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Monday, June 15, 2009

"How to setup a proxy for Iran citizens"

I saw a link to a useful-looking post on the Dish and FDL. Looks like that site might be getting hammered pretty hard (for all the right reasons, I hope), so I am reposting the entire contents of that post and a related one here, just in case. I have not tested the instructions listed.

The URL for the original post is as follows. Apologies for it being broken across two lines. If the link doesn't work by clicking on it, you can cut and paste the text elsewhere, and remove the embedded line feed, if need be.

http://blog.austinheap.com/2009/06/15/
how-to-setup-a-proxy-for-iran-citizens-for-windows/

The URL for the original related post is as follows. Same apology.

http://blog.austinheap.com/2009/06/15/
how-to-setup-a-proxy-for-iran-citizens/

Everything that follows, except for what's inside square brackets and tagged with my initials, is straight from those two posts on the blog Austin Heap. [Added: I have also decided to remove the mailto: links and the @ signs, to help keep the email address from being picked up by spam harvesters.]

How to setup a proxy for Iran citizens (for Windows!)
Posted in Internets, Politics, Technology on 06/15/2009 05:13 pm by Austin

If you’re using Windows, it’s pretty straight forward to setup a proxy and help give access to those in Iran who are being censored. If you’re running Redhat/CentOS, please use the linux instructions. [I have reposted the Linux instructions below --bjk]

1) Download Squid for Windows

2) Extract that zip archive, and move the “squid” folder to the root of your drive (probably C:\).

3) After moving the squid folder, open “C:\squid\etc\squid.conf” in your favorite text editor (not Word).

4) Configure the DNS name servers on the line that says “dns_nameservers” to point at your ISPs DNS servers.

5) Now the fun part, locking access down the just the Iranian IP blocks.

Inside the text editor search (Control-W) for the line “http_access deny all” and change it to “http_access allow all”. This will make your proxy open and accessible to the world. If you would like to limit your proxy to Iranian IP blocks, you want to change “http_access deny all” to read “http_access allow TRUSTED” add a line (BEFORE the http_access line to setup an access control list [ACL]). This ACL line that defines TRUSTED should read:

acl TRUSTED src 62.60.128.0/17 62.193.0.0/19 62.220.96.0/19 77.36.128.0/17 77.77.64.0/18 77.104.64.0/18 77.237.64.0/19 77.237.160.0/19 77.245.224.0/20 78.38.0.0/15 78.109.192.0/20 78.110.112.0/20 78.111.0.0/20 78.154.32.0/19 78.157.32.0/19 78.158.160.0/19 79.127.0.0/17 79.132.192.0/19 79.170.144.0/21 79.175.128.0/18 80.66.176.0/20 80.69.240.0/20 80.71.112.0/20 80.75.0.0/20 80.191.0.0/16 80.242.0.0/20 80.253.128.0/20 80.253.144.0/20 81.12.0.0/17 81.28.32.0/20 81.28.48.0/20 81.31.160.0/20 81.31.176.0/20 81.90.144.0/20 81.91.128.0/20 81.91.144.0/20 82.99.192.0/18 82.115.0.0/19 83.147.192.0/18 84.47.192.0/18 84.241.0.0/18 85.9.64.0/18 85.15.0.0/18 85.133.128.0/17 85.185.0.0/16 85.198.0.0/18 86.109.32.0/19 87.107.0.0/16 87.247.160.0/19 87.248.128.0/19 89.144.128.0/18 89.165.0.0/17 89.221.80.0/20 89.235.64.0/18 91.98.0.0/15 91.184.64.0/19 91.186.192.0/19 91.206.122.0/23 91.208.165.0/24 91.209.242.0/24 91.212.16.0/24 91.212.19.0/24 91.212.252.0/24 92.42.48.0/21 92.50.0.0/18 92.61.176.0/20 92.62.176.0/20 92.242.192.0/19 93.110.0.0/16 93.190.24.0/21 94.74.128.0/18 94.101.128.0/20 94.101.176.0/20 94.101.240.0/20 94.139.160.0/19 94.182.0.0/15 94.184.0.0/17 94.232.168.0/21 94.241.128.0/18 95.38.0.0/16 95.80.128.0/18 95.81.64.0/18 95.82.0.0/18 95.82.64.0/18 95.130.56.0/21 95.130.240.0/21 188.34.0.0/16 188.93.64.0/21 188.121.96.0/19 188.121.128.0/19 188.136.128.0/17 188.158.0.0/15 193.189.122.0/23 194.225.0.0/16 195.146.32.0/19 212.16.64.0/19 212.33.192.0/19 212.50.224.0/19 212.80.0.0/19 212.95.128.0/19 212.120.192.0/19 213.176.0.0/19 213.176.32.0/19 213.176.64.0/18 213.195.0.0/18 213.207.192.0/18 213.217.32.0/19 213.233.160.0/19 217.11.16.0/20 217.24.144.0/20 217.25.48.0/20 217.64.144.0/20 217.66.192.0/20 217.66.208.0/20 217.146.208.0/20 217.172.96.0/19 217.174.16.0/20 217.218.0.0/15

