Opera browser does not erase all the tracks while clearing history

People who use opera, just be(a)ware!

Clearing the history completely does not erase all the readily available tracks. Opera caches the site icons from almost every visited site and it remains on the system forever!

Clearing the history and deleting all the cookies does not clear these files.

Check it out yourselves if using opera.

In a normal desktop installation of the opera browser, the favicon files cache is available at "C:\Documents and Settings\\Local Settings\Application Data\Opera\Opera\icons" folder. This is applicable for Windows XP Operating systems and for Windows 7 this folder location will be different. The folder can be easily accessed using "%HOMEFOLDER%\Local Settings\Application Data\Opera\Opera\icons\" string typed at the RUN dialog box. If the folder cannot be located, type, opera:config#UserPrefs

OperaDirectory which will contain the location of the User Preferences directory for the opera installation.
 
The folder contains the http location and favicon files of almost all the sites ever visited by a user. If not to get a glimpse of the history or for forensic purposes, the folder can be looked at to know when the user has visited a particular website. Though there is no way of telling if the user has visited a site more than once, but at least one can clearly get a list of visited websites. This is of great help while performing forensics.

The above is applicable to Opera browser v9.x and above.

Google's SSL Search Compromises security

Well, Well, Well! Google's SSL search compromises the user's desktop security to a large extent.

When a user searches using google, user's local desktop security applications such as McAfee's Site Protector or such similar suites will not have any clue on the content of the results. And the links cannot be verified for genuine and security. This is applicable for all such applications and it can be overridden as the applications are local, but would McAfee care to release an updated version to the existing suite? And all other applications which provides link security would really care to release an update? If at all it can be overridden. ( I have not done any research on IE8 to validate the claim if it can be overridden, but on older versions of IE, it can be.)

So, if a malicious site is returned by Google, (Well, Google is not too good in site classification / user protection. Are they? :)), the user is at risk of getting the infection. In case of any 0-day exploits getting a chance to infect the user's system via Google's "secure" search results, the user is doomed. For what? Using the Google's secure search?

I can clearly visualise the long term monopoly google is going to have on everything that is connected! :D

Do you?

Goggle's introduction of SSL to search has been a deliberate move to curb third party access it contents. Though they can talk about privacy issues, sniffing, blah blah blah, any one who relied on the referrer information is doomed when the site gets redirected. Any non-google analytics will not have any data on the referrer/search terms which the user has used to get to the site.

As long as you stay with google, you will have access to a wealth of information. But once you are out of it, there might practically be nothing!

A recent comment from one of the netizen, I thought it is nice to be quoted here! :D

"GOOGLE IS NOT BE TRUSTED, INVESTIGATIONS IN THE USA STATES GOOGLE IS PURCHASING KNOWLEDGE , BOOKS , ETC. COPYRIGHTS . WITH A VIEW OF HAVING FUTURE GENERATIONS TO ACCESS OF ANY COPY RIGHT MATERIAL. WHICH MEANS A PRICE WILL BE PLACED ON KNOWLEDGE.???
STUDENTS, RESEARCHERS , IF FACT ALL WILL HAVE PAY FOR ACCESS.
MEAN WHILE GOOGLE IS SELLING EMAIL ADDRESSES, PLUS ANY INFORMATION RECEIVED. HOME LAND SECURITY AND OTHER GOVERNMENT AGENCIES ARE INVESTIGATING. ZERO CONCLUSIONS WILL BE REACHED , DUE TO THE ENORMOUS SUMS GOOGLE GIVES TO POLITICAL PARTIES AND LOBBYISTS."

I do not make any claim or support of the above quoted, bold comments as it is not mine, but forewarned, the above is true and already in the making.

Thought for time?

Search and Replace across multiple files

Some times, it becomes a tedious process to do a string search and replace across multiple files. If one is comfortable with Regular Expressions or not, V-Grep from http://www.vgrep.aionel.net/ can be used for the operations.

It is very fast and small standalone application which can be used to perform search and replace across multiple text files with ease.

Check it out!

Easily transfer files between Linux and Windows systems

Some like me work across multiple platforms like Linux and Windows operating systems. Some times, it becomes easier on one platform to perform certain functions on some files and then move it to the required platform rather than struggling there.

For example, some would prefer to edit the source code on Windows systems using some Windows specific editors rather than in Linux. To move the files across the systems, normally one would either use Samba based network mapping or a FTP server or any other method. But, for some with command line fu skills, SCP is god sent. This method only covers execution of the commands on Windows systems. (i.e., Windows will be host for the to and fro transfer of the files).

Enable SSH on the Linux box, get Putty utilities on the windows system.

Add the putty utilities to the path and create a small batch file for copying from Windows system to Linux system with the following command.

Say, name the batch file as CPF.BAT

@pscp -pw %1 @:/home/

Now, you can copy files from Windows system to the Linux system using the following command.
CPF

The file will be copied to the directory under the credentials.

Similarly to copy from the Linux to Windows, use the same command. Explore the command and parameterise whatever you need, like the destination directory Etc,.

Simple productivity tips and utilities

There are thousands of utilities to help in productivity. But using the following improves it a lot.

Essential PIM  - A nice portable freeware which can store all notes, addresses, schedules and appointments. Available from http://www.essentialpim.com/

Flashnote - A quickly accessible background application which can be used to store and access all immediately accessible content in a categorical manner using a short cut key. With little organisation, this utility can rock. Portable version of the application is available. Available from http://softvoile.com/flashnote/

Clipdiary - A quickly accessible background application which captures whatever is copied on to the clipboard using Ctrl+C. It orders the copied content in a chronological manner helping in retrieving older content in an easier manner. Unfortunately, now the product has been made commercial from freeware. If you could find a freeware version, use it. Can be made portable. Available from http://clipdiary.com/ (Note: Only commercial version is available from the given link.)

More utilities will be added soon.

Private file sharing with SSL Tunneling - Part 1

How of us want to share information across multiple computers which are miles apart?

For example, to transfer some stuff from home computer into work computer or from work laptop to home computer or from home computer to mom's computer?

While there have been multiple simple ways to do it by creating a FTP server or even a SFTP server or any other file server technology where the files can be uploaded and downloaded, the following method is virtually limitless in terms of it's offering.

It can be used to access the system remotely, access the file system and everything else. It is more likely to be used across the systems that is managed by a single user, but physically at different locations. Yet there is not dependency on any third party remote control applications like Logmein etc and is definitely has its own merits and demerits.

This article will be spread across multiple posts.

Following are some of the pre-requisites:

One free dynamic dns account for creating host dns records.
Preferably a direct Internet connection. (Broadband connection with a addressable public ip address is sufficient as long as the router can be configured for port forwarding)
A computer (just kidding! :))
SSL Tunnel from http://www.stunnel.org/
Open SSL from http://www.openssl.org/
Any of the free VNC Servers
Any of the free FTP Servers
Any of the free File Serving Applications. My favorite is HFS.

Rest in next post.

Extracting images from Word documents

Occasionally, we might need to extract images from the documents. Traditionally, it involves copying the images from the document and pasting it in an image editor was the way. With the ODF (Open Document Format), life gets much easier.

In Word 2007 and above, the document is stored in ODF format which is nothing but essentially an zip archive of all the needed information. It contains the images, text and formatting neatly tucked as a document.

To extract the images, just rename the .docx to a .zip file and extract the contents. One can find all the needed images, text and formatting XML as individual files under various folders.

From there one could use the embedded images.