Reaper-X » Privacy

Flashget 1.92 constantly sending unknown packet to various servers

Reaper-X — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 09:26:48 +0000

So recently i just upgraded the old Flashget 1.80 which is installed on my computer since few months ago (if i remembered it correctly) to the new Flashget 1.92. While i must agree the new Flashget 1.92 is giving a cleaner user interface compared to it’s previous version. But yesterday when i just finished downloading several files from various website using Flashget, i found out that the PPP Led Indicator on my adsl router keep blinking (which indicates there’s internet activity done from my computer) even though i’m not using my internet connection

Because i find it’s strange for me to see the PPP Indicator on the adsl router keep blinking, i tried to lookup by running netstat from the command prompt and found these address:port which is obviously not there previously …

59.151.31.139:53 (China)
219.239.90.172:28221 (China)
72.51.37.237:8899 (United States)
66.199.250.170:8911 (United States)

Note : I’ve disabled automatic update, Emule, and shareurl service, and also not downloading / seeding torrent

So … i tried searching around the web for more information to the above address and found some useful information from Softpedia and Wikipedia

Quoted from Wikipedia :

Although Softpedia had marked Flashget as having a “5-star Editor Review” award (for version 1.8), since 1.9 Softpedia has revoked their “100% Clean Award”, because as soon as it is started, the program tries to call various servers around the world every 3 seconds. This is also why they no longer host the latest version.

Quoted from Softpedia :

Softpedia no longer hosts the latest version of Flashget, because FlashGet 1.9.0, as soon as it is started, tries to call various servers around the world every 3 seconds. This is also the reason why FlashGet no longer has the Softpedia “100% Clean” award.

in the end … because i no longer trust Flashget (and not planning on reverting to the old flashget version), i’ve decided to go back to one of my favorite downloader (W32 Built)

0x87485B96 | Tags : Journal, Privacy, Software, Windows

MyBlogLog Co-Author Request

Reaper-X — Sun, 18 Feb 2007 15:36:10 +0000

Today .. i just received another strange message in my inbox, and it says that i’m invited as a co-author for Blogmemes Belgium in MyBlogLog Community. And what makes it even suspicious is that because i never logged in into MyBlogLog account until i received this message (that’s because i don’t like social networking sites such as myspace, friendster, etc)

And here’s what the email message looks like :

Hi Reaper-X,

I would like to add you as a co-author of my MyBlogLog community below:

Blog/Site: BlogMemes (http://www.blogmemes.be)
MyBlogLog community: http://www.mybloglog.com/buzz/community/BlogMemes_Belgium/

Your MUST click on the link below to accept this request:

http://www.mybloglog.com/buzz/add_author_conf.php?[CENSORED]

Thanks,
Blogmemes_Belgium

At first when i received this email message, i tried to open that community first from my browser and the results is … Community not Found … message. And because i think its strange for me to received such invitation especially if the community itself can’t be found in MyBlogLog Community Directory. So i tried searching for it’s cached page .. and fortunately, Google has a copy of that page

And from the cached page i found that the username that own the Blogmemes Belgium community is this person (link). And i take a look at her profile immediately and read some interesting information from another person that got the same email message like me. With the exception she clicked on the Censored Link (maybe MyBlogLog should add a confirmation page for something like this in the future)

Here’s what she said at the spammer profile page in MyBlogLog Member Directory :

panthergirl – 18th Feb 8:36 am

Hi…. can you remove me as Author from the Conspiracy of Silence? I clicked on the accept link accidentally and do not wish to be listed as co-author. I’m getting a ton of email as a result.

Now you can see why i called that person a spammer ;)

Update : it seems that there’s other people (famous people or the A-List Blogger such as Shoemoney, John Chow, Darren Rowse, and Danny Sullivan) that got the same problem like me too. And now i know that the previously mentioned person here is not the spammer (i’m sorry about this), but it’s more to security issue at MyBlogLog

0x87485B96 | Tags : Internet, Journal, Personal, Privacy

Australia Proxy for those having connection problems

Reaper-X — Wed, 03 Jan 2007 10:24:06 +0000

I think you’ve already know about the recent connection problem in Asia region which is caused by the recent earthquake in Taiwan. Fortunately there’s one country that is not affected by this problem .. and it’s not located to far from here (Indonesia) .. but enough of that blabbering because i already said it few times now .. :P .. because one of the main reason i want to post it, because i want to share few Australian Proxies .. that can be used as your temporary fix for the current outage