6) Setup “visible_hostname” (normally just the public IP address).

7) Turn off logging by adding these two lines:

access_log none

cache_store_log none

7) Setup the Squid cache by issuing the following command: “c:\squid\sbin\squid -D –z” (No quotes).

8) Setup Squid to run as a service by issuing the following command: “c:\squid\sbin\squid –i”

Please don’t run this on a machine that you’re worried about or is used for production sites; and take basic security precautions, ie: moving ftp off the default port, using a firewall package, etc.

Once your server is up and running please DM @austinheap and let me know! I will no longer posting proxies on the public list. If you set one up, please e-mail me at austinheap.com [yes, literally "me" --bjk] to contribute to the private one or e-mail me if your an Iranian that needs access!

[Linux instructions follow --bjk]

How to setup a proxy for Iran citizens
Posted in Internets, Politics, Technology on 06/15/2009 02:45 pm by Austin

Update 3: Here’s a guide for the Windows users out there. [what's also posted above --bjk]

Update 2: I will no longer posting proxies on the public list. If you set one up, please e-mail me at austinheap.com [yes, literally "me" --bjk] to contribute to the private one or e-mail me if your an Iranian that needs access!

Update: There’s a list of working Iran proxy servers over here.

If you’re using CentOS/Redhat, it’s pretty straight forward to setup a proxy and help give access to those in Iran who are being censored.

yum install squid

nano -w /etc/squid/squid.conf

Inside the code editor search (Control-W) for the line “http_access deny all” and change it to “http_access allow all”. This will make your proxy open and accessible to the world. If you would like to limit your proxy to Iranian IP blocks, you want to change “http_access deny all” to read “http_access allow TRUSTED” add a line (BEFORE the http_access line to setup an access control list [ACL]). This ACL line that defines TRUSTED should read:

Turn off logging by adding these two lines:

access_log none

cache_store_log none

Save the config file and as root issue the following command to start the Squid proxy server:

service squid start

Please don’t run this on a machine that you’re worried about or is used for production sites; and take basic security precautions, ie: moving SSH off the default port, using iptables, etc.

Once your server is up and running please tweet @austinheap and let me know!

[End of copied material --bjk]

The Key Question Now Is ...

... how long until John McCain declares, "We are all Iranians?"

He's already calling for embargoes.

This isn't the first time I've thought this, but man, am I glad he's not the president.

(?)

Shots of Iran

From The Big Picture (via Sully).

Be advised: Some are pretty rough to look at.

Congratulations

To Wonkette.

Just like last year.

Somehow, I doubt David Denby shares my emotion.

Bitten

Just a short while ago I was cheering print journalism.

But Politico? Ugh.

For contrast, see what Andrew Sullivan is doing. Amazing.

Probably You Already Saw This ...

... but I hadn't until just now. The first minute is pretty funny.

