Hidden Eye: Catch your friends

Ever wanted to know who has tried snooping into your phone while you were away. Your friends or family member might have tried to unlock your phone while you are away. Hidden Eye is a simple app with no frills that will photograph the person when they try to unlock your phone. You can set it to sound your default ringtone when a user tries to unlock your phone without your knowledge.
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An Encrypted Internet Is a Basic Human Right (Op-Ed)

Odubanjo Bolarinwa

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Nico Sell is co-founder and co-chairman of Wickr Inc. This Op-Ed is part of a series provided by the World Economic Forum Technology Pioneers, class of 2015. Sell contributed this article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.
George Washington could have become a king, but instead devoted his life to giving power back to the people. This is why his political heritage remains so strong today, inspiring millions around the world to continue striving for liberty and democracy. One of my favorite U.S. presidents, Washington proved that great leaders rule by empowering the people, not by usurping power.
In the next decade, billions of online citizens will join the Web, making national borders less relevant and the world more connected. Technology, as well as the hopes it fuels, has empowered millions of people across the globe to demand social and political change from some of its most oppressive governments. Yet, the same technology is being used to suppress and surveil more than half of the world's population: those still living under undemocratic regimes and lacking basic rights.

The right to private communication
The establishment of the U.S. Postal Service was one of the most visionary civil liberties events of its time, deeply rooted in Washington's belief that a strong state and society can only exist if every citizen has access to uncensored information and can freely communicate, away from the government's prying eyes. The Postal Act of 1792 that led to the founding of the modern post office established free speech and a right to private communications, going as far as imposing the death penalty for robbing mail service personnel. The newly established post office was envisioned to be the antipode of the crown post operated by the British government, which frequently opened and censored correspondence.
The same commitment to privacy and access to free, uncensored information is the reason we started Wickr. We currently serve millions of private, encrypted Wickr messages each day for users in more than 190 countries. Our vision is to bring this service to billions by making strong, trusted encryption incredibly easy and intuitive for personal or business use. This is only the beginning. [Right to Privacy: Constitutional Rights & Privacy Laws ]
Today, society needs to breathe new life into Washington's idea of an uncensored post office service by providing these basic rights to all 3 billion people already connected to the Web, and to those who will be coming online in the next decade. We need to collectively balance our global Web to ensure the Internet remains a platform for free speech and uncensored information, where privacy and real human connection enable strong social discourse and economic prosperity.
I call that space the private Web.
Away from prying eyes
The public Web has brought us incredible innovations that have improved lives and celebrated human creativity. But as we all move online, it becomes increasingly clear that, just as with any complex and ever-evolving system, the Internet requires a long-overdue fine-tuning.
We, as Web users, are generating millions of pieces of information about the most personal aspects of our lives on a daily basis, creating dangerous treasure troves of detailed and calibrated information. Once that information is in the open, we lose ownership of it, to the point that we do not even know who is collecting it.
Businesses increasingly depend on technology, becoming more and more vulnerable to critical data security breaches. Global financial, transport and security systems are being compromised almost weekly — either through targeted attacks or as a result of poor and outdated safeguards.
To expand the benefits of the Internet, we need to continue building the private Web — through applications, technology, policies and norms — to power innovation, develop ideas, protect our assets and strengthen human rights for all. Although achieving privacy and universal access to free, uncensored information will always be a moving target as technology evolves, our ability to intentionally choose a right mode of communication, private or public, is a critical step toward bringing George Washington's vision closer.
Encryption "back doors" are a risk
Today, it is essential to set the ground rules that will govern our networks and infrastructure systems in the future. Strong encryption is a key component of the private Web. Having trusted encryption without a back door — for either governments or criminals — will enable us to keep out not only the prying eyes of totalitarian regimes but also cyber criminals.
A recent debate around technology backdoors has raised a critical point. Is it possible to weaken encryption in a way that would only allow access to the "good" government and never to criminals or authoritarian regimes? The answer from many prominent technologists has been a loud, resounding "no." [Privacy, Pfft! Why NSA Surveillance Only Bothers Some People ]
Considering that most American Internet companies are operating as global entities that must comply with local laws, we should never adopt a policy that we would not want another government to adopt and exploit. If the U.S. government passes a law that requires a backdoor to operate in America, then what would stop the Chinese and Russian governments from doing the same, requiring U.S. companies to give backdoor access to them as well?
The encrypted future
Many questions remain regarding exactly how to achieve that vision in the hyperconnected, digital world.