Here’s the list (tested and works fine for me without any problem at all) and it is a transparent proxy :

165.228.128.10 : 3128
165.228.130.10 : 3128
165.228.132.10 : 3128

And if you’re using Squid as your cache proxy, you can add this line into your squid proxy configuration file instead :

cache_peer 165.228.128.10 parent 3128 7 no-query round-robin
cache_peer 165.228.130.10 parent 3128 7 no-query round-robin
cache_peer 165.228.132.10 parent 3128 7 no-query round-robin

never_direct allow all

The above lines means your squid cache proxy will choose it’s parent cache automatically without allowing access if parent proxy is not available, in the other words you can also say that your ip address will change automatically eventhought you browse the same site (you can test it using various online proxy checker)

As a note, because this is a public proxy, you’ll find yourself can’t access some websites because there’s a malicious user using it to do some malicious activity (for example DNSStuff) ..

0x87485B96 | Tags : Guide, Internet Tools, Personal, Privacy, Tutorials

Using Redirection trick for Sitemap Verification = Bad

Reaper-X — Thu, 07 Dec 2006 06:55:24 +0000

It seems i made a mistake by writing about some redirection trick to fool Google Sitemap Verification before (just in case someone read it) .. because if you’re doing this, everyone that has Google Sitemap account will be able to see how is your site doing in Google via their sitemap page and in this case you can see what queries goes to your site, your search engine position, etc (the other part is not that important .. but i think it’s not quite important at all if your site is just a small site)

Other than that, if you feel that you’re not using some sort of redirection trick, make sure your server return the correct HTTP Status Code 404 (Not Found) when someone try to locate unexistent files on your server. Because if your server returning 200 (Correct) Status Code, someone could add your site to their sitemap account and can verify it by choosing the upload file method

Note: Site on Screenshot taken from daria.be hosted wordpress account provided by drmike a wordpress forums moderator.. because i was hosted at daria.be before moved to a self hosted blog and i remember drmike saying something about this before (actually he is the one that have the original idea of using this trick so i try to use it too)

0x87485B96 | Tags : Google, Google Sitemaps, Journal, Privacy, Website

Using Proxy is it good or bad ?

Reaper-X — Mon, 04 Dec 2006 12:35:56 +0000

Why does everyone like to hide their IP Address ? do they think it’s cool to show off using someone else IP Address ? No matter what the reason is, i always think proxy is useless if it’s used just to browse around the web (i mean normal browsing around the web). Why did i say that ? Because proxy made every web statistical information results become inaccurate (if it’s an anonymous proxy). And to make things clearer for you here’s an example.

Some site using tracking script to track geographical information of their site visitor and they’re doing this only for statistical purpose and make them write content specifically for that region. Now .. you’re frequently access their site using proxy, and let’s say you’re using proxy from somewhere in China. And because of it course the site author will think that most of his / her site visitors is coming from China .. and what are going to happen next ? he / she will create content specifically for China .. and this is just one example of what makes stats tracking inaccurate if most of your site visitors using proxy

So the conclusion is .. why there’s a need to use proxy if you just like browsing around the web ? other than that if you didn’t know about this before, proxy server always create log files of the accessed url even if they say they’re giving a complete privacy or high anonymity proxy

0x87485B96 | Tags : Internet, Internet Tools, Network and Security, Opinion, Personal, Privacy

Webcleaner 2.4 Released

Reaper-X — Mon, 20 Nov 2006 04:53:14 +0000

Yet another free and open source web content filtering program called Webcleaner version 2.4 has been released, and as a side note this is one of my favorite web filtering program because it’s offer many features just like Privoxy does. But the last version (2.39) has a problem especially if it’s used with Firefox 1.5.0.4 ++ and few other bugs, but it seems the problem has been fixed on this new version. So what are you waiting for ? go and grab it :D

0x87485B96 | Tags : Freeware, Internet Tools, Linux, Open Source, Privacy, Software, Windows

Privoxy 3.0.5 Beta Released

Reaper-X — Sun, 19 Nov 2006 17:08:38 +0000

Privoxy 3.0.5 Beta has been released, i didn’t know they were still developing privoxy, because the previous version (3.0.3) has been there since 2004. Fortunately i was checking their page at SourceForge at found they have released the 3.0.5 version (it’s still in beta stage thought) .. but i think i’m fine with it, and so far i haven’t experience any problem with it

Quoted from their page, for those who didn’t know / never heard about Privoxy before :

Privoxy is a web proxy with advanced filtering capabilities for protecting privacy, modifying web page data, managing cookies, controlling access, and removing ads, banners, pop-ups and other obnoxious Internet junk. Privoxy has a very flexible configuration and can be customized to suit individual needs and tastes. Privoxy has application for both stand-alone systems and multi-user networks.

