Introducing Clipperz online and offline password manager for any OS
I absolutely love clipperz, I use this every day and had to share it with you all, to me this pwnz KeepassX and other offline managers, here is some information from the clipperz site!
Clipperz - Keep it to yourself!
What does Clipperz do?
You can think of Clipperz as your web Rolodex, a card index where you can enter any sort of confidential data without worrying about security. It can be used to store and freely organize passwords, confidential notes, burglar alarm codes, credit and debit card details, PINs, software keys, …
What problem does Clipperz solve?
Clipperz does solve the “password fatigue” and make the Internet the most convenient and safe place to store private and sensitive data. However since passwords are the most common type of sensitive information that you need to protect, we added a lot of functionalities to make Clipperz the best online password manager.
Features
One-click login
Users can store the details of their online services into Clipperz and quickly create a “direct login” link for each of them: just one click to authenticate and access the online service without typing any username and password. View this video or read more …
Offline copy
Users can dump their encrypted data from Clipperz servers to a local hard disk or USB drive and create a read-only portable version of Clipperz to be used when no Internet connection is available. Clipperz offline copy can also be easily moved to a USB drive. more …
Clipperz Compact
A stripped down edition designed for the Firefox sidebar. It makes “direct logins” even more addictive! And it works with Opera panels too. more …
Import and export
It’s your data! No vendor lock-in: you can move your data out of Clipperz anytime. On the other hand Clipperz provides bulk data import from a variety of formats (CSV, Excel, Keepass, Roboform, …). more …
Zero-maintenance
Nothing to install. Nothing to backup. You can always access your precious data from any computer, any browser, any OS.
Anonymity
Clipperz is completely anonymous. To open a Clipperz account no personal information or email is requested. Just pick a username and a passphrase. more …
Sharing (coming soon)
A public key infrastructure is transparently embedded within Clipperz. Users can define “trusted contacts” and policies for sharing secrets with them. Trust mechanism from the real world could be moved within Clipperz without bothering with certificates and authorities. moreRegister today @ Clipperz, it is free and opensource!
Howto: Setup & Install Truecrypt 5.1a for Linux on Ubuntu

[updated] The truecrypt team updated Truecrypt today to version 5.1a!
Ok this is some awesome news from the developers of the famous open source encryption software Truecrypt. If you dont know what it is here is an exerpt from the website:
"TrueCrypt can on-the-fly encrypt a system partition or entire system drive, i.e. a partition or drive where Windows is installed and from which it boots (a TrueCrypt-encrypted system drive may also contain non-system partitions, which are encrypted as well)."
| Main Features: |
|
New features:
-
Ability to encrypt a system partition/drive (i.e. a partition/drive where Windows is installed) with pre-boot authentication (anyone who wants to gain access and use the system, read and write files, etc., needs to enter the correct password each time before the system starts). For more information, see the chapter System Encryption in the documentation. (Windows Vista/XP/2003)
-
Pipelined operations increasing read/write speed by up to 100% (Windows)
-
Mac OS X version
-
Graphical user interface for the Linux version of TrueCrypt
-
XTS mode of operation, which was designed by Phillip Rogaway in 2003 and which was recently approved as the IEEE 1619 standard for cryptographic protection of data on block-oriented storage devices. XTS is faster and more secure than LRW mode (for more information on XTS mode, see the section Modes of Operation in the documentation).
Note: New volumes created by this version of TrueCrypt can be encrypted only in XTS mode. However, volumes created by previous versions of TrueCrypt can still be mounted using this version of TrueCrypt. -
SHA-512 hash algorithm (replacing SHA-1, which is no longer available when creating new volumes).
Note: To re-encrypt the header of an existing volume with a header key derived using HMAC-SHA-512 (PRF), select 'Volumes' > 'Set Header Key Derivation Algorithm'.
Improvements, bug fixes, and security enhancements:
-
The Linux version of TrueCrypt has been redesigned so that it will no longer be affected by changes to the Linux kernel (kernel upgrades/updates).
