Does your Gmail account hacked yesterday ??? who knows

You knows !!! Gmail is considered as one among the best email services today, so people are using it for both business and personnel usage. Then comes the issue of security that protects the mails in your inbox. Make sure that your gmail account is safe and open to you only. Google offers activity information mechanism for finding weather your gmail account is hacked or not. Its simple.., you don't need to be a geek. This post will help you to identify weather someone else is accessing your inbox.

Navigate to the bottom side of the gmail inbox. I just pinned the snapshot of mine here. Check for the line starting with the sentence 'Last account activity : x hours ago at IP x.x.x.x'. There you can find a link labeled 'Details'. Click their to see the log information on your gmail inbox and make sure that you are the only one used that account.

Make sure that the IP addresses listed are the same ones that you used. Check the country, date, time and access type also, and identify weather it matches with your usage. Once i have seen a log from a different ip address on my gmail's log. It appeared to be one from Aisanet's network. (That was a my first experience of being hacked). Later i found it was not an accidental one. This unwanted access was from an  internet cafe once i used 2-3 days before the hazard, and what really happened was i really forgot to logout from my gmail account when i quit the cafe. If you feels the same, then understand this is the right time to change your google account's password. Do it  now itself, else you may be the next victim. Changing the passwords frequently is always refered as the best methode to escape from hacks and unwanted access to your personals kept on internet...

Finding ip adress of your machine

If you dont want to go technical just visit the website tracemyip to know your ip address and related details.  

If you are a unix guy, use the ifconfig command on the terminal to know your ip. The field shown as 'inet addr' corresponding to your mode of connection (eth, wlan, ppp) is the ip.

and, If you are windows guy, use the dos command ipconfig in the command prompt window to view your ip. 


Note :

• Ip address may not be the same for every time you connects, if you are not using a static connection.. 

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How to change dns address in Windows

 The domain name servers plays a big role in the case of world wide web. It converts the human understandable URLs or host names such as google.com or yahoo.com into machine understandable IP addresses. It is very important to select the best DNS server from a list of available ones since the right selection will reflect in the browsing speeds. Actually when an internet user types some url and hit the enter key, the  role of dns server (usually provided by the correspponding internet service provider for example bsnl or vodafone ) comes into effect. 

The dns server converts the hostname to the corresponding IP address and returns the IP back to the browser.Usually the dns server uses tables to store the hostname and ip, also a domain naming system is also implemented as a distributed system. 

Leave the theories ... lets findout the best dns server that suits you and change the your default dns value to the best one that is more fast and reliable using the following steps...

Before that, the public and free dns address available are 

google public dns
8.8.8.8
8.8.4.4

opendns
208.67.220.220
208.67.222.222

dns advantage
156.154.70.1
156.154.71.1

others
209.244.0.3
209.244.0.4

1. Use the ping command to find the dns server with less average RTT (round trip time).

Take the command prompt and use the average value of round trip time in the ping command to spot the best dns address. Check the figure.

  > ping <dns address here>

  

2. Replace the default dns address with the new one

Take 'Network and Sharing Center' from the control panel. Select the 'Manage Network Connections' from the left side panel. Select the connection and right click to select the 'Properties' from the menu.

Select the TCP/IPv4 under the Networking tab and click the 'properties' button to change its properties. 

Inside the TCP/IPv4 properties click on the 'Use following DNS server' and add the DNS server address there as shown in the image below.

If the connection is already active you may have to restart the connection to make the changes take into effect. 

That's all about the configuration. From my personal experience google's public dns addresses are fast and reliable than the others. Almost a lion's share of time i spend on internet is usually with google related sites such as google search engine, analytics, blogger... The method for changing the dns address in Ubuntu linux is explained in the post linked here

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python xmlrpc : a simple client server connection mechanism with greater possibilities

A byte of theory . . .

XML-RPC is a Remote Procedure Call method that uses XML passed via HTTP as a transport. With it, a client can call methods with parameters on a remote server (the server is named by a URI) and get back structured data. This module supports writing XML-RPC client code; it handles all the details of translating between conformable Python objects and XML on the wire.

A byte of surprise . . .

Here the xmlrpc library of the python does the magic, by leaving the  programmer give maximum attention to logic by freeing him from the concepts of the sockets, binding, listening, accepting, etc ... which are the primary constraints while developing a  network based program. Remote Procedure Call (RPC) mechanism allows the client to call any function defined and registered as 'remote' in the server.

A byte of reality . . .

xmlrpc library offers communication between the client and server in such a way that, we can define functions in one machine (say a server) and access those functions from the other machine (say a client). Here the communication occurs in two ways.
    >< client calling the remote server function can 

           pass arguments to it. So the server recieves this 

           arguments 
   ><  Server can transport some data as the return 

           value of the function that the client called

A byte of practical . . .

