3 Notable Alternatives to uTorrent

Last week, BitTorrent Inc, the company that bought uTorrent in 2006, announced that uTorrent will start displaying advertisements and sponsored torrents to generate revenue. Following this announcement, BitTorrent Inc. received huge backlash from the community who were already getting bitter with the bloat each update brought to this once lightweight torrent client. The negative feedback forced the company to back pedal on its decision; advertisements will stay but they can be turned off. This still makes uTorrent essentially an adware and the community is not happy about it. Several of them have already switched to alternative torrent clients, and if you are one who is looking to, let me offer you three choices.

Tixati

Tixati is an easy to use Torrent client with a no-nonsense interface, easily accessible options and vast number of reporting features like detailed peer and swarm information, peer connection encryption, local file management features, scheduled downloads, customizable event logging and more.

Tixati features:

• Detailed views of all aspects of the swarm, including peers, pieces, files, and trackers
• Support for magnet links, so no need to download .torrent files if a simple magnet-link is available
• Super-efficient peer choking/unchoking algorithms ensure the fastest downloads
• Peer connection encryption for added security
• Full DHT (Distributed Hash Table) implementation for trackerless torrents, including detailed message traffic graphs and customizable event logging
• Advanced bandwidth charting of overall traffic and per-transfer traffic, with separate classification of protocol and file bytes, and with separate classification of outbound traffic for trading and seeding
• Highly flexible bandwidth throttling, including trading/seeding proportion adjustment and adjustable priority for individual transfers and peers
• Bitfield graphs that show the completeness of all downloaded files, what pieces other peers have available, and the health of the overall swarm
• Customizable event logging for each download, and individual event logs for all peers within the swarm
• Expert local file management functions which allow you to move files to a different partition even while downloading is still in progress
• Portable version available

qBittorrent

qBittorrent is an easy to use BitTorrent client that comes the closet to what uTorrent has to offer, both in terms of appearance and functionality. qBittorrent is open source and hence supports a wider range of platforms including Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, Solaris, BSD and UNix.

The program includes a built-in search engine with support for major Torrent indexers, RSS feeds, Torrent creator and Bandwidth filtering among other features. It supports all Bittorrent extensions such as DHT, Peer Exchange, Full encryption and Magnet URI. It’s also compatible with UPnP / NAT-PMP and more.

One very useful function of qBittorrent is the ‘alternative global speed limit’ that allows you to toggle between two speed limits with the click of a button. You set two different connection limits, say one with unthrottled speeds and one with limited bandwidth, and then switch one from the other when required. For example, when you want to watch Hulu and also download torrent, you can switch to the low bandwidth mode so that there is enough bandwidth left for stutter free video streaming.

The main features present in qBittorrent are:

• Polished µTorrent-like User Interface
• Well-integrated and extensible search engine
  -Simultaneously search well-known BitTorrent search sites
  -Per-category-specific search requests (e.g. Books, Music, Movies)
• All Bittorrent extensions: DHT, Peer Exchange, Full encryption, Magnet URI, ...
• Remote control through a Web user interface; Nearly identical to the regular UI, all in Ajax
• Advanced control over trackers, peers, and torrents
  -Torrents queuing and prioritizing
  -Torrent content selection and prioritizing
• UPnP / NAT-PMP port forwarding support
• Available in ~25 languages (Unicode support)
• µTorrent spoofing to bypass private trackers white-listing
• Advanced RSS support with download filters (inc. regex)
• Bandwidth scheduler
• IP Filtering (eMule and PeerGuardian compatible)
• IPv6 compliant

Deluge

Deluge is an open source, and cross platform BitTorrent client that looks just like any other torrent software. The torrents queue is to the top pane, and details on the bottom pane. You can view details such as hash, number of files, comments, tracker, size, download progress and priority of each file. Then there is peers information such as addresses, clients, and there downloading and uploading speed.

