How to make a secure remote-access system to take on the road

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This faded from the mainstream news pretty quick, but I thought it was important enough to mention again.

Back in 2008, an appeals court held up the legality of searching and impounding laptops at airports.  Wired and other major websites reported on this, and even the EFF posted an article about it.

Not content with just the old “just open the lid and make sure it’s not a bomb” procedure of the last decade, the hillbilly idiots working at most airports now get to keep and search everything on your laptop any time they feel like it.

Let me say that again. Keep. And search. Everything.

Every email. Every website in your cache file. Every document you have written. Every image your friends have sent you. Every PDF. Every ad that displayed on your computer screen while you were web browsing. Every email you have sent. Every inappropriate joke sent from your co-workers. Every password you have saved.

Everything.

Are you comfortable with a full audit of your laptop? Of having a complete stranger who thinks they themselves are the law go through your entire personal life as they see fit?

I know I’m not. Not because I have committed any crime or have anything to hide, but because it’s absolutely none of their damn business what I do. And since they can not and will not offer any guarantee my information will remain safely in their possession at all times, who is to say my personal information won’t eventually wind up in criminally unscrupulous hands?

To get around this, I made a secure remote-access system to take on the road with me. You can make the same thing  so you can remote control your work (or home) machine securely, and without any technical hassle. The best part is that it will be 100% expendable.

It’s surprisingly easy to do.

All you will need is…

* A machine (PC or Mac) at work (or home) that’s always connected to the internet through Cable, DSL, or satellite.

* A cheap laptop with built in wifi from Ebay or a local pawn shop.

Step one is to get a cheap laptop. Anything that runs XP (or Vista) and has built in WiFi should be fine. Once you get it, clean out any files it may still have on it. If the laptop came with the original factory restore CD/DVD, go ahead and use them to erase and restore the laptop to its’ original configuration. Then follow the directions in this previous post to scrub the laptop’s free space.

After scrubbing the laptop, put a few files on the laptop you wouldn’t mind your worst enemy seeing. A PDF of a popular website. A grocery list. A to do list. A game or puzzle you have. Maybe even install a copy of Open Office (It’s an open source (free) copy of Microsoft Office). You want just a few things on there to make it look like you were really using this laptop.

Step two is to set up your work (or home) machine so that the laptop can access it from remote. I’ve been using logmein.com for about a year now, and their free service is outstanding, so I’ll use them in this example.

Go to logmein.com on the work (or home) machine you want to access from remote and click on the CREATE AN ACCOUNT link. From the SELECT PRODUCT GROUP, choose the LOGMEIN ACCESS, MANAGEMENT AND NETWORKING option. From there, choose the FREE package and complete their signup procedure.

Once you have signed up for their free service, it should take you to a page to set up your work (or home) machine. Follow their instructions to get the service up and running on your machine.

The last step is to go to the secure.logmein.com website from the laptop. This time, you just need to sign in with the credentials you used on the work (or home) machine.  There’s nothing to install this time. VERY VERY IMPORTANT PART: When you sign in, if the web browser on the laptop asks if you want it to remember the password for logmein.com, say NO.

After you sign in on the laptop, you will see under MY COMPUTERS the home machine you just installed their software on. Click the REMOTE CONTROL icon, and in a few moments you should see your work (or home) machine appear in the laptop’s screen.

That’s all there is to it.

You can now work through your laptop just like you were sitting directly in front of your work (or home) machine from any available wifi connection.

When you are ready to travel, just leave your work (or home) machine powered on. Logmein.com will automatically do all the technical work in the background. All you need to do to get back to your home machine is to go to logmein.com from your laptop or any public wifi spot that has free internet access.

Just remember, that laptop’s middle name is “gone”. Don’t download or save anything on there. Don’t even surf the internet on it.

In the worst case, if that laptop does get impounded, they can’t access your home PC because they don’t know your password to logmein.com. And it looks like that laptop was the real deal because of the files you put on there earlier. But there’s no history in the web browsers, no emails to read, and nothing for them to tie you up with.

Entwined trees

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A close up of some entwined trees from a recent visit to Mexico.

