Da Vinci Planet » Internet Operations

The 3 Levels of Domain Name Control

Da Vinci — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 02:42:14 +0000

As the domain name administrator for our company, I am often asked if we can “point” a certain domain name to some site or landing page. Webmasters know that “pointing” a domain name could have many meanings and implications, but to most people it means “if you type in this URL, it will take users here.” It occurred to me that there are three levels of control that you could have to point a domain name or URL somewhere. In most organizations they are performed by three different departments because they are very different functions, but they are interdependent and you need all three of them coordinated in order to “point” a domain name.

1. Domain Name Ownership

The highest level of control is to be a domain owner by registering a top level domain (TLD). A domain name is an asset and owning one means that you have legal rights to it, but it also means that you can choose which name servers the domain should use. A whois lookup can show the domain ownership details as well as the name servers for the domain. Being a domain owner does not mean that you have access to the name or the Web servers or the site’s content, but it does mean you have the power to control it.

What about subdomains? Subdomains do not need to be registered; in fact they are free and TLD owners have nothing to do with sub-domains. Name server administrators for TLDs simply add records to the DNS to create subdomains.

2. Name Server Control

Domain name servers (DNS) are like address books for domain names. In a typical address book one might have home telephone numbers, cell numbers, fax numbers, postal addresses and email addresses. Name servers tell computers where to go to when looking for different contact methods for domain names, like email or Web sites. Having control of a domain’s name servers means that you can point the domain and its sub-domains wherever you want to, as well as their email addresses.

3. Web Server Control

The name servers of a domain name would normally have the address as described above of the domain’s Web site. Such an address is normally a DNS A record or a CNAME and tells the world which Web server(s) to go to. Webmasters of these servers can configure them to respond as needed to requests, e.g. they have the ability to create URLs and redirects under that domain name, but they cannot create sub-domains and they cannot change the IP address of a domain (i.e. A or CNAME records).

What about URL Redirects?

The lowest level of domain control is when you can’t do any of the above, but you are able to redirect another domain to the one in question. In this case one doesn’t really have any control over the main domain and so it doesn’t count as a fourth level of control, but it is common to redirect a domain within one’s control to another URL.

See Your Web Site in Different Browsers

Da Vinci — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 00:07:49 +0000

Have you tested your Web site in different browsers and on different platforms? Web designers tend to focus on the one or two that they deem most important and often forget to test their Web sites in other browsers and on other platforms. That normally means testing sites in IE and Firefox, but the different versions of IE and Firefox and different versions of operating systems are ignored. Besides, very few have access to all the different browsers and operating systems, not to mention the hundreds of combinations that you get when you include screen sizes, Javascript versions and Flash enabled.

Browsershots is a free, open source solution for your problem. Browsershots takes screenshots of sites and displays the screen captures in .png files. You can use Browsershots as a free online service, but what makes this product cool is that itâ€™s available as an open source (written in Python) download so that you can run it on an internal server. This is very useful when you need to test a site that isnâ€™t live or accessible from the Internet yet.

The catch with the download version is that it uses â€œscreenshot factoriesâ€? to produce the screenshots and that these factories need to run on the operating systems and browsers that they produce screenshots for. So you need to have computers or virtual instances with the operating systems and browsers that you want to use as screenshot factories which requires a fair amount of infrastructure and support. It also means that when a new version of a browser or OS comes out you may need to create several more screenshot factories. So how is this better than simply having a bunch of test machines? The advantage is scalability and ease of use because multiple users have access directly from their desktops. One downside is that users get to see screenshots of what a particular Web page looks like and can’t interact with it so you cannot test interactivity like DHTML and AJAX.

There are other solutions like using VMWare virtual appliances for each of the operating system/browser combinations. This is a quicker and possibly easier solution, but doesnâ€™t scale as well with multiple users (or testers). Another solution is using a high-end service like Gomez and while they offer a lot more it comes with a price!

USB Apps Update

Da Vinci — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 03:30:09 +0000

Portable apps have proven to be very popular and quite resilient in spite of the popularity of on-line apps. On-line apps like Google Apps, Zoho and Basecamp offer solutions for collaboration and portability, but there aren’t many good on-line solutions for applications like text editors, image editors, operating systems and browsers. Because of the need for these types of applications and the benefits of using USB apps I have been adding to my USB app collection. To be fair I have replaced some portable apps with on-line apps, e.g. I prefer Google Reader to GreatNews because desktop RSS readers become bloated and slow down as you add feeds, but at the same time I have discovered a few new portable applications.

