Category: computing

General computing topics covering everything I deal with or am interested in.

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Regain security
Regain email privacy & security

Part #3 of the Data Liberation series

Is there ever time in the day to reconsider your online security? I mean, really consider it?

Take the most common access point for communication in the 21st century – email. Yes, you read that right. It’s still email. Email is the root of online authentication for people worldwide, not only allowing them a “safe place” to recover lost account credentials, but also facilitating properly secured communications with the use of PGP signed and encrypted email. But is your email storage secure?

The woes of web mail

The “problem” with email is that its ubiquity spawned, some years ago, the explosion of “free” web mail services. All the big players provide it. These services are advertising-supported. In other words, the cost of providing such services are met by revenue generated from scanning your email and providing “relevant” adverts within your browser to click on. Each click is tracked and the advertiser billed accordingly.

An issue here, then, is that your email is scanned. All your emails are read by an indexing process which scours every single nugget of information. What information could that include? How could it be used? How about this little list for starters:

  • the date & time
  • the sender’s name and email address
  • their computer’s name
  • their network (i.e. their email provider, their ISP, any intervening mail routers)
  • their probable native language
  • their approximate location when sending the message (obtained from their original IP address)
  • your approximate location when reading the email (based on your IP address)
  • yours and their exact locations if using any location service

That’s not all

If the sender is using the same “free” web-mail service as you:

  • if they use a calendar in that service, what they were doing when they emailed you (giving an insight into the sender’s thought processes…)
  • if they maintain a contact list / address book in that web-mail service, that service may “know” you are a friend or family member of the sender
  • in this case, it will also know their friends – and your friends – and any shared friends too.  It can start to build up a map of contacts – who knows who and possibly why.
  • Knowing “who knows who” means those related contacts’ web-mail services can be interrogated for commonalities, such as shared events (in a calendar), shared interests via a social network, and so on.

Web cam

There are yet more ways your data can be exposed. If they are not using the same “free” web-mail service, but are using another service which they log into using their web mail service’s credentials:

  • that web-mail service provider could poll the other services to see what data you are sending (e.g. what you are posting) to those services
  • it can map any correspondence to or from your contact via its services even when not in relation to your email – e.g. It can expose a contact’s movements, their communications and interests in a given time-frame.
  • they can even be exposed by their use of related services from that provider. For example, new photos into a flickr or instagram account which is public, can be mapped back from their date, time and location to the IP address that was used to query location services.

Finally, a crucial problem with all online services is that there is no guarantee your data is actually deleted when you choose to delete it.  After hitting “delete” through a web site, this could simply flag the email to be removed from your visible account and stored in MegaWebCorp’s vault of “deleted” email, remaining there forever.  Or until needed…

This is the risk of putting data into another provider’s hands – what gets uploaded or stored in your name, stays there in your name, forever.  What goes up, sometimes stays up.

Resolving the privacy crisis

Coming back to email, then, the first priority for someone who wants to maintain some privacy with respect to their life activity needs first to remove the source of indexing from MegaWebCorp’s database – the link between all things you do, your email address.

When the email address is removed from the purview of MegaWebCorp’s systems, your online activity can start to become your business – not the advertiser’s.

Getting your own address is simple.  You can register a domain name with any of numerous providers around the world and sign up for a low-cost hosting plan.  For any person who values their privacy and the sanctity of anonymity, this is a small hurdle to overcome.

For the gain in privacy you can achieve by hosting your own web site, the price attached to a “free” web-mail account may seem rather high.

Bootnote

ArsTechnica has an interesting article published yesterday (30 March 2014) on “metadata as surveillance” .

 

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Naughtyware. No, not that sort.

It looks like some app development may be taking a dark turn. Since ebay has released a new version of its app, the old version no longer works on my phone.

I start it, it crashes and then it kindly notifies me that a new version of the app is available.

The new version requires the location privilege, where the old location did not, and now to use ebay on my phone I have little choice but to install it and switch off location services while I use it.

Sigh.