Entwined Trees

Entwined Trees

McAllen Skies

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A photo I took around sunset outside my in-laws’ home.

McAllen skies

McAllen skies

The best addition to any phone

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Generic Iphone

Generic Iphone

I have an iphone. Most of the time it’s an insufferable piece of junk thanks to AT&T. Dropped phone calls. No signal most of the places I go. Distorted electronic speech on outbound calls. Text messages that only show up 15 minutes after they have been sent to me. The phone not ringing all day and suddenly 3 voicemails appear. Bar none, it’s the worst phone service I have ever had.

Now, having said that, the iphone itself is great.

After suffering with AT&Ts craptacular service for 6 months, I went ahead and modified my 1st generation iphone so it can capture video, remote control my work or home PCs, FTP files as needed, sniff my work networks for unauthorized activity, download youtube videos, take voice memos, and change the icons to suit my mood. It does pretty much everything the new 3gs series does, just without the built in GPS.

But the one thing on my iphone I use the most is something I didn’t have to tweak or install. It’s a phone number that has saved me tons of money on information calls and generally getting around new cities I visit. And it’s free from Google.

Just add…

1-800-466-4411

…to your phone address book and mark it as a favorite.

This is the phone number for Google’s directory assistance.

The next time you want to find a phone number or a list of locations of a business, just call Google’s directory assistance instead of your usual directory assistance number. You will hear an automated voice answer and say…

“Call is recorded. Google! Say the business, and the city and state”

If there are multiple businesses in the area matching your criteria, the service will list off the businesses and ask you which one you want to connect to. After your selection, it will connect you for free after saying “hang on and I’ll connect you”.

You can also say “details” to have the service tell you the business’ physical address, any nearby street intersections, and the business’ main phone number. It will repeat this information twice without prompting, and then connect you.

If you say “text message”, the service will send you a text message with the business’ phone number and information.

It’s awesomely straightforward stuff. And best of all, it’s free.

Google 411 works well with just about everyone’s accent and has always surprised me with how fast it returns the information I ask for.

Now if Google would just buy AT&T, things could really get better. GOO&T anyone?

Sponsor Eddie Izzard!

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Eddie Izzard has run 43 marathons in 51 days around the UK to raise money for charity. But this is not just any marathon set he is running. Oh no no no no no.

Eddie has run “27 miles a day, six days a week, over the past seven weeks, covering more than 1,110 miles of England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland”.

Eddies Run

Eddie's Run

All to raise money for charity.

Fuuuuuckin A!

If you can, you can help sponsor the last bit of Eddie’s run by clicking here.

This is not only supremely badass of him to do, but he has already raised more than £43k in donations that were matched by an anonymous donor for a current total of £86k for charity. Every donation helps!

Check out that news article or follow him on his twitter page.

May I see your citrus permit, please?

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I’ve always had my suspicions Texas sees the Rio Grande Valley as the ugly red headed step child of the family. It’s the little things. Like a federal checkpoint an hour away from the valley outside Falfurrias Texas. And mandatory USDA permits for taking fruit out of the valley area.

No, really!

These signs are everywhere in the valley, and this one was posted at a local Staples.

Citrus permit sign

Citrus permit sign

Content follows…..
—————————-

If you are leaving the Rio Grande Valley and intend to take citrus fruit with you,or if you are shipping citrus fruit out of the Rio Grande Valley, you must obtain a USDA permit.

There is no charge for the permit.

Call or come by for instructions on how to obtain a permit.

USDA – APHIS – PPQ
4909 East Grimes Ste 103
Harlingen TX
956 421 4041

USDA – APHIS – PPQ
Federal Building
320 N. Main Street Room 119
956 686 3631

Texas Department of Agriculture
900-B East Exp 83
San Juan Texas 78589
956 787 8866

How to permanently delete your files and wipe your machine’s free space

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You probably have heard if you put files and folders in the trash that it does not mean the files are really gone. Even emptying the trash doesn’t get rid of files permanently.

To prevent most anyone from recovering the files you have deleted, you need to securely delete your files as you remove them and occasionally wipe your machine’s free space.

