Bash script wrapper for Easy Firewall Generator IPTables

I wanted a gateway firewall, to share internet access from one interface to another.  Iptables is excellent for this, but setting it up manually is a pain.

Easy Firewall Generator provides a excellent gateway iptables script but in my environment the interface names could change and manually editing the script is no good.

This script basically a 'wrapper script' for the Easy Firewall Generator script, with a few mods.

The usage is: 
./ics.sh -i [Internet Interface] -e [Sharing Interface] -a [Sharing IP Address]
 
For example, if eth0 had internet access and I wanted to share the internet connection to hostapd wlan0 (10.0.0.1) then the command to enable sharing would be:

./ics.sh -i eth0 -e wlan0 -a 10.0.0.1

You will need to generate a iptables 'firewall script' using the Easy Firewall Generator site.

• On the website just select arbitrary values for the interfaces and ip addresses.
• On the website, in section "Select Type of Internet Address ", select "Dynamic Internet IP Address"
• Click generate, save the code, comment out the "Internet Interface" and the "Local Interface Information" sections in the saved 'firewall script'.
• In the 'firewall script' remove the first line "#!/bin/sh"
• Then add the raw 'wrapper script' below to the top of your firewall script.
• Save and chmod +x the file before trying it out.

Those instruction suck.

Find the script here or below:




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UPDATE: Modern Bash Wifi Connection Script for Linux; goodbye network manager

An update to a previous post.  This script has some more command line features, including a random_config_mode.

The random config mode can be used to check several AP's in the area for internet access.  In internet cannot be found, the script will randomly try another connection until internet can be found again.  The timer to check for internet access is randomly set between 60 to 90 seconds for an extra touch.
A preferred AP can be initially chosen in the random mode, so if it does fail, another connection will become selected.  In no way is this script perfect, results may vary depending what distro you are using.

Completely run from the command line.  Great for Raspberry Pi.

View it here: http://pastebin.com/vcVC9iL9

or below.



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Firefox Progress of Ongoing Downloads Revert to old style

Once again, like the pdf thing that Mozilla did a while back.  The new download window:

• Takes up a whole tab
• Cannot be resized
• Blocks any bookmarks on your bookmarks toolbar

Unfortunately the only fix to the old style, aka, before FF21 is to do two things:

• Revert from private browsing (Preferences > Privacy > History > Custom Settings)
•  Open about:config and toogle browser.download.useToolkitUI to TRUE

Un-tick private browsing :(

The analogy is that private browsing does not remember any downloading history, so the browser.download.useToolkitUI change will not show any downloads in the old style list.



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Switch to e-statements and let Australia Post suffer! Auspost

I encourage everyone to switch to E-Statements where possible.  Not for the environmental benefit but rather from a security prospective.

It seems that these days, letter mail is a secondhand service.  Australia post has no guarantee that the delivery of addressed ordinary letter mail will ever get to the correct recipient.  Also, modern individuals do not respect the laws governing opening others mail, with people out there that deliberately steal mail to get personal information.

Every time a company send out a bill or statement, Australia post profits and uses that profit to prop up this prehistoric letter mail service.

Lest do some calculations.  Lets assume that on average our individual has a credit card, savings account, mortgage, water bill/rates, phone, power, gas, shire rates, car registration, insurance.  Lets also assume that not all billers send monthly bills and only big companies have e-billing services.

Average mail for a individual per year:

Credit card = 12
Quarterly bank = 4
Quarterly mortgage = 4
Water consumption = 2
Water rates = 1
Phone/ Internet = 12
Power = 6
Gas = 6
Shire rate = 1
Insurance = 2

Total = 50 letters ~ $26.40 postage per year


Assuming that these big companies send letters out at a discount rate say 52.8 cents per letter. http://auspost.com.au/parcels-mail/pre-sort-letters.html  The total money made by Auspost is per individual is $26.40.  Multiply that by 1 Million individuals willing to change across to e-statements and their gross loss becomes over $26 Million!  A substantial loss which is most welcome in my opinion.

But who is to say that email is safe?
If you have ever switched across to e-statements, a company usually does not email your bill or statement directly to you.  Rather they will send you a message informing you that it is awaiting payment online.  You then log into their secured site, and view the document there.  Print it out locally or save it to a encrypted thumbdrive.

It's time to fire Australia Post from your life.

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Privacy Risk on new ebay.com.au website First and Last Name in Cleartext

The new ebay.com.au website has been released with much fanfare but the creaters of the website have now decided to embed the users first name and last name on most pages visited.  The test is delivered under plain http and can easily be captured over the air or wire using Wireshark.

Steps to replicate:

1. Login to ebay.com.au with correct credentials
2. Navigate to he home page
3. Hover the mouse to the top left hand corner under the "G'Day <First Name>"
4. Be greeted with a hover over panel with <First Name> <Last Name> in plain sight.

Conducting a Wireshark trace illustrates the issue.  A sting search in packet details for GH_alertData will display the first / last name.

Why is this bad:
Potentially a hacker can gain easy access to your first, last name and ebay id and use this info to produce a phishing email or collect this data for further attacks.

Where can this happen:
The most likely place for this to happen is over an unencrypted wireless network, i.e at the airport or the cafe.  Wired networks are also vulnerable.

What can ebay do:
Secure their website by using the https protocol for the entire website.

