Making security simple to understand and accessible to the masses is half the battle. @biosshadow does a great job of walking you through the conversion of a random disused pc (that sooner or later we’ll end up with) and making it a functional, feature-rich firewall. If you’re curious about linux, open source resources, or the community’s perpetual ongoing quest to immerse in better security, give @biosshadow a follow on twitter, he’s always a great resource for howto links and resources, including the excellent howto’s he develops himself.
His regular blog is in my permanent rss reader list at geek-crack.com and is most worthy of an add to your google reader blog list.
This particular posting is being hosted by @ax0n’s excellent HiR Report site, another great security and admin blog:
Pfsense is a free, as in speech and beer, firewall for home, business, and any other purpose you can think of. It’s based on FreeBSD, so it’s very stable and has a very good TCP/IP stack. It has a serious feature list.
via HiR Information Report: Guest Post: Setting up a Pfsense firewall.
Meet my home network’s sysadmin-from-hell.
O Hai Fritz. I can haz IRC naow?
Tags:
Oh sooner or later, this had to happen — This alert from a Slashdot linux posting this morning, All you gnome-tweakers out there (I’m one, but screensavers aren’t my specific thrill.):
Malware has been found hidden inside an innocuous “Waterfall” screensaver .deb file made available on popular artwork sharing site Gnome-Look.org.image
The .deb file installs a script with elevated privileges designed to perform a DDoS attack as well as keep itself updated via downloads.
The dodgy screensaver in question has since been removed from gnome-look and this incident was a very basic, if potentially successful, attempt.
If anything this incident highlights the need to be careful what you download and where you download it from.
Read More, with some suggested solutions, via OMG! UBUNTU
Thanks to @mubix’s post over at his Room362 blog, I’m forced to admit I haz serious, yet whimsical technolust this year.
This is stuff I may or may not get myself, but making the list is fun, and I can later look back at some of the technologies and wonder if they indeed, were hit or miss:
- ThinkGeek :: Mimo Mini USB Monitor – I’m accustomed to dual monitors, but due to some hardware shortages at work, I forego them. This might be the perfect, personal, low cost answer. It can be your IM screen, or helpdesk alert window, while you do actual work on the larger one, without using up the desk’s real estate. I’m keen on this.
- GigaByte MicroATX motherboard for my dream HTPC box.
- Antec Black M Fusion Remote 350 HTPC case Silverstone makes sexier HTPC cases, but I’m happy with Antec’s standard fit and low profile. The included remote wins me over.
- Linux Toys II
- While not a buyable “item”, I’d like my home workspace to magically look as slick as this on Christmas morning…
- I’m with @mubix on this, I really like the potential of the Barnes and Noble Nook, as soon as I can buy the thing in-store, and walk out with it…
- My storage needs trump about everything else, but as a lowly apartment dweller, if I can get all my media center needs cleanly cabled behind this, I’ll be set.
- An Electrician to hack me up some safe, wall-embeded USB charging jacks, like this.
- Samson Q2U usb recording pack. Perhaps I can crash some of those Skype call in podcast sessions, with style…
So much nerdiness, so little time.
Thanks @mubix for the awesome ideas =)
For those of you that converse with me on twitter, you know I’m a pretty vocal Linux and Ubuntu proponent.
However, as the distribution moves more toward the mainstream, Canonical and the volunteer devs are forced to make decisions for the good of the whole community rather than the whimsy or convenience of more experienced user. I’ve no beef with this philosophy, as long as it contributes to the broader user experience.
Formerly, one of the cooler keyboard combinations in linux has been the ability to restart xserver (the GUI/Desktop experience that Ubuntu deploys by default) to have a quicker restart than the full unmounting and rebooting of the system.
With Jaunty and Karmic, this option was removed, ostensibly to prevent accidental keyboard resetting of the end users’ Desktop.
For us power users, this became sort of a nuisance.
Not to worry, however, for UbuntuGeek.com has you covered with several mechanisms to re-able this convenient ‘reset’ feature for xwindows.
Howto Enable Ctrl + Alt + BackSpace in Ubuntu Jaunty | Ubuntu Geek.
