Banks to allow account access using fingerprint tech

 

 

 Apple's TouchID, now to be used to access banking apps, was criticised after hackers managed to breach it

Two banks are allowing their customers to access accounts on their smartphones using fingerprint recognition technology, in a UK industry first.

RBS and NatWest customers must activate the feature with their security information, but would only need to use Apple's Touch ID thereafter.
The banks said that, after three failed login attempts, customers would have to re-enter their passcodes.
But a security expert expressed concern that Touch ID is not secure enough.
The banks, both part of the Royal Bank of Scotland Group, said that the feature would be available on the iPhone 5s, 6 and 6 Plus. Customers would have to enable the feature using their existing login details.
Some of the in-app features used to pay money that required additional verification would continue to do so and limits were set on new payments, the banks said. 
 

 

 

RBS, along with NatWest, is allowing customers to access their accounts using the fingerprint recognition technology on iPhones

They said that around 880,000 of their customers currently use the apps on those handsets.
The feature, which uses fingerprint recognition to grant access to iPhones, was criticised soon after it was introduced with the launch of the iPhone 5 in 2013.

A group of hackers managed to get around it only a day after the launch by making a fake finger from a photograph of a fingerprint left on a glass surface.
'Easy to spoof'
While Apple insisted that TouchID was secure, it said it was not a total replacement for traditional security measures and was meant to make unlocking the phone more convenient. In a similar vein, the banks have now said they wanted to make it "even easier and more convenient for customers".
Ben Schlabs, of SRLabs, a German hacking think tank, told the BBC: "The security implications are the same, it is just as dangerous... I think it has been shown that it is pretty easy to spoof it and the risks aren't fully understood."

He said that using TouchID alone to gain access to a banking app introduced dangers that were not present when using passwords or Pins.
"Just the fact that you are carrying the key around with you and leave copies of it exposed everywhere you go makes it a very different risk to something that is inside your brain. The risks are poorly understood."

However, he said that most people would have little need to worry, adding: "There have not been any reports that I know of with the iPhone sensor of actual crimes being enabled by it".
'Revolution'
According to a British Banking Association report, banking apps have been downloaded more than 12.4 million times in Britain.

The Way We Bank Now study, which was released last June, showed that people were making "around 5.7 million transactions each day using smartphones and other internet-enabled technology".
According to the banks, nearly 50% of their combined customer base of 15 million people used online banking and that around three million accessed their accounts via an app each week.
Stuart Haire, managing director, RBS and NatWest Direct Bank, said: "There has been a revolution in banking, as more and more of our customers are using digital technology to bank with us.
"Adding TouchID to our mobile banking app makes it even easier and more convenient for customers to manage their finances on the move and directly responds to their requests."

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Google's YouTube to launch kids' app

 

The NSPCC has welcomed the news of the app's launch

YouTube will launch a new app specifically for children on Monday in a bid to make using the service safer.

It is understood that YouTube Kids will have parental controls and restrictions on who can upload content.
The app will run separately to the main YouTube service and it will initially be available in the US only, but it is understood that it will be rolled-out in the UK later.

The move has been welcomed by the NSPCC child protection charity.
A spokesman for the charity said: "Keeping children safe online is the biggest child protection challenge of this generation. So it's good to hear about the launch of YouTube Kids.
"I'm sure it will be embraced by parents wanting increased reassurance that their younger children won't be exposed to inappropriate material."

 

 

The app will launch in the US on Monday and a UK version will follow

The parental controls will include the ability to limit the amount of time children can spend watching videos, as well as a tool allowing the search function to be switched off, it is understood.
YouTube Kids will have channels and playlists organised into four categories: Shows, Music, Learning and Explore. Users will also be able to search for individual topics.
The app will be free, but it will be available on Google's Android devices only.

 

 

The app will have parental controls and users will not be able to upload content, making it safer for children

DreamWorks TV, Jim Henson TV and Mother Goose Club will be some of the content providers, the BBC understands.
YouTube Kids product manager Shimrit Ben-Yair said: "Parents were constantly asking us, can you make YouTube a better place for our kids.
"We've seen 50% growth year over year in viewing time on YouTube, but for our family entertainment channels, it's more like 200%."

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Only 100 cybercrime brains worldwide says Europol boss

 

 

Troels Oerting (right) believes that there are a limited number of skilled malware producers

There are only "around 100" cybercriminal kingpins behind global cybercrime, according to the head of Europol's Cybercrime Centre.

