Scripts
Deflash Script
Many people are aware of HTTP cookies, generally used to add statefulness to the otherwise stateless HTTP protocol. Great for session tracking, preference persistence, etc. Also great for privacy invasion and general ad tracking. Due to the perceived privacy issues, many users delete their browser cookies frequently.
Unfortunately Adobe Flash contains the seldom publicized ability to create it’s own persistent tracking objects outside of the control of your browser. It isn’t very easy to clear these persistent flash objects, and due to being relatively unknown, marketers are now using them to “respawn” traditional HTTP cookies. I.e. when a site wants to track you it will set an HTTP cookie AND a flash “cookie”. If the page detects later that you have a Flash cookie but no HTTP cookie it will recreate aka “respawn” the HTTP cookie using the Flash data.
I’ve created a script to delete these Flash cookies from the default location for them. It is a linux shell script, so unfortunately Windows users are left in the cold.
I add it to my crontab to ensure that they are frequently being deleted. It attempts to use the GNU “Shred” utility for a more secure deletion.
Posted Nov 18, 11:36 PM by BinaryParadox · Begin Transmission...
Powershell Backup Script
I’ve been playing a bit with Windows Powershell (codenamed Monad). Not a bad piece of software all things considered! Certainly a world better than standard Windows XP cmd.exe.
My problem task was that I needed a basic backup script that I could add as an ‘at’ job for a Windows Server 2003 box at work.
It is a very small time operation so all of our backups are stored on two external harddrives. At the end of each week we swap the currently plugged in drive and cycle it out with the second drive. This way we can have one backup drive stored offsite and in a worst case scenario, we’ve only lost a week of data.
read more...Posted Nov 18, 10:08 PM by BinaryParadox · Begin Transmission...
Nautilus SCP
I don’t know about you, but I find myself using SCP quite frequently to transfer files from my laptop to my server. It’s almost always from one specific code folder to another, and almost always to this one particular machine. I enjoy the flexibility of having two separate folders, and rsync seems like overkill. I’m happy with the minimal configuration setup I have. Much of this happiness is due to a bash script I wrote and used to extend the gnome file browser: nautilus. This script can be activated on any number of files just by selecting them in the GUI, right clicking and choosing to invoke it. Very handy!
read more...Posted Nov 18, 09:40 PM by BinaryParadox · Begin Transmission... [2]