This was posted on Google+

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“Fun” with Windows 7

So.. been having lots of fun with Windows 7 this morning.  Got hold of a refurb PC for doing some client system testing.

Win7 install completes and there are 3 updates to do.  Start the update process and two modal windows open up behind the update window, waiting for me to do something.  Have to click on task bar’s flashing icon to bring windows to the front.  On Windows.  Windows.

Anyway, I give the “OK” for Microsoft Security Essentials to install and it does, then starts to run an update within itself (!).  Due (perhaps) to the length of time of this process on this ageing P4, the main MS software updater kicks out another window saying “The application Microsoft Essentials may not have installed correctly.”

I’m sorry.  “May“??

Choices are “That’s ok, it installed correctly” or “Reinstall this application”.  Except the application is installed and already running an update.  Err…?  So.. how do I know it has installed correctly?  Because it’s running…(?!)  (Does the computer not know??!)

With 20 minutes of Windows use this morning, I can’t believe just how bad things are on the other side of the fence.  Someone fresh to Windows will see all this flashing icons, hidden windows, alerts, worries…  and not have the first clue what to do.

Someone close to me was one of those unfortunate souls.  She’d persisted for about a year with her Win7 machine and was constantly anxious with its scaremongering.  Hardly a productive environment.

Luckily, she’s now running #debian   #wheezy  with the #gnomeshell  and immediately found it intuitive and straightforward.  Go #freesoftware !!

This was posted on Google+

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If there is one thing I become acutely aware of, as time rolls by, it’s that the effort to write a page on my blog never diminishes. As the length of time since my last post increases, so does the psychological pressure to produce the next post. But one has to question, why is there this innate need to compose something, share it to the world and possibly see no return for the effort?

As strange as it sounds, I am intrugued by blogs that appear to have “stopped” at some point in time. When you come across a really useful post from a blog that was last updated three years ago, you can’t help feeling a bit sadenned by it. What happened to the poster? Did he/she get busy doing more even interesting stuff – so much more interesting and so much more busy, that they have neither the time nor the inclination to share?

This is a problem I have and I suspect I’m not alone. Sharing what goes on in my daily life is sometimes not possible. People count on me to provide web hosting support the moment they need it, not after I write a blog post. Working with a number of UK graphic design agencies, my days are kept busy and varied. Staying on top of the latest technical developments – often blogged by others in the industry, means I have little time to share this newly-acquired knowledge myself.

To address this issue, I am going to start worrying a little less about the content of my blog posts and more about their timeliness. Sound strange? Perhaps. Having read others’ blogs, though, it seems that social, political and technical comment is still a sought-after item of value in cyberspace. It all comes down to trust. Do you trust the opinion of the writer of this blog?

In our increasingly exposed digital world, establishing trust is something that comes from interactions and being able to judge a person’s character through what they share. As time rolls on, I will attempt to share more of my thoughts and observations through this blog and other social media sites, and worry a little less that I’m not providing a how-to on “everything you ever needed to know”.

If you have any comments, please feel free to add them below. Thanks.

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Part #2 of the Data Liberation series

Mozilla, the organisation behind the ubiquitous Firefox web browser, kindly publishes its source code powering a key service which it provides – Firefox Sync.  Because of this, we are able to run our own password sync servers securely and not necessarily be the target of a large-scale data-mining break-in, such as might be performed by a malicious cracker, or the NSA.  Sorry, of course they are the same thing.

FFirefox logoirefox Sync is a neat service which allows you to, quite literally, sync your settings in Firefox across multiple devices.  These settings can include bookmarks, web browsing history, cookies, form-filling data and passwords.  Anyway, I too was keen to run my own password sync server, so I set about doing just that.

I host quite a bit of stuff using Virtualmin, another superbly produced piece of software which facilitates the set-up of multiple domains on a single box. Setting up Firefox Sync on your own server under virtualmin is actually very straightforward.

The main task at hand is to follow the detailed instructions published by Mozilla.