Speaking to the BBC's Tech Tent radio show, Troels Oerting said that law enforcers needed to target the "rather limited group of good programmers".
"We roughly know who they are. If we can take them out of the equation then the rest will fall down," he said.
Although, he added, fighting cybercrime remained an uphill battle.
"This is not a static number, it will increase unfortunately," he said.
"We can still cope but the criminals have more resources and they do not have obstacles. They are driven by greed and profit and they produce malware at a speed that we have difficulties catching up with."
The biggest issue facing cybercrime fighters at the moment was the fact that it was borderless, he told the BBC.
"Criminals no longer come to our countries, they commit their crimes from a distance and because of this I cannot use the normal tools to catch them.
"I have to work with countries I am not used to working with and that scares me a bit," he said
The majority of the cybercrime "kingpins" were located in the Russian-speaking world, he said.
Relationships with Russian law enforcers have not always been good but were "improving". He revealed that he had recently been on a trip to Moscow to discuss four big cybercrime cases and was hopeful that arrests and jail sentences would follow.
Mr Oerting described how Russian-speaking criminal gangs were creating and testing malware and then selling it as a service in online forums.
"Then it is downloaded by all kinds of criminals, from Eastern Europe, Europe, Africa and America," he said.
This commercialisation of cybercrime is making his job harder.
"It is so easy to be a cybercriminal. You don't have to be a cyber-expert because you just download the programs that you want to use."
Identity theft

On the issue of what consumers should be worried about, he said: "What I think you should be afraid of is the stealing of your private, sensitive information - your inbox credentials, your Facebook account. If they know a bit about you they can reset your Google accounts, your Apple accounts. Then they simply take over your life," he said.
He also spoke about how the job of containing the cybercrime threat was getting harder as the internet acquired more users and widened its reach. The so-called internet of things - where previously dumb objects are connected to the network - "widens the attack surface a bit", he said.
And he revealed how the Edward Snowden revelations, which exposed mass government surveillance programmes, had played a part in hampering law enforcement's efforts to contain cybercrime.
"There is confusion among the good guys on the internet between anonymity and privacy. I don't think they are the same. I think that you have right to privacy but that doesn't mean that you have the right to anonymity," he said.
The increasing trend towards greater encryption of online communications is not acceptable, he said.
"Imagine in the physical world if you were not able to open the trunk of a car if you had a suspicion that there were weapons or drugs inside... we would never accept this.
"I think that should also count for the digital world. I hate to talk about backdoors but there has to be a possibility for law enforcement, if they are authorised, to look inside at what you are hiding in your online world."

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New cybercrime tests for banks

 

Many cyber-thieves target bank and business networks in a bid to steal data and cash

The Bank of England has stepped up its efforts to protect the UK's financial institutions from cybercrime with a new testing framework to spot vulnerabilities.

The Bank says hacking represents a growing risk for the financial sector.
The new tests will combine government intelligence about existing cyber-threats with those that the security industry assesses to be risks.

It is expected that the voluntary tests will be widely adopted.
Bad guys The new cybersecurity strategy, known as CBEST, is the first of its kind for the financial services sector and tests will begin this summer. 

"The results should provide a direct readout on a firm's capability to withstand cyber-attacks," said Andrew Gracie, the Bank of England's executive director of resolution.

James Chappell is chief technology officer at Digital Shadows, one of the security firms taking part in the tests. He explained how they would differ from previous vulnerability testing:
"Previous tests were carried out by a geeky guy who tried various technical ways to get into a system and then presented a report to the bank.

"These tests will mimic the behaviour of the bad guy, whether that be a hacktivist, organised crime or a nation state, it will emulate the same techniques they would use."
Rising risk
 
In a speech to the British Bankers' Association cyber-conference in London launching the new framework, Mr Gracie warned that banks needed to be better prepared to counter cyber-attacks.

"Cyber presents new challenges. Unlike other causes of operational disruption like fires and floods, we know there are agents out there - criminal, terrorist organisations or state sponsored actors, that have the will, if not necessarily the means, to attack the system.

"Low-level attacks are now not isolated events but continuous. It is clear that the risk is on the rise and a growing cause of concern to industry and authorities alike."
According to the Bank of England's Systemic Risk survey, during 2013 there was a 10% increase in concerns about cyber-attacks among banks.

In December, the Royal Bank of Scotland admitted its platform was briefly attacked by hackers while one unidentified London-listed company incurred losses of £800m in a cyber-attack a few years ago.
Results of the tests are unlikely to be made public

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Cyber-security experts mull '$1bn' bank hack report

 

 

 The hackers used "money mules" to extract stolen money from cash machines

A leading security company says it has uncovered an "unprecedented" cyber-attack on up to 100 banks, which could result in losses of up to $1bn (£648m).

But security experts are split over the severity of the alleged breaches, and on how much cash was stolen.
Russian company Kaspersky Lab said the hackers had accessed the banks' networks by sending spoof emails to staff.

It added that the criminals manipulated cash machines to dispense stolen money.
The majority of banks that allegedly fell victim to the scheme are based in Russia, with a handful of others spread across China, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan, and other countries.
One bank is said to be based in the UK, although it is not believed to be a well-known brand.

