the stinkin' blog

I do a fair amount of reading various articles throughout the day in a vain attempt to keep on top of technology. I recently came across this sensationally titled article “GNU/Linux Security: Ubuntu has been Cracked!“. You were drawn in by a sensational headline only to be suckered into reading an article about security, Linux, and proactivity. We all know that Ubuntu is a very secure OS with proof by hard-core hackers at a recent “crackfest”.

Read the article. It has good information, but left ONE open question for me. “HOW” do you get proactive with users. What tools, techniques, and avenues can we use to get people to open up to a new way of doing things? Human nature is to resist change with all of our might.

Help me out with this. I run a local Meetup and have a good crowd, but the attendees are already geeks. Most of them run secure alternatives to Windows. How can we be proactive?

JP

The T-Mobile MyTouch3g (mt3g) was released in August 2009 with much hype by T-Mobile as a successor to the T-Mobile G1. With Android v1.5, the mt3g has a slick interface with no physical keyboard. Many features were “updated”, but the biggest change is the virtual keyboard. I picked one up and switched from AT&T in mid-August, gaining not only a better phone, but a much better rate plan, too!

I really enjoy my new phone. Until yesterday, I left the stock T-Mobile image intact and did a TON of research on various ways to get the most out of my phone. The one area that was “a missing” for me was the ability to use it with my computer to provide a internet connection in places where I could not find a decent wifi connection. That usage is otherwise known as “tethering”. Mind you, tethering is forbidden by T-Mobile’s Terms and Conditions so please be aware that while you can add a tethering application using modifications described here you will be violating an agreement somewhere.
This document does not describe how to tether your device.

So you want to “root” your phone, huh. I hope you know what that means and what comes with it. I will show you how to use the Cyanogenmod ROM to “root” your phone. Here’s what you’ll want to have handy.

To get the speed you want from the phone you really need to purchase a Class 6 SDHC card. Most cards are Class 2 which are quite slow – you WILL see the difference.
Try one of these Class 6 SDHC cards.

Now let’s get started.
First check to see what firmware version you are currently using:
Menu –> Settings –> About phone
If the Firmware version shows 1.6 then you accepted the T-Mobile update and need to do a few extra steps described below.
If you are at Firmware version 1.6 use this tutorial to revert back to a 1.5 factory image
***BEWARE THIS WILL COMPLETELY WIPE YOUR PHONE****
This will put your phone back as it came out of the box.

If you are at 1.5 – let’s go.

Download the HTC Base image from here and copy to your SDCARD (not in a folder – to the root of the card).

Download the Cyanogenmod ROM from here and copy to your SDCARD (again not in a folder – to the root of the card).

Now that you have the needed files…
Download the Recovery Flasher from here. You can use this DR Code to download it if you want.

If you have not already, be sure that you have enabled Unknown Sources by going to Menu–> Settings–> Application Settings and ensuring the checkbox is green for Unknown sources. Now install the Recovery Flasher and run it.
First step – backup your phone
Then download and install the suggested recovery image
Now you can flash the recovery image and boot into recovery mode by holding the HOME button down and pressing the power button. You *SHOULD* see a screen like:

Now you will want to first use nandroid to back up your device – it’s probably clean anyway, but never hurts to have a failsafe option.
You will now want to use the wipe option – this is now suggested due to recurring issues.
Once wiped, use the “Apply any zip from sdcard” option and select the HTC rooted base zip downloaded earlier.
You will need to reboot, but **IMPORTANT** – BE SURE YOU DO NOT LET THIS IMAGE BOOT! Hold HOME when you power up and get back into the recovery image tool.
Now you want to install the Cyanogenmod image downloaded above – today it is 4.1.999. Use the “Apply any zip from sdcard” option and select the Cyanogenmod image.
Once this image is installed all you need to do is power off and reboot.
The initial startup will take a few minutes so be patient.
Once booted you will need to register your phone and you will have a fully modified system. Go to Menu-Settings-About phone and look at the details. It should look like this:

You now have a nice new mod for your phone that is fast, fun, and above all usable!
Enjoy.

I recently purchased an Android based phone. The MyTouch3g from T-Mobile. It is a HTC Magic phone and is running Android v1.5 (Cupcake). I was digging around with it and started playing with SDK in an attempt to “root” the phone. Turns out rooting it is a little more than I’d like to get into right now. Give me a few more months playing with it and I will. So far I like the phone.

