Author: John Durret

Private hosting in Iceland with 1984 hosting

Powered by free software and green energy with their headquarters and equipment in Iceland, 1984 hosting offers private hosting, VPS, domain registration, email and free DNS services, the company claims that they will go the extra mile to protect their customers right of freedom of speech, privacy and anonymity, they will not reply to threatening emails and will only obey a valid Icelandic court order, if they become aware of any investigation by the authorities 1984 hosting will warn the customer unless there is a gagging order, one of the two founders is a member of the Icelandic IMM (International Modern Media Institute), a foundation working for free speech.

Control panel 1984 hosting

I was given a test account to see what their services are like, 1984 shared hosting has a custom hosting panel based on ispCP, simple and easy to use, you will not get lost or wonder where things are, functions can be accessed within a couple of clicks, the panel default language is Icelandic, it can be changed to English, Hungarian, Spanish, Danish and others. On the main tab there are statistics about space and bandwidth, number of SQL databases, FTP accounts and subdomains, backups are perfomed daily and they can be restored using the control panel, custom 404, 401, etc pages can be created too, websites status, like number of visitors, can be measured with awstats. Files can be uploaded using FTP or FTPS (FTP Over Explicit TLS/SSL) with SFTP support being planned for the future, alternatively you can use net2ftp, web based FTP, to upload files via browser, with the hosting account you also get an IMAP/POP3 email account, email can be retrieved with an email client or webmail (SquirrelMail).

If you go for a VPS there is a list of the most common Linux and BSD distros to choose from or you can ask 1984 hosting to install a particular distribution that isn’t there, payments are made with Paypal or credit card.

1984 hosting net2FTP

The Icelandic Parliament will soon introduce a new legislative freedom of expression framework enshrining protection for whistle blowers, information sources, communications, publication restraint orders and others, this makes the hosting company location ideal, but I was baffled by their free speech policy, while claiming to go the extra mile to protect customers civil rights, and hosting many politically sensitive websites they apparently have speech limits, set by what they called in the email exchange “sense of decency“, and made it clear to me that disagreeing with a website will not have an account terminated but they will not allow racist propaganda or pro-pedophile websites on their network as they say they would not sleep at night if they were serving them, and as for warez and copyrighted material, Iceland has the same laws than any other western country and they have to comply with them.

My impression is that 1984 hosting could be a good place to publish whistle-blowing or corporate data leaks and count with strong investigative journalism protection out of the reach of US trigger happy libel laws, or you could use it as an offshore webmail account since their hosting prices are reasonable, but don’t push it too hard towards extreme websites not covered by this host so called “free speech” sense of decency.

Visit 1984 hosting homepage

26 January, 2012
US judge orders woman to decrypt laptop or face contempt of court

In a case that could set a legal precedent, a Federal US judge has ruled today on a long standing case that the defendant Ramona Fricosu, involved in a multimillion bank fraud, must decrypt her Toshiba laptop hard drive of face contempt of court, the woman had argued that exposing the laptop contents to law enforcement by entering her password would violate the Fifth Amendment, right not to self-incriminate, the judge ruling in a 10 page verdict says that the defendant isn’t protected because the 1789 All Writs Act has been used to require telephone companies to aid in surveillance and can be invoked in forcing decryption of hard drives as well.

Her solicitor, Phil Dubois, has asked for a stay of execution so that they can appeal and has announced that his client may not be able to decrypt the laptop for any number of reasons although the defendant was recorded in a jailhouse conversation with her ex-husband admitting to having access to the laptop and it will be hard to claim that she doesn’t know the password.

It looks like the US could become a country like the United Kingdom where refusing to reveal your password to the authorities is already a criminal offence, but while UK laws sets a maximum prison sentence of 2 years (5 years if the case is related to terrorism), in the US people could be held in contempt of court which means an indefinite prison sentence.

This is not the end of it yet as hopefully the appeal will be granted and could overturn this verdict, once the legal fight has exhausted all possible recourse, US law should soon be clear about if citizens have the right to refuse to reveal the password to their encrypted files or not, at the moment is best to be cautious and assume that sticking a finger up the cops and saying that you won’t reveal the password might not work as expected.

Note: According to an article in Popular Science, the defendant was using Symantec PGP Desktop full disk encryption.