0x87485B96 | Tags : Freeware, Internet Tools, Linux, Open Source, Privacy, Software, Windows

Google Codesearch Launched and Another Problem has Arise

Reaper-X — Fri, 06 Oct 2006 23:08:56 +0000

Google just released Google Codesearch to public recently, and just like it’s main search engine … this new feature from Google can be used by malicious users to get sensitive data. For example, database password including it’s username, looking at the source code of malicious program, etc. And that’s all happening because most users always put their compressed backup file in the public directory that can be read by everyone including Google Codesearch and in this case is the public html directory of your server.

Fortunately Google always obey the robots.txt structure, unlike some major search engine. So the only solution to the Google Codesearch is by blocking access to that directory by using robots.txt, but because everyone can see your robots.txt file then it can cause problem too if the malicious users can see that directory. And the only solution i can think of to avoid this :

Create a robots.txt to block bot access the important directory and create another subdirectory under the important directory but do not put the subdirectory name in your robots.txt file because it can be seen by the malicious users, for example /public_html/important_directory/the_subdirectory
Create a .htaccess file to block everything including yourself to the important directory (don’t try this if you do not have access to FTP / File Manager)
and don’t forget to Disallow Directory listing, you can do it easily by using .htaccess

Although there’s alot of possible solution, the best thing to do is never put your very sensitive data in your public_html directory of your server (unless your server got totally hacked or there’s another exploit) especially your backup file which most not tech savvy users did. Anyway let’s just hope that Google Codesearch get fixed / modified and they’ll automatically filter some important stuff like that.

0x87485B96 | Tags : Computer Security, Google, Guide, Internet, Privacy, Tutorials

Dynamic forum signature tracking your browsing habit ?

Reaper-X — Mon, 11 Sep 2006 03:56:17 +0000

Most of you who’s reading this maybe already use some of the free dynamic forum signature out there that gives you different information about your browser, ip address and stuff like that. But did you know that behind that cool image, you can also be monitored by the provider of the dynamic forum signature also everyone who’s looking at your signature will get monitored by them too ? Although most of you don’t care about such stuff but they can also collect everything regarding your browsing habit and so on, although the ip address itself is not a problem but i don’t think you want to show everyone about your browsing habit.

And here’s an example of what the dynamic forum signature can do if you use them, by the way i’ve already edited the image itself to protect the user privacy of course :

So what’s your decision by seeing the image above ? are you still going to use it ? if it’s for me i rather choose to create the Dynamic forum signature by myself instead of using someone else unless you really trust them or just use a standard signature. I know that not everyone has their own server or hosting provider. But are you going to give away your privacy by using some image just to look cool to another user ? i don’t think so. Beside everyone else who’s looking at your signature will get their data sent into the free dynamic signature provider.

But if you really insist on using a free dynamic forum signature, try checking their privacy policy first. Because that’s the only way to see if your data and other collected data is safe with them and not goes into another 3rd party. And that’s the end of my bla bla bla today :D

0x87485B96 | Tags : Blogging, General Blogging, Internet, Journal, Personal, Privacy, Website Monitoring

Complete Guide on Installing and Configuring Squid Proxy Server for Windows

Reaper-X — Tue, 18 Jul 2006 07:30:00 +0000

Here’s another guide again by me to configure / installing Squid Cache Proxy to be an Anonymous Proxy Server and filtering some ads / banners (on Windows not Linux since most Linux users already know about this) :)

First download Squid 2.6 Stable 1 for Windows from Acme-Consulting and don’t forget to extract it into a directory of your choice, and Download JAP from here. And as a note, i wrote this tutorial using Squid 2.6 Stable 1 so if you’re using Squid 2.5 series there’s some parameters you’ll need to change first in order for it to work

