KM Authorized

Free calling within the US and Canada through 2012 | Google Voice Blog

keeganmullaney — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 21:07:30 -0800

I’m glad to see Google will be extending their free Google Voice service through 2012!

Utilizing a VPN or SSH tunnel to secure your data on a public hotspot

keeganmullaney — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 18:57:00 -0800

Recently I had a client call me in a panic asking what to do about their hacked Yahoo account. Of course, the first thing anyone should do is CHANGE YOUR PASSWORD ASAP! Assuming the hacker hasn’t already changed it and locked you out of your own account, changing the password puts you back in control. But without knowing how the hacker gained access, they may just hack it again.

After a short discussion we discovered that the trouble started when my client had connected their Android phone to a public hotspot to check email. This was done through an unsecure connection. No password was required to access the wifi connection, and no HTTPS was used to access the email.

A little history: Last year a programmer named Eric Butler released a program, for free download, designed to illustrate how easily the login information of users on public hotspots can be stolen. This program is widely available now. Many people have downloaded and tried it out it because they are curious about what it can do, or want to take measures to safeguard their data. But others are out to do harm or take advantage of having easy access to your facebook, twitter, yahoo, etc accounts.

See:

So I set out to find a way of easily and inexpensively protecting myself and anyone interested against identity theft. I like the convenience that public hotspots provide, so I still want to use them, but do so in a secure and easy to use way.

The method I chose is the tried and true do-it-yourself project. It was not easy, but the knowledge I gained in the process is invaluable. After a small investment in hardware (~$50) I now have a system in place that I can use indefinitely.

What are the general steps? Note, this is not intended to be a step by step guide. These are just some of the important discoveries I made. Contact me if you have questions.

Purchase one of the routers on this list: http://tomatousb.org/doc:build-types
I chose the WRT54GL v1.1 since it’s the one used in most online guides. Though there are nicer, newer, and faster routers with more internal flash memory.
Flash the tomato firmware onto the router, replacing the stock firmware and adding the needed functionality for protecting our Internet traffic i.e. SSH and VPN. I chose the newer Victek firmware, but tomatousb will work too. http://victek.is-a-geek.com/tomato.html
Next I connected the WAN port on my shiny new tomato router to one of the available LAN ports on my existing (EnGenius) router. Like many newer routers, the EnGenius has a feature for assigning DHCP reservations. It’s nice because you can name your devices and prevent their IP address from changing. Then it’s easier to setup port forwarding of necessary Internet traffic related to SSL and VPN tunnels.
Then I utilized a cool little program called PuttyGen to generate the SSH key pairs using RSA 1024-bit encryption. I did this for each of my devices that I might want to connect to a public hotspot like my Android phone and my laptop. The public keys go into the tomato router and the private keys get assigned to the remote device. There’s also a nice little conversion tool in PuttyGen to convert your private Putty key to the OpenSSH standard for use with Android phone apps like SSH Tunnel.
For my laptop I used the plain Putty app. What’s interesting is how it establishes the SSH tunnel using the port I chose to forward earlier from my EnGenius router to the tomato router for SSH traffic, but then also creates a “source port” for use by other programs on your computer like Firefox or Chrome. 127.0.0.1 and the source port are used in the proxy settings of the browsers to utilize this SSH tunnel that Putty has established.
If all you care about is protecting your web browser traffic, an SSH tunnel is all that’s needed. But for encrypting everything else that might communicate over the public hotspot, a VPN connection will handle that. I chose OpenVPN since it works well with the tomato firmware and is completely free. I followed this nice howto guide through the first seven bullets:
http://www.openvpn.net/index.php/open-source/documentation/howto.html
After putting the proper key files into the tomato router and also each remote device, the VPN connection worked like a charm! It was a lot of fun to see it connect and work.
On Android I found two nice apps called OpenVPN Installer and OpenVPN Settings that made it much easier to establish the VPN connection. Once I found the right tun.ko file to use for my Liquid Smooth ROM (version 3.2), and utilizing Android Terminal Emulator to create symlinks in two places, it worked!
Next I learned how to configure the OpenVPN connection on my laptop to use the SSH tunnel through Putty. HA! I’d like to see a would-be hacker try to steal my data now. :P

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JustStand.org: Combat Sitting Disease and Join the Wellness Uprising!

keeganmullaney — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 19:43:27 -0800

I’ve been standing at my desk for many months now, and I must say, I’m loving it! I feel much better and no longer have pain in my right leg. Actually, sitting for an extended period of time feels less comfortable to me than standing! I’m that used to it, and you can be too.

via juststand.org

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Weekly Guilt-free IT Maintenance

keeganmullaney — Sun, 13 Nov 2011 20:18:00 -0800

Regular maintenance for a better computer!

