When you run DNSQuery Sniffer for the first time you will shown the available network adapters in your computer, including virtual host components presented as a separate network cards. Your initial choice of capture options will be set as default, to change them later on you will have to access Options>Capture Options or click F9, there are shortcuts to access many of the functions.

DNSQuery Sniffer capturing DNS queries

I recorded my DNS queries while on a VPN and it worked perfectly well. A VPN encrypts data in transit over the Internet but recording takes place before DNS queries leave the router. Another use for this program could be for a system administrator to spy on network users, if you are using a portable VPN on an Internet Cafe, DNSQuery Sniffer is one of the many tools a computer admin can deploy to monitor in real time at what sites you are visiting.

Some of the details recorded include Host name and port (for example: pagead2.googlesyndication.com:54630), DNS query time stamp, request time and response time, reverse DNS lookup, IPv6 server address, destination IP address and many others. I noticed that most of the requests only show hostname and port, itemised displayed details will depend on what server you visit.

While I was recording outbound queries on my computer I was able to see Google Adsense and Facebook queries created by the plugins embedded in the website I just visited. Logs can become huge within a couple of recording hours, they can be exported as CSV/XML or HTML file and import them into a spreadsheet for processing.

This tool will be useful for system administrators. Home users without logging needs might prefer to troubleshoot DNS problems with another freeware called DNS Benchmark.

Visit DNSQuery Sniffer homepage

For example, the Bing search engine is included in the list of PRISM websites along with all other Microsoft owned websites because Microsoft was named in the leaked NSA documents listing partner companies.

Dark Side Of Prism Firefox addon

This addon is a good way to remind yourself that you are being spied on at all times on the Internet and it will also play Pink Floyd’s aural prism “Dark Side Of The Moon” album while it shows the PRISM logo, different tracks will play on different sites. The looped music can get a little over your head as there is no way to mute it other than leaving the site, Dark Side of the Prism will force you to close the tab and go to an alternative company or you will get stuck with annoying music and a scary black logo.

The source code is available for review in case you are paranoid and suspect this addon could be another NSA invention to spy on people.

Visit Dark Side of The Prism addon

Combined with a shell account the Secure Shell Chrome extension could be used to bypass Internet filtering. With sparse Linux command line knowledge it is possible to launch the Lynx browser in the remote server and access filtered websites, or use the Alpine email client or irssi IRC client within the shell.

Chrome Secure Shell SSH

SSH server login might be accomplished with the traditional username and password or the much more secure digital certificate authentication system, this makes credentials theft very laborious. You can change shell settings like font size, cursor blinking and font colouring with some tinkering and spending time reading Secure Shell help file.

A few native terminal features missing are X11 forwarding, SFTP to upload or download files, Syslog (data logging for auditing) and you can’t call multiple terminals but you could obtain a background process running in the shell account with the screen command for multi tasking.

It would not make sense to have this extension in a Linux computer, since all Linux OS come with a terminal. Windows users are the ones who should be thankful that there is no need to install CygWin any more in their computer, Secure Shell brings simple Unix access to the browser,

Visit Chrome Secure Shell

The password you used for encryption is stored in the built-in Contact Book which is also encrypted, to start a secure chat session the password is shared with other participants, when someone with iCrypter installed clicks on an incoming message decryption will initiate automatically.

iCrypter Apple iOS encryption

iCrypter uses symmetrical cryptography implementing the Advanced Encryption Standard 256-bit algorithm, a US National Security Agency algorithm approved to secure top secret information. Data encryption takes place in your phone before being transmitted, there is no central server that could be wire tapped to read your messages or any kind of backdoor subverting the software.

To protect your information if the device is lost or stolen, a self-destruction function called “Fail Safe” will wipe all iCrypter content, bookmarks and settings, overwriting data with the US Department of Defence 5220.22-M E method after entering the grid application password wrong five times. The encryption algorithm source code put in action by iCrypter can be downloaded and is available for inspection.

This is an effortless encryption app to operate, with an easy to navigate interface, the only downside is that people you communicate with needs to have iCrypter installed too and the app is not available for Android, this leaves lots of your friends out of secure communications.

Visit iCrypter homepage

File encryption will preserve timestamps and associate .enc files with the utility, the password manager can classify data inside coloured folders and back everything up exporting it to an encryped .pwv file that can be later imported back or save it unencrypted to an .xml file, a standard format to import data into other applications like a different password manager.

Secret Space Encryptor Android

You will find other embedded privacy utilities like a clipboard cleaner, algorithm benchmark or customizable password generator. The software is very complete and open source, giving you some guarantee against backdoors, amazingly this free app has no advertisements or nagging screens, this a very easy to use encryption tool, the software is available for Windows, Android, Linux and Mac OS X, there is a java version of the program that runs on any OS with Java installed.

