Google yourself - Self-googling as a tool for privacy protection

Due to the growth of recent social networking web application such as Facebook, Twitter, etc. its not un-common to unknowingly disclose personal details into the public domain. The use of seach engines such as Google is a popular way to find out if you have increased the potential vulnerability of identity theft. 


Whilst "self‐googling, can be the theory of narcissism,"2 its also a good way to investigate personal, and related information about oneself. The consequences of having an unwanted Internet presence can be quite serious, not only from an information security perspective, but also from a social one. Once you have identified the appropriate information you need to remove them, this is the hard part. Google Webmaster tools provide several guidelines for this.


Digital presence create cyber footprint which are not always so easy to get rid off, and can follow the unsuspecting cyber citizen home!!! So perhaps Googling yourself every once in a while is a healthy thing and no so bad after all. 


References:

1. http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/removals
2. http://www.citeulike.org/user/thiemehennis/article/6895338
3. http://www.stopcyberbullying.org/take_action/google_yourself.html
4. http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1893965,00.html
5. http://www.wikihow.com/Ungoogle-Yourself

Failed to install "Security Update for .NET Framework 2.0 SP2 and 3.5 SP1 on Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP x86 (KB983583)"

Windows Update kept failing indicating it Failed to install "Security Update for .NET Framework 2.0 SP2 and 3.5 SP1 on Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP x86 (KB983583)"

After some Googling, and manually downloading and running the update, I managed to get the actual error message 1603 from the manual installer. Later I discovered that the generic error "1603" implies a "Fatal error during installation.".

The Microsoft KB seems to indicate that "These errors codes are usually caused by a corruption in the .NET Framework installation or by an inconsistency on the MSI database state.". In an attempt to resolve the issue as per the KB, I attempted to manually uninstall the .net framework, but this too failed.

I then downloaded the un-installer (Refer 3 below) and forced the uninstall. Installed the latest .net framework and updated. I had to reboot the machine after the first lot of updates, and attempted Windows Update again after the reboot. Uninstalling and re-installing the .net framework appears to have resolved the issue.

References:

1. http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=1e53f250-2d4b-4f61-86ee-9f9f3a9c0b48&displaylang=en
2. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/923100/
3. http://cid-27e6a35d1a492af7.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/Blog_Tools/dotnetfx_cleanup_tool.zip

Australian Game Shops Online

Thought I'd share a list of game shop websites that I found using Google. It also saves me searching for it again.


http://www.alternateworlds.com.au/
http://www.gamesparadise.com.au/
http://www.goodgames.com.au/
http://www.milsims.com.au/catalog/
http://www.mindgamesmelbourne.com/
http://www.minotaur.com.au/
http://www.tactics.net.au/
http://www.tinsoldier.com/

Yum via a proxy

In case you need to force yum on a Redhat or CentOS system via proxy and authenticate, the quickest way I found was to set the following environment variable, i.e. export from .bash_profile or the likes;
export http_proxy=http://username:password@proxy_server:proxy_port

Cisco 827 Router - Unable to initialize flash device at FFE80000 -- device not found.

It seems that, if the ROMMON software is upgraded, then the older IOS causes the detection of the Flash memory to fail resulting in the error "Unable to initialize flash device at FFE80000 -- device not found." upon bootup. 


After Googling, several site's (e.g. http://www.velocityreviews.com/forums/t30077-cisco-827-flash-memory-and-ios.html) list the upgrade of the IOS as the solution. In hind-sight, to avoid this it may be a good idea to first upgrade the IOS to the latest version before attempting to upgrade the ROMMON.



System Bootstrap, Version xx.x(xx)xxx, RELEASE SOFTWARE (fc1)
Copyright (c) 2000 by cisco Systems, Inc.
C827 platform with 32768 Kbytes of main memory





Unable to initialize flash device at FFE80000 -- device not found.
CISCO C827 (MPC855T) processor (revision 0x801) with 31744K/1024K bytes of memory.
Processor board ID JAD06430E2L (2370919839), with hardware revision FD3C
CPU rev number 5
Bridging software.
1 Ethernet/IEEE 802.3 interface(s)
1 ATM network interface(s)
128K bytes of non-volatile configuration memory.





