We’re looking to set up an office phone line using Asterisk at Home. The latest version has added a custom SugarCRM package, allowing you to have Sugar dial out for you. Very cool feature.
Meanwhile, I ran across this hardware hack to hook a regular telephone to your computer:
GRYNX � Build your own Chat-Cord.
I’ve used Mandrake Multi-Network Firewall (MNF) as a firewall for a couple of clients. Just yesterday I had to reinstall it when the hard drive of the firewall failed after a client moved their office. While the web interface is a bit buggy, what you can do with this firewall is pretty astonishing, and a new version is coming out soon.
A couple of tips if you want to install this firewall:
Flexbeta has an article on turning a normal Mandrake installation into an MNF: Flexbeta - Setting up Mandrake 10.1 as a Firewall.
In this chapter of the book, I wrote about Mesh Networking as being the cutting edge of wide area networks. At that writing, there were a couple of proprietary mesh networking systems in place, one consisting of wireless lamp-posts in the UK.
Now the Champaign-Urbana Community Wireless Network has released an open source mesh networking distribution, that automatically configures nodes, routes traffic, and provides reliable networking without needing an Internet connection.
From the FAQ:
The service CU-Wireless nodes provide is like DSL or cable modem. There is an ethernet jack on the wireless node and your home computer plugs into that. The wireless network up on the rooftops serves a similar purpose as the telephone company’s wires and poles: it connects your node to the Internet, but without any nasty wires between the nodes!
The wireless nodes, unlike a cable or DSL modem, do double-duty: when you put a node at your house, you actually help to increase the capacity and reach of the network!
An important aspect of this network is that when you add your node to it, you become part-owner of the network. This is one of the reasons it is a community network.
Read more at Wi-Fi Networking News: CUWiN Goes Public with Open-Source Mesh System and the main web site for the project.
Wired magazine is running a story about “bluesnarfing,” the practice of sniffing out your address book or calendar, making calls with your phone, and other more nefarious activity, hijacking your phone via Bluetooth. A must read. Wired 12.12: They’ve Got Your Number
NewsForge has an interesting A peek at script kiddie culture. This story disputes many of the “security by obscurity” myths abounding in the closed source world–stating that the vulnerability exploited by the Blaster virus was known in script kiddie circles months before Microsoft claimed to discover the problem.
Serious flaws in bluetooth security lead to disclosure of personal data. Bluetooth turns out to have a number of security flaws that allow people within range to access your private data, including calendar events and contacts.
This article talks about a group that has released a way of hacking a cable modem that allows the hacker to listen to pretty much all of the traffic in the neighborhood.
Techniques like this prove you can never be sure who’s listening to your network traffic. Any sensitive web browsing or email you use should be encrypted, to prevent snooping like this.