Kaspersky's revelations build on a report released by another cyber-security company, Fox-IT, last year.
Commenting on the Kaspersky release, Fox-IT said that since it had published its findings in December, "the group has decreased their activities and might now have even stopped entirely".
Some security experts have also called into question the $1bn figure.

"A lot of the money will be got back," said Dr Steven Murdoch, from University College London's Information Security Research Group, adding that while there were undoubtedly "large numbers" involved, the amount had been overestimated.

But Dr Murdoch said the report's findings would be "useful for banks".
Cybersecurity expert Prof Alan Woodward, of Surrey University, told the BBC that "nobody knows the real figure" but it was evident that the attackers had "a lot of patience and a lot of planning".

He said that the companies affected would now be working to "close the stable door, and then work out how many horses bolted".

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US drone rules impact Amazon plans

The draft regulations issued by the FAA insist that drones must remain within the line of sight of their pilot

The Federal Aviation Authority's (FAA) draft rules for the use of drones in US airspace do not permit Amazon to launch its Amazon Air delivery service.

The draft rules state that pilots must remain within eyesight of their unmanned crafts, although it said it would consider factoring in a second line of sight in some cases.
Pilots must also be FAA certified to operate drones.
Amazon said it remained "committed" to its plans for delivery via drone.
"We are committed to realising our vision... and are prepared to deploy where we have the regulatory support we need," said Paul Misener, Amazon's vice-president of global public policy.

The firm had said last year that in terms of the technology required for Amazon Air, it was ready to launch as soon as regulations were in place.

The draft rules will be open to public consultation and are unlikely to come into force for a couple of years.
The Small UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) Coalition, of which Amazon is a member, said it "applauded" the proposed rules, launched yesterday by the FAA, but mentioned several caveats, including relaxing the rule about line of sight.

"First Person View technology is available now, and is critical to unleashing the power of automation in this space," the group said in a statement.
"Until small UAVs are able to go beyond the line of sight, we are not maximising the technology as other companies already do."
High flying
It also said the proposals should be explicit about whether companies can test drones on private property, and should not limit operation to daylight hours.
The coalition, whose members also include drone manufacturers Dji and Ghost, GoPro and Google's R&D arm Google X, added that the altitude limit of 500 ft ( 152 m) should be raised "with appropriate safeguards".

China's biggest internet retailer Alibaba trialled drone deliveries inside the country at the beginning of February.
Google has also been testing drone deliveries in Australia, and DHL carried out a delivery by unmanned aircraft in Germany.

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Archive to record every tower block

The Red Road blocks in Glasgow will be among those featured

Images of every tower block built in the UK are to be catalogued in a fully searchable digital archive.

The Tower Blocks - Our Blocks project has been described as a "Domesday Book" of the UK's post-war reconstruction.
It will include images of towers which have been demolished over the past 30 years, as well as those which are still standing.
It has been created by social and architectural historians from Edinburgh College of Art.
The project is to receive a £52,900 grant of Heritage Lottery funding.
This money will go towards digitising the 3,500 photographs, as well as supporting local outreach initiatives which the team hope will encourage high-rise residents to tell their stories.
Glasgow's Red Road flats and Gorbals housing schemes will be among the multi-storey housing projects on show in the publically accessible digital catalogue.
Other well know high rises to feature in the archive include the Everton flats in Liverpool, Birmingham's Chelmsley Wood, Manchester's Hulme redevelopment, and London estates such as Broadwater Farm, Thamesmead and Roehampton.
The project is due to be completed by late 2017.

Royston B in Glasgow, shown in its partly-demolished state. Photograph taken in 1986.

Block of flats at Hutchesontown B in the Gorbals area of Glasgow. Photograph taken in 1986.

This series of tower blocks at Avondale Square in Southwark, London, are still standing. Photograph taken in 1986.

Prof Miles Glendinning, head of the Scottish Centre for Conservation Studies at the college of art, said: "We hope this project will help contribute to the ongoing shift in public attitudes towards the post-war Modernist housing heritage, which is fast turning from an object of dislike and alienation into a force for potential community empowerment.
"Council tower blocks were once the most prominent and dramatic legacy of the post-1945 reconstruction drive, but mass demolitions over the past 35 years, still continuing today, have depleted this vast heritage, leaving it obscured or incomprehensible to the public at a time when popular interest in post-war Modernist heritage is sharply increasing."
Colin McLean, head of the Heritage Lottery Fund in Scotland, said: "Without archives, vast segments of our nation's history would be missing.
"As the high rise towers that have dominated many towns' and city's skylines begin to disappear, it is important for us to capture this heritage and give voice to the experiences of those who live in these flats and communities."
Glasgow 2014 chiefs faced criticism when they planned to demolish the Red Road flats as part of last summer's Commonwealth Games opening ceremony.
They eventually ditched the proposal to blow down five of the six remaining 1960s blocks live on television amid fears of a public protest.
Critics said it was insensitive to former residents and to the asylum seekers who still occupied the sixth block.
When they were built between 1964 and 1969, the Red Road flats were the highest in Europe at 292ft (89 metres).

