Chromium :)

[Gyan/ Knowledge] Indian Hacker Space - Home for fraudsters

In India, it is a sad scenario to see young minds become motivated by what they see in Television. The Social  Media holds the power to brainwash and mobilize anyone, and it is extremely sad to see how the social media takes advantages of its power. A few days back, on the Internet Relay Chat, we were having a conversation about which country had the best hacker. Being a obvious patriot I obviously supported India. But then, suddenly, the entire cyber space go against me calling Indians nothing but a bunch of fraudsters. But why did this happen?
Some time ago, I was having this conversation with this kid. A young mind, extremely enthusiastic about becoming a hacker. Being a hacker enthusiast in your early teens is a incredible thing as long as you are willing to put long hours into it and make it your 1st and foremost commitment. However, this kid was talking something about a certification - A Hacker Certification from a Indian "Premier" Hacker Institute. Ok! Now, this broke all the laws of being a Hacker. Not only does the definition of hacker lose the meaning of "Free Knowledge", but also Institutes terming these certifications as "Ethical Hacking" just abuse the term "HACKING" and are completely ignorant to its ethics.
So how and why did this happen? On talking further to that kid, I realized that he was watching a TV Show called "MTV What the hack" with a person name "Ankit Fadia" often referred as Ankit "Fraud?ya!" on the cyber world. This script kiddie show, encourages young minds to lose the hacker way of gaining knowledge and teaches them to use script kiddie (skiddie) tools leaving them to be ignorant about the "Real Deal" that happens. Yes! Just like the "Anonymous group of Hackers" that are a bunch of script kiddies sitting and using a bunch of tools made by the 1337-Anon hackers, calling themselves "hacktivists" that "take down" websites of the corrupt, ultimately not even knowing what DoS and DDoS are.

The Skiddie Name Ankit "Fraud? Ya!"

In the Hacker world, someone gaining fame as being "one of the best hacker" obviously attracts attention not just from any other single person, but rather a world wide audience and hence people took notice of him and found out this self proclaimed ugly truth. Mr. Fadia, a young hero who "CLAIMS" to have helped a American Intelligence Agency when he was just 14 y/o kid. So believable! Dang! Never knew American Intelligence Agencies took help from 14 y/o who aren't even American Citizen, without any published papers. I guess American standards have too high hopes on Indians that even kids with no proficiency come ahead and get called for classified work. So classified that he can not even name this so called "AGENCY".
This guy published books for hacking with other authors that is dipped in plagiarism from the start to the end. Goes to a extent of having "ethical hacker" certifications under his name. Not sure if his students become elite hackers or just a another bunch of guys who are victimized to social engineering. But full credits to this Fraudster chap for having amazing Social Engineering skills and exploiting media.

This professional hacker that certifies other hacker even holds a record in another field. I guess he is the only hacking certification provider with his own website hacked over and over again.

A full coverage of people of this kind have been done in Errata Charlatan along with all the hacks done to his website.

When you go to Errata, there is one more thing you notice. Among the Authors of hacking books and the number of people who plagiarize materials - India ranks number 1. All of them who are credited in the Indian state and its people thanks to the social media and its coverage, are actually fraudsters and crooks who are disrespected throughout the cyber space.

Stopping these crooks

This is simple! Just start getting more aware and look for fraudsters in and around yourself. And to be a hacker, 1st gain the hacker mindset. Also probably the best tool for starting to learn hacking is "GOOGLE".

UPDATE: DEFCON RECOGNIZE AWARDS on Ankit Fadia

[Gyan/ Knowledge] A Hacker

Often misinterpreted by the public and hyped by the media, a HACKER is generally termed as a person who is a part of a system intrusion of some sort. There is always this division of Hackers that the media can't seem to put onto a hold. Yes, the White Hat, the Grey Hat and the Black Hat. They sound so cool, just imagining the regular villain characters wear a Black Hat. And most of the time you try to imagine a Black Hat, you'd only end up with Slender Man standing at a distance with a computer in his hand. Phew! Super modern Slender Man.

Another definition of this controversial term called "HACKER" would be the one that follows the classic Glider Symbol, termed in the Hacker Jargon Files by Eric S. Raymond. This is a more accepted definition of a Hacker by Hackers as it traces it back to the "Old School" MIT days. But again constraining the meaning of a Hacker to a bunch of Grammar Fanatics and Programmers.

