[Link] Gentoo Pleas For Help

Donnie Berkholz (September 14, 2011)

<LWN.net : The state of Gentoo>

[Link] Reverse Connection ICMP Shell

(Friday, 15 April 2011)

<Reverse connection: ICMP shell>

Geany text edittor

I wanted to take a second to point out a great tool that some might otherwise have overlooked; <Geany>. Based on <(Wiki)Scintilla>, Geany is a light weight, cross-platform, text editor with a familiar layout. Once the packaged plugins are all enabled, Geany goes from, light weight, simple IDE, to system administration and configuration portal with out missing a beat.

• <Geany - Homepage>
• <Geany - Screenshots>
• <Geany - Download>

Geany is a tabbed file editor with a familiar layout. A left column shows a tree based navigation panel. This doubles as a file browser, project file browser, and symbol list for the current file. A panel across the bottom can switch between compiler output, messages, and a terminal.

The IDE capabilities of Geany are pretty simple. It has most the text editing bells and whistles one is accustomed to, including code highlighting, text folding, and auto-completion. Aside from the integrated terminal, Geany can be configured to do simple make, build, and execute operations, although there doesn't seem to be any debugger integration.

When run with elevated privileges, Geany makes a handy GUI administration tool. Quick file navigation, tabbed file editing, and a terminal combine to make an efficient GUI administration tool. If your already running a GUI, you can be terminal warrior and still have the luxury of a GUI file editor.

Geany is a very light weight text editor released under the GNU General Public Licence. It's light weight GTK+ base makes it great for most window managers and platforms. Geany is a common project, included in most Linux repositories (like Ubuntu), that even has a Windows binary release available.

Geany is definitely a light weight, handy, and flexible tool that shouldn't be overlooked.

[Link] Another List of 50 Top Linux Apps

laptoplogic.com (Jan 23, 2009)

<Top 50 Linux Alternatives to Popular Apps>

Virtual Desktops in Windows with VirtuaWin

VirtuaWin

  The lack of virtual desktops in Window XP and Vista has slowed my work on Windows boxes for too long. I recently revisited a free Virtual window manager for Windows (Vista, XP, and older) named VirtuaWin.

  <VirtuaWin> is a small, light weight, and minimal virtual window manager. VirtuaWin is found free and open source at our favorite, <SourceForge.net>. The application consists of a system tray icon in your task bar:

(the green box)

  Out of the box you get 4 desktops, although the limit is 20. These are switchable in several customizable ways. The configurable hotkeys and mouse edge bumping seem to do well for me. Virtual desktops and multiple monitors make things even better!

  You can then refine this tool with the <great collection of add-on modules>. Modules provide a desktop pager, auto switching, visual and audio desktop change notifications, and more. The system tray icons can be easily customized by dropping in icon sets. VirtuaWin has quite a <collection of icon sets> you can browse.

[Link] Slackware 12.2 Released

Slackware 12.2 Released (Dec 10, 2008)

A quick look at what Slackware 12.2 ships with:

• Linux kernel  2.6.27.7


• Xorg X server  1.4.2


• Xfce  4.4.3


• KDE  3.5.10 (4.1 is in /testing directory)


• HAL

<Slackware 12.2 Release Announcement>

Py3k: Python 3.0 Officially Released

Py3k

<Python 3.0 (a.k.a. Python 3000) was officially released> on Dec 2, 2008. You can find <a nice long rundown> describing the many changes. The lack of backwards capability caused by the changes has been noted in the news for quite awhile.

In case you your not aware, the home of Python is .ORG. If you accidentally go to .COM = Pr0n you will find High Def teen pr0n with explicit flash video playing on load as well as plenty of explicit pictures, nice! That would suck to load up at work while people are around!

[Link] 100 Best Open Source Security Tools

A great list of 100 open source security tools. They are categorized; each having a short description and link to it's home page. I can see most of my favorites in the list.

Masters in Criminal Justice (Nov 26, 2008)

<100 Best Open Source Security Tools>

Ubuntu Linux Kernel Vulnerabilities Advisory

Ubuntu

Ubuntu has released a security advisory (below), detailing 9 potential kernel vulnerabilities. The advisory appears to encompass all Ubuntu's and suggests a kernel image upgrade. This will require a reboot and require a reinstall of all third party kernel modules that are installed.

<Ubuntu: USN-679-1: Linux kernel vulnerabilities> (Nov 27, 2008)

Assembly Programming in Python!