These towers, part of the Leith Fort housing project in Edinburgh, were demolished in 1994. Photograph taken in 1985.

This image shows the demolition of the tower blocks at Niddrie Marischal, Edinburgh, in 1992.

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Apple bans 'bonded servitude' for factory workers

Working conditions at factories such as Foxconn are now closely monitored by Apple

Apple has banned the practice of bonded labour, where new recruits are charged a fee before they start working.

In its latest audit of factory conditions, the iPhone maker said that any recruitment fee must be paid by the supplier and not the employee.
Apple began the audits following criticism of the working conditions in some of its factories.
It comes as a report from labour rights group China Labor Watch questioned the low wages earned by some Apple workers.
Deeply offended Its 2015 Supplier Responsibility Progress report said it had told its suppliers in October that it was outlawing bonded servitude from the beginning of this year.
"That fee needs to be paid by the supplier, and Apple ultimately bears that fee when we pay the supplier, and we're OK doing that," said Jeff Williams, Apple's senior vice-president of operations.
Bonded servitude or labour sees new workers charged a fee - sometimes equivalent to a month's salary or more - for being introduced to a factory, typically by third-party recruiters.
It means many employees will begin work in debt. Some have their passports confiscated.
A BBC Panorama programme investigation last year highlighted the poor treatment of workers in Chinese factories.
Undercover filming at one of Apple's factories - Pegatron - showed new recruits handing over ID cards, in breach of Apple's standards.
Apple, which declined to be interviewed for the programme, denied the allegations of poor working conditions and long hours and said it was deeply offended by the allegations.
On the same day that Apple published its audit, labour rights group China Labor Watch (CLW) released a report saying the company was unable to effectively monitor standards in some of its supply chain, allowing companies such as Pegatron to keep base wages below local living expenses.
CLW based its findings on 96 pay stubs submitted by an unknown number of employees. It suggested that low pay compelled workers to put in more hours.
Conflict minerals Conditions in Chinese factories were first highlighted in 2010 after 14 workers killed themselves at a factory run by Apple's biggest supplier, Foxconn.
Long hours, harsh working conditions and low wages were said to be partly to blame.
In February 2012 the hardware giant announced that its factories would be inspected by the Fair Labour Association (FLA).
This is its ninth annual audit, and Apple was keen to show off the progress it has made in improving conditions.
It said that it had tracked more than 1.1 million workers on average per week in 2014 and that suppliers had achieved 92% compliance with its 60-hour maximum working week.
"We consistently report suppliers' violations of our standards," Mr Williams wrote in Apple's report. "People sometimes point to the discovery of problems as evidence that our process isn't working. Nothing could be further from the truth."
Apple has previously cracked down on excessive recruitment fees that foreign contract workers pay to labour brokers. It ruled that anything more than one month's wages had to be repaid.
Last year suppliers repaid $3.96m (£2.57m) in excess fees to more than 4,500 foreign contractors, according to the audit.
It also said that it continued to take steps to stop the use of minerals from mines in conflict regions such as those in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The company said it had more than doubled the number of verified conflict-free smelts to 135 last year. Another 64 were in the process of being verified.

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Cyber attack takes down Dutch government sites

A cyber-attack took down most of the Dutch government's websites on Tuesday, it has been confirmed.

