I wanted to try the Echolink ham radio application out, and I was able to install the Windows client at home on a Windows 7 64-bit box. My workstation at the office runs Ubuntu Linux, 64-bit and I had a little trouble getting a client to work. Installing under Wine did not work for me, the program just froze after connecting.

Fortunately, I was able to get the QTel client working on my 64-bit Ubuntu Linux desktop, using getlibs to install all the dependencies. I connected to a local repeater KC2CIG-R in Staten Island, NY and had my first Echolink (Internet VoIP to 440MHz repeater) QSO with Carl, WA2IAF.

Here is how I got the QTel Echolink client working on Ubuntu Lucid Lynx 10.04 64-bit

After this, the application should work on 64-bit Ubuntu or Debian with no issues. Getlibs is a very handy application for installing 32-bit apps on 64-bit.

I thought it would be a fun project to make my own speaking clock for Linux. Here is a very simple project that will get you started with some basic shell scripting and using the crontab.

My first version of the clock used espeak – which is a synthesized voice. It isn’t very appealing. For my second version I went to the AT&T Labs site and used their form to create .wav files of human speech for the numbers one through twelve. I created a .wav for “AM” and another for “PM”. Then I created a .wav that says, “Hello, the time is now: ”

I used the command line application aplay, and output from the date function. It is very simple.

Since I’m kind of lazy, I didn’t bother creating all the minutes. I only want my announcements on the hour and half hour anyway.

I call the script from two crontab jobs, one that runs on the hour and one that runs on the half hour.

You can download my scripts and audio here – check it out and then make your own, but don’t forget to share your success and send me your result!

The basic steps are as follows:

1. Create .wav files of the spoken numbers 1 through 12, the number 30, “AM”, “PM” and “The time is: ”

2. Create a script to run on the hour similar to this example (change the paths to where you saved your files):

#!/bin/bash

aplay -q /home/charleys/time_voice/hellothetimeisnow.wav

HOUR=$(date +%-l)

AMPM=$(date +%p)

EXT=”.wav”

aplay -q  “/home/charleys/time_voice/$HOUR$EXT”

aplay -q “/home/charleys/time_voice/$AMPM$EXT”

#end script

3. Save as hour.sh Make the script executable

chmod +x hour.sh

4. Create a schedule to run the script using crontab

crontab -e

0 * * * * /home/charleys/time_voice/hour_human.sh

5. Repeat the steps above, except you are going to add the “30″ .wav file, like this:

aplay -q  "/home/charleys/time_voice/$HOUR$EXT"
aplay -q "/home/charleys/time_voice/30.wav"
aplay -q "/home/charleys/time_voice/$AMPM$EXT"

NOTE: You MUST use upper case PM and AM for your file name. You MUST use 1.wav, 2.wav, etc for your file names. This is because the file is chosen based on the ouput from the date command. date +%-l outputs only the numbers 1-12 for the hour. Likewise, date +%p outputs either AM or PM. The – just removes the space from in front of the digits 1-9. Aplay only works with ALSA audio I’m told, however there are many other choices in command line audio players you can try.

Enjoy!

Most of the malware attacks on computers today are not done by thrill or attention seeking hackers. They are created by criminals who seek to use them to relay unsolicited commercial email (spam) or worse. They could care less about making Windows look bad. They are completely agnostic as to Microsoft, Apple, or your Linux distro of choice. It only stands to reason that while it is more difficult to trick a saavy Linux user into installing malware with root privliges, efforts will almost certainly escalate as the popularity of Linux distros like Ubuntu gain popularity.

There are several free and open-source tools that can be easily installed and used to scan for viruses, rootkits, and other nasties on your computer. Clam AV, rkhunter, and chkrootkit are three tools that are easy to use. Clam even has a GUI. All three tools are available in the Ubuntu repositories. They are almost certainly available in others, but aren’t difficult to install manually either.

If you use Ubuntu, you can install the three packages:

sudo apt-get install clamav-daemon rkhunter chkrootkit

If you want to try the GUI, it is called ClamTK (sudo apt-get install clamtk)

Update the Clam AV scanning definitions by running sudo freshclam

It is probably easiest and most intuitive for most to use Clam via the GUI and not the command line – This installed under Applications > System Tools > Virus Scanner on my Ubuntu Intrepid 8.10 desktop.

Clam does not scan your files on access – so it takes up very little resources. You can schedule scans as cron jobs or simply run scans manually on a regular basis to be sure your system is clean.

