Entries by Kevin Harrison

Kevin Harrison

Thursday, February 17. 2011

Installing Alternative PHP Cache (APC) Posted by Kevin Harrison at 14:57

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Installing Alternative PHP Cache (APC)

Alternative PHP Cache, better known as APC, is a free download that can be installed by using the PECL installer.

When using Linux, simply pass this command...

pecl install apc

After apc installs, the apc.so extension will need to be added to the server's php.ini.

extension="apc.so"

Once added, restart apache.

To be sure that apc installed correctly, simply fire off a phpinfo() and check its output.

Tuesday, September 15. 2009

Sanatizing mysql inputs with php Posted by Kevin Harrison at 12:40

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Defined tags for this entry: mysql, php

Sanatizing mysql inputs with php

There are multiple options obviously for PHP, and one should use the quoting option provided by the ORM or extension one is using.

The most common ways are either MySQL/MySQLi or though PDO.

<?php
//
//MYSQL
//
$conn = mysql_connect(/ AUTH /);

//The mysqli driver also provides mysqli_real_escape_string()
$result = mysql_query(sprintf(
"UPDATE users SET name = '%s'",
mysql_real_escape_string($_GET['name'])
));

//
//PDO (Multiple DB Backends)
//
$conn = new PDO(/ DSN /);

//PDO::quote(...) alters quoting style depending on the DB driver
//CAVEAT: PDO_ODBC does not properly implement the quote feature
$stmt = $conn->prepare("UPDATE users SET name = :name");
$stmt->execute(array(
':name' => $_GET['name'],
));

//Best practice to typecast values that should always be integers
$rows = $conn->query(sprintf(
"SELECT id, name FROM users WHERE id = %s",
$conn->quote((int)$_GET['id'], PDO::PARAM_INT)
));

?>

Monday, July 27. 2009

Traffic Blocking - AT&T IP ... Posted by Kevin Harrison at 03:19

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Defined tags for this entry: att, htaccess, net-neutrality

Traffic Blocking - AT&T IP Addresses with .htaccess

If you're upset with AT&T's recent net neutrality violation, perhaps a fellow webmaster, here is a way to protest to AT&T's customer base.

Open up your trusty .htaccess and paste the following in side.

order allow, deny
deny from 12.20
deny from 76.192
deny from 68.88
deny from 75
deny from 99.128
allow from all

This unfortunately will produce a hard error. To inform your traffic why this is happening you should create a custom 403 Forbidden error page. Below the allow/deny statement, add another line.

order allow, deny
deny from 12.20
deny from 76.192
deny from 68.88
deny from 75
deny from 99.128
allow from all

ErrorDocument 403 /forbidden.html

Here is something decent to use for the time being. Just save the html code below to forbidden.html and place it into your web root directory.

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
<title>Untitled Document</title>
</head>

<body>

It has recently come to our attention that AT&T is now blocking a large community of internet users from certain sites. AT&T has denied this as of my writing this, but several reports are streaming in from all over the internet, and AT&T users who have called tech support have reportedly been told that AT&T is, in fact, blocking a few popular message boards on 4chan.org. A website that is ranked as the 4th most popular website on the internet. AT&T thus far has been unable to provide any valid justification as to why they suddenly started to block certain sections of 4chan.

This sudden filter on AT&T traffic seems to be no less than their attempt to censor portions of the internet that have been deemed unfit for their customers. The actions of AT&T have removed control from the customers to determine what web pages they can or cannot view. This is a blatant violation of Net Neutrality. AT&T has taken it upon themselves to police the internet on behalf of their customers, who have no say at all in the matter. The choice is simply to let AT&T decide what is best for you to visit on the web, or switch to another provider. The latter may not even be an option for customers in areas where AT&T has no competitors for Internet service.

AT&T needs to be advised that the customer will assume their own rights in regards to the type and content of the internet. They cannot be allowed to block even one site. If they are allowed to continue this filtration of web traffic, it is only a matter of time before more websites fall victim to this censorship if nothing is done.

We trust that you will agree with us, and hopefully will be able to assist in maintaining the freedom of the internet. We do not need the "Great Firewall of America."

If you would like to voice your opinion to AT&T about this, you can call their customer support phone number at 1-800-400-1447 or 1-800-759-8195

</body></html>

Monday, July 27. 2009

AT&T Violates Net Neutrality by ... Posted by Kevin Harrison at 02:39

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Defined tags for this entry: att, net-neutrality

AT&T Violates Net Neutrality by blocking 4chan.org

On July 27th, 2009 AT&T took the first shot at "net neutrality" by blocking the popular website "4Chan.org" to all of their customers.

Several blogs and news providers have already begun reporting this issue:

http://mashable.com/
http://www.techcrunch.com/
http://www.phonenews.com/

AT&T customers who have been impacted by this filter are doing everything in their power to reverse it, however, AT&T refuses to comment on the issue at this time. Several thousands of AT&T customers are already in the early stages of starting a boycott if AT&T does not remove their filter on 4chan.org.

AT&T is taking away our internet freedom, something President Obama claimed he would protect during his presidential campaign! I need your help getting the word out about this issue. This is a topic that should NOT be brushed under a carpet and be forgotten! Contact your local news channels and let them know what AT&T is doing!

To learn more about net neutrality and how it affects everyone on the internet, check out:
http://www.savetheinternet.com/