It's no secret that Milwaukee is one of the most popular tool brands, and while many owners love the M18 line of powerful 18V tools, Milwaukee's M12 platform is equally excellent at a lower price point. If you're looking to get your money's worth with a new tool purchase, here are five M12 tools that live up to the hype.
Do you have any old, outdated gas-powered tools you'd like to give a new lease on life? If so, Makita has a neat new product you'll absolutely love. Makita is launching a 40V max XGT electric motor unit, which is a 25 to 50cc gas engine replacement electric motor you can drop in, bolt on, and go.
AI coding work is rising fast, but the biggest payoff isnโt evenly shared. A Science analysis suggests seasoned developers get stronger gains than newcomers, which could reshape how you learn, interview, and prove value.
DeWALT is a popular brand among enthusiasts and professionals thanks to its wide array of tools, with more arriving all the time. If you have a few DeWALT 20V tools and battery packs and go to buy another tool, you'll see models like the 20V MAX, XR, and Atomicโbut what does that actually mean?
And how a more advanced approach changed the way I trade momentum, breakouts, and liquidity
Volume is one of the most widely used metrics in trading. Every crypto trader, from beginner to professional, has stared at the green and red bars under their chart trying to decode marketย intent.
But hereโs the uncomfortable truth:
Most traders are reading the wrong volume. Or worseโโโtheyโre reading it in the wrongย context.
This is especially true when it comes to the popular Daily 24h Volume indicator. Youโve probably seen it on exchanges like Binance, Bybit, OKXโโโand on TradingView indicators that attempt to emulateย it.
And while the metric sounds intuitive (โhow much volume traded in the last 24hโ), itโs often misunderstood and misapplied in liveย trading.
In this article, I want to breakย down:
Why many traders rely on Daily 24h Volume Indicator
What its conceptual weaknesses are
How it differs from standard bar-by-bar volume
A clear comparison between theย two
And how these insights led me to build a customized, more actionable volume engine that I personally use
Letโs start with theย basics.
1. Why Traders Use Daily 24h Volume Indicator
At the bottom, the 24-hour volume is highlighted in red, compared to the standard volume indicator above.
Daily 24h Volume Indicator is attractive because:
It reflects overall market participation
It updates continuously and shows exchange-wide liquidity
It gives a sense of the assetโs current โactivity levelโ
For example:
If 24h volume is rising โ traders assume interest isย growing
If 24h volume is dropping โ traders assume liquidity is dryingย up
Itโs a macro-level liquidity gauge.
But hereโs theย problem:
Daily 24h volume does NOT tell you whatโs happening right now on your candle. It tells you what happened in the past day, smoothed into one enormous rolling window. This introduces several pitfalls.
2. The Weaknesses of Daily 24h Volume (Why It Misleadsย Traders)
Weakness 1โโโItโs a rolling metric, not a per-barย signal
Daily 24 volume cannot show momentum shifts inside a candle. You might think volume is increasingโฆ But itโs actually just updating the rollingย window.
Weakness 2โโโIt hides individual bar structure
It blends all buy/sell pressure, spikes, and micro-movements into one bigย number.
You miss:
Who is in control (buyers orย sellers)
Strength of candleย body
Wick dominance
Volume spikes on breakouts
Weakness 3โโโIt reactsย slowly
Because it covers the full 24h window, it behaves like a movingย average:
Big events fadeย slowly
Sudden surges barely move theย line
It lags on marketย turns
Weakness 4โโโTraders assume it reflects โcurrentย volumeโ
But the bar forming RIGHT NOW couldย have:
Huge actualย volume
But Daily 24 barelyย moves
โ orย โ
Very small actualย volume
But Daily 24 stays high from pastย candles
This disconnect confuses decision-making.
3. Standard Volume vs Daily 24 VolumeโโโConceptual Differences
Below is a simplified comparison to set things straight.
In short:
Daily 24h volume is liquidity context.
Per-bar volume is actionable information.
Most traders mix these two conceptsโโโand get confused signals as aย result.
