USB flash drive portable browsers

Have you ever been some place other than your home on your computer? If your answer is anything other then yes, you need to stop being a computer hugging hippy and go outside, get a whif of some fresh air, step on some dog crap and accidently run over a cat. It’ll do you some good. Anyways, have you visited someone somewhere and while using his/her/its computer, you realized you didn’t know a password because it was saved on your browser, or you wanted to show your friend that one cool website with the non-Asian ninjas, but it was in your bookmarks, or you wanted to use an extension you had installed on your browser that got rid of homosexual ads? Well you can. It’s called portable browsers, a.k.a a browser on your USB drive.

If you use Mozilla Firefox, which I highly recommend, you can download the portable browser hiya: I’m a link.

If you’re an apple fanboy or just like safari, you can download it’s portable version hiya: I’m a link too.

If you use Internet Explorer, you must have some sort of brain blockage and need to fall off a cliff.

Some great features of these portable browsers are:

• you can take your bookmarks with you
• although probably not a good idea, for those of you that happen to always kill the braincells holding your passwords, you can take the saved one’s with you
• take all your extensions with you
• keeps your information stored on the flash drive instead of the computer you are using

Yummy!

School of Hack part-1

You never ask, “How do I become a hacker?” and you never say “I am a hacker.” Nowadays, you will run into countless YouTube Videos and blogs regarding “hacking.” I’m glad to hear Mr. Cracker’s first few episodes focused on what is a hacker and how does one hack. However, there are many stories that can be credited for tainting the term, like an incident in Los Alamos in 1982.


Webster’s dictionary defined a hacker as an expert at programming and solving problems with a computer. Hackers have otherwise been known as computer geeks or computer wizards; up until the word was tarnished by ruthless wizards that illegally gained access to systems and tamper with information. To this day, the word hacker is used to describe these geniuses that can force their way into an operating system and manipulate data. The term hacker derived from the reference to programmers “hacking away” at the bits and bytes. Since it takes an experienced hacker to gain unauthorized entrance into a secure computer to extract information and perform some prank or mischief at the site, the term has become synonymous with “cracker” or “blackhat”, a person who performs an illegal act. A technical professional that is paid to break into a computer system in order to test its security is called “Pentester” for Penetration Tester.


True hacking, is a culture of these programmers and pentesters that understand code and network security. To become one, is to be called one by an expert. If your friends proclaim you a “hacker” because you brute forced into an account in front of them, unless you wrote the algorithm, you are nothing but a “script kiddie”. If you wrote a program that is useful to the network security and you shared with the community and pentesters or system admins recognize your talent, then you are on your way.


But what is the way, you may ask. I will have to say, it’s a long way. It doesn’t happen overnight, and it doesn’t happen after reading this article of listening to every Mr. Cracker’s podcasts. Yet, there are certain steps you must follow, and I will elaborate in the articles to come. Let me get you started with the basics. A Hacker is a Programmer. Yes, not a MSCE or a CCNA but a programmer. Programming is a THE fundamental skill for hacking. I am a programmer. I began developing software over 10 years ago. I’m not the best, but I recommend you start by learning a language called Python. DO NOT start with a GUI based programming language like Java, or even Visual Basic or C#. Start with Python (http://www.python.org/) for two reasons. One, it’s free and powerful and two, it works on multiple platforms, i.e Windows or Linux. The importance of Linux is for another subject. Stick to semi-colon languages “;” like Perl and PHP, the object will be to move onto C and C++. It is best recommended in this subject that you learn or know all of the mentioned: Python, Perl, PHP, C and C++.


Utilize documentation provided on their site to learning Python. You would have to teach yourself in the next few days, months or years to be strong at that language. Then you can move onto another language, and it would become easier to learn once you understand data structuring and variables, etc. Hacking is the ability to use those languages and applying them to solve your problems. As you learn, keep in mind you are practicing how you think and you’re not really focusing on a particular language.

School of Hack

I’m glad to have seen a positive response on the first part of this series. Before I elaborate in programming in python or other hacking languages, I want to discuss with you the second important skill in hacking. In case you have not guessed it, if you want to become a hacker, you need know an Open Source UNIX operating system.

Can you hack in Windows?  Yes. Windows is a good operating system, and you can install Python and run programs in C on Windows. But Windows is not Open Source. Windows is distributed in binary, in other words, you can only install Windows and not change nor manipulate the code of the operating system (OS). An open source OS has the option to download the source code and contribute to it by programming features, utilities or tools for it. There are two lessons to be thought in this here skill today, and they go hand in hand. One, if you want to be a hacker, you have use and contribute to the Free and Open Source Software (FOSS). This is a cultural trait. You can contribute in such a community as SourceForge, where you can download and develop FOSS. Hackers share software with their community, they test FOSS they didn’t program, write documentation for it, debug it, and eventually, write their own open source software. That is one reason why hackers use a FOSS UNIX Operating System. There are different variants of UNIX or UX operating systems, free or proprietary such as AIX, BSD, Solaris, SCO, HP-UX and the most popular, Linux, which leads us to the second lesson.

