Category: Technology

Unique Usernames and People Who Want Them

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One phenomenon I’ve come across on the internet are unique usernames and the logistics behind people or businesses wanting to steal them, swap them, or purchase them for themselves. Such examples are Moz, Mozilla, Fred, Cosmic Panda, etc.

In 2007, the ‘moz’ username on Twitter.com was taken by Swedish web user Per Mosseby. At some point in either 2012 or 2013, the username was taken over by an SEO business also called Moz.

I had this happen to me on a lesser known web forum for Google Maps. One day I logged in to find a screen forcing me to create a username, but I already had one called ‘Alexander’ which I thought I would cleverly grab while the forum was new. I typed it into the screen, since I assumed I had already ‘owned’ it and it cannot be given to anyone else (turns out it can).

I was greeted with this:

stealers

Therefore, I can only assume that a Google employee or moderator desired the username and took it from me to use it for his/her own account.

People will go great lengths to grab unique usernames online. There have been times when a large business or public figure will somehow quietly steal the username. For example Fred on YouTube was famously given the ‘Fred’ username, which was forcibly taken from its original owner.

However, sometimes businesses will use diplomacy to try and acquire a username. Web user foszor posted online that when Twitter was new, he took the username ‘Mozilla.’ Time passed, and he was contacted by a lawyer for the business. He had tweeted foszor asking him to send an email, then deleted the tweet afterwards. It ended up being a legitimate dialogue for exchanging the username. In return for giving up ‘Mozilla,’ foszor received “2 t-shirts, 3 buttons and some stickers.”

He also mentions that he had the ‘CBS’ username, and that it was stolen from him without any conversation.

The standard procedure businesses go through to acquire usernames is to contact the site and say that they want their trademarked name for themselves. For example, with Instagram you would have to go through a trademark infringement form.

Here is an interesting article about someone who had his rare username stolen through social engineering.

Strange Method of trying to Extort Money using Combo Lists Uncovered

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[scammer]@pnpytur.com says

I do know [old password I used once when I was 12, anyone can find it on the anti public combo list] one of your password. Lets get directly to purpose. You don’t know me and you are probably thinking why you are getting this email?

actually, I installed a malware on the xxx streaming (porno) site and guess what, you visited this site to experience fun (you know what I mean). When you were watching videos, your web browser started operating as a Remote control Desktop that has a keylogger which provided me with accessibility to your display screen and web camera. Right after that, my software program collected all of your contacts from your Messenger, social networks, and e-mailaccount. And then I created a double-screen video. 1st part displays the video you were viewing (you have a fine taste hehe), and second part shows the view of your cam, yea its you.

You do have a pair of alternatives. Shall we read the possibilities in aspects:

First option is to ignore this e-mail. Then, I most certainly will send your very own video recording to just about all of your contacts and also just imagine about the embarrassment you will definitely get. And consequently if you are in an affair, just how it is going to affect?

Number 2 solution should be to pay me [absurd amount of money which no one will pay]. Lets refer to it as a donation. Then, I most certainly will instantaneously discard your videotape. You could continue on your lif e like this never took place and you will not ever hear back again from me.

You will make the payment through Bitcoin (if you don’t know this, search for “how to buy bitcoin” in Google).

BTC Address: [he put his bitcoin address in here]

If you have been planning on going to the law enforcement, look, this email can not be traced back to me. I have covered my steps. I am just not looking to charge a fee very much, I simply want to be compensated.

You now have one day to pay. I have a special pixel within this e mail, and now I know that you have read through this email message. If I don’t get the BitCoins, I will send your video recording to all of your contacts including members of your family, coworkers, and so on. Having said that, if I receive the payment, I will erase the video right away. If you really want evidence, reply with Yes! & I definitely will send out your video to your 7 contacts. It’s a nonnegotiable offer, so please do not waste mine time and yours by responding to this e-mail.

It’s easy to deal with such a scam, simply ignore the email. The scammer finds your password by looking at combo lists, letting other people do the bulk work for him and then using the password on that list to try (very poorly) to make the threat seem real.

I once believed that this scam was easy to see through, but my computer science buddy Pete told me he was approached by a friend who asked for advice after seeing this scam. The friend was apparently about to pay up before asking my buddy Pete about what she should do.

I was considering sending a response to see what would happen, but if I did that then the scammer would see that me email address is active.

If you’ve received such an email, just ignore it. He can’t do anything except send more emails begging for money.

To protect yourself from these, the only rule you really ever need to follow is don’t re-use passwords and use a password manager.

You can check to see if your password has ever been leaked at https://haveibeenpwned.com/

A Holographic Music Visualiser

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For my final year, I made a box that can visualise music. But not just any box, it’s a hollow wooden frame with a perspex/acrylic prism. Photos are better at explaining.

It works by loading songs from a SoundCloud playlist and the visuals react to the wavelengths. But there’s more! You can control it using gestures such as swiping left, right, up, and down, and swirling your hand in front of a Flick board connected to a Raspberry Pi. The project was coded in Python and uses Electron for its renderer.

