Wonder How To » Fresh Hacks For a Changing World

How To: Track a Target Using Canary Token Tracking Links

Canary tokens are customizable tracking links useful for learning about who is clicking on a link and where it's being shared. Thanks to the way many apps fetch a URL preview for links shared in private chats, canary tokens can even phone home when someone checks a private chat without clicking the link. Canary tokens come in several useful types and can be used even through URL shorteners.

Market Reality: HoloLens 2 Secrets Revealed, Nreal CEO on AR Future, Meta Lawsuit Update, & Verizon Teams with Vuzix

As Microsoft continues to bask in the glow of its HoloLens 2 unveiling and begins ramping up the hype to launch, Nreal and Vuzix are carving out their own niches in the AR hardware landscape.

How To: Get Your Lost Item Back from an Uber Driver (& What to Do if They Don't Respond)

You would think that recovering your smartphone or another important item that you leave behind in an Uber ride would be a simple process, but it can actually be a pain in the ass. You have to find out how to report it to the driver, hope the driver is honest, pay a fee, and contact Uber directly if none of that works. But we're here to help make this process as easy as possible for you.

How To: Steal Ubuntu & macOS Sudo Passwords Without Any Cracking

With a simple social engineering trick, sudo passwords can be captured in seconds without the target's knowledge. The passwords can then be saved to a file or exfiltrated to another computer on the network.

News: Spatiate Brings Multi-User Augmented Reality Painting to Magic Leap One

While painting in augmented reality is not a groundbreaking pursuit, the ability for Magic Leap One, iPhone and iPad, and Android users to collaborate remotely on virtual artwork would be.

How To: Set Privacy-Focused DuckDuckGo as Chrome's Default Search Engine on Your Phone

While Google would rather you use Google as the default search engine in Chrome, there's a way to switch to the more privacy-geared DuckDuckGo search engine for all your web browsing needs. With DuckDuckGo, the company does not track anything you search or allow anyone else to track it, so you can effectively search from your iPhone or Android phone anonymously.

How To: Share Your Wi-Fi Password with a QR Code in Android 10

If your phone is running Android 10, you can now share your Wi-Fi network with friends using a handy QR code. The other person doesn't have to be running Android 10 — in fact, you can even share this code with iPhone users. In most situations, this is now the fastest way to share your Wi-Fi password.

How To: Change the Home Screen Icon Shapes on Your Pixel in Android 10

For those of you who like to frequently change the icon shapes on your home screen, the process has changed in Android Q, also known as Android 10. The setting is buried and now applies to more than just home screen icons.

News: Puppetoon Promises to Give Your iPhone the Freedom to Create Augmented Reality Animations

Current-generation mobile augmented reality apps offer users numerous opportunities to punch up photos and videos with 3D content, but there's surprisingly few options for users to express themselves using virtual characters.

How To: Automatically Answer Calls Just by Putting Your iPhone Up to Your Ear

Tapping on your iPhone's display to pick up an incoming call can be annoying when your hands are wet or dirty. It might even fail to register and cause you to miss your call. If you have a jailbroken iPhone, however, you can get rid of this problem entirely, thanks to a free tweak that lets you instantly pick up calls without having to interact with your phone's screen.

How To: Crack Password-Protected Microsoft Office Files, Including Word Docs & Excel Spreadsheets

Microsoft Office files can be password-protected in order to prevent tampering and ensure data integrity. But password-protected documents from earlier versions of Office are susceptible to having their hashes extracted with a simple program called office2john. Those extracted hashes can then be cracked using John the Ripper and Hashcat.

News: 5 Things You'll Hate About Android 10

New updates are always exciting, even more so when Google's behind the wheel. Yes, Android 10 "Q" is here, at least in beta form, ready for software testers to dive in and explore all the new changes. Among those changes, however, lie some issues. We won't sugarcoat it — there are some annoying things baked into Android 10.

How To: Scan for Vulnerabilities on Any Website Using Nikto

Before attacking any website, a hacker or penetration tester will first compile a list of target surfaces. After they've used some good recon and found the right places to point their scope at, they'll use a web server scanning tool such as Nikto for hunting down vulnerabilities that could be potential attack vectors.

