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Phreaking

Phreaking is a slang term coined to describe the activity of a subculture of people who study, experiment with, or explore telecommunication systems, like equipment and systems connected to public telephone networks. The term "phreak" is derived from the words "phone" and "freak". It may also refer to the use of various audio frequencies to manipulate a phone system. "Phreak", "phreaker", or "phone phreak" are names used for and by individuals who participate in phreaking. Additionally, it is often associated with computer hacking. This is sometimes called the H/P culture (with H standing for Hacking and P standing for Phreaking). information on this site is for educational purposes only! Wyretap Network ©2007 - 2010

Disclaimer: The information on this site is for educational and entertainment purposes only. It is not intended to encourage or teach you to break the law, that's what TV is for, albeit in a very flawed manner. The owner(s) of this website will not be held liable for anything you choose to do with the information contained on this site. If you want to learn how to rape, murder, loot, and commit acts of terror on a monumental scale, well, you won't find it here. Instead, tune-in to your nightly news and take a lesson from your 'elected' 'leaders'.

Social engineering techniques and terms

All social engineering techniques are based on specific attributes of human decision-making known as cognitive biases.[1] These biases, sometimes called "bugs in the human hardware," are exploited in various combinations to create attack techniques, some of which are listed here:
Pretexting
Pretexting is the act of creating and using an invented scenario (the pretext) to persuade a targeted victim to release information or perform an action and is typically done over the telephone. It is more than a simple lie as it most often involves some prior research or set up and the use of pieces of known information (e.g. for impersonation: date of birth, Social Security Number, last bill amount) to establish legitimacy in the mind of the target. [2]
This technique is often used to trick a business into disclosing customer information, and is used by private investigators to obtain telephone records, utility records, banking records and other information directly from junior company service representatives. The information can then be used to establish even greater legitimacy under tougher questioning with a manager (e.g., to make account changes, get specific balances, etc).
As most U.S. companies still authenticate a client by asking only for a Social Security Number, date of birth, or mother's maiden name, the method is effective in many situations and will likely continue to be a security problem in the future.
Pretexting can also be used to impersonate co-workers, police, bank, tax authorities, or insurance investigators — or any other individual who could have perceived authority or right-to-know in the mind of the targeted victim. The pretexter must simply prepare answers to questions that might be asked by the victim. In some cases all that is needed is a voice that sounds authoritative, an earnest tone, and an ability to think on one's feet.
Phishing
Main article: Phishing
Phishing is a technique of fraudulently obtaining private information. Typically, the phisher sends an e-mail that appears to come from a legitimate business—a bank, or credit card company—requesting "verification" of information and warning of some dire consequence if it is not provided. The e-mail usually contains a link to a fraudulent web page that seems legitimate—with company logos and content—and has a form requesting everything from a home address to an ATM card's PIN.
For example, 2003 saw the proliferation of a phishing scam in which users received e-mails supposedly from eBay claiming that the user’s account was about to be suspended unless a link provided was clicked to update a credit card (information that the genuine eBay already had). Because it is relatively simple to make a Web site resemble a legitimate organization's site by mimicking the HTML code, the scam counted on people being tricked into thinking they were being contacted by eBay and subsequently, were going to eBay’s site to update their account information. By spamming large groups of people, the “phisher” counted on the e-mail being read by a percentage of people who already had listed credit card numbers with eBay legitimately, who might respond.
IVR or phone phishing
This technique uses a rogue Interactive voice response (IVR) system to recreate a legitimate sounding copy of a bank or other institution's IVR system. The victim is prompted (typically via a phishing e-mail) to call in to the "bank" via a (ideally toll free) number provided in order to "verify" information. A typical system will reject log-ins continually, ensuring the victim enters PINs or passwords multiple times, often disclosing several different passwords. More advanced systems transfer the victim to the attacker posing as a customer service agent for further questioning.
One could even record the typical commands ("Press one to change your password, press two to speak to customer service" ...) and play back the direction manually in real time, giving the appearance of being an IVR without the expense.
The technical name for phone phishing, is vishing.
Baiting
Baiting is like the real-world Trojan Horse that uses physical media and relies on the curiosity or greed of the victim.[3]
In this attack, the attacker leaves a malware infected floppy disk, CD ROM, or USB flash drive in a location sure to be found (bathroom, elevator, sidewalk, parking lot), gives it a legitimate looking and curiosity-piquing label, and simply waits for the victim to use the device.
For example, an attacker might create a disk featuring a corporate logo, readily available off the target's web site, and write "Executive Salary Summary Q2 2009" on the front. The attacker would then leave the disk on the floor of an elevator or somewhere in the lobby of the targeted company. An unknowing employee might find it and subsequently insert the disk into a computer to satisfy their curiosity, or a good samaritan might find it and turn it in to the company.
In either case as a consequence of merely inserting the disk into a computer to see the contents, the user would unknowingly install malware on it, likely giving an attacker unfettered access to the victim's PC and perhaps, the targeted company's internal computer network.
Unless computer controls block the infection, PCs set to "auto-run" inserted media may be compromised as soon as a rogue disk is inserted.
Quid pro quo
Quid pro quo means something for something:
An attacker calls random numbers at a company claiming to be calling back from technical support. Eventually they will hit someone with a legitimate problem, grateful that someone is calling back to help them. The attacker will "help" solve the problem and in the process have the user type commands that give the attacker access or launch malware.
In a 2003 information security survey, 90% of office workers gave researchers what they claimed was their password in answer to a survey question in exchange for a cheap pen.[4] Similar surveys in later years obtained similar results using chocolates and other cheap lures, although they made no attempt to validate the passwords.[5]
Other types
Common confidence tricksters or fraudsters also could be considered "social engineers" in the wider sense, in that they deliberately deceive and manipulate people, exploiting human weaknesses to obtain personal benefit. They may, for example, use social engineering techniques as part of an IT fraud.
The latest type of social engineering techniques include spoofing or hacking IDs of people having popular e-mail IDs such as Yahoo!, GMail, Hotmail, etc. Among the many motivations for deception are:
Phishing credit-card account numbers and their passwords.
Hacking private e-mails and chat histories, and manipulating them by using common editing techniques before using them to extort money and creating distrust among individuals.
Hacking websites of companies or organizations and destroying their reputation.