But is this all that is there to become a Hacker? What about the B.C (Before Computers) era? Isn't the founder of the Computer himself a hacker? Hell yeah! He was! :)
So Charles Babbage was a HACKER? Well I never said that! Present day, even students learning about computers or pursuing Computer Science Degree, do not seem to know what was the machine that was built by Charles Babbage. But their ignorance can not be blamed on them! Since this is what they are always taught (Yes! It is all a part of a Plan!).
Ok, before I turn this post into a conspiracy theory post, let us shift back to Alan Turning, whom I consider the real father of Computers.

Alan Turning, in 1945, changed computing entirely. He was the first one to understand the concept of universality inherent in the stored program computer. He was among the few, who knew the power of computing after he designed "The Bombe" to break the then feared "Enigma Cipher", which was probably the hack of the millennium! This concept is what changed computing. And then brought in the machine that was meant to do bills for a department store to a machine that solved complex differential equations.

According to me, A HACKER can be defined by what Pablos said in his TEDx Talk, "Hackers are the ones that have the right mindset to discover what is possible. Hackers have the ability to interact with the world in a different way and find out what can be done."
You can be a hacker if you have enough passion to become one. After all, you can achieve anything if you have passion for that. Hacker is that one who thinks outside the box. Hacker is someone who can analyse without even trying. Hackers are not the guys who are introverts or geeks just sitting behind the computers, they are also the Social Engineers who talk you into doing things that you wouldn't or rather, shouldn't do! Hackers are those who inspect every aspect of existence, test every bit of a protocol, exploiting every inch of work done for flaws and hence becoming hated and rejected "intruders" by the society!
Being a genius is one thing, being a hacker is another. Genius men put in hard work, effort into solving the most complicated problems. A Hacker is a lazy person who provides simple solutions and work around(s) to any problem.
Anyone can become a genius, but you need to live like a HACKER!

[Trick] [Android] Obtaining IP Address Error

I have been stuck up with a problem on my Android device for a long time. I do not have a wifi router and hence I tried and failed a million times, to share internet via Connectify on my laptop. Unfortunately even Google wasn't able to help solve my problem between the Infinite loop of

"Authenticating"-"Obtaining IP Address"-"Disconnected"-"Scanning".
After a lot of Google-ing I found a couple of softwares like "WiFix", that claim to fix the internet sharing problems like this one! However, due to my immense lack of trust in third party software, I figured it would be good if I myself tried to fix the problems rather than using something that was made by someone other than me!
Ultimately, the fix turned out to be pretty simple. All you need to do, is make your connection static!

On your computer:

Method 1: (recommended)

Open command dos prompt
Type "ipconfig" (at times, people like me have more than a 100 adapter interfaces, in such cases, type "ipconfig | more")

Note down the IP address and subnet mask
Ex: for me, IP is 192.168.108.1 and subnet mask is 255.255.255.0 which also means the prefix value is 24.

Method 2:

Hover your mouse over your connectify and get the IP address! The Subnet Mask however is a standard 255.255.255.0 in most cases.

On your Android Device:

Connect to the connectify SSID.
Go to Advanced Settings.
Check "Static IP"
Enter IP address as 192.168.108.2(The last octet (digit) is changed), Subnet Mask 255.255.255.0(based on your subnet mask in computer), DNS1: 8.8.8.8, DNS2: 8.8.4.4

Edit: Sometimes the gateway is missing from the mobile phone. So basically your PC's wifi IP is your "Gateway" to the internet. For such a scenario, just go ahead and directly enter your PC's IP.

Just this much should help you setup the wifi! Enjoy Browsing the internet from your device :)

[Trick] DotA2 Hack - Offline with Bots

Alright!
So myself being a hardcore DotA2 gamer, I used to get frustrated when my internet connection failed and Valve used to put me into the low priority! So here is to all the hardcore DotA2 gamers.
What motivated me to find this was the 70 days low priority ban I got!
This HACK mainly enables you to play practice games of DotA2 with Bots WITHOUT INTERNET! :D
So here it goes.

1. Start Steam in offline mode!
2. Go to the steam library, right click on DotA2 and select properties
3. Click launch properties and type "-console" in it.
4. Apply changes and start DotA2 in offline mode!

