Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Phishing

Phishing is an immense thing in computer security. Wikipedia defines Phishing as a process of attempting to acquire sensitive information such as usernames, passwords and credit card details, by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication. Popular websites such as online shopping websites, financial websites and social websites. How the process works is that e-mails or instant messages are sent to ones e-mail account asking to enter confidential information into the required fields they provide. Once the information is entered into the fields, it gathers the confidential information that one has entered and uses it for invasive and illegal activites. Please note that there are several types of phishing however, this is the most common method of luring people to provide information.

There are various methods to prevent or stop phishing from happening. Users could make sure that the internet browsers they are using do have anti-phishing measures. There is an approach which involves switching to a DNS service that filters out phishing domains. There are various bank websites that allow you to select a personal image and use this image any time they ask for a password or any other confidential information. Users can elimate phishing e-mails by having spam filters in the e-mail providers. If a user gets a pop up message prompting personal information to be entered, nothing should be entered. Some people also send e-mails asking users to contact a phone number updating personal information. This is also a part of phishing. It is very hard to avoide phishing totally however, it can be watched accurately. It is necessary to use and update all anti-virus software and anti-spy software, as well as firewall. Some phishing e-mails can harm a users computer and track their activities. It is obvious that even if users to everything they can to avoide phishing from occuring, something is bound to get through when leaste expected. For this reason before entering any data into a website, be sure it is leginimate and accurate.

One wishes that we could avoide websites for our banking and other needs however, the truth is it is very convenient and that’s what phishers take advantage of. The best think to do is just be smart.

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Linux Power Tools (LPT730)

Software patents are good or bad ? The answer ultimately is not as simple as yes or no. Patents arose as a legal mechanism designed to protect 'intellectual capital'. In other words patents means to protect the ideas of inventors from being used by others without permission or compensation. Software patents could be defined as patent intended to prevent others from using some programming technique.

As a general nature, anybody who comes up with an innovative idea, which is commercially valuable and useful, will protect his/her idea from getting stolen.
The inventor will like to have all the reward and credit for his invention. In theory, patents provide a valuable protection system for inventors pursuing development of their invention as well as a reward system for commercially valuable ideas. Lets consider an example, in 1998, Sergey Brin and Larry Page filled a patent which was granted in 2001. At that time, search engines giants like yahoo, altavista and webcrawler were already well established - at least compared to an academic start-up. Google is today the worlds most popular search engine. But what would have happened if there idea could have been stolen. Thus if software patents can be used to protect inventors and inventors pursuing development of a clever idea, then its a good thing.

Modern-day patents, however, are not always of such a noble nature. A good example of it is the patent life, which is of 20 years. 20 years is a long time to sit on an idea. And also the way in which softwares are patented is not very consistent, considering amazon for its one click technology.

Finally, I would say that software patents are not evil, but there is a need to reform the system.

Network Administration (NAD710)

Que 1 > What is the kernel version of Linux on matrix ?
Ans 1 >> The kernel version of linux on matrix is #1 SMP Tue Feb 12 09:16:51 EST 2008

Que 2 > What is the IP address and MAC address on the linux machine on matrix ?
Ans 2 >> IP address --> 192.168.1.54
MAC address --> 00:02:B3:21:EE:4C

Que 3 > What is the network mask on matrix ?
Ans 3 >> The network mask on matrix is 255.255.255.0.

Que 4 > What are the network addresses of the linux machine ?
Ans 4 >> (1) 192.168.1.0
(2) 169.254.0.0
(3) 127.0.0.0

Que 5 > What is the IP address of the gateway for the linux machine on matrix ?
Ans 5 >> The IP address of the gateway for the linux machine on matrix is 192.168.1.254

Que 6 > What is the command to display all the currently loaded kernel modules ?
Ans 6 >> /sbin/modinfo

Que 7 > Where is the file for the kernel module called "e100" ?
Ans 7 >> /lib/modules/2.6.18.8-0.5-default/kernel/drivers/net/mii.ko

Que 8 > What is the MAC address for the network device that has the IP address 192.168.1.254 ?
Ans 8 >> 00:0E:0C:7F:84:6F

Que 9 > How do you display all the physically network addresses known by a linux machine ?
Ans 9 >> command = /sbin/arp -n

Que 10 > What is the MAC address of the network device on the linux machine on matrix ?
Ans 10 >> 00:02:B3:21:EE:4C

Shell Programming (SPR720)

SPR720 - Lab02

# Program to run through each readable file and ask if user wants to print mail or ignore
#!/bin/bash

echo "PRESS APPROPRIATE KEY"
#echo "P for printing, M for mailing and I to ignore"

for FILE in /home/*
do
if [ -r "$FILE" -a -f "$FILE" ]
then
echo "Accessing >> $FILE"

echo -n "P for printing, M for mailing and I to ignore : "
read YN
if [ "$YN" = "M" -o "$YN" = "m" ]
then
echo "Sending mail to mdvyas@senecac.on.ca"
mail -s "$FILE" mdvyas@senecac.on.ca: < "$FILE"
sleep 1

elif [ "$YN" = "P" -o "$YN" = "p" ]
then
echo "Printing $FILE"
lpr $FILE

elif [ "$YN" = "I" -o "$YN" = "i" ]
then
echo "IGNORE"

else
echo "Please Wait . . . "
sleep 1
exit
fi
fi
done










1)
/bin >> 105
/usr/bin/ >> 1926
/sbin/ >> 252
/usr/sbin/ >> 394


2)

1>look command displays line beginning with a given string. The utility displays any lines in file which contains a given string. It performs a binary search.
Options:-
-f > Ignore case of alphanumeric characters
-t > Specify a termination character

2> tree -- Tree command lists contents of directories in a tree like format.

3> lustering -- userinfo is a graphical tool to allow user to conveniently change their finger information.

4> xkill -- xkill forces a utility to close. It is generally used with resourse identifier you want to abort, if the id is not given it displays a special cursor to kill the process. This command is very useful when you want to kill a process which is not responding.

5> yes -- yes command outputs a string repetedly untill it is killed. it repetedly outputs 'y' on screen

6> shred -- shred command is used to overwrite the file to hide it and also optionally delete it. It overwrite the file repeatedly to make it harder to recover data.

7> host -- host command is used to convert names to IP addresses and vice versa. When no options are given it prints a short summary of its comand line.

8> sum -- checks sum and counts the blocks in the file

9> talk -- talk command enables one user to talk to another user. it is a visual communication program which copies lines from your terminal to that of another user.

10> top -- top command displays information of list of tasks running on hte system.

11> uptime -- uptime command gives you the information of how long the system has been running.
It tells you the current time, how long have the system been running, how many users have been currently logged in, and the system load average

12> wall -- send a message to everybodys terminal. everybody logged in with their mesg' permission 'yes'

13> arp -- arp stands for address resolution protocol. arp manipulates the system arp cache

14> id -- id command is used to print the user identity

15> lp -- lp command is used to send the file to the printer and print it.

16> quota -- the quota command displays the disk usage and the limits for a user

17> last -- the last command shows the listing of the last logged on users

18> whereis -- locates that where and in which directory the command is. It locates the binary , source, and manual page files for a command

19> logname -- prints the user logname

20> finger -- finger command is used to look up for the users information

21> hunspell -- hunspell is a spellchecker, it is most commonly used as "hunspell "

22> halt -- halt command is used to either reboot or power off the pc

23> cancle -- cancle command is used to cancle all the jobs that are running, eg cancle all the print jobs

24> xclock -- xclock command brings the disply of analog clock

25> free -- free command display the amount of free and used memory in the system