Archive for the ‘Tech’ Category
If Senator John McCain has way by defeating the FCC’s move to support Net Neutrality with his “Internet Freedom Act“, this is what your Internet plan options could easily look like:
Say “goodbye” to experiencing the World Wide Web as you know it, and say “hello” to experiencing it as you do your cable TV, with restrictions on what you get unless you want to pay more, and unless the content providers pay more to be listed there.
As usual, the notion that a “government takeover” and a “marxist plot” are being bantered around to generate support for McCain’s bill through fear and ignorance. It goes without saying that McCain was the biggest beneficiary of telco/ISP money in 2008, to the tune of $894,379.
Picture courtesy of some quink at Reddit. Click the pic for the full-size image.
The Ultimate Lock Picker Hacks Pentagon, Beats Corporate Security for Fun and Profit.
Being a former professional locksmith of 7 years, and an aficionado of the art of picking and bypassing locks, I found this article to hit pretty close to home. It is a fascinating look into the brain of a hacker — not the computer geek hacker, but a person who lives and breathes the true hacker ethic.
He said that Microsoft must be hoping that it gets Windows 7 right or it’s really in trouble.
I decided to resurrect my old Geekamongus.com site. Instead of filling this personal site with loads of technical blog posts no one cares about, I thought I’d dedicate a site to computers, the Internet, security, and anything else geeky. It made sense to use Geekamongus.com to do this.
So, look forward to more posts about personal things and whatever I’m thinking about here, and head to Geekamongus.com for the geeky stuff.
I intend to keep the new site on a ‘lay person’ level, providing articles to help people with computers and the Internet. I figure there are a lot of people who could use free advice, and it makes it fulfilling to think I might be helping someone.
So go tell your friends!
In my revised capacity at my current job, I’ve been handling a lot of
security issues: hardening of systems, software, and processes. I’ve
also been studying for the Security+ certification, so needless to say,
security has been at the top of my mind the last 5 months, and I wish it
would be at least a little closer to the tops of the general public’s
mind.
I’m going to start a new series of blog posts here called Practical
Security in which I will pass on some of the more relevant best
practices relating to the typical internet user, in hopes of helping to
raise awareness amongst anyone who happens to read this blog. (Yes, all
4 of you).
Using Email on Public Wifi (and the high level of risks
therein)
Question:
How often do you stop at a coffee shop to check your email with your
laptop, or leech that open ‘linksys’ network while sitting at a traffic
light with your PDA to shoot off a quick note to your boss? OK, maybe
I’m the only one who does that at traffic lights, but you get my point.
If you have a portable device that can access the Internet, my guess is
that your answer is “quite often”.
Question:
How many of you have configured your email to use some sort of
encryption? (Cue the crickets chirping).
As this excellent StopDesign
article explains:
What you may not realize is how easy these low security settings
allow someone else on the same network to spy on the data passing around
on that network. Just because you’re the only person who can see your
laptop screen, doesn’t necessarily mean you’re the only one who can see
the email message you just got from a friend. Just as easily as someone
could sit near you in a quiet cafe or library and overhear your entire
verbal conversation with another person, so could they “listen in” on
all the usernames, passwords, and messages passing to and from your
computer. (And everyone else’s computer for that matter.)
Kinda scary, huh? If you think about it, once they have your email
account password, it’s not too hard to go to your bank and generate a
“lost password” request, which will get sent to your email address,
which they now have control of. Or they might simply decide to send a
breakup letter to your boyfriend on your behalf if they are not feeling
so malicious. Or maybe they thought it would be funny to email your
boss and tell him how good he looks when he gets out of the shower.
By default, email is not secure!
Yes, this includes you, Mac user. Yes, this includes you,
Gmail/Yahoo/Hotmail/AOL user.
Make sure your email is on a secure connection!
The Lowdown
If you use a webmail service such as Hotmail, Yahoo Mail, Gmail, or the
like, make sure your web browser (Internet Explorer, Safari, Firefox,
etc) is in “secure” mode by looking for the lock icon. Alternately (or
additionally), look at the address bar of your web browser to make sure
the address showing starts with https and not just http.
If you use Outlook, Outlook Express, Thunderbird, Mac Mail, or any other
‘program’ on your computer to manage your email, there are ways to set
up these applications to run only on secure connections using SSL, TLS,
SSH, and other methods. You may need to consult your local IT guru or
read the rest of the StopDesign
article, or this well-written article entitled “5 Steps to Make Your Email Secure“.
Whatever you do, stop checking your email at Starbucks unless you know
it is secure!
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Out of all the awesome, free applications (and the crappy ones too) I’ve been trying out in the new Apps Store with my iPod Touch, the best by far is the Worspress app. I’m using it now to write this post.
It supports tags, categories, editing previous posts, post status, images, AND multiple blogs. I was floored when I read all that, and am more floored now that I’m using it.
Wow is all I can say!