WORDS

We commonly use words in general speaking, writing and reading. Where do they come from? What are the actual meanings of the different words? Does it make a difference which word we use?

I am not specifically discussing grammar (or being a grammar nazi), although this also plays a part in this posting, as you will see.

Generally MOST people are under the assumption (incorrectly) that as long as they talk to another human, they convey exactly what they intend to say. If one does not absolutely comprehend the meanings and use of words themselves, how can true intent be conveyed between themselves and another?

Today many of our common words are assumed to have a certain meaning, but in reality they have an original meaning that has been diluted by incorrect use by the general public or simply deferred to have another meaning over the course of time. Nothing can be further than the truth. The original intent is still there, and is meant as such when used in a legal sense throughout documentation and courtrooms. EVERY single word that is spoken, written or read has a specific meaning, and is used for a specific reason. This is absolutely true when applied to ALL legislation ("statutes", "codes" & "law(s)"), contracts, documentation and even in courtrooms. These words can mean the difference between being free, and being locked into a cage.

For example, we often are asked if we "understand". It is generally accepted to mean that we "comprehend", or have good comprehension of what is being intended by another. So why not use the word "comprehend" in the first place? Because the user is actually asking if we "submit" or "decide of our own will to agree". How can this be? Well the word "understand" is actually two single words, replaced into a different order, to "trick" the non-educated or non-enlightened person into a "contract of agreement". If you agree that you "understand", you are agreeing that you "stand under" or "submit to authority". This IS NOT semantics. This is the truth of words. DO THE RESEARCH for yourself.

I suggest to ALL that you use the actual words you intend to convey your intent, and research any that you do not comprehend, especially when it comes to anything in any legal sense, including the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States of America, as well as all other legislation.

WORDS have specific meanings, and are used specifically for a certain purpose.

Affidavit of Rescission

Public Notice APRIL 14 2014:

Affidavit of Rescission

I hereby affirm that in accordance with international commercial and contract law(s) and the Uniform Commercial Code, as a matter of fact, the UNITED STATES and all subordinate officers, agents, members, departments, agencies and subordinate governing agencies therof have not honorably offered the required full disclosure of terms of participation in any administration, program(s) or contract(s) that I as a human being or a person may have participated in whether knowingly or unknowingly, and due to this fact I further affirm that any and all such administration, contract(s) or program(s) to which I as a human being or a person may have been a party to, are now and always have been null and void, and further affirm that any prior claim of dishonor, restriction or punishment resultant from such claim of dishonor through claim of adhesion to such administration, contract(s) or program(s) shall also be null and void as if to never to have transpired, with the sole exception being honorable completion on my behalf of the ongoing contract(s) of enlistment within the armed services and the ongoing fulfillment of those contract(s) of enlistment and subsequent program(s) related thereto by the UNITED STATES as required by law upon the honorable completion of my terms of those contract(s). Furthermore, no subordinate agent, officer, member, department, agency or subordinate governing agency of the UNITED STATES may make any past or future claim of jurisdiction as I am not a party to any administration, contract(s) or program(s) offered or demanded by the same with the sole exception of the aforementioned contract(s) and/or program(s).

- Original Signature withheld to prevent spam. - 

Ubuntu Launcher Synaptic Quicklist

For those of us who use quicklists in Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric, and prefer to use Synaptic as the package manager, and have it "pinned" to our launcher, I have written a file to allow right-click access to the Software Sources and Update Manager from the launcher icon, much like one commonly used for the "Home" folder.

Simply copy code to a file named synaptic.desktop, and place in the /home/<USER>/.local/share/applications folder, log out, and log in again to enjoy quicker access!


[Desktop Entry]
Name=Synaptic Package Manager
GenericName=Package Manager
Comment=Install, remove and upgrade software packages
Exec=synaptic-pkexec
Icon=synaptic
Terminal=false
StartupNotify=true
Type=Application
Categories=PackageManager;GTK;System;Settings;
OnlyShowIn=GNOME;Unity;
NotShowIn=KDE;
X-Ubuntu-Gettext-Domain=synaptic

X-Ayatana-Desktop-Shortcuts=SU;SP;
[SU Shortcut Group]
Name=Update Manager
Exec=update-manager -c
TargetEnvironment=Unity

[SP Shortcut Group]
Name=Software Sources
Exec=gksu software-properties-gtk %u
TargetEnvironment=Unity

Welcome to the NEW home of my blog. I will be uploading the old posts from my personal blog site over the next few months with updates as well, so keep an eye out!

Windows XP, Vista, Starter 7, Trouble Connecting to wireless networks

Because I am often working with wireless networks I have discovered that Windows XP, Vista, and Starter 7 (Often found on netbooks.) will not connect to WEP wireless networks using an ascii (plain text) passkey.

I have found that the culprit is because the Windows OS refuses to encrpyt the passkey from ascii to hexadecimal format when trying to connect. The solution/workaround is to manually enter the passkey in hexadecimal format when setting up the connection.

I am unsure as to whether this also affects older versions of Windows, or that this will be corrected in future releases.

