Tools:

• Ubiquity 300Mw Cardbus Express
• Freedom Keychain GPS
• Backtrack 3 live cd
• kismetearth
• Bluetooth Dongle
• Laptop

These are the tools I used, I bought most of them from ebay, and I know them to work extremely well. However, there are alot of other configurations that will also work equally well. Many laptops’ internal wireless card will suffice, I use the ubiquity card because it has off-the-shelf support in 99% of linux distros and has a high sensitivity. your mileage may vary.

Chances are, if your wireless card is detected and supported in Backtrack, your good to go.

The gps I picked is extremely useful, its small and very easy to use, but you can use any number of other gps devices. I wont attempt to suggest how to begin using every gps device, you’ll have to figure that out yourself.

Introduction:

Wardriving is the wifi equivilent of chartography. There are many other names, warwalking, warcycling, war-whatever, with the exception of warchalking which is often illegal due to the use of chalk on private property. Wikipedia defines wardriving as:

Wardriving is the act of searching for Wi-Fi wireless networks by a person in a moving vehicle, using a portable computer or PDA.

One might reasonably ask why you would go out of your way to search, then log, the wireless networks in a given area. There are many reasons actually, more than I care to list, but heres a couple:

• Purely for the fun and joy of it
• To know where open and/or free access points are located, and where they are and/or are not accessible from (ie: deadzones)
• When creating a wireless network, it is often necessary to know the operating frequency, strength and/or location of other networks in the area so that signals do not interfere with each other and cause degraded performance. wardriving is very effective in this area.
• Statistical research on wireless security and the like

Naturally with anything not so well understood, often it may come to pass that people will claim this activity is illegal, in any case. I am no lawyer and make no claims that what I say here is to be considered legal council, saying that however… when you understand the technology its hard to make that argument stick.

The Basics:

Wireless access points, as part of their very function, broadcast information about themselves such that you know their name (ssid), channel (frequency) and encryption requirements (does it require a password?). This is no more than a house having its address printed outside; and detailing this information - at least in my view, is nothing more than capturing public information - willingly given by the owners. Bear in mind after all, access points can almost always be told to be in an ‘isolation’ mode where it does not broadcast these details if it so wishes. So its a choice to make this information available to the public.

In the next article I will discuss how to connect your gps, configure kismet, and get started wardriving.

I love this game, its beautiful, its action packed, and it assumes your intelligent - unlike oh, so many games out there that cater to the lowest common denominator. However! whether due to lack of sleep or sheer impatience, i found quite a few of the cutscenes tiring - too long, too boring, not enough to keep my attention.

Also, if you never played the game before, or dont know the back story, your kinda fooked. I knew it all, and still had trouble keeping track - its a very complicated story.

Still, I’m onto playing it for the third time since i bought it AND a ps3 (for that specific purpose) over the weekend its just that damn good. Get it, you wont be sorrry.

9.5/10

Since then and now I’ve basically been spending every waking moment playing the game, bar the last week or so when I’ve been desperately forcing myself to do *other things* after constantly getting msn messages and nudges with people (yes, you sarah) moaning about me STILL PLAYING GTA4.

Thats pretty much the best endorsement your gonna get from me. Playing the game to the detriment of all social life. its a humbling thought - i suspect.

Apart from the plot of the game, which in fairness i think is only *0K*. its neither bad, nor good, its enough. The online game play however is superb. For a game which only went online at the begging of its fans, and despite the fact that its such a linear single player game, its quite a feat. Theres just so many options, deathmatch, carjack, turfwar etc each with a teambased option to (team deathmatch for example); theres definitely enough to keep you occupied for ages. It certainly kept me from stuff OUTSIDE.

I thought i wouldnt be too thrilled about the game, its just another sprawling do-whatever-you-want fest, only prettier; which I would be enclined to believe had i not had that oportunity to play the game online. Its a saving grace of the game. Sure the single player is good, but nothing spectactular.

Writing this kind of article seems futile anyways, because if you havent already picked up the game (which you should!) its doubtful you will. but there you have it. I say buy the damn thing. its awesome. in parts. yeah… 7/10 says me.

Using a linux distro called BackTrack (BackTrack is the most Top rated linux live distribution focused on penetration testing) a person can gain system level access to any machine running windows Vista by following a couple of simple steps.

All you need to do is navigate to the windows directory of the machine and into the system32 folder. You then make a backup of the utility manager (utilman.exe) which is used to run the various utilities that allow people with sight problems to access a computer (screen readers etc..).

When this is backed up you rename cmd.exe to utilman.exe and reboot. When you boot up windows then and you reach the log in screen you can get the option to use the utility manager by pressing ctrl+u. Since utilman.exe is now basically cmd.exe you get a command prompt which you can now use to run explorer and thus gain system access without having to know any usernames or passwords.

