Successful holiday’s this year, actually managed to pick up a nice and powerful WiFi adapter with a wonderful antenna to wardrive (NOT piggyback) with. Only been out for one session so far, but still some of these access point names amused me.
And some disappointed me. Like honestly, >5 unencrypted linksys routers in a 3 mile radius? Not good folks!
Yesterday I found myself stumbling around Amazon searching for Christmas gifts. Out of pure habit I checked the electronic gadgets section, and managed to find an interesting little device for around 50$ USD: The Zipit Z2.
It is marketed as a instant messaging device, but a quick Google search finds it capable of being flashed to run a basic copy of Debian. This makes it really cool, as it can then be used as a small, portable SSH terminal. And since by default an install of Debian has fairly little included the device can be fairly secure. This makes it suitable for running simple personal things, like alpine and irssi to keep in touch with people without giving up passwords to a possibly keylogged kiosk.
One thing to note though is that the device’s default firmware requires a subscription to use. Therefore when purchasing one of these you need to be sure to not select any subscription, else you will be charged around 150$ instead of 50$. If your tempted to use this as it is advertised consider flashing it to Debian, and installing a simple IM client. Even irssi connecting to a bitlbee server is more than sufficient for the average user.
Alright, I’ll confess. I do have a Facebook account, even though I am a bit of a privacy nut. However, unlike most users I have employed the privacy settings to protect me from the average data mining theif.
Although it looks like it’s about to get a bit harder for these folks to get the data they want easily. Facebook just popped up a wizard today for me as I logged in, one that allowed me to change my privacy settings. Naturally I really didn’t change anything, because I already had my settings perfected, but this looks like it will help with eliminating most users privacy issues. Sure, the more hidden options like preventing your account from being indexed by search engines isn’t there, but maybe this wizard will help people realize it does exist.
Props to Facebook for making an effort, even if it is very small.
ab (apache bench) is a command line program that comes with apache by default in most distributions. It allows one to run a quick and efficient test of how a server can handle a heavy load of clients.
To use it simply run (as root)
ab -n number_of_requests_to_try http://www.websiteyouwanttobenchmark.com/
Note that the trailing / is necessary for ab to function. Once run it will produce a easy to read status report showing how fast your server responded to the requests. From there you can optimize your webserver to handle the requests more efficiently, all without having to resort to changing variables in the dark.
I’m a nerd. As such I find nerdy gadgets awesome, and this by far is one of the coolest ones in awhile. Meet the WiFi access point detecting shirt.
It’s a pretty simple device overall. It works by having a decal on the front that actually is powered by a few AAA batteries detect wireless g & b access point signals nearby. When a signal is strong then all the bars are lit up, else less bars are lit up. The decal can then be removed when one wishes to wash the shirt.
This is a great toy for those who travel a lot, as you could simply wear this to determine the best reception point in an airport lobby or hotel room. Even those of us who don’t travel often probably wouldn’t mind using it to see how close to Mc. Donalds we need to park in order to use their free WiFi connection.
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