Android - Removing log statements before releasing

If your application is making requests to a server, you might be using some type of log to check whether or not your requests are successful. Unfortunately, those logs don’t get removed when you build the final APK (Android application package file). Removing logs is important to keep the logcat output as clean as possible. Leaving log statements in could also expose you to unintentional disclosure of sensitive information. In this hack, I’ll show you how easy it is to remove logs for your market release. Developers have their own technique preferences for removing logs from the final release. Some prefer doing something like the following:

if(BuildConfig.DEBUG)LOG.d(TAG,"Thelogmsg");

From my point of view, the best way to remove logs is to use the ProGuard tool. If you’ve never used ProGuard.

The ProGuard tool shrinks, optimizes, and obfuscates your code by removing unused code and renaming classes, fields, and methods with semantically obscure names. The result is a smaller sized .apk file that is more difficult to reverse engineer.

If you haven’t noticed yet, when we build an Android application we’ll find a pro-guard.cfg file in our project root directory. Its presence there doesn’t mean it’s on by default; we need to enable it. Fortunately, it’s simple: we need to add the following line in the default.properties file located in our project root directory:

proguard.config=proguard.cfg

Now ProGuard is enabled, but it’ll only be used when exporting a signed APK. We need to add the necessary lines to the proguard.cfg to get rid of those logs. Append the following lines to proguard.cfg:

-assumenosideeffectsclassandroid.util.Log{publicstatic***d(...);}

What we’re telling ProGuard is this: remove every use of a d() method with any amount of parameters that returns something and belongs to the android.util.Logclass. This will match with Log’s d() method and every debug log will be removed.

The ProGuard tool offers another way of polishing a release. Make sure you read the ProGuard manual and create a correct configuration for your project because Pro-Guard might remove essential code, thinking it’s not necessary for the application to work. If this happens, be sure to check that you’re telling ProGuard to keep every-thing you need. Notice that ProGuard isn’t only used to remove log statements. As I’m testing, I usually create methods in my Activity to populate forms. These methods are also something I use ProGuard to remove.

Refference :-

http://proguard.sourceforge.net/

http://developer.android.com/tools/help/proguard.html

http://mng.bz/ZR3

Different Types of Hackers

 The following thing that we need to invest some energy taking a gander at is a portion of the various kinds of programmers. While the majority of us will bounce right to the dark cap programmers when we consider this term, there are in reality many programmers out there. You will discover, as you go through our exercise of hacking, that there are many various kinds of programmers that we can zero in on. A portion of these will be acceptable programmers who will utilize their abilities to keep their own organization and the organization of others free from any danger.

This assault will be utilized by a lot of hacking bunches that stay mysterious, which won't assist the standing of any individual who is a programmer. These people will be known as moral programmers. These programmers will be the heroes of the universe of hacking. They will assist us with eliminating infection or complete an entrance test on an organization to ensure that the organization is protected.

The vast majority of the people who will be viewed as white cap programmers will have some sort of foundation in IT security or software engineering, for example, higher education in it, and afterward, they will go through and have an endorsement to seek after this sort of profession.



These will be the dark cap programmers. Another alternative that we can investigate is the dark cap programmer. These people will fall someplace in the middle of the dark cap and the white cap programmer that we discussed previously. This glances at the possibility that nothing is actually at any point dark or white, and that this can appear in the realm of hacking also.

Dim cap programmers won't take data or cash, however, they may invest aportion of their energy destroying a couple of sites. These programmers will be the people who contain the greater part of the hacking scene, even though these programmers won't acquire as much consideration as the dark cap programmers. Remember that the green cap programmer will be new to the universe of hacking, however dissimilar to those Script Kiddies that we discussed previously, these green cap programmers will think often about hacking and are really getting going fully intent on turning out to be all out programmers. They are frequently going to be blazed by others locally of programmers since they pose a ton of fundamental inquiries to learn en route.