Once that is done, DotA2 would try loading for sometime and once it is unable to connect, it'd open with a "console" window!
After you reach this stage, you are needed to follow these commands:

sv_lan 1
sv_cheats 1
dota_start_ai_game 1
dota_bot_set_difficulty <0-4>
map <map_name, i.e, "dota.bsp">

Once this is done, your game should load up! And once that is done, you must jump into the All Pick Scene!
Choose your Hero and Game On :D :)

[Gyan/ Knowledge] 10 Steps to help write a readable code

10 Steps to help write a readable code

• Commenting and documentation

IDE (integrated development environment) have come a long way and most are comfortable using these IDE’s because they save a lot of our time.

Comments should be simple and basic English understandable to everyone. Comments help us to understand the code even without going through the function. IDE’s help us by showing these comments to know what the function does while calling the function.

• Consistent Indentation

It is very important to indent your code simply because it makes it readable

Ex: in C++

Cout<<”hello world”; if(i==0) cout<<”zero”; else cout<<”not zero”;

(will work perfectly fine)

Cout<<”hello world”;

If(i==0)

{

Cout<<”zero”;

}

Else

{

Cout<<”not zero”;

}

(brackets are not compulsory, code will work if not as well)

There are many styles of indentation, you can choose any style but it is very important to be consistent with your style.

But remember when in group doing a project it is always good when all the team follows the same style.

• Avoid obvious comments

Commenting your code is fantastic however, it can be overdone or just be plain redundant. When the text is that obvious, it’s really not productive to repeat it within comments. If you must comment on that code, you can simply combine it to a single line instead.

Adding a comment at the beginning of each block of code also emphasizes the virtual separation.

• Consistent naming scheme

Function names and variables names should be consistent, readable and understandable.

It is very important to have word boundaries in names, two ways to do:

• camelCase: First letter of each word is capitalized, except the first word.
• Underscore: underscore between words, like: mysql_real_escape_string().

Similar to indent this also has many ways. It is always advisable to follow certain convention in an existing project. There is no “best” style but always remember one thing be consistent.

• DRY (don’t repeat yourself)

The purpose for most application is to automate repetitive tasks. This principle should be maintained in all code, even web applications. The same piece of code should not be repeated over and over again.

• Avoid deep nesting

Too many levels of nesting makes it harder to read and follow and sometimes even harder to remove errors (if any). For the sake of readability it is better to reduce deep nesting.

• Limit line length

As humans we are more comfortable reading small horizontal lines. So it is good practice not to write long lines.

• Use of files and folders

You can always write the entire program in a single file, but that would be a nightmare to read and follow. As the programs become huge it is advisable many files and use “include files” etc. Common files can be combined in a folder for better understanding.

• Capitalize SQL Special words

Creation of database is a important part of any web application. If writing raw SQL queries, it is a good idea to them readable as well.

Even though SQL special words are case insensitive, it is common practice to capitalize them to distinguish them from table and column names.

• Object oriented Vs. procedural

Object oriented programming can help you create well structured code. But that does not mean you need to abandon procedural programming completely. Actually creating a mix of both styles can be good. Objects should be used for representing data, usually residing in a database.

[Gyan/ Knowledge] Structured vs Object Oriented Programming

Arranging your codes

When we talk about the difference between C and C++(in this matter python and JAVA as well), we often come across the term "Structured" and "Object Oriented", w.r.t C and C++ respectively.
So, what are these?
What exactly is the difference between them?
Why is Object Oriented Programs more used and needed in this present world?
Let us understand these concepts and try to implement them in a program.

Data Structure:

It is a method of storing and organizing data. Examples would include an array, a struct, a class, etc.
Take for example, you own a company. Now you want to store some information of your employees, say Employee ID and Employee Name. You could save them just like that in a Alphabetical order. Now this becomes your Data Structure.

Structured Programming:

This is a older style of programming. It is said to have approximately been born in 1960s. It follow top-down logic.
Now what is top-down logic? Well, consider you are given a recipe to prepare a cup of tea. Assuming you accurately attempt each individual step, but you do not follow the order in which the recipe was given, i.e, you do not start from 1st step(top) and then go downwards. Rather you assume your own priorities and do the work. This would lead to a great tea massacre in the kitchen. Following the steps, in a procedural manner is what top down logic is all about!
Structured Programming was aimed at improving the quality, clarity and development time of a program by using subroutines(functions), block structures and loops(for and while loops). This technique emphasizes on the procedure. They are:

1. Sequence: Executing one subprogram and then another subprogram (Ex: Addition of 2 numbers follows a specific procedure). Executing instructions one by one is nothing but the top-down logic.
2. Selection: Executing one of the two subprograms according to the value of a Boolean expression (if loop)
3. Repetition: Executing a subprogram until a Boolean expression is true (for loop)

Even though structured programming improved quality, clarity and development time, it failed to solve one problem, i.e, ABSTRACTION. Structure Programming has a lower level of Abstraction!
Ok, so now what is Abstraction?
As the name suggest, we try to give a abstract picture of the implementation of the code, to the programmer(us)  with the help of a representation relevant to the current perspective. Abstraction tries to reduce and factor out the details, so that the programmer(we) can focus on a few concepts at a time. We shall deal with this further, when we go into OOPS completely.

