Warning NSFW

More than Vista? Maybe you thought that wasn’t possible.

Sorry to inform you– ya thought wrong. Windows 7 sucks donkey balls. It’s an absolute atrocity. You would have thought after the Windows Vista drama that this wouldn’t have happened.

So I now present, the Top Reasons Windows 7 Sucks…

1. Microsoft has realized many people who got a copy of Vista don’t want it, and have downgraded to XP. This included a wide array of IT departments, and home users who do not like Vista. You would have thought they would make it easy for users accustomed to Windows XP to easily get used to the new interface, and enjoy it, but no. The new interface is a complete piece of shit. There is no show desktop button. You can’t add one. Good luck trying, it takes a half hour.

2. Networking is awful. It takes an act of god to figure out how to get to the old ‘network connections’ folder. If that isn’t enough for you, wait until you try to browse the internet, only to find it just stops working after only ten minutes, and requires completely disabling the network card and restarting it to get it working again. If you thought hardware driver support for Vista was bad, just wait until you try Windows 7. I have an extremely common PCI-m Atheros chipset wireless card, you would think it would be supported out of the box just fine, but no. Windows 7 has drivers good enough to get you to google, but just a few minutes later, your card will lock up and require disabling and enabling to function again. This is incredibly difficult to troubleshoot with Windows 7 because you can’t even get to the standard Windows XP Network Connections folder without spending a half hour looking for it’s new place. Even when you find it, and try to put a shortcut to it on your desktop, the shortcut won’t work and just sends you into the main control panel menu.

3. Damnit! Final straw, I formatted and put good ole XP and Ubuntu back on my laptop. Sorry, but how many more reasons do you need? If you want to find even more flaws, go ahead and download the free release candidate while you can. If an OS won’t even support a common Atheros network card out of the box why waste your time? Windows XP, Ubuntu, Debian linux, and others all support my laptop hardware out of the box. Windows 7 sucks, plain and simple. Stay with XP, Ubuntu, Slackware, or Mac OSx.

Most default server and VPS hosting installations of CentOS linux have a very slow SSH login. You enter your username, press enter, and wait 10+ seconds to enter your password? F*ck that! The fix is simple, and will make your SSH login faster than Speedy Gonzales.

The fix is simple, first login as root. Open up /etc/ssh/sshd_config in a text editor such as vi, nano, etc

nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config

Next, find the line that looks something like this…

#UseDNS yes

Then change it so that it is like this…

UseDNS no

Then restart the SSH daemon with the command

/etc/init.d/sshd restart

This will stop the SSH server running a reverse DNS lookup every time you login.

In the first part of our series on how to remain anonymous while browsing the internet, we talked about a lot of common mistakes people make while trying to remain anonymous. I mentioned in the last article that you should set up your own SSH tunnel to prevent third parties from logging your activities. This can be a bit overwhelming for someone who doesn’t know much about linux, using the command prompt, etc. So we are going to explain how to set up an SSH tunnel for anonymous internet using a cheap VPS hosting account. This tutorial and guide will focus primarily on the server side aspects, so this can be applied to you whether you use windows XP, macOS, or linux.

The first thing you need to do is acquire a server with root access. This could be a dedicated server, or if you want to do it cheaply you can use a VPS hosting account. The process for setting it up is exactly the same. First get your SSH login details and fire up Putty if your on windows and login as root to your server.

Then you are going to want to edit a file, so fire up nano, vi, pico or your favorite and let’s get to work. If you don’t have nano or pico installed I highly recommend it, to install it on CentOS linux type yum install nano

Begin by opening /etc/ssh/sshd_config with the command…

nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config

This will bring up the SSH daemon configuration file which will enable us to change some settings needed to secure your server, and to enable you to use it as an SSH tunnel for anonymous internet. Make sure you have the following settings, if not, change them so you do…

AllowTcpForwarding yes

I also recommend doing the following to lock down your server for security. You will need to create a user account to login with, as well as configure your SSH client to connect on the different port from now on.

