TrueCrypt

I came across a full hard drive encryption program called truecrypt. I've always wondered "why would i use these programs" or "well thats a bit overkill" but at the same time, i've said countless times: "what would i do if the RIAA or MPAA raided my house"... not that US laws apply to me, but you get the point... A majority of stuff I've downloaded is fine under the terms of 'fair use' but thats not to say it would be difficult (or impossible) to prove in court.

Enter TrueCrypt... It meets my requirements: Its free, and open source. But actually, I've spent some time toying around with it on a spare drive, and after an hour, I'm throughly convinced that it is simply awesome. A 10 out of 10 and truely a wonderful program. I can't help but think that this app could easily sell to government agencies and corperations world wide for hundreds of dollars hands down.

The app is everything you wouldn't want an encryption program to be - invasive, slow & confusing. Its extremely quick... more transparent than a window... and the help and support documentation is top notch. If you aren't picking up what im throwing down, this is by far one of the best written apps I've seen. It's quiet a shock to me -- that i haven't discovered or used this program before. I simply can't say how awesome it is.

So how far does the encryption reach? The whole drive/partition.

• Page files? yup
• OS? the kernels? uh huh
• Documents, Applications, Movies? too easy
  
• What about free space? That too!

What about:

• Needing to reformat? Nah, that would be a pain!
• Decypting files so i can read them? You crazy?! that would suck!

Basically, with the free program, you can encypt a whole drive, including the OS in real time and on the fly for data access... That means anything thats written to the drive is encrypted before being laid down on the disk, and when you jam your MP3's that data is decrypted in ram when its pulled off the disk.

Now, you might say... "with all this encryption/decyrptions... doesn't this consume some serious CPU cycles?!" Well, it does... kinda... copying a 10GB file in my tests put my CPU to 50% (maxed out a core) but i noticed no disk performance degradation. Reading/playing a 1080p x264 movie made no difference (my biggest fear -- my comp sucks ass). In my benchmarks, encrypting a 5MB file has a throughput (off my shitty 1.87Ghz Core2Duo and 1GB ram) of 113MB/s... thats much better than my ~70MB/s drive bandwidth...

Lastly, and the most amazing thing I've seen is the hidden volumes. A hidden volume is a like a hidden disk. But whats cool is not the fact that you can hide a volume, but what you can do with it and how you access it... and also HOW its hidden. Here's the idea... An encrypted drive is more or less useless without its key. The data appears random and its not provable that the disk is encrypted, unless you have a boot loader that says its encrypted. Yet even with a key, some real (or old data) will just appear as noise because files get fragmented, deleted, moved and overwritten. Also, if your smart enough to encrypt a whole drive... your smart enough to know what a secure file deletion is. So in the end, free space starts to appear as just noise, someone can tell the drive is encrypted because the boot loader prompts you.

So say you reach a point where someone FORCES your to give your password/key out... (say extortion or a sopena)... are you out of luck then? lol... no!

What you do is hide a volume (or even an entire OS!) inside this volume. After all, free space appears as noise, so aslong as the space isn't written over, it still looks like noise. And thats what the system does, it marks this space as free, but data doesn't get written there. The only data that gets written in this free space is when your actually using this hidden volume. Its written with a different key (or possibly the same key with a different encryption method... or a different key and encryption method altogether). But here's the real bad ass part: You can put on OS on this volume, and on boot up, from the boot loader. Enter the normal key to bring up your regular encrypted disk, or enter your super secret hidden volume key and bust out a different OS James Bond style. When your 'adversary' forces your key, he gets your 'decoy' or 'duress' key and accesses your encrypted drive, but your super secret volume/OS is safe... it can't even be proven that it exists. Plausible Deniability.

Open video isn't open enough

For the past 2 days, I've solidly spent time working on a post, and I'm greatly disappointed because this post isn't it.

I know its a bit early, but I was hoping to create a video on this blog; one using the new HTML5 video tag, and a theora/vobris clip. However, tasks have turned out to be a complete mess and there will be no video on this post (maybe for a while on this blog!). :-/

I first set out to create a video encoded using Theora. You'd think that the encoder being free to distribute and open sourced, it'd be as easy -- you'd have your video encoded quickly & posted in seconds. But actually it was much more difficult, and I started to get angry. Xiph.org the maintainers of the codec don't make it very easy to encode. I started out wanting to use a VFW encoder to just encode my clip directly on the fly as I recorded my screen capture. Pretty cut and dry stuff... run the screen capture, send the frames to the encoder. But there is not VFW encoder, and there is none made -- this was a HUGE shortfall for the xiph.org fellows. 2 hours later I looked at the encoders posted on the xiph.org site, the easiest way was to use a command line interface (CLI) version (the DOS prompt sytle) to encode my video from some format to theora (A "Point, Shoot, Convert" Style). Real men can work the CLI, and I've had my time spent on CLI's so I wasn't scared.

