FREE Case For Your Raspberry Pi

So last week I finally got a Raspberry Pi motherboard and I have to say I am very impressed. I have a distro of Debian running at the moment called Raspbian “wheezy” which runs like a dream.

The only thing I was worried about is that the board comes with no case, this is of course to keep the price at £25 which is amazing in its self. So to give the board a little protection I thought I’d buy/make a case for it, and by the title of this post you can guess I found one and it is FREE \o/

The Punnet – a card case for you to print (for free)

It’s any easy to create card case, its just up to you what card you use. Here is a link to a guy that printed his own case.

Here is an alternative case to print> Case.pdf

Here is a Visio version of the case so you can customise it to your hearts content> Caintech Visio Case

Send me in some of you pictures and I’ll post the best one

ISPs Futile Attempt to Block The Pirate Bay

Despite court cases in the Netherlands and the U.K. forcing ISPs to place blocks on their systems to prevent customer access to The Pirate Bay, the blocks may ultimately prove futile, according to data seen by the BBC and others.

One major U.K. broadband provider said peer-to-peer traffic on its network returned to “just below normal” only a week after it was forced to block customers’ access.

But in the days following the court decision in late April, traffic had reached record levels as a result of the increased media coverage. This backs up earlier claims that The Pirate Bay had a 12 million views traffic boost on May 1, thanks to the “free advertising” by the media.

The ISP — speaking to the BBC anonymously — said that traffic dropped by more than 11% following the enforcement of the block, but with the rise of proxy sites and The Pirate Bay’s own server IP changes, traffic figures were “pretty much back to where they were before.”

The figures are not detailed, however. The data relates to volume rather than strict user figures, possibly suggesting that prolific file-sharers downloaded more than less-interested users were discouraged. Also, the data may not relate directly to The Pirate Bay, as peer-to-peer traffic could include legitimate downloads, such as the downloading of Linux distributions, so it is difficult to see whether The Pirate Bay has returned to usual levels of traffic.

Meanwhile in the Netherlands, where blocks were put in place following similar legal challenges, Dutch ISP XS4All said its customers’ traffic to The Pirate Bay went up rather than down. Two more ISPs, according to TorrentFreak, suggested the blocks imposed did not adversely affect peer-to-peer traffic.

Previous Post : Virgin Media First UK ISP  to Block The Pirate Bay

How to Check the Health of your Hard Drive

Hard disk failure is possibly the worst thing that can happen to your computer and it often occurs without giving any warning signs.

Test Your Hard Drive for Impending Problems

You may however run certain tests on your computer beforehand to get an idea about the current condition of your hard disk. This should  in turn help you decide whether a replacement drive is necessary or not.

Step 1: Check your hard disk for errors

All recent versions of Windows include a utility called Chkdsk.exe that can check your hard disk for any bad sectors.

You may either run Chkdsk from the command line (see details) or launch Windows Explorer, right click the drive that you wish to examine and choose Properties. Switch to the Tools tab and click the “Check Now” button under Error checking. Select “Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors” to perform a thorough disk check.

Step 2: Understand the sounds of your disk

Do you sometimes hear strange sounds coming out of the CPU box? Well, if the hard drive is making those sounds, it could be an alarming situation and your best bet would be that you turn off the computer before any further damage is done to the disk.

But how do you distinguish between sounds coming from a hard disk with noise that’s made by the fans or the power supply? Here’s a useful page where you can listen to recorded sounds of various hard drives that have lead to a crash. If your disk is making a similar sound, get a replacement quickly.

Step 3: Catch errors before they happen

Disk Checkup is a free hard disk monitoring utility that displays tons of diagnostic data about your disk. While the level of detail it provides may easily confuse even tech-savvy users, just ignore the numbers and keep the utility running in the background.

It monitors your disk’s temperature, read and write error rate, etc. and will alert you when the values of any of these parameters approach dangerous levels. These may be signs of an impending disk failure. Disk Checkup is free for personal use.

Step 4: Thoroughly test your Hard Disk

SeaTools is free diagnostic tool that can completely test your hard drive regardless of the OS installed on it. The tool is provided by Seagate but it works with non-Seagate   disk drives as well.

To get started, you need to download the ISO image of SeaTools for DOS and create a bootable CD. Now boot the computer with the CD in the drive, accept the license agreement and run a long test (the full scan). If any defects are found, a list will be offered at the end or after aborting the disk scan.

Other computer vendors /disk manufactures including Samsung, Hitachi, Toshiba (Fujitsu), Western Digital, Lenovo, Dell, etc.  too offer diagnostic tools that work only with their own brand of hard drives. If you are having frequent computer problems (like system hangs or fails to boot up), you may run these tools to confirm if the problems are hard drive related

Anonymous – Operation PedoChat

The hacktivist group Anonymous has launched a new action called Operation PedoChat ( #OpPedoChat ) to eliminate pedophile sites all over the world.

This is not the first time that Anonymous has gone after pedophiles in October of 2011 they went after sites operating inside the Tor network in Operation Darknet. They have announced this new Op in the usual manner through a YouTube video which announces the reasons and goals behind the operation.

Anonymous has called out their cry of Tango Down as they have removed several sites from the list. The group has also posted a large amount of data about members of these sites and posted them on pastebin.

Calling it #OpPedoChat, the video explains: “Recently it has come to our attention that there has been a surge of websites dedicated to paedophiles for chat and picture sharing. These paedophiles openly advocate concepts like “man-boy love”, stating that 8-year-old boys enjoy it and prey on their attention. This is not limited to boys, boards for little girls exist and operate with impunity. Child pornography is frequently traded and even innocent pictures of random children (at the beach, on a playground, in their homes) are publicly fantasised about.”

