Primitive

TrueCrypt - Free Open Source Encryption Software

Tuesday, August 26th, 2008 | Apple, Linux, Microsoft, Tips & Tricks | 2 Comments

I’ve heard great things about TrueCrypt, the free open source encryption software that’s available for Windows Vista / XP, Mac OS X, and most distributions of Linux.

TrueCrypt has several features, including:

• Automatic, real-time, transparent encryption
• Creating a virtual encrypted disk within a file and mounting it as a real disk
• Encrypting an entire partition or storage device such as a USB flash drive or hard drive
• Encrypting a partition or drive where Windows is already installed
• Hidden volumes (steganography) and hidden operating systems
• TrueCrypt volume data cannot be distinguished from random data on the storage device
• AES-256, Serpent, and Twofish encryption algorithms in XTS mode of operation

Their steganography and hidden operating systems features are especially useful for sensitive data: You can install a real and a dummy OS and hide the real one with TrueCrypt so it looks like random data on the storage device. When you turn the computer on, you will be prompted for a password, and if someone forces you to enter your password, you simply enter the password for the dummy operating system (which contains no sensitive files). Without the password for the real operating system, no-one can get access to your data or even know that it is on the machine.

For more information or to download the software, visit their website here.

Tags: aes-256, encryption, operating system, serpent, steganography, storage, truecrypt, twofish, xts

Linux that looks like the Mac

Thursday, August 14th, 2008 | Apple, Linux, News, UNIX | 1 Comment

Lifehacker recently had an article about Ubuntu Linux computers skinned to look like Mac OS X. Given that Mark Shuttleworth recently called for Linux developers to exceed the looks and usability of OS X, these skins and plugins are a step in the right direction. If designers keep building on these ideas borrowed from Apple to create their own, distinguishable user interface, we should see some exciting stuff soon!

Tags: Apple, design, leopard, Linux, mac, macintosh, mark shuttlework, os x, ubuntu

Darkstat: UNIX Packet-Sniffing Daemon

Tuesday, August 12th, 2008 | Linux, News, Tips & Tricks, UNIX | 2 Comments

Darkstat is a packet-sniffing daemon for UNIX machines that collects network traffic statistics and can display them as HTML pages.

For this example I installed and configured Darkstat on an Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon) machine, but the same procedure should work for most Debian-based Linux distributions:

Like most Debian applications, Darkstat can be installed with apt-get by opening a new Terminal window and running the following command:

sudo apt-get install darkstat

After the package has been downloaded and installed, you need to modify it’s configuration file in a text editor by running this command:

sudo nano /etc/darkstat/init.cfg

Change this line:

START_DARKSTAT=no

To this:

START_DARKSTAT=yes

Then press control-X (to quit the text editor) followed by Y (to save your changes) and Enter (to overwrite the existing file).

Finally, you need to start the Darkstat daemon by running this command:

sudo /etc/init.d/darkstat start

Any computer on your network will then be able to view Darkstat’s HTML output by pointing a web browser to the IP address (and port 666) of the machine Darkstat is installed on.

In my case, I had to enter “10.0.0.119:666″ in my browser’s address bar to see this page:

Darkstat can present your traffic data in several views:

The Darkstat daemon should stay running if you want it to collect network statistics, but if you need to turn it off you can use this command:

sudo /etc/init.d/darkstat stop

Tags: apt-get, Linux, tutorial, ubuntu, UNIX