Firefox Sponsored Tiles Advert Strategy: Do You Object?

Mozilla Firefox nightly builds now include Sponsored Tiles on the 'New Tab' page

Here is the issue:  Firefox has survived on Advertisement revenue right along.  Yes?   Most of their revenue is based on a contract with Google which has been confirmed will end in November 2014, unless Google has a change of heart and renews.

Consequently, Mozilla is looking at contingency planning and has now added Sponsored Tiles to their nightly Firefox builds.  Sponsored Tiles appear on the 'New Tab' page and won't appear in your regular browser stream.  Being found on the New Tab page means they won't get blocked by tools like Adblock.

Remember, Mozilla is an Open Source company and this will help them to continue to fund Firefox development and continue to expand Mozilla Corporation at the same time.

So, I am fine with it, as long as Firefox remains Open Source.  What say you?  -- Dietrich

Related articles

• Firefox faces uncertain future as Google deal apparently ends
• Mozilla presses forward with new revenue plan, debuts ads in Firefox preview

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It's Love All Over Again With New Improved Mozilla Firefox 29

Firefox logo (Photo credit: Titanas)

by Dietrich Schmitz

I go back to a time when in Linux Firefox didn't exist.  Then, I used Mozilla.  For me, Mozilla Application Suite, a fork of Netscape's Communicator, was the best browser available in Linux Distro-Land and when it came out with 'Tabbed-browsing' I thought that was the greatest thing since sliced bread.

It was 'love at first sight'.  My infatuation with Mozilla grew and I became a loyal user overnight.

Enter Mozilla Firefox.  The genesis of Firefox was born out of many of Mozilla's features and overnight it became a hit.

Naturally, I switched away from Mozilla to Open Source Firefox and remain a loyal user.

Today, when I think about Open Source, I cannot stress its importance enough.  The need for Transparency in today's world has become magnified by world events and the increased public awareness that software can be exploited for nefarious purposes has become all the more clear.

How can we overcome such exploitation?  I believe that Open Source is vital to ensuring that rogue software exploit code becomes a thing of the past.  Proprietary code, that which cannot be seen, vetted with oversight by the general public, has the increased potential to become exploited on various levels.

Take for example something as simple as your average Microsoft Windows license.  Most people never read it.  And nobody other than Microsoft's programmers know what is specifically in their code base on an intimate level.  

How did Stuxnet happen?  

I am inclined to believe, it could not have happened if Windows was Open Source and I am also inclined to believe that it could not have happened without Microsoft's participation on some level.  There are 'back doors' into Windows legacy (x86) software, of that I am sure.

These 'back doors' are undocumented APIs which facilitate various control levels and, depending on the need, Microsoft shares those APIs with law enforcement and governmental agencies who request their assistance, unbeknownst to the general public.

This is only possible if the code base is proprietary and thus the programming APIs remain hidden.  And, proprietary being what it is, the ability to not disclose the full extent of how software governs itself is always an option and that is why I believe Proprietary Software = Exploitation.

Recently, I wrote WARNING: Google Chrome UNSAFE FOR GENERAL USE.
In that story, I disclosed my decision to stop using Chrome was based on its not being Open Source.

With world events in mind, Stuxnet, North Korean satellite launch systems (Windows) disabled, Flight 370 Boeing 777 'fly by wire' remote control software being undocumented and alleged to have been used for controlling and diverting said flight, I remain a staunch Advocate of Open Source and Transparency.

Just the other day Mozilla released their newest version of Firefox, version 29.

My good Friend Igor has scorned the design decisions made by Mozilla.  Okay, let's get it out of the way -- it 'looks' (to a degree) like Chrome.  But, if you really stop to think -- so what?  These are critical usability design considerations which I feel, on net, make Firefox all the more usable and at the same time extend its feature set with new much-welcomed rich functionality.

Firefox 29: A big win for Mozilla.  

When you combine the open source features of Firefox with the vast repository of plugins at users' disposal, the result is a powerhouse web browser.  There is no equivocating on that!

In fact, I'll go as far to say, I am in love all over again with Firefox and would like to thank the Mozilla Firefox Developer Team for all the innovative work done to date.  

