TrueColor Technical

Online Backup Services - A Simple Guide

Cliff Boodoosingh on July 13, 2007

Tunnel HTTP traffic through SSH

Posted by Mr. IT Guy | Filed under Featured, Linux, Microsoft, Review

I just found out an easy way to beat most web/content-filtering system (provided SSH traffic is not blocked). SSH is a good choice because it’s natively installed on most Linux and Mac system. Windows user can download a small software called Putty, which can run without being installed. SSH server also available on almost all Linux server as well as some Linux based routers. Here’s how to do it in Windows:

1. Download Putty and Run
2. Type in the IP of Linux box or other SSH server you have access to and make sure the port is correct too
3. Under the tab “Connection –> SSH –> Tunnel” set a local source port *preferrably random number above 1024*
4. Under destination choose “Dynamic” and “Auto“
5. Then click open
6. Open IE or Firefox and find the proxy configuartion
7. Set your localhost as the SOCKS proxy server and the port is the local source port you choose on Step 3
   NOTE: On Firefox choose SOCKS v5, and on IE include “localhost, 127.0.0.1″ as the addresses exempted by the proxy

That’s all needs to be done.

UPDATE:
For those who wants to use it with IM services like MSN, here’s what you need to do:

1. Goto Tools -> Options -> Connection
2. Click on Advanced Settings
3. On SOCKS type 127.0.0.1 and click Test

The Six Dumbest Ideas in Computer Security

Original Article

There's lots of innovation going on in security - we're inundated with a steady stream of new stuff and it all sounds like it works just great. Every couple of months I'm invited to a new computer security conference, or I'm asked to write a foreword for a new computer security book. And, thanks to the fact that it's a topic of public concern and a "safe issue" for politicians, we can expect a flood of computer security-related legislation from lawmakers. So: computer security is definitely still a "hot topic." But why are we spending all this time and money and still having problems?

Let me introduce you to the six dumbest ideas in computer security. What are they? They're the anti-good ideas. They're the braindamage that makes your $100,000 ASIC-based turbo-stateful packet-mulching firewall transparent to hackers. Where do anti-good ideas come from? They come from misguided attempts to do the impossible - which is another way of saying "trying to ignore reality." Frequently those misguided attempts are sincere efforts by well-meaning people or companies who just don't fully understand the situation, but other times it's just a bunch of savvy entrepreneurs with a well-marketed piece of junk they're selling to make a fast buck. In either case, these dumb ideas are the fundamental reason(s) why all that money you spend on information security is going to be wasted, unless you somehow manage to avoid them.

For your convenience, I've listed the dumb ideas in descending order from the most-frequently-seen. If you can avoid falling into the the trap of the first three, you're among the few true computer security elite.