Mike Southby

After the requirement of the European Commission for Microsoft to offer a choice of browsers to its users (See Article), I noticed that Windows Update has today downloaded a small update which finally gives me the choice (not that I or anyone else of course could not have already manually changed browsers beforehand) as to which browser I prefer to use with Windows 7.

The update in question is KB976002 – Microsoft Browser Choice Screen Update for EEA Users of Windows 7.

Once downloaded and applied, the update adds an icon to your desktop (appropriately named Browser Choice) which when clicked, opens up Internet Explorer and continues to offer you a selection of alternative browsers for you to take a look at or download (the download links and appropriate links to the relevant vendor sites for information are included for convenience).  The current options are:

• Internet Explorer
• Mozilla Firefox
• Google Chrome
• Safari
• Opera
• Sleipnir
• Avant
• K-Meleon
• GreenBrowser
• FlashPeak
• Flock
• Maxthon

By clicking the Browser Choice icon and running through the options, you’ll notice that Internet Explorer is automatically unpinned from the taskbar but that it is not uninstalled (of course Internet Explorer forms an integral part of the OS and can never be fully uninstalled), although it is possible to further remove all reference to it by un-checking the Internet Explorer option by going to Control Panel > Programs and Features > Turn Windows features on or off.

I think the inclusion of this choice is a step in the right direction but I would have liked to have seen it taken a step further.  It would have been great to have seen an option to not only choose additional browsers, but the ability to define your default browser and remove reference to Internet Explorer (if that’s what you choose to do of course) all in one place.

Personally I still use Internet Explorer 8, Firefox 3.6 and Google Chrome 4 so this update has not changed anything for me but I am sure that it will have an impact on the browser trends within Europe over the coming years as more and more people come to realise that they have a choice; perhaps then Microsoft will start developing further releases of Internet Explorer to the same set of standards as other vendors in the hope that its popularity increases once again.

Discuss.

As promised, an update on where I am at with trying to get a working installation of Microsoft Office 2010 on Ubuntu.

After numerous hours spent trying various options and configurations of WINE I’m still unable to get it working.  Sure, I can get it to install but it won’t run so I can’t really call it a success.  I’ll have some time over the Christmas break so will keep trying and hopefully will have a stable solution soon; these things have a habit of ‘falling into place’ and the answer is usually staring me in the face!

My original post showing how to install Office 2007 can be found here – http://www.mikesouthby.co.uk/2009/11/ubuntu-9-10-installing-microsoft-office-2007

It’s been a while since I last posted, I caught the dreaded swine flu and have been laid up for some weeks now; whilst I don’t think it was any worse than seasonal flu, I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone, nasty stuff.  Still, I’m back now in case you were wondering where I had gone.

Being that I haven’t done much over the past few weeks I haven’t really got much to talk about, but thought I’d share some interesting facts I read last week in one of the journals I subscribe to.  The article centred on password security, something close to my heart being as I act as sysadmin for various businesses.  The article detailed some recent results which had been conducted by the Microsoft Malware Protection Centre, some of them were quite shocking actually considering the world in which we live in today and the precautions we ‘should’ be taking as sysadmins.

Microsoft essentially configured a system and invited automated attacks so that they could monitor the attacks and try to better understand the methods used.  As you will be able to see in the results, the length of the passwords is quite interesting, mainly because the average length according to the data collected is 8 characters and that’s very close to the length of the passwords that many people use for their internet accounts.

So without further ado, here are the findings.

The survey found that the longest username used was 15 characters; the longest password was 29 characters.  The average username length found in the survey was 6 characters and the average password length was 8 characters.

Here is a top 10 list with the most common user names used in the automated attacks, the number in brackets is the amount of instances found:

1. Administrator (136971)
2. Administrateur (107670)
3. admin (8043)
4. andrew (5570)
5. dave (4569)
6. steve (4569)
7. tsinternetuser (4566)
8. tsinternetusers (4566)
9. paul (4276)
10. adam (3287)

And a similar list for passwords:

1. password (1188)
2. 123456 (1137)
3. #!comment: (248)
4. changeme (172)
5. F**kyou [edited] (170)
6. abc123 (155)
7. peter (154)
8. Michael (152)
9. andrew (151)
10. matthew (151)

So what does all this mean?  Well, most importantly it says that as sysadmins we should all have strict password policies in place, users should take good care of what usernames and passwords are being chosen.  If the account has no limit on the number of login attempts (if not, why not?), then knowing the username is giving the attacker a significant head start in breaching your system.  It’s amazing how many systems I have come across that still use ‘administrator’ as a username, looking at the top 10 list of usernames used in automated attacks, I’m amazed why sysadmins do nothing about this obvious flaw in their design.  I can’t stress enough, username and password combinations should not be chosen lightly.

Usually when an end-user chooses a password, they choose something that is either easy to remember or easy to type, but we must all remember that for now at least, those passwords are also most commonly used for authentication on the internet so they really do need to be strong.

The three basic things to remember when creating a strong password are the following:

• Use a combination of letters, numbers and special characters.  Also, remember that some dictionaries have an ‘l33t’ mode, which allows common letter/number to special character substitutions (like changing a-@, 1-1, o-0 and s-$ for example password-p@$$w0rd).  Therefore they must be mixed in different ways so that they are not predictable.
• Use a combination of lower and upper case letters.
• Make it lengthy.  A longer password does not necessarily mean it will be stronger but it will help in a lot of cases.
• Random rules!