If you're a topical expert — researcher, business leader, author or innovator — and would like to contribute an op-ed piece, email us here.

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• How will the private and public Web coexist? 
• What should the standards of data collection be? 
• How can companies that profit today from leveraging our personal and business information innovate around new business models? 
• How do we establish trust with companies we let host our most sensitive and valuable information? 
• How do we verify public promises that companies and governments make about their data retention and usage practices? 
• Who has the duty of care to our children's data, or our health and financial information? 
• How do we promote encryption by default? 

There are many more questions we all need to consider if, as a society, we value the progress we've made and the rights we continue to fight so hard for, both offline and online.
The U.S. Post Office served as a catalyst for building strong political and social discourse. For the first time, citizens were able to engage in political conversations without fear of being persecuted. Speech is only free when we have direct control of our communications — whether public or private — without the need to self-censor or fear that a piece of communication can be used out of context many years after it has been sent.
It is time to invest our energy, creativity and resources into building the Web's private hemisphere to carry on the tradition of private communications, uncensored information and ownership of our assets.
Read more from the Technology Pioneers on their Live Science landing page. Follow all of the Expert Voices issues and debates — and become part of the discussion — on Facebook, Twitter and Google+. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher. This version of the article was originally published on Live Science.

Easy ways to hack a network

Ping The IP address gives the attacker’s Internet address. The numerical address like 212.214.172.81 does not reveal much. You can use PING to convert the address into a domain name in WINDOWS: The Domain Name Service (DNS) protocol reveals the matching domain name.  PING stands for “Packet Internet Groper” and is delivered with practically every Internet compatible system, including all current Windows versions. Make sure you are logged on to the net. Open the DOS shell and enter the following PING command: Ping –a 123.123.12.1 Ping will search the domain name and reveal it. You will often have information on the provider the attacker uses e.g.:  dialup21982.gateway123.provider.com Pinging is normally the first step involved in hacking the target. Ping uses ICMP (Internet Control Messaging Protocol) to determine whether the target host is reachable or not. Ping sends out ICMP Echo packets to the target host, if the target host is alive it would respond back with ICMP Echo reply packets. All the versions of Windows also contain the ping tool. To ping a remote host follow the procedure below. Click Start and then click Run. Now type ping <ip address or hostname> (For example: ping yahoo.com) This means that the attacker logged on using “provider.com”. Unfortunately, there are several IP addresses that cannot be converted into domain names. For more parameter that could be used with the ping command, go to DOS prompt and type ping /?. Ping Sweep If you are undetermined about your target and just want a live system, ping sweep is the solution for you. Ping sweep also uses ICMP to scan for live systems in the specified range of IP addresses. Though Ping sweep is similar to ping but reduces the time involved in pinging a range of IP addresses. Nmap (http://www.insecure.org) also contains an option to perform ping sweeps. Tracert:   Tracert is another interesting tool available to find more interesting information about a remote host. Tracert also uses ICMP. Tracert helps you to find out some information about the systems involved in sending data (packets) from source to destination. To perform a tracert follow the procedure below. Tracer connects to the computer whose IP has been entered and reveals all stations starting from your Internet connection. Both the IP address as well as the domain name (if available) is displayed. If PING cannot reveal a name, Traceroute will possibly deliver the name of the last or second last station to the attacker, which may enable conclusions concerning the name of the provider used by the attacker and the region from which the attacks are coming. Go to DOS prompt and type tracert <destination address>   (For example: tracert yahoo.com). But there are some tools available like Visual Traceroute which help you even to find the geographical location of the routers involved. http://www.visualware.com/visualroute Port Scanning:- After you have determined that your target system is alive the next  important step would be to perform a port scan on the target system. There are a wide range of port scanners available for free. But many of  them uses outdated techniques for port scanning which could be easily recognized by the network administrator. Personally I like to use Nmap (http://www.insecure.org) which has a wide range of options. You can download the NmapWin and its source code from: http://www.sourceforge.net/projects/nmapwin. Apart from port scanning Nmap is capable of identifying the Operating system being used, Version numbers of various services running, firewalls being used and a lot more. Common ports: Below is a list of some common ports and the respective services running on the ports. 20 FTP data (File Transfer Protocol) 21 FTP (File Transfer Protocol) 22 SSH 23 Telnet 25 SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) 53 DNS (Domain Name Service) 68 DHCP (Dynamic host Configuration Protocol) 79 Finger 80 HTTP 110 POP3 (Post Office Protocol, version 3) 137 NetBIOS-ns 138 NetBIOS-dgm 139 NetBIOS 143 IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol) 161 SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol) 194 IRC (Internet Relay Chat) 220 IMAP3 (Internet Message Access Protocol 3) 389 LDAP 443 SSL (Secure Socket Layer) 445 SMB (NetBIOS over TCP) Besides the above ports they are even some ports known as Trojan ports used by Trojans that allow remote access to that system. Vulnerability Scanning: Every operating system or the services will have some vulnerabilities due to the programming errors. These vulnerabilities are crucial for a successful hack. Bugtraq is an excellent mailing list discussing the vulnerabilities in the various system. The exploit  code writers write exploit codes to exploit these vulnerabilities existing in a system. There are a number of vulnerability scanners available to scan the host for known vulnerabilities. These vulnerability scanners are very important for a network administrator to audit the network security. Some of such vulnerability scanners include Shadow Security Scanner,Stealth HTTP Scanner, Nessus, etc. Visit http://www.securityfocus.com vulnerabilities and exploit codes of various operating systems. Packet storm security (http://www.packetstormsecurity.com) is also a nice pick.