Router>sh ver

Cisco Internetwork Operating System Software
IOS (tm) C827-4V Software (C827V- xx-x), Version xx.x(x)xx, EARLY DEPLOYMENT RELEASE SOFTWARE (fc1)
Copyright (c) 1986-2000 by cisco Systems, Inc.
Compiled Mon 10-Apr-00 13:45 by phanguye
Image text-base: 0x80013170, data-base: 0x8067D780


ROM: System Bootstrap, Version xx.x(xx)xxx, RELEASE SOFTWARE (fc1)




Router#show file systems
File Systems:


     Size(b)     Free(b)      Type  Flags  Prefixes
      131072      130366     nvram     rw   nvram:
           -           -    opaque     rw   null:
           -           -    opaque     rw   system:
           -           -   unknown     wo   rommon:
           -           -   network     rw   tftp:
           -           -    opaque     ro   xmodem:
           -           -    opaque     ro   ymodem:
           -           -   network     rw   rcp:
           -           -   network     rw   ftp:

To resolve the issue a newer version of the IOS needs to be installed on the router. This becomes as issue as the "flash:" is not detected. The IOS needs to be installed over the serial interface using the XMODEM commands. Boot to the ROMMON prompt, i.e. reload the router and hit the break sequence.

Depending on the size of the image, this may take a while. Also depening on the router, the ROMMON version, you may be able to configure the xmodem speeds, etc. I used Windows Hyperterminal (hypertrm) for this. Once it's done, set the confreg back (0x2102), if you changed it, and reset the router. Should all be good now.

References:

1. http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/hw/routers/ps259/products_tech_note09186a008015bfac.shtml
2. http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/routers/access/800/806/software/configuration/notes/820rommon.html

Scapy on Ubuntu

I won't introduce Scapy as there are lots of overview, introductions, tutorials and guides available on Scapy, so just Google for it. I though I'd blog about my install on Ubuntu just in case I need to come back to it at some stage and cannot recall exactly what and how I installed;

1. sudo apt-get update
2. sudo apt-get install tcpdump 
3. sudo apt-get install python
4. sudo apt-get install python-scapy
5. sudo apt-get install graphviz 
6. sudo apt-get install imagemagick 
7. sudo apt-get install python-gnuplot 
8. sudo apt-get install python-crypto
9. sudo apt-get install python-pyx

I may be putting up some scapy script on my webpage in the near future in case anyone is interested. I used scapy for Digital Forensics

Toshiba Recovery Wizard

In case you ever need to perform a recovery on a Toshiba, (obviously after the necessary backups, ensure running on mains power, etc)

1. Turn off laptop.
2. Press and hold "0" (zero) key.
3. Power on laptop.
4. Once the Toshiba splash screen appears, release the "0" (zero) key.
5. Follow the Toshiba Recovery Wizard prompts.

Urbanspoon - Curryville

Took a chance on Urbanspoon and headed to Cilliville for some curry as it was Friday "arvo" and Deb and I were both tired. Read some initial reviews and were a bit cautious.

The Vege Samosas were very authentic. Home made pastery and the fillings were just like right. I got the special "Indian Hot" Vege curry and they weren't kidding around. I had that with rice and then stole some garlic naan from Deb.

They did not over do the decorations either. It has just the right amount of clutter in the right places. Background music was not deafening, but the traffic noise was pissing me off a bit. Overall it was a good feed.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone 3GS

Website Changes

Minor website changes to www.kush.com.fj. Replaced original splash image with new one made using new Hindi script. Also created splash image for Resume page using previous and current business cards. Let me know what you think as well as any more ideas or recommendations for improvements...

Ubuntu 9.10 does not boot up after hibernate!!!

I've been running Ubuntu 9.10 desktp on my HP nx6120 notebook with some success for a little while now. It performs well for my TeX work, occasional web-browsing, VPN, RDP and e-mails. The GUI is enhanced using Mac4Lin. I loved the hibernate feature until late this afternoon when it refused to bootup after hibernating. I would get the splash screen and then nothing... curses!!!.

I managed to find a work-around but am still not sure what the problem was:

1. Boot up the machine with a rescue CDROM
2. Confirm the root partition for the Ubuntu install (in my case it was /dev/sda8, although I only have IDE drives)
3. Boot up the machine and wait for the GRUB prompt
4. Press "e" to edit the entry
5. Replace the "root=UUID..." with "root=/dev/..." on the "linux" line entry
6. Add the entry "no_console_suspend" on the same line
7. Press the "Tab" key to complete the Emacs edit
8. Press "Ctrl+x" to continue booting

Once the machine has bootup as normal, edit the GRUB configuration

1. sudo vi /etc/default/grub 
1. Edit the file to uncomment GRUB_DISABLE_LINUX_UUID
2. Edit the file to add no_console_suspend in the GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX
3. Save the file and exit
2. sudo /usr/sbin/update-grub

References

• http://computergyan.wordpress.com/tag/ubuntu/
• http://lovehateubuntu.blogspot.com/2009/08/ubuntus-hibernate-wont-wake-up.html