UPDATE March 2012: According to an article in Wired, the FBI has now decrypted the disk, they did not disclosure how they did it but the woman’s solicitors points out that possibly the co-defendant has given the password to the police.

24 January, 2012
Android phone encrypted IM chat with ChatSecure

~~Gibberbot~~ renamed ChatSecure is a secure Instant Messenger app for Android phones, it works with any Jabber or XMPP compatible chat software (Facebook chat, GTalk, Ovi, Openfire, etc) this open source messenger developed by the Guardian Project uses end to end encryption with Off-the-Record messaging (OTR) standard, it will keep your service provider out of the equation making it impossible for an eavesdropper to read the messages.

Optionally ChatSecure can be used with Orbot (tor on Android app) to chat over the tor network, adding anonymity to an already private chat and circumventing censorship firewalls. Before signing into the chat you will be asked if you would like to save your password, you shouldn’t do this as anyone with access to your phone would be able to impersonate you.

Android secure IM ChatSecure

Off-the-Record encryption needs both parties to be using it, the people you are chatting with must have ChatSecure installed or be using a desktop computer with an instant messenger that has the plugin installed, Pidgin (Windows&Linux) and Adium (Mac) can all use Off-the-Record (OTR).

You should swap digital fingerprints first to make sure he/she is the right person behind the keyboard, ChatSecure allows you create a scannable QR (Quick Response) code out of a digital fingerprint making it easy to exchange in person, after verifying fingerprints with your partner the chatbox will be shown green indicating that encryption and identity have all been authenticated, if you can not verify your partner’s identity the chatbox will be coloured orange indicating that encryption is working but identification failed, if encryption doesn’t work because the other end hasn’t got ChatSecure installed the chatbox will be shown in red colour and can still be used.

Visit ChatSecure Google Play page

21 January, 2012
How to secure your personal data at border crossings

Border control officers at land crossings and airports in many countries have the right to search traveller’s laptop and smartphones without a court order, that is where your family photos, banking details and list of visited websites reside. Lawyers, doctors and businessmen should also be concerned about this practise, if you care about your privacy here are some tips to protect your digital data from noisy border agents:

Backup your data: There is the possibility that a border agent damages or seizes your device, always have a backup somewhere else and never take the backups with you, leave them at home. If you need to backup your data at the guess country, i.e. holidays photos, use an encrypted cloud service like SpiderOak or Tresorit, encrypt the and SFTP to your server, or back it up to an encrypted USB thumbdrive and mail it to your home.

Use whole disk encryption: Whenever it is possible use full disk encryption as opposed to file encryption, there are too many places where the operating system creates temporary copies of personal data to be able to securely wipe everything. If you can get away with using a Linux live CD for your day to day Internet usage this is the best course of action, remove the laptop hard drive or wipe it, with a live CD nothing will be saved to your hard drive.

Officer searches laptop at border crossing

The country you visit could have different encryption laws to that of your home country, in the UK for example, it is a criminal offense not to reveal the password to your encrypted files when law enforcement asks for it, the penalty for refusing is up to 5 years in prison. If unsure about local cryptography laws, store your data encrypted on the cloud and take only a live CD with you, download your files only after going through customs and make sure to never save anything as you could be asked for access at any time during your stay or on your way out.

Smartphone protection

If you are using an SD card for storage, extract it and wipe the memory card on a PC using specialist software (Eraser, ProtectStar, BCWipe, etc). On Android phones, download the Whispercore app for full phone encryption. Another choice is to use a second phone only for travelling, unless you really need a smartphone abroad, buy a cheap phone and transfer your SIM card there, this should also help you protect against theft by making it less attractive.

Digital cameras

Border agents might want to look at your holiday photographs for whatever reason, sometimes searching for illegal pornography or to corroborate that you really have been on a leisure break. There is no easy protection against this other than extracting the memory card, encrypting it and mailing it to yourself, it will help not to look suspicious by coming back from holidays with an empty camera by introducing a second memory card in the digital camera with photos you don’t care about anyone seeing

The decision on whether to search your electronic devices or not will take into account the countries you have visited, your background (criminal record), how you behave at the border, and the state of alert at the time, electronic devices can also be searched at random or just because the border officer feels like it.

Border control agents could swap test your laptop for bomb residue, this test is called Explosive Trace Detection and it can be carried out on any piece of checked baggage.