4. Why I Built My Own Volume Indicator
After years of active crypto trading, I realized Iย needed:
Something as reliable as per-candle volume
Something as informative as exchange 24hย volume
Something that actually helps predict breakouts and momentumย shifts
Something that reflects real buying/selling pressure, not just barย color
Something that filters noise and highlights meaningful spikes
This led me to develop the Advanced Volume Suiteโโโa tool that merges the strengths of bothย worlds:
Exchange-style liquidity
Real-time actionable volumeย signals
Momentum detection
Spike identification
Breakout confirmation
Itโs the volume engine I personally use in my trading, and now Iโm sharing it publicly.
The next section describes how itย works.
5. Introducing a complete professional toolkit for reading true market volume, momentum, and liquidity: Advanced Volume Suite (24h, Pulse, Spikes, Breakout Pressure)
๐ What This Indicator Does
The Advanced Volume Suite is a multi-layered volume analysis system designed for traders who rely on volume as a primary decision driver. It expands far beyond TradingViewโs standard volume bars byย adding:
โ True USDTย Volume
All volume is converted into USDT value (volume ร close) to normalize activity across increasing or decreasing prices.
โ Rolling 24-Hour Volume (Exchange-style metric)
The indicator calculates a custom 24h rolling volume, just like Binance and Bybitย display.
โ Volume Pulse (Strength vsย Average)
A powerful ratio that measures momentum inside eachย bar.
The indicator introduces intelligent volume bar coloring, which improves clarity and helps interpret orderflow visually:
1๏ธโฃ Simpleย Mode
Green = close > open Red = close < open (Like standard volume but using USDTย values)
2๏ธโฃ Bodyย Mode
Colors only when candle body is strong relative to its range. Filters noise and highlights meaningful bars.
3๏ธโฃ Delta-Style Mode
Detects โaggressiveโ buyers or sellers basedย on:
Candle body dominance
Upper/lower wick compression
Directional pressure
7. Why This Matters toย Traders
This indicator bridges the gapย between:
Micro-level volume (per-candle activity)
Macro-level liquidity (24h rollingย volume)
And wraps itย into:
A visual breakoutย system
A momentumย pulse
Smart spike detection
Real candle-based volumeย coloring
It replaces multiple tools and simplifies your volume-based decision-making.
8. How It Differs From the Standard Volume Indicator
9. Finalย Thoughts
Volume is one of the most important trading metricsโโโbut only when interpreted correctly.
Standard volume shows real-time behavior
Daily 24h volume shows high-level liquidity
My custom indicator merges both concepts and adds intelligent layers forย clarity
If youโve ever missed a breakout, failed to see a spike, or misjudged the strength behind a move, this suite gives you the clarity you wereย missing.
The numbers tell a stark story: $1.42 billion lost across 149 documented incidents in 2024 due to smart contract vulnerabilities, with access control flaws accounting for $953.2 million in damages alone. While the Web3 community debates the perfect AI solution for smart contract security, billions continue to drain from protocols that could have been protected..
An open-source Android application designed to identify and test devices vulnerable to CVE-2025-36911, a critical authentication bypass flaw in Googleโs Fast Pair Bluetooth protocol. The vulnerability, commonly referred to as WhisperPair, affects millions of Bluetooth audio devices worldwide, enabling unauthorised pairing and potentially granting access to microphoneswithout user consent. CVE-2025-36911 represents a significant cryptographic weakness [โฆ]
If you've ever used a 3D printer, you may recall the wondrous feeling when you first printed something you could have never sculpted or built yourself. Download a model file, load some plastic filament, push a button, and almost like magic, a three-dimensional object appears. But the result isn't polished and ready for mass production, and creating a novel shape requires more skills than just pushing a button. Interestingly, today's AI coding agents feel much the same way.
Since November, I have used Claude Code and Claude Opus 4.5 through a personal Claude Max account to extensively experiment with AI-assisted software development (I have also used OpenAI's Codex in a similar way, though not as frequently). Fifty projects later, I'll be frank: I have not had this much fun with a computer since I learned BASIC on my Apple II Plus when I was 9 years old. This opinion comes not as an endorsement but as personal experience: I voluntarily undertook this project, and I paid out of pocket for both OpenAI and Anthropic's premium AI plans.
Throughout my life, I have dabbled in programming as a utilitarian coder, writing small tools or scripts when needed. In my web development career, I wrote some small tools from scratch, but I primarily modified other people's code for my needs. Since 1990, I've programmed in BASIC, C, Visual Basic, PHP, ASP, Perl, Python, Ruby, MUSHcode, and some others. I am not an expert in any of these languagesโI learned just enough to get the job done. I have developed my own hobby games over the years using BASIC, Torque Game Engine, and Godot, so I have some idea of what makes a good architecture for a modular program that can be expanded over time.