Tools Descriptions: 1. Nmap I think everyone has heard of this one, recently evolved into the 4.x series. Nmap (Network Mapper) is a free open source utility for network exploration or security auditing. It was designed to rapidly scan large networks, although it works fine against single hosts. Nmap uses raw IP packets in novel ways to determine what hosts are available on the network, what services (application name and version) those hosts are offering, what operating systems (and OS versions) they are running, what type of packet filters/firewalls are in use, and dozens of other characteristics. Nmap runs on most types of computers and both console and graphical versions are available. Nmap is free and open source. Can be used by beginners (-sT) or by pros alike (packet_trace). A very versatile tool, once you fully understand the results. Get Nmap Here - http://www.insecure.org/nmap/download.html 2. Nessus Remote Security Scanner Recently went closed source, but is still essentially free. Works with a client- server framework. Nessus is the worlds most popular vulnerability scanner used in over 75,000 organizations world-wide. Many of the worlds largest organizations are realizing significant cost savings by using Nessus to audit business-critical enterprise devices and applications. Get Nessus Here - http://www.nessus.org/download/ 3. John the Ripper Yes, JTR 1.7 was recently released! John the Ripper is a fast password cracker, currently available for many flavors of Unix (11 are officially supported, not counting different architectures), DOS, Win32, BeOS, and OpenVMS. Its primary purpose is to detect weak Unix passwords. Besides several crypt(3) password hash types most commonly found on various Unix flavors, supported out of the box are Kerberos AFS and Windows NT/2000/XP/2003 LM hashes, plus several more with contributed patches. You can get JTR Here - http://www.openwall.com/john/ 4. Nikto Nikto is an Open Source (GPL) web server scanner which performs comprehensive tests against web servers for multiple items, including over 3200 potentially dangerous files/CGIs, versions on over 625 servers, and version specific problems on over 230 servers. Scan items and plugins are frequently updated and can be automatically updated (if desired). Nikto is a good CGI scanner, there are some other tools that go well with Nikto (focus on http fingerprinting or Google hacking/info gathering etc, another article for just those). Get Nikto Here - http://www.cirt.net/code/nikto.shtml 5. SuperScan Powerful TCP port scanner, pinger, resolver. SuperScan 4 is an update of the highly popular Windows port scanning tool, SuperScan. If you need an alternative for nmap on Windows with a decent interface, I suggest you check this out, it’s pretty nice. Get SuperScan Here - http://www.foundstone.com/index.htm subnav=resources/navigation.htm&subcontent=/resources/proddesc/superscan4.htm 6. p0f P0f v2 is a versatile passive OS fingerprinting tool. P0f can identify the operating system on: - machines that connect to your box (SYN mode), - machines you connect to (SYN+ACK mode), - machine you cannot connect to (RST+ mode), - machines whose communications you can observe. Basically it can fingerprint anything, just by listening, it doesn’t make ANY active connections to the target machine. Get p0f Here - http://lcamtuf.coredump.cx/p0f/p0f.shtml 7. Wireshark (Formely Ethereal) Wireshark is a GTK+-based network protocol analyzer, or sniffer, that lets you capture and interactively browse the contents of network frames. The goal of the project is to create a commercial-quality analyzer for Unix and to give Wireshark features that are missing from closed-source sniffers. Works great on both Linux and Windows (with a GUI), easy to use and can reconstruct TCP/IP Streams! Will do a tutorial on Wireshark later. Get Wireshark Here - http://www.wireshark.org/ 8. Yersinia Yersinia is a network tool designed to take advantage of some weakeness in different Layer 2 protocols. It