Archive for April, 2009

How to replace Google with search X in Firefox (0)

April 26th, 2009 by Frank Niedermann, under Stuff.

For some reasons I wanted to replace Google with another search, like ixquick. In Firefox it’s possible to use the URL bar as search bar, by default Firefox uses Google for that. This can be changed:

Enter about:config into the URL bar and confirm that you know what you are doing.
Enter keyword into the filter field. Locate the keyword.URL attribute and double-click to edit it. Replace the Google URL with something else like http://ixquick.com/do/metasearch.pl?pl=ff&cat=web&query=
Done :)

In addition to that it’s possible to add ixquick to the Firefox searchbar (top right):
http://ixquick.com/deu/download_ixquick_plugin.html

Tagged with , , , .

Encrypted file synchronization using Dropbox with encfs (0)

April 25th, 2009 by Frank Niedermann, under Linux.

Dropbox is a fabulous tool for file synchronization between Mac, Linux and Windows. I use it to keep my files in sync on my Laptop and Workstation at home. It has even a webinterface where I can access my files online from everywhere. And the greatest part of Dropbox is that I don’t see it – it’s completely working in the background without user interaction. That makes it one of the best software I know.

dropbox

But of course Dropbox has a disadvantage: A server is required for synchronization. Whereas the Dropbox client is available for public to download, the server component is not. That means we have to use the Dropbox servers provided by the Dropbox team which are located on Amazon’s cloud. I would not advise anybody to store sensible or private data somewhere on the Internet where others have full control over the data. So what to do? There is no other synchronization software around today that provides the functionality Dropbox does*, but what about privacy of my data? Easy: encryption.

This is how to setup an encrypted directory inside the Dropbox synchronization folder on Ubuntu:

1
2
3
4

sudo apt-get install encfs
mkdir /home/$USER/DropboxEncrypted
mkdir /home/$USER/Dropbox/Encrypted
encfs /home/$USER/Dropbox/Encrypted /home/$USER/DropboxEncrypted

DropboxEncrypted will contain the unencrypted files (if mounted with encfs) and Encrypted inside the Dropbox directory will contain the encrypted files.

There are some disadvantages I know of:

  • Access to the encrypted files with the Dropbox webinterface won’t work (because they are encrypted)
  • Every client which need access to the encrypted files needs encfs installed (available on Mac and Linux)
  • Maybe more

To get rid of the desktop icon on Gnome one can use this command:

1

gconftool-2 -t bool -s /apps/nautilus/desktop/volumes_visible false

And to mount the encrypted directory with a nice graphical interface use this shell script (as Gnome panel command for example):

1
2
3

#!/bin/sh
/usr/bin/encfs --extpass='zenity --entry --hide-text --title="Password" --text="Please enter your password to mount DropboxEncrypted."' ~/Dropbox/Encrypted/ ~/DropboxEncrypted/
/usr/bin/nautilus ~/DropboxEncrypted &

mountdropboxencrypted

Conclusion: Dropbox is really great software, it works extremely well. But it is not acceptable (at least for me) to store sensible or private data on a remote server. Encryption is a workaround, but I hope that there will be other tools providing similar services than Dropbox in the future. iFolder and Wizbit could get an alternative, but they are not ready yet.

* If you know of one good alternative, please notify me immediately :)

Update: Nice blog entry on how to automount encrypted filesystems: http://obensonne.bitbucket.org/blog/20100130-encfs-keyring.html

Tagged with , , , , , .