Object Oriented Programming:

In this style of programming, the programmer can not only define the data type, but also define functions that can be applied to the Data Structure. This is how a Data Structure turns into a Object!

What is an Object?

Just look around, you'll find many examples for an "Object"! Let us take a PEN. A pen is an object? How do we say that? By observing its characters! Any object has 2 qualities: State and Behavior.  For a PEN, the State would be its Shape, Color, Size, etc.  And Behavior?? Behavior is basically the operations it can perform. Like Pen can be used to write, draw, etc. Now look at it this way, the "State" of a object in your program is like your Data Types and the "Behavior" is the Functions defined to perform various activities in capability of that object! You can now use the PEN with the desired size and shape for playing pen fight. In this case you refer only the size and shape of the object,ie, using data types only. And if you are writing a exam paper, you'd probably look in the behavior of the pen (how smooth it writes, comfort it has, etc), ie, using its properties (defined functions).
In the Software world, the State is referred to as fields or variables and Behavior as Methods.
Methods use the objects internal state and help in object to object communication(MESSAGE PASSING).
Hiding the internal state and requiring interactions to be performed through an object's methods is called "DATA ENCAPSULATION". Such a kind of bundling code into objects has various advantages like:

1. Modularity: The source code for an object can be written and maintained independently of the source code for other objects. Once created, an object can be easily passed around inside the system.
2. Information-hiding: By interacting only with an object's methods, the details of its internal implementation remain hidden from the outside world.
3. Code re-use: If an object already exists (perhaps written by another software developer), you can use that object in your program. This allows specialists to implement/test/debug complex, task-specific objects, which you can then trust to run in your own code.
4. Pluggability and debugging ease: If a particular object turns out to be problematic, you can simply remove it from your application and plug in a different object as its replacement. This is analogous to fixing mechanical problems in the real world. If a bolt breaks, you replace it, not the entire machine.

What is a Class?

A set or category of things, having some property or attribute in commin and differentiated from others by kind, type or quality. In the software world, class is a collection of similar type of objects.It is like a blueprint (or prototype) that defines methods and variables common to all objects of that kind. For Example, take your own class. You would be a object(with your state and behavior), so would the other students in your class be as well. Additionally, your school would be the program and your principal would be the main routine. Now if your pricipal calls for Shubham, the class needs to be specified so that the specific Shubham in that class could be summoned in front of the principle(Assuming there is only one Object called Shubham).

Some Very Important terms and definitions in OOPS:

Instance

It is the actual object created at run-time. We can have instance of a object or a class (ie, During run-time the variables may change).

Abstraction

Refers to the act of representing essential features without including the background details or explanations. Classes use the concept of abstraction and are defined as a list of abstract attributes.

Encapsulation

It is the mechanism that binds together code and data in manipulates, and keeps both safe from outside interference and misuse. Like isolating one code from another. Like the medicinal capsule, even though the composition of the medicine is the same, we store them in capsules, so that the dosage is fixed! So classes can be thought of as a container and data present can't be accessed by outside world.

Inheritance

It is the process by which one object acquires the properties of another object. This helps in hierarchical classification, without which, we'd need to explicitly define all the characteristics. Inheritance is a property that generally passes from parent class to sub class. Kind of like the genes that is transferred from our parents to us to our children.

Polymorphism

The ability to take more than one form. An operation may exhibit different behavior in different instances. The behavior depends on data types used in the operation. To be precise, it means, one interface, multiple methods.

Generalization

It describes an is-a relationship which represent a hierarchy between classes of objects. Like PEN is a generalization of "black pen", "blue pen", etc.

Specialization

It means an object can inherit the common state and behavior of a generic object. To be more clear, each object needs to define its own special state and behavior. So specialization means to subclass Generalized class, ie, if Pen is generalization, Red pen is specialization, ie, Red-Pen is a special kind of Pen.

We shall utilize these concepts and build programs around these in the upcoming articles!