Black Ops 2 Hacks

[Randell Magtoto]

Ifyou watch the news and keep up with technology, you know what a hacker is, but you may not realize hackers fall into different categories known as Black Hat, White Hat, and Gray Hat. The terms derive from the color coding scheme found in 1950s westerns, where the bad guys wore black hats, and the good guys wore white or other light colors.

Black Hat hackers are criminals who break into computer networks with malicious intent. They may also release malware that destroys files, holds computers hostage, or steals passwords, credit card numbers, and other personal information.

Many Black Hat hackers started as novice "script kiddies" using purchased hacker tools to exploit security lapses. Some were trained to hack by bosses eager to make a fast buck. The upper echelon of Black Hats tends to be skilled hackers who work for sophisticated criminal organizations that sometimes provide collaboration tools for their workers and offer service agreements to customers, just like legitimate businesses. Black Hat malware kits sold on the Dark Web (the part of the internet deliberately hidden from search engines) sometimes even include warranties and customer service.

Not surprisingly, Black Hat hackers often develop specialties, such as phishing or managing remote access tools. Many get their "jobs" through forums and other connections on the Dark Web. Some develop and sell malicious software themselves, but others prefer to work through franchises or through leasing arrangements, just like in the legitimate business world.

Distributing malicious software isn't difficult, partly because hacking today operates like big business. Organizations boast partners, resellers, vendors, and associates, and they buy and sell licenses for malware to other criminal organizations for use in new regions or markets.

Some Black Hat organizations even have call centers. The phone scam involving a hacker claiming to work for Microsoft who calls to help with a problem is one example of how call centers are used. In this scam, the hacker tries to convince potential victims to allow remote access to their computers or to download software. When the victim grants access or downloads the recommended software, it allows criminals to harvest passwords and banking information or surreptitiously take over the computer and use it to launch attacks on others. To add further insult, the victim is typically charged an exorbitant fee for this "help."

Many hacks are swift and automated and don't involve human contact. In these cases, attack bots roam the internet to find unprotected computers to infiltrate. In one experiment, a group of computers put online by the BBC was attacked in 71 minutes. In the same experiment, email accounts for fake employees attracted phishing attacks 21 hours after they were established. Of those attacks, 85 percent included malware attachments, and the remainder had links to compromised websites.

The Black Hat hacking problem is global, which makes it extremely difficult to stop. The Microsoft phone scam, for instance, resulted in the arrest of four people in the UK, but the calls actually originated in India. That means the larger enterprise remains intact.

The challenges for law enforcement are that hackers often leave little evidence, use the computers of unsuspecting victims, and cross multiple jurisdictions. Although authorities sometimes succeed in shutting down a hacking site in one country, the same operation may have multiple nodes in many countries, allowing the group to operate 24/7.

The best protection is to be proactive by keeping your firewall turned on, updating and running reputable antivirus software and antispyware applications, and immediately installing all operating system updates. Additionally, don't download anything from unknown sources and disconnect your computer from the internet or turn it off when you aren't using it, to reduce exposure to hackers.

Pokmon Blaze Black and Pokmon Volt White are edits of the regular Pokmon Black and White versions which self-contain all 649 Pokmon, allowing a player a large amount of variety. In addition, BB/VW also have edited trainers, an increased difficulty level, improvements to many Pokmon and more. They are the spiritual successor of my two other hacks, Pokmon Fire Red Omega and Pokmon Spirit Gold. Blaze Black and Volt White were also - with one minor exception - the first of their kind to be made.

I should mention that with the exception of things normally different between Black and White such as Black City, White Forest, the legendary focus and the appearance of Opelucid City, the two games are identical.

I've been playing this game with my partner for 60 hours, after work every day for two weeks we would play it together, until the file magically vanished from my computer. Never has a file ever done anything like this. It's buggy asf and poorly quality-tested. Don't even bother. Completely heartbroken.

