Tag: operating system

How to learn to be a hacker easily

1) Are you sure. It is tough to be a hacker. And football players get all the attention.

2) Really? Read on

3) Read Hacker’s Code

http://muq.org/~cynbe/hackers-code.html

The Hacker’s Code

“A hacker of the Old Code.”

  • Hackers come and go, but a great hack is forever.
  • Public goods belong to the public.*
  • Software hoarding is evil.
    Software does the greatest good given to the greatest number.
  • Don’t be evil.
  • Sourceless software sucks.
  • People have rights.
    Organizations live on sufferance.
  • Governments are organizations.
  • If it is wrong when citizens do it,
    it is wrong when governments do it.
  • Information wants to be free.
    Information deserves to be free.
  • Being legal doesn’t make it right.
  • Being illegal doesn’t make it wrong.
  • Subverting tyranny is the highest duty.
  • Trust your technolust!

4) Read How to be a hacker by

Eric Steven Raymond

http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html

or just get the Hacker Attitude

The Hacker Attitude

1. The world is full of fascinating problems waiting to be solved.
2. No problem should ever have to be solved twice.
3. Boredom and drudgery are evil.
4. Freedom is good.
5. Attitude is no substitute for competence.
5) If you are tired of reading English, maybe I should move on to technical stuff
6) Create your hacking space, a virtual disk on your machine.
You will need to learn a bit of Linux. If you are a Windows user, I recommend creating a VMWare partition with Ubuntu
If you like Mac, I recommend the more aesthetic Linux Mint.
How to create your virtual disk-
read here-
Download VM Player here
http://www.vmware.com/support/product-support/player/
Down iso image of operating system here
http://ubuntu.com
Downloading is the longest thing in this exercise
Now just do what is written here
http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vmware_player40.pdf
or if you want to try and experiment with other ways to use Windows and Linux just read this
http://www.decisionstats.com/ways-to-use-both-windows-and-linux-together/
Moving data back and forth between your new virtual disk and your old real disk
http://www.decisionstats.com/moving-data-between-windows-and-ubuntu-vmware-partition/
7) Get Tor to hide your IP address when on internet
https://www.torproject.org/docs/tor-doc-windows.html.en
8a ) Block Ads using Ad-block plugin when surfing the internet (like 14.95 million other users)
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/adblock-plus/
 8b) and use Mafiafire to get elusive websites
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/mafiaafire-redirector/
9) Get a  Bit Torrent Client at http://www.utorrent.com/
This will help you download stuff
10) Hacker Culture Alert-
This instruction is purely for sharing the culture but not the techie work of being a hacker
The website Pirate bay acts like a search engine for Bit torrents 
http://thepiratebay.se/
Visiting it is considered bad since you can get lots of music, videos, movies etc for free, without paying copyright fees.
The website 4chan is considered a meeting place to meet other hackers. The site can be visually shocking
http://boards.4chan.org/b/
You need to do atleast set up these systems, read the websites and come back in N month time for second part in this series on how to learn to be a hacker. That will be the coding part.
END OF PART  1
Updated – sorry been a bit delayed on next part. Will post soon.

Patent Wars in Mobile Software

My latest article published in India Telecom Brief on the patent wars-

 

Patent Wars in Mobile Software

Why are Apple, Microsoft and Google spending billions to acquire patents? Recently Google, maker of the largest selling mobile operating system, Android decided to acquire Motorola Mobility for 12.5 billion dollars, giving it some 17000 patents with another 7500 patents pending.
Meanwhile some months ago, a consortium led by Microsoft, Apple and Research in Motion (maker of Blackberry) bought 6000 patents by Nortel Networks for 4.5 billion dollars.
These are only the defensive moves in these patent wars. In offensive moves, Microsoft has sued HTC, Barnes and Nobles, Motorola for patent infringement over them using Android operating system claiming some aspects are patented by it. Though Google does not earn any money directly from selling Android, ironically Microsoft is earning money from Android vendors including up to 5 dollars per handset from HTC.