In Preferences you can set the default download path, enable the prioritization of first and last pieces of the torrent, use specific ports, enable or disable network extras (e.g. UPnP, LSD, Peer Exchange). You can also set global bandwidth usage, allow remote connections, configure proxy settings, and enable plugins.

Deluge features a rich plugin collection. In fact, most of Deluge's functionality is available in the form of plugins, although you won’t notice these as they are installed by default. A few more are available for download, like Torrent search, RSS feeds, Network Activity Graph, blocklist, scheduler, Growl integration etc.

One option that I like in Deluge, is the ability to minimize the program to the system tray, and password protect the tray icon. There are times when you keep your PC running for torrenting while you are away. You can then put a password in Deluge to prevent anybody from stopping the download or snooping around.

Clover 2: Chrome Like Tabs on Windows Explorer

Will Microsoft ever give us tabbed functionality in Windows Explorer? They may eventually, but not until Windows 10 or beyond … or maybe never. Meanwhile people who desire more out of their file browsers can continue using third party tools like Total Commander or free alternatives like BExplorer. For people who can’t let go Windows Explorer, there is QTTabBar, a shell extension that adds tabs to Explorer.
Clover 2 is a similar utility that brings the tabbed interface to Windows Explorer. Clover 2, which is heavily inspired by the Chrome browser, adds a frame around Explorer that consist of a tab-bar and a bookmarks bar. Every new Explorer window you launch is opened as a tab inside the Clover 2 frame. The tabs look identical to Chrome tabs and it even brings along certain Chrome tabs functionality like the ability to pin tabs, close other tabs etc.

The bookmarks bar is redundant as we already have Favorites and Libraries in Explorer, but some users will like them nonetheless.
The only drawback you’ll face with Clover 2 is that drag and drop between two Explorer windows become impossible as there is no way to open two Explorer windows side by side. All instances of Windows Explorer are turned into Tabs by Clover 2.

Convert Windows 7 Themes to Windows 8 Auto Color Themes

Themes designed for Windows 8 comes with an auto-color feature that smoothly and automatically shift the Windows desktop title bar and taskbar color to match the dominant color in whichever background image is currently being displayed. While it is possible to install themes made for Windows 7 on Windows 8, this auto color feature becomes unavailable when you do so.
ThemeConverter for Windows 8 is a small utility that lets you convert “normal” Windows 7 themes into Windows 8 auto-color themes by injecting the right parameters into the theme file.
Using this easy: Just go to Windows Personalization Gallery and grab some cool, awesome themes. Or check out our extensive collection of Windows 7 themes under the Customization section.

Install the themes like you do in Windows 7. Then run ThemeConverter for Windows 8. Pick the theme you want to auto-color and then add the auto-color setting with a single click. Now head to theme Personalization settings from the desktop and choose the auto-color option.
Auto-color is optional feature and can be turned off under Personalization options.

20+ Interesting & Good Online Games

Hi Guys,
Today, I am here with a good list of Online Games. Nowadays, Online Games are a worth more famous than the Game which you buy….

Even, the oldest ones play online games {Just as My Father }…. I will introduce you with the best 21 online games which you might be playing.

