Archive | February, 2013

Betroit – A new Lebanese movie by Adel Serhan

Betroit

Betroit is a new Lebanese movie by Adel Serhan that was filmed in Beirut and Detroit. It will start showing in Lebanese cinemas on March 3rd 2013.

Betroit, written and directed by Adel Serhan, is a portrayal of three couples as their lives become intertwined with one another. An act of violence disturbs the lives of the group and they come to realize how precious love and family can be. Leila (Darine Hamze) tries to escape from her abusive husband (Hassan Farhat) in hopes of fleeing to Detroit, where her sister Rola (Christine Solomon) lives. Lisa is desperately seeking a divorce from her husband Sam (Derek Kelly) in order to pursue a Hollywood career. She claims her husband physically abuses her in order to get Sam deported from the States. Rola, who is married to a successful lawyer Joe (Tamer Werfalli), both strives to help their friend Sam (Derek Kelly) and her sister’s marriage while struggling to have a baby of their own. Betroit addresses issues of domestic violence, culture, love and relationships between both the American and Middle Eastern culturet.

 

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Everybody can hack into your Blink wireless router!

It’s not a secret anymore that the routers you get from Ogero once you subscribe to their Blink DSL service can easily be hacked since their WiFi password is very easy to retrieve.

First of all, Blink routers are by default secured using WEP encryption which is very weak and can be cracked using wireless penetration tools. Second, they can easily be identified since they all have an SSID (network name) following this pattern “BlinkXXXXXX” where XXXXXX is a 6 character code, and this isn’t just any random code as it is derived from the router’s serial number. Unfortunately, the same applies to the WiFi password, it isn’t generated randomly but rather derived from the router’s serial number as well.

Logically speaking, if you encounter a Blink network and were able to reverse the operation in a way that lets you guess the router’s serial number from the 6 character code in the SSID, retrieving the password would then be a piece of cake since it can be derived from this serial. That’s basically what some people have been doing for a while now since several tools are already available online allowing you enter the 6 character code once you stumble across a Blink network, and gives you the password in a few seconds.

Up until lately, I was thinking the usage of these tools was somehow minimal and limited to techies since you will rarely find them on Lebanese website, until I lately came across this new Android application called “Hack Blink” with a download count of over 10,000 and rapidly increasing.

hack blink

Using the application is very straight forward, you enter the code and wait for the password, I tried it and it does work. So if you have a blink subscription, be sure someone around you will soon or later have this application and eventually start consuming your bandwidth.

Fortunately, there is a way to stop people from doing that by reconfiguring your router using this manual I found on Ogero’s website (which applies to Thomson routers). I strongly recommend you use that manual to change your SSID and setting the encryption algorithm to WPA2, in addition to of course changing the default wireless password. If you encounter any difficulty, make sure to either contact their customer support or just head to the nearest Ogero office in order for some support person to help you do it.

Best solution is definitely for Ogero to stop ordering their routers to be configured this way!

Thanks to @ZuZ for the information he previously provided in this post.

Update:

@AbirGhattas just informed me “Hack Blink” was removed from the Play Store. I still recommend you change your router’s default settings.

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Tghannaj ya na2ib tghannaj

Spotted by one of my Facebook friends at Dora highway yesterday. The car was obviously heading to the demo near the Grand Serail.

funny sign

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Lebanese bloggers reinvent the world

Nicolas Sehnaoui

The ministry of telecommunication is holding a competition called “Lebanese bloggers reinvent the world” and offering the winner a trip to Silicon Valley with minister Nicolas Sehnaoui.

All you have to do is submit a blog post about one creative invention that you think might change the world, to be assessed by a jury of prominent Lebanese in Silicon Valley working in the ICT sector.

The digital era is revolutionizing our societies.

As Lebanese, we are uniquely equipped with the creativity needed to succeed and shine brighter than any other country on the Digital Sphere. So let’s embrace the digital revolution and reinvent the World!

Whether it’s a flying car, a humanoid Nano-Robot that manipulates our DNA or an environmental country sized biosphere that reduces pollution we all have that one crazy creative invention that might change humanity.