The attack, which also took down some private sites, highlighted the vulnerability of public infrastructure.
It came as the US beefed up its defences, and followed warnings that sites belonging to the French authorities had been targeted.
Dutch MPs demanded that the government ensures state sites were capable of withstanding similar attacks in future.
In a statement, the Dutch government confirmed that it had been the victim of a distributed denial of service attack (DDoS), in which servers are flooded with traffic, causing the sites to fail to load.
Investigators were looking into the attack "together with the people from the National Centre for Cyber-Security", said Rimbert Kloosterman, an official at the Dutch Government Information Service, which runs the affected websites.
In a statement, the government said that the sites had gone down at 10:00 local time (09:00 GMT) on Tuesday and "lasted into the evening".
Complex problem Other websites, including GeenStijl.nl, a popular portal that mocks politicians and religions, had been hit by the DDoS, said Mr Kloosterman.
Communications provider Telford had also been affected.
The complexity and size of the government's many websites had rendered the back-up useless, he added.
The problem affected most of the central government's major websites, which provide information to the public and the media, but phones and emergency communication channels remained online.
Prolocation, the government website's host, said the attack had been a "complex" problem and that its phone lines had also gone down.
"The initial symptoms pointed first to a technical problem, but it then emerged we were facing an attack from the outside," the company said in a statement.
'Greater risk' But one computer security expert doubted that such an attack could have been hard to identify. "If you face a DDoS, you know it," said Delft Technical University cyber-security specialist Christian Doerr.
Dave Larson, of Corero Network Security, said: "As enterprises increasingly rely on hosted critical infrastructure or services, they are placing themselves at even greater risk from these devastating cyber-threats - even as an indirect target."
He added that DDoS attacks were "increasingly being used as a smokescreen to hide even more malicious activity on the network".
Defences On the same day as the Dutch attack, the US government announced the launch of an intelligence unit to coordinate analysis of cyber-threats, modelled on similar efforts to fight terrorism.
The Cyber Threat Intelligence Integration Center would fill "gaps" in the country's defences by rapidly pooling and disseminating data on breaches, it said.
In January, following attacks by Islamist militants in Paris, in which 17 people were murdered, French authorities said they had "decided to boost... security vigilance" after a series of cyber-attacks directed at French army regiments among others

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Driverless car review launched by UK government 

 

Changes to road regulations and car maintenance checks will be necessary to accommodate driverless cars on the roads of the UK, a Department of Transport report has confirmed.

The government wants the UK to become a world leader in driverless technology.
It will publish a code of practice in the spring which will allow the testing of autonomous cars to go ahead.
Self-drive pods that will be tested in Milton Keynes and Coventry have been unveiled for the first time.
The government promised a full review of current legislation by the summer of 2017.
That review will involve a rewrite of the Highway Code and adjustments to MOT test guidelines, potentially taking into account whether a higher standard of driving should be demanded of automated vehicles.

Gateway will test self-drive passenger shuttle vehicles in Greenwich

It will also look at who would be responsible in the event of a collision and how to ensure the safety of drivers and pedestrians.
The Department of Transport report acknowledged that true driverless cars may be some way off and that current tests of the technology will need to include a qualified test driver to supervise the vehicle.
"Driverless vehicle technology has the potential to be a real game-change on the UK's roads, altering the face of motoring in the most fundamental of ways and delivering major benefits for road safety, social inclusion, emissions and congestion," said transport minister Claire Perry.
The government is providing £19m to launch four driverless car schemes in four UK locations.

 

To mark the launch of the review, Ms Perry and Business Secretary Vince Cable highlighted some of the trials that they are funding, including a fully autonomous shuttle in Greenwich and a BAE System-developed Wildcat vehicle, which will be tested in Bristol.
Self-drive pods that will be tested in Milton Keynes and Coventry were also unveiled for the first time.
Prof Stephen Glaister, director of the RAC Foundation, said: "These trials are not just about harnessing technology to make our travelling lives easier and safer, they also involve getting the regulation right.
"Alongside the hi-tech innovation you need policy decisions on long-term, low-tech matters such as who takes responsibility if things go wrong. As and when these vehicles become commonplace, there is likely to be a shift from personal to product liability and that is a whole new ball game for insurers and manufacturers."
But the Institute of the Motor Industry (IMI) said that it was concerned that, while the government is pushing ahead with making driverless cars a reality, the service and repair sector did not yet have the skills and infrastructure in place to deal with the new technology.
IMI chief executive Steve Nash is calling on businesses to take steps to address this sooner rather than later.
"We believe the government is yet to fully [realise] the pressures we are under," he said.

Driverless cars around the world

Google is the most high-profile company to run self-drive car trials to date

• The US was the first country to introduce legislation to permit testing of automated vehicles. Four US states have done so but 15 have rejected bills related to automated driving

• In Europe, only Germany and Sweden have reviewed their legislation in this area

• Those wishing to conduct tests in the UK will not be limited to test tracks or certain geographical areas and will not need to obtain certificates or permits

Smartphone app The Lutz Pathfinder pod, which is being led by the UK's Future Transport Systems innovation centre, will be tested on the pavements of Milton Keynes later this year.
It is a two-seater, electric-powered vehicle that is packed with 19 sensors, cameras, radar and Lidar - a remote sensing technology that measures distance by illuminating a target with a laser and analysing the reflected light.
In a panel behind the seat is the computing power equivalent to two high-end gaming computers.
Three pods will drive themselves on the pavements and pedestrianised areas of the city initially and, if successful, a fleet of 40 vehicles will be rolled out. These vehicles will be able to talk to each other as well as being connected to a smartphone app to allow people to hail them.