(alt. video link)

(h/t: MoJo's "Five Funniest Gibbs Moments")

Another Thing That Hasn't Much Changed

Like the swiped cartoon I posted below, here is something else created in the 1960s that seems almost perfectly applicable to today: "Postscript to '30'," a lament for the shutting down of a newspaper.

There are some nice touches of antiquity (can we say that about the 1960s yet?), but otherwise ……… oh, lord, I was just about to write some drivel about the timelessness of the human condition. Go.

Oh, wait. Speaking of newspapers, I just remembered this post by Steve Benen about the coverage of the Iraq election. Every blogger on the planet has been dissing the Em-Ess-Em for the poor coverage -- I think #CNNfail was the hot hashtag on the Twitter there for a while -- but Steve is the only one I've seen who distinguished between TV and newspapers (or more accurately, the papers' sites). After rounding up some of the best of the righteous harshing* on the teevee people, he says this:

In contrast, note that print reporters (newspapers, wire services, magazines, and center-left blogs) had fantastic coverage of Iranian developments throughout the day and night. I've found the New York Times' coverage to be especially strong.

The wrong part of the media industry is in trouble.

Exactly. Imagine how nice it would be if the newspapers thrived and cable TV "news" dried up and blew away.

* [Added] Along those lines, see also Matt Yglesias (via, via).

[Added2] Follow-up: pretty funny letter to the editor written shortly after the above piece was published.

This Question Just In

So, I was just re-reading D-squared's fine post that I mentioned earlier and -- keeping in mind the British habit of using plural verb forms with singular collective nouns ("Chelsea are ahead two-nil," etc.) and their weird insistence of adding an s to math -- it was extra jarring to read this phrase:

… after all the maths is done, we get the following perfectly clear piece of …

Maths is fun. So are English.

This Thought Just In

Never mind the whiplash provoked by the right's frequent habit of calling Barack Obama both a fascist and a communist. It just occurred to me that they also call him both "Hitler" and "Chamberlain."

It'd be a fun game to see who could find those terms closest to each other, either in print or audio/video time, as said by a wingnut Very Serious Conservative. I bet Newt Gingrich could keep a straight face while using both in the same sentence. Maybe he'll even Twitter it.

[Update] Either great minds and so forth, and/or only the name Chamberlain jumped out at me and none of the rest of the post registered when I first loaded the Political Animal home page (because I could have sworn what I wrote above was an independent thought), but after doing this post and the next two and wandering back over to Political Animal, it sure looks like Benen and Media Matters got there first.

And by "first" I mean somehow I picked up the gist of that post without being at all aware that I had. I just thought "Chamberlain -- hmmm," and then came over here to share what I thought was MY idle thought. Or so I thought.

Wow. That was weird. Selective perception? Short-term memory loss? This ADD/scatter-brained condition the concern trolls keep telling us the Internet is causing? A momentary fugue state? A TEAR IN THE VERY FABRIC OF SPACE-TIME? OBAMA'S MIND CONTROL?

Yeah, I'm definitely blaming this one on the chemtrails.

Hey!

He saw that picture!

Swiped From Cesca

Another day in the life of a specialist in the dismal science. (source)

Also: Best insurance company commercial ever. You must.

"Second Thumb Ring"

Heh. That Robert Farley.

There was a time when I burned with impatience for Phil Jackson to pass Red Auberbach in number of NBA Championship rings collected, but I've since forgotten why.

But in any case, congratulations, Coach. And you too, Kobe.

[Added] Gracious touch, Shaq.

SCLM Watch

John Cole:

A Wide Range of Opinions

How are Obama’s policies playing at home and abroad? Well, lucky for you, David Gregory is going to tell us on Meet the Press, and to help him, he has two Republicans as guests.

I wonder what their thoughts will be.

*** Update ***

Even better. The two Republicans are Mike Murphy and Joe Scarborough. You can’t make this shit up. Liberal media.

On a more general note, TBogg:

It goes without saying that the Sunday Gasbag shows aren't about "journalism" so much as turning cocktail party bullshit into conventional wisdom gold.

