The State Of AI for Year Ending 2018

According to Geoffrey Hinton (University of Toronto, AI professor since the 1970s) and Demis Hassabis (DeepMind founder): Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) is nowhere close to being a reality. 

" We don’t have systems that can … transfer in an efficient way knowledge they have from one domain to the next. I think you need things like concepts or extractions to do that,” Hassabis said. “Building models against games is relatively easy, because it’s easy to go from one step to another, but we would like to be able to imbue … systems with generative model capabilities … which would make it easier to do planning in those environments.” 




Hinton argues that AGI won’t so much make humans redundant, though. Rather, he says, it will remain for the most part myopic in its understanding of the world — at least in the near future. And he believes that it’ll continue to improve our lives in small but meaningful ways.


“[AI in the future is] going to know a lot about what you’re probably going to want to do and how to do it, and it’s going to be very helpful. But it’s not going to replace you. If you took [a] system that was developed to be able to be very good [at driving], and you sent it on its first date, I think it would be a disaster." Hinton says.

How to Translate any Foreign Language Document to English Successfully using AI

1. Get image for each page of the document in foreign language
   
   Scan each page in a flat-bed scanner and save as PNG image.
   
   If you have a PDF or Document, or online web document you can use
   Snipping Tool to capture a screen area and save it as a image.
   
   Click New and draw around area you wish to capture.
   Choose File -> Save As to save PNG image.
   
   
   
   PRO TIP: If you can open your email attached document from Outlook in Word Online or PowerPoint Online to edit, then you choose to Translate entire document or portions to any target language.
   
   
   
   
   
    
2. Use the advanced Microsoft Azure Computer Vision API which is available to developers to using optical character recognition (OCR) and extract the recognized words.
   
   https://azure.microsoft.com/en-ca/services/cognitive-services/computer-vision/
   
   Use the Browse button to upload image under heading "Read text in images"
   
   
   
   Once image changes to your upload, pressing Submit button and wait.
   The resultant text will appear to the right in the Preview tab area.
   The extracted text will be in the original language of the text. 
   The language will be auto-detect for you, no options to change.
3. Past source language paragraphs into Bing Translate, limit 5000 words each time.
   https://www.bing.com/translator
   
   
4. Past translated paragraphs into a English document

Equifax breach was entirely preventable according to House Oversight and Government Reform Committee 96 Page Report

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, following a 14-month probe, released a scathing report Monday saying the consumer credit reporting agency aggressively collected data on millions of consumers and businesses while failing to take key steps to secure such information. "In 2005, former Equifax Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Richard Smith embarked on an aggressive growth strategy, leading to the acquisition of multiple companies, information technology (IT) systems, and data," according to the 96-page report authored by Republicans. "Equifax, however, failed to implement an adequate security program to protect this sensitive data. As a result, Equifax allowed one of the largest data breaches in U.S. history. Such a breach was entirely preventable."

The cause of the leak revealed - new facts

It was previously disclosed an unpatched version of Apache struts was to blame. But new in this report, Chinese attackers began a cyberattack on Equifax. The attack lasted for 76 days. The attackers dropped “web shells” (a web-based backdoor) to obtain remote control over Equifax’s network.

Attackers sent 9,000 queries on these 48 databases, successfully locating unencrypted personally identifiable information (PII) data 265 times. The attackers transferred this data out of the Equifax environment, unbeknownst to Equifax. Equifax did not see the data exfiltration because the device used to monitor ACIS network traffic had been inactive for 19 months due to an expired security certificate. On July 29, 2017, Equifax updated the expired certificate and immediately noticed suspicious web traffic.

Outcome in my humble opinion

Expect to see your private information for sale on the darknet and extortion schemes soon. 

Why is Equifax still allowed to operate?

Microsoft has confirmed that the upcoming Chromium-based Edge browser will also be able to run Chrome extensions

Microsoft has confirmed that the upcoming Chromium-based Edge browser will also be able to run Chrome extensions.

Comment from discussion Microsoft Edge: Making the web better through more open source collaboration.

Sounds great but Chrome extensions are common hacking methods for performing malicious activity such as; 

• hijacking your search pages
• injecting ads
• stealing contact information from logged in accounts
• registering free domains for attackers
• stealing account credentials
• and injecting in-browser crypto-currency miners.

Microsoft Edge's switch to Google's Chromium is bad news for privacy

Well it's official Microsoft announced that it seems it will swap out EdgeHTML for Chromium's Blink engine. 

One of the primary reasons is that "Microsoft Edge will now be delivered and updated for all supported versions of Windows and on a more frequent cadence." 

