Maverick added  an easy method to configure your entire system to use a proxy, and we will be using this.

This tutorial will work for you IF:

• You have a fast internet connection, either at home, work, or etc
• You can forward ports on this network, ussually done thru the router, meaning you can and understand how to forward ports
• You run a linux computer on this network (these instructions are for Ubuntu 10.10)
• You have an Ubuntu laptop that you wish to secure on untrusted WiFi’s (You can use Putty if you run Windows on your laptop. Use this tutorial for the Putty part.)

First, set up your Ubuntu box at home to act as a proxy. If you don’t have ssh installed:

sudo apt-get install openssh-server

Otherwise, you should not have to do anything, altho it does help to have passwordless logins set up. You can search for how to do this.

Before you head out to Starbucks, tho, make sure you can reach your home Ubuntu box thru your router, by setting up the port forwarding properly.

Of course, you will need to be able to ‘find’ your home network from the internet, using your external IP, or your personal domain name, if you have one. If not, head over to DynsDNS and grab yerself a good one.

Your proxy is ready, now let us set up the laptop.

On the UBUNTU/Linux laptop you will be carrying into enemy territory,  you will open up a terminal and do”

ssh -vND 8080 <user>@<host> -p <port>

The flags are as follows:

• -v Verbose, so you can watch it all in the terminal, and possibly debug any problems. I haven’t found any yet, but I kinda like seeing all that info scroll past
• -N keeps it from logging into a shell, akaik
• -D tells your home computer to act as a SOCKS 5 proxy, listening locally upon port 8080
• -p <port> at the tail of the command is optional, and only used if you have set up SSH to listen on something other than the standard port 22, which is something I think everyone should do, if for no other reason than to keep your auth logs cleaner

Next, we tell the laptop to use a SOCKS 5 proxy system wide, so Gwibber, Empathy, any network using applets, apt-get, etc, will use the ‘tunnel’.

In your main menu, go to  Preferences> Network Proxy.

Then click ‘Manual proxy configuration‘, make sure ‘Use the same proxy for all protocols‘ is unchecked, and in the Socks host, insert 127.0.0.1 for the host, and 8080 for the port.

Hit ‘Apply System-Wide‘, punch in your password a couple times, and you should be done.

To test, you can visit Whatsmyip.org, or you can watch your terminal window to see the various connections being tunnelled real time.

So far, I have not had any problems, and I feel much safer being ‘out it bout it’ with all my services abroad in the Cloud.

UPDATE!

This broke guake, an essential part of my set up, a fix seems to be in the works, until then, since its essentially a python program, if you feel comfortable editing files…

sudo vim  /usr/lib/guake/guake.py

Then find this (line 1102 or so):

ssl_port = self.client.get_string(‘/system/proxy/secure_port’)

and change ‘get.string’ to ‘get.int’ and save.

UPDATE 2 !!

Some things, like mplayer ran from the CLI don’t seem to be running thru the SOCKS5. Just thot I would make folks aware of this, even tho, the Firesheep won’t be  hijacking your mplayer streams.

References:

Geek to Live: Encrypt your web browsing session (with an SSH SOCKS proxy)

Secure your Wi-Fi traffic using FOSS utilities

Crockett was then the lion of Washington. I was a great admirer of his character, and, having several friends who were intimate with him, I found no difficulty in making his acquaintance. I was fascinated with him, and he seemed to take a fancy to me.

I was one day in the lobby of the House of Representatives when a bill was taken up appropriating money for the benefit of a widow of a distinguished naval officer. Several beautiful speeches had been made in its support – rather, as I thought, because it afforded the speakers a fine opportunity for display than from the necessity of convincing anybody, for it seemed to me that everybody favored it. The Speaker was just about to put the question when Crockett arose. Everybody expected, of course, that he was going to make one of his characteristic speeches in support of the bill. He commenced:

“Mr. Speaker – I have as much respect for the memory of the deceased, and as much sympathy for the sufferings of the living, if suffering there be, as any man in this House, but we must not permit our respect for the dead or our sympathy for a part of the living to lead us into an act of injustice to the balance of the living. I will not go into an argument to prove that Congress has no power to appropriate this money as an act of charity. Every member upon this floor knows it. We have the right, as individuals, to give away as much of our own money as we please in charity; but as members of Congress we have no right so to appropriate a dollar of the public money. Some eloquent appeals have been made to us upon the ground that it is a debt due the deceased. Mr. Speaker, the deceased lived long after the close of the war; he was in office to the day of his death, and I have never heard that the government was in arrears to him. This government can owe no debts but for services rendered, and at a stipulated price. If it is a debt, how much is it? Has it been audited, and the amount due ascertained? If it is a debt, this is not the place to present it for payment, or to have its merits examined. If it is a debt, we owe more than we can ever hope to pay, for we owe the widow of every soldier who fought in the War of 1812 precisely the same amount. There is a woman in my neighborhood, the widow of as gallant a man as ever shouldered a musket. He fell in battle. She is as good in every respect as this lady, and is as poor. She is earning her daily bread by her daily labor; but if I were to introduce a bill to appropriate five or ten thousand dollars for her benefit, I should be laughed at, and my bill would not get five votes in this House. There are thousands of widows in the country just such as the one I have spoken of, but we never hear of any of these large debts to them. Sir, this is no debt. The government did not owe it to the deceased when he was alive; it could not contract it after he died. I do not wish to be rude, but I must be plain. Every man in this House knows it is not a debt. We cannot, without the grossest corruption, appropriate this money as the payment of a debt. We have not the semblance of authority to appropriate it as a charity. Mr. Speaker, I have said we have the right to give as much of our own money as we please. I am the poorest man on this floor. I cannot vote for this bill, but I will give one week’s pay to the object, and if every member of Congress will do the same, it will amount to more than the bill asks.”

He took his seat. Nobody replied. The bill was put upon its passage, and, instead of passing unanimously, as was generally supposed, and as, no doubt, it would, but for that speech, it received but few votes, and, of course, was lost.

Like many other young men, and old ones, too, for that matter, who had not thought upon the subject, I desired the passage of the bill, and felt outraged at its defeat. I determined that I would persuade my friend Crockett to move a reconsideration the next day.

Previous engagements preventing me from seeing Crockett that night, I went early to his room the next morning and found him engaged in addressing and franking letters, a large pile of which lay upon his table.

I broke in upon him rather abruptly, by asking him what devil had possessed him to make that speech and defeat that bill yesterday. Without turning his head or looking up from his work, he replied:

“You see that I am very busy now; take a seat and cool yourself. I will be through in a few minutes, and then I will tell you all about it.”

He continued his employment for about ten minutes, and when he had finished he turned to me and said:

“Now, sir, I will answer your question. But thereby hangs a tale, and one of considerable length, to which you will have to listen.”

I listened, and this is the tale which I heard:

Several years ago I was one evening standing on the steps of the Capitol with some other members of Congress, when our attention was attracted by a great light over in Georgetown. It was evidently a large fire. We jumped into a hack and drove over as fast as we could. When we got there, I went to work, and I never worked as hard in my life as I did there for several hours. But, in spite of all that could be done, many houses were burned and many families made homeless, and, besides, some of them had lost all but the clothes they had on. The weather was very cold, and when I saw so many women and children suffering, I felt that something ought to be done for them, and everybody else seemed to feel the same way.

The next morning a bill was introduced appropriating $20,000 for their relief. We put aside all other business and rushed it through as soon as it could be done. I said everybody felt as I did. That was not quite so; for, though they perhaps sympathized as deeply with the sufferers as I did, there were a few of the members who did not think we had the right to indulge our sympathy or excite our charity at the expense of anybody but ourselves. They opposed the bill, and upon its passage demanded the yeas and nays. There were not enough of them to sustain the call, but many of us wanted our names to appear in favor of what we considered a praiseworthy measure, and we voted with them to sustain it. So the yeas and nays were recorded, and my name appeared on the journals in favor of the bill.

The next summer, when it began to be time to think about the election, I concluded I would take a scout around among the boys of my district. I had no opposition there, but, as the election was some time off, I did not know what might turn up, and I thought it was best to let the boys know that I had not forgot them, and that going to Congress had not made me too proud to go to see them.