SIW – System Information for Windows provides detailed information about your Windows computer, including hardware specs, software and drivers. SIW can reveal passwords and software serial numbers or registration keys. The information can be exported to text documents which is a handy backup to have.

Ad-Aware – Probably the best free spyware detection software. Ad-Aware can be made portable by downloading and installing as normal and then simply copying the installed folder to a USB drive.

Damn Small Linux – DSL is basically a fully functional desktop squashed into 50MB of space. It has a fairly friendly GUI and includes most of the typical applications one might need. What’s the purpose? It offers a rich set of tools that you can use on a locked down or problematic computer. There are many other alternatives (e.g. Bart PE portable or Ubuntu virtual appliance)

Is OpenID the answer to single sign-on?

Da Vinci — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 03:21:45 +0000

OpenID is often compared to Microsoft’s Passport and normally it’s said to be better because “itâ€™s not controlled by any one big corporation”. You may have heard or read about OpenID, but chances are that you 1) aren’t using it or 2) have not really looked into it and 3) even if you have, you still don’t understand it. As with many open source projects documentation is scattered, complicated and mostly technical. Over the last few weeks I have tried to make some sense of OpenID and here is my take on it.

What is OpenID?

It’s a way to identify and authenticate yourself using a trusted Web site of your choice. The “trusted Web site of your choice” has to be an OpenID provider. To register with a Web site that supports OpenID all you need to do is provide them with the URL of your OpenID provider then login at your OpenID provider’s Web site. So basically the login happens at your OpenID provider instead of at the site you’re trying to register with.

OpenID is a way to authenticate yourself to various places (websites) by verifying your identity as the owner of a particular URL (say, a website of your own). Instead of giving a username and password to a login form, you just give it your URL.

The nice thing about OpenID is that you can use your own Web site as your OpenID. That does not mean that you need to set up anything special on your Web site. With a couple of lines of HTML code on your Web site you can delegate OpenID authority to another site. That way you can transparently use a trusted OpenID provider of your choice to do the hard work, while keeping your own domain name as your OpenID.

How do you use your Web site as your OpenID?
It’s a two step process.

1) Choose an OpenID provider.
There are many OpenID providers to choose from and chances are that you already have an OpenID. Sites like Technorati, wordpress.com, etc. provide OpeinIDs, but like most I didn’t trust other sites and wanted to do it on my own so I tried phpMyID. I was quite pleased with my accomplishment, but then I started reading and learning about OpenID security issues and decided that it’s best to use a site dedicated to the purpose like myOpenID. You will find statements like “OpenID: it’s about *identity* and not *trust*“, which definitely doesn’t build trust! So it’s a good reason to choose a trustworthy OpenID provider like myOpenID or VeriSign’s Personal Identity Provider.

2) Configure your site to point to your OpenID provider.
Once you’ve registered with an OpenID provider, you can use the OpenID URL that they provide ar your OpenID. But it’s much nicer to use your own Web site as your identity (heck, it should be much better!). OpenID allows you to use your own Web site as your OpenID and delegate authentication to another site. For example, my OpenID is, of course, http://www.davinciplanet.com. My OpenID provider, for now, is myOpenID and to do that all I need is to include the following lines of HTML in my site:
content="http://www.myopenid.com/xrds?username=davinciplanet.myopenid.com" />

What does OpenID give me?

On some sites like jyte you can enter your OpenID URL instead of registering to “make a claim”. Many blogs now accept OpenID which means that you don’t need to register to comment.

What doesn’t OpenID give me?

Single sign-on. It’s a great idea with great potential and being open source it is a perfect fit to be an open source/Web 2.0 hit. But, it’s in the adoption phase and very few people understand it. And very few sites support it.

Resources

OpenID wiki Introduction. An excellent, very geek-like, explanation of how OpenID works. If you want to understand OpenID then this is the place to start (if you’re a geek).

OpenID phishing. I mentioned that OpenID is about identity and not about trust. This is a good way to scare you.

phpMyID. An OpenID solution for your own site. I have security issues with this implementation, which is why I switched to myOpenID.com. Specifically, authentication using phpMyID doesn’t seem secure to me. Either way, sites like myOpenID offer a lot more funcionality (besides ssl security).

Domain kiting

Da Vinci — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 02:38:11 +0000

MarkMonitor released its Summer 2007 Brandjacking Index, a quarterly report that measures the effect of online threats to brands. The report describes trends of how domain names are used in scamming efforts to hijack well-known brands.