News: Vuzix Strikes Reseller Partnership with Verizon for Enterprise Customers

It looks like it's cuffing season for AR hardware makers and telecommunications corporations. With AT&T aligned with Magic Leap as its exclusive wireless retailer on the high-end AR side, Verizon has also reached a master reseller agreement with Vuzix, according to a filing with the Securities Exchange Commission.

News: Meta Company Patent Lawsuit Update, Court Denies Startup's Request for More Time

In the latest update to the ongoing Meta Company patent infringement case, the court has responded to a request from the defendants, and the answer isn't good news.

How To: Add 2-Step Verification to Uber for Stronger Overall Account Security

If you've ever received an email from a sketchy address purporting to be Uber, asking you to sign in with your credentials, you might be a phishing target. Hackers use a fake login page from real-looking domains to trick you into giving up your account information, and while it's been an issue in the past, Uber is making it more difficult on cyber thieves with the addition of two-step verification.

News: Microsoft's HoloLens 2 Team Answers More Questions About Biometric Security, Audio, & Hand Tracking

Now that the dust has finally settled on Microsoft's big HoloLens 2 announcement, the company is circling back to offer more granular detail on some aspects of the device we still don't know about.

How To: Gain SSH Access to Servers by Brute-Forcing Credentials

SSH is one of the most common protocols in use in modern IT infrastructures, and because of this, it can be a valuable attack vector for hackers. One of the most reliable ways to gain SSH access to servers is by brute-forcing credentials. There are a few methods of performing an SSH brute-force attack that will ultimately lead to the discovery of valid login credentials.

News: Christian Dior Fashion Fans Can Now Try on Sunglasses & Headbands via Augmented Reality on Instagram

Fashion brand Christian Dior is using augmented reality as a carrot to drive up their follower counts on Instagram.

How To: Create Your Own Photo Filters in Adobe Lightroom for Faster Edits Later

Editing photos can be tedious, especially if you are using a similar theme for all of your photos. It takes time to select every tool, play with the bars, and find an adjustment that you're happy with. Luckily, there's a faster way. Adobe Lightroom for Android and iPhone allows you to save your favorite editing presets so you don't have to change every photo every time.

How To: Get Slack's Sidebar to Work with Dark Mode on Your Phone

Slack recently released a dark mode for its Android and iOS apps, and for the most part, it works great. Super dark gray backgrounds and light gray fonts, which is much easier on the eyes than blinding white backgrounds and black text. But there's one thing that is not affected by the new night mode setting — your sidebar.

How To: Get Dark Mode in Slack on Your iPhone or Android Phone

If you use the mobile Slack app, whether for work, school, or play, you know that the background color in discussions for channels, threads, and direct messages is white and that most of the text is black. Unlike with the sidebar, there's no way to customize the colors that appear here, but you do have one other option: dark mode.

How To: Change Slack's Sidebar Theme on Your iPhone or Android Phone for Customized Colors

For some reason, the Slack app on Android and iOS is a little less customizable than Slack on other platforms, so you can't adjust the sidebar theme to different colors directly inside the app. But that doesn't mean you can't customize the look of your mobile app at all. It's just a little less convenient.

News: Nreal Founder Explains Why Smartglasses Tethered to Smartphones Are the Future of Augmented Reality

If you've ever spent any serious time examining the Chinese tech startup world, you know that it moves fast — very fast. The tech startups hailing from Beijing and Shenzhen are moving so fast that they're now in serious competition with Silicon Valley.

News: Niantic Conjures Preview of Harry Potter Augmented Reality Game, Opens Pre-Registration on Google Play

While a release date for Harry Potter: Wizards Unite has not yet materialized, co-developers Niantic and WB Games have finally released gameplay footage and an in-depth game description to whet the appetites of eager Harry Potter fans.

News: Apple Just Released iOS 12.2 Public Beta 5, Includes Minor UI Changes

Public beta testers are in for a treat today. While Apple is extremely inconsistent with the release schedules for the developer and public betas, the company has once again released both versions of iOS 12.2 beta 5 today, March 11. If you're a public tester, you now get to experience all of iOS 12.2's new additions for yourself, instead of needing to read about them for up to 24 hours in advance.