This supports Microsoft Agile objectives but clearly this methodology has not done so well with Microsoft Updates. Microsoft had to pull October 2018 update after many issues plagued it. It's not about speed, it's about quality.

Seems Mozilla is not too happy either, as it erodes the competition and give another advantage to Google-plex. Also, developers might want to just develop to Chrome browser and stop support IE and Edge altogether now. And the the cards will fall, and Microsoft will stop supporting IE and Edge for internal corporate website, where IE still has authentication advantages and uses.

Another huge issue is privacy, Chromium built-in tracking features unavoidable leak private information to Google-plex. Not sure how Microsoft will shore up their privacy policy or prevent this entirely. 

Let's hope Microsoft does the right thing and prevent communication to Google servers entirely. 

How to Play Youtube in Vlc Player to Get Greater Volume to a Max 300%

How to get VLC add-on to play Youtube Playlists and Videos

Official plugin page.   

INSTALLATION

Get the latest version of the "Youtube" script from here:
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/videolan/vlc/master/share/lua/playlist/youtube.lua


Download when the file appears click on the menu file > save as... of your browser
put the file in the vlc /lua/playlist folder, by default:

* Windows (all users): %ProgramFiles%\VideoLAN\VLC\lua\playlist\
* Windows (current user): %APPDATA%\vlc\lua\playlist\
/!\ Some browser (Chrome...) may change the file extension for ".txt" instead of ".lua", so make sure you choose "All extensions" in the dialog box when you save the file on your computer.

/!\ Reboot your VLC Player, maybe more than once.

USAGE

Copy the URL of the youtube video or playlist (must contain "list=PL...")

Start VLC, press Ctrl+N, paste the url then click on "Play" (or Alt+P then Enter), the video /playlist should start

Troubleshooting:

Follow this steps if and only if you have already install the script and it doesn't work..
for the actual script see the "download" button (playlist_youtube.lua) below.

If the videos list appears in the Vlc "playlist" view but the videos won't start, follow this steps:

1) delete the file "youtube.luac" in [vlc directory]/lua/playlist directory (ex: c:\Program Files\VideoLAN\VLC\lua\playlist\youtube.luac)

2) get the latest version of thr "youtube" script from here:
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/videolan/vlc/master/share/lua/playlist/youtube.lua
3) place the file in the directory [vlc directory]/lua/playlist (where "youtube.luac" was)

UPDATE March 7, 2019 

1. https://gist.github.com/seraku24/db42e0e418b2252f2136d2d7f1656be5Download  to 149909-playlist_youtube-vlc3patch.lua and
   copy to c:\Program Files\VideoLAN\VLC\lua\playlist\
2. Remove old 149909-playlist_youtube.lua, or rename to 149909-playlist_youtube.xxxxlua
3. Mixes (auto generated by Google do not work now this must be a playlist)

GETTING THE RIGHT PLAYLIST LINK 

TIP! If you cannot find the playlist link

Right-click on page and View Page Source and search for the following

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL 

Copy and past resultant URL  into VLC (using Ctrl-N). 

INCREASING MAX VOLUME in VLC Player to 300%

For laptops and headphone users, increase poor audio sources to higher volumes was a savior!

Getting Slammed With Apple Phishing Emails and Apple Denies Reporting of Phishing Emails

In slight twist of fate, I am try to do the right thing by reporting Apple phishing emails to the right place at abuse@apple.com, as recommended by Apple, but I can no longer do so.

I guess recently, and as part of this blog I have submitted to many. I have been able to submit about 1 per month over course of last few years, but recently I phishing attack has reached my inbox almost daily of course of last 3 months. Then suddenly, I got cut off, see notice below. 

I guess this is one way Apple can trim it's responsibility and reported phishing claims, just don't let people report them! Rather discouraging!

Latest Antivirus Product Comparison Testing Roundup Sept 2018

SE Labs tests security products that are designed to protect your computer systems and mobile devices.

Get review of Antivirus Products for Sept 2018 here. 

Get it Spectre / Meltdown BIOS fix for older processors Windows 8, 7 and XP

Intel fixed the Meltdown and Spectre vulnerabilities allow speculative execution side-channel attacks, specifically CVE-2017-5715, CVE-2017-5753, CVE-2017-5754 but only for modern CPUs.  Essentially CPUs sold running with Windows 10 pre-installed on the machines, leaving a larger part of CPUs unsupported. 

Check Intel's official support page for CPUs fixed. 

Not to be detered Eran "Regeneration" Badit created the Intel Microcode Boot Loader, which fixes this but in a round-about perhaps uncomfortable way, you have have plugged in a USB stick with the fix every time you boot the computer.