They are both very easy to do.

To start with, we first need to set up the secure deletion of files and folders.

If you have a PC, you will need to download a open source (free) program called ERASER from here. I’ve used this program for years, and it has never given me any trouble in Vista, XP or even the new Windows 7.

Once you have ERASER downloaded, double click the program and let it install.

After it has installed, the first extra option ERASER has put on your PC will appear whenever you right click on any file. You should see a new ERASE option. If you choose ERASE, that file or folder you clicked on will be securely shredded beyond recovery!

If you want to be ultra secure, after you click on ERASE, the pop-up menu that appears has an OPTIONS button. You can click it and choose other options that are more secure than the basic setting, but each higher setting will take around triple the amount of time as the one before it. The first setting is secure enough, so leave it at “1 Passes” (or “3 passes”) and click OK.

If you are on a Mac, you don’t need to install anything to securely shred your files. When the folders and files you want to get rid of are in the trash, click on the FINDER icon in your dock, then go to the FINDER menu on the top menubar and choose SECURE EMPTY TRASH. This second setting, under the regular “empty trash” command, will securely shred your documents beyond recovery, just like ERASER did for the PC.

Wiping space on your hard drive is the second step in basic data security. Wiping the free space on your hard drive will delete any stray files that were previously on your system that were moved but still recoverable, as well as any temporary files that have yet to be overwritten. The only problem is that wiping the free space on your Mac or PC will tie up your machine for a few hours. I usually set up the process for once a month on a random Sunday, start it in the morning, and by midday it is done.

ERASER has the ability to wipe the free space on a PC’s hard drive, while Mac users have this feature built in.

To wipe the free space on a PC after you have installed ERASER, go to MY COMPUTER. Now right click on the C drive and go to ERASE UNUSED SPACE in the pop up menu. A dialog box will appear asking you “are you sure you want to erase unused space on drive C:\?” Say YES and that’s it!

Just like on the single file and folder erasing, after you click on ERASE UNUSED SPACE the pop-up menu that appears has an OPTIONS button. You can click it and choose other options that are more secure than the basic setting, but each higher setting will take around triple the amount of time as the one before it. The first setting is secure enough, so leave it at “1 Passes” (or “3 passes”) and click OK. That’s it!

To wipe the free space on a Mac, you need to open your hard drive, open the APPLICATIONS folder and open the UTILITIES folder.

Once you are in the UTILITIES folder, look for DISK UTILITY and open that application. Once DISK UTILITY is open, click on your hard drive’s icon on the left column. Now on the right area, choose the ERASE tab.

Near the bottom of the ERASE tab, there is a button that says ERASE FREE SPACE. Once you click on it you will have three options on how securely you want to erase your free space. Each option is more secure than the other, but each higher setting will take either 7 or 32 times the amount of time as the one before it. The first setting is secure enough, so leave it at the top setting and click OK. That’s it!

Experiment a little to see how much time higher settings take to wipe the free space on your hard drive. I have mine set for 7 passes if I am going to be gone for the weekend and even higher when I actually get vacation time and can leave them running for prolonged periods.

Deleting your files securely and wiping free space on your hard drives is a great way to stay safe on your daily work and/or home machines. And even if you trash files normally on a day to day basis, wiping the free space on your hard drive will clean up all those regularly deleted files and keep you just as secure as if you has chosen to securely delete each file or folder individually.

September Storm Clouds

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Finally got a few days of rain. It broke up the 105 °F / 40.6 °C days and felt wonderful while it lasted. Here’s what I saw when walking outside in a break in the storm.

Storm clouds with rainbow

Storm clouds with rainbow

Another version…

Storm Clouds with rainbow 02

Storm Clouds with rainbow 02

Some rolling in…

Gathering storm clouds

Gathering storm clouds

Last one…

Gathering storm clouds 02

Gathering storm clouds 02

Sony PRS-505 : mini book review

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10 words or less : Awesome for book junkies. Portable. Holds several books. Decent speed.