Another shading cap programmer that we can take a gander at is the red cap programmer. These will be more the vigilantes of the programmer world. They will resemble the white cap programmers in the possibility that they will accomplish some work to prevent the dark caps from previously, and they attempt to keep the individuals who ought not to have a place on the framework away. Rather than going through and announcing the vindictive programmer that they find, and afterward quitting for the day weakness so the programmer can't get back onto the framework, the red cap programmer willingly volunteers to close down that programmer with infections, Dosing, and getting to their PCs to annihilate it from the back to front.

They feel that they reserve the option to pursue the dark cap programmers since it will permit them to bring them down, just because the dark cap was on their organization. Frequently, the red cap will truly be risky and makes more harm to the dark cap than that dark cap attempted to do in any case on their organization. The red cap programmer is acceptable at utilizing numerous forceful techniques that would go right at the dark cap programmer. Even though the red cap programmer is actually halting the dark cap, this sort of hacking is as yet viewed as dishonest in light of the inspiration of retribution and the techniques that are utilized.

Lastly, we will take a gander at the blue cap programmer. These are the people who, if the Script Kiddie chose to deliver some retribution when they were doing their assaults, would in all probability turn into a blue cap programmer. These sorts of programmers will look for retribution on any individual who has driven them crazy. Remember that a large number of these sorts of programmers will be viewed as unlawful.

Yet, on the off chance that you are a white-cap programmer, you will have acquired authorization before you begin on any of the hacking that you might want to achieve en route too.

What is Hacking?

The main thing that we will investigate is the thing that hacking is about. Hacking will essentially be the way toward recognizing a portion of the shortcomings that are found in a framework or organization on the PC. The purpose is a programmer doing this is to misuse a portion of the shortcomings to assist with getting entrance, particularly when the time has come to get onto a framework that they shouldn't be on. There are a ton of techniques that we can utilize with regards to hacking, including utilizing a calculation to break through a secret phrase and gain the entirety of the entrance that you need from that framework. Consider how often you see with PCs in general. You can see them in every one of the homes and organizations that you visit, and it is essentially something obligatory to help you develop the fruitful business that you need. What's more, it is likewise not going to be sufficient for us to have a PC framework that is disconnected. 

We need to ensure that they are on an organization to work with correspondence with different organizations and even with the clients we work with consistently.  Given this, however, these organizations will have consistent openness to what in particular is going on in the rest of the world, and hacking will be a major issue that appears. Hacking implies that somebody will utilize these PCs to submit false  demonstrations like misrepresentation, security intrusion, taking individual and corporate information, and that's just the beginning. 

These are never something beneficial for any business, regardless. It has really wound up costing organizations and more huge number of dollars a year. Also, attempting to get your standing back up and ensuring that it will work the way that you might want. It is ideal on the off chance that you can do whatever it takes to guarantee that the programmer can't get onto your framework and cause the issues that they need, protecting a ton of cash for yourself and guaranteeing that nobody else can demolish your organization. There are various kinds of programmers, and this is something that a ton of us are not used to considering. For instance, you will find that there are a few programmers who are prepared to exploit any PC or organization that they can get their hands on and other people who will utilize similar strategies, yet then they will do this to ensure that their organization will remain as get as could be expected. The black hat hackers will be the ones who need to get onto an organization where they don't actually have a place. 

They need to cause as much mayhem as possible and make it hard for the client to truly protect their data. Frequently, these programmers are simply going to invest their energy attempting to take the data and use it for their very own benefit. This winds up costing the individual a ton of cash and the deficiency of their own data too. Then, at that point, there is the white hat hacker. They may utilize the very sorts of techniques that we will see with the dark cap programmer. However, these individuals will invest energy assuming control over a PC, ensuring that they discover the weaknesses and close them up before a dark cap programmer can discover them. This will make it simpler to keep the organization safe and can defeat the dark cap programmer before they get an opportunity to dominate.

The Best Way to Learn Hacking

There are various advances that we can use, to begin with hacking in the way that we might want. For fledglings who have close to nothing, and at times no information about the universe of hacking, it is in every case best if we can get going with a portion of the essentials. Rather than us beginning with a portion of the more muddled parts and attempting to hack directly from the beginning (however we will get to that later), we need to start this by investigating more about the points that we need to work with including the PC organizations, firewalls, conventions of the organization, and then some. 