So I put a couple of shirts and a few twists of tobacco into my saddlebags, and put out. I had been out about a week and had found things going very smoothly, when, riding one day in a part of my district in which I was more of a stranger than any other, I saw a man in a field plowing and coming toward the road. I gauged my gait so that we should meet as he came to the fence. As he came up I spoke to the man. He replied politely, but, as I thought, rather coldly, and was about turning his horse for another furrow when I said to him: “Don’t be in such a hurry, my friend; I want to have a little talk with you, and get better acquainted.”

He replied: “I am very busy, and have but little time to talk, but if it does not take too long, I will listen to what you have to say.”

I began: “Well, friend, I am one of those unfortunate beings called candidates, and – “

“‘Yes, I know you; you are Colonel Crockett. I have seen you once before, and voted for you the last time you were elected. I suppose you are out electioneering now, but you had better not waste your time or mine. I shall not vote for you again.’

This was a sockdolager… I begged him to tell me what was the matter.

“Well, Colonel, it is hardly worthwhile to waste time or words upon it. I do not see how it can be mended, but you gave a vote last winter which shows that either you have not capacity to understand the Constitution, or that you are wanting in honesty and firmness to be guided by it. In either case you are not the man to represent me. But I beg your pardon for expressing it in that way. I did not intend to avail myself of the privilege of the Constitution to speak plainly to a candidate for the purpose of insulting or wounding you. I intend by it only to say that your understanding of the Constitution is very different from mine; and I will say to you what, but for my rudeness, I should not have said, that I believe you to be honest. But an understanding of the Constitution different from mine I cannot overlook, because the Constitution, to be worth anything, must be held sacred, and rigidly observed in all its provisions. The man who wields power and misinterprets it is the more dangerous the more honest he is.”

“I admit the truth of all you say, but there must be some mistake about it, for I do not remember that I gave any vote last winter upon any constitutional question.”

“No, Colonel, there’s no mistake. Though I live here in the backwoods and seldom go from home, I take the papers from Washington and read very carefully all the proceedings of Congress. My papers say that last winter you voted for a bill to appropriate $20,000 to some sufferers by a fire in Georgetown. Is that true?”

“Certainly it is, and I thought that was the last vote which anybody in the world would have found fault with.”

“Well, Colonel, where do you find in the Constitution any authority to give away the public money in charity?”

Here was another sockdolager; for, when I began to think about it, I could not remember a thing in the Constitution that authorized it. I found I must take another tack, so I said:

“Well, my friend; I may as well own up. You have got me there. But certainly nobody will complain that a great and rich country like ours should give the insignificant sum of $20,000 to relieve its suffering women and children, particularly with a full and overflowing Treasury, and I am sure, if you had been there, you would have done just as I did.”

“It is not the amount, Colonel, that I complain of; it is the principle. In the first place, the government ought to have in the Treasury no more than enough for its legitimate purposes. But that has nothing to do with the question. The power of collecting and disbursing money at pleasure is the most dangerous power that can be entrusted to man, particularly under our system of collecting revenue by a tariff, which reaches every man in the country, no matter how poor he may be, and the poorer he is the more he pays in proportion to his means. What is worse, it presses upon him without his knowledge where the weight centers, for there is not a man in the United States who can ever guess how much he pays to the government. So you see, that while you are contributing to relieve one, you are drawing it from thousands who are even worse off than he. If you had the right to give anything, the amount was simply a matter of discretion with you, and you had as much right to give $20,000,000 as $20,000. If you have the right to give to one, you have the right to give to all; and, as the Constitution neither defines charity nor stipulates the amount, you are at liberty to give to any and everything which you may believe, or profess to believe, is a charity, and to any amount you may think proper. You will very easily perceive what a wide door this would open for fraud and corruption and favoritism, on the one hand, and for robbing the people on the other. No, Colonel, Congress has no right to give charity. Individual members may give as much of their own money as they please, but they have no right to touch a dollar of the public money for that purpose. If twice as many houses had been burned in this county as in Georgetown, neither you nor any other member of Congress would have thought of appropriating a dollar for our relief. There are about two hundred and forty members of Congress. If they had shown their sympathy for the sufferers by contributing each one week’s pay, it would have made over $13,000. There are plenty of wealthy men in and around Washington who could have given $20,000 without depriving themselves of even a luxury of life. The Congressmen chose to keep their own money, which, if reports be true, some of them spend not very creditably; and the people about Washington, no doubt, applauded you for relieving them from the necessity of giving by giving what was not yours to give. The people have delegated to Congress, by the Constitution, the power to do certain things. To do these, it is authorized to collect and pay moneys, and for nothing else. Everything beyond this is usurpation, and a violation of the Constitution.”