Alongside the trials in Milton Keynes and Coventry, Bristol will host the Venturer consortium, which aims to investigate whether driverless cars can reduce congestion and make roads safer.
Its members include the insurance group Axa, and much of its focus will be on the public's reaction to the technology as well as the legal and insurance implications of its introduction.
Greenwich is set to run the Gateway scheme. This will be led by the Transport Research Laboratory consultancy and also involves General Motors, as well as the AA and RAC motoring associations. It plans to carry out tests of automated passenger shuttle vehicles as well as autonomous valet parking for adapted cars.
In addition, a self-drive car simulator will make use of a photorealistic 3D model of the area to study how people react to sharing the driving of a vehicle with a computer.

Research undertaken by Virgin last year suggested that 43% of the British public wouldn't feel comfortable with the presence of driverless cars on the roads.
A quarter of those surveyed said that they would not get inside such a car.

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How to Lock a Folder Without Using Software

So, here are the steps which you are supposed to follow to in order to lock a folder without using any third party software. The steps are quiet simple yet amazing which you are supposed to use. Now, without taking your time, I would request you to get towards the below steps:

• First of all, open Notepad.
• Now, copy the below code and paste them to Notepad.
  

cls
:End
@ECHO OFF
title Folder Locker
if EXIST “Control Panel.{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D}” goto UNLOCK
if NOT EXIST Locker goto MDLOCKER
:CONFIRM
echo Are you sure u want to Lock the folder(Y/N)
set/p “cho=>”
if %cho%==Y goto LOCK
if %cho%==y goto LOCK
if %cho%==n goto END
if %cho%==N goto END
echo Invalid choice.
goto CONFIRM
:LOCK
ren Locker “Control Panel.{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D}”
attrib +h +s “Control Panel.{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D}”
echo Folder locked
goto End
:UNLOCK
echo Enter password to Unlock folder
set/p “pass=>”
if NOT %pass%==123456789 goto FAIL
attrib -h -s “Control Panel.{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D}”
ren “Control Panel.{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D}” Locker
echo Folder Unlocked successfully
goto End
:FAIL
echo Invalid password
goto end
:MDLOCKER
md Locker
echo Locker created successfully
goto End
:End

• After you copy the  commanding,you will find this one in the source code:“123456789“(change it with any password you want). In this I’ve used ATT as password. You may check the below example to get the complete idea that what you are supposed to change.

For example: if NOT %pass%== ATT goto FAIL
//so your password here becomes ATT .//

• After that go to Save as and name this file as locker.bat and then you need to set Save as type to All Files.
  

                            

• Now a batch file will appear where you have saved the notepad file. You need to Double Click on that file and then you will see a pop up Window of MS Dos.
  
• Then it will ask you that, “Are you Sure to Lock the Folder“. You need to Press “Y” and press enter.
• Now, again Open it and then it will ask you to enter the Password which you have set in the source code. Enter that password to proceed.
• You have followed the steps correctly and the locker is working fine. Now, here comes the hidden part. you will see an ordinary looking folder named Locker and a Batch File which is also named Locker. The folder is working as a Locker and the Batch file is as a key. You need to paste your important documents to the Locker Folder and then Open the Batch File and grant the permission to lock it. Ones the permission is granted then it will hide the Locker folder. To access it again Open the Batch File, enter your Password and access your file.
• But by using this there is a little risk, one can see the password by right clicking on the bat file and click Edit, it will show you the source code which you have used previously. In order to prevent it we use a software named at_To_Exe_Converter.
• You can download this by clicking here (Click Here)
• After,downloading it, you should have a zip file. Now extract it you will find this.
  
  
   
• Now, go into the folder and select the OS i.e either 32-bit or 64-bit. Go into your bit(i.e 32 or 64 bit)
• Now run the application and a screen will pop up.

• Now choose the .bat path and click on COMPILE.
• Now you see an .exe application on the desktop.

• This was it

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Qualcomm to pay record $975m in China antitrust case

 

 

US chip giant Qualcomm has agreed to pay nearly $1bn to Chinese regulators in an anti-trust probe

US chipmaker Qualcomm will pay $975m (£640m) to Chinese authorities to end a 14 month anti-trust investigation into its patent licensing practices.

The fine is the largest in China's corporate history and will require the firm to lower royalty rates on patents used in China's mobile phone market.

The move could help Chinese smartphone makers Xiaomi and Huawei.

Qualcomm said on Monday it would not contest the ruling that it violated China's anti-monopoly law.
"Although Qualcomm is disappointed with the results of the investigation, it is pleased that the NDRC (National Development and Reform Commission) has reviewed and approved the company's rectification plan," the tech giant said in a statement on Monday.
 
Stake in China
The firm, which is the biggest supplier of chips used in smartphones, will now charge royalties based on 65% of the selling price of phones in China, instead of on the entire price.
China's expanding high-speed 4G network is driving demand in the world's largest smartphone market, where Qualcomm as a key player.