Thank you.  Thank you.  -- Dietrich

Related articles

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WARNING: Google Chrome UNSAFE FOR GENERAL USE

by Dietrich Schmitz

You read that right.  I deem Google's proprietary Chrome (Freeware License) browser UNSAFE FOR GENERAL USE .

I can't make it any clearer than that.

Why is Google's Chrome browser unsafe?

It's pretty simple.  Google chose to not allow Chrome's code base to be shareable to the general public.

For your purposes, that means it doesn't operate under Open Source Gnu General Public License v2 (GPLv2) license terms which would allow the entire code base to be independently vetted by external audit for hidden vulnerabilities and exploits that may be resident much like HeartBleed in openSSL and NIST's Eliptical Curve Cryptography (ECC) which was discovered to have been weakened by the NSA.  The aforementioned rogue bugs lay hidden for quite some time, exploitable to those who knew of their presence.

The only ray of sunshine is that their source code is open source, which allowed discovery and corrective action to be taken.

Sadly, one has to draw the line in today's world.  We know the score with the NSA.  The Fox is in the hen house and now it's time to take action.

Severe action is needed.  

Accordingly, I am putting Google on notice and charging them with knowledge that their code base is 'closed' to the general public and must be 'opened' for independent external audit to assure no vulnerabilities exist of any kind (excluding discovered defects in Chrome's upstream dependencies).

It's no more Google Chrome for me.  And I hope you will follow suit.

Take action.  Switch to a 100% open source browser, like Mozilla's Firefox or Midori or Gnome's Web or KDE's Konqueror today.

I would remind the readers that despite assurances from Google to consumers that their privacy remains intact, it turns out last year that the NSA were able to drill through Google's SSL firewall and pitch camp on the inside for an unspecified period of time, unbeknownst to Google, as they sampled the clear text unencrypted Gmail and Drive meta data belonging to you.  Of course, publicly Google expressed outrage for what the NSA had done.

But actions speak louder than words.  You see, Google has had ample time to formally announce and roll out strong encryption for Gmail and Drive for their consumer-facing services.  To date, they have done nothing.  

Yet, on their commercial service side, they quickly reacted to the Fox in the Hen House last year and put in place FIPS governmental standard strong encryption.  

Corporate America is 'big business'.  Consumers play second fiddle, and because Google state in a revised language TOS agreement that they parse your clear text meta data to generate advertising revenue, the message to the consumer is that 'profit' takes precedence over their privacy.  

That is simply unacceptable and quite worrisome despite the 'lip service' they have given on tightening up their SSL standard.

No, consumer data, yours, is still sitting in clear text drive storage medium in the Gmail / Drive cloud where it can be read at will if/as/when it suits Google and/or any other governmental agency.

And, with Chrome being closed source, there is no way to know for sure what is or isn't happening during your Internet browser sessions is there?


Dear Reader, switching to open source is the only way that Security through Transparency can be achieved.  Do it today.

Google Chrome is UNSAFE FOR GENERAL USE.


-- Dietrich

Read More

Advocating for Security through Transparency

by Dietrich Schmitz

That's a screen shot (below) of the BitBucket repository for commits to ongoing development of dwb (dynamic web browser).

Oh, that's nice.  What's my point?

dwb is 100% pure Gnu Public Licensed code. That means, you, anyone, developers, users, the world, can see it, change it, for free. That has always been the basis for GPLv2 and the primary reason for why I opt to use dwb. Want to know what's going on with their code? Help yourself -- look around. Only, don't forget to turn the lights out when you leave. ;)

dwb (dynamic web browser) BitBucket repository commits page

You don't get that with Google's Chrome. Nope. Sorry. They won't let you see their code base. Of course, they are within their legal rights to do so, but, that doesn't mean I have to use their browser if I cannot know what it is doing, do I?

Ask yourself this question: Notice lately how Google Plus will periodically 'freeze' with the cpu utilization at 100%? 

What are they doing exactly?  (Shrugs)

That's Chrome doing whatever it does. :/ Whatever has a big question mark hanging over it for me.  My confidence in Google to 'Do No Evil' has fallen dramatically in the past 9 months since the Edward Snowden NSA Prism and other revelations.