I have given you an imperfect account of what he said. Long before he was through, I was convinced that I had done wrong. He wound up by saying:

“So you see, Colonel, you have violated the Constitution in what I consider a vital point. It is a precedent fraught with danger to the country, for when Congress once begins to stretch its power beyond the limits of the Constitution, there is no limit to it, and no security for the people. I have no doubt you acted honestly, but that does not make it any better, except as far as you are personally concerned, and you see that I cannot vote for you.”

I tell you I felt streaked. I saw if I should have opposition, and this man should go talking, he would set others to talking, and in that district I was a gone fawn-skin. I could not answer him, and the fact is, I did not want to. But I must satisfy him, and I said to him:

“Well, my friend, you hit the nail upon the head when you said I had not sense enough to understand the Constitution. I intended to be guided by it, and thought I had studied it full. I have heard many speeches in Congress about the powers of Congress, but what you have said there at your plow has got more hard, sound sense in it than all the fine speeches I ever heard. If I had ever taken the view of it that you have, I would have put my head into the fire before I would have given that vote; and if you will forgive me and vote for me again, if I ever vote for another unconstitutional law I wish I may be shot.”

He laughingly replied:

“Yes, Colonel, you have sworn to that once before, but I will trust you again upon one condition. You say that you are convinced that your vote was wrong. Your acknowledgment of it will do more good than beating you for it. If, as you go around the district, you will tell people about this vote, and that you are satisfied it was wrong, I will not only vote for you, but will do what I can to keep down opposition, and, perhaps, I may exert some little influence in that way.”

“If I don’t,” said I, “I wish I may be shot; and to convince you that I am in earnest in what I say, I will come back this way in a week or ten days, and if you will get up a gathering of the people, I will make a speech to them. Get up a barbecue, and I will pay for it.”

“No, Colonel, we are not rich people in this section, but we have plenty of provisions to contribute for a barbecue, and some to spare for those who have none. The push of crops will be over in a few days, and we can then afford a day for a barbecue. This is Thursday; I will see to getting it up on Saturday week. Come to my house on Friday, and we will go together, and I promise you a very respectable crowd to see and hear you.”

“Well, I will be here. But one thing more before I say good-bye. I must know your name.”

“My name is Bunce.”

“Not Horatio Bunce?”

“Yes.”

“Well, Mr. Bunce, I never saw you before, though you say you have seen me; but I know you very well. I am glad I have met you, and very proud that I may hope to have you for my friend. You must let me shake your hand before I go.”

We shook hands and parted.

It was one of the luckiest hits of my life that I met him. He mingled but little with the public, but was widely known for his remarkable intelligence and incorruptible integrity, and for a heart brimful and running over with kindness and benevolence, which showed themselves not only in words but in acts. He was the oracle of the whole country around him, and his fame had extended far beyond the circle of his immediate acquaintance. Though I had never met him before, I had heard much of him, and but for this meeting it is very likely I should have had opposition, and had been beaten. One thing is very certain, no man could now stand up in that district under such a vote.

At the appointed time I was at his house, having told our conversation to every crowd I had met, and to every man I stayed all night with, and I found that it gave the people an interest and a confidence in me stronger than I had ever seen manifested before.

Though I was considerably fatigued when I reached his house, and, under ordinary circumstances, should have gone early to bed, I kept him up until midnight, talking about the principles and affairs of government, and got more real, true knowledge of them than I had got all my life before.

I have told you Mr. Bunce converted me politically. He came nearer converting me religiously than I had ever been before. He did not make a very good Christian of me, as you know; but he has wrought upon my mind a conviction of the truth of Christianity, and upon my feelings a reverence for its purifying and elevating power such as I had never felt before.

I have known and seen much of him since, for I respect him – no, that is not the word – I reverence and love him more than any living man, and I go to see him two or three times every year; and I will tell you, sir, if everyone who professes to be a Christian lived and acted and enjoyed it as he does, the religion of Christ would take the world by storm.

