Nov 032010
 

Firewall

On the web there are plenty of guides related to iptables, the firewall included in all the latest Linux distributions.

iptables is a user space application program that allows a system administrator to configure the tables provided by the Linux kernel firewall (implemented as different Netfilter modules) and the chains and rules it stores. Different kernel modules and programs are currently used for different protocols; iptables applies to IPv4, ip6tables to IPv6, arptables to ARP, and ebtables as a special for Ethernet frames.

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Oct 312010
 

halloweenIn several commonly used shell commands can be shortened with convenient alias, a classic example is:
alias ll='ls -al'

Also in this field zsh has some interesting features, which enable you to define traditional aliases but also things a bit more particular.

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Oct 292010
 

lock2Original article by Maurizio Antonelli

In the previous article we presented some basic concepts of encryption and made some examples of symmetrical and asymmetrical keys, we concluded by saying that a good way to get a certificate with an asymmetric key  is GnuPG.

GnuPG is open-source and multiplatform. It uses native command line in a shell or from MS-DOS prompt.

There are also graphical interface:

Enigmail it’s an extension for Mozilla thunderbird. And contains a graphical tool for keys management.

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Oct 262010
 

crypto2

Or email safely

Original article by Maurizio Antonelli

As well as documentation for those interested, I sincerely hope that it can raise awareness of the non-security of “electronic mail” and help users to take the appropriate implementation tools.

Let’s start with this basic idea: “Email is not a secure media for transmitting information.”

In fact, almost all e-mail when traveling in the network are in clear text, without any form of encryption. As you know, an e-mail message, from the time he leave the sender PC since it arrive to the destination PC, it’s crossing different networked machines, each of which deals with “forward” it in the right direction. Whoever is at the controls of any of these machines can then view (sniff) this message, at great risk to the privacy of the sender and recipient.

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Oct 242010
 

orageOriginal article by: Francesco Di Leo

I found this article by francesco very interesting, because at work I use Thunderbird with lighting extension, while at home I use my trusted Xubuntu (with integrated Orage), so thanks to his article I saw how to integrate the two objects.

But what are Lighting and Orage ?

Lightning brings the Sunbird calendar to the popular email client, Mozilla Thunderbird. Since it’s an extension, Lightning is tightly integrated with Thunderbird, allowing it to easily perform email-related calendaring tasks.

Orage provides a calendar which integrates nicely into the Xfce Desktop Environment. It is highly configurable and supports alerts based on dates. It warns you with popup or audio alarm. As it is an application for every day use it launches itself in the background as a daemon and can be accessed using the Orage Clock plugin for the panel. Continue reading »

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