Category Archives: Internet
Setting up Web Proxy Autodiscovery Protocol (WPAD) using DNS
In order to use the DNS only method to setup Web Proxy Autodiscovery Protocol (WPAD) you need to check on the following
- To use WPAD using DNS method a DNS entry is needed for a host named WPAD. This name should be resolvable from the clients machine
- Web server must be configured to serve the WPAD file with a MIME type of “application/x-ns-proxy-autoconfig”
- A file named wpad.dat must be located in the WPAD Web server’s root directory.
- The host at the WPAD address must be able to serve a Web page.
- So if you are a member of example.com domain the browser is looking for this url for the PAC file http://wpad.example.com/wpad.dat
Proxy auto configuration for an enterprise network
Proxy servers are commonly used in corporate network. I prefer using squid proxy, probably one of the most robust, feature rich proxy servers out there.
I usually use web proxy servers (squid) for end users are used for the following reason
- Cashing of the web contents and DNS, which helps with Internet bandwidth optimization and Faster website load time
- Access control to internet resources, client bandwidth control
- Assist with content filtering (like SquidGuard)
- Maintaining client access log for security compliance
- Protecting client machines from direct exposure to Internet
Setting up proxy server setting in all client machine can be a time consuming business, if we have to manually configure and maintain each and every browser running on the network. However running a transparent proxy on the gateway is a quick and easy to way ensure all traffic goes through proxy server.
Alfresco Document management system is open source
Alfresco is a Document management system, also known as enterprise content management system. While products like google docs and live office making a lot of noise in the document editing market and products like dropbox helping us save and share our documents and other type of files. There is an open market for enterprise class content management system.
Though it is called an ECM, individual users or a small team like can greatly benefit from it.
How would you like to have all your documents searchable on the cloud, group them, categorise them, render them on the fly, download and view them on any device and share them with any group of people. This is what a document management system is all about. Though the product is not targeting individual users or small groups, never the less the benefits are undeniable once you know what you’re missing. Products like google doc and live office are not any document management system, they are just storage for your document with online editors and allow you to share and collaborate them in a very limited way.
Watch this video to see some highlights of alfresco features
On the other hand smart products like Dropbox makes sure your file is always with you. Features like Dropbox offline syncing can be a great extension to alfresco. However seamless integration of Dropbox with various platforms did not come cheap.
Talking about offline file sync, Alfresco do supports CIFS export of its contents; with Microsoft offline sync you can access them offline too.
Alfresco is Open Source Open Standard product, built on java and runs on java tomcat application server and even on Jboss platform.
You can deploy it on your own cloud and set it up without spending a penny for license, which is almost as good as the enterprise edition, and good enough for most of small and medium enterprises.
Feature wise Alfresco lines up with products like Microsoft SharePoint portal and it’s a great alternative to it.
Tag: alfresco, google docs alternative, sharepoint alternative, what is alfresco, Alfresco feature lists, open source
read more on alfresco vs googledocs
Google gets Sparrow
CEO of Sparrow Dom Leca is very excited about joining with Google.. are u?
If you have used it before you would know it’s a MAC email client, also works on iOS platform. Probably the only other app I would use after Outlook or MFE.
It could be good news for windows and android users which they would release eventually.
It is just that some applications are better being independent.
This is what Sparrow CEO had to say about this accusation
“We’re excited to announce that Sparrow has been acquired by Google!
We care a lot about how people communicate, and we did our best to provide you with the most intuitive and pleasurable mailing experience.
Now we’re joining the Gmail team to accomplish a bigger vision — one that we think we can better achieve with Google.
We’d like to extend a special thanks to all of our users who have supported us, advised us, given us priceless feedback and allowed us to build a better mail application. While we’ll be working on new things at Google, we will continue to make Sparrow available and provide support for our users.
We had an amazing ride and can’t thank you enough.
Full speed ahead! “
Tag: Sparrow, google, acquisition, android, windows, iOS, mac
Source: http://sprw.me/
Kim Dotcom Sings, creating history!
He is out and kicking and making some noise which sounds kinda cool, see it yourself.
War is not over yet, looks like he is ready for a fight too.
I was never a big fan of online file vaults/cyberlockers. I like torrent better, but then looks like very body else like to have a cloud vault and share it with friends. Services like dropbox are use full. However I surely would like to see him come out of these cheers to kim.com
My earlier blog on megaupload shutdown
Tag: Mr. President, kim doctom sings, medaupload, kim.com, technology, SOPA, PIPA
They sell your privacy! We don’t know who they are!
Reading a blog on Acxiom Corporation making billion dollar of sales having over 1,500 data points on half a billion people makes me think what future does a privacy free internet hold for us. On one side we want to see internet to be freed from government regulation, on the other hand we as a community doing a very little on protecting individual privacy.
Image from Fotolia
I have always been annoyed receiving tele-marketing calls at all odd times of the day for the things I am rarely interested in. There is also a great deal of emails (used to be called junk) gets delivered in my mail box instead of junk box, which are somewhat targeted and related to something I might be interested in. I have spent a lot of time in earlier my life doing mail server administration. Seeing these emails makes me think that how far we have come after we started fighting SPAM. Now first they want to know everything about you.
I am no high valued customer but I always get this feeling that people targeting me has a fair deal of idea on who I am, what I do, what I am looking for. I understand sharing and publishing my information online/offline has made me a part of many marketing database. In these case I would like to refer to this known quote “if you’re not paying for something, you’re not the customer; you’re the product being sold” but then the question is how many times they would sell my information complete or incomplete, right or wrong to how many people? Is there a limit on how many time can I be targeted of my information can be sold?