What else sucks:
On a internet connection that can stall, i.e 3G/wifi, the hover function can time out and throw up the message, "We're sorry, there was a problem retrieving this information".  Now the user can easily log out without refreshing the page.
Sidejack friendly...

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Dodo Australia wins worst prize for crappy service 2012

It is about time they got their medicine.  In early 2012, I wrote a how to on getting money back from Dodo's prepaid 3G internet.  Simply because it was impossible to use.  Slow and not completely loading pages all time time.  Oversubscribed, according to their technical staff.

The article goes on to say how the CEO of Dodo was absolutely gutted
HELLO, SHOULD OF HAD YOUR EAR TO THE GROUND, YOU DESERVE TO FEEL ABSOLUTLEY GUTTED.

You just lost the game!

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/dodo-rated-worst-brand-of-the-year-by-product-review-consumers/story-e6frg6n6-1226534393828

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Shortcut to directly link Australia Post Tracking Number in the URL

The Australia Post tracking page is a place to monitor items that are being tracking using their tracking numbers.

The page consists of a form with fields and buttons, click, type, click, wait....

Some times it is important to send this tracking number to a customer, but to have them reenter a number into a form is not efficient.

Here is a way of integrating the tracking number directly to the URL via a query.

auspost.com.au/track/track.html?id=XXXXXXXXXXXXX

Where XXXXXXXXXXXXX is the tracking number.

Be sure to try it before sending it off to people via email.


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How to get your money back from Dodo Wireless Broadband! 3G [WIN]

Ugly fuckin' bird!

Dodo 3G is oversubscribed and has become hella slow, slower than dialup.

Meanwhile, the consumer has to pay for failed uploads / downloads for substandard service.

Calling their Australian Indian call center will not help if the tower is congested.  So the next step is to demand MONEY BACK.


This worked for me on my prepaid 3G broadband.  Do your homework first by following these steps.

• Calculate what percentage of unused data you have left and calculate this against the initial data purchase price as the basis of refund
• Fill out the online service support form at http://response.dodo.com.au or Google "Dodo complaint" to find the page link
• State to Dodo that you wish to seek a refund based on the usable data left on your account.
• Mention that the service is slow, unresponsive 3G broadband AND you will complain to the TIO if they don't refund (complain anyway)
• Also state that you have previously contacted their technical services, tried differed hardware, different location but all to no avail.

If they don't not contact back in two days, contact them by phone and go through the standard loop of tech support, followed by escalation.  Finally state that you will require a refund for the crap service.

They will eventually credit back a refund and in 10 minutes your modem will be - no service.  Bye bye 3G Dodo aka Optus Shite.

It is time to make the Dodo extinct!



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Displaying multiple web pages on a single web page

Source: http://www.sevenforums.com/browsers-mail/152344-multiple-web-pages-1-screen-page.html

If you like to keep a eye on multiple web pages without flooding tabs here is a way to do it.

I know there are FF extensions that can do this.

http://pastebin.com/z33nh5tw

<html>
<head>
<meta content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"
http-equiv="content-type">
<title></title>
</head>
<body>
<table style="width: 1000px;">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td align="center" width="50%"><iframe src="http://slashdot.org" style="width: 500px; height: 400px;"></iframe><br>
</td>
<td align="center" width="50%"><iframe src="http://slashdot.org" style="width: 500px; height: 400px;"></iframe><br>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="center" width="50%"><iframe src="http://slashdot.org" style="width: 500px; height: 400px;"></iframe><br>
</td>
<td align="center" width="50%"><iframe src="http://slashdot.org" style="width: 500px; height: 400px;"></iframe><br>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
</body>
</html>

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DODO 3G is slow as hell in Perth 2011

Dodo Prepaid

Long latency time (waiting over 1 minute occasionaly)
Frequent drop outs
Constant retrying (3G, 3G, 3G, 3G..... then H)
Full Signal Bars but noting, even in the CBD and tried with multiple modems

Fuck Dodo and Fuck Optus.  What used to be good is now Shit!

Complaint to the shitty tech service, asks for them to log into to your dashboard, but they can't because the connection never connects....

Forget it, try someone else, no more DODO.



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[solved] Google Search Redirects, cant copy links greasemonkey

I hate the way google redirects it links.  If I want to copy a link for a email or something, I get some garbage that is no where near the direct link.
If you are using firefox, install Greasemonkey and then get this script from userscripts.org
http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/24102
No more redirects, and the browsing experience looks good.


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Downloading files at a fixed slower rate using trickle and wget

Sometimes downloading files causes connections to saturate or hang.

Installing trickle on Linux can help by allowing the user to shape the download / upload speed for any application!


First, install trickle.
sudo apt-get install trickle or compile from source

In this example we are shaping the speed of a wget download to 50kbps.

trickle -d 50 wget www.download.com/files/myfile.avi

There is a lot more trickle / trickled can do so check out the man files for it.

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USB tethering ZTE V9 with Ubuntu 11.04

No Problems experience here. 

• Plug in the USB connection
• Hit 'back' to get out of the data storage screen
• Go to settings > Wireless & networks > Tethering & portable hotspot > USB tethering
• Network manager will now auto connect

The bonus here is that the tablet will be charged from the USB port while you are surfing using your laptop and you can surf the web on the tablet while tethered.

lsusb

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