HOWTO use SSH and PuTTY as SOCKS proxy server for secure surfing on public wifi

I've been looking around for different solutions to secure my wlan connection when traveling, lots of hotels are only using open wifi networks and that's a BIG security flaw.
This solution may also work for bypassing webfilters a work, if you want to surf on websites not allowed by your employer this will help you. (but I'm not liable for any damage you cause your employers network/computers or if you get fired for doing this :) ).

After trying several solutions I came across a blogpost about using a SSH connection as a secure proxy server for whatever software you're using. But I had problems getting it to work, I found only poor guides on how to do it. So here I will try to make a better one.

I'm running windows 8 on my laptop so I will be demonstrating this using PuTTYwhich is a SSH client for Windows. Google it.

The only thing you need for this to work is access to a SSH server, this can be your webhost, home server or whatever.

• First you need to download PyTTY. Download
• When you start PyTTY you will see the window below, here you fill in your SSH server hostname, port and choose SSH. (shown with red circles)

• When you have entered your hostname and port you click on SSH on the category list on the left, and then choose Tunnels.
• A new configuration page will come into view, identical to the image below. Fill in the following information:
  Source Port (the port you want the proxy to run on, normally 8080)
  Destination (it's the same hostname and port as on the first config page but with a colon between hostname and port number)
  Choose Dynamic just below destination 

• Click Add to add the configuration for this connection. You should now see a number in the text field above. See image below.

• You're now finished with your configuration, click open to start the SSH session and log in normally using your username and password at the SSH server.

After finishing the PyTTY configuration you'll also need to add the Proxy server to your browser, In firefox, go to settings, network and choose connection settings.

Here you'll choose manual settings and in the SOCKS field you write localhost and in port you write 8080 (same we set in the PuTTY configuration earlier).

It does not matter if the SOCKS setting is on SOCKS4 or SOCKS5.

Click OK and you're done.

You are now surfing with the SSH serves IP adress as the visible one, go to whatismyip.com to verify your public IP adress.

ADS-B reception with RTL SDR dongle and home made collinear coax antenna.

I figured out I wanted to try ADS-B reception with my dustcollecting dongle, and how could I know how much fun that was. The range out of the box was pretty impressive (and I will make a comparison chart later), but I wanted to build a better one. The one I decided to build was a collinear coax antenna. I used cheap RG-6U coax cable with eight segments and a 75 ohm resistor on top. Incredibly easy an quick to build and as far as I can see very efficient. I use windows software RTL1090, and save data into a MySQL database via a PHP script on my server.

This is my reception map, I'm very impressed that with an indoor antenna I'm able to reach at least north-west 150 NM  out to sea. Of course the antenna is mounted on the wall in the north-west corner of my house, and I've got very few obstacles in the vicnity in that direction. Aircraft need to be at cruising altitude as well ~30-40000 feet. The map is created by a tool called SBSplotter, see http://sonicgoose.com/superimpose-polar-plot-in-google-earth/ for more information.

Hopefully I will be building a 12 segment antenna to test later, that will be fun.

Here you can see all ADS-B tracks I've collected for about 20 hours today. 

See http://www.balarad.net/ for detailed instructions on how to build the antenna.

HOWTO Start Dante Socks server together with OpenVPN client during reboot in Ubuntu 12.04

After installing Dante SOCKS server it would not start during reboot, thee problem was the OpenVPN tun0 interface was not up when dante was starting, and it would not start with error tun0 not found.

I did quite a bit of googling before a solution came to me, i did find it on the page: Turn your Raspberry Pi into a VPN gateway.

Here is a overview of the solution (slightly modified for the original):

First remove the normal start and stop hooks in rc*.d

sudo update-rc.d danted remove

Next create the scripts.

sudo mkdir /etc/dante_scripts
sudo nano /etc/dante_scripts/myprovider.up

Add the following contents to /etc/dante_scripts/myprovider.up:

#!/bin/bash
if [ "$1" = tun0 ]; then
 /etc/init.d/danted start
fi

sudo nano /etc/dante_scripts/myprovider.down

Add the following contents to /etc/dante_scripts/myprovider.down:

#!/bin/bash
if [ "$1" = tun0 ]; then
 /etc/init.d/danted stop
fi

Make the scripts runnable:

sudo chmod +x /etv/dante_scripts/*

Add the hooks to /etc/default/openvpn:

sudo nano /etc/default/openvpn

Modify the OPTARGS:

OPTARGS="--up /etc/dante_scripts/myprovider.up --down /etc/dante_scripts/myprovider.down"

WORKING HOWTO Install nVidia (CUDA) drivers on Kali 1.0.6

HOWTO Install nVidia drivers on Kali 1.0.6.

I used alot of time and effort to search he net for a guide on how to install nVidia (CUDA) drivers on Kali 1.0.6. I did try the solution described on the official Kali site, but it did not work. Only got the black screen with blinking cursor in upper left corner during reboot. Most of the other guides I found was more or less the same.

Until I stumbled upon this a blog called Samiux's Blog. Which had a guide that worked flawlessly! BIG thank you for this guide.

Guide is shown below but visit his blog for more information. Link to the guide here

Step 1 :

apt-get install libcudart4 linux-headers-$(uname -r) nvidia-cuda-toolkit

Step 2 :

mkdir /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d

echo -e 'Section "Device"\n\tIdentifier "nVidia GPU"\n\tDriver "nvidia"\n\tOption "NoLogo" "1"\n\tOption "RenderAccel" "1"\n\tOption "TripleBuffr" "true"\n\tOption "MigrationHeuristic" "greedy"\nEndSection' > /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-nvidia.conf

Step 3 :

Update the boot loader to disable the open source nvidia display driver.

sed 's/quiet/quiet nouveau.modeset=0/g' -i /etc/default/grub
update-grub
reboot

How to manage SDR software across multiple computers with synced configuration. through cloud storage.

YouTube user Eric William has released another useful video presentation of his equipment. This time he focuses on the software and cloud solution he uses to get the configuration synced across all PCs. Alot to learn for new SDR users.

Receiving ADS-B signals from inside an Boeing 737-800 in flight with RTL-SDR

This guy has hooked up his RTL-SDR receiver inside an Ryanair aircraft during flight at 36000 feet, and he is able to receive the ADS-B signal without problems.

Removing annoying BEEP tone from Maycom FR-100

Are you annoyed by the BEEP tone from the Maycom FR-100?
It's a pretty simple fix for that, remove a resistor on the PCB inside the maycom fr-100.

You need to remove the 4 screws on the backpanel in order to remove the panel, then you need to remove to screws from inside the batterycompartment. You now remove the battery compartment.
Now fire up your soldering iron and prepare to remove a SMD resistor marked R1 on the photo below, be aware that is pretty tiny and you do not need alot of heat to remove it.

With the resistor removed get the maycom fr-100 back together and you do not have any more BEEP tone.