Read the full article at http://www.indiatelecombrief.com/from-the-editors-desk/51839-patent-wars-in-mobile-software

 

Related–

A brilliant infographic  from George Kokkinidis at Design Language http://news.designlanguage.com/post/1473307539 sums all the absurdity up- where almost everyone is suing everyone. Truly a picture is worth a thousand words.

 

 

 

 

Using Two Operating Systems for RATTLE, #Rstats Data Mining GUI

Using a virtual partition is slightly better than using a dual boot system. That is because you can keep the specialized operating system (usually Linux) within the main operating system (usually Windows), browse and alternate between the two operating system just using a simple command, and can utilize the advantages of both operating system.

Also you can create project specific discs for enhanced security.

In my (limited ) Mac experience, the comparisons of each operating system are-

1) Mac-  Both robust and aesthetically designed OS, the higher price and hardware-lockin for Mac remains a disadvantage. Also many stats and analytical software just wont work on the Mac

2) Windows- It is cheaper than Mac and easier to use than Linux. Also has the most compatibility with applications (usually when not crashing)

3) Linux- The lightest and most customized software in the OS class, free to use, and has many lite versions for newbies. Not compatible with mainstream corporate IT infrastructure as of 2011.

I personally use VMWare Player for creating the virtual disk (as much more convenient than the wubi.exe method)  from http://www.vmware.com/support/product-support/player/  (and downloadable from http://downloads.vmware.com/d/info/desktop_downloads/vmware_player/3_0)

That enables me to use Ubuntu on the alternative OS- keeping my Windows 7 for some Windows specific applications . For software like Rattle, the R data mining GUI , it helps to use two operating systems, in view of difficulties in GTK+.

Installing Rattle on Windows 7 is a major pain thanks to backward compatibility issues and version issues of GTK, but it installs on Ubuntu like a breeze- and it is very very convenient to switch between the two operating systems

Download Rattle from http://rattle.togaware.com/ and test it on the dual OS arrangement to see yourself.

 

 

 

 

 

How to surf anonymously on the mobile- Use Orbot

This is an interesting use case of anonymous surfing through mobile by using Tor Project on the Android Mobile OS.

Source- https://guardianproject.info/apps/orbot/
 

Orbot requires different configuration depending on the Android operating system version it is used on.

For standard Android 1.x devices (G1, MyTouch3G, Hero, Droid Eris, Cliq, Moment)

  • WEB BROWSING: You can use the Orweb Privacy Browser which we offer, which only works via Orbot and Tor.
  • For Instant Messsaging, please try Gibberbot which provides integrated, optional support for Orbot and Tor.

For Android 2.x devices: Droid, Nexus, Evo, Galaxy

  • WEB BROWSING: Non-rooted devices should use Firefox for Android with our ProxyMob Add-On to browse via the Tor network. Rooted devices can take advantage of transparent proxying (see below) and do not need an additional app installed.
  • Transparent Proxying: You must root your device in order for Orbot to work transparently for all web and DNS traffic. If you root your device, whether it is 1.x or 2.x based, Orbot will automatically, transparently proxy all web traffic on port 80 and 443 and all DNS requests. This includes the built-in Browser, Gmail, YouTube, Maps and any other application that uses standard web traffic.
  • For Instant Messsaging, please try Gibberbot which provides integrated, optional support for Orbot and Tor.

Developers

US-CERT Incident Reporting System

Here are some resources if your cyber resources have been breached. Note the form doesnot use CAPTCHA at all

US-CERT Incident Reporting System (their head Randy Vickers quit last week)

https://forms.us-cert.gov/report/

Using the US-CERT Incident Reporting SystemIn order for us to respond appropriately, please answer the questions as completely and accurately as possible. Questions that must be answered are labeled “Required”. As always, we will protect your sensitive information. This web site uses Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) to provide secure communications. Your browser must allow at least 40-bit encryption. This method of communication is much more secure than unencrypted email.  Continue reading “US-CERT Incident Reporting System”

Amazon Ec2 goes Red Hat

message from Amazing Amazon’s cloud team- this will also help for #rstats users given that revolution Analytics full versions on RHEL.