CorePy

CorePy 1.0 Officially Released! (Nov 17, 2008)

  <CorePy> is a <Python> package that allows executing assembly instructions for x86, Cell BE, and PowerPC processors (32 and 64 bit) from within Python. It is an open source project available under a BSD license

  CorePy's usage is comparable to inline assembly in other languages, but provides much more control than most provide.

"high-performance applications that take advantage of advanced processor features, including multiple cores and vector instruction sets (SSE, VMX, SPU), usually inaccessible from high-level languages."

  CorePy works by using an ISA, a library of architecture instruction sets, to build a list of instructions in a InstructionStream. This is called a synthetic program and is converted to a stream of reusable processor instructions. These synthetic programs can be executed by the processor synchronously or asynchronously, passing parameters to and from other synthetic programs.

  A print function is built in that supports plugins for printing the instruction stream out to assembly. Nasm seems to be ready, but GAS-compatible output seems to be incomplete.

A simple example from the website:

  # Load the x86_64 instructions and environment
  >>> import corepy.arch.x86_64.isa as x86
  >>> import corepy.arch.x86_64.platform as x86_env
  Platform: linux.spre_linux_x86_64_64
 
  # Create a simple synthetic program
  >>> code = x86_env.InstructionStream()
  >>> code.add(x86.mov(code.gp_return, 12))
 
  # Execute the synthetic program 
  >>> proc = x86_env.Processor()
  >>> result = proc.execute(code, mode='int')
  >>> print result
  12

<CorePy>

<Download Page>

Fedora 10 is Here!

Fedora 10 is here!

<Get Fedora KDE> <Get Fedora GNOME>

<Fedora Torrents>

Major new features at a glance:

• Wireless connection sharing enables ad hoc network sharing


• Better setup and use of printers


• Virtualization storage simplified


• SecTool intrusion detection system


• RPM 4.6 is a major update


• Rewrite of the PulseAudio sound server


• Improved webcam support


• Better support for infrared remote controls

<Full release notes>

[Release] OpenBSD 4.4 Released

OpenBSD

Free, Functional & Secure

"Only two remote holes in the default install, in more than 10 years!"

OpenBSD 4.4 released Nov 1, 2008:

<(Wiki)OpenBSD>

<OpenBSD 4.4 Release Details>

<OpenBSD Download Page>

Microsoft's open source multi-touch SDK

  Microsoft released (Oct 6 2008) <Microsoft Office Labs: Touchless>. Touchless is a multitouch software that uses a regular webcam to track color based markers (like on a dry erase marker board). It's sort of a low-end version of <Microsoft's Touchwall technology> you may have seen <demo videos> of.

  The project has <4 demos and the SDK>. The project is open source (at quick glance it looks to be mostly C#) and isn't a revenue-bearing product. This is a significant change of pace for the maker of proprietary software solutions, although Microsoft has been expressing interest in open source recently. Some people argue that the term 'open source' implies more than just the availability of source code which isn't consistent with the restrictive nature of the <Microsoft Public License> it's released under.

Google Project: Obfuscated TCP

From the <Obfuscated TCP Project's Home>,

"Obfuscated TCP is a transport layer protocol that adds opportunistic encryption. It's designed to hamper and detect large-scale wiretapping and corruption of TCP traffic on the Internet."

View the <quick YouTube explanation>:

FLOSS Weekly

FLOSS Weekly

  <FLOSS Weekly> is an audio netcast (also known as a podcast) about 'Free Libre Open Source Software'. Hosted by Leo Laporte and Randal Schwartz, supported by Cachefly, and hosted on <TWiT.TV> (This Week in Tech). This is all reminiscent of Steve Gibson and Leo Laporte's once very popular netcast, <Security Now>.
  For many of us Security Now paved our interest in podcasts, then renamed them to netcasts. Steve Gibson coined the term netcast when podcast's copyright status came in question. Security Now caught our attention with it's early networking, encryption, and security episodes. It pioneered as one of the first semi-professional tech shows with real topics. They brought tech media away from the trend of underground bumbled garage shows battling it out against commercial fluff-tech. Fusing a respectable quality show with respectable topics.
  Security Now has slowed down in it's innovation at over 160 episodes. Pushing of products as a shows topic seemed cool when it was great new software like <Tor> and <True Crypt>, but recent plug episodes have left a bad taste in listeners' mouths.
  <FLOSS Weekly> continues this start with a different focus, open source software. FLOSS Weekly started off slow, sometimes going 2 months without a new episode, but recently has began full steam carving a schedule that is fitting of the show's title. Let the show's topics do the talking:

---

<FLOSS Weekly 41: DotNetNuke> - The open source content management and Web application system that runs under the .NET framework. (September 19th, 2008)

<FLOSS Weekly 40: Jeff Robbins on Drupal> - Jeff Robbins talks about Drupal the popular open source PHP/LAMP web content management system. (September 12th, 2008)

<FLOSS Weekly 39: Simon Phipps> - Simon Phipps, chief open source officer of Sun Microsystems. (September 5th, 2008)

<FLOSS Weekly 38: Asterisk> - Asterisk, an open source PBXi, telephony engine, and telephony applications toolkit. (August 30th, 2008)

---

See the full list of 40+ episodes and growing at <TWiT.TV / FLOSS>.

Other episodes talked about open source software you shouldn't miss. Just to name a few:

Drizzle
SQLite
CouchDB
Smalltalk / Squeak
Django
WebDAV
OpenJDK
Blender

SoCo Software Releases C++ Yahoo Source Code

  <SoCo Software> has released <XLibrary>, a C++ repository of source code modules. Included are Windows sockets, Yahoo chat, and Yahoo captcha modules. This library is released under a custom license similar to the <OS-CPL> which doesn't force adoption of open source licenses.

  SoCo Software has provided free tools, scripts, and applications with source code, for a few years now. It is one of the few places where you can find a <free proxy tester> with source code. Most free proxy testers are released by proxy list sites, so you can help them find fast proxies, while getting the bottom of the barrel.

  The software site is using this library release as the beginning in a line of additions of source code libraries and snippets, including embedded (ASM and Dynamic C) and web application (JavaScript and PHP) source code.

Metasploit The Recent DNS Flaw

DNS
<Metasploit> plug-in that uses the <recent DNS poisoning flaw> to inject a malicious DNS entry.
<www.caughq.org/exploits/CAU-EX-2008-0002.txt>

New True Crypt Release Features Hidden, Encrypted, OS Partitions

   We know True Crypt as the free-open source application for Windows/Mac/Linux that creates on-the-fly-encrypted drive volumes. You create a file or volume with the combination of several heavy, industry standard, encryption algorithms. With the password, that file or volume can be mounted as a drive letter (in Windows).

   True Crypt has been around a while; it's based on E4M (Encryption for the Masses) and released it's first version at the beginning of 2004. It's popularity exploded when it was the featured topic of a <GRC's Security Now> audio podcast. This was near the popular beginning of the series, which then featured informative, weekly, encryption and network protocol discussions.

   Since it's start, True Crypt has acquired additional innovative features. It can encrypt entire partitions, like an entire hard drive, as well as devices such as USB flash drives. It later featured the ability to create <hidden volumes> through <steganography>(wiki) techniques (hiding the encrypted volume inside a larger one filled with cryptographically random free space).

   The new True Crypt version 6 can not only encrypt your hard drive/partition containing your operating system, prompting you for your password at boot up, but can also make that a hidden volume. This creates an innovative situation of <plausible deniability>.

<www.TrueCrypt.org>
<True Crypt Downloads>

Open Source Lojack System For Laptops (beta)

   <Adeona> is the first Open Source system for tracking the location of your lost or stolen laptop that does not rely on a proprietary, central service. Adeona instead uses the open source <OpenDHT> distributed storage service to store location updates.
   Protect your laptop, for free, without giving away your privacy to a proprietary central server (and any organizations who could persuade them to share your location information).

(Windows/Mac/Linux)

"We are exploring the possibility of Adeona for mobile devices, like the iPhone or Windows Mobile."

Beta notes:
   The current version of Adeona is 0.2.1. This is a beta version. Being the first public distribution for deployment, Adeona has been made easy to uninstall. It also shows readily in your system process list. No mention of GPS support. Location information includes: internal IP address, external IP address, nearby routers, access point, photos (Macs only via <isightcapture>).

TCP Reset Injection Detection Utility

  An interesting source, <NNSquad> (Network Neutrality Squad), has released an open source tool (licensed under <LGPL>) to detect TCP reset (RST) packets that may have been injected into a TCP connection by a party other than the endpoints.
  The <NNSquad Network Measurement Agent (NNMA)> tool's available downloads are beta and include a Windows 2000/XP/Vista installer binary and <VC++ 6.0> Windows source code.
  TCP reset injection has been discovered being controversially used by internet service providers, such as <Comcast>, to disrupt torrent and P2P file sharing.