Cybersquatting is a well known form of domain hijacking, but according the report it only grew by 8% in the last quarter, compared to newer and lesser known scams like domain kiting which grew at 242%. Cybersquatting is when someone registers a domain name which contains a brand, slogan or trademark to which the registrant has no right. Owners of registered brands, slogans and trademarks can quite easily approach cybersquatters and gain ownership of the domains. Domain kiting, however, is an advanced hack of cybersquatting and is much more difficult to fight.

Domain Kiting: The process whereby domains are registered and dropped within the 5 day ICANN grace period, and then registered again for another 5 days. Kiting a domain lets the registrant gain the benefit of ownership without ever paying for the domain.

The highest growth rates of kiting is experienced in the media industry. Kiters rotate their domain names through registrars and some registrars simply ignore the practice – it seems they actually thrive on this business!

The report says a lot about spamming and phishing in the pharmaceutical drug industry, but I’m surprised that there’s no mention of stock spam because I have been getting a lot of that lately!

Caching Tutorial for Web Authors and Webmasters

Da Vinci — Sun, 06 May 2007 12:59:22 +0000

Here’s a useful guide for everything related to Web caching. Webmasters inevitably have cache related issues at some point in time. The author describes different types of caches and how to control them.

Caching Tutorial for Web Authors and Webmasters

Google Becoming Sloppy

Da Vinci — Sat, 10 Feb 2007 22:03:56 +0000

I’m one of those people that think Google is going to become evil this year. The hints that they may start charging for services like Google Apps for your Domain are unfortunate. Anyway, they may not be evil yet, but they make mistakes that you wouldn’t expect from a company so good, e.g. the German Google domain name expiration and this afternoon Adwords and Adsense sites were down. Look at the date error that in the message

Switch your personal domain to gmail for domains

Da Vinci — Fri, 17 Nov 2006 04:06:36 +0000

Google Apps for Your Domain is a service that Google offers to individuals, informal groups and small companies that have their own domain name. The main attraction for using this service is for the email hosting. Most registrars and hosting providers offer good email services, but it’s hard to beat Gmail’s functionality, speed and flexibility. So having Gmail as the email service provider for your domain is pretty attractive! I use the service for davinciplanet.com and the more I use it the happier I am with the service.

Users concerned about the flexibility of the service like using email clients (e.g. Outlook & Thunderbird) need not be concerned because Google isn’t evil and they support it. Another concern has been the support of SPF records to prevent spam using your domain, but again, Google isn’t evil and so they support it:

Besides Gmail functionality for your domain, Google offers other services like Google Talk and Google Calendar for your domain. Knowing Google, I am certain that they will soon include Google Docs and Spreadsheets, Desktop, Search etc. in the service.

Now, of course, Microsoft offers a similar service called Windows Live Custom Domains. In many ways they are a step ahead, like hosting Web sites for free (called Windows Office Live), however, I recently received and email from them saying that they were coming out of beta and so I’m not sure about the freeness going forward.

The one big issue with all of this, of course, is that Google (and competitors) have me nailed down because they can:

Read my email;
Know which sites and pages I visit (Google toolbar);
Know who comes to my site (Google Analytics);
Index all my documents (Google Desktop);
Know what I search for (Google.com); and
Kind of verify all of the above and do something addtional that I can’t even think of using Adsense and Adwords.

This guy has a great idea on how to handle this problem and if Google really doesn’t want to be evil then they should seriously consider it! It’s like SOX for Privacy (not the Red or the White ones!!)

Makes me want to like Microsoft again!

BartPE bootable windows liveCD

Da Vinci — Sat, 21 Oct 2006 12:58:48 +0000

Looking at my Google Analytics reports I noticed that a lot of people are finding my site by searching for terms like “WinXP virtual appliance” and “windows live CD”. My guess is that they’re hoping to find a free download. Well, they are available – but, they’re not legal. Besides not being legal you shouldn’t trust them because it can’t be from a trusted source and who knows what’s installed on there. If it was a trusted source – like a friend – then it’s an illegal copy but hey at least you trust it

However, you can create your own VMware Windows virtual appliance or live CD if you had a windows installation CD. You really need a fresh Windows installation CD (with an unused license) to create a legal Windows VMware virtual appliance. However, you can legally create a Windows live CD from your original Windows installation CD using BartPE. But wait, you can run a live CD virtual appliance so then you do have a way to get a free WinXP virtual appliance!

