Tor + Android = Orbot

I'm a pretty big fan of Tor, the anonymizing network known as an onion router. For this reason I was recently delighted to learn of Orbot which is a tor + local proxy implementation for Android! If you're not familiar with tor unfortunately an explanation is outside the scope of this article.

My android phone is rooted so I'm enjoying full transparent tor proxying. I read that on non-rooted phones Orbot will still provide some functionality with specific browsers so it's probably worth a download even if you don't have those magical superuser privileges.

RIP Whisper Systems, we hardly knew ye

Crypto-punks the 'net around are in mourning after yesterday's announcement that Whisper Systems was being purchased by Twitter. For those of you who haven't heard: Whisper Systems was the fledgling company of Moxie Marlinspike a hacker most recently in the news for his work with Wikileaks. His company produced many very interesting cryptographic tools for Android including WhisperCore - a full encryption and security system for Android, WhisperMonitor - a software firewall tightly integrated with WhisperCore, and FlashBack - an encrypted cloud backup system. Though the software will reportedly be available again soon it is the loss of the RedPhone service which will be mourned by geeks and activists alike.

RedPhone was an end-to-end encrypted VoIP platform combined with anonymous routing. This service was one of the most exciting technological developments I have ever encountered. The potential for such a service should not be understated. It would strike fear in the heart of tyrants and make authorities of all stripes tremble in their jackboots.

And so the app is already pulled from the market and the servers are down. What will Twitter do with their newly acquired technology? We'll have to wait and see. One thing's for certain, though, this couldn't have happened at a more inopportune time.

On a related note: another one of Moxie's controversial services WPA Cracker is still online. WPA Cracker does not appear to be affiliated with Whisper Systems which probably explains how it narrowly escaped the fate of the other services.

Missing .exe file association in Windows XP

I recently encountered an XP machine that seemed unable to execute anything. When opening an executable I'd be met with either "Application Not Found" or else the Open With... dialog box. Obviously this made the computer pretty well unusable. Though I'm not entirely certain how this occurred (virus?) I was able to correct the missing file association which enabled me to run the virus scanner. This page has a number of .reg files with the correct XP file associations for lots of different formats, notably .exe. There's some instructions at the top for getting these keys imported to the registry without being able to run regedit, but I found explorer correctly handled the .reg file without any tinkering. Once those keys were in place everything worked as it should. Easy as pi!

"The iPhone cannot be synced. The required disk cannot be found."

I recently ran across an iPhone that failed to sync in iTunes with this rather cryptic error message. It wouldn't allow me to sync any of the data quite properly and at one point even refused to allow me to delete music from the device. After a quick google search I came across this post on the Apple forums. Apparently this error can be caused by a number of different circumstances, but in my case it was in fact caused by a faulty USB port. The computer recognized the device and iTunes could even correctly identify the data on it, but that was as far as we could go. After plugging the USB cable into a different port everything worked as it should.

Octothorpe Grid Delivery Enhancehent

While attempting to watch the debate on CNN Live I was prompted to install the "octothorpe grid delivery enhancement".  Unsure of whether to proceed I checked google.  Turns out it's not only unnecessary to install this in order to watch the feed, this flash player "enhancement"  is essentially malware. 

Just click no to octothorpe!

Free Android Virus Scanner

The world of mobile computing is becoming increasingly risky. Viruses and other malware have been identified in both the Android and iOS marketplaces. As an Android user I've seen quite a number of different antivirus options on the market but until recently they were either a) from a developer I'd never heard of or b) expensive. Luckily I recently came across ESET Mobile Security RC.

I've used ESET Nod32 for desktop virus protection in my professional work and found it to be decently secure without requiring the obscene overhead of some other products. This product appears to be similarly light on resource usage while providing a complete suite of mobile security.

What do you get in the package? Well, real-time virus protection for one. ESET also provides call/sms spam protection with white and black list functionality. The security audit function scans installed applications and settings for anything untoward which could potentially leave you open for problems. The program also includes the ability to password protect any or all of these functions with a master password.

I've saved the best for last, though. ESET Mobile Security RC includes anti-theft functionality. With this program installed you can issue commands to your phone via SMS. Available commands are 'wipe' which clears your personal data, 'lock' which prevents use without your password, and 'find' which returns your phone's location data. In addition you can specify trusted contacts which are other phones (friends or family) from whose phones you could reset your password remotely if necessary.

True, it's only a release candidate and will likely cost a bundle when finally released, but this seems to be an awesome product. Grab it while it's free and give it a spin!

Toll-free ANAC

Have you ever needed to figure out the number of a phone line that you're dialing from? In my IT support work I regularly find myself without the necessary documentation regarding what lines are available where. Or even when I know what lines are in a particular location I may not know specifically which pair of wires corresponds to which number.

Enter ANAC, or automatic number announcement circuit. Generally these are special phone lines which read back the caller's number. The wikipedia article contains a rather extensive list of such numbers but contains no mention of what may be the most popular number at this time. Operated by Sprint, 1-800-444-4444 is toll free, easy to remember, and reliably gets you the information you need in a hurry. Tuck this tip away in your memory banks, it's sure to come in handy eventually.