by Xavier Voigt-Hill

6.5 million LinkedIn passwords leaked by Russian hackers

Are you a LinkedIn user? If so, you might want to change your passwords, as 6.5 million passwords belonging to users of the business-centric social network have been leaked onto a Russian hacking forum. The dump contained unsalted passwords hashed using the SHA-1 encryption system, meaning that they are easily decryptable using online tools. No other information has been released, but it is possible that usernames and passwords were also compromised during the attack. Remarkably, LinkedIn’s share price ended the day up 0.09%, only to fall in after hours trading.

https://twitter.com/ryan/status/210404041031815169

In a blog post regarding the attack and password dump, LinkedIn’s Vincente Silveira explained how the company plans to deal with the compromised accounts, which make up for a small fraction of the network’s reported 161 million users.

We want to provide you with an update on this morning’s reports of stolen passwords. We can confirm that some of the passwords that were compromised correspond to LinkedIn accounts. We are continuing to investigate this situation and here is what we are pursuing as far as next steps for the compromised accounts:

  1. Members that have accounts associated with the compromised passwords will notice that their LinkedIn account password is no longer valid.
  2. These members will also receive an email from LinkedIn with instructions on how to reset their passwords. There will not be any links in this email. Once you follow this step and request password assistance, then you will receive an email from LinkedIn with a password reset link.
  3. These affected members will receive a second email from our Customer Support team providing a bit more context on this situation and why they are being asked to change their passwords.

It is worth noting that the affected members who update their passwords and members whose passwords have not been compromised benefit from the enhanced security we just recently put in place, which includes hashing and salting of our current password databases.

We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience this has caused our members. We take the security of our members very seriously. If you haven’t read it already it is worth checking out my earlier blog post today about updating your password and other account security best practices.

To find out if your password is included in the list, head to LeakedIn which will take your password and hash it using the same SHA-1 encryption, before checking for presences of that hash in the list of passwords. Mercifully mine was not published, but the Digixav offices do have a number of passwords in the leak. Buzzfeed’s John Herrman used the tool to check for some possible passwords, both common and hilarious, and created a list of the best 23. Even if you are not affected by this attack, it should serve as a good reminder to constantly change your passwords and make them unique, but not to make them anything like these.

https://twitter.com/jwherrman/status/210448244545814530 https://twitter.com/jwherrman/status/210451294207479808 https://twitter.com/jwherrman/status/210451845049618432
by Xavier Voigt-Hill

The Last of Us gameplay video steals the show at E3

In Sony’s E3 press conference, Naughty Dog, the studio behind the Uncharted and Jak & Daxter games, unveiled the first gameplay video of their new IP, The Last of Us. The game is set in a post-pandemic world destroyed by a plague, and players take control of Joel, a ruthless survivor, and Ellie, a brave young girl, as they try to survive across America. The gameplay video, created live at the keynote from a PlayStation 3, shows Joel and Ellie treading through an abandoned hotel, before death ensues for many enemies. At the end, an assailant sporting a rifle enters a derelict room, before getting stabbed and losing his head to the gun. Watch the epic 7:23 video below (18+) and take a look at the previous trailers and a few screenshots, and prepare for the PlayStation exclusive launch in late 2012 or early 2013.



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by Xavier Voigt-Hill

Ubisoft unveils Watch Dogs and stuns E3

Companies have come out with all guns blazing in the first day of press conferences at E3, but Ubisoft undoubtedly stole the show with their announcement of Watch Dogs. The game’s trailer, accompanied with just two sentences of description, debuted during the company’s conference, which also included information about Far Cry 3 and Assassin’s Creed 3, but it is believed that Watch Dogs is our first peek at a next generation game. Watch the trailer and first demo video below, visit the game’s website and try to spot the hidden Windows Phone.

Update: Joystiq is reporting that Ubisoft’s press site lists the game for PS3, Xbox 360 and PC, but their own Xav de Matos thinks it might just be a placeholder listing and Polygon‘s Arthur Gies suspects that what we saw today was not the current-gen version.

Everything is connected. Connection is power.



