Use Tor To Maintain Online Anonymity

September 14th, 2011

WRITTEN BY ANURADHA SHUKLA | 10 SEPTEMBER 2011
POSTED IN NEWS - SOFTWARE

Source URL: http://www.unixmen.com/software/1893-use-tor-to-maintain-online-anonymity

WikiLeaks and the recent Egyptian political revolution are two great examples of what Anonymity software can do. Tor is a unique virtual torprojecttunnels network, which ensures online activities and location remains undetected.

The Tor Project was awarded the Free Software Foundation’s for 2010 for being the most influential Social Benefit Project. This was for the crucial role the software played in delivering 36 million people in Egypt freedom of access and expression, while remain anonymous. Its continued role in helping the people of Iran too is hugely recommended the world over.

Project Tor pretty much rides on all types of software and comes with a built-in browser. This enables it to run on virtually every type of OS, which is a critical feature, which ensures privacy for individuals and organizations on public networks.

Tor provides developers unique capability of developing applications for personal and organizational use for public networking but retaining privacy. Tor allows, “Visits to Web sites, online posts, instant messages and other communication forms.”

Tor is Onion routing technology

Tor is an onion routing project, which originated in the labs of US Naval Research. In fact, after its initial use as secretive-communication-protecting software, it is now a BSD License (open source) project available on a free-to-use network.

Every data stream on Tor is encrypted and relayed in short bursts or incoherent data to the next tor relay, where it is again encrypted. This original data stream is beyond detection and is called the onion routing technology.

This system of tunneled routing ensures the websites that a Tor user visits do not learn of their physical location, Besides, Tor even allows you to access web sites, which are blocked or are behind firewalls.

Tor Browser Bundle

These features are possible because of the unique Tor Browser Bundle, which allows using platforms such as Mac OS X, Windows and Linux without any software installations as it is typically able to run on USB flashdrives.

If you are an avid Instant Messaging fan, then the Tor IM Browser Bundles enables it as well as allows you to chat over Tor.

Once the Tor Browser is installed, the Vidalia Window (the control panel) opens up and Firefox too automatically starts with the installation of Tor.

The key fact is that though Tor ensures your privacy by making it impossible to detect the origin of the web traffic by encrypting all inside the Tor network, where it fails is with the encryption of traffic between the Tor network and its final destination.

Secondly, it disables scripts by default and only web sites with minimal designs will work. However, activating the blue S icon will enable scripts and all sites will be accessible. Again, with Linux version Flash features do not work so easily.

Tor is application independent

Tor works at the level of the Transmission Control Protocol. Polipo or Privoxy proxy servers are generally used while browsing.

With the right software, such as Tor and its browser bundle your online activities can remain private and exclusive.

You can download Tor from this Link, for installation instruction of Tor on Linux, please follow the installation guide in Tor documentation. For Ubuntu/LinuxMint and Debian follow instructions in this Link.

Posted in Security | 3 Comments »

5 Backup Products for Virtual Machines

September 14th, 2011

“1. VMware Consolidated Backup: VMware Consolidated Backup (VCB) includes a small set of utilities that allows administrators to backup virtual machines via the command line. Originally, VMware provided VCB utilities and the associated application programming interface (API) so third-party vendors could build snapshot-based backup software. VCB features easy installation and integration with VMware’s framework. It is part of the ESX product line. VCB is not included as of VMware 4.1. Going forward, VMware has decided to remove the backup utilities from its product and extend the original API into four separate vStorage APIs. There is no direct analog to VCB under the new system. In other words, to use this, you’ll have to purchase a third-party backup suite for your virtual machine backup and restore needs.”

By Kenneth Hess
September 9, 2011

Original Story

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Desktop virtualization is moving beyond thin client technology

March 25th, 2011

Desktop virtualization is growing in popularity – thanks to vast improvements in dedicated, business connectivity solutions – and it is starting to move beyond thin client technology.

According to virtualization expert Mark Urban, senior director of product marketing at BlueCoat Systems, rapid advances in business connectivity have changed the face of desktop virtualization.

Complete Story

Posted in Desktop | 6 Comments »

Is Virtualization Hitting the Wall?

March 25th, 2011

Virtualization has been hailed as the Holy Grail of data center efficiency, yet some IT managers have concerns about this emerging technology. Drew Robb overviews a new survey.

