All Software is Free

From time to time, I mention software that is commercial software that you have to pay for. Sure in most cases there is a free or open source solution that you can use instead of the pay-ware version, but that isn't always an option. If this is the case, what option do you have if you are a thrifty guy, or are on a limited budget?

Arrgghhh me hearty! You hoist the Jolly Roger and go pirating matey!

You can do a search on the internet for bit torrent sites on the internet like The Pirate Bay, or Torrent Spy, but I prefer a quicker method. There are two sites that I recommend for this purpose 9Down, and Nsane Down. Both sites have archives of both freeware and pirated software complete with cracks and patches.

Be careful using such software though, because in many countries the use of such material is illegal and you can find yourself with two hots and a cot in the local slammer.

Discalimer: I don't know the legal aspect of posting this. I am against software piracy and I have NOT installed A SINGLE pirated software on my computer. I have paid for every software I use.

Read more »

No Tech Hacking or Every Day Security

When you think of a hacker you think of some really smart, super genius outcast type individual probably between 17 and 25 years old living in his grandma's basement "cyber cracking" his way into peoples bank accounts, or capturing credit card numbers. That is certainly what Hollywood would have you think. Actually, sometimes it is true I have to admit.

More often than not though, a hacker doesn't always have to use their cyber hazard skills to get the information they need. Sometimes all they need is to do a little dumpster diving, or some social engineering to accomplish their goals. Sometimes they don't even need that. Sometimes all they need is to take a stroll through a parking lot. Or maybe you just need to watch employees come and go from a building on their lunch breaks. You know, some secret agent stuff.

At last year's DefCon which is one of, if not the biggest hacker conventions in North America, one of the keynote speakers, Johnny Long gave a presentation on the art of no-tech hacking. You may know Johnny better for his books on Google hacking.

Well, here for your viewing enjoyment, is his speech at DefCon explaining all the little no-tech ways you can find out all sorts of information about people. His intro is a little long, so just bear through it:




The next time you are out in public take a look around and start asking yourself, "What does a hacker see?" You may be surprised at all the information you will find.

Read more »

Copying DVDs Is As Easy As Pie

Often, dvds are expensive and need to be backed up. However, a lot of people misuse this and using software technology, rip off and copy dvds to share among friends. The worst part is that people do not stop there either. Some even go and put it up on the Internet for others to download and copy. This is against the law. The biggest concern today is how to stop piracy. Although no foolproof method has emerged, companies are trying their best to copy protect as much of their media as possible. This makes it hard for the serious consumers to copy and backup their dvds.

DVD disks are encrypted with something called the Content Scrambling System (CSS). The DVD player decrypts the data on the fly as it's reading the disk. People who want to make a DVD player have to get an expensive license to this secret encryption algorithm from the DVD Copy Control Authority (simply "Copy Control"). Each applicant gets his or her own secret key with which to unscramble the DVD so it can be played. And if one of those keys were to fall into the "wrong hands," then future DVD disks could be made so that key wouldn't work on them anymore.

Even with all of these precautions there is still tons of DVD copying going on today. How? When the DVD first came out, no unscrambler or player was built for linux so the Linux community made their own program to descramble the code. This made Copy Control go mad. They took the programmer and lots of people to task but this did not help. The cat was out of the bag and there it would stay.

Why should people copy in the first place? If people got good and low cost services from the Internet, then they wouldn't copy dvds for reselling and copying. Making pirated home dvds is not very cheap and hence a possible solution to the problem could be that movies should be put online at a low cost and old episodes should be stored for viewing at a yearly cost.

Instead of thinking about this, the DVD copy control has declared a war on all its users. This simply makes people more and more irritated by which they bring out copied dvds. For example, before even DVD uncoding software was made by linux programmers, pirated dvds were shipped from Hong Kong at a very low price.

Now an important question has come up. How safe is it to link to information in cyberspace really? The DVD copy control association has gone ahead and sued 72 people in the US for posting the keys to descrambling. As I said earlier, this is the code the linux community developed to unscramble and read dvds. Is it right? Who can say? Is it fair to blame everybody who links to it? Time will tell. It is however not fair to use old laws to judge cases involving new technology and even newer products.