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by Xavier Voigt-Hill

Qualcomm shows off cool Snapdragon chips by melting butter on smartphones

People love a benchmark, and Qualcomm has invented a new one that appears to favour their series of Snapdragon processors. In a video posted on their YouTube channel, Vidyasagar Rao, a staff engineer at the company, pits an HTC One S with a Snapdragon S4 MSM8260A chip against a Motorola Razr Maxx with a TI OMAP4430 and Samsung Galaxy S II sporting a Samsung Exynos 4 Dual chip in their new Butter benchmark test. It’s quite simple really. Butter melts at 35°C, so whichever phone runs coolest will keep the block of butter intact for the longest. We doubt this will catch on, but you can see the results by watching the video below.

by Xavier Voigt-Hill

E3: The Preview

E3 is just around the corner, so we thought we’d give you a peek at some of the stuff that we’re looking forward to this week.

The Last of Us

The Last of Us is the latest title from Naughty Dog, famous for the Uncharted and Jak & Daxter games. This PS3 exclusive is set in a post-pandemic world destroyed by a plague, and players take control of Joel, a ruthless survivor, and Ellie, a brave young girl, as they try to survive across America. Think Dead Island but better.


Tomb Raider

Lara Croft is back, and she’s determined to get her crown back as queen of action games.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim: Dawnguard

Skyrim came out late last year to almost universal acclaim, including our own game of the year award. Now, Bethesda is set to give us more information about the recently-announced Dawnguard DLC.

Lego Lord of the Rings

Lego games are always awesome, and the minifgure take on Lord of the Rings promises to be no exception.

Hitman: Absolution

The Hitman series returns with death, death and even more death.

The Testament of Sherlock Holmes

Despite being an obvious attempt to cash in on the ongoing Sherlock fever, this LA Noire-esque detective game seems intriguing.

Far Cry 3

The Far Cry series returns to an isolated island, and this time you get crazier the longer you stay there.

Assassin’s Creed 3

With a new protagonist and a new continent, AC3 promises to be epic, but can it differ enough from its predecessors to make gamers happy?

Have we missed anything? Let us know in the comments, and get ready for the biggest week of the gaming year. E3 here we come!

by Xavier Voigt-Hill

Why I love spam

When you have a website with a comment section, you will undoubtedly get a few comments that are out and out spam. You soon realise that the world has no shortage of generic email addresses and random letter strings attempting to pedal Viagra, SEO optimization techniques and ‘free’ iPads to the people of the internet. Because you don’t want this kind of crap to spoil your website, many people choose to implement spam filtration technology to clean the place up. Being a WordPress site, we get access to Akismet free of charge, and with that comes a spam prevention success rate of 98.22%. This means most stuff gets hidden away, but something always seems to escape, as pointed out on The Verge’s forums by user smackel.

Seeing smackel’s post inspired me to dig out some classic spam from our own Akismet filters, so here you go. Please note that links to discount Viagra etc. have been removed for your own safety.

Author: flash games
Article: Why Minecraft is awesome

The new Zune browser is surprisingly good, but not as good as the iPod’s. It works well, but isn’t as fast as Safari, and has a clunkier interface. If you occasionally plan on using the web browser that’s not an issue, but if you’re planning to browse the web alot from your PMP then the iPod’s larger screen and better browser may be important.

Author: Your Question Is Now Answered About: Graco Baby Products
Article: Birdwatching: Is Assassin’s Creed starting to dull?

[…] in Modern Warfare 3 Step by Step GuideEdison, consultant spar over blame for San Onofre shutdownBirdwatching: Is Assassin’s Creed starting to dull body.custom-background { background-color: #ffffff; } jQuery(document).ready(function($) { // […]

Author: Asus M9 Battery
Article: Is Facebook looking to buy Opera to make its own web browser?

Pausing to catch a little F1. Just showed a bit about Ron Howard’s Rush. Hemsworth as James Hunt? Interesting! I miss 6 wheeled cars thou

Author: Free US iPad.com
Article: Techslice: The new iPhone rumour mill

Unquestionably imagine that which you said. Your favourite justification seemed to be on the net the easiest factor to remember of. I say to you, I definitely get irked while folks consider issues that they plainly do not recognise about. You managed to hit the nail upon the highest and also defined out the whole thing without having side effect , folks can take a signal. Will probably be back to get more. Thanks

And now for my personal favourite, the Polish one. Originally posted by alaxomygalo on my post about the Victorinox SSD, I turn to this comment whenever I need a good laugh. You can have a look at the original over on Dropbox, but here is the (Google) translation.