But to return to my story. The next morning we went to the barbecue, and, to my surprise, found about a thousand men there. I met a good many whom I had not known before, and they and my friend introduced me around until I had got pretty well acquainted – at least, they all knew me.

In due time notice was given that I would speak to them. They gathered around a stand that had been erected. I opened my speech by saying:

“Fellow citizens – I present myself before you today feeling like a new man. My eyes have lately been opened to truths which ignorance or prejudice, or both, had heretofore hidden from my view. I feel that I can today offer you the ability to render you more valuable service than I have ever been able to render before. I am here today more for the purpose of acknowledging my error than to seek your votes. That I should make this acknowledgment is due to myself as well as to you. Whether you will vote for me is a matter for your consideration only.”

I went on to tell them about the fire and my vote for the appropriation as I have told it to you, and then told them why I was satisfied it was wrong. I closed by saying:

“And now, fellow citizens, it remains only for me to tell you that the most of the speech you have listened to with so much interest was simply a repetition of the arguments by which your neighbor, Mr. Bunce, convinced me of my error.

“It is the best speech I ever made in my life, but he is entitled to the credit of it. And now I hope he is satisfied with his convert and that he will get up here and tell you so.”

He came upon the stand and said:

“Fellow citizens – It affords me great pleasure to comply with the request of Colonel Crockett. I have always considered him a thoroughly honest man, and I am satisfied that he will faithfully perform all that he has promised you today.”

He went down, and there went up from the crowd such a shout for Davy Crockett as his name never called forth before.

I am not much given to tears, but I was taken with a choking then and felt some big drops rolling down my cheeks. And I tell you now that the remembrance of those few words spoken by such a man, and the honest, hearty shout they produced, is worth more to me than all the honors I have received and all the reputation I have ever made, or ever shall make, as a member of Congress.

“Now, Sir,” concluded Crockett, “you know why I made that speech yesterday. I have had several thousand copies of it printed and was directing them to my constituents when you came in.

“There is one thing now to which I will call your attention. You remember that I proposed to give a week’s pay. There are in that House many very wealthy men – men who think nothing of spending a week’s pay, or a dozen of them for a dinner or a wine party when they have something to accomplish by it. Some of those same men made beautiful speeches upon the great debt of gratitude which the country owed the deceased – a debt which could not be paid by money, particularly so insignificant a sum as $10,000, when weighed against the honor of the nation. Yet not one of them responded to my proposition. Money with them is nothing but trash when it is to come out of the people. But it is the one great thing for which most of them are striving, and many of them sacrifice honor, integrity, and justice to obtain it.”

Originally seen at LewRockwell.Com. The citation is from a aged book, so I reprinted it in its entirety, because it speaks to me, and deserves to be said, and read.

Daily Bell: Is the Chinese miracle real, or is it built in a sense on state planning and, like the USSR, doomed to fail?

Walter Williams: The Chinese are a true success story, and the country is moving toward freer markets and toward a more open system of capitalism. It is not a true capitalist country yet, but you do find that 300 million people, 400 or 500 hundred million people perhaps, have been lifted out of poverty without any government subsidies. It’s just the free market helping them out of poverty, and I hope the people in China continue in the same direction.

Does anyone else see the obvious error here?

I think this sums up the failure of the traditional conservative and libertarian views, IE, that they only see government subsidies within the framework of legislation, and miss the structural subsidies like artificially low interest rates and even the very existence of a central bank and fiat money.

300 million people, 400 or 500 hundred million people perhaps, have been lifted out of poverty without any government subsidies.

China, like the US, is flooding its economy with fiat money, loans are produced by quasi-governmental agencies. The only real subject for debate is who is ultimately in control, and I think in the USA it is clear that it is Big Business that is firmly in charge, while in China, it is the government that is mostly in charge.

The ascent of China is by no means a triumph of socialism, but rather an escape from it. However, the existence of a Chinese Central Bank, actively intervening in the economy with directed loans at low interest rates, sometimes hitting the mark, sometimes creating asininities such as the creepy Ghost Mall, plays a strong hand, with the broad parameters of growth laying between a patchwork of local political power and money and gunmen, and the higher echelons of power within the central government itself.