As per the instructions, I had to run the following, in order to install required software:

# apt-get install python-dev mercurial sqlite3 python-virtualenv libssl-dev

In addition, I also needed to install and enable the WSGI Apache module, which wasn’t present on my system (drawing in dependencies as needed):

# apt-get install libapache2-mod-wsgi

I decided to install the Mozilla sync software in the home directory of my newly created domain, which in Virtualmin is either “/home/domain” or “/home/domain/domains/subdomain”, depending on whether you have created a subdomain for this specific purpose or not.  In the subdomain situation, the folder path would end up being: /home/domain/domains/subdomain/server-full.

Once installed, I inspected the Apache config file. A key change I had to make was to the WSGI configuration within this file. On my Debian box, the Apache config files are located in the standard place: /etc/apache2/sites-available – the same would be true for Ubuntu (on CentOS and other RHEL/Fedora derivatives, you’ll probably find them in /etc/httpd/conf.d/). Once you have created your domain in Virtualmin, your domain’s config file should be within this folder, appropriately named “domain.com.conf”.

In the “domain.com.conf”, there are a few lines to add and one to edit:

Firstly, find the DocumentRoot declaration:

DocumentRoot /home/mydomain/domains/subdomain/public_html

and change it to:
DocumentRoot /home/mydomain/domains/subdomain/server-full

Next, you’ll need to insert the following lines, within the same stanza as DocumentRoot (the best thing is to adjust and paste these lines directly after DocumentRoot:

WSGIProcessGroup sync-http
WSGIDaemonProcess sync-http user=<your-virtualmin-domain's-user> group=<your-virtualmin-domain's-group> processes=2 threads=25
WSGIPassAuthorization On
WSGIScriptAlias / /home/mydomain/domains/subdomain/server-full/sync.wsgi

The above example assumes that you are working within the :80> stanza. If you have enabled SSL on your virtual server, within Virtualmin, then you’ll also have a :443> stanza to add these lines to, with one or two exceptions!

A WSGIDaemonProcess is assigned to each virtual server in Apache. In doing so, it creates a system process which requires a name. According to the WSGI docs, this name must be unique:

“[…] note that the name of the daemon process group must be unique for the whole server. That is, it is not possible to use the same daemon process group name in different virtual hosts. “

When you come to pasting in the additional lines in your :443 stanza, you are dealing with a separate virtual server in Apache.  So, within your Apache config file, be sure to rename your WSGIDaemonProcess process name. E.g.:

WSGIProcessGroup sync-https
WSGIDaemonProcess sync-https user=<your-virtualmin-domain's-user> group=<your-virtualmin-domain's-group> processes=2 threads=25

This configuration should now be valid. You can test this with:

service apache2 reload

This won’t stop the current Apache process, but it will attempt to load the new configuration file. If it fails to load the config, it will tell you without stopping Apache.

Once this works, simply issue:

service apache2 restart

Syncing on mobile

If you intend to use Firefox on Android, or any other mobile Firefox (or clone) that supports the same syncing protocol, there is one caveat.  If you are using an unsigned or self-signed SSL certificate on your sync server, you should visit the site first in your mobile Firefox and add a permanent exception.  Once done, set up firefox sync in the normal way, by typing the characters into your desktop browser’s sync dialog, and the two browsers will shortly be synced up nicely!

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[ This is a retrospective publication ]

It takes heroes like Edward Snowden to reveal how malicious governments can become. The Snowden revelations during the summer of 2013 showed that not only does everyone have to be wary of internet-based “threats”, but that those threats could be in the form of legally-appointed agencies seeking to catch out anyone who accidentally clicks something they shouldn’t.

Worryingly, despite the big players’ assurances of high levels of security, a post on Ars Technica discusses (and links to) slides created by the NSA, and leaked by Snowden, showing how Google’s international internet traffic was intercepted, analysed and understood – for a variety of its services. Thankfully, more heroes have recently stepped forwards with updates of their own.

My heroes today are +Brandon Downey and +Mike Hearn, who have voiced their contempt for the authoritarian misuse of power with, as we like to call it, the two-fingered salute (this would be one finger in the US…).