You see, 'proprietary code' (not open source) often leads to some level of exploitation for commercial or 'other' purposes. Because Chrome is 'closed source', we cannot know for certain 'if' Google cooperates in some capacity with governmental information collection and sharing. That's because there is no public access for review of their code base, unlike dwb.

Taking the overt step to use dwb is my personal choice.  Yours may be different, but, if you truly believe in the power we (Humanity) hold over the "n'er-do-wells" of the world by embracing Open Source, then I urge you to make it your policy to not use proprietary software.  Take a stand and fight back. Set an example for others to follow and use open source applications only such as dwb, Mozilla Firefox, for the sake of security through transparency.

-- Dietrich

Related articles

• Moving Away from Google's Proprietary Ways
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Read More

dwb - A Webkit Browser, Highly Understated, Lightweight and FAST

by Dietrich Schmitz

I've been looking for browser alternatives to Chrome and Firefox.

Both are relatively bulky -- replete with features -- which is to be expected.

Chrome does things I don't like and I simply cannot account for why. At times it will remain quiet and at other times it will do whatever it decides to do and throttle up even pegging the cpu. My netbook strains to cooperate when that happens.

To a lesser extent that happens with Firefox, but really not nearly as often. I know from personal experience that opening a google plus tab will elicit periods of frenetic cpu activity which I watch in my LXDE cpu graph. Seconds can pass even minutes before Chrome settles down.  That annoys me.

So, I know Google Chrome is not 100% open source like Chromium. What are they doing exactly with my bandwidth? There is no way to know for sure and there certainly isn't any transparency given one cannot see Google's Chrome source code. That is 'off limits'.

This goes against the grain with me. I hold in reverence open source standards; Gnu Public License v2 in particular ensures public oversight to any single piece of code used.

This is what transparency is all about. It's hard to create 'rogue' code in the open source world, when 'many eyes' can see what is or isn't being coded and if something is 'amiss', corrective action can be taken appropriately.

Still, one wonders, if Linux was not open source, how long would such exploits thrive before being noticed? That is an important question and a major distinction for readers to consider -- especially those who currently depend on proprietary and closed source Microsoft Legacy (x86) Windows. Transparency is not a given in the Windows world.

Alright, you get the point. So, I began looking for something which is more lightweight and open source and, as important, would run reasonably well on my Netbook without pegging the cpu like Chrome does. Luckily, after a few days of searching around with Google and testing various browsers, I came upon one obscure Lightweight browser called dwb (dynamic webkit browser). It struck me at how minimal the developer's web page appeared to be. That minimalist mindset fit with my programming philosophy and was just what I was looking for.

With that, initially, I installed a revision of dwb found in the Fedora 20 repo. It worked, but, for some unknown reason it was not recognizing the presence of Adobe's Flash plugin. And, even after I reinstalled the newest 11.2.202 update, the error still persisted on youtube's website.

So, I uninstalled dwb with yum and then dispatched directly to the BitBucket dwb project site which supports git, downloaded a copy of the project, manually compiled and installed the newest version of dwb. That fixed the flash problem. That was yesterday and I've been puttering around using dwb exclusively ever since.

This is day two and I am here posting up my experience with dwb after several hours of use under my belt.

What a hoot. That's right. dwb is making me smile and I really think it is funny how straight up I was able to quickly adapt to using a 'keyboard-centric' minimalist browser and it got me to thinking about the general public.

People tend to be lazy and are reluctant to change habits.

But using dwb was not a radical change either.

In fact after a few minutes of googling dwb, I located some documentation at the BitBucket git project where dwb is developed and also some good material on the Arch wiki. (Is there ever anything but 'good' material on the Arch wiki?)

So, I admit being a computer geek does help getting up to speed. But I would bet some of the curious readers might be wondering if they should try dwb.

I say: "Why not?"

You stumble. You fall. You then pick yourself up, dust off and try again. It's like your first experience with a bicycle and training wheels as a child. After a while (hours) you start building up confidence as navigation becomes easier. Reading the Arch Wiki on dwb helped immensely and I don't think I have read for more than a half hour to find the keyboard shortcuts I use most often.

It's not that you can't use your mouse. Quite the opposite. A judicious amount of mouse use in combination with the keyboard will result in gained efficiency as you begin recalling which key does what.