The chip giant made about half its global revenue of $26.5bn in China in its last fiscal year.
News of the agreement sent the company's New York listed shares up 2.8% in after-hours trading.
The firm also increased its profit and revenue forecast for the current fiscal year.

Chief executive Steve Mollenkopf said he was pleased the resolution had removed "uncertainty" surroundings its business in China.
"We will now focus our full attention and resources on supporting our customers and partners in China and pursuing the many opportunities ahead," he said.

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Raspberry Pi 2 is 'camera shy'

 

 

The sensitivity to flashes was picked up by owners of the new device.

The latest version of Raspberry Pi's credit-card-sized budget computer reboots itself when exposed to camera flashes, users have found.

The glitch is a result of the "photoelectric effect" phenomenon.
Albert Einstein won a Nobel Prize for his discovery that if a light hits a component, it generates a charge. In the Pi this charge causes a reboot.
Raspberry Pi creator Eben Upton told the BBC the glitch was an "unintentional educational bonus".
"It's an interesting demonstration of the photoelectric effect," he said.
Mr Upton admitted that he had not been aware that the Pi would be sensitive to camera flashes, but that he was not too upset about it.
"If I had to pick a bug in the Raspberry Pi, excessive sensitivity to paparazzi is the one I would pick," he added.
"If this was destroying devices I would be less cheerful about it."

The company has received 300,000 orders for the new device since its launch last week.
"I have discovered that my Pi 2 is camera-shy!" posted a user called Peter O on a forum for Raspberry Pi owners.
Another poster suggested covering up the offending cells with Blu-Tack.
"That works," said Mr Upton.
"If you are intent on taking flash photos of your Pi, you can stick Blu-Tack on it."
"We have no real plans to fix it," he added.
"We might use a component with more optical screening in the future."

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The World's Deepest Hole

How will you be celebrating on May 24, the 44th anniversary of when drilling of the world's deepest hole began? 

Until 1970, geologists could only theorize about the composition of the earth's crust. That year, Soviet scientists engaged in a subterranean version of the Space Race, and went all-out to beat the USA in a journey to the center of the earth.

While American researchers faltered with Project Mohole, a dig off the coast of Mexico that ran out of funding in 1966, their Russian counterparts took a more determined approach. From 1970 to 1994 their drill on the Kola Peninsula burrowed through layers of rock, reaching an ultimate depth of 7.5 miles. (The distance to the center of the earth is around 3,950 miles, but the continental crust is a mere 22 miles thick.)

The most intriguing discovery made by the Kola Superdeep Borehole researchers was the detection of microscopic plankton fossils four miles beneath the surface of the earth. Usually fossils can be found in limestone and silica deposits, but these "microfossils" were encased in organic compounds that remained surprisingly intact despite the extreme pressures and temperatures of the surrounding rock.

Drilling at Kola stopped in the early 1990s when scientists encountered prohibitively high temperatures. The Superdeep Borehole is still the superdeepest human-made hole on the planet. You can visit the now-abandoned site, but unfortunately you won't be able to peer into the fathomless abyss — there's a hefty metal cap covering the hole. The Kola Core Repository in the nearby town of Zapolyarny displays rock samples obtained during the drilling operation.

Visit Atlas Obscura for more on the Kola Superdeep Borehole.

The abandoned drill site.

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Sony Pictures co-chair Amy Pascal quits after email hack

Amy Pascal is one of Hollywood's most powerful women, having worked at Sony for two decades

Sony Pictures' Amy Pascal has stepped down as co-chair of Sony's movie studio following a debilitating cyber attack that revealed her private emails.

Ms Pascal will start a production company that will launch in May 2015.
She has already apologised for certain revelations that came as a result of the leaked emails.
Last month, Sony condemned the "vicious" attack, which led it to suspend the release of the film 'The Interview'.

"I have spent almost my entire professional life at Sony Pictures and I am energized to be starting this new chapter based at the company I call home," said Ms Pascal in a statement.
She added that her transition to a production role had been discussed "for some time".
'Insensitive and inappropriate'
As part of the agreement, Sony will fund her production company for at least the next four years, and it will retain distribution rights.


Sony did not immediately name a successor to Ms Pascal, leaving Michael Lynton as the sole head of one of Hollywood's biggest production studios.

Ms Pascal was one of the highest profile Sony names whose emails were leaked as part of the hack.
She reportedly commented on the viewing habits of President Barack Obama in a derogatory manner in an email to producer Scott Rudin.

Ms Pascal and Mr Rudin both subsequently apologised for the emails, with Ms Pascal saying in a statement at the time: "The content of my emails to Scott were insensitive and inappropriate but are not an accurate reflection of who I am.

