The dangers of unprotected Wifi are great and SSH can help by encrypting your packets so you don’t get exploited, be a strong user read this article and follow the instructions to be more secure on the Internet. SSH uses an extremely secure encryption and is very very stable it has been used and trusted greatly as a replacement for lesser insecure protocols. Plus OpenSSH has a very awesome logo.

The Open SSH Website Logo

Well thanks to work this post is about a week late, but anywho, on to the post.

The iPad. The oh-so hyped device, christened with the superior being known to humans as Steve Jobs. With all the Apple zealots flocking to masturbate to the Pad’s glossy greatness, a small majority, including me, came to this conclusion: “Wait… What?” This enchanting device is riddled with small, neat, design features, most in practicality terms, but is it really worth it?

NOTE: This guide has been made for Ubuntu Linux. The installation of the Tor program only requires a few steps to install and setup and the benefits are more privacy and security on the internet.

Add the Tor repository to your sources.list:

"deb http://deb.torproject.org/torproject.org karmic main"

Note: if you have not upgraded to karmic you can change “karmic” to the name of the Ubuntu version your on (ie: jaunty)

After adding the repository you have to add the gpg key so open a terminal (or if you already have one open) and type this:

"gpg --keyserver keys.gnupg.net --recv 886DDD89" and
"gpg --export A3C4F0F979CAA22CDBA8F512EE8CBC9E886DDD89 | sudo apt-key add -"

Then you will want to refresh your apt and and install tor with these commands

"sudo apt-get update"
"sudo apt-get install"

Now that you have Tor installed you can run it but it is always nice to have a pretty interface right? in that case you would want to apt-get install Vidalia from the Ubuntu repositories

"sudo apt-get install vidalia"

Now you should be done unless your getting an error through Vidalia that says that Tor is already running if you get this message it means that the Tor daemon started running after the package was installed and all you have to do is stop the daemon using this command

"sudo /etc/init.d/tor stop"

This will stop the daemon and will allow you to control Tor through Vidalia.

You have now made yourself anonymous to others on the Internet.

Other Browsers: To use Tor in a browser besides Firefox(with the torbutton addon) such as Google Chrome or Opera or if you want to use it in other applications that connect to the Internet go to the Proxy Settings and make sure they are set to SOCKS 5 on 127.0.0.1(localhost) on port 9050.

Enjoy your increased privacy,

-John

Note: there are packages for other distros on the tor website (https://www.torproject.org/)

Outside Source: http://ubuntuforums.org/

I got some bad news today via my Twitter stream. One of my fellow Linux users and one of my interviewees, Shawn Powers, lost his house this afternoon to a fire. He and his family got out fine, but lost their family pets in the fire. But this is where you come in, You can help him in two ways. The first is to go over to the Chipin page that was started by the Linux Journal to help his family out. The second is sending hardware. Being a Geek he needs computer parts, both for work and play. This being coordinated by Linux Journal publisher Carlie Fairchild, and please email her at carlie@linuxjournal.com for details and to ask questions. Remember if can only donate a dollar, it will help. And if you are in Indian River, Michigan, you may be able to help him even more, just email Carlie to ask for more info.

As a geek its required to go to conferences, or cons, based on what type of geek you are. So for me I would go to Linux con or a security con.  Well up to this point I have failed at this, but no More!. I will be going to my first ever Con, and I chose Shmoocon run by the Shmoo Group. I chose mostly because of closeness, and the fact of lack of craziness that is Defcon. They have a set number of tickets, which means set number of people.

(Note: This is a rant. By no means is all this correct, or unbiased. Fill free to tell I am wrong in the comments)

Now to as every other geek, I have to get a job to pay for new computers, upgrades, and other geek porn. And at that job there is users. and there is to major groups of users, teachers and students. Now in our current network setup this is how the work-order/work-flow should be:

As you might have noticed, I have switched domains. I decided I liked .com TLD more than the .org I was using. But what you can’t see is the fact I have switched hosts. I went from a shared host, to a VPS, both for control and to force me to learn. Now my server is up and running but not everything is tweaked to my liking. So far I am liking being in my own little setup.

-Jacob

My guest post on Pfsense is online over on HiR Information Report. Go over there check out my post and Ax0n’s other post. My post is here

While I was surfing around last week I stumble across this from Wired about one of their writer, Evan Ratliff, having an experiment on how hard/easy it is to vanish in the modern world. I don’t know about you I have never really thought disappearing. I mean change your name, leave you wife/girlfriend, not being able to call your mom (not a big loss for me. I love you, Mom!), and never your friends again disappear.

The article goes through all the steps and travels that Ratliff went through in his own words. There were a few close calls, but he wasn’t caught until the day before he was to reveal himself.  The article is a long one, but is worth the read. I highly encourage you all to read it. And don’t forget to come back and leave your thought below.

Writer Evan Ratliff Tried to Vanish: Here’s What Happened

-Jacob