Speaking of the mainstream conservatives and even libertarians who are allowed access to the public eye, it as if one of the automatic assumptions is to consider subsidy only in the context of traditional governmental policy, and utterly ignoring the role of fiat or central banking on the economy.

Moses to God: I have favor with You, You know me… Now, whatever you are doing in in MY life, do it in all these, the rest, the entire Body of Christ, as well!

God: I will bless you, be with you forever, and give you peace.

Moses: No, thats not good enough. It must be for everyone, even the weakest, most distracted and foolish believer. They all must come into Maturity, and fullness and oneness with Christ! This is what Jesus came for! This is the desire of the Son! His prayer! To be with them, forever, and them to be where He is, on the throne.

God: Ok.

God is looking for leaders who will not settle for being personally blessed, but will contend and not rest until all that they have, is also given in measure to the Body.

Musicians who teach others how to play, and to come into the presence of God, instead of settling for being in the limelight (such as that is, to whatever measure of influence and fame they may have), but will teach ‘the secrets’ of whatever it is that God has blessed them with. The practical, day to day stuff that works for them, and also imparting the more ephemeral (seemingly) activity of the Holy Ghost. Mantles, etc.

That is just one example, but it is far far far more than this. To have a heart, that we would contend for everyone to come into maturing, and to have the very indwelling Presence of God, and not just His blessings. Altho, I want those, too!

Anyways, I fairly well refuse to watch Mainstream News, like Fox, and CNN, etc, but I got a brief glimpse, and so here is the latest outrage on the truth, that China is responsible for 90% of fake goods.

And I am thinking, what, is this worse than counterfeit money, fake food packaged as ‘safe’, fake relationships, fake news, fake Jesus, fake leaders telling fakey lies, like Health Care ‘reform’ bills written by insurance companies, and Financial ‘reform’ bill written by the top 6 banking instututions to get subsidies from the govt, and to drive their compeitors out of business, sold to us as bills to ‘reign in’ evil corporations…..

And the too-do about New Black Panther voter intimidation, and I am thinking, gosh, this is nothing compared to the voter intimidation done daily in this nation by the states, the locals, and the federal govt.

Talk to some 3rd party candidates some time, and hear the stories about how they forced to jump thru all these hoops. And, people have gone to JAIL, iirc, for something as simple as having out of state people canvassing for you.

I want reality. America is currently living in almost complete delusion, and I can at times be fearful at how dramatic the wake up call may be.

I personally want to wake up from all delusion, myself!

I bought this in a fit of sugar cravings, and I was really physically drained from lack of sleep. Full Disclosure.

The consistency is not good. It did not hold together well once the milk hit it, and it was kinda grainy or something.

I didn’t like it. I don’t recommend it.

As a plus, however, it was only $1.84, and it does NOT have any HFCS. Remember, nothing says ghetto like High Fructose Corn Syrup.

AWN is my main panel there, on the bottom, and I have a smaller regular Gnome panel on the top with some utilities, like Gnome Timer Applet.

The 4 Desktops Effect is from Compiz, which is MORE than just eye candy, but very productive. Mouse in top left exposes the 4 virtual desktops, and top right exposes all the open windows. So, I can get around, yo!

Thats DockbarX providing window management in the bottom AWN panel, and I have Compiz tweaked to remove the Title Bar from mazimized applications for maximum screen space.

If Google Chrome had a shortcut for showing the Address Bar in F11 Full Sceen Mode, Chrome would be F11, but, alas, it does NOT, amazingly!

• Pizza (2) w/ onions, orange peppers, diced Jalapeños,  home made red sauce, Mozz medalions, and some Feta. MMM!
• Aloo + whatever they call chickens, in a spicy masala, using my spices aquired on a recent trip to the Big City, including an experiment using citric acid for replacing lemon, or sour. Very nice, altho, it also repurposes nicely as a high colonic.
• Sandwich Bread, using buttermilk and 1/3 whole wheat, very nice.
• Chocolate brownies, but no dulce la leche this time, as I had no sweetened condensed milk handy. They tasted great, anyways.

And my kid showed up to help finish off the brownies and the Aloo Stuff.

Yay! Next time, I will take pics, I promise.