Disable and Remove Apparmor from Ubuntu Linux 7.04-8.10

AppArmor is a security extension (similar to SELinux) that should provide extended security on your Ubuntu system and it usually causes more problems than advantages. It can be removed safely and your system will remain reasonably secure, as nothing on the internet is absolutely secure. (This is a must do step if you want to install ISPConfig)

We can disable it like this:

/etc/init.d/apparmor stop
update-rc.d -f apparmor remove

And remove it with:

apt-get purge apparmor apparmor-utils

-or-

aptitude remove apparmor apparmor-utils

You may then optionally remove the apparmor & apparmor.d directories & contents from the /etc directory.

.htaccess Password Protection

On an apache web server the easiest method of simple password protection for a directory or even a single file is with the use of the '.htaccess' file.

To password protect an entire directory, in the folder that you wish to be protected create a file called '.htaccess'.

In the '.htaccess' file insert the following statements:

AuthType Basic
AuthName "Restricted Area"
AuthUserFile "/path/to/file/.htpasswd"
require valid-user

Where "/path/to/file/.htpasswd" needs to be adjusted to reflect where you will keep your password file.

You will now need to modify the '.htaccess' file so that it applies the statements to a specific file. This is done by enclosing the statements in the following tags:

<Files>
</Files>

In this example, we will protect the file 'file.html'. This is done by modifying the .htaccess statement as follows:

<Files file.html>
AuthType Basic
AuthName "Restricted Area"
AuthUserFile "/path/to/file/.htpasswd"
require valid-user
</Files>

Now we can create the password file, and add usernames and encrypted passwords. cd to the directory where you will keep the password file. (You can always move the file to its final location later, modifying paths according to where you set the AuthUserFile location in '.htaccess' file.) Note that your web directory is probably not your home directory on most commercial web hosts, although with most hosts you can use your hosting control panel to do the setup for you and configure where the files are placed automatically.

Using the shell command line, type the following command:

htpasswd -c .htpasswd username

Where username is the login name of the user you want to give access. The user name should be a single word without any intervening spaces. You will then be prompted to enter the password for that user. When this is done, the htpasswd utility creates a file called .htpasswd in the current directory.

If you have more than one user, create passwords for them as well, but using the following command for each subsequent user:

htpasswd .htpasswd another-username

Notice that this time, we did not use the "-c" option. When the "-c" option is not present, htpasswd will look for an existing file by the name given (.htpasswd in our case), and append the new user's password to that file. If you use "-c" for your second user, you will wipe out the first user's entry since htpasswd takes "-c" to mean create a new file, overwriting the existing file if present.

If you are curious about the contents of the file, you can take a look using the following command:

cat .htpasswd

Since the '.htpasswd' file is a plain text file, with a series of user name and encrypted password pairs, you might see something like the following:

billy:12kl254opJ7Y
jean:15f59N1ty5rG

This file has two users "billy" and "jean". The passwords you see will not be the same as the ones you typed, since they are now encrypted. Notice that it is username first, followed by the password. There is a handy-dandy online tool available for you to easily encrypt the password into the proper encoding for use in an '.htpasswd' file.

Before you quit, you should make sure that permissions on the file are acceptable. To check the permissions, simply type the following on the shell command line:

ls -al .htpasswd

You will see the file listing something like:

-rw-rw-rw- user group 129 .htpasswd

This means that the '.htpasswd' file can be read and written by everyone who has an account on the same server as you. The first "rw" means that the owner of the file (you) can read it and write to it. The next "rw" means everyone in the same group as you can read and write the file. The third "rw" means that everyone with an account on that machine can read and write the file.

You don't want anyone else to be able to write to the file except you, since they can then add themselves as a user with a password of their own choosing or other malicious intent. To remove the write permission from everyone except you, do this from the shell command line:

chmod 644 .htpasswd

This allows the file to be read and written by you, and only read by others. Depending on how your server is set up, it is probably too risky to change the permissions to prevent others from your group or the world from reading it, since if you do so, the Apache web server will probably not be able to read it either. In any case, the passwords are encrypted, so anyone who sees the file will hopefully not be able to decrypt the passwords.

If you have set a different directory for your password file in your '.htaccess' file earlier, you will need to move it there. You can do this from the shell command line as follows:

mv .htpasswd new/location/of/the/.htpasswd

Remember that your file does not even have to be called '.htpasswd'. You can name it anything you like. However, if you do, make sure that your AuthUserFile directive has the same directory and filename or Apache will not be able to locate it.

Testing Your Setup

Once you have completed the above, you should test your set up using your browser to make sure that everything works as intended. Upload a simple index.html file into your protected directory and use your web browser to view it. You should be greeted with a prompt for your user name and password. If you have set everything up correctly, when you enter that information, you should be able to view the index.html file, and indeed any other file in that directory.

Don't live with the illusion that password protecting directories or files with '.htaccess' can safeguard your data. Always remember:

1. The password protection only guards access through the web. You can still freely access your directories from your shell account. So can others on that server, depending on how the permissions are set up in the directories.

2. It protects directories and not files themselves. Once a user is authenticated for that folder, he/she can view any file in that directory and its descendants.

3. Passwords and user names are transmitted in the clear by the browser, and so are vulnerable to being intercepted by others.

4. You should not use this method of password protection for anything serious, such as customer data, credit card information or any other sensitive information. It is basically only good for things like keeping out search engine bots and casual visitors. Remember, your data in the directory is not encrypted any any manner using this method.