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Spam never fails to make me smile, and that is the reason I love it. Not even @Horse_ebooks could make this stuff up, and that’s really saying something.

by Xavier Voigt-Hill

Why reviews need honesty

Reviews exist for a reason. You read them to find out opinions about products, and, as such, you want people to be honest about the stuff that they are writing about. Reading David Pogue’s review for the New York Times of the Samsung Galaxy Player 4.2 made me angry as, like Buzzfeed’s Matt Buchanan pointed out all too well, the author is trying too hard to be nice. Being nice about something will make it seem good. If it is not good, don’t try and fool the reader with your feigned attempt at praise.

The Player 4.2 is beautiful. Its plastic shell, with comfortably rounded edges, can’t hold a candle to the mirror-finish metal back of the Touch, but of course it doesn’t hold fingerprints, either.

You’ll probably need to buy a memory card, in fact, since the Player comes with only about four gigabytes of free memory for your files. But the point is: the capacity of your Player is up to you. Choice is good, right?

In the end, the Player should hold special appeal for a significant customer niche: rebels. The technologically sophisticated. People who would enjoy the freedom of removable cards and batteries. Parents who might like that peculiar business about making phone calls through a cheaper phone. People who own recent Samsung televisions (the Player doubles as a remote control). Anyone with a dominant anti-Apple gene.

Otherwise, it’s not entirely clear who would benefit by this slightly thicker, slightly heavier, slightly less refined iPod Touch. Until that question is answered, it’s hard to imagine Samsung’s latest becoming a significant Player in the Galaxy.

Once again, as much as it pains me to say it, I find myself in agreement with Mr. Massive Greatness himself, MG Siegler.

I don’t know about you, but when I read my favorite technology writers, I want an opinion. Is the iPhone 4S the best smartphone, or is it the Galaxy Nexus? I need to buy one, I can’t buy both. [Josh] Topolsky never gives us that. Instead, he pussyfoots around it. One is great at some things, the other is great at others. Barf.

Fucking pick one. I bet that even now he won’t.

This is the problem I have with most technology reviews these days. Everyone seems so afraid to say how they really feel about the device. And more often than not, that’s exactly what readers want.

Reviews need opinion, not horseshit. If something is good, the review should make that clear. If something is crap, the review should make that clear. That’s why I respect Josh Topolsky. He reviewed the Nokia Lumia 900 and people went mad when he gave it a 7.0. He was totally wrong on a few things, but at least he was honest. And that’s what we strive for at Digixav. As Paloma Faith once sang, do you want the truth or something beautiful? I know what I’d rather have.

by Jasper Edwards

Why Battlefield 3 is awesome

Since October last year, half of my life has been devoted to one amazing creation that is Battlefield 3. Getting mostly 9’s from the critics, the only real competitor to this huge FPS is obviously the CoD series. Since both series have been going on for over half my life, they both certainly have the experience and knowledge to nick £40 out of your pocket and make you feel good about it, but Battlefield 3 does it in a way that nobody would’ve ever imagined before. Using the Frostbite 2 engine and the multiplayer element of the Medal of Honor reboot as a warm-up, DICE made this game the most epic and awe-inspiring game of, well, ever. With 5 million sales in the first week, I am going to explain to you why you should get this game if you haven’t already.

I will start with the part of shooters that is dying a slow and painful death: the campaign. Having completed it in a day on hard difficulty about 4 months ago, it remains a sweet memory in the heart of my mind. You start off as a foot soldier in the middle of some war-torn Iranian city as part of a small squad of soldiers. After a short while of the atmosphere consuming you, quick fire-fights and realistic situations begin to steal your mind and eyes from the real world. You are quickly shown the amazing destruction engine and realistic sounds as well as things like suppressive fire which makes killing the enemy a lot harder. With all the realism intact, you are still left feeling like you are a super soldier, until of course you get cocky and take a bullet to the face. Skipping on a bit as, although I’d love to, I can’t take you through the whole campaign, you are put in the shoes of an F-18 pilot, an M1A2 Abrams (i.e. a big tank) and a Russian guy trying to help the world – for once. After the mind-blowing good lengthy missions that lead up to the finale, some good twists and revelations give that grin a widening and leave you feeling as if you’ve just completed the BF3 campaign because there’s nothing really that compares to it.

