Greasemonkey is a Firefox extension that allows you to customize the way webpages look and function.

It has a really big library of user created scripts: UserScripts. There you can find scripts for a wide variety of functions. From customizing the web to provide a real privacy enhancement. There so many that sometimes is difficult to find what you’re looking for.

I’ve found a reliable script to block Google Search click monitoring. Google’s annoying ‘onmousedown’ event will send your click to them before going to the clicked link. Allowing them to provide a reliable list of websites you’ve viewed for targeted advertising purposes.

So, Install GreaseMonkey extension on your Firefox if you haven’t done it yet and Install Google Search – Remove Redirection before Google knows more about you than your own granma!

A few days ago I read a great article on the Wall Street Journal about the privacy issues that third party cookies rises. I found there a great video that explains the whole process in an easy manner that everybody can understand it easily.

This video is included in the WSJ article The Web’s New Gold Mine: Your Secrets and its the first in their new What do they know series. You can read more using the following links:

• The Web’s New Gold Mine: Your Secrets
  A Journal investigation finds that one of the fastest-growing businesses on the Internet is the business of spying on consumers. First in a series.
• What do they know

Ingredients

• Linux machine (Debian used)
• SSH client/server (on local/remote machine)
• inetd Internet super-server daemon (on the local machine)
• nc Netcat (on the remote machine)

Procedure

• Inetd listens on an arbitrary port in local machine
• User connects to an arbitrary port in its local machine
• Inetd opens the SSH connection to remote machine
• The remote machine executes the especified command in authorized_keys2, a Netcat that will connect to the final port (in 127.0.0.1)
• The secure bidirectional connection is established

Steps

1. Create a password less key to login local(root) -> remote(user)

in [local_machine] as [root]
ssh-keygen -t dsa -f ~/.ssh/tunnel_key
Don’t use a passprase (just press ENTER when asked)

2. Install the key in remote machine

in [local_machine] as [root]
scp ~/.ssh/tunnel_key.pub user@remote_machine:/tmp
in [remote_machine] as [user]
cat /tmp/tunnel_key.pub >> ~/.ssh/authorized_keys2

3. Select the shell to use when login with that key (a netcat to the redirected port)

Edit the ~/.ssh/authorized_keys2 file, go to the last line (the line we added on last step) and just before the ssh-ds leaving the line like this:
in [remote_machine] as [user]
command="nc localhost 5222",no-X11-forwarding,no-agent-forwarding,no-port-forwarding ssh-ds...

4. Edit the Internet super daemon configuration file to tunelize the communication

Edit the /etc/inetd.conf file. Add a new line that will listen an arbitrary port which will tunelize to the remote server. The line may look like this:
in [local_machine] as [root]
127.0.0.1:5222 stream tcp nowait root /usr/bin/ssh -q -T -i /root/.ssh/tunnel_key user@remote_machine

5. Configure the client (in local machine) to connect to 127.0.0.1 using the port especified in inetd
6. Enjoy

This is not suitable for services like HTTP proxies an the like. This kind of services open and close connections too quickly. Keep in mind that SSH sessions take its time to connect…