pretends to be a solid framework for analyzing and testing the deployed networks and systems. Currently, the following network protocols are implemented: Spanning Tree Protocol (STP), Cisco Discovery Protocol (CDP), Dynamic Trunking Protocol (DTP), Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP), Hot Standby Router Protocol (HSRP), IEEE 802.1q, Inter-Switch Link Protocol (ISL), VLAN Trunking Protocol (VTP). The best Layer 2 kit there is. Get Yersinia Here - http://yersinia.sourceforge.net/ 9. Eraser Eraser is an advanced security tool (for Windows), which allows you to completely remove sensitive data from your hard drive by overwriting it several times with carefully selected patterns. Works with Windows 95, 98, ME, NT, 2000, XP and DOS. Eraser is Free software and its source code is released under GNU General Public License. An excellent tool for keeping your data really safe, if you’ve deleted it..make sure it’s really gone, you don’t want it hanging around to bite you in the ass. Get Eraser Here - http://www.heidi.ie/eraser/download.php 10. PuTTY PuTTY is a free implementation of Telnet and SSH for Win32 and Unix platforms, along with an xterm terminal emulator. A must have for any h4. 0r wanting to telnet or SSH from Windows without having to use the crappy default MS command line clients. Get PuTTY Here. - http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/ 11. LCP Main purpose of LCP program is user account passwords auditing and recovery in Windows NT/2000/XP/2003. Accounts information import, Passwords recovery, Brute force session distribution, Hashes computing. A good free alternative to L0phtcrack. LCP was briefly mentioned in our well read Rainbow Tables and RainbowCrack article. Get LCP Here - http://www.lcpsoft.com/english/download.htm 12. Cain and Abel My personal favourite for password cracking of any kind. Cain & Abel is a password recovery tool for Microsoft Operating Systems. It allows easy recovery of various kind of passwords by sniffing the network, cracking encrypted passwords using Dictionary, Brute-Force and Cryptanalysis attacks, recording VoIP conversations, decoding scrambled passwords, revealing password boxes, uncovering cached passwords and analyzing routing protocols. The program does not exploit any software vulnerabilities or bugs that could not be fixed with little effort. Get Cain and Abel Here - http://www.oxid.it/cain.html 13. Kismet Kismet is an 802.11 layer2 wireless network detector, sniffer, and intrusion detection system. Kismet will work with any wireless card which supports raw monitoring (rfmon) mode, and can sniff 802.11b, 802.11a, and 802.11g traffic. A good wireless tool as long as your card supports rfmon (look for an orinocco gold). Get Kismet Here - http://www.kismetwireless.net/download.shtml 14. NetStumbler Yes a decent wireless tool for Windows! Sadly not as powerful as it’s Linux counterparts, but it’s easy to use and has a nice interface, good for the basics of war-driving. NetStumbler is a tool for Windows that allows you to detect Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs) using 802.11b, 802.11a and 802.11g. It has many uses: Verify that your network is set up the way you intended. Find locations with poor coverage in your WLAN. Detect other networks that may be causing interference on your network. Detect unauthorized rogue access points in your workplace. Help aim directional antennas for long-haul WLAN links. Use it recreationally for WarDriving. Get NetStumbler Here - http://www.stumbler.net/ 15. Hping To finish off, something a little more advanced if you want to test your TCP/IP packet monkey skills. hping is a command-line oriented TCP/IP packet assembler/analyzer. The interface is inspired to the ping unix command, but hping isn’t only able to send ICMP echo requests. It supports TCP, UDP, ICMP and RAW-IP protocols, has a traceroute mode, the ability to send files between a covered channel, and many other features. Get hping Here - http://www.hping.org/

