Monday, January 14, 2013

What's the best free vector program to vector my little ponies?

Q. Hello I'd really like to start vectoring cartoons(not just MLP) I do have photoshop CS5 but Im having a hard time figuring it out and a lot of other adobe products are way too expensive so does anyone know where I can get a free program that's made to vector/trace art??

A. One vector program that I know of that is free is Inkscape. It is completely free, open source, and available on Win, Mac, and Linux. I've seen posts by brony artists saying they made their picture in inkscape.

Hopethis helps,
Brohoof forever.

Any suggestions on how to create the most secure desktop system possible using only freeware?
Q. Right now I'm running Linux Mint 13 KDE. I've used Bastille system hardening and installed Comodo Antivirus for Linux.

Any ideas on how to make my system even more secure? I'm doing this as an academic exercise. At this point when it comes to security, my Linux box is to your average Windows machine as a Navy Seal is to a mall cop.

A. Basically, what you need to do is attack yourself - or if you're really concerned, hire a professional ethical hacker to do it. If you take that route, which is a bit odd to say the least, considering it's just a desktop, you basically have two options: a vulnerability assessment, which is an itemized list of sorts covering all the potential weak points in your system and network or an actual penetration test in which these vulnerability get exploited, full on, to see just much damage could/would be done if you'd actually been maliciously hacked. You stated that you already hardened your system, which generally means you did what I just described, but also went back and patched all the vulnerabilities you found.

If you have already done this, the only thing left is configuring security modules (Selinux, etc) and firewalls. Companies literally hire people to write detailed and very explicit LSM policies, so I can tell you it IS a bit of a pain in the rear. But if you do have well defined policies, you can be damned sure that your system is quite safe. As you probably know, these security module policies basically dictate the EXACT parameters in which specified applications can and cannot function. Exactly what resources and privileges they get or don't. Windows users could only dream of such security, such an easy yet powerful way to lock down a machine. Firewalls: You can never have too many firewalls. I seriously suggest you set up a physical firewall at the boundary of your home network. OpenBSD packet filter is IDEAL for this, but you can also use Linux (Netfilter/Iptables) if you feel more comfortable with it. The OpenBSD firewall (packer filter) is much superior in my experience. But it all comes down to configuration, after all... right? It all depends how paranoid you are really. You can use various virtualization software to run application in isolation/sand boxes, etc. You can (and should) use secure proxies as firewalls.


One thing to keep in mind as a general rule the more convenience you have, the less secure you are. Another thing to keep in mind is that your web browser (regardless of which one you use) is likely the the weakest spot in your system. Easily the biggest attack vector is going to be your web browser, so lock it down as well. Browsers are amongst the most insecure applications of any and potentially an easy back door...

Another thing is that installing the antivirus software could have very well made your system MORE vulnerable. More code = more complexity = more bugs = more surface area to attack. This is actually a VERY serious issue in the govt sector at the moment. Some of the biggest vulns they've had have been in the very software they use to protect themselves!

Good security habits, your box is only as secure as the man behind it/using it. Educate yourself and be careful.


1. Hack yourself, or hire someone to do it. Patch all the vulns you/they find. 2. configure security modules (selinux) with well defined policies 3. set up and configure firewalls at every layer of the network / TC/IP. 4. MORE FIREWALLS + MORE CONFIGURING FIREWALLS!! 5. uninstall ALL unnecessary software. If you did 1-4 then chances are that AV you got is about as unnecessary as it gets. Also see point on AV zero days as a serious security issue of today. 6. sandbox everything, if your paranoid. Qubes OS is a good example of sandboxing gone wild, but still done right. Especially key would be sand boxing the web browser, if anything. This alone can add serious security. 7. Educate yourself. Don't stop learning. Good for you Mint is about as user friendly as Linux gets currently, but if you ever decide to venture away from shallower waters, you need to be prepared or Linux can bite you.

How do I read in file names in a directory for C++?
Q. I'm making a program in C++ using Linux and I have a folder in which there lies 25 different word documents. I am going to create a loop to open each document and browse it, but I am unsure of how to get the names of the documents out of that folder so that I can open them for file transfer.

Does anyone know how I could do this? Thanks.

A. Read this - http://www.gnu.org/software/libc/manual/html_node/File-System-Interface.html#File-System-Interface

I wrote a simple program, you can modify it as you wish:

#include <sys/types.h>
#include <dirent.h>
#include <errno.h>
#include <vector>
#include <string>
#include <iostream>

using namespace std;

//Nice function to have
int getdir (string dir, vector<string> &files)
{
DIR *dp;
struct dirent *dirp;
if((dp = opendir(dir.c_str())) == NULL) {
cout << "Error(" << errno << ") opening " << dir << endl;
return errno;
}

while ((dirp = readdir(dp)) != NULL) {
files.push_back(string(dirp->d_name));
}
closedir(dp);
return 0;
}

int main()
{
string dir = string(".");
vector<string> files = vector<string>();

getdir(dir,files);

for (unsigned int i = 0;i < files.size();i++) {
cout << files[i] << endl;
}
return 0;
}




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