The tool will use the Intel BIOS Implementation Test Suite (BITS) and the Syslinux bootloader to automatically detect and apply the most current microcodes for an Intel processor.  This allows computer using old processors to become protected.

See Intel Microcode Boot Loader official post for instructions to install.

The current release includes the latest ucodes for 392 Intel CPUs produced from 1996 to 2018.

Sysinternals Procdump Now Available on Linux

ProcDump is a command-line utility whose primary purpose is monitoring an application for CPU spikes and generating crash dumps during a spike that an administrator or developer can use to determine the cause of the spike. ProcDump also includes hung window monitoring (using the same definition of a window hang that Windows and Task Manager use), unhandled exception monitoring and can generate dumps based on the values of system performance counters. It also can serve as a general process dump utility that you can embed in other scripts. 

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/procdump

Download ProcDump for Linux (GitHub)

Below is a video episode of Defrag Tools, Andrew Richards and Larry Larsen walk you through Sysinternals ProcDump. ProcDump allows you to capture the memory of a process running on the computer. The dump file can be of varying size and can be taken with varying outage durations. Dumps can be triggered immediately or can be triggered by a variety of events including CPU utilization, Memory utilization, a Performance Counter, a Hung Window and/or Native/Managed exceptions.
 

How to Find the Original Directory Where the App Was Launched From While the App Is in a Different Directory - Bug Found

When running an command line .exe from the command line to launch an app from a current folder, Environment.CurrentDirectory displays the wrong folder, when the command is run with escalated privledges. It displays the location of the exe, not the current folder.

C:\Users\Markus\Documents > testexe.EXE

TestExe.exe resides in c:\windows\system32 

Here's output running TestExe.exe

Specifically if you set app.config to get your app to run as Administrator with UAC prompt

 <requestedExecutionLevel level="requireAdministrator" uiAccess="false" />

this will return the location of the exe, not the current directory the exe is run from.

Super frustrating and a bug in .NET.

Here's the simple source code

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Linq; using System.Text; namespace TestExe { class Program { static void Main(string[] args) { Console.WriteLine(Environment.CurrentDirectory); Console.Read(); } } }

Here's app.config code

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <asmv1:assembly manifestVersion="1.0" xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1" xmlns:asmv1="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1" xmlns:asmv2="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v2" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"> <assemblyIdentity version="1.0.0.0" name="MyApplication.app"/> <trustInfo xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v2"> <security> <requestedPrivileges xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v3"> <!-- UAC Manifest Options If you want to change the Windows User Account Control level replace the requestedExecutionLevel node with one of the following. <requestedExecutionLevel level="asInvoker" uiAccess="false" /> <requestedExecutionLevel level="requireAdministrator" uiAccess="false" /> <requestedExecutionLevel level="highestAvailable" uiAccess="false" /> Specifying requestedExecutionLevel node will disable file and registry virtualization. If you want to utilize File and Registry Virtualization for backward compatibility then delete the requestedExecutionLevel node. --> <requestedExecutionLevel level="requireAdministrator" uiAccess="false" /> </requestedPrivileges> </security> </trustInfo> <compatibility xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:compatibility.v1"> <application> <!-- A list of all Windows versions that this application is designed to work with. Windows will automatically select the most compatible environment.--> <!-- If your application is designed to work with Windows Vista, uncomment the following supportedOS node--> <!--<supportedOS Id="{e2011457-1546-43c5-a5fe-008deee3d3f0}"></supportedOS>--> <!-- If your application is designed to work with Windows 7, uncomment the following supportedOS node--> <!--<supportedOS Id="{35138b9a-5d96-4fbd-8e2d-a2440225f93a}"/>--> <!-- If your application is designed to work with Windows 8, uncomment the following supportedOS node--> <!--<supportedOS Id="{4a2f28e3-53b9-4441-ba9c-d69d4a4a6e38}"></supportedOS>--> <!-- If your application is designed to work with Windows 8.1, uncomment the following supportedOS node--> <!--<supportedOS Id="{1f676c76-80e1-4239-95bb-83d0f6d0da78}"/>--> </application> </compatibility> <!-- Enable themes for Windows common controls and dialogs (Windows XP and later) --> <!-- <dependency> <dependentAssembly> <assemblyIdentity type="win32" name="Microsoft.Windows.Common-Controls" version="6.0.0.0" processorArchitecture="*" publicKeyToken="6595b64144ccf1df" language="*" /> </dependentAssembly> </dependency>--> </asmv1:assembly>

Apple Phishing Email - RE: [New Statement] Your account has been locked due to suspicious activity CASE ID : [FWD.] [Update Report]

For the record, this is an Apple phishing email attempt that is recently going around and made it through spam filters. What to do?  Report them, goto bottom of page.