I began to chuckle at how fast I was able to perform the same tasks on dwb verses Google Chrome. And I would add that I have yet to see an open tab to Google Plus peg the cpu -- not once has it happened. So, that makes me wonder even more -- what the heck is Chrome doing with my bandwidth? 

As I continued using dwb, the thought occurred to me, it's not just that dwb is small, compact and arguably the fastest browser -- it's that the keyboard still provides major advantages when included in the design of any software. As the dwb home page says:

"dwb is a lightweight web browser based on the webkit web browser engine and the gtk toolkit. dwb is highly customizable and can be easily configured through a web interface. It intends to be mostly keyboard driven, inspired by firefox's vimperator plugin."

And that is the point:  Keyboard optimization.  The icing on the cake is, if you should happen to know how to use the vi editor, all the better, as many of dwb's shortcuts parallel with vi.

Features

• vi-like shortcuts
• Link following via keyboard hints
• Bookmarks
• Quickmarks
• Cookie support, whitelisting of cookies
• Proxy support
• Userscript support
• Tab completion for history, bookmarks, userscripts
• Custom stylesheets
• Javascript blocker with whitelisting support
• Flash plugin blocker with whitelisting support
• Adblocking with filterlists
• Webinterface for keyboard and settings configuration
• Custom commands, binding command sequences to shortcuts
• Extendable via extensions/scripts
• Extension manager

So, are you feeling adventurous today? Give dwb a try.

dwb should be found in your Distro's repo, otherwise, the above link reaches the git repo.

Reach me with questions. -- Dietrich

Related articles

• Dwb
• Tutorial: dwb Keyboard Shortcuts
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Boycott Mozilla: CEO Brendan Eich Reveals Gay Bias

By Dietrich Schmitz

[Edit 4/3/2014 17:00 GMT-5: Brendan Eich steps down as Mozilla CEO ]
 

It never ceases to amaze me how narrow-minded and judgmental people can be.  Scary even.

I have worked with many people from different walks of life and can tell you that first-hand experience tells me that 'intolerance' is a form of hatred and leads to extremism.  The world is filled with extremists who unfortunately seek to further their own agendas at the expense of others, and who have created misery and death. (Image right: Brendan Eich)

So, that makes me what?  Anti-Extremist?  I hope so.  And I really don't like to see when a cross-section of 'Human Beings' is simply marginalized as though they should not be conferred equal rights.

It's time to take a stand against recently appointed Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich who has taken sides on Proposition 8 in favor of restricting the right to marry to heterosexuals only.

Gay people who want to marry, should, I believe, have as much a right to do so as any other sexually-oriented group.  Their love for one another is just as strong as yours and mine.  They feel the same things we do, share the same life hopes and desires, and deserve like treatment.  That should be obvious.  Sadly, it is not.

With that, I am making a statement:

If Brendan Eich does not step down from Mozilla, I will no longer use any Mozilla product whatsoever.


It is wrong in my judgment and Mozilla need a CEO who is 'fair and balanced' with respect not only to technical acumen but also with how they relate to others in real-world terms.

Thus, Dear Reader, I ask you to join me in boycotting Mozilla as well.

Collectively, we can influence Mozilla Governance to reconsider appointing a qualified replacement CEO candidate having unbiased, even-handed thinking.

-- Dietrich

Related articles

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Moving Away from Google's Proprietary Ways

by Dietrich Schmitz

As a result of drawing a line with Google, I've spent considerable time considering a range of options to avail myself to in replacing Google services. 

As for Blogger, I intend to use Wordpress and will convert my Linuxadvocates website soon and am hoping to have some of Kev Quirk's guidance on tap as I move forward.

As for my browser, I've turned to looking at Chromium.

Why?

Because The Chromium Projects is fully open source and not proprietary, unlike Google Chrome. The two are quite different beasts. In fact, I am using Chromium right now and it is working nicely as many of my colleague Friends have reported. That word 'proprietary' will mean more to you below when you continue your reading of this piece of verbosity.

So, I've also shifted from Lubuntu 13.10 to Linux Mint 15 "Olivia" Xfce Edition.  That's Mint below for those of you interested in making the 'leap' from Windows to Linux who may be wondering just how difficult the transition may be.