Visit Secret Space Encryptor homepage

There is no need to install any software for the user, Lahana can be used in Mac OS X, Windows, iPhone and  Android, it should work on any device with  a built in IPSEC client able to set up an L2TP VPN tunnel,. VPN node credentials can be publicly shared or only given to trusted individuals. The developer’s explanation to use Tor as exit node instead of Amazon servers IP is to protect the operator running a VPN on Amazon EC2 from abuse, if anyone commits a crime with the a Lahana VPN it would lead back to a Tor IP address and not the VPN operator. Lahana VPN sits in the middle in between the user and Tor in the form of User>>Lahana VPN>>Tor>>Website.

Lahana VPN Tor proxy on Android phone

Lahana nodes also serve as bridges and can be used to access hidden Tor websites, the more Lahana VPN nodes there are up, the faster the Tor network gets. This tool solves the Internet censorship problem but not privacy or anonymity, it would very easy for a Lahana VPN operator to log your computer IP and see what sites you visit and capture usernames and passwords, for high Internet anonymity you should only use Tor.

Visit Lahana homepage

Firefox Portable Private Browsing PortableAppsfox

After trying Portableapps Private Browsing app I found few advantages over configuring your Portable Firefox browser yourself, other than saving time. The app could also be improved disabling the default setting of sending data to Mozilla about your browsing “so that they can improve your experience“, with the actual configuration you will be prompted about what you want to do, another setting that should have been changed are the default Google and Yahoo search engines, the app would be better off unfolding non tracking search engines like StartPage or DuckDuckGo, you can change them yourself but it fails Private Browsing aim of reducing privacy configuration to zero.

The only unique features this app appear to have are that it will ignore local plugins, for example, if the computer you are working on has Java and Flash installed, the plugins will not work with your portable browser, and Firefox portable will not store a profile listing what sites you visited. Check out my list of the best Firefox addons for computer privacy if you need ideas to set up a custom private browser and add them yourself manually.

Visit Private Browsing by Portableapps

A small window opens when you click on the OTR button, big enough to write a few hundred words, photos can not be attached, they have to be taken with the computer camera.

Off The Record browser plugin self-erasing messages

This is a very basic plugin in features and security, not suitable for high privacy, anyone can take a screenshot or photo of the message and preserve it, it will only be of real benefit to avoid exposing personal messages by accident by keeping them off email services that archive all conversations, e.g. Gmail. Off The Record browser plugin target public are company workers who don’t want the boss to learn what they are gossiping about in the office, it could do the trick for that purpose, but it will not keep a very determined boss or IT administrator from learning what messages are being exchanged, a packet sniffer is all someone would need to spy on you since there is no mention of encryption anywhere in OTR specifications.

You should not confuse this plugin with the excellent Pidgin OTR plugin for Instant Messenger, they both have the same name but are very different.

Visit Off-The-Record homepage

When you first run the app it will ask you where you would like to store the data and shown backup progress when you tap the “Show Status” bar at the bottom of the screen, you can schedule backups daily, weekly or monthly at an specified time and never have to remember again backing up your data, if you are backing up online to Dropbox, to avoid huge mobile phone bills choose the option “Wi-fi only” inside the settings.

truBackup Android encrypted backup

All data is encrypted with AES256, the app can do incremental backups, saving you time by only copying those files that have changed since the last backup, logs and reports show you what has been copied and how much space you are using, what I liked most of this app was its simple interface and being able to encrypt data prior to copying it, there are more complete Android data backup apps with built-in encryption like Titanium Backup but it is considerably more expensive.

If you want to encrypt and back up your Android data for free you could use Wuala, but it will only work online linked to a Wuala account.

Note: truBackup currently costs $2.99

Visit TruBackup homepage

After signing up for the game you will be named a Combatant and asked to join the country you wish to fight for, each country can have many teams comprised of in between a minimum of five hackers and no more than ten. Teams can ally with each other to defend and attack a Fortress, members of the hacking team will have to safeguard their server while being on the offensive, when a user breaches another team Fortress the points go to the whole team. There will be a Hall of Fame with prizes for the most skilled hackers.

In this Capture The Flag contest the team’s server will run all major Internet services like SMTP, IMAP, FTP, one Content Management System with plugins for social media, embedded video and others, two different Internet browsers, three web applications and two different databases, part of your job will be to secure all of them.

Hacking game Capture The Flag CTF365

The game first campaign will mimic a National Agency network where you can play offensive security attacking their servers, as part of the attack strategy, you can DDoS another players virtual servers if you wish so, just like in real life. There is a CTF365 IRC server accessible from within the game, you can use it to find other players and start building your team or join others. There are only two rules, one, do not use the infrastructure to carry out real hacking attacks against non players, and rule two is do not launch a distributed denial of service against the game servers, if you break any of those rules your account might be terminated.

Capture The Flag is a superb way to get real hands on experience for penetration testers and sys admins defending their network, anyone with interest in computer security will benefit of this game emulating real life hacking scenarios, the aim is to have hundreds of targets in virtual machines that can be attacked at any time and for Capture The Flag to last a full year, there are future plans to offer Infosec companies the possibility to set up their own CTF contest to train students.

Note: You can get early access to the game referring five friends.

Visit Capture The Flag CTF365