Bart’s Preinstalled Environment (BartPE) is a hack of the Microsoft Windows Preinstallation Environment (Windows PE). Windows PE is only available to OEM users and BartPE’s creator was kind enough to make a (legal and more flexible) version that we all can use. Bart’s PE Builder helps you build a “BartPE” bootable Windows CD-Rom or DVD from the original Windows XP or Windows Server 2003 installation/setup CD, with a complete Win32 environment with network support.

OpenVPN – a proper, free VPN

Da Vinci — Thu, 05 Oct 2006 03:38:01 +0000

In a previous post I discussed the very useful Hamachi personal VPN. OpenVPN is an open source VPN solution that has enterprise scale capabilities and is a “real” virtual private network solution. It’s a Tech World has a very good article on configuring OpenVPN. Like most open source applications, however, it can take some time to understand, but once you do it grows on you.

VMware Live CD Player

Da Vinci — Tue, 03 Oct 2006 02:22:57 +0000

Live CDs have become quite popular, but I’ve always argued that it’s easier and more convenient to run virtual machines inside a host OS because it gives you the Internet and file access that you typically need when experimenting with something new. Never mind the hassle to actually burn live CDs. However, there are many more live CDs available than there are VMware virtual appliances. Here’s a neat little script that will enable you to launch a live CD, as an ISO image, inside VMware Player. Here’s what you need to do:

Of course you first need to have the VMware Player installed. (See previous post for more info)
Download the OS Integrated Live CD Player, available as a BitTorrent download from the VMware directory. If you don’t have a BitTorrent client try ÂµTorrent, a portable BitTorrent client.
Read the README.txt. For Windows it goes something like this:

There is no configuration script for Windows 2000/XP, so it will need to be configured manually.

From Windows Explorer, Click “Tools” -> “Folder Options”. Select the “File Types” tab and scroll down the list looking for the type with extension ISO (If it is not there, you will need to make one by clicking “New”). Highlight the ISO type and Click “Advanced”. Click “New” and under “Action:” give it a name like “Boot with VMware”. Under “Application used to perform action:”, give the filename with path to the ISOPLAYER.BAT script, followed by and switches you want and finally “%1″. It is important that the %1 be enclosed in quotation marks. Also make sure to enclose in quotes any filename that inclused spaces.

For example, you might type something like this:
“C:\isoplayer\isoplayer.bat” /d /vmware:”C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware Player\vmplayer.exe” “%1″

After this, click “Ok”.

So it really is easy to set up even though it doesn’t use an installation wizard. Once setup you can download and launch live CDs within a virtual machine without burning CDs and without installing anything!

Virtual Appliances update

Da Vinci — Mon, 02 Oct 2006 03:59:10 +0000

In a previous post on VMware virtual appliances I wrote about how easy and convenient they are. So it is good news and for good reason that the VMware directory of free virtual appliances has grown. The directory is up to date with recent versions of most (free) operating systems and many applications. They even have a “Voice Mail RSS Feed Generator” . Personally, I have been mostly using a WinXP virtual appliance – one that I had to create myself using the VMware server (also free, but because of the XP licensing it’s not really “free”).

If you ever want to test an operating system or an application, but you are hesitant to install it on your own computer or server, this is an excellent virtualization option. There are, of course, many torrent downloads available – both good and bad. Other uses of virtual appliances include testing of software, like Windows Vista, IE7 or Microsoft Expression Web – all those beta applications that you really want to try out, but don’t want install on your computer just yet.

Which blog application is right for you?

Da Vinci — Sun, 17 Sep 2006 22:02:43 +0000

Over the last couple of months many people I know, mostly non-technical, have shown an interest in creating their own blogs. It is very easy to set up a free blog, but it gets a little more confusing when you are more serious like wanting your own domain name. So based on level of seriousness, here’s my recommendation to find a blog solution that works for you.

Not serious
If you want to simply create a blog for free and do not care too much about domain names and getting email accounts for your domain, then sign up with one of the many free services, e.g:

Maybe serious
If you think that you are serious enough that you would purchase a domain name and pay a few dollars a month for hosting, but want to test the waters first then I suggest that you first sign up with wordpress.com. You will get a free blog that will live under myname.wordpress.com, where the “myname” part will be replaced by the username you choose. Then choose a theme, create some posts and play around with it to get familiar. The reason I suggest using WordPress is because I recommend WordPress for the “Serious” users and so it will give you chance to familiarize yourself with WordPress Administration.