Security researchers and penetration testers gain a comprehensive open-source reconnaissance platform with the release of Argus v2.0, a Python-based information gathering toolkit that consolidates 135 specialised modules into a unified command-line interface. The toolkit addresses the growing complexity of modern attack surface management by providing integrated access to network mapping, web application analysis, and threat [โฆ]
A new Harmonic Security report reveals a sharp rise in sensitive data shared with generative AI tools like ChatGPT, increasing the risk of security breaches, compliance violations, and data exposure across global organizations.
Welcome back, aspiring digital forensics investigators!
AnyDesk first appeared around 2014 and very quickly became one of the most popular tools for legitimate remote support and system administration across the world. It is lightweight, fast, easy to deploy. Unfortunately, those same qualities also made it extremely attractive to cybercriminals and advanced persistent threat groups. Over the last several years, AnyDesk has become one of the preferred tools used by attackers to maintain persistent access to compromised systems.
Attackers abuse AnyDesk in a few different ways. Sometimes they install it directly and configure a password for unattended access. Other times, they rely on the fact that many organizations already have AnyDesk installed legitimately. All the attacker needs to do is gain access to the endpoint, change the AnyDesk password or configure a new access profile, and they now have quiet, persistent access. Because remote access tools are so commonly used by administrators, this kind of persistence often goes unnoticed for days, weeks, or even months. During that time the attacker can come and go as they please. Many organizations do not monitor this activity closely, even when they have mature security monitoring in place. We have seen companies with large infrastructures and centralized logging completely ignore AnyDesk connections. This has allowed attackers to maintain footholds across geographically distributed networks until they were ready to launch ransomware operations. When the encryption finally hits critical assets and the cryptography is strong, the damage is often permanent, unless you have the key.
We also see attackers modifying registry settings so that the accessibility button at the Windows login screen opens a command prompt with the highest privileges. This allows them to trigger privileged shells tied in with their AnyDesk session while minimizing local event log traces of normal login activity. We demonstrated similar registry hijacking concepts previously in โPowerShell for Hackers โ Basics.โ If you want a sense of how widespread this abuse is, look at recent cyberwarfare reporting involving Russia.
Kaspersky has documented numerous incidents where AnyDesk was routinely used by hacktivists and financially motivated groups during post-compromise operations. In the ICS-CERT reporting for Q4 2024, for example, the โCrypt Ghoulsโ threat actor relied on tools like Mimikatz, PingCastle, Resocks, AnyDesk, and PsExec. In Q3 2024, the โBlackJackโ group made heavy use of AnyDesk, Radmin, PuTTY and tunneling with ngrok to maintain persistence across Russian government, telecom, and industrial environments. And thatโs just a glimpse of it.
Although AnyDesk is not the only remote access tool available, it stands out because of its polished graphical interface and ease of use. Many system administrators genuinely like it. That means you will regularly encounter it during investigations, whether it was installed for legitimate reasons or abused by an attacker.
With that in mind, letโs look at how to perform digital forensics on a workstation that has been compromised through AnyDesk.
Investigating AnyDesk Activity During an Incident
Today we are going to focus on the types of log files that can help you determine whether there has been unauthorized access through AnyDesk. These logs can reveal the attackerโs AnyDesk ID, their chosen display name, the operating system they used, and in some cases even their IP address. Interestingly, inexperienced attackers sometimes do not realize that AnyDesk transmits the local username as the connection name, which means their personal environment name may suddenly appear on the victim system. The logs can also help you understand whether there may have been file transfers or data exfiltration.
For many incident response cases, this level of insight is already extremely valuable. On top of that, collecting these logs and ingesting them into your SIEM can help you generate alerts on suspicious activity patterns such as unexpected night-time access. Hackers prefer to work when users are asleep, so after-hours access from a remote tool should always trigger your curiosity.