Etisalat Free Browsing and Downloading Unlimited With Simple Server (PC, Android & Symbian USERS) 2015

No much waste of time, etisalat is crazily rocking on simple server… I know etisalat tweak doesn’t last but this one has been rocking since yesterday. Atleast with this, you can download whatever you want or can think before it will be hijacked by uncoded eti staffs. But might be very slow in surfing; but best in downloading. Just edit your simple server to what is below.

How To Setup Simple server For PC Users

L H O S T = ' 1 2 7 . 0 . 0 . 1 '

I M E T H O D = 1

I S P L I T = 0

R H T T P = 0

T I M E O U T = 6 0

P H O S T = ' 1 9 4 . 1 7 0 . 1 8 7 . 9 '

R Q U E R Y = ' '

R P A T H = 0

P T Y P E = 0

K E E P = ' '

B Q U E R Y = ' '

MQ U E R Y = ' '

R H T T P S = 1

P P O R T = 8 0

L P O R T = 8 0 8 0

V A L H D R 1 = ' '

V A L H D R 2 = ' '

V A L H D R 3 = ' '

I Q U E R Y = ' www . e t i s a l a t . c om . n g '

A DMO D E = 0

C Q U E R Y = ' '

C U S H D R 2 = ' '

C U S H D R 3 = ' '

C U S H D R 1 = ' '

I L I N E = 0

F Q U E R Y = ' '

S B U F F = 1 0 2 4

R P O R T = 0

How To setup Simple server For Android & Symbian phone Users

Access Point :- Default

Local Host :- 127.0.0.1

Local Port :- 8080

HTTP Query :-

Front Query : Non

Middle Query : None

Back Query : None

Reverse Query : None

Inject Query : www.etisalat.com.ng

Inject Method : HEAD

Inject Newline : \r\n

Inject Splitline : Default

HTTP Header :-

Custom Header 1 : Host

Header Value 1 : music.vodafone.com.tr Custom Header 2 : None

Header Value 2 : None

Custom Header 3 : None

Header Value 3 : None

Custom Header 4 : None

Header Value 4 : None

Proxy Host :- ' 194.170.187.9 '

Proxy Port : - 80

Then the Set IP and port for PC ,andriod & symbian to :

Ip:127.0.0.1

port: 8080

Mind you, this is not a bb plan, it doesn’t require any airtime or mb.. just Connect, surf and keep downloading until you are tired of downloading. 

DOWNLOAD ETISALAT SIMPLE SERVER HERE FOR PC

Download Simple Server For Symbian Users

Android user Download Simple Server here

You can also comment and share to your friends,

Is work perfectly and like jet speed incase if you have a problem or confuse during configure it on your PC.

You can contact me or find me via +2348094994773 ...

Enjoy the downloading speed....

How to browse UNLIMITED Using MTN BIS on PC & Android Phone Using SimpleServer @100

How to Use MTN BIS on PC & Android Phone Using SimpleServer

As you all know MTN still rocks flawlessly with Simple Server and TunnelGuru on PC and Android. And if you have huge files to download like season movies, OS etc, then you can use MTN Daily BIS as it is unlimited with Simple Server.

How Can I Get it working on PC?

==> Firstly Download simple server for PC here.

==> Extract the downloaded file and open the extracted file folder, click on the ‘Simpler Servers.exe and run the application.

==> Load N100 on your MTN line and send BBCDAY to 21600 , when activated slot the SIM into your modem >>Connect it to your PC then After receiving the welcome to Mtn Bis message, Go to setting on your Modem and configure your modem.

APN: web.gprs.mtnnigeria.net

Username  & Password : web >>

>> Also configure your browser and IDM to 127.0.0.1, port 8080 .

Open your browser and start surfing and downloading.

How Can I get it Working on Android?
==>Firstly Download Android simple server app here.

==> Install it on your Android

==>Create New APN settings On Your Phone As Follows.

Proxy: 127.0.0.1

Port: 8080

APN: Web.gprs.mtnnigeria.net

Save And Activate it simpleserver your default settings.