All my encoding produced video that was dramatically sped up through some bug. It didn't matter what my source video was at... the output was 5 times faster (or 80% shorter time wise) so a 10 second clip turned into a real fast 2 second clip, yet all the data (frames) played. Even if I set an override on the encoder for output FPS or input FPS. All videos were 5x faster. What... The... &%#!! My experimental encoder came with a few more things. I think it may have had to do with the source encoder, which i didn't change (because it was lossless).

I actually set out to make a how to guide and ended up looking for a how to guide and asking for help!

Even after I FINALLY got my file lined up and encoded... 2 days later. I was unable to post it:

Blogger will only post video on this blog using the flash player. It simply doesn't allow me to post a video the same was uploading a JPEG... I just can't upload an OGG, OGV, OGM file. That made me really angry. In fact, the only way to post a video on this site is to use the FUCKING flashing player...

OGG Vorbis - Open source audio

For those that don't know what OGG vorbis is or have never heard of it, i thought i would write a short, easy to understand article about how awesome it is.

Vorbis is an audio format, while OGG is a container format. You know what audio is (unless your deaf like me) and you can think of a 'container format' kinda like a file bucket, sorta like a zip file. Depending on the format, you have the options to add in whatever you want into this 'virtual bucket' -- video, audio... Multiple video tracks and audio tracks... even some fancy container formats let you put subtitles in them. AVI is a common contianer... but im not going to talk about containers, im going to talk about OGG... i mean Vorbis... whatever.

Simply Vorbis audio, is inside the OGG container...

OGG brings some serious advantages that the MP3 lacks. For starters, OGG is free, where MP3 isn't (for big companies to produce or encode, not for the little guys). Because OGG is free, it could mean in theory, that if songs sold on iTunes (lol, buying songs on iTunes -- thats a later post) were in OGG format, they should be cheaper (but they probably wouldn't so apple could get some better profits). There are no licensing fees for OGG so if your producing a game? you could use OGG... selling songs?... yup, you can use OGG. Its cheap.

OGG is also open source. While open source doesn't seem like a real clear advantage, it is. Because the source is free to modify, it means it can be worked on and improved by any/everyone interested. Now some critics my say "well, that depends on how much support it has, and who ever modifies these things anyway." But truth be know, OGG/vorbis is worked on and updated quiet frequently, and there are different 'tuned' versions ('forked' versions) of it like AoTuV. OGG/vorbis encoders are worked on as regularly as say firefox or IE and are maintained by the Xiph foundation.

OGG is superior. I was a sonar technician onboard a nuclear submarine for 5 years... when i was underway, my job description could be summed in a few words.... listen carefully. I spent from 9-12 hours a day simply listening to audio while monitoring screens to detect various sounds... anything from Ocean waves... helicopters & planes (jets & props)... shrimp... whales... fishing ships... warships... other people's warships... and other super secret things i can't talk about. When you compare OGG to MP3 at the same file size and bit-rate, ogg is typically superior... You can visit soundexperts.info where normal folk judge audio (you can easily participate too)... or professional listening tests found OGG to be even more superior... at different bitrates.

Compact. Comparing a lossless audio source to OGG Vorbis encoded at the highest quality is like trying to figure out if the mona lisa at the Lourve, Paris is a fake; even if someone told you, you'd never would have been the wiser. But the file size difference is typically 50% smaller than FLAC - another free, open-source, lossless audio codec.

OGG Vorbis is now the new standard for web-based audio in HTML5. Just like JPEG images and GIF's can be embedded and read natively, so now can audio. Most browsers (Firefox, Safari, Chrome, Opera) support this audio natively while others (IE6, IE7, IE8) don't with out some plug-in or work around.

In summary, OGG is a audio format, compatible to MP3, but free to encode, has typically higher audio quality for files at same size/bit rate, is open source and is also free to distribute. OGG is well maintained, and can now embedded directly in web pages (using HTML) natively without the use of a plug-in (such as adobe flash, another non-free license based application). OGG is a great competitor against MP3 and other proprietary, closed sourced codecs. Goo OGG!

Host you foes!

There are several ways to block ads.

You could get Firefox and install some add-ons like Adblock Plus or get something like an ad filtering proxy such as privoxy which is bundled with Tor (The Onion Router). You can even BUY stuff to block ads. However, there are even easier and cheaper ways. But first, i gotta run my agenda and tell you why its ok to block ads.