Serious
Primarily if you want to use your own domain name and add custom features like Web analytics code and sell adds. To set up a blog of this nature requires the use of several services and will cost about $50/year. Google will become your best friend. Here’s what you need to do:

Happy Blogging!

Create a WordPress blog on GoDaddy.com

Da Vinci — Wed, 30 Aug 2006 03:58:11 +0000

In this post I will try to explain how to set up a WordPress blog using goddady.com hosting services. The assumption here is that you have decided on a domain name(s) and have a reasonable idea of what your theme will be. There are many hosting providers that offer similar services, but I will focus on godaddy.com because they offer low cost hosting and domain registration with everything a serious blogger needs. Godaddy.com has WordPress prepackaged so you don’t need to pre-configure MySQL or FTP upload WordPress (their support site doesn’t mention this!). Here’s what you need to do:

1. Create a hosting account
To start off you will need to sign up for a hosting account and choose a domain name for your blog. Go to the Hosting Plans page on the Go Daddy site. The Economy Plan is usually suitable and currently costs $3.59/month for 12 month. You need to choose between Linux and Windows hosting solutions and I’d recommend Linux because it works nicer with WordPress (particularly permalinks). You typically do not need any of the optional services that they offer, but you may consider the Private domain registration ($4.99 per year) to hide your personal info from public whois. You can add a domain name for $1.99 (+ $0.25 ICANN fee). The total charge, for 1 year, will be around $50.32. That will be your only cost for this setup. Once you have paid you may have to wait a few of hours for your hosting set up to complete.

2. Install WordPress
Next you need to install WordPress into your site. To do this, browse to godaddy.com, log in to your account and then go to Hosting & Servers and go to My Hosting Plans. Select Open next to the hosting account that you would like to add WorPress. In the Hosting Manager look for click on Value Applications, locate WordPress and click on install. You need to enter basic WordPress administration info, submit, wait a couple of minutes and it’s installed. Besides WordPress, you will also see many other applications that are readily available, including Coppermine image gallery, SiteBar, AdvancedPoll and PmWiki wiki.

After installing WordPress, Go Daddy will show a link to launch the application. By default WordPress will be installed into the /wordpress folder. To change that could be tricky, but you could do it by using an FTP client to connect to your site (create an FTP account by going to Manage FTP Users in the Host Manager) and renaming the wordpress folder to the name of your choice, then you need to browse to the admin page in the new folder (i.e. http://yourdomain.com/new_wordpress_folder/wp-admin/index.php) and update the path info in the Options | General section. If you want to run WordPress as your root application, you will need to move the files to your root folder – possibly by downloading and then re-uploading the files to root (make sure you know what you’re doing!).

3. Familiarize yourself with WordPress
This is where the fun starts! After you get WordPress working you need to familiarize yourself with the Web application by checking out the admin tool and reading the documentation. You will want to create a theme or choose one from the many available on-line (mostly free) and enhance it by installing plugins and adding Web analytics, RSS feeds, etc..

4. Useful resources

Themes:
WordPress Codex
Emily Robnins, How to blog – a comprehensive list of themes.

Plugins:
WordPress Codex

Create virtual encrypted disks to secure data

Da Vinci — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 05:36:00 +0000

TrueCrypt is an open source application that allows you to create encrypted virtual drives on your computer. That way you can secure files on your computer by putting them in an encrypted space that will only be accessible by mounting the virtual drive which is password protected.

The TrueCrypt file can be emailed, backed up and FTP’ed and remain secure because of the strong encryption. It can also be run from a USB flash drive. The virtual disks can be mounted on any operating system.

Once a volume is mounted, files that are written to the virtual disk are encrypted on the fly.Â Performance is excellent and you hardly notice anything – except if you choose some ridiculous encryption algorithm.

You can create almost any size virtual drive and chose from most popular file systems, e.g. FAT32 and NTFS.

Make sure to save your password:Â There is no way to recover a lost password!

Creates a virtual encrypted disk within a file and mounts it as a real disk.

Encrypts an entire hard disk partition or a device.

Encryption is automatic, real-time (on-the-fly) and transparent.

It’s very simple:

Download and install TrueCrypt: http://www.truecrypt.org/downloads.php
Start the application
Click on Create Volume
Select a location and file name for the virtual drive. The virtual drive is saved as one big encrypted file (or a whole disk)
Choose an encryption algorithm
Choose the virtual drive size
Choose a password
Select the file that you just created and choose a drive letter on which to mount it
Click on Mount and enter password

The drive is available to you and anyone else connected to the computer for as long as it is mounted. See the Beginner’s Tutorial for more information.