To get started with the SDK…
1. You must download the Android SDK. You can find the Android 1.5 R3 here.

2. You must setup a udev rule
a. As root create this file: /etc/udev/rules.d/51-android.rules.
sudo gedit /etc/udev/rules.d/51-android.rules

For Gusty/Hardy or newer, edit the file to read:
SUBSYSTEM==”usb”, SYSFS{idVendor}==”0bb4″, MODE=”0666″

For Dapper, edit the file to read:
SUBSYSTEM==”usb_device”, SYSFS{idVendor}==”0bb4″, MODE=”0666″
b. Now execute:
sudo chmod a+rx /etc/udev/rules.d/50-android.rules

3. Now you need to ensure USB Debugging is turned on.
a. Settings ->Applications -> Development -> USB Debugging checkbox is green!

4. Now connect your device via a USB cable

5. Verify you can see the device
a. From the android sdk cd tools
b. run ./adb devices
c. if you see your device, you have done everything correctly

6. Now you can play with your device

7. If you want to get some details or screenshots
a. run ./ddms

Enjoy. More to come on playing with the Android phone.

I had the pleasure of attending the Florida Linux Show in Jacksonville, FL on Monday, 9 March 2009 (happy birthday, Mom) where I presented on Ubuntu and Cloud Computing. The first speaker at this conference was none other than Joe “Zonker” Brockmeier who is currently representing Novell as openSUSE’s Community Manager. His presentation was titled “Bootstrapping Community – Starting and Open Source Project”.

I found the title to be interesting however his presentation was fascinating. After fiddling with the projector for a bit he started the presentation about 15 minutes late. No problem there, typical to a relatively small conference. Joe has not presented much, it appears, as he used the “um”, “uh”, “so” fillers a lot. On his second slide his machine hung hard and he was forced to reboot openSUSE. Nice.

Joe managed to get through the technical glitch and rebooted his machine, however, the projector was not able to determine the sync rate and his deck was completely unreadable for the rest of the presentation. Ok…we have all been through technical glitches, no problem. I have had my quota for sure.

The fascinating part? As he was the first session, I expectd that he would hang around with the rest of the community members and at least hear what they had to say. Not a chance. He disappeared after his presentation was over at 9:15a and was never to be seen again.

It is no wonder that openSUSE’s community is lackluster at best. Not only does Novell not understand community, it has hired a community manager who has ZERO knowledge of how to build, manage, or work within a community. Sad state of affairs, but not necessarily unexpected.

Community requires just that, community. One must be visible to the community, be active in the community, enjoy the community and all of the interesting aspects of a community. Joe chose not to particpate in the open source community present at this show which is indicative of how well openSUSE’s community efforts are working to date.

Here are a few links to get that shell scripting itch scratched.

Books
Linux Shell Scripting with Bash by Ken Burtch.

Websites
Bash FAQ: http://wooledge.org/mywiki/BashFAQ
Bash Guide: http://wooledge.org/mywiki/BashGuide
Advanced: http://tldp.org/LDP/abs/html

#bash @ freenode

Thoughts on Ubuntu 8.10.

I get a big kick out of trollbait articles like this one. For starters he starts with a problem that manifests itself in only a few computers and instead of helping developers by informing them that he has the problem as well, he simply complains about the problem and points out that others have it as well.

The 2nd beef is the “hope clause”. I “hope” that a problem “gets fixed”. Hope is not help. Go to launchpad.net and enter a bug. Help fix the problem instead of complaining about it. The idea behind open source is community involvement.

You see, Microsoft has $$$billions$$ of dollars and thousands of developers that do one thing – continue to slather crap onto Windows. Ubuntu has neither of those resources. If it did, you can be assured the problems you see would not happen.

Get up, be a part of the community. Give back to what is given to you.

Mad Irish.net – Creating a Robots.txt Honeypot.

Nifty how-to on short term blacklisting of IP’s that hit a honeypot to thwart attackers.

This article. is a straightforward method for creating a envelope template in OpenOffice without trying to find the envelope wizard.

Woohoo!

I forced a brief hiatus of my server whilst I upgraded it to a new server distro. Can you guess which one? Ubuntu Server, of course. I ended up learning a lot about debian distros and am now almost 100% running again. What fun!!!

I plan on posting a few items here that need some documenting shortly.