On March 2010, Telekom Malaysia Berhad (TM) launched its High Speed Broadband (HSBB) service, called ‘UniFi‘. TM’s UniFi high speed broadband packages comprises services of high speed Internet, video (IPTV), and phone, with speeds of 5 Mbps, 10Mbps and 20Mbps.

Upon sign up, the customer will receive 4 pieces of equipment:

• Fiber Broadband Termination Unit (BTU), ie. where you connect the fiber optic cable into.
• WiFi router (D-Link, D-615 with custom firmware), which is plugged into the fiber BTU.
• Set-Top box for IPTV and VoD, which will plug into the WiFi router.
• DECT phone plugged into the Fiber BTU.

I’m not going to rant about the UniFi or TMNet’s services, nor speed, nor the much debated bandwith cap that TM said they’re going to impose.

I’m going to talk about the security (or the lack thereof) of the default WiFi router setup.

Once the customer signed-up for UniFi services, the TM’s technician will do all the equipment installations in your premises/homes for you. Nice, BUT, the default WiFi router setup done by the technicians has very low security features:

• The router is not configured to drop ICMP packet, making an attacker able to ping those unprotected routers, telling him it’s alive and connected to the internet.
• The firewall is disabled.
• The router has remote access enabled. Making it worse, it has no authorised IP filter (has default config of 0.0.0.0, meaning anybody, anywhere, can log in to your router web interface). The web interface port number are also set to default.
• And the BIGGEST, BADDEST flaw: The router’s Administrator password is still the default ones!!

With the default configurations as above, even a child with a web browser sitting miles away could go into your routers!! I’ve done this personally, where I can easily scan a range of UniFi’s IP addresses, and log on to their routers.

I understood if the above setup is to ease TM’s effort to do some troubleshooting/support remotely for their customers. However, The least they can do is change the default administrators password for the WiFi routers! Change the password to something unique for each customer. They still can keep records of the users router’s password if they need to do troubleshooting/support purposes remotely.

Not all TM’s customers are technically savvy to secure their own home networking. So, the purpose of this article is to share/educate/guide some basic protection for your home network.

Secure your home network:

Login in to your router’s web interface. Open a web browser, go to http://192.168.0.1 . You will be prompt for admin username and password. Open your D-Link Router manual for more info.

1. Change your Router’s Administrator password.

• Go to ‘Maintenance’ tab, under ‘Admin Password’ section. Rename your password there.

2. Rename your Wireless Network Name/ SSID.
The default SSID has the customer’s name, i.e.: myfirstname@unifi. This possible could leads to privacy issues, as outsiders knows who’s using what ISP services (UniFi, Streamyx, etc).

• Go to ‘Setup’ tab, click ‘Wireless Setup’ menu on the left.
• Under ‘Multiple Wireless Network Name (SSIDS)’ section, click ‘Multiple Wireless Network Name Setup’ button.
• You will be taken to a page with ‘Wireless Network Name’ section. Rename your existing Wireless Network Name/SSID there.

3. Disable Remote Access to your router.

• Go to ‘Maintenance’ tab, under ‘Remote Management’ section. Un-check ‘Enable Remote Management:’ check box.

4. Enable Firewall

• Go to ‘Advanced’ tab, click ‘Firewall & DMZ’ menu on the left.
• Under ‘Outside Firewall Setting’ section, checked the ‘Enable WAN to LAN Firewall :’ check box.
• Then, checked all the check box inside the rows of ‘DOS ATTACK’, ‘POST SCAN ATTACK’ and ‘SERVICE FILTER’.
• To find out what all these settings do, feel free to Google each of the check box descriptions.

Few suggestions to TM, I strongly recommends that the technicians doing the UniFi’s installation, increase some level of customers home networking security. The very basic they can do is to change the WiFi routers default administrator’s password upon installation, and keep that password if they need to do troubleshooting/support purposes remotely.

Be safe.

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I have no problem running 720p .mkv HD video files. No lagging, no dropped frames whatsover. However, when running 1080p .mkv files, especially those big sizes full-HD Blue Ray medias, I have:
- Lagging,
- Dropped frames,
- 100% CPU utilizations.

It doesn’t matter if I’m using VLC, or Totem Movie Player, it will always have those problem above. From what I’ve read, this is probably due to FFMpeg codecs for H.264 decoding.

However, I have a solution, found from http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1037625

Below are the steps:
1. Install mplayer:
sudo apt-get install mplayer-nogui

2. Run your 1080p .mkv files with it:
mplayer -vo vdpau -vc ffh264vdpau /path/to/the/mkv/file

Now the HD movies playing in my Ubuntu laptop are smooth as it can be.
Try it out. Cheers.