JC's post is just that quoted bit, pretty much, unless you want to know what he thinks about the shape of Murphy's head. It's worth reading all of TBogg's, though: a rare not-kidding-at-all post.

[Added] On a related note, Willard "Mitt" Romney was invited onto "This Week" (George Stephanopoulos's yakfest) yesterday so that he could blame Obama for the Iranian election crisis. Seriously.

The good news, though, is that Stephanopoulos challenged him, hard, as any responsible journalist would do.

Yeah, that last was a joke.

(h/t: Oliver Willis)

[Added2] Turns out, the conspiracy may go even deeper than Willard knows.

Sunday, June 14, 2009

And Now, A Brief Commercial Break

No one tell William Donohue about this.

[UPDATE] Sorry -- I didn't realize it was an autoplay beast. And dammit, I can't figure out how to make it stop, so I've removed the embedded video. You'll have to visit the source. Worth the trip.

(h/t: KK, via email)

Hmmm ...

A judge in Federal District Court has allowed a lawsuit by Jose Padilla against John Yoo to go forward.

SAN FRANCISCO JUDGE!!!1!

Oh ... uh ... appointed by George W. Bush. Uhhh ...

NOT A REAL CONSERVATIVE!!!1!

(h/t: Thoreau) ← snarkily delicious

Here is a nice cartoon ...

... that obviously resonates with recent news.

The above is by Ron Cobb. It was drawn in 1966, according to an interesting biographical post by Steven Heller. I was led to it by Roy Edroso's reflections on the end of his analog TV watching.

Ron Cobb's web site is under construction, but by clicking through the "contact" link from the home page, you can find out some of what he has to say for himself.

How Did I Not Think of That?

From Runnin' Scared's weekly wrap-up:

Albany went coup-coup!

My back's getting sore from bowing down to Edroso.

D-squared x 2

Daniel Davies has a piece up on Crooked Timber called "In Praise of Generalized Non-Parametric Deconvolution" that is as fine a piece of expository writing as you will ever see. Despite the forbidding title, you really ought to give it a look. Even if you care not a whit for macroeconomic theory, his explanation of the term in the title is a marvel of clarity and should be appreciated for that alone. So, at least read the first half of the post.

Also, read the final paragraph, even if you don't make it through every word leading up to it. (When you get to "gold standard," will you think of "apples and oranges?")

His next post, "The BNP and the Egging Laffer Curve," is lighter and also well worth a read. It does presume a passing familiarity with the Laffer Curve. If you don't have that, the first two paragraphs of the Wikipedia entry should suffice for this purpose. And yeah, even though that's its real name, "Laffer" gives a hint about the tone of D²'s post.

As one measure of how good the post is, after being up on the Web for only two days, it is already sixth on the list when you Google Laffer Curve, which, when you consider how many quadrillions of electrons fans of Reagan-style economics have spilled trying to extol this theory in Serious Articles, tells you a lot about two things.

(So, uh, maybe you've already read it, in which case, why haven't you told me about it?)

Frank Rich's Latest Column ...

... examines the rhetoric from right-wing media, pundits, and politicians, and how it is contributing to an atmosphere that boosts the paranoia of the fringe elements of the far right. Heavily linked and very well-written.

Firefox Security Update: Latest Version Now 3.0.11

Mozilla has released a patch that closes several security holes, including four rated "critical." The update, to version 3.0.11, also includes some stability fixes. Details are in the release notes, if you want them.

If you don't have automatic updates or notifications enabled, do Help → Check for Updates. The whole process went off without a hitch for me, and took less than a minute.

A Hit of Geek Pr()n

“In reality, the cloud is giant buildings full of computers and diesel generators,” Manos says. “There’s not really anything white or fluffy about it.”

Tom Vanderbilt's article on data centers in last week's MYT magazine -- mostly focusing on energy consumption and cooling problems that must be dealt with so you kids can do your Twitters and your Facebooks and your Googles, but also serving up nerdgassing delights like the speed of light as a non-trivial factor -- may be of interest to some.