Go to simple server and configure the settings:

==>Pproxy host: 10.199.212.2

==>Proxy Port: 8080

==>Injection Method: get

==>Injection querry/url: http://web.blackberry.com

==>Injection Host: web.blackberry.com

==>Injection line: press your enter key 4 times

==>Log leve: debug Close the settings and click the connect button.

Connect and start surfing with your BBCDay on PC.

Do you know you can download anything you want for 24hrs until your unlimited plan time elapses and it will cost you just 100 naira to re activate the plan. Or use already activated monthly BIS Plan. Daily rocks unlimited.

Enjoy and share it to your friends...

For more help........... +2348094994773

Average cost of a 128GB SSD is now $50 for PC makers

Samsung's 850EVO SSD uses triple-level cell (TLC) NAND. TLC memory reduces the cost to produce SSDs, one of the reasons flash drives have dropped dramatically in price. Credit: Samsung

SSDs have crept up on hard drives in notebooks and claim 30% of that market

by: Odubanjo bolarinwa

The average price that computer manufacturers pay for a 128GB solid-state drive (SSD) dropped to $50 in the second quarter, while the average price of a 256GB SSD plunged to almost $90, according to research from DRAMeXchange.
Those prices are significant drops when compared to pricing in the first quarter of 2014, when a 128GB SSD had an average price of $77.20, and a 256GB SSD sold for $148. The decline has been steady, quarter after quarter, since then, according to DRAMeXchange data.
Of course, that's not what you or I would pay. The average retail price that consumers pay for a 128GB SSD is $91.55, and for an SSD in the 240GB to 256GB range, the price is about $165.34, DRAMeXchange's data showed.

Toshiba

The largest producer of NAND flash, Toshiba, announced this year the development of the first 48-layer, three-dimensional flash memory. The densest NAND to date.

Still, that's significantly less than what you would have paid two years ago or even a year ago, according to Jim Handy, principal analyst at Objective Analysis.
"Flash prices have been in a slow decline for the past year. They have come down about 25% since last June. Flash accounts for around 80% of the cost of the average drive, but remember that it's a higher share of higher-capacity SSDs, and a lower share of low-capacity SSDs," Handy said in an email reply to Computerworld.

The price for client-SSDs used by computer manufacturers has dropped steadily over the past year.

There are two components to SSD pricing, the flash memory cost and then the other components, such as the controller or integrated circuit that manages the read and write commands from the computer.
Other than increased SSD adoption, which spurs production and results in economies of scale and lower costs, there has been a conversion over the past few years from flash that stores two bits per transistor to products that store three bits. The more dense NAND flash memory is, the less it costs to produce SSDs with the same or more capacity.
The conversion from two-bit or multi-level cell (MLC) flash to triple-level cell (TLC) flash has dropped costs about 20% over the past year, Handy said.
"Controller prices seem to be falling at something closer to Moore's Law, or about 30%," Handy said.

Shrinking NAND size leads to lower cost

The latest research from DRAMeXchange, a division of TrendForce, indicates prices for internal SSDs are declining at an accelerated pace as the production of NAND flash also migrates to the 15 and 16 nanometer manufacturing processes. Previously, the width of transistors were in the 19-plus nanometer range: More density, lower production costs.
Flash manufacturers have also been stacking NAND flash transistors vertically -- so-called 3D NAND flash -- which further adds to its density and lowers production costs.
In the third quarter), the ratio of 3D-NAND flash products in shipments will start to increase and the market penetration of notebook SSDs will speed up. According to DRAMeXchange's projection, notebook SSDs' market penetration will be more than 30% for 2015 and will surpass 50% by 2017, taking over from hard drives that currently dominate the notebook sector.
"The [system manufacturer] market for client-SSDs has experienced a rapid price decline due to the increasing adoption of SSDs based on triple level cell (TLC) technology," said DRAMeXchange's assistant vice president Sean Yang. "Among the OEMs, Samsung Electronics Co. especially has been aggressively promoting TLC-based SSDs since their memory chips and controller chips are developed in house."

Toshiba

Toshiba calls its news 3D flash architecture BiCS (Bit Cost Scaling). The new flash memory stores two bits of data per transistor, meaning it's a multi-level cell (MLC) flash chip. It can store 128Gbits (16GB) per chip. This diagram illustrates how Toshiba and SanDisk's BiCS 3D NAND technology is structured.