From : Apple Service Subject : RE: [New Statement] Your account has been locked due to suspicious activity CASE ID : [FWD.] [Update Report] ATTACHED DOCX CONTENTS - ALWAYS OPEN WITH WORD VIEWER ONLINE AρρleID Locked Aggrement We emailed you a little while ago to ask for your help resolving an issued with your AρρleID, Your AppleID is still temporarily Locked for security reason. If you or someone else enters your password, security questions, or other account information incorrectly too many times, Your AρρleID automatically locks to protect your security. You can unlock your Aρρle ID after you verify your identity. We want to work with you to restore your account as quickly as possible. What will happen if your AρρleID has been Locked? * You can’t make payment * You can’t access personal data that are associated with the your AρρleID How can you unlocked your AρρleID You must login to Your AρρleID to the following link (https://aρρleid.aρρle.com/account#!&Page=Unlock) PHISHING LINK  https://www.appidaccountmanageinformationupdatetsatsa.com/?sign Follow Step by step to Unlock your AρρleID. If you have not signed recently and Believe someone may have accessed your account, Go to AρρleID (https://iforgot.aρρle.com/password/verify/aρρleid) and change your password as soon as possible. Sincerely, Aρρle Support Note: If the informations above looks familiar, you can ignore this message

It contains infected DOCX file: Doc_UserNotice.docx

PHISHING LINKs;  

1. (https://aρρleid.aρρle.com/account#!&Page=Unlock) PHISHING LINK 

https://www.appidaccountmanageinformationupdatetsatsa.com/?sig

How to tell this is a Phishing email ?

1. Check email address in full, if it's not from originating company then it's phishing.
2. Hover over all links in email, if it's not from the apple.com site then forget it.
   
   
3. The best way is to look at message source, see below.

How to examine Email Message Source ?

Now lets look at message source

1. Outlook.com->Actions->View Message Source. 
2. Gmail.com->More (down arrow to top right)->Show original.

Check for suspicious links, anything that does not originate from apple.com.

Report Phishing Email (not as Spam)

1. Outlook.com->Junk (at Top)->Phishing Scam
2. Gmail.com->More (downarrow to top right)->Report Phishing 

Report Phishing URLs at Google now 

If you have recievied this email take further action now by click these links

1. https://www.google.com/safebrowsing/report_phish/

Report phishing at Microsoft and government agencies

1. http://www.microsoft.com/security/online-privacy/phishing-faq.aspx

Report phishing emails to Apple 

Forward the email to abuse@icloud.com. This provides Apple's legal department and law enforcement with useful information to help prevent future phishing emails.

There is not such thing as security

There is not such thing as security, this applies to all platforms and operating systems.

Jon McCoy - Hacking .Net Applications: The Black Arts
This presentation will cover the Black Arts of making Cracks, KeyGens, Malware, and more. The information in this presentation will allow a .NET programmer to do unspeakable things .NET applications. I will cover the life cycle of developing such attacks and over coming common countermeasures to stop such attacks. New tools to assist in the attacks will be supplied. This presentation will focus on C# but applies to any application based on the .NET framework.

Jon McCoy is a .NET Software Engineer that focused on security and forensics. He has worked on a number of Open Source projects ranging from hacking tools to software for paralyzed people. With a deep knowledge of programming under the .NET Framework he has released new attacks on live applications and the .NET Framework it self. He provides consulting to protect .NET applications.



Jon McCoy: Hacking .NET(C#) Application: Code of the Hacker from NDC Conferences on Vimeo.


Backup video----

Scary Tools - Delete locked file or folder utilities

Delete a locked file and folder utilities below. However, you must run each app by right-click and run as Administrator. These apps will delete file or folder that your account does not have permissions to, but your account must be part of Administrators group. 

It's a quick way to delete locked files, without having to change permissions on the file or folder.

1. http://bit.ly/DeleteLockedFile
2. http://bit.ly/DeleteLockedFolder

Fix "There is no script engine for file extension '.js'" Visual Studio Post Build Event

Fix "There is no script engine for file extension '.js'" Visual Studio 2010 Post Build Event

1	cscript.exe $(ProjectDir)EnableLaunchApplication.js $(BuiltOuputPath)

Solution add /e:javascript to cmd line

1	cscript.exe /e:javascript $(ProjectDir)EnableLaunchApplication.js $(BuiltOuputPath)

How to Out of Chrome Browser Automatic Logins

“A few weeks ago, Google shipped an update to Chrome that fundamentally changes the sign-in experience,” Green wrote in a blog post. “From now on, every time you log into a Google property (for example, Gmail), Chrome will automatically sign the browser into your Google account for you. It’ll do this without asking, or even explicitly notifying you. (However, and this is important: Google developers claim this will not actually start synchronizing your data to Google — yet.)” 