Linux Mint 15 "Olivia" Xfce Edition - My Desktop

If you are new to Linux, you may think of the graphical user interface (gui) as being 'loosely coupled'. Linux doesn't care if you have one or not. In fact, linux web servers are set up without one in command line 'headless' fashion. But, as far as choices go, the move to Mint Linux is a safe bet. You see, they are #1 on Distrowatch.com for a reason. It's that good. I call it Ubuntu +1.

The choice of guis was easy for me. Xfce. It's still a lightweight gui, like Lubuntu's LXDE, but it is really more feature complete. There are trade-offs for using LXDE which for me are taken in stride but for a newcomer, Xfce will make any Windows user feel quite at home. There is little to do after installation. Just boot and use.

Here's some background information on Xfce: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xfce

Many newcomers will find the naming of things in the Linux world funny, but that's open source for you. It is rather benign but much of it will make sense as you become accustomed to the "Linux Way" of doing things.

The "Linux Way" of doing things incorporates many concepts but there is none more important in light of the Snowden revelation than open source 'Transparency'. This is a good place for you to stop and read a link on the topic to frame in your mind this abstract but yet so vital concept:

http://www.concurringopinions.com/archives/2013/09/open-source-values-transparency-in-the-post-snowden-era.html

It's basically this. Proprietary = Exploitation. That's how I see it.
And at growing levels I see Google's expansion in the name of profitability colliding with their "Do No Evil" mantra that so many of us, including myself, believed in.

So, on principle, I am looking to non-Google solutions to continue using the Internet.

I find using Chromium safe and acceptable by virtue of the pure open source footing on which it is developed. That will assure transparency going forward as with Mozilla's Firefox.

As for the array of Google services like Drive, Gmail, etc.?

I don't need them. I am looking at Kim Dot Com's Mega for its Zero Knowledge Encrypted free 50MB space support and also their upcoming encrypted end-to-end email. Phil Zimmerman, the Founder of Silent Circle and Lavabit's Ladar Levison are forming Dark Mail Alliance.

Those are my two target email solutions going forward.

That should do it for now.  -- Dietrich

Related articles

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Manjaro Linux: No Assembly Required

by Dietrich Schmitz

So, okay, I've known about Manjaro for quite some time.  I put it on a pen drive and took a look at it and at the time last year it was using a Ncurses installer.  There were niggling issues with it so I aborted the installation.

Yet, it still intrigued me mainly because it uses Arch and AUR and given all of the talk about how fast and light Arch Linux is, it was interesting to see someone attempting to take advantage and fill what I feel is an unmet need.

Many would like to try Arch, but the technical expertise required is a barrier.  Arch isn't user-friendly and one cannot simply press a button to start an install GUI and have all the 'black magic' taken care of for them.

The Arch purists do love that aspect and I understand that need to get under the hood and get grease under one's fingernails.  Only, it's not for me and I've mentioned this many times to my Arch Friends -- it will never gain broad adoption because major assembly and technical expertise is required to put Arch on your Desktop.

So, today, I gave Manjaro 0.8.7 a try.

The install process now includes options for either CLI or GUI.  Naturally, I chose GUI.

The install could not have been easier and routine, I thought.  This will work for the majority of newcomers to Linux for sure.

The notorious Broadcom wireless on my Acer Aspire One D260 was detected and worked straight up from the live installer.  It wasn't more than 20 minutes before the process completed and asked me to reboot.  That I did and noted that reaching the login screen took no more than 15 seconds.

I chose the OpenBox version (verses Xfce) simply because it would use the least ram in my experience.

The desktop sports conky and the setup includes compton compositor effects which are used judiciously and the muted gray with light green is pleasant to the eye with a design that approaches minimalism.

The appearance immediately reminded me of CrunchBang.  Only I would estimate Crunch still is speed king and ram sipping extraordinaire.  The Desktop in Manjaro despite being OpenBox shows 200mb ram used.  I would have expected lower but okay, it's still lightweight as far as I am concerned.

The terminal is LXTerminal and the file manager is Thunar.

In the systray was an octopi update reminder which when run shows the updates to be installed in a graphical window (see below) yet when I commit to doing the update, octopi simply opens a terminal window and launches a pacman script -- I guess that is 'doable' but I'd have expected the gui to do all of the presentation.