Port 443 (or any of your choice)

Protocol 2

PermitRootLogin no

Now exit nano by pressing CTRL+X then save the file by pressing Y and then hitting enter. Now restart the SSH server with the command

/etc/init.d/sshd restart

Then SSH back into your server using the new port, non-root username, and password. To increase security further you can use key encryption and then disable password logins completely. This will completely eliminate any possibility of password cracking by brute force.

1. You have to sign up for a 2 year contract with ATT to get one. This requires paying over $2000 during the life of the contract just for service. On the other hand, if you buy a g1 dev phone, you can get an unlocked phone with root access on the new android platform for less than $400. Then you can use prepaid service, no phone service, or a monthly plan at the wireless provider of your choice anywhere in the world. The g1 allows you go use VOIP over wifi, GPS, tethering to your laptop, and more.

2. The iTunes windows software interface is like getting suckered into going to a Tijuana donkey show. Enough said.

3. No keyboard. You have to use the touchscreen for all your input. Good luck with that. Cheetos anyone?

4. You just bought a new iPhone 3g, now the new iPhone 3gs is out. ATT will require you to pony up the entire $599 to get the new iPhone. Hahahaha.

Prevent your ISP, Mom, Wife, Husband, Boss, or anyone else from snooping on your internet activities.

Important Things to remember (Warning!)

1. The most important part of being anonymous on the internet is not how you access it, but what information you post there. Many websites do not use secure encryption for their login system. This includes most all forums, email and IM. So stay away from these unless you have a completely separate account that you use only through your anonymous internet connection. Remember, any computer between you and the website can see plain text passwords, so be careful of any site requiring you to log in.

2. Don’t post your personal information. This may sound like a given, but you would be surprised the number of people who post pictures on the internet of themselves through a proxy or similar means, only to have there face visible in the picture through a reflection or something. Make absolutely certain any information you post cannot be traced to you. File attributes included, MS word documents, pictures, and other files include identifying information in the file such as the author, date of last changes to file, and more. If your uploading a torrent or perhaps some documents to wikileaks, don’t leave your name in the file attributes of the readme file, OK?

3. Reread the first warning again, the has effected multiple foreign embassies who have had their security compromised because they access email using plain text password over the TOR network. The only problem was the exit node was configured to sniff smtp passwords, and other plain text logins. Forums, email, IM, a lot of services are effected so be careful. Use HTTPS whenever possible.

4. Avoid using publicly accessible proxy servers. You don’t know who runs them, what they log, etc. To ensure a completely secure connection that hides your place of origin I highly recommend setting up your own private server in a friendly jurisdiction. The easiest and cheapest way is to use a VPS hosting service, install SSH, and tunnel through that using Putty if your on windows. The command to tunnel using SSH from a linux shell is ssh -ND portnumber ip. After you get the SSH tunnel setup, then you need to configure your browser or torrent client to use it. Do this by setting your network proxy to localhost:port. If you need help setting up a tunnel in Putty, search google for instructions.

5. Be aware most browsers and other applications when configured to use a proxy server will not use it for DNS requests unless specifically set up that way. In Firefox this entails going to the about:config page (type about:config in url bar), then search DNS, and find network.proxy.socks_remote_dns and set the value to True. This will send all your DNS requests through your proxy/SSH server. If you don’t do this, your ISP can easily monitor your DNS requests to see what sites your visiting even if your visiting them through a proxy server.

If you want to change your permalink structure in wordpress and you get an error that you need to update your .htaccess file you should do the following…

SSH into your server.

use your favorite text editor (nano, pico, or vi)

create a file in your home html directory (public_html) called .htaccess
$ nano /home/user/domains/domain.com/public_html/.htaccess

nano will open a blank file, put a # sign in it, and push control+X to close, push Y then hit enter to save and exit.

Now back in your shell, type chmod 644 /home/user/domains/domain.com/public_html/.htaccess

Then try changing the permalink structure again in the wordpress settings on the admin page. If you still get the same message, chmod 777 the .htaccess file, and try again. After it works, chmod the file back to 644.

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