October 16, 2009, 10:15 am
Tor is a free software implementation of second-generation onion routing – a system which claims to enable its users to communicate anonymously on the Internet. Its primary goal is to protect its users against traffic analysis attacks. The Tor Project’s home page has a great simplified write up about how Tor actually works here: http://www.torproject.org/overview.html.en
Originally sponsored by the US Naval Research Laboratory, Tor became an Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) project in late 2004, and the EFF supported Tor financially until November 2005. Tor software is now developed by the Tor Project, which since December 2006 is a research/education non-profit organization based in the United States of America that receives a diverse base of financial support.
Getting Tor working both as a client and as a server is no sweat on Arch Linux and below are the steps.
Continue reading ‘Installing Tor Server and Client on Arch Linux’ »
July 2, 2008, 1:55 pm
We can have the most secure box in the world but that doesn’t mean necessarily that we’re safe. There are a lot of interested parties in the world that want your information and the list of who those interested parties are grows by the day. Looking for a job? Well, the companies you’re applying to are running Google searches on your real name, your email address, and any screenname you may have given them, looking you up at LinkedIn, Myspace, Facebook, etc. Making online purchases? Well, both the identity thief and the government would love to track those transactions. Searching for information related to an embarrassing situation in your personal life? Google saves those searches. Like to show off your musical tastes on Last.fm? Congrats, you’re probably broadcasting a good portion of the music you’ve pirated. Logging in to a site to pay a bill? There’s a cracker out there that would love for your password to be transmitted in plain text, rather than encrypted. And lets not forget the fact that AT&T spies on the American populace for the NSA, MPAA, RIAA, and probably any other organization that asked it to. Even if you truly trust a company, you never know what information of yours could be handed over in a lawsuit. Think you’re hidden behind a screen-name? Think again.
I should give a little warning, I do suggest people follow all of these tips, but they are for the paranoid and some will consider it over board.
Related Reading on TuxTraining.com
- Secure the Hell Out of Your Linux box
- Secure the Hell Out of Your Windows box
- The Ultimate SSH Security Tutorial
- How to Install and Setup IPCop as your Linux based router
Continue reading ‘Safety Online’ »