A new survey by Gabriel Consulting Group (GCG) in Beaverton, Ore., reveals that although users are continuing to move to virtualized x86 infrastructures, there are signs that the runaway train of virtualization may well be slowing down.

But first the good news: Most users report the biggest benefit for virtualization is that it allows them to get more use out of existing systems. The vast majority, too, have virtualized some of their servers. However, less than half have managed to surpass the 50 percent mark in terms of overall server virtualization.

Complete Story

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Virtualization will lead to efficient storage environments

March 25th, 2011
Tell us about the larger CIO issues with storage today and some of the key trends in the space going forward.

As cliched as it may sound, doing more with less has never been truer. It is perhaps the most visible trend in enterprise storage today. More data is being generated by enterprise systems today than ever before and CIOs are under increasing pressure to handle the growing data volumes without adding to the number of storage boxes in their data centers. They also have to bring in additional efficiencies in the system, provide users with fast and accurate access to data, perform data security and disaster recovery and address the ever growing number of compliance issues, all with minimal resources.

As a result of this, going forward, we believe that a number of trends will surface. In 2011, we see storage virtualization and dynamic provisioning being accepted by enterprises in a big way. These two technologies will become the foundation for the Cloud and for dynamic, highly available data centers. Whereas storage virtualization, the virtualization of external storage arrays, will provide the ability to non-disruptively migrate from one array to another and eliminate the costly downtime required to refresh storage systems, dynamic provisioning will enable storage to be provisioned in a matter of minutes, simplifying performance tuning with automatic wide striping and enabling on demand capacity for agile storage infrastructures.

Complete Story

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Security in virtualized environments

March 25th, 2011

Deploying security solutions in virtualized environments brings to the fore a fresh set of challenges. Prashant L. Rao examines the challenges and fundamentals of this aspect of virtualization

Deploying security software in a virtualized scenario involves more than simply running a copy of the security software in each virtual machine.

Altaf Halde, Country Director, Sophos, India, commented, “When we speak to customers, prospects and partners about virtual environment security challenges, they ask us about memory consumption, licensing, management across virtual and physical computers, certifications and compatibility across virtualization vendors and the product roadmap.”

Complete Story

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Server Virtualization: 6 Management Myths

March 25th, 2011

During the past three to five years, when most companies began rolling out virtual servers in earnest as replacements for physical servers, acceptance has grown so quickly among both end users and IT staffs that more than half of all companies now deploy new applications on virtual servers by preference, rather than physical ones, according to a December study from IDC.

By 2014, 70 percent of all server workloads will run on virtual machines, IDC found.

Unlike the early days of virtualization, when business unit managers often questioned IT decisions that removed the physical server on which their key applications ran, virtualization raises few questions even among frontline business managers, some IT leaders say.

Complete Story

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Startup Tintri Unveils Storage Appliance For Virtualized Environments

March 25th, 2011

VMware’s former head of R&D on Thursday unveiled his new startup, a company called Tintri, which is developing appliances aimed specifically at handling storage in virtualized environments.

Kieran Harty, co-founder and CEO of Tintri, said he founded the Mountain View, Calif.-based company in 2008 after seeing the cost of connecting storage to virtualized environments.

“I saw people getting all the benefits on the server side, but not on the storage side,” Harty said. “I saw people spend more on storage than on virtualization. According to VMware’s numbers, 60 percent of a virtualization project is spent on storage.”

Complete Story

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HP betting huge on virtualization and simplifying Cloud computing for CIOs

March 25th, 2011

This week, HP CEO, Leo Apotheker is on a mission to convince analysts, who are concerned about the direction of the company, as it continues to lag behind in services against competitors like IBM and Dell. Cloud computing and virtualization is his answer to them. Traditional distributed computing models require individual management for hundreds or thousands of desktops across the enterprise. The support burden further increases with the size of the workforce: the more users, the more applications and operating systems to manage, and the more complex each desktop becomes.

Complete Story

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Like Golf, Virtualization Is About Right Tools, Right Time

March 24th, 2011

I was in a situation last week where someone asked me why they should use our VMware-specific software vs. the incumbent software that they already had for their physical servers. Luckily for me, one of our sales guys was there who thinks quickly on his feet and said back to the guy, “Do you golf with just one golf club?” After a good chuckle we all agreed that you should always choose the right tool for the job. The golf analogy just seems to fit perfectly.

Complete Story

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