UNIX has been the operating system for scientist by scientists. It goes without saying, that hacking is a science. In the days before the Mac OS and Windows, UNIX was king and in the 1970’s, UNIX creators at Bell Labs, provided the source code to the OS to be taught in universities or enhanced by researchers. A US born professor at Vrije University in Amsterdam wrote his own UNIX (MINIX, or Minimal UNIX) and provided the 12,000 lines of C and Assembly code when you bought his book “’Operating Systems: Design and Implementation” by Andrew S. Tanenbaum. MINIX was created to teach university students how an operating system works. One student, Linus Torvalds, took the source code provided by the book in floppy disks, programmed a kernel, and according to his newsgroup post on compo.os.minix took “feedback on things people like/dislike in minix” and programmed “features most people would want”. As he shared it with the online community, like a good hacker boy that he was, it gained a lot of attention and within one month of releasing Linux 0.01 (or Linus UX) on the Internet, many hackers contributed to 0.02. Eventually Linux grew into the hundreds of Linux distributions today.

There are other Free OSS UNIX operating systems around that are used for hacking, these include FreeBSD and OpenSolaris. However, the importance to becoming a good hacker is to understand UNIX and how it works on the Internet. To do so, one must know the UNIX and Internet Fundamentals. The question here is now, what do you want read about next: should I contribute in detail on programming Python, or would you rather me show you the different ways to run Linux, including Live Distro, virtual or full installation or running Linux off a network. My next part of this series will depend on the reader, this is subliminally training you to a hacker lessons learned, contribute to this by commenting, and you’re on your way to becoming a hacker.

Write for CyberCROW

Would you like to earn a few bucks by writing about what you know? Well, now you CAN! I will pay $1.00 whole dollars via PayPal for every article that you submit and possibly more depending on the content. That’s a free Subway one dolla’ foot long! But the article must be:

• original content
• related to security/hacking
• proper grammar ( I’m not going to be doing proofreading)
• the article must NOT be plagiarized! I’m not stupid so those of you that think you can fool me can go (insert profanity here).

In return for your article you will get:

• $1.00 and possible more depending on the content
• a link to your website on the post
• and depending on how much and how many times you contribute, you may get free access to some of my upcoming hacking products

Did you learn something new recently? If so, put it on paper, write up a guide/tutorial and send it in. Acting on the information you learn is the best way to learn and keep it in your head!

To submit your articles, email me at (cybercrow_team@yahoo.com).

This page will always be here, watching you, whispering in your ear in a creepy-like fashion “Write for me…”. You can’t escape it, accept it. Write for it. Write for us.

Installing Python on Linux

I’m back. Being that summer was in session, let’s say school was out, and I disappeared for a while doing some stuff for business purposes. So last time I wrote, School of Hacks – Part 2, I emphasized the use or learning and understanding a UNIX/Linux Operating System. Based on the feedback, it goes without saying that learning Python is a popular response to learn next.

I plan to get you started on the right foot and in doing so, I anticipate we will program a strong password generator. The very first lesson of course, is this lesson: Installing Python on Linux. In part 2 of this series, I described the the meaning behind Linux distributions, most Linux distributions come with Python installed. However, I will show you how to install Python on Debian and Fedora Linux. I chose these two distributions because they are the two major distros other systems are based on. Ubuntu, Knoppix, Linspire and others are Debian based while Fedora is RPM based just as Mandriva, SUSE and all Red Hat versions.

RPM Based Python installation

• Boot up your favorite RPM based Linux ditro, I’m using Fedora.
• Go to the Python for Linux RPM page at http://www.python.org/download/releases/2.4/rpms/
• Download the Binaries for Fefora Core 3, they are i386 RPM
• When the download is complete, open a console and go to the python-2.4.2.4….. file
• Make sure you have root access, otherwise type the following commands

localhost:~$ su

Password: [enter your root password]

• Type in the following command

• rpm -1 python2.4-2.4-1pydotorg.i386.rpm

• you should get a message, to read message

cat /var/spool/mail/root | less

• You should be able to start Python by typing Python on the console. This command can also be used prior to installation or to see the Python version currently installed.

Debian based systems could also already be pre-installed with Python. However, if need be, installing on a Debian based system might be a little easier.
Debian Based Python installation

• Boot up your favorite Debian based ditro, I’m running Debian 5

• Open a console and make sure you have root access, otherwise type the following commands

localhost:~$ su

Password: [enter your root password]

• Type in the following command

localhost:~# apt-get install python

• Do you want to continue? [Y/n] Y

• At this point, you should be able to start Python on the console on a Debian based system.

Although this covers a broad range of distributions, the categories of Linux distributions also include Gentoo, a portage package distro.

• Start up Gentoo
• Download the Python ebuild
• Reference the Gentoo Python Developers Guide

If you can go to a console, and  type:

python <enter>
1+1 <enter>

you should see and answer of 2, if so, you have properly installed Python on Linux and this should get you started in programming Python.