—————————————————-

on-demand instances of Amazon EC2 running Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for as little as $0.145 per instance hour. The offering combines the cost-effectiveness, scalability and flexibility of running in Amazon EC2 with the proven reliability of Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

Highlights of the offering include:

  • Support is included through subscription to AWS Premium Support with back-line support by Red Hat
  • Ongoing maintenance, including security patches and bug fixes, via update repositories available in all Amazon EC2 regions
  • Amazon EC2 running RHEL currently supports RHEL 5.5, RHEL 5.6, RHEL 6.0 and RHEL 6.1 in both 32 bit and 64 bit formats, and is available in all Regions.
  • Customers who already own Red Hat licenses will continue to be able to use those licenses at no additional charge.
  • Like all services offered by AWS, Amazon EC2 running Red Hat Enterprise Linux offers a low-cost, pay-as-you-go model with no long-term commitments and no minimum fees.

For more information, please visit the Amazon EC2 Red Hat Enterprise Linux page.

which is

Amazon EC2 Running Red Hat Enterprise Linux

Amazon EC2 running Red Hat Enterprise Linux provides a dependable platform to deploy a broad range of applications. By running RHEL on EC2, you can leverage the cost effectiveness, scalability and flexibility of Amazon EC2, the proven reliability of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and AWS premium support with back-line support from Red Hat.. Red Hat Enterprise Linux on EC2 is available in versions 5.5, 5.6, 6.0, and 6.1, both in 32-bit and 64-bit architectures.

Amazon EC2 running Red Hat Enterprise Linux provides seamless integration with existing Amazon EC2 features including Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS), Amazon CloudWatch, Elastic-Load Balancing, and Elastic IPs. Red Hat Enterprise Linux instances are available in multiple Availability Zones in all Regions.

Sign Up

Pricing

Pay only for what you use with no long-term commitments and no minimum fee.

On-Demand Instances

On-Demand Instances let you pay for compute capacity by the hour with no long-term commitments.

Region:US – N. VirginiaUS – N. CaliforniaEU – IrelandAPAC – SingaporeAPAC – Tokyo
Standard Instances Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Small (Default) $0.145 per hour
Large $0.40 per hour
Extra Large $0.74 per hour
Micro Instances Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Micro $0.08 per hour
High-Memory Instances Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Extra Large $0.56 per hour
Double Extra Large $1.06 per hour
Quadruple Extra Large $2.10 per hour
High-CPU Instances Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Medium $0.23 per hour
Extra Large $0.78 per hour
Cluster Compute Instances Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Quadruple Extra Large $1.70 per hour
Cluster GPU Instances Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Quadruple Extra Large $2.20 per hour

Pricing is per instance-hour consumed for each instance type. Partial instance-hours consumed are billed as full hours.

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and

Available Instance Types

Standard Instances

Instances of this family are well suited for most applications.

Small Instance – default*

1.7 GB memory
1 EC2 Compute Unit (1 virtual core with 1 EC2 Compute Unit)
160 GB instance storage
32-bit platform
I/O Performance: Moderate
API name: m1.small

Large Instance

7.5 GB memory
4 EC2 Compute Units (2 virtual cores with 2 EC2 Compute Units each)
850 GB instance storage
64-bit platform
I/O Performance: High
API name: m1.large

Extra Large Instance

15 GB memory
8 EC2 Compute Units (4 virtual cores with 2 EC2 Compute Units each)
1,690 GB instance storage
64-bit platform
I/O Performance: High
API name: m1.xlarge

Micro Instances

Instances of this family provide a small amount of consistent CPU resources and allow you to burst CPU capacity when additional cycles are available. They are well suited for lower throughput applications and web sites that consume significant compute cycles periodically.

Micro Instance

613 MB memory
Up to 2 EC2 Compute Units (for short periodic bursts)
EBS storage only
32-bit or 64-bit platform
I/O Performance: Low
API name: t1.micro

High-Memory Instances

Instances of this family offer large memory sizes for high throughput applications, including database and memory caching applications.