1. How to Check for Open Ports in Ubuntu There are various ways to view for open ports on...

Then, I’ve found Conky. I’ll never turn back.

This is the best system monitor I have ever experienced. It is highly customizable, all you have to do is modify the Conky config file. There’s a lot of widgets/variables to use, such as system monitoring tools (CPU, RAM, SWAP, Hard Drive, etc), batteries capacity, networking, and more. And best of all, it is very, very easy to create your own widgets. If you know any programming language such as Python, Perl, or even a simple Shell Scripts, then you’re off to create your own.

Installing Conky are easy as executing command below in the terminal:
$ sudo apt-get install conky

Next, create your Conky config file. Here is my config file I’m currently using.

Then, execute command below to run Conky. Put it in your startup so that it will be running each time you boot-up your computer:
$ conky -c <path_to_my_conky_config>.conf

Below are what my desktop currently looks like with Conky:

Conky Desktop

In there I’ve created my own GMail notifier, Google Reader notifier and local TV guide, all using Python. You will find more ideas, screen shots and scripts to use with Conky on Ubuntu Forum.

Cheers.

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A wave is equal parts conversation and document. People can communicate and work together with richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more.

A wave is shared. Any participant can reply anywhere in the message, edit the content and add participants at any point in the process. Then playback lets anyone rewind the wave to see who said what and when.

A wave is live. With live transmission as you type, participants on a wave can have faster conversations, see edits and interact with extensions in real-time.

More info on:
Google Wave
Google Wave “Is What Email Would Look Like If It Were Invented Today”
Google Wave Video Demo Makes a Little More Sense of Wave

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Below I have created a simple bash script. What it does is, converting all of the finished avi’s to wmv. The conversion is via ffmpeg. The script below is easily modified to suit your needs, such as:
i – Copying the finished torrent to another location.
ii – Doing any conversion to your media.
iii – Send you mail notifying the torrent have finished downloading.
iv – etc, etc.

So, let’s get started.

1. Install transmission-remote
sudo apt-get install transmission-remote

2. Copy the script below, and save as my_script_name.sh , (or whatever name you prefer, but note the .sh extension).
This is among my early attempts of shell script programming, so go easy on me and feel free to give feedbacks.

#!/bin/sh

# The absolute path where your torrents are downloaded
# For example: /tmp/download
BASEDIR=/home/myuser/mytorrentpath
LOGPATH=/home/myuser/mywmv.log

# The absolute path to and including the transmission-remote binary
# For example: /usr/bin/transmission-remote
TRANSREMOTE=/usr/bin/transmission-remote
TRANSOPTS=" 127.0.0.1:my_port_number -n my_username:my_password "

DoConvert ()
{
  _AVINAME=$1
  WMVNAME=${_AVINAME%.*}".wmv"
  if [ ! -f "$WMVNAME" ]; then
    #Do conversion here
    echo "converting $_AVINAME" >> $LOGPATH
    ffmpeg -sameq -i "$_AVINAME" -vcodec wmv2 -acodec wmav2 "$WMVNAME" \
    < /dev/null 2> /dev/null
  fi
}

cd $BASEDIR

echo "Starting at `date`" >> $LOGPATH

# Find the first completed torrent
$TRANSREMOTE $TRANSOPTS -l | grep "100%" | grep "Done  " | cut -b71- | while read LINE
do
  if [ -e "$LINE" ]; then
    if [ -h "$LINE" ]; then
      echo "$LINE is already moved" >> $LOGPATH
    else
      if [ -d "$LINE" ]; then
        cd "${LINE}"
        ls -1f *.avi 2>/dev/null | while read AVINAME
	  do
	    DoConvert "$AVINAME"
	  done
        cd -
      else
	DoConvert "$LINE"
      fi
    fi
  else
    echo "torrent $LINE is removed" >> $LOGPATH
  fi
done

echo "-----------------" >> $LOGPATH

Save the script on any location you prefer.

3. Create a cron job to run the script. Open the entry to crontab:
crontab -e

4. Let say you want to run the script every hour, by the hour, the entry on your cron job should be as below:
0 * * * * sh /home/myuser/my_script_name.sh

You can also test the script you’ve created by executing the command:
sh /home/myuser/my_script_name.sh

Enjoy.