Google, too, has a data-collection objective

Let us not forget who Google is and what it does.  Yes, while its employees might be upset that their systems’ security has been brought into question, their employer’s mission “is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful”.  So Google, too, has a data-collection objective.

The good thing about the Snowden revelations, if indeed any of them can be “good”, is that it has revealed how much work still needs to be done and how much we assume our data won’t be intercepted and inspected. It’s no longer safe to think like that, and the use of encryption should be mandatory between two end-points.

But now that the larger players are catching up with better security implementations, who is there to help the smaller players? Running a hosting outfit myself, I know how much time is required to stay informed with regards to common exploits and vulnerabilities, as well as implementing working solutions when certain zero-day exploits are revealed. Every internet service provider, hosting company and other entity transacting business via the internet has a responsibility towards safeguarding confidential data. How many take it seriously enough?

It’s time the larger players stepped up and started working collectively in a security community designed to help the smaller players in the market, rather than try to pwn the market itself; if that were to happen, the purpose of the internet would be destroyed and the argument moot.

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[ This is an incomplete post mainly consisting of notes to myself.  Ignore at will, commander. ]

When installing slackware, I opted for the excellent XFCE desktop environment. But having become aware of i3, a new tiling window manager, I decided to give it a go.

Learning a new Linux distro is never completely straightforward, even for a veteren. All distributions do things differently, so the knowledge you gain in one distro is never wholly applicable to another.

This can make for interesting discoveries and baffling, vexing problems which require prolonged periods of diagnosis to remedy. But the joy of learning how things work is always with you in Slackware, which is why the distribution – while harder work – is certainly quite rewarding.

Installing i3

How to install… SBo… xwmconfig, etc

http://docs.slackware.com/howtos:window_managers:i3wm

Good starter docs by sycamorex

Getting the right screen display resolution with laptop and external monitor

Use Arch documentation as reference xrandr https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Xrandr (and clues from http://oyhus.no/Intel_915G_SuSE_10.3.html)

To XDM or not to XDM…

The problems I had with XDM

Getting started with the i3 config file – setting alternative shortcuts, nm-applet, etc

$TERM – WTF!! http://superuser.com/questions/124908/how-do-you-change-the-default-term-value-set-at-console-login-ubuntu/124915#124915

Getting the € Euro sign working: http://www.dawoodfall.net/index.php/utf-8-console … and having to edit the code page slightly (removing the U+20AC character from the 4th position in the table) http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/20aC/index.htm (“loadkeys unknown keysym: ‘quotedblbase'”)

Other smaller config changes

Running Emacs (server) and testing with emacsclient http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/EmacsClient#toc1

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There is a growing trend amongst internet companies – i.e. those organisations who provide services over the internet which store your data – to proclaim your freedom and control over your data. Sometimes, the reality doesn’t quite bear up.

I have decided to write an ad-hoc series of blog posts treating this subject. My main area of focus will be how to use readily-available tools to help you liberate your data and regain control over it.

Keep an eye on my series, at https://dowe.uk/tag/data-liberation – and subscribe by email if you want to be kept up-to-date with the latest posts.

Initial plans

The main subjects I am planning to write about at this stage revolve around the current internet/mobile ecosystem and what you can do to live a productive life while maintaining security.

My outline of topics so far:

  • Unlocking your saved passwords from Google Chrome, the internet’s darling web browser
  • Using a free office suite to replace expensive, proprietary vendors’ offerings
  • Getting to grips with your own web account

– why do this? Benefits? – How to set up? – Basic steps for maximum security

  • Using your own internet calendar and contact list, rather than letting your data be snooped on by the easier alternatives…
  • Secure P2P file sharing – no, it’s NOT ILLEGAL!

As well as these practical how-tos, I’m also intending to cover the bigger picture in a few supporting articles:

  • Leaving the “safety” of Windows/MacOS behind. Addressing some misplaced fears.
  • Risks of the “walled garden”
  • Get back in control

– what YOU can do to ensure your rights are not being violated – being pro-active and helping in the community

With writing in mind…

If you would like to suggest ideas or subject areas that you would like covered, please get in touch.

I look forward to your comments!