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Friday, December 21, 2012

How to Format a USB drive with FAT32 file system: FEDORA 17/LINUX

1.   The ease of formatting that the regular windows user is used involves a simple right click on the drive and clicking format.But for a linux user the scene is a little different involving a set of commands.Shown here with screen shots.The commands used are :

- df -h
- fdisk -l
- umount /run/media/duqu/?????***(ur mount name)
- mkdosfs -F 32 -I /dev/sdc1

(CLICK ON THE IMAGE TO ENLARGE)

(CLICK ON THE IMAGE TO ENLARGE)

(CLICK ON THE IMAGE TO ENLARGE)

Need of Encryption : Your files - Your Data


1.   In today's times when every spying eye,every hacker on the web is eyeing your info.... apart from hardening your OS and configuring your system securely what else can you do to secure your info after some one gate crashes into your system?.....I mean after someone gets your root privileges via remote access...what are the options to save your self from sharing your critical data with him?The answer is ENCRYPTION...

2.   Encryption is the process of encoding your information) in such a way that hackers cannot read it, but that authorized parties can.So without getting into the nitty gritties of what is Encryption and how it works..i am focusing here of what all opensource and free applications are available for encryption...

3.   First I would mention about TrueCrypt,this is the one I have been using for years...the reliability of this application can be gauged from the fact that in 2008, the FBI attempted to break encryption on hard drives using a program called TrueCrypt, but the equipment was finally returned after a year of failed tries.(Source : http://www.webcitation.org/query?url=g1.globo.com/English/noticia/2010/06/not-even-fbi-can-de-crypt-files-daniel-dantas.html)

4.   The other strong opensource software's available for encryption are :

    - E4M ie ENCRYPTION for MASSES)
    - Free OTFE
    - Scramdisk

5.   TrueCrypt remains the best bet for all present users.The popularity can be gauged from another fact that this is being used by cyber criminals to!!

Thursday, December 20, 2012

TrueCaller : Is it Stealing your Info?

1.    TrueCaller is one famous application doing the rounds on Twitter Google+ Facebook Android Phones.The claim by the application goes like you login from either of the applications and you would be able to know the name of the mobile phone number owner by name.The claim actually stands right in over 90 % of the cases that I tried.This made me wonder how?...i thought like all those free forms that we keep regularly filling on the internet or some grocery shop for some free bundles or if TrueCaller has tied up with the mobile phone service providers?But then something happened that made me a little suspicious about this app.It so happened that I tried my mom's number on the application and so came the answer like "TIWARI MAM"....this made me think of how would the application know that my mom is a teacher...

2.   So I wondered if the application after installation on your mobile device actually makes all the contacts phone number available on the site with the name that I have typed against that number!!!So I tried mine which was not available, by the name "anupam CCCSP"



3.  Though it did not show promptly but after a day after I typed my phone number it came to be seen as "anupam CCCSP".So this actually means that the application is actually stealing and making my contacts info on my phone public!!!!...but then I also realized that it was me only who agreed to the terms and conditions while installing the app on my phone which most of us including me never read.

4.   So it comes actually to the naiveness of the common user who invariably without reading any of the terms and conditions agrees to install.....:-) 

Thursday, December 13, 2012

FACEBOOK : The New Playground @ Dangerous

1.    It does not date back long in the past time corridors when I as a kid used to go to play grounds in the evening to play with my friends...meet them....fight with them...abuse them...get abused and then get back home for studies and prepare for next days school work and the cycle repeated every day...week and months.But what happens today with a typical metro kid....a school child in the bracket age of 10+ goes to Facebook to play with friends...he meets them.....abuses them at times...gets abused on the wall or vide posts.So more or less....things stand at the same place ,only the grounds have changed.First it was the actual play grounds and now it is all getting virtual.....blame it on lack of infrastructure with concrete eating much of space in metro's or lack of parental monitoring owing to their ultra busy lives.....for the new era generation...social networking sites like Facebook is the new PLAYGROUND.....the virtual one for a change!!!!


2.    So the rules remain the same....ie we have our social circle like we used to have in past...we meet vide post and comments...we like each other for something and dislike each other for some thing...here we cannot shake hands and hug each other but yess we can take grudges out of each other via so many means like hacking....cyber bullying...post hatred... cyber stalk...mobbing...sexting,internet trolling etc...the list is actually endless and the related terminology is on a phenomenal increase.So a typical new gen kid for whom Facebook kind social networking sites are the new playground to play....the proneness to the bad elements in the society remains actually higher then in past....for here it is just a matter of few compromised screenshots...hacked passwords and the kid is on way to become a victim...

3.   The recent case of Amanda Todd is indeed beginning of such sad but many in line expected incidents waiting to happen....today we may allow our kids to have a Facebook account or some social networking website account but without effectively monitoring the kid remains as prone as Amanda Todd.For this to happen the parent have to have basic IT IQ quotient to monitor to avoid any such incident.Like past when a child could be left at home assuming safe..it does not remain the same today....he has access to smartphones....he has access to tablets...internet via so many means.Even basic forensic knowledge possessed by the parents is bound to fail if the same is happening in Cloud rather then on the machine at home...

4.   Its time for the parents to equip themselves with the tools and knowledge required to monitor and watch the kids...also realizing that today's kids are more smarter in terms of grabbing the technology then ever....if you have reached reading till here...u must read the complete story here

TRUE CRYPT IN FEDORA 17: INSTALLATION

1.   The earlier version of Fedora had some token issues to deal with while installing True Crypt but not with this Fedora 17 Beefy Miracle.

2.   Few commands to be run from root after downloading the requisite version from the True Crypt site go as follows :

tar xvf truecrypt-7.1a-linux-x86.tar.gz 

yum install nss-pkcs11-devel fuse-devel wxGTK wxGTK-devel

yum load-transaction /tmp/yum_save_tx.2012-12-13.14-20.laXbNn.yumtx

yum install gnome-keyring-devel gcc-c++

export PKCS11_INC=/usr/include/gp11

./truecrypt-7.1a-setup-x86 

3.   Well if there are some token issues like shown below : 

../Common/SecurityToken.cpp:660: error: ‘CKR_NEW_PIN_MODE’ was not declared in this scope
../Common/SecurityToken.cpp:661: error: ‘CKR_NEXT_OTP’ was not declared in this scope

then you need to Open Common/SecurityToken.cpp in any editor and Scroll to line 660 and simply Comment out line 660 and 661. It should look like this after you edit:

//TC_TOKEN_ERR (CKR_NEW_PIN_MODE)
//TC_TOKEN_ERR (CKR_NEXT_OTP)

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