Below is the list of the best online games you might have ever played:-

1. Mafia Wars- A Very Interesting Game from Zynga about the Underworld Dons.
2. RuneScape- An Adventurous Game with over 150 + Quests to solve and 24 Unique Skills to play with.
3. Club Penguin- A Good Multipayer Game where peoples all over the world interact with others using Chat options and Playing Games in the Game such as Sled RAcing with friends.
4. Dirt Bike 4- An Interesting Bike Game for you to pass your free time with.
5. Street Sesh 2- A Good Skate Boarding Game with some Adventure for you to Play the Game.
6. Terrorist Hunt- A Shooting Game based on the Game Counter Strike.
7. Sock And Awe- A Game to hit George Bush with shoes {:P}.
8. MotoCross Fever- A Bike Racing Game.
9. 3 Foot Ninja 2- A Fighting And Adventurous Game.
10. Become A Waiter- A Game where you become a Waiter and get orders and do a customer service.
11. Blackjack Online- Perhaps the most popular among the games that are played on the Internet . Unpredictability makes the game a real challenge for the players who are left guessing most of the times. Yet it keeps the mind preoccupied and is real fun having a bit of element of luck.
12. Super Mario World Revived- One Of the Great Game of Mario.
13. Who Wants to be a Millionaire- Answer 15 Questions to win 1 Million Dollors {Fake but interesting game} . More than 1500 Questions to play with.
14. Battle In MegaVille- An Interesting Fighting Game.
15. Cone Crazy- Be A Crazy Man and Crash All those Cones next to you in time.
16. Naruto Arena- A Multiplayer Naruto Game for you.
17. Tom and Jerry- A Strategy Game to trap Jerry.
18. Metal Slug Mario World- Another Mario Game.
19. Street Fighter Flash- A Fighting Game {Famous too}.
20. Prince Of Persia- A Good and Adventurous Game.
21. Batman- An Adventurous Game.

Here Finishes My List… Hope You Enjoyed It…
ENJOY!

Windows 8 evaluation for developers

The Windows 8 Enterprise 90-day evaluation is available to developers to build and test Windows 8 apps on the final version of Windows 8. After installing Windows 8, go to the Windows Dev Center developer downloads page to install Visual Studio 2012 and related tools to build Windows 8 apps.

About This Evaluation

This evaluation provides a 90-day trial of Windows 8 Enterprise edition. Both 32-bit and 64-bit versions are available as ISO images in the following languages: Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), English, English (UK), French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese (Brazil), and Spanish. In order to use this evaluation, you must register and the product must be activated online with Microsoft-hosted activation and validation services. Microsoft does not provide technical support for this software.

Is the evaluation edition really for you?

This is intended for developers building Windows 8 apps and IT professionals interested in trying Windows 8 Enterprise on behalf of their organization. If you qualify under one of the following programs listed below, you may already have access to the final bits and do not need to download this 90-day evaluation.

• MSDN Subscription
• Microsoft Partner Network
• TechNet Professional Subscription
• Microsoft Volume Licensing/Software Assurance

Things to Know Before You Start

• The evaluation edition will expire and cannot be upgraded.
• To upgrade, the evaluation must be uninstalled and a non-evaluation version of Windows must be re-installed from your original installation media.
• Consider running the evaluation edition in a virtual environment or installing on a separate hard drive or partition. The will allow you to upgrade your original Windows installation to Windows 8.
• During registration (required) you must login with a Microsoft account and provide your name, e-mail address and country.
• You are required to activate the product online within 10 days after installing.
• Once the evaluation is installed, you cannot upgrade. To revert to a previous version of Windows, you must do a clean install from your original installation media.

Activation and Usage Guidelines

• Back up your files and settings before installing this evaluation and again prior to the 90-day expiration.
• Upon installation, you will have 10 days to activate this evaluation online. Windows will prompt you to activate. A product key is not required for this software.
• You must complete activation before August 15, 2013, to use this evaluation.
• Once you activate, you have up to 90 days to use the software. You can track the amount of time you have left by referring to the "watermark" in the lower right corner of the Windows desktop.
• If you fail to activate this evaluation within the 10-day grace period, or if your evaluation period expires, the desktop background will turn black, you will see a persistent desktop notification indicating that the system is not genuine, and the PC will shut down every hour losing unsaved work.
• Following the evaluation period, you will need to replace the operating system on your test computer and reinstall all your programs and data. It is not possible to upgrade the evaluation to a licensed working version of Windows 8. A clean installation is required.