Here are the log files and full paths that you will need for this analysis:
AnyDesk can be used in two distinct ways. The first is as a portable executable. In that case, the user runs the program directly without installing it. When used this way, the logs are stored under the userโs AppData directory. The second way is to install AnyDesk as a service. Once installed, it can be configured for unattended access, meaning the attacker can log in at any time using only a password, without the local user needing to confirm the session. When AnyDesk runs as a service, you should also examine the ProgramData directory as it will contain its own trace files. The AppData folder will still hold the ad.trace file, and together these files form the basis for your investigation.
With this background in place, letโs begin our analysis.
Connection Log Timestamps
The connection_trace.txt logs are relatively readable and give you a straightforward record of successful AnyDesk connections. Here is an example with a randomized AnyDesk ID:
Incoming 2025โ07โ25, 12:10 User 568936153 568936153
The real AnyDesk ID has been redacted. What matters is that the log clearly shows there was a successful inbound connection on 2025โ07โ25 at 12:10 UTC from the AnyDesk ID listed at the end. This already confirms that remote access occurred, but we can dig deeper using the other logs.
Gathering Information About the Intruder
Now we move into the part of the investigation where we begin to understand who our attacker might be. Although names, IDs, and even operating systems can be changed by the attacker at any time, patterns still emerge. Most attackers do not constantly change their display name unless they are extremely paranoid. Even then, the timestamps do not lie. Remote logins occurring repeatedly in the middle of the night are usually a strong indicator of unauthorized access.
We will work primarily with the ad.trace and ad_svc.trace files. These logs can be noisy, as they include a lot of error messages unrelated to the successful session. A practical way to cut through the noise is to search for specific keywords. In PowerShell, that might look like this:
These commands filter out only the most interesting lines and save them into new files called adtrace.log and adsvc.log, while still letting you see the results in the console. The tee command behaves this way both in Windows and Linux. This small step makes the following analysis more efficient.
IP Address
In many cases, the ad_svc.trace log contains the external IP address from which the attacker connected. You will often see it recorded as โLogged in from,โ alongside the AnyDesk ID listed as โAccepting from.โ For the sake of privacy, these values were redacted in the screenshot we worked from, but they can be viewed easily inside the adsvc.log file you created earlier.
Once you have the IP address, you can enrich it further inside your SIEM. Geolocation, ASN information, and historical lookups may help you understand whether the attacker used a VPN, a hosting provider, a compromised endpoint, or even their home ISP.
Name & OS Information
Inside ad.trace you will generally find the attackerโs display name in lines referring to โIncoming session request.โ Right next to that field you will see the corresponding AnyDesk ID. You may also see references to the attackerโs operating system.
In the example we examined, the attacker was connecting from a Linux machine and had set their display name to โIT Depโ in an attempt to appear legitimate. As you can imagine, users do not always question a remote session labeled as IT support, especially if the attacker acts confidently.
Data Exfiltration
AnyDesk does not only provide screen control. It also supports file transfer both ways. That means attackers can upload malware or exfiltrate sensitive company data directly through the session. In the ad.trace logs you will sometimes see references such as โPreparing files in โฆโ which indicate file operations are occurring.
This line alone does not always tell you what exact files were transferred, especially if the attacker worked out of temporary directories. However, correlating those timestamps with standard Windows forensic artifacts, such as recent files, shellbags, jump lists, or server access logs, often reveals exactly what the attacker viewed or copied. If they accessed remote file servers during the session, those server logs combined with your AnyDesk timestamps can paint a very clear picture of what happened.
In our case, the attacker posing as the โIT Depโ accessed and exfiltrated files stored in the Documents folder of the manager who used that workstation.
Summary
Given how widespread AnyDesk is in both legitimate IT environments and malicious campaigns, you should always consider it a high-priority artifact in your digital forensics and incident response workflows. Make sure the relevant AnyDesk log files are consistently collected and ingested into your SIEM so that suspicious activity does not go unnoticed, especially outside business hours. Understanding how to interpret these logs shows the attackerโs behavior that otherwise feels invisible.
Our team strongly encourages you to remain aware of AnyDesk abuse patterns and to include them explicitly in your investigation playbooks. If you need any support building monitoring, tuning alerts, or analyzing remote access traces during an active case, we are always happy to help you strengthen your security posture.
If youโve ever conducted an OSINT investigation, you probably know that the dark web is one of the hardest places to investigate. Whether youโre tracking ransomware groups or looking for leaked passwords manually searching through dark web results takes hours and gives you mostly junk and malware. This is where AI can change how you investigate. By using Large Language Models we can improve our searches and filter results faster. To do this, we have a tool called Robin.