News: Apple Just Released iOS 12.2 Developer Beta 5 for iPhone with Tiny UI Tweaks

If you're an iOS app developer, your Monday just got better; Apple just released iOS 12.2 developer beta 5 to your Software Updates today, March 11. This fifth beta includes a number of small UI changes and tweaks, and likely some degree of under-the-hood improvements and bug fixes.

News: HBO Crowns Snapchat as King of Its 'Game of Thrones' Augmented Reality Promotion at SXSW

The hype for HBO's Game of Thrones reached proportions as epic as the series itself this week with the latest release of the final season's official trailer, but it's a Snapchat promotion that will truly make fans at SXSW bend the knee.

How To: Inconspicuously Sniff Wi-Fi Data Packets Using an ESP8266

If you want to get started sniffing Wi-Fi networks, you usually need to start with a wireless network adapter. But thanks to a Wi-Fi sniffing library written in Arduino and the ultra-cheap ESP8266 chip, you might not need one. For less than $10 in electronics, you can build a tiny Arduino Wi-Fi sniffer that saves Wireshark-compatible PCAP files and fits anywhere.

How To: Samsung Disabled This S10 Setting — But Turning It On Will Drastically Improve Battery Life

It's no secret that Google is all about AI. In their eyes, machine learning is the future of software development, and you can see evidence of this all over the last couple Android updates. They've used it to power all sorts of features in their Pixel phones, and they've even donated some of their AI smarts to AOSP for all Android manufacturers to share. But it looks like Samsung isn't exactly on board.

Market Reality: Microsoft's HoloLens 2 Team Speaks, Apple AR Glasses Update, Matterport Lands $48 Million

While the long awaited HoloLens sequel is scheduled to arrive later this year, Apple may force Microsoft to share the AR wearables spotlight, if reports of the company's first entry into smartglasses territory end up coming to fruition.

How To: Use This Shortcut to Turn Any Photo into a Notch-Hiding Wallpaper on Your iPhone

While the notch on Apple's newer iPhones started a wave of notches across the smartphone market, there are still plenty of users who don't like screen-obstructing zone up top, and you may be one of them. While it may soon disappear in future iPhone models, or at least get smaller, there are things you can do to hide the big notch you have right now.

How To: Get Unique Face Filters by Following AR Creators on Instagram

It's easy to forget just how cool face filters are. Augmented reality has come a long way, and apps like Instagram now offer a suite of awesome effects to play with, but some of the best ones aren't easily found. There is a treasure trove of exclusive, custom face filters that are unavailable to the general public, but not at all inaccessible — you just need to know the right Instagram users.

How To: Bring Back the Vertical Recent Apps Menu on Your Galaxy in Android Pie

The Android 9 Pie update brought a lot of visual changes, some of which are a little too reminiscent of iOS. There's the new gesture controls, which are okay, but then there are things like a left-justified clock and the fact that the recent apps menu now scrolls horizontally instead of vertically. Luckily, Samsung has given us a way to bring back the classic Android style.

News: Apple to Start Augmented Reality Smartglasses Production Later This Year, Report Says

The Apple rumor mill is getting its first real workout of 2019, and this time the whispers are more exciting than usual.

How To: Play Your Own PS4 Games on Your iPhone with Sony's New Remote Play App

Can you be too lazy for video games? That's how I feel sometimes. I want to play the latest PlayStation has to offer, but I can't be bothered to get out of bed. As if Sony read the minds of lethargic gamers everywhere, the company has released an amazing thing — PS4 Remote Play allows you to play your PS4 on your iPhone, no TV required. The best part? It's 100% free.

How To: Disable App Icon Badges & Unread Counts on Your Galaxy S10

Your S10's notification panel can quickly fill up with alerts about incoming messages, emails, weather reports ... the list goes on and on. If that weren't enough, those notifications are accompanied by badges that pop up as tiny numbered circles overlaid on icons within your phone's home screen and app drawer.