System Requirements

Windows 8 works on the same hardware that powers Windows 7:

• Processor: 1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster
• RAM: 1 gigabyte (GB) (32-bit) or 2 GB (64-bit)
• Hard disk space: 20 GB
• Graphics card: Microsoft DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM driver

Additional requirements to use certain features:

• To use touch, you need a tablet or a monitor that supports multitouch.
• To access the Windows Store and to download and run apps, you need an active Internet connection and a screen resolution of at least 1024 x 768.
• To snap apps, you need a screen resolution of at least 1366 x 768.
• Internet access (ISP fees might apply)

Download the Windows 8 evaluation for developers

Downloading the Windows 8 Enterprise 90-day evaluation could take a few hours. The exact time will depend on your provider, bandwidth, and traffic. If your download gets interrupted, it will restart where it left off. See this download FAQ for details. For technical questions, please visit the Windows 8 developer technical forums.

Select the Version You Want to Download

All downloads are provided as ISO images. Start by choosing the 32-bit or 64-bit version. Each version is available in the following languages: Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), English, English (UK), French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese (Brazil), and Spanish.

Download the 32-bit (x86) version:

Download the 64-bit (x64) version:

Free Try Windows 8 For 90 Days Without Purchasing

Free Try Windows 8 For 90 Days Without Purchasing

Microsoft has released Windows 8 RTM or the final version to Technet and MSDN subscribers just a couple of hours ago. If you are not a subscriber, you can still get your hands on a 90 days trial version of Windows 8 Enterprise edition.
In order to use this evaluation, you must register and the product must be activated online with Microsoft-hosted activation and validation services within 10 days of installation. Failure to do so will result in the desktop background turning black and you will see a persistent desktop notification indicating that the system is not genuine. The PC will shut down every hour losing unsaved work.
No product key is required for the evaluation version. Once installed, you cannot upgrade to another Windows version even if purchase Windows 8 after they become available post October 26. Microsoft will also not provide technical support for this software.
Once you activate, you have up to 90 days to use the software. You can track the amount of time you have left by referring to the "watermark" in the lower right corner of the Windows desktop. Once the edition expires, after 90 days, you will need to replace the operating system on your test computer and reinstall all your programs and data. It is not possible to upgrade the evaluation to a licensed working version of Windows 8. A clean installation is required.
The Windows 8 Enterprise edition is available in both 32-bit and 64-bit versions in multiple languages: Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), English, English (UK), French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese (Brazil), and Spanish. The Windows 8 Enterprise Trial will be available for download until August 15, 2013.

Download Windows 8 Enterprise edition 90 days trial.

Run Android 3.0 Honeycomb on Computer

How to  Run Android 3.0 Honeycomb on Computer

Earlier we shared how you can run Android 2.2 Froyo on computer and now the specially designed Android OS for Tablets named Android 3.0 Honeycomb is here. In this post, you will learn how to run Android 3.0 Honeycomb on your computer screen. Motorola XOOM, LG Optimus Pad, Samsung Galaxy Tab2 etc. tablets which are scheduled to come in next few days are running on Honeycomb OS. As the Android 2.2 or 2.3 versions were designed for mobile devices where you get screen real estate of approximately 4 inches but in case of tablets that may go up to 10 inches. That’s why Google’s Android OS 2.2 / 2.3 where not suitable for tablets. But now Android 3.0 Honeycomb is here which is having exclusively designed UI and interface for tablet devices to utilize the available hardware performance and screen real estate.
Google has released the final SDK of Android 3.0 Honeycomb and now you can run this tablet specific OS on your Windows PC, Mac OS and Linux. Here is how you can run Honeycomb on computer.

Steps to Run Android 3.0 Honeycomb on PC

- Download the Android SDK (either ZIP or EXE) on Windows PC. You can choose to download for Mac or Linux as well. If you are already having the previous SDK installed on your computer and skip this step.
- Installation of packages – Whether you have just downloaded SDK or have the previous one, now you need to install the available packages which includes Android 3.0 API and other updates related to that and other versions. To do that, go into the “Tools” folder in the downloaded SDK Unzipped folder and click on “android” application. A window will open where you need to select the option “Installed Packages” from the left menu.