High-Memory Extra Large Instance

17.1 GB of memory
6.5 EC2 Compute Units (2 virtual cores with 3.25 EC2 Compute Units each)
420 GB of instance storage
64-bit platform
I/O Performance: Moderate
API name: m2.xlarge

High-Memory Double Extra Large Instance

34.2 GB of memory
13 EC2 Compute Units (4 virtual cores with 3.25 EC2 Compute Units each)
850 GB of instance storage
64-bit platform
I/O Performance: High
API name: m2.2xlarge

High-Memory Quadruple Extra Large Instance

68.4 GB of memory
26 EC2 Compute Units (8 virtual cores with 3.25 EC2 Compute Units each)
1690 GB of instance storage
64-bit platform
I/O Performance: High
API name: m2.4xlarge

High-CPU Instances

Instances of this family have proportionally more CPU resources than memory (RAM) and are well suited for compute-intensive applications.

High-CPU Medium Instance

1.7 GB of memory
5 EC2 Compute Units (2 virtual cores with 2.5 EC2 Compute Units each)
350 GB of instance storage
32-bit platform
I/O Performance: Moderate
API name: c1.medium

High-CPU Extra Large Instance

7 GB of memory
20 EC2 Compute Units (8 virtual cores with 2.5 EC2 Compute Units each)
1690 GB of instance storage
64-bit platform
I/O Performance: High
API name: c1.xlarge

Cluster Compute Instances

Instances of this family provide proportionally high CPU resources with increased network performance and are well suited for High Performance Compute (HPC) applications and other demanding network-bound applications. Learn more about use of this instance type for HPC applications.

Cluster Compute Quadruple Extra Large Instance

23 GB of memory
33.5 EC2 Compute Units (2 x Intel Xeon X5570, quad-core “Nehalem” architecture)
1690 GB of instance storage
64-bit platform
I/O Performance: Very High (10 Gigabit Ethernet)
API name: cc1.4xlarge

Cluster GPU Instances

Instances of this family provide general-purpose graphics processing units (GPUs) with proportionally high CPU and increased network performance for applications benefitting from highly parallelized processing, including HPC, rendering and media processing applications. While Cluster Compute Instances provide the ability to create clusters of instances connected by a low latency, high throughput network, Cluster GPU Instances provide an additional option for applications that can benefit from the efficiency gains of the parallel computing power of GPUs over what can be achieved with traditional processors. Learn more about use of this instance type for HPC applications.

Cluster GPU Quadruple Extra Large Instance

22 GB of memory
33.5 EC2 Compute Units (2 x Intel Xeon X5570, quad-core “Nehalem” architecture)
2 x NVIDIA Tesla “Fermi” M2050 GPUs
1690 GB of instance storage
64-bit platform
I/O Performance: Very High (10 Gigabit Ethernet)
API name: cg1.4xlarge

 

Getting Started

To get started using Red Hat Enterprise Linux on Amazon EC2, perform the following steps:

  • Open and log into the AWS Management Console
  • Click on Launch Instance from the EC2 Dashboard
  • Select the Red Hat Enterprise Linux AMI from the QuickStart tab
  • Specify additional details of your instance and click Launch
  • Additional details can be found on each AMI’s Catalog Entry page

The AWS Management Console is an easy tool to start and manage your instances. If you are looking for more details on launching an instance, a quick video tutorial on how to use Amazon EC2 with the AWS Management Console can be found here .
A full list of Red Hat Enterprise Linux AMIs can be found in the AWS AMI Catalog.

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Support

All customers running Red Hat Enterprise Linux on EC2 will receive access to repository updates from Red Hat. Moreover, AWS Premium support customers can contact AWS to get access to a support structure from both Amazon and Red Hat.

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Resources

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About Red Hat

Red Hat, the world’s leading open source solutions provider, is headquartered in Raleigh, NC with over 50 satellite offices spanning the globe. Red Hat provides high-quality, low-cost technology with its operating system platform, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, together with applications, management and Services Oriented Architecture (SOA) solutions, including the JBoss Enterprise Middleware Suite. Red Hat also offers support, training and consulting services to its customers worldwide.

 

also from Revolution Analytics- in case you want to #rstats in the cloud and thus kill all that talk of RAM dependency, slow R than other softwares (just increase the RAM above in the instances to keep it simple)

,or Revolution not being open enough

http://www.revolutionanalytics.com/downloads/gpl-sources.php

GPL SOURCES

Revolution Analytics uses an Open-Core Licensing model. We provide open- source R bundled with proprietary modules from Revolution Analytics that provide additional functionality for our users. Open-source R is distributed under the GNU Public License (version 2), and we make our software available under a commercial license.