Sony PRS 505

Sony PRS 505

Long version: Ok, so it’s not a book review. It’s a book reader review. But this device is definitely a gateway drug for those of us who are book junkies. I just picked this up on clearance a few days ago, loaded it up, have been completely satisfied with it.

With the recent announcement of touchscreen-enabled readers, the Sony 505 I have is now officially the “previous generation” ebook reader. But the 505 is still being sold at retail outlets at a discounted price from the initial $299-$350 range.

The 505 works on a PC with the provided Sony reader software, but I found it much better to use a open source (free) program called Calibre to sync it on my PC as well as my Mac. (Sony does not provide Mac software for the 505, so Mac users will definitely have to install Calibre.)

There are tons of free books you can download, but you can also drag and drop in your own PDFs, Word files, LRF files (Sony reader files), and text files to read. You can also convert .mobi files through Calibre to use on the 505. MP3s and AACs audio files are also supported, as well as JPEGs, BMPs, PNGs and GIFs (which will only show in black and white on the 505 screen)

Reading with the 505 has been great. The 505 boots up instantly most of the time, and always to where you left off. The screen is very easy to see and the scalable font makes it easier to adjust the size of the text on screen to a comfortable level. The 505 also has fairly decent built in memory. I loaded 8 full books with plenty of room to spare. You can also add Sony’s Pro Duo or any SD memory cards to the expansion ports on top of the device if you want to carry your entire library with you.

The load and response times are very good. You can back up to a main menu where you can bookmark pages and pick up another book to read while keeping your place in the original book. You can also get a book’s Table of Contents (if it has one), sort by author, sort by title, sort by date or sort by collections. You can also listen to any music you uploaded while you are reading.

The 505 also lets you rotate the books horizontally, lock the device from unauthorized use, and make selections with the numeric row on the right column of the device.

The best part of the 505 is that is about the thickness of my 1st generation iphone, and about 7″ long by 5.25″ wide with the provided leather case attached. Very portable!

Now for the bad.

The 505 does not come with a charger. Sony does sell them separately, but you will have to charge the 505 out of the box from any USB port on your machine.

There is no backlight on the 505, so you can’t see the screen in dim light. Sony, conveniently, sells a very fancy cover/light combo separately as well.

Some very large or graphics intensive PDFs don’t like being scaled up or down and will take a loooooong time to refresh. This is a hit-or-miss problem, and I have only seen it once out of the 50 PDFs I tested.

Reading documents on the 505 is always decent, but nothing beats a document specifically formatted in LRF format for the 505. You can convert most anything to LRF with Calibre though.

All image files will only show in black and white on the 505 screen.

And finally, when you turn pages on the 505, there is a brief contrast change as the new page loads. You won’t notice it after a few pages of reading, but it is distracting to see at first.

But aside from that, I have no complaints.

Having books available to instantly read is a great way to pass the time. And while this is not the latest ebook reader from Sony, at its’ current reduced price, this could be something to get more people introduced (and hooked) on ebook systems.

I highly recommend the Sony 505. Four out of five stars.

And, very briefly, on a related topic, what do I think of the 505’s competition, the Kindle? They suck! Simply because they can delete any books you purchased at anytime without any warning or reason. The 505 won’t (and can’t) do that to you.

New Rules by Bill Maher : mini book review

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10 words or less : Funny and sharp. Quick reading. Will probably offend most conservatives.

Bill Maher - New Rules

Bill Maher - New Rules

Longer version: “New Rules: Polite Musings from a Timid Observer”  by Bill Maher was in a local bookstore’s bargain bin. Since I haven’t finished unpacking, I picked it up to pass the time.

The book was easy reading, but I liked it. “New Rules” is a good intro to his sense of humor if you haven’t seen his HBO show. Part of the fun is how he obviously goes out of his way to offend people with highly conservative values. Most of his book is common sense, but he does fly off on a wild tangent every so often.

Unfortunately, like all standup comedian and talk show host books, the book uses an oversized font. Single one-thought paragraphs take up full pages. And the book’s sentences are more than double spaced. The entire thing should have been less than 114 pages, and not 228.

Aside from that, I thought it was good stuff.

Three out of five stars.