Running Octopi software updates on Manjaro 0.8.7

So this is Manjaro.  I am reserving judgment and will see how far I get using it.  Out of the box it comes with Firefox and Adobe Flash 11.2.x preinstalled, which is a plus.  The kernel is 3.10.x which means it 'should' support seccomp-bpf applications like Chrome and ssh.

Regretfully, I was unsuccessful in installing Chrome stable using Manjaro Forum supplied directions -- makepkg returned a dependency error.  Good Friend +Cirrus McMinor has offered to dial up and get it working, but, it would be nice if one could download Chrome directly and install from the Google website but that appears not to be the case for Arch and derivatives like Manjaro.  That would place pacman-based Distros (Arch) on equal footing with DEB and RPM Distro Google supplied versions.  So, I'll settle for Firefox and see how far I can get with it.


If you have used OpenBox, it's pretty basic and there isn't much to say other than Manjaro at least updates OB's menu to reflect the addition of an application, unlike other Distros using OpenBox.

So, if you yearn for Arch but don't have the intestinal fortitude to deal with the technicalities, then I would strongly suggest you have a look at Manjaro Linux.  It's biggest plus: No Assemby Required.  Good Luck.

-- Dietrich

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Netrunner 13.06 Enigma: Best KDE Out of the Box Experience

by Dietrich Schmitz

Netrunner-os released Friday, July 5th, their newest version Linux Distribution, Netrunner 13.06 Enigma.

I am going to tell you straight up, Netrunner Enigma is the best KDE-based (version 4.10.4) Ubuntu derivative I have ever used.

It's really that good.  I am serious as a 'heart attack'.  Maybe because some of the KDE 'brain-trust' also happen to work for Blue Systems who develop Netrunner?

Not maybe.  +Martin Gräßlin, is maintainer of KDE Plasma Compositor and Window Manager and is employed by Blue Systems, coincidentally.

I would also mention Blue Systems is doing coding support for Kubuntu and Mint KDE editions.

Features and Changes

Netrunner Desktop Containment (clean folderview, hidden plus/minus overlays)
- Improved KWin performance, so default enabled fx work on most low end machines
- Kate Minimap scrollbar
- Automatic KWallet Active
- Hot-Corner in lower right
- Simplified System Settings
- Removed Wine (due to less relevance)
- Alsa instead of Pulseaudio for best compatibility and performance (intel hda)
- Firefox with Mozilla App-Store
- Steam Installer-Link
- Mint Software Sources and Hardware Manager
- usual KDE goodies, Homerun 1.0, Tomahawk 0.7, etc.

So, you see, it would stand to reason that the level of 'fit and finish' as well as stability would be of high-quality in this Distro.  And, it is.  I don't know what Martin did (thank you), but KDE is flying on my Netbook with 2GB ram.  That's not what I usually get using KDE.  So, I am giggly using it like I found a diamond in the ruff.

Netrunner-os 13.06 Enigma shown on my Netbook

There are now several Desktop projects based on Qt:

• KDE
• Razor-Qt
• KLyDE (pre-release)
• LXDE-Qt (pre-release)
• Unity (cough Mir)

And, one wonders if others will follow suit, like, for example, a port of Xfce to Xfce-Qt maybe?  Maybe so.

It seems that there has been a seismic shift and programmers are scurrying to move away from anything remotely resembling GTk.  Maybe there is good reason.  Regardless, it is all up for debate as to the merits of one GUI framework verses another.  Some swear by the GTk tool set which currently holds the majority share of Linux applications written with it.

But trends are trends.  And Qt programming is definitely on the up-swing.

If you want to experience true KDE 'nirvana' please go straight to the Netrunner website and get your copy of Enigma today.

-- Dietrich

Related articles

• Netrunner 13.06 Is an Unusual Blend of KDE and GNOME
• Distribution Release: Netrunner 13.06
• Top Ten Sleeper Distros
• Canonical and KDE/Kubuntu Developers Finally Confront Each Other
• Plasma Workspaces 4.11: A long term release

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Feeling Paranoid Much? Surf Anonymously Using Secure Shell (ssh)

by Dietrich Schmitz

Seems that we have all caught the paranoia fever which is going around (cough NSA).