Saturday, June 13, 2009

Time For That Picture Again

Following a link (curse you, Roy Edroso!) to American Power, we see that college perfesser Donald Douglas is among the howlers of Wingnuttia trying to convince themselves that the neo-Nazi shooter at the Holocaust Museum was actually a liberal run amok. (No, really.) Where others have mostly been content just to parrot this stream of bullshit, Douglas unleashes a torrent in the process of expanding his already stupefyingly long enemies list.

Among other things, he describes the fine blogger David Weigel as "a reporter at The Washington Independent, but previously he was a contributing editor at the libertarian Reason Magazine. In the latter position he'd be expected to advocate small government and the protection of liberties from the expansion of state power. On the whole, Reason would appear to support the libertarian wing of the GOP. But often the ideological lines get blurred, and some hardline libertarian activists are essentially 'unpatriotic paleoconservatives' who veer over into hardline leftist territory …"

The crazy continues.

Respected national security blogger Spencer Ackerman is, according to Douglas, a "Bush-bashing nihilist." Mention is made of "(pothead) Will Wilkinson." Andrew Sullivan is, apparently, "a deranged Obamaton who feeds on the writings of Charles Johson at Little Green Footballs."

One of the most thoughtful bloggers I know is called "the America- and Israel-hating Daniel Larison."

The gist of Douglas's fumings? "Folks need to be careful about their allegiances."

In his profile, Douglas says about himself: "… in friendship, you'll find no one more dignified, trustworthy, nor loyal."

Allegiances. Friendship. Nice words, aren't they? I'll spare you the obvious nod to Mr. Orwell, and just observe that this is what the wingnut urge to purify has come to.

Link for reference only. Don't click it. You only have so many neurons to spare, and you'd be a lot happier burning through them with beer. Even wood alcohol would be attractive, by comparison.

(pic. source)

Not to go all Soundkeeper on you, but ...

... for some reason, I like this line:

“Silence is golden,” she said. “I’ll catch up on silence.”

This is from an article about the analog to digital changeover. Juanita Perry hasn't bothered to redeem her voucher for a free converter box yet; she and her husband Edward are not too concerned about their loss of teevee. Makes a nice contrast to the vox pop crankiness you'll be unsurprised to hear dominates the rest of the article.

(title: cf.)

Another Sign

Banner stretched across the facade of the appliance store up the street says:

WORRY-FREE!

Fridge Event!

When was the last time you heard about a worrisome Fridge Event?

Okay, so maybe this is about the fridges themselves. If so, when was the last time you heard someone expressing this concern? When you prank-called and asked, "Is your refrigerator running?"

Just sayin'.

[Added] Not sure why, but the treacliness of this sign's attempt to play on the emotions of its intended audience -- this is one of those horrible rent-to-own outfits -- makes me think of what Vonnegut was getting at with "Lonesome No More!"

More Sap No. This is Science.

Following on from the last post, I was reminded that I happened across a pretty fun thing the other day: "The Kissing Experiment." (I suppose if you have a really uptight workplace, you might call this one mildly NSFW.)

Author Sheril Kirshenbaum says this is part of preliminary work for a planned cognitive neuroscience experiment, and solicits your input thus:

Below the fold you’ll see a 15 photos (labeled A-O) of couples kissing. We need you to help us categorize them into three groups:

1) erotic - passionate/sexually-charged kiss
2) friendship - kiss between friends
3) relationship - affectionate kiss implying commitment

Don't get me started on people who needlessly say need, especially when they're asking a favor,* but apart from that, an interesting idea and a bunch of nice pix to look at.

* Sorry, pet peeve. This might stem from my first microeconomics class, where Prof. Sawdy hammered home the concept that there were very few actual needs, that almost everything was better thought of as a desire that people could, say, be persuaded to do without based on price. While I've grown out of the simplistic thinking that turns most Econ 101 students into free-market dogmatists, and sometimes even (*shudder*) John Galt wannabees, I've always found that idea about needs -- i.e., "needs" -- worth keeping in mind.