For further information read the Electronic Frontiers Foundation Guide for Travelers Carrying Digital Devices

19 January, 2012
Shutdown a computer remotely with RemoteRebootX

RemoteRebootX is a portable application to remotely monitor a computer in real time, it can also be used to simultaneously shutdown, reboot, ping or Wake-on-LAN multiple computers, the best part is that it does not need to be installed in the remote computer, simply launch RemoteRebootX and add hosts. A task scheduler allows you to automatically execute actions without supervision, other useful options are retrieving the last boot time of a host, acquiring its MAC address and looking at the drive space information, all of the actions can be done using the interface or right clicking on the computer IP.

On restricted computers you will be asked to login first before executing any command, using the padlock icon, it will also ask you for the computer Workgroup. This tool can be used by system administrators in conjunction with BatchPatch, a paid for application, to install updates on multiple servers and reboot them simultaneously.

Computer management RemoteRebootX

RemoteRebootX interface is not as pretty as that of EMCO Wake-on-LAN, another tool to remotely control a computer over the Internet or inside a network, but it has higher capabilities, allowing you to reboot and shutdown computers, which EMCO Wake-on-LAN can’t do, and it can be carried on a USB thumbdrive.

Visit RemoteRebootX homepage

17 January, 2012
Free portable antivirus McAfee Stinger

McAfee Stinger does not need installation and can be run from a USB thumbdrive but it asks for administrator rights, this tool has not been designed as a replacement for a fully fledged antivirus, you could use it when you are travelling to check an Internet cafe computer before using it, McAfee Stinger is light on resources, small and fast. After executing it you can select a directory for scanning or scan the whole computer which took me 2 minutes for a 300GB hard drive, McAfee Stinger will scan subdirectories and compressed (.zip,.rar,.7zip) files too, if anything is detected you can choose to repair, rename, delete or report only.

Besides providing protection for travellers using unknown computers this tool can be used as a second opinion if you detect an anomaly, the first thing quality malware will do is to disable your local antivirus, that is why it is important to scan your files with two different antiviruses when something does not add up, as well as checking for outgoing Internet connections.

Portable antivirus McAfee Stinger

This tool scans the boot sector which is where rootkits tend to lodge, processes and registry are also scanned, with an heuristic check which sensitivity can be adjusted from Very low to Very high, the default is Medium. Heuristics is a system to detect antivirus like behaviour, meant to discover zero day never seen before threats. McAfee Stinger comes with a very limited list of virus signatures, around 4000, they can be seen by clicking where it says “List of viruses“, it is mostly made up of trojan horses, McAfee claims that it can remove prevalent Fake Alert malware.

If you suspect your computer is infected you might want to check other software that McAfee’s has on its free tools page AntiMalware section, RootkitRemover and GetSusp, both directed at beginners and easy to use, good computer security is made up of layers, the more passive and active security layers you have the less chances of infection, another choice is to use an online antivirus if you are comfortable allowing access to your files.

Visit McAfee Stinger homepage

16 January, 2012
ProxyDNS a cloud based DNS proxy to watch USA TV abroad

ProxyDNS is a proxy service designed to access geographically restricted services like Pandora Radio, Netflix and ABC. Unlike a VPN where you need to download software, ProxyDNS only requires you to change your DNS settings, their homepage has instructions on where to find them in Windows, Mac and Linux. The DNS could also be changed in your router, which is operating system independent, this kind of proxy works in all operating systems no matter how obscure they are, it can be used with the Xbox and Roku.

I have been using ProxyDNS for a couple of days and everything works pretty good, I managed to watch CWTV and Hulu series from abroad with no glitches, something to bear in mind is that unlike a VPN, this service has not been designed for privacy, when you visit any website not included in the DNS spoof list, your real IP will not change. ProxyDNS is using a DNS proxy so that when you request page X, the DNS server automatically swaps your IP for one of theirs in the US, this creates a situation where you can see your real computer IP on one browser tab and on the other browser tab you can watch an online TV service restricted to USA residents only, you will not even notice the proxy is there.

Windows DNS settings

ProxyDNS is a smart very easy to use solution to access georestricted services in the US, it can access all well known TV and online radio companies, users can request new services are added to their list. ~~The proxy is still in beta~~, you could have it working in your computer in under 2 minutes with no software download at a cheaper price than a VPN provider.

Visit ProxyDNS homepage

13 January, 2012