- Many other minor improvements, bug fixes, and security enhancements. (Windows and Linux)
If you are using an older version of TrueCrypt, it is strongly recommended that you upgrade to this version.
Basically all you need to do to install is follow these directions:
open up a terminal and type:
wget http://www.truecrypt.org/downloads/truecrypt-5.1a-ubuntu-x86.tar.gz
tar zxvf truecrypt-5.1a-ubuntu-x64.tar.gz
cd truecrypt-5.0/
sudo dpkg -i truecrypt_5.1a-0_i386.deb
There we go, now truecrypt is installed and ready to go, if you prefer the point & click version just download and extract the tar.gz and double click the .deb to install
To Run:
Press ALT-F2 and then type in "truecrypt" without the quotes :)
For more Documentation/help go to the developers site here
Howto: Setup Vidalia TOR GUI with Ubuntu Linux, Tweak Tor for Speed and surf anonymously!
[updated] - Added ppa archive, Updated Tor to latest Version, Updated To latest Vidalia Version and added Tor speed Tweaks!
Do you want completely anonymous internet access? For Free? Tor is the open source leader to anonymous connections on the internet, you can anonymize your internet presence from AIM/ICQ/MSN/ Jabber/IRC/WWW/FTP and you can even issue a torify command at the command prompt to anonymize your wget/ssh/lynx/ftp/perl or whatever. Basically tor is for the people by the people, it is only alive because we make it so, we can choose to use it freely or use it freely and help it out by running a server on your computer to make the internet safer. Basically tor encrypts your data communications through chained/linked proxies all over the internet.
Vidalia is a cross-platform controller GUI for Tor, built using the Qt framework. Using Vidalia, you can start and stop Tor, view the status of Tor at a glance, and monitor Tor’s bandwidth usage. Vidalia also makes it easy to contribute to the Tor network by helping you set up and manage your own Tor server.
Vidalia runs on most platforms supported by Qt 4.1 or later, including Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux or other Unix variants using the X11 window system.
Here is how to set it up
First things first lets get the latest tor and its dependencies then install Tor
This post may be outdated, here is the latest srcsudo apt-get install libeventwget http://www.torproject.org/dist/tor-0.2.0.22-rc.tar.gztar zxvf tor-0.2.0.22-rc.tar.gz ; cd tor-0.2.0.22-rc./configure && makesudo make install
Ok now tor should be installed...
Now lets Install Vidalia GUI
I prefer to grab the latest version and compile to source but I will give you the quick and easy way and then how to compile from src
Open up System->Preferences->Software Sources and enter these repositories into 3rd Party Repositories:deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/adnarim/ubuntu gutsy maindeb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/adnarim/ubuntu gutsy main
Then apt-get:sudo apt-get install vidalia
Alternatively you can install this package by compiling it from source, here is how:
This will apt get tor and the dependencies, wget vidalia, extract and cd to the directory and configure for you.sudo apt-get install qt4-dev-tools qt4-designer libqt4-dev cmake wget http://www.vidalia-project.net/dist/vidalia-0.1.1.tar.gz
This vidalia package may be outdated, check here for the latest version!tar zxvf vidalia-0.1.1.tar.gzcd vidalia-0.1.1cmake . && makesudo make install
Now the latest vidalia and Tor are compiled and installed!
Once installed press alt F2 and open the run prompt and type in “vidalia” without the quotes, this will start tor, vidalia and you can configure tor/vidalia by right clicking on the tray applet and click on settings, right there you can view all the nodes and choose what to connect to, see node uptimes, os’s and locations with a graphical map.
For web browsing in firefox I prefer using an extention named FoxyProxy it works well with firefox and swiftfox, you can grab this extention directly from here
If you prefer stronger anonymity & protection I strongly Suggest Torbutton for firefox
Direct Download NOW
Install the addon and go through the Tor wizard and it will set you up for you and you can view which tor nodes you connect through actively via vidalia
I hope you enjoy my first tutorial on ubuntu privacy concerns. I hope many more people use tor and set up a server to anonymize the world.