Sysinternals purchased by Microsoft

Da Vinci — Thu, 03 Aug 2006 01:54:07 +0000

If you haven’t heard of Sysinternals you better visit their Website while it’s still live (and free) because they have been purchased by Microsoft. Sysinternals has a huge list of free Windows utilities that are very useful for system administrators.

The Sysinternals web site provides you with advanced utilities, technical information, and source code related to Windows internals that you won’t find anywhere else.

Some of my favorite utilities are:

BlueScreen – A “blue screen of death” screensaver : )
Junction -Â Symbolic links for Windows
Du – Disk usage by directory
MoveFile -Â Schedule file rename and delete commands for the next reboot
Process Explorer – Task Manager on steriods

Technosocial Architect

Da Vinci — Mon, 24 Jul 2006 01:09:03 +0000

Thomas Vander Wal has a great post in his blog on social interaction with technology, which he refers to as technosocial. His perspective is that there is a gap between what information and when people need information versus what techologists provide. In my full-time job I am responsible for implementing Web metrics and it is always surprising to see how much information people *want*, but then never really look at or understand.

We (as designers and developers) focus on making our technology easy to use and providing a good experience in the domain we control.

People want to use the information when they need it, which is quite often outside the domains we as designers and developers control.

Technosocial Architect – vanderwal.net

PGP File Encryption Using GnuPG

Da Vinci — Thu, 20 Jul 2006 03:54:47 +0000

I frequently get asked how to encrypt files using Pretty Good Privacy (PGP). There is very good documentation available on the Web, but here is my condensed version.

Public key cryptography uses a pair of keys for encryption: a public key, which encrypts data, and a corresponding private, or secret key for decryption. Your public key can be distributed to anyone and does not pose a risk. Your private key needs to be kept safe and not given to anyone. Anyone with a copy of your public key can encrypt information that only you can decrypt using your private key.

I use free software called GnuPG (http://gnupg.org/). Once you have the software installed you need to create a public/private key pair and then you need to exchange public keys with the party you wish to exchange encrypted files.

Here’s what you need to do:

1. Download and follow the instructions to install the software:
http://www.gnupg.org/(en)/download/index.html (look for the Binaries section to make your life easier)

2. Generate a public/private key pair: Go to your GnuPG install directory and type in gpg --gen-key. The default settings are usually good (DSA (1024 bit) and Elgamal (2048 bit)/never expires).

C:\Program Files\GNU\GnuPG>gpg –gen-key
gpg (GnuPG) 1.4.4; Copyright (C) 2006 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This program comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.
This is free software, and you are welcome to redistribute it
under certain conditions. See the file COPYING for details.

gpg: keyring `C:/Documents and Settings/Leonard/Application Data/gnupg\secring.gpg’ created
gpg: keyring `C:/Documents and Settings/Leonard/Application Data/gnupg\pubring.gpg’ created
Please select what kind of key you want:
(1) DSA and Elgamal (default)
(2) DSA (sign only)
(5) RSA (sign only)
Your selection?
DSA keypair will have 1024 bits.
ELG-E keys may be between 1024 and 4096 bits long.
What keysize do you want? (2048)
Requested keysize is 2048 bits
Please specify how long the key should be valid.
0 = key does not expire
= key expires in n days
w = key expires in n weeks
m = key expires in n months
y = key expires in n years
Key is valid for? (0)
Key does not expire at all
Is this correct? (y/N) y

You need a user ID to identify your key; the software constructs the user ID from the Real Name, Comment and Email Address in this form:
“Heinrich Heine (Der Dichter) < heinrichh@duesseldorf.de>”

Real name: Leonard Labuschagne
Email address: leonard@davinciplanet.com
Comment: Da Vinci Planet
You selected this USER-ID:
“Leonard Labuschagne (Da Vinci Planet) < leonard@davinciplanet.com>”

Change (N)ame, (C)omment, (E)mail or (O)kay/(Q)uit? O
You need a Passphrase to protect your secret key.