To scan for rootkits, simply run sudo rkunter --check and sudo chkrookit as root. It is safe to run them side by side. They will not change anything on your system, they will simply alert you to the presence of suspicious files. (a few warnings are pretty normal).

Ubuntu ships with a Linux firewall called iptables installed by default. Most people find the text file configuration to be cumbersome. Firestarter is a very simple GUI option for iptables that makes it easy to manage. A good firewall will go a very long way to prevent any system from being compromised.

sudo apt-get install firestarter

To run Firestarter, go to System > Administration > Firestarter. When you first open the program you will be asked some questions. Don’t worry if you get them wrong, you can re-run the wizard any time… You will most likely want to choose yes and tick the box for DHCP. You’ll then need to set up a policy. This is very simple. If you are not sharing your computer, do nothing for Inbound policy – it will block inbound connections from starting a session on your computer. If you use Bittorrent, ssh, ftp, etc on your desktop you will need to create rules to allow those services Inbound. Again, very easy to do. For Outbound you usually want to allow all services out except those you block intentionally – so select “Permissive by default, blacklist traffic” – which will allow you to go out to the Internet freely but give you an option to block outbound traffic you do not want to allow. This is the default configuration on most commercial firewalls also. You can make outbound restrictive, but be prepared to add rules for every software you run that needs to establish Internet sessions… (updates, web browsing, backup programs, dropbox, skype, etc, etc…)

Any system should be backed up. I really like sbackup sudo apt-get install sbackup – you can find documentation online. It isn’t difficult to use and the defaults work well – though you may wish to change the default backup location. You can also backup to remote computers via ssh.

Keep your updates current. Ubuntu will alert you by default when updates are available. You can also use System > Administration > Update manager.

One last additional precaution I take is to use the laptop’s built-in security features to password protect the boot process. While this isn’t un-breakable, it will definitely slow down a casual thief who swiped your laptop. For a more secure approach, encrypt your hard drive’s file system.

Basically Privoxy is a proxy server – you can configure it for all kinds of filtering options to customize your browsing experience, block ads, etc… Tor anonimizes your connection to the Internet. It works by making an encrypted connection to a server in the Tor Onion network. Once in the network, you are routed through random Tor servers. The result is that the end web site cannot identify your location or details. Your traffic also remains encrypted between your computer and the Tor network – meaning nobody at your ISP is able to see your traffic.

When Privoxy and Tor are used together they provide a great deal of control. Tor can be used without Privoxy as well. To be fair, there is also a version for Windows.

Configuring Privoxy and Tor in Ubuntu is a piece of cake.

1. install Privoxy and Tor:

sudo apt-get install tor

sudo apt-get install privoxy

2. install FoxyProxy plugin for Firefox (this is not absolutely necessary but makes it easier to switch Tor on and off.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2464

Do not do any auto configuration – just cancel through any prompts to configure for now.

3. Edit your Privoxy config file

sudo gedit /etc/privoxy/config

uncomment (delete the #) the line that says:

forward-socks4a / 127.0.0.1:9050 .

and save

4. Restart Firefox and right click on FoxyProxy in the status bar

Click “Add New Proxy”

Enter the following:

Under General;
Enabled: Tick
Proxy Name: Privoxy To Tor
Animate ….: Tick
Include …..: Tick

Under Proxy Details;
Manual Proxy …. : Tick
Host Name: 127.0.0.1 Port: 8118
SOCKS proxy? : do NOT tick

Under URL Patterns;
(If it doesn’t exist already)
Add new pattern;
Enabled: Tick
Pattern name: All
URL pattern: *
Whitelist: Tick
Wildcards: Tick

5. Restart the Tor and Privoxy Services

sudo /etc/init.d/tor restart
sudo /etc/init.d/privoxy restart

6. Go to http://whatismyip.com and note your ip address.

7. Right click on Foxy Proxy and enable your new “Privoxy to Tor”

8. Refresh the whatismyip.com page and note your new address. This confirms you are now browsing via Tor.

You can also confirm you are browsing via Tor by going to the following URL: http://check.torproject.org

For more information on using Tor with Windows and different ways to use Tor and Privoxy, visit the following:

http://www.torproject.org/

http://www.privoxy.org/

You will find that the speed of browsing leaves a bit to be desired – however in the case of NGO personnel in hostile countries, or other sensitive matters, it can be an invaluable tool to protect privacy.