Starting in 2014, the rising price-performance ratios of Samsung's TLC products have led to a rapid expansion of their share in the system manufacturer market for PCs.
Additionally, SSDs that incorporate both 3D NAND and TLC technologies have completed the client verification process in the first half of 2015 and are set to begin mass production and shipments in the second quarter.
Shipments of TLC products will grow faster in the second half of 2015 when Intel Corp. introduces its latest processor platform, Skylake. Hence, other SSD vendors will be in a hurry to develop their TLC-based SSD products, and this in turn will drive the transition of NAND flash production to the 15nm and 16nm processing technologies.
DRAMeXchange expects TLC-based SSDs using NAND flash from suppliers besides Samsung will be sent to PC manufacturers for testing in the third and fourth quarter.

A push for faster interfaces

Intel is also becoming more active in ensuring its processors support different SSD architectures via different interfaces.
Another bit of good news for users is that chip manufacturers are ramping up production of higher speed interfaces based on the PCIe serial bus standard. According to DRAMeXchange, PCIe SSDs are steadily making inroads in the market that is dominated by interfaces belonging to the mature SATA 3.0 technology.
Both the MacBook Pro and MacBook Air laptop models adopted PCIe in 2014, encouraging other PC-manufacturers to design products with the same interface and urging NAND flash suppliers to develop SSDs that match the application.
The market penetration of PCIe interfaces is expected to reach around 20% over the next year, based on DRAMeXchange's projection.
With Skylake and subsequent Intel processor platforms supporting SSDs with PCIe interfaces, SSD controller chip vendors will roll out more related, price-competitive integrated circuits. The SSD market therefore will see a noticeable increase in the share of products with PCIe interfaces next year.

Fab plants are now making superfast carbon nanotube memory

by: Odubanjo Bolarinwa

A depiction of what an NRAM chip would look like. Credit: Nantero

NRAM has an almost infinite number of write cycles, and is thousands of times faster than flash

A new type of non-volatile memory known as Nano-RAM (NRAM) -- it's based on carbon nanotube and sports DRAM speed -- is now being produced in seven fabrication plants in various parts of the world.
According to Nantero, the company that invented NRAM, it also has more than a dozen corporate customers lined up to begin experimenting with the memory once it begins rolling off production lines.
"So those fabs have been and are indeed producing large numbers of wafers and chips," said Greg Schmergel, CEO of Nantero. "They are sample chips/test chips in preparation for mass production, which requires the product designs to be completed."
Schmergel said it will likely take a couple more years before NRAM drives begin rolling off production lines.

Nantero

The geometric construct of a carbon nanotube.

"This is one of very few technologies that's moved beyond the research lab into high-volume manufacturing CMOS facilities," Greg Wong, principal analyst at Forward Insights, said in a statement. "NRAM's unique combination of high speed and high endurance has the potential to enable innovative products in a host of consumer and enterprise applications."
NRAM has the potential to create memory that is vastly more dense that NAND flash, which is used to make thumb drives and solid-state drives today. The densest NAND flash process today is near 15 nanometers. NRAM can reach densities of below 5 nanometers, according to Schmergel.
NRAM is up against an abundant field of new memory technologies that are expected to challenge NAND flash in speed, endurance and capacity, according to Jim Handy, principal analyst with semiconductor research firm Objective Analysis.
For example, Ferroelectric RAM (FRAM) has shipped in high volume, IBM has developed Racetrack Memory, Intel, IBM and Numonyx have all produced Phase-Change Memory (PCM), Magnetoresistive Random-Access Memory (MRAM) has been under development since the 1990s, Hewlett-Packard and Hynix have been developing ReRAM also called Memristor, and Infineon Technologies has been developing Conductive-Bridging RAM (CBRAM).
"It’s really very difficult to project which horse will win the race to become the replacement for NAND flash and DRAM in 2023 or so when we anticipate that change, this juncture is so far off," Handy said.
Over the past two years, Nantero has been able to reduce NRAM production costs 10-fold, making it compatible with complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS), the standard used for making microprocessors and DRAM.
One big advantage NRAM has over traditional NAND flash is its resistance to heat. It can withstand up to 300 degrees Celsius. Nantero claims its memory can last thousands of years at 85 degrees Celcius and has been tested at 300 degrees Celsius for 10 years. Not one bit of data was lost.