Hacked Email Accounts Unleash Waves of Weight Loss Spam

So reading some of my favorite sites this morning I came across this little beauty and felt I needed to share. This post is from a website called Naked Security which is part of the Sophos company that produce an excellent Anti Virus tool called Sophos Endpoint Protection.

Weight loss spam? Seen it. Spam from hacked email accounts? Seen it. Redirects hosted on legitimate web sites? Seen it. Nothing new here then, move along.

If all this is such old hat why have we seen such a flurry of activity from these spam campaigns in recent weeks?

Just yesterday, I received a couple of spam messages sent to my personal email address from a friend. The messages were somewhat sparse, with no subject line and only a single URL within the message body.

Immediately I knew there would be plenty more. I happen to be on several mailing lists with the same individual. Sure enough, spam messages started coming through that list.

The link in the message body points to a page hosted on a legitimate website that has been compromised. This page displays a “You are here because one of your friends…” message to the user. This message is becoming rather familiar now, having been used in these campaigns for several months.

Read More

Bulgarian Hackers Group Arrested

Bulgarian authorities say that after months of investigation they have busted the “most powerful hacker group” in the country, the Cyber Warrior Invasion. The operation was conducted by Bulgaria’s Sector for Computer Crimes, Intellectual Property and Gambling and the territorial units of the Chief Directorate for Fight with Organized Crime in the municipalities of Pleven, Shumen, Plovdiv, Burgas, Haskovo, Stara Zagora and Kyustendil.

Using cyber “terrorist” methods, the group had attacked more than 500 websites worldwide, including those of financial institutions, web-based companies, and governmental and non-governmental organizations. On the confiscated computers, police discovered databases with large amounts of stolen emails, social network profiles and associated passwords, as well as stolen credit card data.

The site www.cwi-group.org was used by the members of the group to coordinate their activities. Constantly changing its location and using a complex system of “zombie” proxy servers they disguised its true location, and that of the administrators. Despite the attempts to wipe out their tracks, hackers were detected.The investigation unveiled that hacker group members followed a strict hierarchical order, evidencing the high degree of organization and coordination between them. They were structured into different groups according to their access and power: “Administrators”, “Moderator”, “Scanning team,” “Donors / Sponsors”, “Sectional moderators”, “Friends,” “VIP Members” and group “members.”

Four laptops, five desktop computers, seven portable digital information devices, three hard discs and over 200 CDs were seized.

Dr Smurf ‘GUILTY’

A hacker who went by the online moniker of “Dr Smurf” on the underground DarkMarket cybercrime forum has pleaded guilty to charges of identity theft.

Tadas Petrauskas, a 23-year-old Lithuanian hacker who lives in Brick, New Jersey, was caught in 2008 after selling login names and passwords for $2,000 to an undercover FBI agent, and admitted breaking into computer systems and selling stolen credit card details via the DarkMarket website.

Unfortunately for Petrauskas, DarkMarket had been secretly under the control of FBI agents since 2006, who were using it as a means to gather information on those involved in computer crime.

The FBI were able to gather evidence from “Dr Smurf”‘s email accounts, and arrested Petrauskas at JFK airport in New York, after he arrived on a flight from Belgium.

Petrauskas is scheduled to be sentenced on 30 October. Although unlikely that he will receive the maximum sentence, Petrauskas could technically face up to five years in prison for his crimes.

This shouldn’t need to be said, but let me say it anyway. Don’t hack into computers which don’t belong to you. Not for fun. Not for money. It’s against the law, and if you are caught the penalties you end up paying could be very serious.

If you’re interested in learning more about DarkMarket, you should read Elinor Mills’ great article at CNET where she interviewed FBI agent J Keith Mularski, who posed as a hacker called “Master Splynter”, to infiltrate the underground forum: Q&A: FBI agent looks back on time posing as a cybercriminal.

Anonymous Hacks Japanese Government

Japan’s legislature has approved a bill revising the nation’s copyright law to add criminal penalties for downloading copyrighted material or backing up content from a DVD. The penalties will come into effect in October. The Upper House of the Japanese Diet approved the bill by a vote of 221-12, less than a week after the measure cleared the lower house with almost no opposition. Violators risk up to two years in prison or fines up to two million yen (about $25,000).

Hacker activist group Anonymous has attacked Japanese government websites, and is threatening further action in protest at new stiffer penalties for illegal downloading that were passed in a copyright law amendment.

A Twitter feed, @op_japan, associated with hacking collective Anonymous claimed responsibility, reacting to the country’s new anti-piracy bill. The new law outlines jail terms for those who download copyrighted content.

The finance ministry’s website was hacked on Tuesday, with messages opposing the stricter copyright laws posted on a number of its pages. The sites of the Supreme Court of Japan and the Intellectual Property High Court were also reported down overnight, while access to the sites of the two main political parties was said to be restricted. The websites of Japan’s Finance Ministry, Supreme Court and political parties DPJ and LDP – are now back up.

“To the government of Japan and the Recording Industry Association of Japan, you can now expect us the same way we have come to expect you in violating our basic rights to privacy and to an open internet,” concluded the message from Anonymous.

“We are aware of the Anonymous statement referring to the new copyright law, but we don’t know at this point if the cyber-attacks are linked to the group,” said Takanari Horino, a Ministry of Finance official, at a press conference. “We are investigating where the illegal item came from,” he added

According to the Recording Industry Association of Japan, 4.36 billion files were illegally downloaded in the country in 2010.In early June, members of Anonymous staged protests in 16 cities in India, against what they said was internet censorship in the country. India’s Madras High Court has since changed its earlier censorship order, which centred on the issue of internet copyright, making it once again possible for web users to access video and file-sharing sites, including The Pirate Bay