- Click on “Update All” button available at the bottom of the window. The new packages including Android 3.0 updates will start to download. It may take time (few hours depending on your Internet connection speed) to complete the download and installation.
- Once the new packages are installed, its time to create a new AVD. To do that, go to the “Virtual Devices” option from the left menu on same screen and click on “New” button.
- It will ask for the name of the AVD and Android version that will want on that. Select the Android version as “Android 3.0 API Level 11” and give SD Card size as 10,000 MB.
- Once the AVD is created, select that AVD name from the list available under “Virtual Devices” and click on “Start” button to start the Android 3.0 stimulator

Done. In next few minutes, you will have Android 3.0 Honeycomb running on your computer. You can explore the features, options and new UI on your computer without purchasing any Android 3.0 tablet. Of course tablet with Honeycomb will be a very different experience because of the touch screen and other UI changes done by companies but this vanilla installation of Honeycomb is also very good.
Here are few snaps that I took while running Android 3.0 Honeycomb on my Windows 7 computer.

Screenshots of Android 3.0 Honeycomb taken on Windows 7 PC

Very first screen after staring the AVD of Android 3.0

First screen of Android 3.0 Honeycomb – having Google Search box

Android 3.0 running – in background you can see Windows 7 desktop

Apps available on Android 3.0 SDK vanilla

Wireless and networks settings page on Honeycomb

About Phone – on Settings page where you can see Android Version as 3.0

Google running on Android 3.0 Honeycomb browser

Internet Techies on Android 3.0 browser

Android 3.0 Screen – Full utilization of tablet’s display real estate

Are you planning to install SDK of Android 3.0 Honeycomb on your computer? In case you are facing any problem, read the documentation available on Android developer section. Enjoy the Honeycomb OS on your Windows, Mac or Linux and come up with some development for this beautiful tablet OS by Google.

Access Blocked Sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube in Pakistan

In recent past, Facebook banned in Pakistan and then YouTube and Twitter also blocked. People can’s access these sites in Pakistan as message appears that “You are not authorized to access this page”. But if your country, college, office, school is blocking any site and you want to access that from there, you can also use Proxy Servers to do the same. Here is the list of 10 Proxy websites which are nothing but 10 ways to access blocked sites at your place.

List of Proxy Websites to Access Blocked Sites

1. ProxEasy – Free Service

2. Proxify – Paid Service

3. RocketSurf

4. Zerolike.com

5. 2UnblockSites

6. ProxyBoxOnline

7. Evade Filters

8. ExitB

9. Self Hide

10. UnDirect

[ List of sites via ]

To use these proxy sites, you just need to paste the URL of the blocked site in the input box and then you will be redirected to a page where you can see the data from blocked site. Some of these services are free to use but some of them are paid as well.

12+ New Windows 7 Themes

12+ New Windows 7 Themes

After a long hiatus, I’m back with yet another collection of themes for Windows 7 released during the last couple of months. All the themes have been hand picked, but not tested. Please refer to the theme author’s instruction on how to install the themes. To see previous collection of themes, visit the Customization section.

Aero+

Amana2

Androidism

Bouark

Creme

Dockbar 7

Luto

Osituro

Romerah

.Soft7.iMod

Stylysh lite

Tonic for Windows 7

How to Reinstall Windows 8 Without Losing Installed Programs and Files With RecImg Manager

How to Reinstall Windows 8 Without Losing Installed Programs and Files With RecImg Manager

RecImg Manager is a new software product from Slimware utilities, the makers of SlimCleaner, SlimComputers and SlimDrivers, that is designed to backup and restore your entire Windows 8 operating system together with installed programs but without affecting your personal files.

Traditional PC backup and recovery tools simply take a snapshot of the PC's entire disk or a disk image which is then written back to the hard disk during recovery. Unfortunately, this results in the loss of personal documents created or altered since the snapshot was taken. Also, a significant amount of storage space is required.