"Although this was a private communication that was stolen, I accept full responsibility for what I wrote and apologize to everyone who was offended."
Hack fallout
On 24 November, Sony revealed that it had been the subject of a hack by a group calling themselves Guardians of Peace (GOP).
GOP was later traced back to North Korea, who US authorities believe instituted the attack in retaliation for Sony's decision to produce 'The Interview', in which North Korea's leader Kim Jong-Un is killed.

The group gained access to the firm's network and stole huge amounts of internal information, including emails and copies of films, such as Annie, that had not yet been released.

Although Sony did withdraw The Interview before its planned release, it ultimately made it available to view online and allowed it to be shown at some cinemas.
The film made about $15m (£9.6m) through downloads alone over its first three days of distribution.

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Google to 'start again' with Glass project

The Glass project had the backing of Google founder Sergey Brin

Google is starting again from scratch with its Glass project, reports the New York Times.

Sales of the controversial smart spectacles were halted in January and development of the original prototype was also believed to have been stopped.

Glass development is now being driven by former Apple gadget designer Tony Fadell who has "reset" the project.

The new version will be developed internally and only released when finished, the newspaper said.
Poor performer First revealed in 2011, Google Glass made a big impact in mid-2012 when Google demonstrated it at its developers' conference using skydivers and stunt cyclists.

But, said the Times in a lengthy article about the project's life, many working on the device were unhappy with this exposure because it meant its final development had to take place in public.

The newspaper said the controversy the project gained gave rise to tensions among the development team, forcing some key researchers to leave.
Now Glass is being overseen by Mr Fadell who helped to bring Apple's iPod and other gadgets to market.
Mr Fadell became a Google employee last year when the search giant bought his home automation company Nest.

Development on Glass was now reportedly going to all happen in-house with nothing released until it was ready.

Technology news site Ars Technica speculated that Mr Fadell's "rebooting" of the project might take a long time because of the poor performance of the earlier versions.
"There is very little that Glass does well, so with a reboot, there isn't much to currently work from," it said.

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Twitter earnings beat expectations as revenue grows

Twitter's boss Dick Costolo warned that the company was not good at dealing with bullying on the site

Continue reading the main story

Twitter reported a net loss of $125m (£82m) in the fourth-quarter, beating analyst expectations.

It also said revenue grew faster than expected, increasing by 95% to $479m during the October to December period.

Total monthly active users were 288 million, an increase of 20% from the year earlier.

However, growth from last quarter was significantly slower: the site managed to add only four million users in the past three months.

Twitter tried to explain away the slowing growth, saying it lost approximately four million users during the period as a result of integrating various third-party applications.

Twitter's user growth has slowed, and may have peaked in the United States

Twitter chief executive Dick Costolo sought to allay fears about user growth, saying in a statement accompanying earnings: "The trend thus far in [the first quarter] leads us to believe that the absolute number of net users added in [the first quarter] will be similar to what we saw during the first three quarters of 2014."

In a memo to staff leaked earlier on Thursday, Mr Costolo warned that bullying behaviour on Twitter was turning away users.

Worryingly for investors, user growth in the US has all but slowed - the company said it had 63 million monthly active users in the lucrative US advertising market, the same as in the previous quarter.

However, so far the slowing user figures have not deterred advertisers.

Twitter said its advertising revenue increase to $432m in the fourth-quarter, an increase of 97% from the year before.

On a conference call to discuss earnings, Mr Costolo also confirmed that Twitter and Google had struck a deal, but remained coy on the details.

"I do want to confirm that we have a relationship that we have agreed to with Google," he said, but declined to provide specifics.

Bloomberg and the New York Times had earlier reported that Twitter had struck a deal with the search giant to possibly make Twitter's messages more visible in search results.

Shares in Twitter rose more than 9% in after-hours trading.

Trolling, or cyberbullying, on social networks appears to be a growing problem

Analysis: Rory Cellan-Jones, BBC technology correspondent

Twitter was born two years after Facebook, and its stock market debut happened about 18 months after the rival social network's IPO. But so far it has failed to match Facebook's trajectory in growing its user numbers and pleasing investors.

Revenue growth may have outpaced analysts' expectations, but Twitter investors know that a loss-making business can only justify an outlandish valuation if it promises to have a much wider audience in years to come.

20% annual growth in users might sound okay - but it represents a marked slowdown, and means that Twitter's audience is still just a fifth of the size of Facebook's.

A leaked memo from chief executive Dick Costolo expressed frustration at the fact that high-profile users were leaving because of abuse, and promised action to deal with trolls.

What is clear is this is now a vital financial as well as reputational issue. If users begin to see Twitter as an unfriendly place to spend their time, advertisers won't want to be there either.

For Dick Costolo and his senior team, the heat is on - they have much to prove in the coming months.

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