Hackosis

Freenet is a relatively new P2P project in which members act similar to that of a cluster, donating hard drive space and bandwidth. It is similar to the Tor network in the fact that connections are encrypted and re-routed through other members of the network.

What’s different about Freenet is that you also dedicate parts of your hard drive for file storage. What is even more interesting is that you have no control over what is stored in your ‘data store’. Less popular files are deleted to make room for more popular files. The files are encrypted so that you ‘might’ not be held responsible for what lies within your data store.

Freenet is not only for storing files, but also allows you to create Freenet websites called ‘Freesites’. Also usenet, email, and more is possible on the Freenet.

Freenet is open source and runs anywhere Java runs. Windows, Linux, or Mac should work fine. After installing the interface is accessible through a web browser. Remember, Freenet is still in alpha stage so there may be some bugs.

Read more and download at the Free Network Project website.

Open source, cross platform Vidalia is a Tor GUI that runs on Windows, Linux, and Mac.

Simply put, Vidalia makes it really easy to setup, configure, turn on and off, and configure relays for the Tor network. Complete with bandwidth graphs and network maps, Vidalia should have everything you need to get started and stay on the Tor network.

After installing Vidalia, it is as simple as pointing your browser’s proxy setting to 127.0.0.1:8118 to start using the Tor network.

You can even choose which country to originate your connection from. Don’t get too frisky now. ;)

Vidalia Homepage | Vidalia Downloads | Vidalia Screenshots | Vidalia Support

Why spend $100 on a WiFi repeater when you can make your own $10 super duper WiFi antenna? Retaliate.

Items needed:

• 35-mm foam (like the kind desktop and laptop PCs usually come with)
• Solid-core copper wire
• Small brass plate
• Multiple BNC connectors

Follow the instructions in the video to get started:

Do you have any more nifty WiFi hacks? Let us know in the comments. { via tech.nocr.at }

DIYLife.com created a video instructing about how to create your own USB LED color changer. I doesn’t go into a whole lot of depth, so pay attention. You can also use this to do beat detection, etc.

{ via Hack N Mod }

Monitoring your website on a shared host is vital to the well being of your existence on the internet. There are several online services that will do this for you in exchange for a small price. While they may be a bit more accurate, I would like to share with you how to use RRDTool to monitor your website’s response time yourself.

image via rrdwiki (didn’t use mine because it hasn’t completed a full cycle yet.)

NOTE: I am using Ubuntu based Linux Mint. This process should be the same on other Debian based distributions. If you are not running a Debian based distribution, you may have to modify some paths to the rrdtool executable. Some of this procedure has been taken from the rrdwiki.

The first step is to install RRDTool:

sudo apt-get install rrdtool

Read the rest of this entry …

pdftk is an open source, cross platform PDF super manipulator. This goody allows you to split, merge, rotate, decrypt, encrypt, watermark, change metadata, attach files, detach files, repair, and more.

From the site:

“If PDF is electronic paper, then pdftk is an electronic staple-remover, hole-punch, binder, secret-decoder-ring, and X-Ray-glasses. Pdftk is a simple tool for doing everyday things with PDF documents.”

pdftk is command line only, so you might want to check out the examples for syntax. If you aren’t into command line, there are some GUIs available.

Get the full scoop along with package installers at the pdftk site.

I know, you have probably been through this before and it’s unoriginal, but I would like to know more about the readers here at Hackosis and thought this would be a great way to get started.

Show us your desktop and tell us a little about what is going on inside that virtual masterpiece of yours.

I am running Linux Mint 4.0 Daryna on my home PC with the desktop a bit customized. Gdesklets make up the widgets. ‘New York’ wallpaper was downloaded from InterfaceLIFT. The icon set is called CrashBit.

So if you have a spare minute, upload a screen shot of your desktop and tell us a bit about what’s happening. I am sure everyone would love to see it.

Not the official ntop logo – icon courtesy of Tango Desktop Project

Forget about tools like lsof and netstat for trouble shooting and analyzing network traffic. Ntop blows everything else away. It comes jam packed with a web interface and outputs more data than you can shake a stick at. Ntop analyzes everything about how, where, when, and what your PC is connecting to on the internet.

I am running Linux Mint — installation is a cinch. This procedure should be the same on Ubuntu and other Debian based distributions. Make sure you have the universe repositories enabled.

The above will install ntop, now set a password:

Start ntop with the following command:

Read the rest of this entry …

Add the link below to your bookmarks. You can use this to search many of the top free file hosts for anything that you might be hunting. You would be surprised at what this jewel can find.

Bookmark Me { via ghacks.net }

Dear Vyatta,

During the past couple of months I have been attempting to replace my Cisco 7500 with your routing software. The Vyatta product looked very promising and supported all the protocols and features that I needed including BGP, Bandwidth Management (through the kernel), VRRP, in addition to standard routing with TCP/IP.

I have run into many issues with the Vyatta software. Just to name a few — VRRP limitations, BGP Routing Policy limitations, static routing bugs, not being able to delete static routes and policy configurations, and more.

I am sad to say, good bye Vyatta. I have enjoyed the past two months getting to know you. You have what seems a wonderful team of individuals working towards the better. I would like to send a thanks to the support group and everyone on the mailing list, they were wonderful.

I will continue to support what the Vyatta team is trying to do. Unfortunately, the software is still premature. I, however, am looking forward to the next release so I can give it another try.

I am sure I could force the software to work, but I would hardly be confident with that procedure. That being said — Vyatta cannot replace my Cisco 7500 core router.

Farewell,

Shane