RecImg Manager, on the other hand, creates a backup snapshot of just the Windows 8 operating system core files and other installed software rather than backing up the entire disk. This makes the recovery process quicker and the backup takes significantly less storage space. Because of this, RecImg Manager can be scheduled to create backup snapshots as frequently as desired. When restoring, only the system files and programs are reinstalled; your personal files are untouched and any changes you made to them are retained.
The small sizes of the backup snapshots makes RecImg Manager ideal for tablets, ultrabooks and other Windows 8 based devices with limited storage. There is an option to store backups on removable drives though.

RecImg Manager Features:

• Free, unlimited Windows 8 operating system recovery and reset, including all system files, program files, settings and installed software, in a matter of minutes with no data loss.
• All video, music, personal documents and files all remain intact; no personal documents are erased during restore or recovery.
• Backup images are small enough to be stored on tablets, notebooks, ultrabooks and other Windows devices, making it easy to reinstall Windows and applications.
• Seamless integration with devices running Windows 8.
• Store backups on local and removable drives.
• Manage multiple backups with name, date, description and backup size.
• Schedule – and specify the location of – automatic backups.
• Set the maximum number of snapshots to keep.
• Automatically purge outdated snapshots.
• Modern Windows 8 Metro-style interface is easy to use, and works well on tablets.
• Very small application size (downloads and installs quickly)

iPhone Has Passed a Key Security Threshold

Does society really want extremely private mobile devices if they make life easier for criminals? Apple's newly toughened standards sharpen the focus on that question.

Less than a month after Apple first shipped the iPhone in June 2007, a group called Independent Security Evaluators documented deep security design flaws in the device. Apple's most embarrassing flub: every iPhone application that Apple had written ran with so-called root privileges, giving each one complete control over the entire phone. Hackers found bugs in those apps that could be used to take over the phone from the inside. Apple didn't fix the design flaw until January 2008.
But after that rocky launch, Apple invested heavily in iPhone security. It's still possible for a hacker to take over a phone, but it's increasingly difficult, largely because each app runs in its own isolated "sandbox." The phone even verifies its operating system when it boots. Today the Apple iPhone 4S and iPad 3 are trustworthy mobile computing systems that can be used for mobile payments, e-commerce, and the delivery of high-quality paid programming—all of which bring Apple significant revenue in the form of commissions.

In fact, in its efforts to make its devices more secure, Apple has crossed a significant threshold. Technologies the company has adopted protect Apple customers' content so well that in many situations it's impossible for law enforcement to perform forensic examinations of devices seized from criminals. Most significant is the increasing use of encryption, which is beginning to cause problems for law enforcement agencies when they encounter systems with encrypted drives.

Thing reviewed:
iOS Security Apple, May 2012

"I can tell you from the Department of Justice perspective, if that drive is encrypted, you're done," Ovie Carroll, director of the cyber-crime lab at the Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section in the Department of Justice, said during his keynote address at the DFRWS computer forensics conference in Washington, D.C., last Monday. "When conducting criminal investigations, if you pull the power on a drive that is whole-disk encrypted you have lost any chance of recovering that data."
Mass-market cryptography hasn't been thought of as a potential threat to law enforcement since the "crypto wars" of the 1990s. Back then there was a very public battle against U.S. laws and regulations that limited the use and export of cryptographic technology. On one side, civil liberties groups and business interests said that the public needed strong cryptography to protect privacy and financial transactions. On the other side, law enforcement organizations warned that the same technology would empower drug dealers, kidnappers, money launderers, and terrorists.

Law enforcement lost the crypto wars: today there is essentially no restriction on mass-market cryptography. Fortunately, few of the predicted horribles came to pass. One reason is that the encryption systems developed and sold to consumers over the past 20 years have had an Achilles' heel: there has been no good way to let users securely manage encryption keys. Cryptography, for all its power, provides no security unless the keys used to lock the data remain secret.