A good friend of mine has developed a simple password generating engine which is available freely by visiting http://www.random-password.net.  To check if your passwords are strong, Microsoft has a password checker which is available here.

The moral of the story is to choose the password policy wisely.  Act now, tomorrow may be too late.  I can’t stress the importance of password policies enough, I suggest all sysadmins who may stumble across this post revisit theirs as a priority.

The need to be able to conduct business whilst on the move is becoming more and more integrated into the way we go about our daily work; gone are the days when you can ignore email between point A and point B simply because you do not have access to your inbox.  For me working in the IT sector this is ever more important, I need to be able to stop the car almost anywhere and be able to remotely connect to a clients network when they need help – having to wait until I ‘get in front of my machine‘ simply is no longer an option if you want to succeed in today’s marketplace.

As you will know if you are a regular visitor to my blog, I am a huge fan of the majority of Microsoft’s products.  Perhaps it stems from the fact I chose the Microsoft career path and studied towards my MCSE and MCSA; perhaps it’s because 80% of the clients I deal with and the computers I maintain utilise Windows as their primary OS.  Either way, Microsoft – and Windows more specifically – are an integral part of my daily life.  Back on topic and moving back to my original point, the need to remain connected whilst out of the office is easily overcome when using a Windows OS, there are plenty of mobile data cards and USB data sticks now on the market, most if not all the big telecommunications providers supply them at competitive rates.  All of these products come supplied with connection software to get you connected – Windows connection software.

Now I am not saying some of them do not come with alternative software for Linux or Mac for example, if I did I’m sure I would be proved wrong but certainly the ones I have experience with (Vodafone, o2 and BT) do not.  So that leaves a problem for people who are wanting to make the switch to Linux, including the ever popular Ubuntu distribution – it may work well in the office or at home but if it doesn’t allow use whilst mobile too, why not simply use Windows?  Hardware support in Ubuntu has come on a very long way in the last few years, I remember only a year ago when I last gave Ubuntu a proper test that I was stuck when it came to using my data card.  With the Linux knowledge I had at the time, I simply could not get it to work; I’m pleased to see that Ubuntu and Linux generally have come on a long way since and now work almost as well as Windows, if not equally.

I run my ThinkPad in a dual-boot configuration, using mainly Windows 7 but also using Ubuntu as often as I can.  Today I thought I would have another go at configuring my mobile data card, sure enough I have been surprised by the ease at which the latest evolution of Ubuntu – v9.10 – handles hardware which a year ago, would have caused major headaches.

Note: For the purpose of this guide, I am using a BT mobile data stick, a rebranded Huawei E180 HSPDA USB data stick on a BT Tariff.  The contract is a 12 month plan as supplied with either BT Total Broadband or BT Business Broadband as an optional extra.

Prerequisites: I am assuming that you already have Ubuntu 9.10 installed and running and that your data card has previously been activated either by using it with the BT Connection Manager software in a Windows environment, or by activating the SIM in a Vodafone handset (BT curiously use the Vodafone network); also that the security PIN lock on the device has been disabled.

Configuring the data card for use is actually a relatively simple and pain free process:

• Plug the data stick into a spare USB slot on your machine, after a few seconds the device will be mounted automatically and on your screen you’ll see 2 icons appear for the BT software embedded into the data stick (shown as a mounted CD) and the USB storage facility of the data stick [screenshot]
• Right click on the network notification in the system tray and choose Edit Connections
• Click the Mobile Broadband tab and the Add a new connection
• You’ll be asked to choose a connection, you should only have one option HUAWEI Technology HUAWEI Mobile then click Forward
• Next choose Britain (UK) followed again by Forward [screenshot]
• On the next screen – strangely – you need to choose Vodafone as the provider and not BT Mobile, BT Mobile now use Vodafone to provide their connectivity so we choose this as a base configuration.  Click Forward
• You now need to confirm the type of contract you have followed by Forward
• Next you’ll be asked to confirm your settings [screenshot], click Apply
• Click Edit to edit your setting for the new connection you have just made and make the following changes under the Mobile Broadband tab [screenshot]:
  Number:  *99#
Username:  bt
Password:  bt
APN:  btmobile2.bt.com
Network:  (blank)
PIN:  (blank)
PUK:  (blank)
• Move onto the PPP Settings tab and click Configure Methods.  Uncheck all of the options apart from CHAP [screenshot].  Click OK
• Make sure that Allow BSD, Allow Defalte Data, User TCP Header Compression are all checked, next click on IPv4 Settings
• Ensure the drop down list is set to Automatic (PPP) [screenshot]
• Finally, change the connection name to something more suitable, I have used BT HSDPA [screenshot] but choose whatever you wish here, click Apply to confirm the settings

You have now configured you data card!

To connect simply click on the connection icon and then choose the new connection – you should now see the pop up to tell you that you are connected [screenshot].

I have not noticed any difference in connection speeds when using my data card with either Ubuntu or Windows 7; in both environments the connection seems very stable and I’m pleased with the overall connectivity.

Note:  Whilst the default settings are working absolutely fine for me, I have had previous issues with BT generally in so much as there DNS servers can often take a long time to resolve addresses; this applies both to their mobile data and Broadband services.  The actual data connection themselves are however always reliable and pretty quick.  If you find this a problem change the default DNS servers to an alternate provider, I recommend the servers provided by OpenDNS; 208.67.220.220 and 208.67.222.222 respectively.  Of course this also applies to any ISP if you find resolution is taking longer than you expected, including home broadband connections.

I hope you find this useful.  Enjoy.