In this article, weโll explore how to install this tool, how to use it, and what features it provides. Letโs get rolling!
What is Robin
Robin is an open-source tool for investigating the dark web. It uses AI to improve your searches, filter results from dark web search engines, and summarize what you find. What makes Robin particularly valuable is its multi-model support. You can easily switch between OpenAI, Claude, Gemini, or local models like Ollama depending on your needs, budget, and privacy requirements. The tool is CLI-first, built for terminal users who want to integrate dark web intelligence into their existing workflows.
Step #1: Install Robin
For this demonstration, Iโll be using a Raspberry Pi as the hacking platform, but you can easily replicate all the steps using Kali or any other Debian-based distribution. To install the tool, we can either use the source code from GitHub or Docker. I will choose the first option. To begin, clone the repository first:
As shown in the downloaded files, this is a Python project. We need to create a virtual environment and install the required packages.
pi> python -m venv venv
pi> source venv/bin/activate
pi> pip3 install -r requirements.txt
Before Robin can search the dark web, we need to have Tor running on your system. Install Tor by opening your terminal and executing the following command:
pi> sudo apt install tor
Step #2: Configure Your API Key
In this demonstration, I will be using Googleโs Gemini models. You can easily create an API key in Google AI Studio to access the models. If you open the config.py file, you will see which models support the tool.
Robin can be configured using either a .env file or system environment variables. For most users, creating a .env file in your Robin directory provides the cleanest approach. This method keeps your API credentials organized and makes it easy to switch between different configurations. Open the file in your preferred text editor and add your Gemini API key.
Step #3: Execute Your First Dark Web Investigation
First, letโs open the help screen to see which options this tool supports and to verify that we installed it correctly.
pi> python3 main.py โhelp
Currently, we can see two supported modes for using this tool: CLI and web UI. I prefer CLI, so I will demonstrate that. Letโs explore the help screen of the CLI mode.
pi> python3 main.py cli โhelp
Itโs a straightforward help screen; we simply need to specify an LLM model and our query. Letโs search for credential exposure.
After a few minutes of processing, Robin produced the gathered information on the terminal. By default, it is formatted in Markdown and saved to a file with a name based on the current date and time. To view the results with Markdown formatting, Iโll use a command-line tool called glow.
pi> glow summary-xx-xx.md
The analysis examined various Tor-based marketplaces, vendors, and leak sources that advertise stolen databases and credentials. The findings reveal a widespread exposure of personally identifiable information (PII), protected health information (PHI), financial data, account credentials, and cryptocurrency private keys associated with major global organizations and millions of individuals. The report documents active threat actors, their tactics, and methods of monetization. Key risks have been identified, along with recommended next steps.
Understand the Limitations
While Robin is a powerful tool for dark web OSINT, itโs important to understand its limits. The tool uses dark web search engines, which only index a small part of whatโs actually on hidden services. Many dark websites block indexing or require you to log in, so Robin canโt reach them through automated searches. For thorough investigations, youโll still need to add manual research and other OSINT methods to what Robin finds.
The quality of Robinโs intelligence summaries depends a lot on the LLM youโre using and the quality of what it finds. Gemini 2.5 Flash gives great results for most investigations, but the AI can only work with the information in the search results. If your search doesnโt match indexed content, or if the information you need is behind a login wall, Robin wonโt find it.
Summary
Conducting investigations on the dark web can be time-consuming when using traditional search tools. Since the dark web relies on anonymity networks, isnโt indexed by standard search engines, and contains a vast amount of irrelevant information, manual searching can often be slow and ineffective. Robin addresses these challenges by leveraging AI to enhance your searches, intelligently filter results, and transform findings into useful intelligence reports. While this tool does have limitations, it can be a valuable addition to your arsenal when combined with manual searching and other OSINT tools.
If youโre interested in deepening your knowledge of OSINT investigations or even starting your own investigation business, consider exploring our OSINT training to enhance your skills.
Are you trying to figure out what tools are best for testing your web applications? If so, you have likely done some research and know there are a lot of options from complex Java log parser tools to other tools that are much more simple in design, and as such free logging tools. If you [โฆ]
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