    Inorder to make the client and server communicate together we need to create the server object and client object with the ip and port of the server. Here i am running the client and server on the same machine. You can replace 127.0.0.1 in sample code with the ip of the server where you need to connect the clients. Port should be greater than the 1024.

server program

   import xmlrpclib
   from SimpleXMLRPCServer import SimpleXMLRPCServer
   def add(a, b) :
         return a+b
   server=SimpleXMLRPCServer(("127.0.0.1",9009))
   server.register_function(add)
   server.serve_forever()

In server program we have to create the object of the server with a method called SimpleXMLRPCServer() with parameters as ip and port. Then the function has to be registered inorder to access it remotely. The serve_forever() function is used to put the server wait for the client request infinitely.
client program

    

    import xmlrpclib
    server = xmlrpclib.ServerProxy('http://127.0.0.1:9009')
    a=input("No 1: ")
    b=input("No 2: ")

    result = server.add(a,b)
    print "Result  :  "+result

In the client program we will use the ServerProxy() method to specify the details(port, ip) of the server which is having a function named add() which can be called remotely. So two integers a,b are passed as parameters to the remote function. Remote function calculates the sum and returns the result to the called function.

I felt this xmlrpc library as the most awesome mechanism provided by the python. It makes the programming to the very simplest extent so that the users can give maximum attention to developing logic, instead of worrying about the networking constraints and errors related to it...

 

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How to assign an IP address in Ubuntu using command line

Computers may be assiged a static IP address or assigned one dynamically. Typically servers and institutions will use a static IP which will not change each time u get connected. Workstation will use Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) for IP address assignment. It is more easily to find a system if the IP address does not change and is static.


Use the Command Line:

    /sbin/ifconfig eth0 192.168.10.12 netmask 255.255.255.0 broadcast 192.168.10.255                  

 
The ifconfig command does NOT store this information permanently. Upon reboot this information is lost. Manually add the network configuration to /etc/network/interfaces  as shown in my next post .

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IP Configuration in Ubuntu

Here is a howto about the configuring ip using networking related files in Ubuntu / Debian systems.

File: /etc/network/interfaces
    This file contains network interface configuration information  for the ifup and ifdown commands. This is where you configure how your system is connected to the network.

Three important Interfaces are:

        # lo: Loopback interface (it is an internal 

            networking mechanism. It is used to

            test applications...)
        # eth0: First ethernet interface card
        # wlan0: First wireless network interface

Use following command to edit the interfaces file

$ sudo gedit /etc/network/interfaces

Add one or more of the stanzas below 

    Static IP example:
    auto lo
    iface lo inet loopback

    auto eth0
    iface eth0 inet static
            address 208.88.34.106
            netmask 255.255.255.248
            broadcast 208.88.34.111
            network 208.88.34.104
            gateway 208.88.34.110
                   

    Dynamic IP (DHCP) example:
    auto lo
    iface lo inet loopback

    auto eth0
    iface eth0 inet dhcp

    auto eth1
    iface eth1 inet dhcp

    auto eth2
    iface eth2 inet dhcp

    auto ath0
    iface ath0 inet dhcp

    auto wlan0
    iface wlan0 inet dhcp
                   
    Lines  beginning with the word "auto" in the interfaces file are used to identify the physical interfaces to be brought up when ifup is run with the -a option.  (This option  is  used by the system boot scripts.)  Physical interface names should follow the word "auto" on the same line.

GUI Network Tools:

    * NetworkManager or wicd can be used as the GUI tools for the network management. Better use wicd network manager if you have to rely more upon the wireless internet than the wired ones.

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How to connect Windows XP to Ubuntu over LAN cable

                 This post is all about connecting Ubuntu and Windows system using a LAN cable for sharing data between them . . . A LAN cable is a preferable mechanism for sharing files in a good speed in the range of Mbps.

Connection requirements :
        LAN cable
        Ubuntu linux with Samba (or any other file sharing application)
        Windows machine

Connect LAN cable to both of the systems. On connecting both the Windows and Ubuntu try to connect automatically between each other.

Now follow the steps below... 

Configuring the Linux system

1.  Right click on the Network manager icon on the top sidebar. Select 

     "Edit  connections".

2.  Under the "wired" tab on the pop up Network connections window choose the

     "add" button to add a new connection.

3.  Make changes in the opened window as in figure

        # specify the connection name as u like. I call it "Ubuntu XP network"

        # Check the connect automatically box enabled
        # Click on the IPv4 settings
            * Click on the methode field and choose "Manual"
            * Click below the address feild and enter an arbitray ip say, 

               192.100.100.1                   ....you can choose it your own
            * Add 255.255.255.0 in the Netmask (no options for you, enter it as if)
        # click on the apply button to make the changes available.

4. That's all you need to do in Ubuntu machine.


Configuring the Windows system

1.  Open the Network Connections folder from Start ---> Network Connections

2.  Right click on the connection with the name "Local Area Connection" and 

     click on the properties

3.  Under the general tab select Internet Protocol(TCP/IP) and click 

     "properties"

4.  Choose 'Use the following IP address' and enter
        IP Address  :  192.100.100.3
        Subnet Mask :  255.255.255.0

5.  Press the OK button to complete the configuring.

            Thats all about configuration. Now restart the connection from the Ubuntu system using network manager (No need to pull out the cable physically)
Inorder to share a particular file from windows, right click on the file and select properties.In the properties window check the corresponding
feilds related to sharing under the "sharing" tab.

To access those files from Ubuntu system, goto Places ---> Network ---> Windows network

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