By: Sandra Stammberger

S. Stammberger was the editor of Copy Software Tools (http://www.copysoftwaretools.info) which doesn't appear to be online anymore. To find out how to copy dvds, vhs, and cds the easy way, read my post on RipIt4Me free DVD Ripper.

Article Source: Keyword Articles

Read more »

Do You Fancy Yourself a Pirate?

Nobody can argue that there is a unique fascination lately about pirates. No doubt this fascination is propagated by the popularity of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. Of course there are no more swashbucklers out there, but there are still pirates. These bad boys sail on the high seas of the internet, and hoist their jolly rogers over their computer monitors.

So how does one join these new cyber-buckineers? Is the process hard? Where does one turn for the latest software to wield like their shiny cutlass? You can turn here of course ;-)

I'm going to specifically write about software for copying DVD's. I want to make it clear that I do not condone video piracy, and I only recommend the use of these tools for legitimate purposes such as to make legal copies of your family reunion video. I personally have only tested this software and do not regularly use it. However, these tools can and are often used for video, or more specifically DVD piracy.

The tool I'm talking about is called RipIt4Me. It uses DVD Decrypter as it's DVD ripping engine, then goes through and cleans up any DVD encryption that DVD Decrypter couldn't take care of itself (After all DVD Decrypter is no longer being updated since the developer who wrote the program got busted.) Once the files are clean, the DVD is ready to be shrunk. You see, many DVD's that you buy are pressed onto a dual layer DVD, which means the DVD can hold about 9GB of data. The problem is, that DVD-R's or DVD+R's out there only hold 4.5GB of data. In order to fit it in, you need a tool like DVD Shrink to shrink it down. RipIt4Me automatically hands off the cleaned files to DVD Shrink to be shrunk down to fit on a 4.5GB disk.

Most people worry about loss of quality when performing this process. That is a legitimate concern. Anytime you shrink the data, there will be some loss in quality, but there are options in DVD Shrink to minimize the loss.

In order for it to work, you will need all three programs installed. Infact, DVD Shrink and DVD Decrypter must be installed first before you install RipIt4Me. You can do the process yourself with just DVD Decrypter, and DVD Shrink, but the problem is that since DVD Decrypter isn't updated anymore, it has a problem breaking the encryption on the new DVD's. Also, RipIt4Me provides a "one-click" process that you won't be able to get by manually running the programs yourself.

If you want to wave your DVD Copying sabre, and shoot a cannonball at copyright laws, then check out RipIt4Me. Parrot not included.

Read more »

Ripping DVD's to iPod or PSP

Well, last night I finally removed my self from the no iPodder's club at my company Christmas party. That is right, I won an 80GB iPod classic. In honor of such an event, I thought I would bring this post back to the top:


I want to revisit a post I wrote about copying DVD’s. Since the new Pirate’s movie is out, of course there is increasing interest in the world of pirating again. In fact, about 15% of my blogs' traffic comes from people looking for pictures of Jolly Rogers. Anyway, that is not the point of this post, or of this blog, but software, movie, and maybe even music piracy occasionally is. (Please let me re-iterate that I do not condone such behavior, and I have no control over what people do with the information I provide).

Anyway, in my post about copying DVD’s, I did not touch on the subject of mini portable movie players such as iPod’s or PSP’s. What if you purchased your new DVD and want to be able to watch it on your lunch break at work on your iPod? I have a solution for you.

There is a DVD ripping software that will convert your standard DVD into iPod or PSP format. Like everything else I suggest it is free. This little miracle is called Handbrake, and there is a version for MAC, Windows, and Linux. It will shrink the DVD down to an Mpeg-4 or H.264 format for use with PSP, iPod or similar device. It now even has support for AppleTV and PS3.

So don’t just “back-up” your movies for use on your DVD player, ‘back them up” and take them with you on your iPod or PSP.

Read more »