We need to generate a lot of random bytes. â€¦. [lots of text and characters while generating keys]
gpg: C:/Documents and Settings/Leonard/Application Data/gnupg\trustdb.gpg: trust db created
gpg: key 51756B80 marked as ultimately trusted
public and secret key created and signed.

gpg: checking the trustdb
gpg: 3 marginal(s) needed, 1 complete(s) needed, PGP trust model
gpg: depth: 0 valid: 1 signed: 0 trust: 0-, 0q, 0n, 0m, 0f, 1u
pub 1024D/51756B80 2006-07-18
Key fingerprint = 2492 ACA4 EA74 BF33 C45E 31D5 F719 9D78 5175 6B80
uid Leonard Labuschagne (Da Vinci Planet)
sub 2048g/C3BFDE51 2006-07-18

3. Export your public key so that you can give it to others. Run a command similar to this one (replace key name with the key name that you chose when you generated the key pair):
gpg --armor --output YourCompany.asc --export "YourCompany "

C:\Program Files\GNU\GnuPG>gpg –armor –output DaVinciPlanet.asc –export “Leonard Labuschagne (Da Vinci Planet) “

4. To encrypt a file for someone else to decrypt you have to import their public key. Copy their public key file to your GnuPG install directory and run the command gpg --import other_persons_pub_key_file.asc

5. Sign their public key. You need to know their User ID (the name that they gave their key). Run the command gpg --sign-key "their User ID"

To encrypt files, use the following format:
gpg --yes -eq -r "their User ID" -o encrypted_file.pgp file_to_encrypt

For instance if someone wanted to send me an encrypted file, they would use the following:

gpg –yes -eq -r “Leonard Labuschagne (Da Vinci Planet) < leonard@davinciplanet.com>” -o encrypted_file.pgp file_to_encrypt

To decrypt files, use the following format:
gpg -o decrypted_file_name file_to_decrypt.pgp

The GNU Privacy Guard – gnupg.org

Other Resources:
A Practical Introduction to GNU Privacy Guard in Windows – glump.net
GnuPG on WikiPedia

Free Microsoft Goodies

Da Vinci — Sun, 04 Jun 2006 21:59:10 +0000

I recently discovered the IE Developer Toolbar and it got me searching for some more hidden free tools available from Microsoft.Â Some of them have been around for a while, but they are still useful utilities for Web developers.

Microsoft Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool
It is not a full featured anti-virus application, but it is a quick scanner for the most popular malicious software. It is Microsoft’s version of the McAfee Stinger.

The Microsoft Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool checks computers running Windows XP, Windows 2000, and Windows Server 2003 for infections by specific, prevalent malicious softwareâ€”including Blaster, Sasser, and Mydoomâ€”and helps remove any infection found.

Windows Defender
A very good anti-spyware tool that has received very good reviews. It has a simple interface and is very unobtrusive.

Windows Defender (Beta 2) is a free program that helps protect your computer against pop-ups, slow performance, and security threats caused by spyware and other unwanted software. It features Real-Time Protection, a monitoring system that recommends actions against spyware when it’s detected, and a new streamlined interface that minimizes interruptions and helps you stay productive.

Internet Explorer Developer Toolbar
The Internet Explorer Developer Toolbar is similar to Firefox’s Web Developer extension (not quite as good). It allows you to do several things like outline tables, table cells, images, or selected tags and validate HTML and style sheets. It includes something similar to Firefox’s live bookmarks (RSS Web feed links).

Windows Server 2003 Resource Kit Tools
Although the title suggests that the tools are for Windows Server 2003, Windows XP is also supported. The toolkit includes useful little tools like Tail (Unix like tail for Windows).

The MicrosoftÂ® WindowsÂ® Server 2003 Resource Kit Tools are a set of tools to help administrators streamline management tasks such as troubleshooting operating system issues, managing Active DirectoryÂ®, configuring networking and security features, and automating application deployment.

Internet Information Services (IIS) 6.0 Resource Kit Tools
SelfSSL is a tool for generating ssl certificates, which is very useful for developers trying to develop secure sites. The Log Parser is a powerful command line tool for querying log files database style.

The IIS 6.0 Resource Kit Tools can help you administer, secure, and manage IIS. Use them to query log files, deploy SSL certificates, employ custom site authentication, verify permissions, troubleshoot problems, migrate your server, run stress tests, and more.

Create your personal VPN using Hamachi

Da Vinci — Thu, 18 May 2006 03:47:34 +0000

In our world of working at the office, from other offices, from home, friends’ homes, airports, Starbucks or even from parks and other wi-fi hot spots, security of our Internet connections is a major concern. Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) make it possible to connect securely to networks from remote locations. While employers normally provide VPN access to their networks for employees it is often useful for employees to have access to their personal networks at home – especially when they frequently work from home. However, setting up your own VPN can be costly and overwhelming if you do it the enterprise way. There are a few different ways to create your own secure network, but most are surprisingly difficult or at least to non-technical folks. Hamachi is an amazingly simple and free service for creating your own VPN.