The Real ID Coming Soon!!!

The Real ID Coming Soon!!!

Sunday, March 7, 2010

Protein Shown to Be Natural Inhibitor of Aging in Fruit Fly Model

ScienceDaily (Mar. 5, 2010) — Scientists at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, have identified a protein called Sestrin that serves as a natural inhibitor of aging and age-related pathologies in fruit flies. They also showed that Sestrin, whose structure and biochemical function are conserved between flies and humans, is needed for regulation of a signaling pathway that is the central controller of aging and metabolism.


The work, led by Michael Karin, PhD, Distinguished Professor of Pharmacology in UCSD's Laboratory of Gene Regulation and Signal Transduction, is the cover story of the March 5 issue of the journal Science.

Sestrins are highly conserved small proteins that are produced in high amounts when cells experience stress. Sestrin function, however, remained puzzling until the Karin group found that these proteins function as activators of AMP-dependent protein kinase (AMPK), and inhibitors of the Target of Rapamycin (TOR). AMPK and TOR are two protein kinases that serve as key components of a signaling pathway shown to be the central regulator of aging and metabolism in a variety of model organisms, including the worm Caenorhabditis elegans, the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster and mammals.

AMPK is activated in response to caloric restriction, a condition that slows down aging, whereas TOR is activated in response to over-nutrition, a condition that accelerates aging. Activation of AMPK inhibits TOR, and drugs that activate AMPK or inhibit TOR can delay aging in several different model organisms including mammals. But how the body keeps the activity of these two protein kinases in balance to prevent premature aging was unknown. Additionally, the presence of three different genes encoding Sestrins in mammals made it difficult to identify their exact physiological function in live animals.

The new study took advantage of the finding that the fruit fly Drosophila, whose AMPK-TOR signaling pathway functions in the same manner as its mammalian equivalent, contains a single Sestrin gene. Using a variety of genetic techniques, first author Jun Hee Lee inactivated the Sestrin gene of Drosophila and found that although Sestrin-deficient flies do not exhibit any developmental abnormalities, they suffer from under-activation of AMPK and over-activation of TOR -- confirming that Sestrin is needed for keeping this pathway in check. Most importantly, the biochemical imbalance incurred by loss of Sestrin expression resulted in several age-related pathologies.

"Strikingly, the pathologies caused by the Sestrin deficiency included accumulation of triglycerides, cardiac arrhythmia and muscle degeneration that occurred in rather young flies," said Karin. "These pathologies are amazingly similar to the major disorders of overweight, heart failure and muscle loss that accompany aging in humans."

Lee and colleagues at UC San Diego and the Sanford-Burnham Institute in La Jolla, California, went on to demonstrate that feeding flies with drugs that either activate AMPK or inhibit TOR conferred protection against most of these early aging, degenerative symptoms. The researchers also found that over-activation of TOR is likely to accelerate aging of heart and skeletal muscles by disrupting an important "quality control" process called autophagy. Autophagy allows cells to rid themselves of and replace damaged mitochondria, the little power plants that provide all cells, especially muscles, with energy. However, when mitochondria get old, they produce high concentrations of reactive oxygen species (ROS), or free radicals, that can lead to tissue damage.

Karin explained that the process of autophagy -- which counteracts aging -- allows the replacement of "old" and defective mitochondria with "brand new" mitochondria. Sestrin-deficient flies, however, were found to exhibit accumulation of damaged mitochondria and ROS several days prior to the detection of muscle degeneration. Feeding these flies vitamin E, an antioxidant which neutralizes free radicals, prevented premature muscle degeneration and heart failure.

In future work, the Karin group plans to examine whether the mammalian Sestrins also control aging and metabolism, and whether defects in proper Sestrin expression will provide the explanation to some of the currently unexplainable degenerative diseases associated with old age.

"Maybe one day we will be able to use Sestrin analogs to prevent much of the tissue failure associated with aging, as well as treat a number of degenerative diseases, whose incidence goes up with old age, including sarcopenia and Alzheimer's disease," said Karin.

Additional contributors to the study -- a collaboration between three laboratories at UC San Diego School of Medicine, UCSD Division of Biology and the Sanford-Burnham Institute -- are Andrei V. Budanov, Eek Joong Park, Ryan Birse, Teddy E. Kim, Guy A. Perkins, Karen Ocorr, Mark H. Ellisman, Rolf Bodmer and Ethan Bier.

The research was funded by the National Institutes of Health, the Superfund Basic Research Program and American Cancer Society.

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Adapted from materials provided by University of California - San Diego, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.
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