I think the level of concern is sufficient and justifiable that puts everyone's Internet Privacy into question.

So, expect my stories to continue to take a bent on security and privacy and what measures can be taken by you to be proactive in seizing control of some aspects of your Internet Privacy.

Not surprisingly, the reality of obtaining true privacy on the Internet requires a mix of technologies, but all have one common denominator: encryption. (Image credit: kean.edu)

Think of encryption as being a lock.  It's your lock on your data or data stream.

So, in this story I'd like to demonstrate how one can, using most any Linux Distribution, secure an anonymous Internet session using Secure Shell (ssh).

Most every Linux Desktop Distribution includes in its tools bundle ssh.  I won't get into why, but suffice it to say that ssh is the standard de rigueur for all manner of system administration.  There are many books written about it.

If you happen to be using Microsoft Windows, you may want to consider installing Cygwin (recommended) or Putty to have secure shell available.

Okay this example will assume you are using Linux.  So here goes.

First step will be for you to establish a shell proxy account.  There are many from which to choose.  Mine is silenceisfeat.com to which I have my own personal login account.

So, with a shell account now in place, we need to establish a connection to it using secure shell.  The connection obtained using ssh establishes an encrypted channel, or, tunnel.

In this example, I am using my own credentials by opening a terminal window and typing:

[dietrich@localhost ~]$ ssh -D 8080 silenceisdefeat.com
dietrich@silenceisdefeat.com's password: 
Last login: Tue May 28 11:36:50 2013 from cpe-24-58-xxx-xxx.twcny.res.rr.com
OpenBSD 5.1 (GENERIC.MP) #188: Sun Feb 12 09:55:11 MST 2012

         _ __   welcome to        _          __     ____           __ 
   _____(_) /__  ____  ________  (_)________/ /__  / __/__  ____ _/ /_
  / ___/ / / _ \/ __ \/ ___/ _ \/ / ___/ __  / _ \/ /_/ _ \/ __ `/ __/
 (__  ) / /  __/ / / / /__/  __/ (__  ) /_/ /  __/ __/  __/ /_/ / /_  
/____/_/_/\___/_/ /_/\___/\___/_/____/\__,_/\___/_/  \___/\__,_/\__/  
        for support visit http://silenceisdefeat.com/support

            Come idle with us on irc.oftc.net's #sd!


                          2012-08-16                    
      
      Upgraded to 5.1
      
      
                          2012-07-31                    
      
      PHP works again in user web space, and your
      scripts now run as your user with suPHP.  Sorry
      that took like a year.
      
      

-bash-4.2$ 

Ok perfect.  Per, the above, we now are connected, or tunneled to the shell account.
Leaving the terminal window open is important, or, your connection will terminate.

Now we need to use a browser which supports proxy configuration.  In this example I show how to set up a proxy with Firefox.  You may have heard of it. ;)

First, load Firefox, then on the menu, go to Edit->Preferences and this window should display:

Firefox Preferences, Select Advanced (top), then the Network Tab

As shown, I have first clicked the Advanced Icon at top, then clicked the Network Tab.  You should see this next window display:

On the Advanced Network Tab, click the Settings button

Selecting the Network Tab and pressing the Settings button should then display this window:

Set to Manual proxy, using port 8080, localhost 127.0.0.1 and SOCKS5

Per the above, I've set the browser to manual proxy using port 8080, localhost 127.0.0.1 and SOCKS5 proxy.  Using SOCKS5 proxy is very important.  It sends all DNS queries through the tunnel, otherwise they would be generated separately and go onto the Internet directly from your localhost machine by-passing the tunnel and would be sniffable by any third-party monitoring your activities.

Once set, click OK, close Firefox and reopen it.  As I know my WAN ip is 24.58.x.x, I am now checking my ip address returned by website whatsmyip.org, which when plugged into website ip2location.com confirms the outbound WAN ip in a Chicago, Illinois location.

Website WhatsMyIp.com returns the ip of my proxy.

Website ip2location.com shows the ip of my browser is in Chicago, Illinois

So, my tunnel from Upstate New York is connecting and going out the other endpoint of the tunnel in far away Chicago.

There you have it.  A simple free way to surf anonymously.

-- Dietrich

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