Mostly Harmless

A couple of weeks ago I was wondering on what happened to Anonym.OS. After a little searching around I came across xB Machine.

Xerobank appear to be one of those “secure browsing for a fee” organisations offering browser plugins and networks in order to protect your privacy while on the web in exchange for a fee. xB Machine can operate over this commercial network or over the free to connect Tor Network.

There is however one very important difference, whilst Anonym.OS ran as a live CD, xB Machine is only currently available as a set of images that reside on your hard disk that must be run through VMWare or Qemu (I didn’t have the familiarity to get it going in the latter and precise instructions aren’t currently available on the site). In order to alleviate concerns about this, the user session takes place within an encrypted container and there is a “self destruct” routine which can supposedly wipe this. Full details however on how these two aspects operate do not currently appear to be available on the download page or support wiki entry.

Those wishing to try the software should beware of the fact that it is a development pre-release, that does not appear to be open sourced or have undergone peer review. That said, it is good to see a tool like this released freely, even if it is ultimately supported by the option to use commercial networks.

Rowan :: Jan.23.2008 :: Internet Anonymity, Security :: No Comments »

This post is an aide memoir more than anything else, but hopefully might come in handy to someone.

Settings.php

• Database access details
• Local file system path
• URL (if changing)

Database

There are several instances within the settings table where the local file system path is stored within the database. Whether you pick find and replace (if restoring via a .sql file), the forum backend or PHPMyAdmin lots of things such as post icons and avatars will look screwy until you do. The theme path is also stored within the database in some instances. Make sure you get them all

Rowan :: Jan.22.2008 :: Quick Solutions, Web Apps :: No Comments »

I’ve been pleased to see the inclusion of an update warning in recent versions of Wordpress when new versions are released. Coupled with the plugins page that now tells you when updates are available for your installed addons the system is becoming a lot easier for the non technical user to maintain, even if they ultimately have to seek help with the process. Working on a web host’s helpdesk, it’s obvious that half the problem with old script installs is that the site owner isn’t aware updates are required.

I’m looking forward to the day when Wordpress can also have the option to update itself (for example as Simple Machines Forum can do, by feeding it your FTP details), just to make it a little harder for users to ignore

Rowan :: Jan.12.2008 :: Web Apps, Web Hosting :: No Comments »