Friday, June 29, 2012

KeyScrambler Personal protects Firefox and Internet Explorer from keyloggers

KeyScrambler Personal protects Firefox and Internet Explorer from keyloggers:
The best way to protect yourself from malware is of course to prevent it ever reaching your PC, but if something does slip through your defences then this doesn’t have to be the end.
KeyScrambler Personal, for instance, will encrypt any keystrokes within Internet Explorer and Firefox. And as a result it’ll keep your logon and other details safe, even if a keylogger breaches your system.
The program is straightforward to install, adding just a couple of browser addons and an extra system tray icon to your PC. But after a reboot, whatever you type within IE and Firefox is encrypted at the keyboard driver level, then decrypted when it reaches the application. Everything looks the same to you, but if a keylogger is running then it won’t be able to capture your keystrokes.
That’s the theory, at least: it’s at least possible that malware could bypass KeyScrambler’s protection (though that wouldn’t be easy). Right now, though, it does seem to be doing a very good job. We pitted the program against three commercial keyloggers, and KeyScrambler won every time, properly keeping everything we typed safe from interception.
We did have one small problem with the program, though. On a couple of occasions, as we switched to Internet Explorer and started typing, we saw only garbage: presumably the encrypted text, which hadn’t been correctly decrypted.
If KeyScrambler regularly failed this way then that would clearly be a major nuisance, probably enough to make it unusable. But we only saw it on two occasions, both with IE, and in each case everything was fine immediately afterwards (we just retyped our text and it appeared correctly). So while it seems at least possible that the program can introduce some browsing problems, they don’t appear to be common, or major, and you shouldn’t let them put you off: KeyScrambler really does add a useful extra layer of protection to your PC.
Of course the Personal build does have its limitations, in only protecting IE and Firefox. But if you need more then there are two considerably more powerful commercial editions available. KeyScrambler Professional ($29.99) protects everything you type in more than 140 browsers and apps, while KeyScrambler Premium ($44.99) extends this support even further to more than 200 applications. The KeyScrambler site has more.
Photo Credit: Liv friis-larsen/Shutterstock

A LEGO Turing machine for [Alan]‘s centennial

A LEGO Turing machine for [Alan]‘s centennial:

2012 is the 100-year anniversary of [Alan Turing]‘s birth, and to celebrate the centennial, [Jeroen] and [Davy] over at Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica in The Netherlands built a Turing machine out of LEGO.
A Turing machine is an extremely simple device, but is still able to compute everything your desktop can. The machine is generally described as an infinite paper tape with a read/write head. On this paper tape, the numbers ’1′ and ’0′ are written. By precisely defining what the Turing machine should do when it comes across a ’1′ or ’0′, its able to do the same calculations as a laptop, albeit at a much slower rate.
The LEGO Turing machine has a series of pins signifying each bit. These pins are moved underneath a read/write head containing a light sensor and robotic arm. When a pin is down, the camera sees a dark spot signifying one state. When the pin is up, light reflects off a white LEGO piece signifying another state.
[Jeroen] and [Davy] built an IDE for their Turing machine, so if you’ve got a few LEGO NTX bricks lying around you can grab the Git and build your own. Check out the mini documentary after the break.


Filed under: hardware, toy hacks

Emulating Mac System 7 on an Android device

Emulating Mac System 7 on an Android device:

Over on the 68kmla forums, a website dedicated to old Macs built before 1994, [zydeco] released his Android port of Mini vMac, a Macintosh Plus emulator that puts the power of a Motorola MC68000 processor and System 7 on any computer.
Unlike the original Macintosh, or the subsequent revision that bumped the RAM up to 512 kilobytes, the Mac Plus was actually useful. With the addition of a SCSI port and support for 4 Megabytes of RAM, it’s not only possible to browse the Internet, but also act as a server. There’s a reason [Sprite_tm] chose to rebuild one of these classic, all-in-one machines to act as a home server; they really do epitomize the elegant computers from a more civilized age.
68kmla user [FlyingToaster] even went so far as to put a Mac Plus in his nook touch. With this, he’s got a full-blown installation of System 7 running on an e-ink screen, complete with LemmingsGauntlet, and Tetris.
It should be possible to plug this emulated box into the Internet. Unfortunately, experience tells us it won’t be a very pleasant browsing experience outside Hackaday’s retro edition.

Filed under: android hacks, macs hacks

Build the Mac Pro That You Wish Apple Released [Hackintosh]

Build the Mac Pro That You Wish Apple Released [Hackintosh]:
Last week Apple updated their Mac Pros to cutting-edge processors from 2010, even older graphics cards, and all the USB 2.0 ports you'll ever need. With a proper update unlikely until 2013, we thought we'd bridge the gap with Hackintoshes—the faster, cheaper Mac desktops you can build yourself with standard PC hardware. By making your own "Hack Pro" you'll get the up-to-date machine Apple won't provide, and you'll also save a lot of money in the process. More »

AppyDays Tracks Discounted Mac and iOS Apps [Mac Downloads]

AppyDays Tracks Discounted Mac and iOS Apps [Mac Downloads]:
Mac: Keeping track of sales and discounts in the Mac App Store or iTunes App Store can be a bit difficult. If you're a frugal app shopper, AppyDays makes it bit easier by tracking price drops and allowing you to search for sales easily. More »

DiskDigger Saves Deleted Photos on Your Android Device [Android Downloads]

DiskDigger Saves Deleted Photos on Your Android Device [Android Downloads]:
Android (Rooted): They say the best camera is the one you have with you. If that's the truth, your Android phone may be the best—and smartest—camera you own. Still, accidents happen, and if you've accidentally deleted a photo from your Android device, you don't have to pop out the SD card or find a computer to run a recovery tool: just download DiskDigger. It's free, and recovers deleted photos and images in a snap. More »

Top 10 Ways to Get Free Wi-Fi Anywhere You Go [Lifehacker Top 10]

Top 10 Ways to Get Free Wi-Fi Anywhere You Go [Lifehacker Top 10]:
Whether you're traveling or just trying to get out of the house a bit more, there's one thing that plagues us everywhere we go: Wi-Fi. We may not have that cloud of Wi-Fi covering the planet yet, but you can find free Wi-Fi almost anywhere, if you know how to look. Here's what you need to know. More »

How to Use Google Calendar as a Project Management Tool [Project Management]

How to Use Google Calendar as a Project Management Tool [Project Management]:
Google Calendar is great for managing appointments, but that's not all it can do. The sharing, searchability, timeline view, and other features make Google Calendar a simple but powerful project management tool. Andrea Vascellari, digital marketing consultant and CEO of itive.net, shares how you can use Google Calendar for your team and with your clients. More »