I know many countries has a national DND data base, if you register you and still receive unwanted call you can take some action against them, but I don’t know of any authority which can protect me against my information being traded in an open/private market.
I surely would like to see a community to guideline for such activity where user rights more importantly human rights to comes first
Read more on what you can do to protect yourself from being targeted by random information collectors
Do not track IE, firefox, chrome? Who is on your side?
Who is tracking you online? The BIG Brothers? So many of them?
Inspired by
You for Sale: Mapping, and Sharing, the Consumer Genome
“Right now in Conway, Ark., north of Little Rock, more than 23,000 computer servers are collecting, collating and analyzing consumer data for a company that, unlike Silicon Valley’s marquee names, rarely makes headlines. It’s called the Acxiom Corporation, and it’s the quiet giant of a multibillion-dollar industry known as database marketing.”
The Faceless Organization That Knows Everything About You
“We all know such organizations exist, of course, by Acxiom operates on a terrifying scale. The Times reports that Acxiom’s servers process more than 50 trillion data transactions a year. Its database, apparently, contains information about 500 million consumer worldwide—including the majority of US adults— and on average holds 1,500 data points for each of them.”
Tag: Privacy, data, security, information, internet, Acxiom Corporation, protection, tele marketing, spam
How Safe is your password?
Managing and securing password has been one of the biggest challenges. Password leaks news on such a short span of time on linkedin, eHarmony, last.fm makes me think that, these events are gradually getting more widespread.
According to Wikipedia: A password is a secret word or string of characters that is used for authentication, to prove identity or gain access to a resource (example: an access code is a type of password). The password should be kept secret from those not allowed access.
There are always two parties who maintain the password, the user and the service provider. User should remember the password and not share with anyone and the service provider should all everything possible to make sure it is not exposed to any third party.
What we are seeing these days that the service providers are failing to secure their password storage and hackers are being able to extract it.
What is a password hack?
When someone gains access to the password database by exploiting the system or the process, if not in plain text! they will try to crack it
When someone gets to know your password, you may be targets for your data, access. The motive can vary. Many times hackers just do it to show off their ability and insult the service providers, which of course get big news coverage. In these cases most of the time you have a little to worry about. On the other times they will do targeted hack, can stay unnoticed for long or never be discovered.
What can i do to feel a little more safe with my password?
Avoid using week password, try not to use same password for all your services or even by changing a character or two.
Try using OAuth instead of creating account with each provider when supported.
Avoid using services that do not support authentication over SSL
Ask your provider how they store your password and secure your data
And the last one, this one has a very little to do with the service provider; ensure you always use a secured terminal to login. Not compromised, and protected by antivirus etc etc.
Do not track IE, firefox, chrome? Who is on your side?
Do-Not-track
After learning all about Collusion plug-in for firefox, few months back, looking at the images of network of tracker, it was always in the back of my mind while browsing how online advertising companies always trying to predict “what I am looking for” by putting on all these sponsored adds, which most of the time very annoying as they probably have a very little clue. However what concerns me the most is that they record and distribute my browsing history for indefinite time, which I don’t like at all.
Collusion Firefox Add-in
Essential tcp ip network tools, network Swiss army knife
Being a Network administrators, systems administrators we always like to have some tools handy to look into, troubleshoot or just to figure things out. There are many open source, free tools available specialized for different purposes
In this blog I shall attempt to list some of them, give a brief description and list the available platform. I prefer to run these tools from a laptop on both windows and linux platform. I also prefer to have the ability to carry them around in a pen drive in a portable format. Linux boot disks are also useful in these cases
The basic tools to check tcp/ip
Ping is the most basic tool we use to check connectivity. We also use arp to check the local broadcast domain and the arp resolution table. traceroute(linux)/tracert(windows) is used to check the path to the destination host. “mtr” is a powerful tool to view the network part for a longer period of time, usually installed as an additional package. Windows version of mtr is also available, even a portable version. One more useful tool comes mostly of out the box is nslookup (windows and linux) and dig for linux; they are very useful troubleshooting identifying dns related investigation. “whois” is one more tool useful to find out more in some ip or domain name, owner, contact authority, as number etc. Last but not the least netstat available both in windows and linux is a useful tool to find out the local network status easily. A follow the link for a detail tutorial on how to use these basic tools.
OpenVAS Screen shot
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The future of computer human interface, BrainGate
Computer and human interface will probably be one of the most important areas of development in next few decades. While we work to master our technology to make computers work for us more efficiently, and double processing power every 18month, little we have seen to improve our direct interaction with computers.
What we seen is form factor changes (tablet/smart phone), introduction to motion sensing input (Kinect), use of GPS, accelerometer, google goggle, google glass, etc. In my opinion, we probably took a step back by heavily depending upon touch keyboards moving away from using 10 fingers (QWERTY keyboard) to 2 fingers. Fashion statements have become one of the key driving factors in the market. Most of our attempts to make handwriting recognition popular were never successful.
Our ability to instruct computers directly from our brain will probably be one of the great leap forward. We have the technology in hand. Project BrainGate is one of them.
BrainGate is a brain implant system, currently under development and in clinical trials, designed to help those who have lost control of their limbs, or other bodily functions, such as patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) or spinal cord injury. The sensor, which is implanted into the brain, monitors brain activity in the patient and converts the intention of the user into computer commands.
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