Enter the iPhone. Apple's security architecture is so sturdy, and so tightly woven into its hardware and software, that it is both easy for consumers to use encryption on their phones and very difficult for someone else to steal the encrypted information.

At the heart of Apple's security architecture is the Advanced Encryption Standard algorithm (AES), a data-scrambling system published in 1998 and adopted as a U.S. government standard in 2001. After more than a decade of exhaustive analysis, AES is widely regarded as unbreakable. The algorithm is so strong that no computer imaginable for the foreseeable future—even a quantum computer—would be able to crack a truly random 256-bit AES key. The National Security Agency has approved AES-256 for storing top-secret data.

Apple did not respond to requests for comment on this story. But the AES key in each iPad or iPhone "is unique to each device and is not recorded by Apple or any of its suppliers," the company said in a security-related white paper. "Burning these keys into the silicon prevents them from being tampered with or bypassed, and guarantees that they can be access only by the AES engine."

What this means in practice is that when iOS devices are turned off, the copy of the encryption key in the computer's accessible memory is erased. That is why an investigator who gets a suspect's phone would have to try all possible keys—the task deemed impossible by the NSA.

The iPhone and iPad do keep a copy of the encryption key deeper in flash memory—otherwise there would be no way for the device to recover data when it was turned back on. But that encryption key is itself protected by the user's "PIN lock," a code that must be entered before the device can be used.
The iPhone always supported a PIN lock, but the PIN wasn't a deterrent to a serious attacker until the iPhone 3GS. Because those early phones didn't use their hardware to perform encryption, a skilled investigator could hack into the phone, dump its flash memory, and directly access the phone's address book, e-mail messages, and other information. But now, with Apple's more sophisticated approach to encryption, investigators who want to examine data on a phone have to try every possible PIN. Examiners perform these so-called brute-force attacks with special software, because the iPhone can be programmed to wipe itself if the wrong PIN is provided more than 10 times in a row. This software must be run on the iPhone itself, limiting the guessing speed to 80 milliseconds per PIN. Trying all four-digit PINs therefore requires no more than 800 seconds, a little more than 13 minutes. However, if the user chooses a six-digit PIN, the maximum time required would be 55 days; an eight-digit PIN would require more than 15 years. That's good enough for most corporate secrets—and probably good enough for most criminals as well.
"There are a lot of issues when it comes to extracting data from iOS devices," says Amber Schroader, CEO of Paraben, a supplier of forensic software, hardware, and services for cell phones. "We have had many civil cases we have not been able to process ... for discovery because of encryption blocking us."

Another iPhone innovation has to do with how and where data gets encrypted. Years ago encryption wasn't used very often because it was difficult to implement and computationally expensive—it took a lot of resources. Not so with the iPhone. Apple designed iOS devices so that the hardware that encrypts data is in the path the data travels when it moves from flash storage to the iPhone's main memory. This means that data can be automatically decrypted when read from flash into memory and reëncrypted when saved from memory back to flash. On the iPhone, encryption is essentially free.

That makes it possible to offer services like Foxygram, an iPhone app that allows users to share encrypted data in the knowledge that it cannot be intercepted and provided to law enforcement. Markus Kangas, cofounder of the app's creator, FoxyFone, says the goal is to "provide easy-to-use secure messaging for everyone and at the same time protect user privacy." He adds: "We are not there to police people."

Google's Android operating system also supports encrypted storage, but only for some of the data on the phone. More important, there is no key burned into the hardware, so even complex passwords can be broken by extracting them and using a network of a few hundred computers. BlackBerry phones, on the other hand, also have a strong encryption system that can be based on multiple factors in addition to the user's PIN.
But the BlackBerry system is designed for business customers and is harder to use than Apple's, which is made for the consumer market. Now that hardened, military-grade encryption is tough and easy for consumers to use—assuming the user has set a PIN lock that's both long and hard to guess—the nightmare scenario of the crypto wars may finally have come to pass.