AnonToolBox

Hacking on feature-branches

In a previous article I wrote that I will something about feature-branches. This is the way we will develop the AnonToolBox or telling it better: Following the GitHub Flow!

Atm I have not the time to write a long post to describe the Github Flow and kindly I don’t have to do that, it was already done by Scott Chacon’s article “GitHub Flow”

To use all aspects of GitHub Flow, we always need people with skills present for reviewing the code and a Continuous Integration System for playing with unittests.

But hey, keep the stuff simple at the beginning.

We just have one mission: Anything in the AnonToolBox master branch is deployable!

To get this working, it’s simple forbidden to hack any feature in the master branch. All features => in feature branches.

If you already hack this way, great!
If you do not already hack this way: You will start loving it xD

It’s very simple to branch in a git repo and so it’s very simple to use a branch for each new feature you’re trying to implement.

If you’re in the master branch of a freshly cloned AnonToolBox, a simple

git branch feature--FEATURENAME
git checkout feature--FEATURENAME

and you’re in business!

You can even branch from feature-branches, great yea?

Finally, when your new feature is ready and your unittest “smiles green”, you checkout the master branch again and merge the feature-branch. If you’re not sure about the handling, send me a note.

Hopy this post helps you!

Prepare yourself for AnonToolBox hacking - SSH Tipps

You may already use github.com for developing other projects and maybe you want to use a different github account and ssh keypair for your AnonToolBox hacking.

Scenario:

• you create a new github.com account
• you may create a new ssh keypair and put the public key into your new github account
• you fork the AnonToolBox
• you checkout your new forked AnonToolBox
• you start hacking and commit to your local repo
• and now you want to push it back to github

All people not working too much with ssh run into a problem now and the following config helps you to fix this on unix style operating systems. (sorry, no Microsoft skills here :/ )

The problem is, that you like to use two different ssh keypairs for two different github.com accounts and you have to tell ssh, which key to use. It’s very simple looking at the following config snippet for ~/.ssh/config

Host anontoolbox.github.com
    User git
    HostName github.com
    Identityfile ~/.ssh/anontoolbox

You define a “virtual” hostname called anontoolbox.github.com an tell ssh the real hostname in the config.

And instead of pushing to github.com you now always push to anontoolbox.github.com.

I recommend you using your username on github.com as hostname part of the full qualified domain name.

We hope it helps you joining and hacking the AnonToolBox.

AnonToolBox Developer News

Yesterday several Anonymous Twitter Accounts retweeted our initial announces and we got first followers. Thank You! Now we prepare to hack for the op.

We don’t know the skill level of the people following us, we only know our skills and the time we can spend for the op. As you see in the main git repository, we develop using the git revision control system on the widely known github.com platform. Many famous open source projects hosting their repos there.

Python is our language of choice. It’s just

• easy to learn,
• simple to understand
• and forces you to write readable code - fucking awesome, isn’t it? LOL

It’s also nice to know, that Python runs on every important operating system, so it’s perfect for our mission.

With our toolbox we want to support many Anons with low technical experiences around the globe using many different operation systems with different releases. As a hacker or admin you call this support case a non supportable horror show, but we call this a challenge!

To master this challenge we need some simple rules. These simple rules are

• we can use all features from the Python standard libs not specific to only one platform
• we can use all pure python third party libs
• the beauty of some hacks maybe wonderful, but we want to get the box running everywhere!

So far…

For the end of this post I want to give you an update for the current things on github.com.

• there is a service on github.com for tweeting whenever we update the projects
• so whenever you see a tweet from github.com the box has new feautures or a bug was fixed or we made updates on the website
• I added a second git repository called anontoolbox.github.com for serving a static website
• some small scripts for generating the html files are enough for our website
• if you can contribute a nice looking html template, join us!
• I added links to Developer Resources

The next post: Feature branches for hacking

It’s simple to destroy things!
It’s not hard to develop things!
It’s an exhausting task to distribute things the easy way!
It’s a challenge to support things for a long time!

We are Anonymous! Expect Us!

AnonToolBox - Easy to use tools for #Anons

It’s a little bit crazy. The mass media always calls Anonymous a “group of hackers” and the most Anons we know have not high technical experiences!

Even self protection is a problem for most Anons. Using privacy protection tools like TOR proxy or VPN is not the standard. Too many Anons publish too much private data across too many public services.

Remember: In facebook you are not the customer, your are the product!

The legion grows! The idea of Anonymous becomes famous and many people around the globe join it. We also hope they really understand the idea!

As most Anons join or organize demos and paperstorms, the risk for their personal life may be low depending on the country they live. But there is always a risk and the risk grows with more activity.

So it’s time to support the legion with usable tools and simple howtos. It’s time that the legion stands together more than ever.

The AnonToolBox is NOT a hacker’s toolbox! It’s a toolbox to support Anons in their mission for free speech! Downloading and using the toolbox should arm an activist. Anonymous activists should not need to search for the best instructions, they should always have them “in the box”. And if someone knows better solutions, pls share it!

Sharing the AnonToolBox means spreading support to the legion.

The AnonToolBox is a long time op and we hope many Anons join it. We need hackers, editors, translaters, designers and more to support the growing legion.

In future posts we introduce more ideas of the toolbox, expect next

• the local docserver

If you like to support or join the AnonToolBox Team, send us your ideas for tools, code snippets or write easy to understand documentation.

We are Anonymous.
We are Legion.
We do not forget.
We do not forgive.
Expect Us!