Ducking Public Wifi
After witnessing the failure of countless approaches on Mac and Windows systems, I switched to Linux and accomplished this in less than an hour, and never looked back. You should probably do the same. Of course, logins on remote accounts will report you if you're being monitored on the host (example.com) server; but for safe, non-account browsing, this will actually work. Instructions and programs are for Ubuntu, but can be easily adapted to the local flavor. This script scrambles the MAC address and hostname of your laptop's wireless card to anonymize your computer itself. Your IP will have to be routed through a proxy if you want to scramble your location, of course. However, tying your computer to that public wifi access point, using the credentials of your computer, after running this script, will become impossible. If you do log into your email, the MAC and possibly the hostname will be tied to your machine, but will be re-assigned by re-running the script, so it's really no big deal if you are using it for that purpose. ----------------------------------------------------- First, you'll need a MAC address scrambler. From the command line prompt (Ctrl+Alt+t), type this while connected to the internet:
--------------------------------------------------- sudo apt-get install macchanger
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Enter your root password, and answer yes to everything. Once installed, go into a text editor of your choice and paste in the following script. I like VM (rview from prompt), but pico is good for the beginner. ---------------------------------------------------
#!/bin/bash echo "enable networking, but disable wireless to get this script working properly" echo "I'm going to take wlan0 down anyway, just for fun" sudo ifconfig wlan0 down echo "please input new hostname" read newhostname echo "okie dokie, your new hostname is" $newhostname echo $newhostname > '/etc/hostname' echo "now changing MAC address to a random vendor and value:" sudo macchanger -A wlan0 ---------------------------------------------------
Now save this file as something like "localscramble.sh", preferably in your home directory. It's best to turn off your wifi from the settings menu (wifi or ethernet logo on the top menu bar, and de-select "Enable Wireless"...but don't de-select "Enable Networking"!) before running the script, though. Results may vary with the command line shutdown of the wireless card.
Back at the shell, type the following, using Enter at the end of every line: ---------------------------------------------------
~ sudo bash localscramble.sh
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Answer the prompts as prompted, and there you go! Reblog for questions if you have any.