The bad news is you have to opt out of automatic logins rather than opt into it.

How to Disable Automatic Login in Chrome 70+

To disable the controversial Chrome feature, first you have to update to Chrome 70. This will happen in the background automatically in the coming days, but you can also force the update simply by going to the “About Chrome” page in the menu bar. Once you update, opt out of automatic logins by opening Chrome’s settings page and scrolling to (or searching for) “Allow Chrome sign-in.” Once you find it, slide the toggle to off and you’re all set.

Source : https://bgr.com/2018/10/17/chrome-70-update-released-disable-automatic-login/

jQuery File Upload Plugin broken for 8 year - open source equals open quality

A recent bug the massively popular jQuery File Upload widget and allowed an attacker to upload arbitrary files on web servers, including command shells for sending out commands for past 8 yrs, was recent corrected. 

According to Bleeping Computer, "There are over 7,800 variations at the moment, and Cashdollar says that there are cases where the vulnerability exists even if the original code was modified to meet custom needs."

This again puts the quality of open source projects into the spotlight. And now with the quality of Windows Update massively under-performing using this approach, there has to be a rethink. You pay for what you get. User beware.

C# .NET Bug - Environment.CurrentDirectory does not work with escalated privileges

In a arduous session to figure out some production code, I have discovered that Environment.CurrentDirectory does not work in when running with elevated privileges.

Specifically if you set app.config to get your app to run as Administrator with UAC prompt

 <requestedExecutionLevel level="requireAdministrator" uiAccess="false" />

this will return the location of the exe, not the current directory the exe is run from.

Super frustrating and a bug in .NET.

Here's the simple source code

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Linq; using System.Text; namespace TestExe { class Program { static void Main(string[] args) { Console.WriteLine(Environment.CurrentDirectory); Console.Read(); } } }

Here's app.config code

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <asmv1:assembly manifestVersion="1.0" xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1" xmlns:asmv1="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1" xmlns:asmv2="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v2" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"> <assemblyIdentity version="1.0.0.0" name="MyApplication.app"/> <trustInfo xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v2"> <security> <requestedPrivileges xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v3"> <!-- UAC Manifest Options If you want to change the Windows User Account Control level replace the requestedExecutionLevel node with one of the following. <requestedExecutionLevel level="asInvoker" uiAccess="false" /> <requestedExecutionLevel level="requireAdministrator" uiAccess="false" /> <requestedExecutionLevel level="highestAvailable" uiAccess="false" /> Specifying requestedExecutionLevel node will disable file and registry virtualization. If you want to utilize File and Registry Virtualization for backward compatibility then delete the requestedExecutionLevel node. --> <requestedExecutionLevel level="requireAdministrator" uiAccess="false" /> </requestedPrivileges> </security> </trustInfo> <compatibility xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:compatibility.v1"> <application> <!-- A list of all Windows versions that this application is designed to work with. Windows will automatically select the most compatible environment.--> <!-- If your application is designed to work with Windows Vista, uncomment the following supportedOS node--> <!--<supportedOS Id="{e2011457-1546-43c5-a5fe-008deee3d3f0}"></supportedOS>--> <!-- If your application is designed to work with Windows 7, uncomment the following supportedOS node--> <!--<supportedOS Id="{35138b9a-5d96-4fbd-8e2d-a2440225f93a}"/>--> <!-- If your application is designed to work with Windows 8, uncomment the following supportedOS node--> <!--<supportedOS Id="{4a2f28e3-53b9-4441-ba9c-d69d4a4a6e38}"></supportedOS>--> <!-- If your application is designed to work with Windows 8.1, uncomment the following supportedOS node--> <!--<supportedOS Id="{1f676c76-80e1-4239-95bb-83d0f6d0da78}"/>--> </application> </compatibility> <!-- Enable themes for Windows common controls and dialogs (Windows XP and later) --> <!-- <dependency> <dependentAssembly> <assemblyIdentity type="win32" name="Microsoft.Windows.Common-Controls" version="6.0.0.0" processorArchitecture="*" publicKeyToken="6595b64144ccf1df" language="*" /> </dependentAssembly> </dependency>--> </asmv1:assembly>

Here's output running TestExe.exe from the c:\windows\system32 directory