[updated]
Speed Tweaks for tor:
Ok we all know tor can be slower than a turtle so, lets get to editing our torrc so we can improve the speed!gedit ~/.vidalia/torrc
Paste this at the beginning of the torrc:
# Set the Tor Circuit Build time to find faster tor servers, increments of seconds
CircuitBuildTimeout 2
# connections while Tor is not in use.
KeepalivePeriod 60
# Force Tor to consider whether to build a new circuit every NUM seconds.
NewCircuitPeriod 15
# Set How many entry guards we should we keep at a time
NumEntryGuards 8
Now ctrl-s Save and exit, and restart tor/vidalia
Tweak Ubuntu Boot Speed and Application Startup Time with Preload
I have been running Preload for months testing it out, and I have gained a substantial speed increase for my daily applications, firefox-3, gimp, vlc, xine, pidgin, xchat and deluge torrent. Basically what Preload does is preload frequently used applications in memory before use, so before you even run your frequently used application it is already loaded. So I am enjoying the benifit of applications loading almost instantaneously. By using Preload, you can put unused RAM to good work, and improve the overall performance of your desktop system. If goal is to make application startup times shorter definately install this application!
Installation:
Preload is very easy to install, If you are in firefox try clicking here for a 1 click install! or all you do is simply press ALT-F2, check run in terminal and type this command:sudo apt-get install preload
Once installed, Preload will start, and no further action is necessary, the default configuration should be left alone because the developer spend much time tweaking it for optimal usage, most likely you will notice a degrade in system performance editing the configuration. But if you insist, here is the paper written by the developer Behdad Esfahbod
If you would like to modify the configuration you can by editing /etc/preload.conf
| Option | Default | Controls |
| Cache model (system) settings | ||
| model.cycle | 20 [seconds] | How often Preload will query your system to update it's model about programs and libraries to cache. |
| model.halflife | 168 [hours] | How often Preload will begin to "forget" about old data; for each halflife, the statistical relevance of the current model loses 50% of its importance. |
| model.minsize | 2000000 [bytes] | The minimum amount of system calls an application makes for it to be considered by Preload. A smaller number will mean Preload caches smaller applications, while to make Preload cache only larger applications, increase this number. |
| Memory settings | ||
| The forumula used to determine the maximum available memory available to Preload is: (Total RAM x model.memtotal) + (RAM available at start x model.memfree) + (Cached memory x model.memcached) | ||
| model.memtotal | -10% | |
| model.memfree | 100% | |
| model.memcached | 30% | |
Monitoring
If you want to check up on what resources Preload is using, you can monitor its logfile by running:
sudo tail -f /var/log/preload.logIf you want more information about the specific files that Preload is caching for you, look at this file:
sudo less /var/lib/preload/preload.statePreload can provide a great improvement in application startup time; since most modern machines have a good deal of memory to spare, Preload puts this RAM to good use. I highly recommend installing Preload on your desktop machine, and although it may take a little while for the daemon to learn your habits before your see any real performance improvement, it's a great tool that increases the speed of your system while staying in the background, out of your way.
Howto: Check File integrity in Ubuntu with NScripts!
Ok today I was looking for a easy right click md5 checker for nautilus so I can verify that my clipperz password file is secure and unchanged, btw, clipperz is a great password manager that works online and offline and I store all my passwords and sensitive data in these encrypted html files and will auto-login my online accounts. But anyways here is a sweet set of scripts that you can enjoy complements of crispy
Here are the scripts included:
Chkmd5:
Check md5sums
Maxfiles at once: unlimited
CopyTo:
Copy selected files/folders to ...
whereever you want. the script will
check if you have write-permissions.
Maxfiles at once: unlimited
InstallTheme:
Install a Theme to ~/.themes, or /usr/share/themes works with
both tarballs and folders
Maxfiles at once: unlimited
InstallIcons:
Install Icons/Cursors to ~/.icons or /usr/share/icons works
with both tarballs and folders
Maxfiles at once: unlimited
Mkmd5:
Create md5sums
Maxfiles at once: unlimited
MoveTo:
Move selected files/folders to ...
whereever you want. the script will
check if you have write-permissions.