This exploit apparently only works on Windows Vista and does not affect XP, 2000, 2003 and NT.

Here is a video that shows how to do it.

I wonder how long it will be before Microsoft fixes this issue.

I have asked that question so many times to so any different people in the last 24 hours and usually the answer is that they have just a vague recollection. Well if thats the case with you guys out there maybe you need a good dose of “listen carefully”. Side effects may include learning something.

Around about 17 years ago, or so the legends would have us believe, a man called Dave Browne and a few friends went to England to find their fortunes. After signing with London Records thinking theyd be the next U2 their band didnt do that hot. They cut their losses and returned home to Ireland and started going at it for themselves and made a really big name for themselves all over the country. Unfortunately though international fame, though they deserved it, didnt come to them. Of course they were big in Germany apparently but I think theyd rather play that down a bit seeing as most germans still bop to David Hasslehoff.

Anyway after a while Dave decided he’d had enough fun for now and called it a night. Dave went on to join a group known as the Flash Gits (kick ass band name imho) and for a time spent his nights playing in Lillie’s Bordello in Dublin City.

Well now its solo time. Yes Dave of PH is now going solo. In fact he released an album just today. The title is the same as the post title above. Windows to the Soul. Now thats all well and good but why is a geek related website reporting this? Wheres the microchips and the cat6 cabling. Take another spoonful of “Listen carefully” and I’ll continue.

Now the album comes in a very stylish package. Cd? Forget cds. Direct download from a website ala Radiohead? Forget that nonsense. How can you get this album? You can get it on a credit card style usb memory device. All you do is twist a bit of it to get the connector pointing out, you stick it in your machine and there you go. Not only is the album on there but its also a 1.5 gig memory stick that you can then use for whatever you like. Little things like that are what make the world go round.

If you guys want anymore details on Dave Browne and his tours and albums and whatnot check out his website.

I always become instictively suspicous about games that have a large amount of hype surrounding them, as more often than not it proves to be without substance. Add to that the recent mumourings about GTA4 issues with 60GB Playstation 3s and certain models of Xbox 360, which would apparently freeze the game after the intro; I didnt feel the urgent need everyone else must be feeling about grabbing a copy of the game….saying that however, I did manage to grab myself a copy at a ridiculously reduced price considering demand right now.

Tip: Tescos are selling them for €39.99 if you can get your hands on it; I got mine by ringing up late at night, just as they got new stock in. Dont expect that to last.

Onto the game itself: the first thing people will invariably ask, and notice of course is ‘how does it look’, to which i must say the game is absolutely gorgeous. I would never have said previous GTA games ever pushed the bar as far as graphics were conscerned - upto part [just], but not much more; GTA4 is so much more, its an absolute beauty, very much next-gen graphics with realistic water, deep shadows and a draw distance that goes on forever but best of all is the lighting effects, its stunning. The intro graphics alone are a pleasure to watch! how often do you get to say that about a game?!

Niko Bellic is a Serbian immigrant who is thirty years of age and a veteran of the Bosnian War. He has come to Liberty City to pursue the “American Dream”.

source: wikipedia

The prologue cutscene is a work of art, the music and cinematics work perfectly together as you watch Niko, the main character, on a cargo ship on making its way into Liberty City, where he arrives and meets up with his cousin, Roman. After the intro cutscene is finished, you’re left to fend for yourself in Niko’s cousins apartment, what you do from there is really pretty much upto you. I’d recommend watching the TV, its hilarious - if you liked the radio stations from previous GTA games, which you no doubt did, you’ll love the TV, its exactly the same. insane.

The first thing I noticed about the actual gameplay was how much more realistic the physics were. Niko walked and ran much more like a real person than any of his predecessors. Perhaps more importantly, the same is true of the driving experience. Its claimed that there would be no loading times for GTA IV - which is partly true I guess, there are no loading times when running or driving around, or walking in and out of a location such as Romans apartment or a Café, but there is the occasional one between missions, nothing much really.

We will be covering more of Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto in the coming days, in the meantime why not leave a comment!

BioWare technical producer Derek French revealed that Mass Effect and Spore would feature a copy protection system similar to that used for BioShock, except that it will require online authentication once every ten days.

read more at [Bit-Tech]

Three differentiate themselves from the pack right off the mark by offering both a prepay (dubbed threepay…urgh) and a subscription based service (for which im sure the marketing department were sorely disapointed, since they couldnt figure out how to inject the brand name into another already existing, perfectly usable word) which runs at approximately €25 per month and €20 per month respectively. Though it should be noted the prepay can only be topped up in increments of €10 - so you could easily find yourself with a misterious €5 credit that always just seems to hang around every second month or so. lovely.