While some argue that blocking ads is Bad for the free Internet, I can't help but disagree. Most advertisers got themselves into this mess by being obnoxious and intrusive. Others are simply paying too much and willing to do anything to get noticed. It simply doesn't make sense that people should be SUBJECTED to ads.

You can turn off you TV or change the channel... People with TiVo or a PVR can pause and fast-forward. We actually record free movies and can edit ads out completely. In the future i wouldn't be surprised to see something that reads closed captions, voice/audio data and other things like time reference and determine automagically -- This is the show, and this is a series of ads.

People listen to music in the car can push simple buttons to scan through stations to listen to music, not ads. Its clear radio stations try NOT to use ads as it always seems to be a good advertising point (Hey, thats a Paradox! Advertise you don't Advertise!). It would almost seem this is the #1 quality a station has... less talk, more music.

Newspapers could sell for NOTHING and get survive off ad revenue a few years back.

Why shouldn't the Internet be any different?

Ok, here's the point of the post. You can block ads with windows alone... (or linux). Windows uses this thing called a HOSTS file to store address information with site information. For example instead of having to rely on DNS or memorizing some IP address for a URL, you could add an entry in your HOSTS file... simply visiting the remote server requires looking up the address to see if its in the HOSTS file. All OS's do it. The system was originally intended for large networks, where IP address were fixed... visiting your company's Intranet simply required typing URL's into your address bar and the OS would route the traffic across the network.

But there is one address that special... Yours.

Its called a loopback test. Its an address thats used to simulate send data "out" a network interface (or network device such as a USB DSL router) and come right back to you... hence "loopback". So if i added an entry into my WindowsXP host table, and said AOL.com had an IP or this loopback address (which is 127.0.0.1), what would happen?

1. The browser checks the HOST table.
2. An entry is found and correlates to 127.0.0.1
3. 127.0.0.1 is contacted, thus the signal comes 'right back'
4. No activity is heard back, because 127.0.0.1 (your system) is not hosting any HTTP/web traffic

Basically, AOL.com becomes inaccessible. So what does this have to do with blocking ads... all i've shown you how to do was block AOL.com

Well.... what about Doubleclick.com? Ads come from that server right? Hmm....

But the best part is that people already know where ads come from, or have a list of sites and address that send advertisements. you can visit This wonderful site and download a compiled HOSTS table and use your OS to block ads. The site gives you a guide and its pretty easy to do even if your not very tech savvy.

The Paranoid Kit

In real life, I am a person who is best described as shy, and quiet. People that know me personally would probably think different... I'm loud, argumentative, and when i don't like something, I'm all talk with no walk.

However, one great thing about the Internet is that people are not encumbered by 'who they are'. The rich, spoiled, teenager has about the same 'power' as a middle aged blue collar worker that deserves more. Its not that people want to be someone else when they step online, but more like the playing field becomes equal. Newspapers compete with YouTuber's that want to produce news worth information. Goons can troll all day long to try and run some agenda while someone else works on a project for public benefit. It doesn't matter, people are powerful while purpose and information have no bounds. But the story in my eyes isn't that the Internet is so great because we are empowered with these tools, but that we can do these things almost completely anonymously... almost.

While some people willingly post their personal information in screen name or hop on to sites like MySpace & Facebook without a second thought, these same people have ability use another email address or alias as they choose... Its pretty easy. I think most people tend to think of the Internet as some portal -- they can walk around in it and have little to fear about what they choose go or what to look at. After all, your simply reading this aren't you... that's not harmful (yet) is it?!

But i think the reality is that this is simply not true. People are being watched, across one site on to the next. History gets stored and analyzed. Traffic is logged and patterns develop. Anonymity has been replaced as a 'unique visitor ID' and isn't really possible. Even the most earnest attempts to keep yourself anonymous don't always work: you can get identified or embarrassed publicly. People deserve better than to have some corporation leak out your personal life (disgusting or not) and rain on your parade, and you there isn't some magic button that lets you 'opt-out' in most cases.

But i thought i would give it my best effort and created a collection of Mozilla add-ons on the AMO site. To say the least, you might not be able to be anonymous, but you can at least curve yourself away from some of the most common privacy concerns and stay under the radar most of the time.

Please check out my add-on collection: The Paranoid Kit.

Its goal is to block ads, as well as scripts that launch ads, targeted advertising, analytics... bugs, beacons... cookies & LSO... ...all the garbage, but try not to break your web. If you have any recommendations, please follow up and thanks for reading.