Tag: hacking

After using GitHub to contribute to a project the other day, I got to thinking about other uses for Git. One was to keep a backup of my ~/bin folder. I write a lot of one-off scripts to make my life easier. Most of the time they’re under 20 lines and previous versions aren’t really needed. But sometimes1 I break things. Other times I’ll go back and wonder what the hell was I thinking.

This project was a few weeks in the making. When I started there was a problem with some of the software not behaving. I leave the hardware driver voodoo to those that understand it. After an update this morning I was able to get all the parts working. So what exactly is a WiFi VPN access point?

It’s the combination of several pieces of hardware and software that when running on my Pogo provides me with:

The article goes onto say, “It remains unclear how intelligence agencies would get developers to use the poisoned version of Xcode.”

Getting the hacked Xcode package out in the wild would not be that hard. Before the creation of the Mac App Store, Xcode was a direct download from Apple.com. As with anything that’s served out on to the Internet, it’s possible that it could have been intercepted and replaced with the hacked copy. The CIA and it’s friends have showed remarkable competence and hacking, diverting, and collecting web traffic.

In my continuing adventures with the PogoPlug V4, I decided to get OpenVPN working. The install was easy enough, but getting the configuration correct turned into a literal project—it has it’s own GitHub repository.

My VPN provider of choice is TunnelBear1. I started with them about a year ago because of their free service. The free accounts get 500 MB of data transfer per month. That’s not a lot, but it’s enough to get me out of a data emergency. Like the time I had to log into my bank from a supermarket’s free WiFi. They also have a promotion where sending a tweet from the app will add 1 GB of data to your account. That’s enough to get me through a usual month.

Amazon shipped me the PogoPlug V4 faster than I expected. It landed on my doorstep this afternoon. It’s a little bigger than I thought, but not by much. I also ordered a couple of add-ons:

ArchLinuxARM can only boot from the top USB port. That’s why I bought the tiny flash drive. I wanted the lid to close. The wifi adapter won’t see action for a few days yet.

It’s not here yet, but I think this might be a fun project. I just ordered a PogoPlug V4 for $19. These are now discontinued.1 The company has given up on the hardware and moved to a cloud-based product. It looks like it might be a Dropbox-wannabe. I’m not sure. I also don’t care, because I’m going to set it up to run Linux and have a nice little home server.