I read about Hamachi a few months ago on my favorite site lifehacker.com and have been using it since. It has great appeal to the gaming community because it allows one to create your own LAN over the Internet, but it has a lot of potential for the working professional. I’m not saying working professionals shouldn’t play games . By creating your own Hamachi VPN you can create a secure network, which gives you access to files and services on any of your computers or servers.

Since the source code is not open, some people are concerned about the security around Hamachi. However, they claim “Nobody will be able to see what two Hamachi peers are talking about. Not even us.”

Hamachi is a zero-configuration virtual private networking application with an open security architecture…

A special effort went into designing and polishing Hamachi user interface. The result is sleek, simple and intuitive, while still very much functional. Everything you need, nothing you don’t.

Hamachi software contains no spyware, bannerware or any other -ware unrelated to its purpose. And it never will.

ExtremeTech has a very good article on setting up your own VPN.
ExtremeTech: Secure Surfing to Go: VPN Made Easy

Wikipedia has a fairly academic overview with many resources.
Wikipedia: Hamachi

Lifehacker.com
Profit42.com: Share iTunes music over the internet in 3 easy steps

Printing to your home printer from anywhere is also useful!
Transparent VPN, Printing From Anywhere with Hamachi

I have read a lot of complaints about problems with getting Remote Desktop (RDP) to work on Windows XP with Hamachi. Cyberonica has a very good article with a solution to this problem by explaining how to configure free Hamachi to run as a Windows service. This kind of bridges the gap between the free and the commercial version. Nice!
Cyberonica : Hamachi

Another “running Hamachi as a service” resource:
It’s a Tech World: Hamachi VPN Solution

If you like podcasts, Security Now! has several discussions on personal use of VPN and Hamachi. Look for the episodes titled Virtual Private Networks (VPN): Theory, “Hamachi” Rocks! and VPNs Three: Hamachi, iPig, and OpenVPN.
Security Now!

B.t.w. the Hamachi site is fairly basic, however, you can find more info on these sections of their site:
Comparisan between the Free and Premium versions
Hamachi Discussion Forums where you can also download the lates beta

Hamachi is not perfect. It is not open source and it uses UDP to create a tunnel that many firewalls block. However, chances are that you can easily create a VPN that will allow you to connect to your home network. Apparantly Hamachi is working on a solution that would do tunneling over an open Web port, but not as a free service. I guess that’s where the open source folks would step in .

Hamachi

Run virtual appliances on your desktop PC

Da Vinci — Sun, 23 Apr 2006 01:56:46 +0000

Virtualization is becoming more real and if you ever wanted to try Linux, but have been too afraid to install it or give up your Windows or Mac, the VMware Player will allow you to run most operating systems virtualized. The VMware Player is a free application that allows you to run virtual appliances. It is a perfect sandbox solution: test and install applications without messing up your desktop. VMWare Virtual Server and Microsoft Virtual PC allow you to create and run virtual desktops or servers on your desktop. The VMware Player is a light weight virtualization server without the overhead of a full fledged virtual server that has system management features.

A virtual appliance is a fully pre-installed and pre-configured application and operating system environment that runs on any standard x86 desktop or server in a self-contained, isolated environment known as a virtual machine. Virtual appliances provide an evolutionary step in the software distribution model.

There is a substantial list of free virtual appliances available on the VMware site, including operating systems like:

Debian
Fedora Core (4 & 5)
FreeBSD
Gentoo
Kubuntu
Puppy Linux
RedHat Enterprise
Ubuntu

and applications like:

BEA WebLogic
BugZilla
MySQL Network
Twiki

All you need to do is to download install the VMware Player (it’s a 28MB download). During installation it will ask if you want to disable autorun on your cdrom and also if you want to install the Google Deskbar, which you typically would want to disable by unchecking the checkboxes. To use the player you can either download pre-built virtual appliances or you can create your own. To use a pre-built appliance, simply download the one you want and open it with the VMware Player. You can also create your own virtual appliances, e.g. a virtual Windows XP desktop, by installing the VMware Virtual Server. It is currently in beta, but it is free for home use and it works just fine for creating virtual appliances. Note that you will need OS and application licenses (as usual) for the products that you install on the VM instance (e.g. Win XP).

So for me, as a new-cool-app-I-have-to-try-it type of person, this is awesome. It’s like having unlimited sandboxes at hand

VMware
Microsoft Virtual PC (MS Virtual Server 2005 R2 Enterprise Edition is currently available for free)