All other providers, O2 and Vodafone, offer only a subscription based service, for which (including Three’s subscription offering) you are locked into for at least 12months. The terms vary between provider, but the concensus seems to be that if you cancel your contract within the payment period, you will be required to pay up for the rest of the year irregardless.

Heres a table of how the carriers compare:

At present I only have a Three mobile broadband device at my disposal, so it would be unfair to criticise its performance without any point of reference, however given that…. dont be fooled by the “upto 3.6Mbps” marketing. Its pure nonesense. The technology may be *capapble* of such speeds, but it certainly does not deliver - not in any way. This is as close to mobile broadband as dialup is to a highspeed T1 line. That is to say, its lightyears away. The best speed I’ve managed to reach thus far is no more than perhaps 20Kbps which is so below the advertised speed it bears repeating. Thats a whole 180 times slower than advertised, and thats the BEST speed I’ve gotten so far!

Needless to say I am hearing much of the same from all customers of all three providers, which you can of course find out for yourself with a simple Googling of the products. However with all that said, these mobile internet products are not aimed at the casual user, at least i hope not. They will adequately suit the business professional on the move who needs to grab his or her email while on the go, with some decent expectation of getting the work they want done in a reasonable amount of time. But dont expect to watch many videos, download some *cough* movies or basically do anything thats bandwidth reliant.

I have found that at least in my area of Dublin, you’ll have little luck making use of the service indoors at all. Outside you’ll find that changes drastically, for obvious reasons.

As far as I’m conscerned the idea is sound, but the execution is poor. If the advertised speed was anywhere near realistic, and if the download usage limits werent so pittifully soo 2001 (believe me, thats a looong time in technology people!) I would say that this is something that anyone with a laptop should own. But thats just not the case, as it stands today, I say unless your a business professional who has a long commute and needs that extra few minutes of work - whatever the reason - then this is ideal for you; otherwise the lackluster software provided from Three, and the poor performance leave me… well im not uspet because this was to be expected, but disapointed. can we not do better? just advertise what your going to deliver already!

UPDATE: 07-MAY-08
Reporting in from St. Annes Park. just signing in to say that thusfar the advertised coverage map is quite accurate provided the caveats mentioned earlier. Im currently connected at about 1-2Kbps, which is pretty poor, but considering where I am - a public park, its not exactly the target locale or perhaps it is, if your like me. I hope to be coming down here more often to do my write ups, with some beautiful scenery; and you know… go get out of the ig cave, which is getting danker every day.

There are a few things you’ll need to do if you want to get the most out of your Linux desktop. But don’t worry, none of this is too complicated. In fact, it’s much easier than trying to do the same on Windows or a Mac.

The first thing to do is open up the Add/Remove Programs application (Click on Applications > Add/Remove…). This is a simple manager for installing and uninstalling software on your Ubuntu system. There are literally hundreds of free goodies at your disposal here — Start with this list of essentials.

Web and Chat

Ubuntu ships with Firefox 2, but it never hurts to have an alternative like Opera around. And make sure to go ahead and install the Flash player so you won’t have any problems with YouTube and other Flash-heavy sites.

If you’d like to live on the bleeding edge, Firefox 3 offers a new visual theme that integrates very nicely with the Gnome desktop. You won’t find Firefox 3 in Add/Remove programs yet, but you can download it from Mozilla and follow UbuntuGeek’s instructions to get it up and running. Tombuntu has some advice for installing Firefox 3 beta 3.

For BitTorrent downloads, our personal favorite is Deluge, a Gnome app that’s a bit like Azureus, but doesn’t use Java. If you’re a KDE fan, kTorrent is your best bet. You can also run a Windows copy of µTorrent through Wine if you want — many swear it’s still the fastest Torrent app on Linux.

Chatting in Ubuntu happens through Pidgin, a very nice multi-protocol chat client (formerly known as Gaim) that can handle just about any chat service you’re likely to be a member of. However, if Pidgin’s not your cup of tea, there’s also the KDE app Kopete.

Multimedia

While the default audio player that ships in Ubuntu will do just fine, you may as well grab the king of digital music on any platform — Amarok. It’s like iTunes with Wikipedia and Last.fm stashed away inside it, and it’ll never sell you DRM.

If you’re planing to copy and burn DVDs you’ll want to have a look at K9copy. Yes, it’s a KDE app, but it will run in Gnome without too many dependencies and it strikes a nice balance between no-need-to-tweak default settings and not too hard to tweak if you’re in the mood power features.

For movies we recommend having both MPlayer and VLC around, between the two of them you should have most everything covered. We also like the Miro video player, which isn’t in the Ubuntu Repositories, but there’s a very simple install guide on the Miro site. It’s especially worth the effort since you can subscribe to its great Ubuntu channels with video tutorials galore.