Revolution Analytics respects the importance of open source licenses and has contributed code to the open source R project and will continue to do so. We have carefully reviewed our compliance with GPLv2 and have worked with Mark Radcliffe of DLA Piper, the outside General Legal Counsel of the Open Source Initiative, to ensure that we fully comply with the obligations of the GPLv2.

For our Revolution R distribution, we may make some minor modifications to the R sources (the ChangeLog file lists all changes made). You can download these modified sources of open-source R under the terms of the GPLv2, using either the links below or those in the email sent to you when you download a specific version of Revolution R.

Download GPL Sources

Product Version Platform Modified R Sources
Revolution R Community 3.2 Windows R 2.10.1
Revolution R Community 3.2 MacOS R 2.10.1
Revolution R Enterprise 3.1.1 RHEL R 2.9.2
Revolution R Enterprise 4.0 Windows R 2.11.1
Revolution R Enterprise 4.0.1 RHEL R 2.11.1
Revolution R Enterprise 4.1.0 Windows R 2.11.1
Revolution R Enterprise 4.2 Windows R 2.11.1
Revolution R Enterprise 4.2 RHEL R 2.11.1
Revolution R Enterprise 4.3 Windows & RHEL R 2.12.2

 

 

 

iTunes finally gets some competition ?- Amazon Cloud Player

 

An interesting development is Amazon’s Cloud Player (though Cannonical may be credited for thinking of the idea first for Ubuntu One). Since Ubuntu One is dependent on the OS (and not the browser) this makes Amazon \s version more of a  mobile Cloud Player (as it seems to be an Android app and not an app that is independent of any platform, os or browser.

Since Android and Ubuntu are both Linux flavors, I am not sure if Cannonical has an exiting mobile app for Ubuntu One. Apple’s cloud plans also seems kind of ambiguous compared to Microsoft (Azure et al)

I guess we will have to wait for a true Cloud player.

 

http://www.amazon.com/b/ref=tsm_1_tw_s_dm_liujd5?node=2658409011&tag=cloudplayer-20

How to Get Started with Cloud Drive and Cloud Player

 

Step 1. Add music to Cloud Drive

Purchase a song or album from the Amazon MP3 Store and click the Save to Amazon Cloud Drive button when your purchase is complete. Your purchase will be saved for free.

 

Step 2. Play your music in Cloud Player for Web

Click the Launch Amazon Cloud Player button to start listening to your purchase. Add more music from your library by clicking theUpload to Cloud Drive button from the Cloud Player screen. Start with 5 GB of free Cloud Drive storage. Upgrade to 20 GB with an MP3 album purchase (see details). Use Cloud Player to browse and search your library, create playlists, and download to your computer.

 

Step 3. Enjoy your music on the go with Cloud Player for Android

Install the Amazon MP3 for Android app to use Cloud Player on your Android device. Shop the full Amazon MP3 store, save your purchases to Cloud Drive, stream your Cloud Player library, and download to your device right from your Android phone or tablet.

compare this with

https://one.ubuntu.com/music/

A cloud-enabled music store

The Ubuntu One Music Store is integrated with the Ubuntu One service making it a cloud-enabled digital music store. All purchases are transferred to your Ubuntu One personal cloud for safe storage and then conveniently downloaded to your synchronizing computers. And don’t worry aboutgoing over your storage quota with music purchases. You won’t need to pay more for personal cloud storage of music purchased from the Ubuntu One Music Store.

An Ubuntu One subscription is required to purchase music from the Ubuntu One Music Store. Choose from either the free 2 GB option or the 50 GB plan for $10 (USD) per month to synchronize more of your digital life.

5 regional stores and more in the works

  • The Ubuntu One Music requires Ubuntu 10.04 LTS and offers digital music through five regional stores.
  • The US, UK, and Germany stores offer music from all major and independent labels.
  • The EU store serves most of the EU member countries (2) and offers music from fewer major label artists.
  • The World store offers only independent label music and serves the countries not covered by the other regional stores.

 

 

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