Nantero

An illustration of the NRAM cell (left) and photos taken of the carbon nanotube fabric with an electronmicroscop (right).

Anpther advantage is that NRAM is being built using the DDR4 specification interface, so it could sport up to 3.2 billion data transfers per second or 2,400 Mbps -- more than twice as fast as NAND flash. Natively, however, the NRAM's read/write capability is thousands of times faster than NAND flash, Schmergel said; the bottleneck is the computer BUS interface.
"Nanotube switch [states] in picoseconds -- going off to on and on to off," Schmergal said. A picosecond is one trillionth of a second.

Nantero

Carbon nanotubes are strong -- very strong. In fact, they're 50 times stronger than steel, and they're only 1/50,000th the size a human hair. Because of carbon nanotubes' strength, NRAM has far greater write endurance compared to NAND flash.
The best NAND flash, with error correction code, can withstand about 100,000 erase-write cycles. According to Nantero, NRAM can withstand 10¹² write cycles and 10¹⁵ read cycles -- an almost infinite number.
"Heat and vibration also will not cause errors," Schmergel said.

How NRAM works

Carbon nanotubes are grown from catalyst particles -- most commonly iron.
NRAM is made up of an interlocking fabric matrix of carbon nanotubes that can either be touching or slightly separated. Each NRAM "cell" or transistor is made up the network of the carbon nanotubes that exist between two metal electrodes. The memory acts the same way as other resistive non-volatile RAM technologies.
Carbon nanotubes that are not in contact with each other are in the high resistance state that represents the "off" or "0" state. When the carbon nanotube contact each other, they take on the low-resistance state of "on" or "1."

Nantero

An illustration showing the two states of NRAM, where one carbon nanotube is either touching another, creaing a low reisistance or "on" state; the other, where the tubes are not touching, creating a high resistance or "off" state.

Over the past few months, Nantero has hired more than a dozen chip design engineers who are working to create high density circuits, including three dimensional or stacked designs for increased capacity.
"If you're taking a gum stick, then your talking about many gigabytes of capacity -- terabytes in the future," Schmergel said.
Nantero doesn't plan on producing its own NRAM drives, which will initially be marketed for purposes similar to solid-state drive (SSD) gum sticks or internal memory boards. But it will license its intellectual property to companies to develop their own product. Nantero's engineers are still in the process of creating chip designs for the memory wafers.
Because of its resilience to heat, vibration and pressure, Nantero's carbon nanotube memory has caught the eye of aerospace giant Lockheed Martin and Schlumberger Ltd., the world's largest gas and oil exploration and drilling company; both companies are customers of Nantero.
Nantero declined to name its other customers.
"Clearly a company like [Schlumberger] would have need of memory that could perform in environments with very high heat down in an oil well," Schmerge said.
Founded in 2001, Nantero has to date generated $78.1 million in five rounds of funding, including a series E round for $31.5 million that it just closed. The company also announced that the former vice president of Intel's Flash Memory Group, Stefan Lai, has joined the company as a technical advisor. Lai co-invented the EPROM (erasable programmable read only memory) flash memory cell and led the Intel's phase change memory (PCM) development team.
"Nantero's NRAM has unique attributes that make it the most promising candidate to be the almost ideal memory: the nonvolatility of Flash, and the speed and functionality of DRAM with lower cost," Lai said.
Nantaro also announced that Yaw Wen Hu, a former executive vice president at Inotera Memories, has also come on board as a technical advisor. Inotera, a Taiwan-based partner of Micron, supplies nearly 10% of the world's 300mm DRAM silicon wafers at its two fabrication facilities.
"The availability of memory technology that is extremely fast, can deliver terabits of storage capacity in the future and consumes very little power, has the potential to change the future of electronics," said Alan, Niebel, CEO of Webfeet Research. "After researching NRAM for over twelve years, WebFeet applauds Nantero for reducing the costs of the CNTs in an NRAM chip by 10x in the last two years, making NRAM CMOS compatible and finally proving NRAM viability with commercial production capability from its licensees."

6 Amazing thing you don't know about you computer

6 amazing things you don’t know about your computer

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