As always, I continue to assess and improve the maintenance process on my client’s computers. There are three goals I’ve been working this past month to achieve:

Transfer some maintenance tasks to the middle of the night to reduce maintenance duration at peak usage times (evenings). I’m paying some money for each of my client’s computers to automate certain weekly maintenance tasks. It’s pretty cool stuff! :)
Provide the computers with the maintenance they need at the frequency that is best for reliability and performance. Some tasks are best performed monthly with my hands and eyes, while others are best performed weekly and can be automated. So there are really two frequencies. Before now, I didn’t have the capability to do this.
Provide better reporting about maintenance tasks, their status, and any problems identified.

As a technology consultant / IT support professional / computer enthusiast, I’m always looking for ways to utilize technology to improve processes. Efficiency AND improved quality are usually the result.

I can’t wait to see how our lives are improved by technology in the future. Hopefully the Terminator version of our future won’t happen. But I know one thing for sure, there’s no stopping the advancement of information technology.

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New logo and business cards for KM Authorized

keeganmullaney — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Getting business cards ready to go out to clients, hopefully to drum up new business!

Cloud computing, a green choice? - Official Gmail Blog

keeganmullaney — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 19:59:00 -0700

This is such a great article. It describes quite simply how cloud computing saves energy versus running your own server. At KM Authorized, I love to implement cloud-based solutions whenever practical. Not only does it reduce capital costs for a small business, it can also increase reliability and productivity.

via gmailblog.blogspot.com

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Completely Hands Free Texting, Meet iSpeech | Singularity Hub

keeganmullaney — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 16:29:00 -0700

Completely hands free text messaging! Cool! Is it really much safer though? I find even attempting to communicate with technology and voice prompts makes me lose concentration on the road.

Of course, this type of hands free technology won’t be so necessary when cars drive themselves! haha.

via singularityhub.com

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Try out a new look and keyboard shortcuts for your documents list - Docs Blog

keeganmullaney — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 14:37:00 -0700

Nice! I like the unified theme across Gmail, Calendar, and Docs. The bright red buttons stand out nicely.

via googledocs.blogspot.com

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Exponential Growth of Computing | Singularity Hub

keeganmullaney — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 15:14:00 -0700

What does an exponential curve look like? Take a look at the picture below. Things are going to get very interesting in the next twenty years!

via singularityhub.com

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Google Voice Blog: Make multiple calls in Gmail

keeganmullaney — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 18:55:00 -0700

Finally! Geesh.

via googlevoiceblog.blogspot.com

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Google Voice Blog: Global SPAM filtering

keeganmullaney — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 14:02:00 -0700

So cool! Say goodbye to telemarketers calling at dinner time.

Thanks to the help of the thousands of Google Voice users who mark calls as spam everyday—and our own spam identification tools—it is now possible to automatically redirect calls, texts, and voicemails from any of the numbers in our database directly into your spam folder.

via googlevoiceblog.blogspot.com

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‪Transit Navigation (Beta) in Google Maps 5.7 for Android, Lets You Know When It’s Time to Get Off‬‏ The Train - Lifehacker

keeganmullaney — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 14:20:00 -0700

This is a long-awaited feature for public transit users. I can’t wait to try it out!

via lifehacker

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Best Graphics Cards For The Money: July 2011

keeganmullaney — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 13:27:00 -0700

If you’re in the market for a new graphics card, this is the guide to read. Tom’s Hardware does an excellent job of comparing cards at different price ranges.

Detailed graphics card specifications and reviews are great—that is, if you have the time to do the research. But at the end of the day, what a gamer needs is the best graphics card within a certain budget.

So, if you don’t have the time to research the benchmarks, or if you don’t feel confident enough in your ability to pick the right card, then fear not. We at Tom’s Hardware have come to your aid with a simple list of the best gaming cards offered for the money.

via tomshardware.com

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A preview of Gmail’s new look - Official Gmail Blog

keeganmullaney — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 23:02:00 -0700

Looking better! I like the clean look. Clutter is stressful and inefficient.

via gmailblog.blogspot.com

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Google Search with Instant Pages

keeganmullaney — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 13:41:00 -0700

via chrome.blogspot.com

Fast is good!

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Samsung Galaxy S2 is one fast Android phone.

keeganmullaney — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 22:46:00 -0700

via phandroid.com

If you have a need for speed, this is the phone for you!

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OBi110/OBi100 are making VoIP easy with Google Voice integration!

keeganmullaney — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 17:36:00 -0700

via truvoipbuzz.com

Now the OBi100 is finally in stock at Amazon.com! There’s a promo code to save $16:
HELLOOBI

The difference between the OBi100 and OBi110 is the OBi100 doesn’t have the FXO port for a land line, but most people don’t need that if it’s going to be used with Google Voice.

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Ever lost all your contacts? Gmail now has a restore feature!

keeganmullaney — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 21:30:00 -0700

Restore contacts

via mail.google.com

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Complete the Gmail Security Checklist to help protect your data and identity.

keeganmullaney — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 21:29:00 -0700

Gmail Security Checklist

via mail.google.com

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Automatic routing based on current and historical traffic now on Google Maps Navigation!

keeganmullaney — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 16:13:00 -0800

via googlemobile.blogspot.com

I’m glad to see this technology keeps getting better! Traffic jams are a pain I will deal with less often from now on!

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