Setting up a Non-Root User on Backtrack 4

Traditionally one of the most dangerous practices surrounding UNIX is using the root account as your normal user account. This is the default under Backtrack and here's how to fix it so you only use Root when you need to:

1. Open a Konsole session.

2. Type: adduser username.

3. You will be asked a series of questions along with setting your password.

4. Once the account is created, type: cp -rf /root/.kde* /home/username.

6. Type: chown -R username:username /home/username to overwrite any of root's perms that may have copied over.

5. Edit the /etc/group file with your editor of choice and add username to the admin and audio groups.

6. Logout and back in with the new account and you should be good to go.

Step #4 will copy all of the application menu's that have links to the Backtrack programs so you don't loose them. Enjoy.

Facebook Privacy - Not Really

Spylogic has a pretty disturbing article on Facebook's use of a new API to share users public information with other websites such as Pandora and Microsoft Docs among many others to join I'm sure.

What this makes this even more scary is that developers can hold onto your data forever whereas before it was limited to 24 hours. George Orwell's 1984 does not sound too crazy after all even in 2010. Take the example below; if you copy and paste the URL into your web browser and replace the string, 'jandrusk' with the first part of your Facebook ID you will see some general information about your Facebook account. Not a big deal until you realize you don't even need to be logged onto Facebook to acquire this information! That means anyone on the trustworthy Internet can pull this information.

Evil Facebook Query

So the bottom line is if your concerned about privacy on the Internet you better off just going to be communicating on stones or papyrus paper. Let the reader beware.

UNIX Security Model

I put together a UNIX security model diagram with an application called XMind. In the coming weeks I will be blogging in more detail on each of these areas and components and will be using as my guinea pig, Ubuntu 9.10 to see how much work is necessary to conform the system to the model. Please return for more UNIX geeking out.

Ubuntu Security Resources

Ubuntu Security Resources

Ubuntu Unleashed

Ubuntu Geek

This should be enough to get started. I'm currently working on extracting the *.debs from a Ubuntu Security Distro called Protech that can be find at http://www.lifedork.net/protech-ubuntu-based-linux-security-distro.html. I will then post an ISO so that you can add all of the security tools provided without having to re-install your operating system.

NASA Laptops Infected with Virus

So our overly paranoid friend over at NASA had a virus infected on a couple of astronauts laptops. What makes this even scarier is that it has happened before and they still don't have these systems loaded with any type of Anti-Virus software. Couple of questions for our engineers at NASA:

Why, why, and why don't you have AV software installed on these systems? The reponse would most likely be, "Well, they are never connected to the Internet and the laptops in question are not running critical systems.". Hmmm... I have to think if they are this lazy securing systems that astronauts use, how confident are we that they take security seriously on the more critical systems such as the computers that run the shuttles and the satellites? See the BBC link below for more details.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7583805.stm