One of the most impressive hacks I've ever read about has to be the Black Sunday kill. Since the original 2001 Slashdot article I read on this is 99.9% quote, I'm going to do the same. I can see why they quoted so extensively; it'd be difficult to improve on the unusually succinct, well written summary provided by Pat from Belch:One of the original smart cards, entitled 'H' cards for Hughes, had design flaws which were discovered by the hacking community. These flaws enabled the extremely bright hacking community to reverse engineer their design, and to create smart card writers. The writers enabled the hackers to read and write to the smart card, and allowed them to change their subscription model to receive all the channels. Since the technology of satellite television is broadcast only, meaning you cannot send information TO the satellite, the system requires a phone line to communicate with DirecTV. The hackers could re-write their smart cards and receive all the channels, and unplug their phone lines leaving no way for DirecTV to track the abuse. DirecTV had built a mechanism into their system that allowed the updating of these smart cards through the satellite stream. Every receiver was designed to 'apply' these updates when it received them to the cards. DirecTV applied updates that looked for hacked cards, and then attempted to destroy the cards by writing updates that disabled them. The hacking community replied with yet another piece of hardware, an 'unlooper,' that repaired the damage. The hacker community then designed software that trojanized the card, and removed the capability of the receivers to update the card. DirecTV could only send updates to the cards, and then require the updates be present in order to receive video. Each month or so, DirecTV would send an update. 10 or 15 minutes later, the hacking community would update the software to work around the latest fixes. This was the status quo for almost two years. 'H' cards regularly sold on eBay for over $400.00. It was apparent that DirecTV had lost this battle, relegating DirecTV to hunting down Web sites that discussed their product and using their legal team to sue and intimidate them into submission.Four months ago, however, DirecTV began sending several updates at a time, breaking their pattern. While the hacking community was able to bypass these batches, they did not understand the reasoning behind them. Never before had DirecTV sent 4 and 5 updates at a time, yet alone send these batches every week. Many postulated they were simply trying to annoy the community into submission. The updates contained useless pieces of computer code that were then required to be present on the card in order to receive the transmission. The hacking community accommodated this in their software, applying these updates in their hacking software. Not until the final batch of updates were sent through the stream did the hacking community understand DirecTV. Like a final piece of a puzzle allowing the entire picture, the final updates made all the useless bits of computer code join into a dynamic program, existing on the card itself. This dynamic program changed the entire way the older technology worked. In a masterful, planned, and orchestrated manner, DirecTV had updated the old and ailing technology. The hacking community responded, but cautiously, understanding that this new ability for DirecTV to apply more advanced logic in the receiver was a dangerous new weapon. It was still possible to bypass the protections and receive the programming, but DirecTV had not pulled the trigger of this new weapon.Last Sunday night, at 8:30 pm est, DirecTV fired their new gun. One week before the Super Bowl, DirecTV launched a series of attacks against the hackers of their product. DirecTV sent programmatic code in the stream, using their new dynamic code ally, that hunted down hacked smart cards and destroyed them. The IRC DirecTV channels overflowed with thousands of people who had lost the ability to watch their stolen TV. The hacking community by and large lost not only their ability to watch TV, but the cards themselves were likely permanently destroyed. Some estimate that in one evening, 100,000 smart cards were destroyed, removing 98% of the hacking communities' ability to steal their signal. To add a little pizzazz to the operation, DirecTV personally "signed" the anti-hacker attack. The first 8 computer bytes of all hacked cards were rewritten to read "GAME OVER".

Nobody knew how the satellite companies had suddenly developed such smarts. Until now. A recent Wired article exposes Christopher Tarnovsky as the mind behind the epic Black Sunday Hack.Among the countermeasures he says he created was one known among pirates as the "Black Sunday" kill -- an elaborate scheme that destroyed tens of thousands of pirate DirecTV cards a week before Super Bowl Sunday in 2001.Instead of being delivered all at once like other measures, the Black Sunday attack code was sent to pirate cards in about five dozen parts over the course of two months, like a tank transported piece by piece to a battlefield to be assembled in the field. "They never expected us to do this," Tarnovsky says.The kill didn't last long before pirates found a way to jump-start the cards. But it holds an enduring position in pirate lore; for the first time, they could see a cunning mind at work on the other side.

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