Also make sure to install the various GStreamer plugins, which will handle most video codecs — from mpeg to DivX, the GStreamer collection should have you covered.

Enabling DVD Playback

For legal reasons, Ubuntu Linux does not ship with the ability to decrypt and play the video files that live on most commercial DVDs. Unfortunately, the libraries we need aren’t available through the package manager either, which means we’ll need to use the Terminal (Click on Applications > Accessories > Terminal). But there’s no need to panic, this is only time you’ll really need the command line and it’s only two lines of code.

Just open up a new terminal window and type:

sudo apt-get install libdvdread3

Ubuntu will ask for your password and then download the package. Now you just need to install it with this line:

sudo /usr/share/doc/libdvdread3/install-css.sh

That’s it. Now your DVDs should play back without any trouble. However, Totem, the default media player in Ubuntu isn’t all that great. We suggest replacing it with the Video LAN Client (VLC). If you haven’t already added VLC, which was covered in the previous section, just head to Add/Remove Programs and search for VLC. Check the box, hit Apply and you’re done.

To make the newly installed VLC player the default option, just click the System menu and navigate to Preferences > Removable Drives and Media. That’ll open a new window where you’ll see a Multimedia tab. Click that tab and look under the “Video DVD Discs” section. You should find a text box which reads: “totem %m.” Just replace “totem” with “vlc” and you’re done.

Desktop Effects

Although certainly not necessary for getting the most out of Ubuntu, the visual candy of Compiz adds some welcome bling to your desktop. As of Gutsy Gibbon (7.10) Ubuntu ships with Compiz installed. There are three default settings (under System > Preferences > Appearance) which offer varying degrees of visual effects.

If you’d like more control, just fire up Add/Remove Programs and search for the Advanced Desktop Effects Settings. Check the box to install and head back to the Appearance panel where you should now see a fourth option — Customize.

Click on Customize and you’ll be able to fine tune Compiz until you achieve total desktop nirvana.

Accessories

The Install/Remove program manager offers a huge list of applications available for your system. Here’s some of our suggestions:

• Microsoft Core Fonts - This will install a number of Microsoft TrueType fonts which will greatly improve the readability of your system.

• Glipper - A clipboard manager that allows you to step backward in time through your cut-n-paste actions and retrieve bits of text.

• Flickr Uploader - An easy way to get your images into Flickr, the online photo-sharing app.

But now that I know the joys of computing I can safely say that out of everything Ive tried so far… Windows operating systems are the number one system for all the masochistsout there. Thats why I decided to switch to a flavour of linux.

Ok so I didnt go all fancy and get the latest version of the most obscure build anyones ever heard of. I decided to keep it simple. Im new to the whole linux thing so why not try out Ubuntu. All my friends (tech savvy friends that is) say its great. Lets give it a try.

Well when I was using Windows XP on my laptop (Yay i changed before being subjected to Vista on my machine. Used it on others unfortunately) the thing ran awful slow. Ya see i had gotten a virus and even after removing every possible trace of it the slowness remained. I put up with it for a few weeks then said fudge this and  nuked the drive Low level format style (After backing up the data of course).

In order to bring my laptop back to life the magical ubuntu cd was taken from its cardboard cover and slipped into the CD drive and when it started spinning and my monitor spat out the logo at me i knew it was time for some fun.

Now when i started using PCs properly I was using windows 98. I upgraded to Windows ME and was sadly disappointed by it. Then came 2000 which was better but still lacking. XP came along and now things seemed to be getting back on track but then Vista broke onto the scene and all hell broke loose again. With that kind of pattern in mind I was expecting Ubuntu to be nothing special and to most it may seem that way but to me it was very interesting indeed.

Everyone knows the trouble ya have to go to setting up a new machine and installing all your favourite programs. with Ubuntu you simply fire up the Synaptic Package Manager select what ya like and tell it to work away while you make yourself a cup of tea. The ease with which this is done is still one of my favourite things about the OS.

One other thing i like about Linux is the security. I never knew what everyone meant when they spoke about root and why it was so important. I didnt know why my OS was telling me that I needed to be root to install such and such a program or to update virus signatures or get firewall updates and the like. I thouhgt “But these arent risky things” but i was wrong. The simple things we tend to take for granted can cause the craziest of problems if left alone. Which makes the forced existence of a super powerful “God” account known as root very handy indeed.

Of course I have just begun to scratch the surface of what Linux has to offer so I’ll cut it short for now. I will be doing a series of articles on Linux and my experiences wth it as i mess around with it more. I will leave with one tip though.

Programs beginning with K are pretty nice. So if ya install Ubuntu get rid of pidgin and get Kopete. Much nicer.