Compose and submit a blog post about this topic under the main title “Lebanese Bloggers Reinvent the World”, accompanied with a subtitle reflecting your own Invention.

Blog posts will be judged by a jury of prominent Lebanese in the Silicon Valley working in the ICT sector based on the writing style and the creativity of the Invention.

The winner will get the chance to visit the Silicon Valley with Minister Sehnaoui end of March.

If you have some creative idea, make sure to write about it and submit it as soon as possible to the competition website www.reinventingtheworld.net, since the competition ends in a couple of days from now on March 1st, and results will be announced on March 6th.

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Disciplinary actions against the Lebanese football players involved in match fixing

Lebanese football

Following the reports about illegal betting and match fixing affecting the Lebanese football league started emerging last year with news about players, coaches, and even administrative staff being involved in this scandal. Al-Jadeed TV started tweeting a while ago about the actions to be taken by the Lebanese Football Federation against the involved players.

In total, 24 players turned out to be involved. Two of them will banned for life, Mahmoud Al-Ali who currently plays for Persiba Balikpapan in the Indonesia Super League, and Ramez Dayoub who plays for Selangor FA in the Malaysia Super League. Two others, Hasi Sehmarani and Hadi Jaafar, will be suspended for 3 seasons, in addition to 20 other players who will be suspended for 1 season each.

I’ll be updating the post once a full article is posted somewhere about the issue, but meanwhile you can follow the tweets by Al-Jadeed.

Update:

Check this article for more about the results of the investigation carried by the Lebanese Football Federation.

The 20 players who will be banned for 1 season are Ali Bazzi, Ali Faour, Ahmed Zreik, Hassan Mazhar, Abbas Kanaan, Mohammad Hammoud, Muhammad Abu Atiq, Hussein Dakkik, Samer Zeinedine, Hassan Alawiyeh, Mohammed Baqir Younis, Ali al-Saadi, Omar Aweidah, Tariq Ali, Akram Al Maghrebi, Sadek Assad, Bashar al-Miqdad, Hussein Sharifeh and Ahmad Younes.

So we will basically have to recruit a new national team!

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RIP Yassine Bakkouch

Yassine Bakkouch

The great Syrian comedian was killed after his car was targeted in Damascus last night.

We all watched him along with Duraid Lahham in Ghawar El Tocheh and Hotel Sah El Nom when we were kids, and it’s sad to see people like him go like that. May he rest in peace.

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Busting Law 174 violators in Lebanon

The people behind Law 174’s page on Facebook are doing a good job by not just indicating which places are violating the smoking ban in Lebanon, but also naming the public figures who are breaking the law.

Among the people who made it to the page so far are Assi Hellani who owns “Assi” restaurant in Verdun, Dr. Joseph Azouri who owns “Le Maillon Cafe” along with 12 other doctors, Nathalie Fadlallah who owns “f by Nathalie”, Marlene Boutros Harb, and Nada Riad Salameh.

The number of violations people regularly report to the page definitely calls for increasing the number of tourist policemen in the country!

174-3

174-2

174-1

174

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Footage of the gunmen storming Tripoli’s Islamic Hospital

This country is seriously going beyond insane. A group of gunmen stormed into Tripoli’s Islamic Hospital last night and released a detainee called Mohamad Youssef, who was arrested for opening fire on minister Faisal Karami’s convoy a while ago, after beating up the police men who were guarding him.

Weirdly enough, the man was handed back to the security forces some hours later!

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Yanni is coming to Lebanon

Yanni Byblos

I just learned Yanni will be performing at Byblos Festival on June 30th and July 1st as part of his world tour this year. He’s absolutely one of my favorite musicians and I’m really glad we will finally get to see him live here.

In case you’ve never heard of him, chances are you have definitely heard some of his work since a lot of Lebanese radio and TV shows use some of the music he composes.

Tickets will be on sale for 50, 75, 100, 150 and $200, and can be purchased from all Vigrin branches or online here.

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