Note: in this tutorial i’ll use G:\Squid as the Squid Directory

After extracting it into G:\Squid, go into etc directory “G:\Squid\etc” and rename all the .default file into .conf file. For example squid.conf.default -> squid.conf, mime.conf.default -> mime.conf, etc
Open squid.conf file using your favorite text editor such as Notepad, Ultraedit, etc. and configure it like this (you can change it later) :) but im not going into more detail here since most squid configuration are self explanatory and that’s depending on your hardware too (for example the memory size, cache size, etc). But you can always use this squid.conf directly in your squid configuration without changing any of its parameter as long as you extract squid into G:\Squid directory otherwise you’ll need to change every parameter that include G:\squid into your squid path

# HTTP Port (in this tutorial squid will run on localhost at port 3128)
http_port 127.0.0.1:3128

# ICP Port and HTCP Port (we’ll disable this since we are not going to use it)
icp_port 0
htcp_port 0

# Cache Peer (we’ll forward all request into parent proxy)
cache_peer 127.0.0.1 parent 4001 7 no-query

# Cache directory (in this example i was using 3000 MB / 3 GB space to store squid cache)
cache_dir awin32 g:/squid/var/cache 3000 16 256

# access_log
access_log g:/squid/var/logs/access.log squid

# cache_log
cache_log g:/squid/var/logs/cache.log

# cache_store_log
cache_store_log none

# mime_table
mime_table g:/squid/etc/mime.conf

# pid_filename
pid_filename g:/squid/var/logs/squid.pid

# unlinkd_program
unlinkd_program g:/squid/libexec/unlinkd.exe

# refresh_pattern (you can configure this as you like it, to get more hits from a website)
# note: if you change this parameter “refresh_pattern . 1 100% 20160 reload-into-ims ignore-reload” into something else for
# example like “refresh_pattern . 10 100% 20160 reload-into-ims ignore-reload”
# there’ll be some error on some page (Gamefaqs.com for an example) because the page didnt reload correctly after login into Gamefaqs
refresh_pattern ^http://.*\.gif$ 1440 50% 20160 reload-into-ims
refresh_pattern ^http://.*\.asis$ 1440 50% 20160
refresh_pattern -i \.png$ 10080 150% 40320 reload-into-ims
refresh_pattern -i \.jpg$ 10080 150% 40320 reload-into-ims
refresh_pattern -i \.bmp$ 10080 150% 40320 reload-into-ims
refresh_pattern -i \.gif$ 10080 300% 40320 reload-into-ims
refresh_pattern -i \.ico$ 10080 300% 40320 reload-into-ims
refresh_pattern -i \.swf$ 10080 300% 40320 reload-into-ims
refresh_pattern -i \.flv$ 10080 300% 40320 reload-into-ims
refresh_pattern -i \.rar$ 10080 150% 40320
refresh_pattern -i \.ram$ 10080 150% 40320
refresh_pattern -i \.txt$ 1440 100% 20160 reload-into-ims override-lastmod
refresh_pattern -i \.css$ 1440 60% 20160
refresh_pattern ^http:// 1 100% 20160 reload-into-ims ignore-reload
refresh_pattern ^ftp:// 240 50% 20160
refresh_pattern ^gopher:// 240 40% 20160
refresh_pattern /cgi-bin/ 0 0% 30
refresh_pattern . 0 100% 20160 reload-into-ims

# Deny requests to unknown ports
http_access deny !Safe_ports

# Deny CONNECT to other than SSL ports
http_access deny CONNECT !SSL_ports

# Block access to Malware & ads farm site
# Insert your own rule here by using
# acl blablabla url_regex -i “path to file”
# or
# acl blablabla url_regex “path to file”

http_access allow localhost
http_access deny all
cache_mgr Reaper-X
httpd_suppress_version_string on
visible_hostname Reaper
via off
forwarded_for off
log_icp_queries off
client_db off
never_direct allow all

#Some anonymizing
header_access From deny all
#there’s some website which use referer check
#so its better to disable this
#header_access Referer deny all
header_access WWW-Authenticate deny all
header_access Link deny all
header_access Warning deny all
header_access Via deny all
header_access User-Agent deny all
header_access Proxy-Connection deny all
header_access X-Forwarded-For deny all

Now the next step would be running JAP, configure browsers to use Squid Proxy and start squid and you’re finished …. ;)

0x87485B96 | Tags : Freeware, Internet Tools, Network and Security, Open Source, Privacy, Software, Squid, Tutorials, Windows