Not sure if this persistent peevishness grew out of that, or is a lingering resentment from my surly teenage years, or an impatience with the robo-corporate-speak they train flight attendants and security guards to use, or what, but it drives me batty when people say "I need you to" when they mean "Please." It just seems rude.

Also, when you talk about how much work you're doing when you're just standing there, holding something heavy, you are likely to get a wag of my finger, since while you're applying a force to what you're holding, you aren't applying the force through a distance …

Wait, where ya going?

Jeremy's Neighbors?

Yeah, I know it's probably staged, or the one shot chosen from hundreds. So what. I'm a sap. Nice pic. Click it to big it.

(enlarge image)

Oh, about the title: How cool would it be if these nice people lived next door to the Irons family?

Sorry. I hadda wedge that one in there. I'll putter off now. Try the veal.

(pic. source)

An Unhappy Sign

I'm not going to extrapolate a rant on what this says about the worrisome demographics of newspaper readers, or the self-indulgence of Americans, or the looming crisis in the costs of entitlement programs somewhere down the road, or the strange priorities of our supposedly great health care system, but I have to admit all of those things flashed through my mind when I saw that the top slot of the NYT Most Emailed list was held by …

… an article about gout.

I haven't read it, and was further disinclined when this line jumped out while skimming:

Ardea [a pharmaceutical company] discovered accidentally that an AIDS drug it was developing might work against gout. Now the company has shifted its focus to gout, envisioning annual sales of $1 billion if its drug is successful.

If you must …

I realize some of my prejudices (and probably ignorance) are on display here, and if you or someone you know is a nice person suffering from gout, I apologize if I've offended you.

Another Awakening

Tom Suozzi, currently the Nassau (Long Island, NY) County Executive, begins his op-ed in today's NYT as follows:

When I ran in the Democratic primary for governor against Eliot Spitzer in 2006, I vocally supported civil unions for same-sex couples but did not endorse equal marriage. I understood the need to provide equal rights for gays and lesbians, but as a practicing Catholic, I also felt that the state should not infringe on religious institutions’ right to view marriage in accordance with their own traditions. I thought civil unions for same-sex couples would address my concerns regarding both equality and religious liberty.

I was wrong.

The rest.

Easy as ...

I see by res ipsa loquitur that they remade "The Taking of Pelham 123."

I was riveted by that movie as a kid, and watched it again about twenty years later without huge disappointment. Some of the plot devices were obviously corny on second watching, but the dialog and interplay between the characters was still quite good.

This time around, it stars Denzel Washington and John Travolta. Those two could make the interplay part happen, but I'm afraid the rest of it might be a big-budget yawner. A. O. Scott's review here, if you're interested. Reading now …

Well, look at that. It's a (an?) "NYT Critics' Pick." Scott calls it a "canny, energetic updating" and an "efficiently engineered adrenaline-delivery system" and says about the interplay:

The two actors interact mostly via squawk box, cellphone and radio, as Ryder [Travolta] in his purloined subway car issues demands to Garber [Washington] at his desk. But even at a distance from each other, they conduct a tag-team master class in old-style movie star technique, barreling through every cliché and nugget of corn the script has to offer with verve and conviction. Even when you don’t really believe them, they’re always a lot of fun to watch.

Also, Guzman, Turturro, Gandolfini in supporting roles.

Hmmm. Hmmm!

See res's post to watch the trailer from the original. The NYT piece has a clip from the new version, in the sidebar, if you haven't already clicked over.

More Miller

You might remember my rave from a few weeks ago about a Dick Cavett post that featured a video clip of his old show with Jonathan Miller as his guest. If not, you might want to start there. If so, Cavett has a new post up with video of the next appearance Miller made.

There's a bit of sociological hand-waving that I didn't buy at one point, but other than that, it's another delightful -- one might even say mesmerizing -- half-hour of TV. It's also amazing how relevant it is, nearly thirty years later.

Monday, June 15, 2009

Sunday, June 14, 2009

Saturday, June 13, 2009

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