You can even invest some energy studying a portion of the distinctive working frameworks that are out there, and which ones will assist you with completing a portion of your hacking objectives. Linux is an extraordinary alternative to utilize because it has been intended to assist with a wide range of coding and that incorporates hacking. Whenever you have had the option to get a portion of those rudiments down, we can truly get into a portion of the hacking strategies and comprehend what they are about better than anyone might have expected. Something else that we need to zero in on is discovering the source that we need to use for figuring out how to hack. This manual will be ready to furnish you with a lot of choices with regards to beginning with hacking, and we will have a partner book that you can use also. In any case, these are only the start of what you will actually want to do with regards to hacking and getting things to work the way that you need. If something doesn't bode well with what you are doing in hacking, or you need to investigate more about a particular subject that we work on, there are a ton of alternatives that you can pick too. 

The significant thing to recollect here is to go through and select the alternative that is awesome for your necessities. The more that you can do with the hacking, and the more sources you can depend on when things are not going very as arranged, the simpler it is to get familiar with these points and get them to work for you. While this isn't a prerequisite, many individuals find that learning a cycle of  writing computer programs will be the most ideal way for them to improve with their hacking. Writing computer programs isn't actually something that you will need to skirt on for this. There are a lot of apparatuses and projects out there that you can look over when the time has come to begin. In any case, if you might truly want to acquire some involvement in hacking, and you need to ensure that this will work out the way that you need, then, at that point including writing computer programs is a decent spot to assist with that also. 

There are various dialects that you can use to make this work. What's more, you just need to discover the one that will be the awesome you. Notwithstanding, if you would prefer not to get familiar with a coding language or might want to begin soon without expecting to become familiar with the entirety of that coding, then, at that point, it is not difficult to skirt this progression and utilize a portion of the choices that are accessible to you as of now.

Types of Cybercrimes to Watch Out For

Programmers have invested a lot of energy going through and discovering ways that they can get onto an organization when they need. Along these lines, we need to truly be cautious about our organization's security and the data that we will put online too. This implies that we will wind up with a lot of cybercrimes that can take our own data, regardless of whether it is close to home or monetary also.

The absolute most normal kinds of cybercrimes that we can see with regards to hacking will include:

1. Computer fraud:

This will be the point at which the programmer purposefully bamboozles the other individual to acquire use to that PC framework all things being equal

2. Identity theft:

This is the point at which the programmer will take individual data from their objective and afterward imitate them for monetary benefit.

3. Privacy violations:

This one will uncover individual data, for example, email addresses, account subtleties, and telephone numbers. This can frequently show up when we will appear on sites and web-based media.

4. Sharing information and files that are under copyright:

This will include when the programmer will disseminate documents and more that are protected and that they ought not to share.

5. Electronic money laundering:

This is the place where the programmer will utilize the PC to launder their cash and keep it covered up.

6. Electronic funds transfer:

This will be the point at which the programmer can get onto a bank network without the appropriate approval and afterward will make store moves to their own records that are unlawful.

7.ATM Fraud:

This is the place where the programmer will capture subtleties on ATM cards. This may incorporate some data like the PIN and the record number. These subtleties are then going to be utilized by the programmer to pull out assets from that sort of record.

8. Spam:

This is the point at which the programmer will attempt to convey messages

that are not approved by any means. These are frequently going to message and will contain a lot of notices.

9. Denial of Service Attacks:

This one will include the utilization of a PC, and frequently, numerous PCs innumerous areas to assault the workers of the objective that they might want. The entire view that accompanies this one is to close down the framework. As we can see from a higher place, the primary concern to call attention to here is that the programmer might want to get access without having the approval. The hacking isn't viewed as an assault or something to stress over on the of chance that you are given the right position to be on those organizations. For instance, an IT individual for a bank would have consent to go into there cords and check for weaknesses and ensure that everything is free from any

harm, while a programmer would not have the right position.