Maxfiles at once: unlimited
Rootilus:
Open the current directory in nautilus, as root
RootTermInCurdir:
Open a gnome-terminal with the currentdir as workdir, as root
SetAsSplash:
set as session splash screen
maxfiles at once: one
Shredder:
Shred seleted files ... forever
if /dev/random or /dev/urandom
exists, it will be used.
Maxfiles at once: unlimited
TermInCurdir:
open a terminal with the currentdir as workdir, as the current user
SetAsWallpaper:
set the current file as wallpaper
SendShortcutTo
send links to ... wherever you want.
Maxfiles at once: unlimited
SendToMenu:
send desktop-launchers to menu ("Other"-Submenu)
Now if you want this nice set of scripts grab them here
Now simply extract the files once you get to the download dir and move them to the nautilus-scripts directory then refresh nautilus to load up the scripts for the right click menu
tar zxvf Nscripts.tar.gz ; mv NScripts ~/.gnome2/nautilus-scripts ; sudo killall -HUP nautilus
How to destroy all your data on your Ubuntu Linux system!
WARNING: Do NOT try these examples; they will cause data loss!
If you intentionally want to wipe your hard drive or destroy all data on it, here are a few examples!
The following examples are provided to warn about the dangers of dd, if used incorrectly. Trying any of these commands with the proper privileges will almost certainly result in major data loss, and may make the system unusable. In order to prevent accidental copying and pasting, “dd” has been replaced with “[dd]” here.
This overwrites the complete first hard disk with null bytes, erasing it (though not in a manner that is as secure as overwriting with random data):
[dd] if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda
This overwrites the first few blocks of the first hard disk with the file, resulting in a loss of the partition table:
[dd] if=funnysong.mp3 of=/dev/hda
This will completely corrupt an entire hard disk (/dev/dsp is the sound player/recorder):
[dd] if=/dev/dsp of=/dev/hda
This will overwrite an entire disk with pseudorandom data, making its initial contents unrecoverable outside a clean room in a hard drive forensics laboratory, and probably unrecoverable there as well.
[dd] if=/dev/urandom of=/dev/hda
The examples above presume device names (valid on some Linux systems) that may be different on other platforms. Here are some common variations.
Mac OS X:
[dd] if=/dev/zero of=/dev/disk0
Minix:
[dd] if=/dev/zero of=/dev/c0d0p0
NetBSD/OpenBSD (does not work if securelevel > 1):
[dd] if=/dev/zero of=/dev/rwd0
Let me know if you find anything more destructive/efficient!
Overglossed GTK2 Theme with hot icons and Obsidian Cursors in Ubuntu Gutsy or Heron!
Ok I found an other awesome theme for Ubuntu, you gotta check this out, here is how I got my box setup....
Ok lets install this baby!
First lets grab Overglossed theme and install it!
wget http://ubuntu-debs.googlecode.com/files/Overglossed.tar.gz
tar zxvf Overglossed.tar.gz
sudo mv $HOME/Desktop/Overglossed /usr/share/themes
sudo chmod 777 /usr/share/themes/Overglossed/overglossed.jpg
Now... Lets install the black/white 2 style icon pack!
wget http://ubuntu-debs.googlecode.com/files/black-white_2-Style.tar.gz
tar zxvf black-white_2-Style.tar.gz
sudo mv black-white_2-Style/ /usr/share/icons
Now lets set up the Obsidian Cursor theme:
wget http://ubuntu-debs.googlecode.com/files/Obsidian.tar.gz
tar zxvf Obsidian.tar.gz
sudo mv Obsidian/ /usr/share/icons
Ok now the fun part, simply go to System->Preferences->Appearance and select Overglossed as the theme and select the black white 2 style icon pack and go into cursor settings and select Obsidian, enjoy!
defcon