There’s also a 60 second video I made to go along with the final final assignment.

I also kept a blog of documenting the build as part of the project: https://as14acz6.tumblr.com/

Fix: Display Mirroring Has Ended on Galaxy devices

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I have a Samsung Galaxy S7 Exynos. I found out that every time I wanted to cast my screen to my Amazon Firestick, it would tell me that mirroring has ended as soon as it starts. This is apparently a common problem with rooted devices. This may actually be a fix for other rooted Android phones as well.

Without fail, every time I tried mirroring my phone, I would see the words “display mirroring has ended”.

A simple fix for you might be to uninstall any other casting applications on your phone (like Allcast). If not, then follow the steps below:

  1. Download a build.prop editor from the Google Play Store.
  2. Open up that bad boy.
  3. Find a line that says “wlan.wfd.hdcp=enable”
  4. Change it to “wlan.wfd.hdcp=disable”

If the line does not already exist, make a new one at the end and type in “wlan.wfd.hdcp=disable”. This changes the behaviour of your wlan connectivity, and it fixed the screen mirroring issue for me.

This is how it looks for me:

Screenshot_20170927-200424

You will need to restart your phone before changes take effect.

You may need to use the preinstalled ‘Smart View’ Samsung app to use screen casting/mirroring.

While you’re at it, if you have not done this already, you may want to set your ro.config.tima=0 if it is set to 1. This tricks some older apps into thinking your device has not been rooted.

Also -‎Rename the following file
/system/lib/liboemcrypto.so to /liboemcrypto.so.bak if Amazon Video doesn’t work.

The reason I have posted this fix is because I cannot find it anywhere else, and is not an obvious one.

A plunge into Google Maps and its crowd-sourcing

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capture3

Google is shutting down Map Maker next month. What now?

Almost every listing you see on Google Maps is crowd-sourced, with the rest being built through terrain data, satellite imagery, and bulk data bought from mapping companies. Most of the newer listings on the platform depend on the willing contribution from the public, a bit like Wikipedia and its articles.

Map Maker was introduced in 2008, and anyone could add, edit, or delete map listings in most places in the world. It allowed try-hard map editors to feel a sense of power in that they could change what everyone sees on Maps, but the most important part is that anyone’s 8 year old kid could do it too. This is why most edits had to go through a voting-phase before it was approved by the system, but some mishaps could slip through. For example; a few folks would always race to be the first to add a new listing and as a result, a bunch of duplicates would appear like below for a new car park.

capture2
Three duplicates of the same place. One of them is humorously listed as a “Park & Garden”.

Now that Map Maker’s on its last legs, Google has started removing change logs in preparation for the move.

capture2333
There would usually be a list of changes, but it’s all going away.

Nevertheless, let’s take a look to see if it’s still possible to make changes just before its death. I’m going to attempt to fix the duplicate car park listings mentioned earlier. Usually my edits would go through instantly because the system trusts me, or at least it used to. I’m unsure how the algorithm works, but the first few times my edits would go through a user vote, but after a while I would receive emails straight away saying my edit was approved. It may have something to do with the ‘Local Guides’ badge on Maps, which you receive after making plenty of edits. An intangible reward for your free labour.

desktop-02-26-2017-08-13-59-01_1

desktop-02-26-2017-08-13-59-01_1

Sometimes your edit will go through instantly, other times it won’t. This means I’ll have to wait for an undetermined amount of time before the changes show, but I’ve seen cases where the change is stuck on pending forever. That’s right, if your change doesn’t get any votes, it will be in limbo until it receives at least two votes. But that’s about to change (apparently).

The company has spent the last few years slowly adding Map Maker-like features to the mainstream Google Maps. Although not as detailed or rich, one can find them by selecting a feature and going through “Suggest an edit”. Voila.

zff
Editing features through Maps itself is taking over from the depreciated Map Maker.

These edits are implemented based on whether other Map users agree or disagree with the suggestion you made. This feature is currently in beta for smartphone users, but it’s assumed that it will come to desktop users in the future. Whether or not people pay attention to it or even use the feature is another thing.

Many enthusiasts of Google products express concern over the company’s misdirection. Some fear that the tragedy that was the release of Allo and Duo isn’t over yet. For those who don’t know, the online community has criticised Google for not properly marketing its messaging apps, as well as releasing new ones when old, fully functioning ones still exist with the exact same features. The lack of marketing meant that its user base depended on word of mouth. There’s only one person in my contacts list who even uses Allo – and that took some convincing. With hope, this disaster won’t encompass the reshaping of Google Maps.

google-messaging-apps
Let’s hope this doesn’t happen across the board.

 

Sources:

Google (2012) The next dimension of Google maps. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMBJ2Hu0NLw (Accessed: 26 February 2017).

Image source: https://plus.google.com/+JRRaphael/posts/cT17fiupJyp