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Xbox-Linux box media sharing could be achieved by using GeeXbox uShare. GeeXboX uShare is a free UPnP A/V & DLNA Media Server for Linux. Installation and configuration explained after the jump below:

Installation and Configuration

1. Install uShare by using command:
sudo apt-get install ushare

2. Edit the uShare configuration file:
sudo gedit /etc/ushare.conf

Example of the uShare config file:

# /etc/ushare.conf
# uShare UPnP Friendly Name (default is 'uShare').
USHARE_NAME=uShare

# Interface to listen to (default is eth0).
# Ex : USHARE_IFACE=eth1
USHARE_IFACE=eth0

# Port to listen to
USHARE_PORT=49153

# Port to listen for Telnet connections
USHARE_TELNET_PORT=

# Directories to be shared (space or CSV list).
# Ex: USHARE_DIR=/dir1,/dir2
USHARE_DIR=/home/myusername/mymediafolder

# Use to override what happens when iconv fails to parse a file name.
USHARE_OVERRIDE_ICONV_ERR=yes

# Enable Web interface (yes/no)
ENABLE_WEB=yes

# Enable Telnet control interface (yes/no)
ENABLE_TELNET=no

# Use XboX 360 compatibility mode (yes/no)
ENABLE_XBOX=yes

# Use DLNA profile (yes/no)
# This is needed for PlayStation3 to work (among other devices)
ENABLE_DLNA=no

“USHARE_NAME” is the display name of your share.
“USHARE_IFACE” is the network interface uShare should listen to.
“USHARE_PORT” this is the port the uShare server listens on. Make sure this is set to 49153.
“USHARE_DIR” is the full path of the folder with your media.
“ENABLE_WEB” to turns on the web interface. Make sure this is set to ‘yes’.
“ENABLE_XBOX” is what enables Xbox 360 compatibility. Make sure it’s set to ‘yes’.

3. After finished editing the configuration file, save the file.

4. Edit the following file by issuing command below:
sudo gedit /etc/init.d/ushare

Find the following lines:

start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --background --oknodo \
--make-pidfile --pidfile $PIDFILE \
--exec $DAEMON -- $USHARE_OPTIONS

And change them to:

start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --background --oknodo \
--make-pidfile --pidfile $PIDFILE \
--exec $DAEMON -- $USHARE_OPTIONS --xbox

5. Restart uShare
sudo /etc/init.d/ushare stop
sudo /etc/init.d/ushare start

That’s pretty much it!

If you have a firewall running, open the firewall connection to your Xbox ip address.

The web interface is available at:
http://your.servers.ip.address:49153/web/ushare.html

Xbox 360 Settings

For your Xbox 360 configuration, make sure they are able to connect to your home network. Just set the networking options in the “Settings” blade. You can set the networking options to be automatic, or manual by the simplest settings of the ip address, subnet mask and gateway.

Viewing Your Media

Go to the “Media” blade on your Xbox 360 Dashboard. Open your media (Music, Video or Picture). The uShare (or any other name you’ve given in the uShare config) should be available on the selection source.

Open your media in the uShare source. WMV files should not be any problem, but for AVI’s and any other types, the view-ability depends on the codecs installed on your Xbox.

Next project, wireless connectivity for the Xbox 360. I currently have a 10 meter network cable running across the room from my Xbox to the router, which is ridiculous.

1. How to Check for Open Ports in Ubuntu There are various ways to view for open ports on...

What is Twitter?
From Twitter.com:

Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?
Because even basic updates are meaningful to family members, friends, or colleagues—especially when they’re timely.
With Twitter, you can stay hyper–connected to your friends and always know what they’re doing. Or, you can stop following them any time. You can even set quiet times on Twitter so you’re not interrupted.
Twitter puts you in control and becomes a modern antidote to information overload.

From wiki:

Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows its users to send and read other users’ updates (otherwise known as tweets), which are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length.
Updates are displayed on the user’s profile page and delivered to other users who have signed up to receive them. Senders can restrict delivery to those in their circle of friends (delivery to everyone being the default). Users can receive updates via the Twitter website, SMS, RSS, or email, or through an application.

Sometimes things are better explained in sight and sound media. So, here’s a video on Twitter in Plain English, from CommonCraft.

Twitter in Plain English

I’m very new in Twitter. It would be great if you guys could share your experience. Any tips? Any cool Twitter client apps (Windows, Mac, Linux, Firefox, etc)? Any good interesting tweets to follow? Please, do let us know.

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[Show as slideshow]

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Directories should not be left open for public browsing.

There is a potential problem letting people know what plug-ins you have, or what versions they are. If there is some known exploit that is linked to a plug-in, it could be easy enough for someone to use it to their advantage.

To test whether your site is vulnerable to this issue, just go to http://<your_site>/wp-content/plugins
Your site SHOULDN’T be listing all the plug-ins available on your site.

It’s fairly simple to protect your Wordpress installation from public browsing:
1. Make an empty wp-content/plugins/index.html file
Or
2. just add this line in your .htaccess file in your root:
Options All -Indexes

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To install:
sudo apt-get install fslint

Using Fslint:
If you want to open goto Applications—>System Tools—>FSlint

Screenshot:

1. How to Check for Open Ports in Ubuntu There are various ways to view for open ports on...