The next part of the game to explain is the ground-breaking multiplayer that wins most people. The multiplayer has been patched and tweaked and added to constantly to maintain its beauty. From DLC’s to sounds that literally are real, I bow to DICE for giving this brilliant game the upkeep it needs, as any good game does. Analogy alert: nice cars cost a lot to run. The multiplayer is for pretty much anyone. If you are an adrenaline junkie crazy guy you can enter the close quarter maps and game modes which allow simple quickly changing games, but if you like a tactical teamwork inspired game that includes vehicles for land, sea and air then jump into Conquest. As well as the game mode you’re looking for, the type of player you are is taken into account as well. From mounting bipods and massive scopes and keeping your gun on semi-auto to using nothing but your fully auto side-arm and fear to kill your enemies, you can pretty much do anything, use anything or be anything you want to. With plenty maps, weapons, attachments and vehicles the multiplayer is almost flawless. However every game has its bad points and Battlefield 3 is no exception. On large maps against a skilful enemy you may find yourself spawn-trapped with no escape apart from the AA gun that’s being hogged by Brian Peppers’ downy brother. Another problem that may occur which has happened to me twice in total (in my 100+ hours of game time) is when your guns or menu do not appear so you find yourself useless and stuck. The last problem is that you find hours of your day vanish in front of your eyes, although I’d rather that than watch parts of your controller sprinkle across the room after your latest venture on to Modern Warfare 3. Another small part of the game for extra fun is a co-op mission strand consisting of 6 missions that you complete with your friend to unlock some extra guns for online games. The co-op does not need much explaining apart from that it is fun and fulfilling.

A problem however that people have with the game however is that it constantly wants your money to rent a server, buy a new map pack or get access to online features. First of all, most of these are avoided if you preordered or bought a limited edition (which costs no more than a regular copy), both of which give you codes for online play and free DLC. Secondly, you cannot blame DICE or the game for this as all the previous stuff was originally going to be free until EA stuck their big, money sucking noses into it and persuaded DICE to let them charge for it. No wonder they’re the worst company in America.

Overall Battlefield 3 is a great game and I wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone that is a new gamer, an FPS fan or just anyone with a PC or console. With things like a never-ending achievement list, upgrades to get, people to shoot and wallet-melting DLC combined with other things like dozens of maps, completely customisable weapons and orgasmic sounds and graphics, for me this game couldn’t be better.

Cue epic BF theme tune.

by Hannah Marsh :)

I have 122 friends on Facebook and this is why

The majority of people I know on Facebook have way over 400 friends. This is ridiculous. I know that the average person will not care about half of his/her ‘friends’ posts, comments and statuses. So why have them? Does it seem cool to have a load of people you could possibly speak to if you ever might need them? Or do you just add people for the sake of adding them?

Facebook now lets you rate your friends too. By default you have groups for your work colleagues, local friends, acquaintances and school friends and you can make even more if you desire. If these people are really your friends, is it really fair to rate them? Do any fall into the acquaintance category, and if yes, then why are they labelled as a Facebook ‘friend’? Maybe it’s just me, but this whole thing seems really messed up.

Also I think accepting people you don’t properly know is actually quite dangerous. I’m not saying that they’re going to steal your identity and spend all your money, but the more ‘friends’ you have that aren’t your friends, the more you are open to different forms of cyberbullying and online threats. About a year ago I would have never have thought of this but on my old Facebook account I saw some pretty nasty comments that really upset people. Behind a screen people are brave.

I must say that I have so far been through two different Facebook accounts. On the first I had nearly 600 friends, but on my new one I have just 122. When browsing the old one, I used to get so much random crap appearing in my news feed that I did not care about at all. Now I only see what is relevant to me and the people that I care about. Of course I accept the fact that a few people will be the exception, and will actually speak properly to every 400th person they have as a friend, but do you?

by Jordan Davis-Bernier

Minecraft: What the hell should I do?

I know I said things in previous posts and I really need to start writing more stuff but I need some help. Please take 10 seconds to vote for what you would like me to do in Minecraft!