Computer Safety and Blondes'
The second part of my advisory is about computers and general internet interaction. This is classified into three parts, advertant, inadvertant and positively criminal! The advertant bit is generally about protecting personal data. Ever lost a banking password? All they require from you is name, date of birth, and perhaps a transaction or two. Hence, do not throw away statements (bank/credit cards)! Internet banking passwords must not resemble "jesal0610" [due apologies to any Jesal's out there who are born on 6th of oct.] nor must your date of birth be any part of any PIN. Hence, old statements, pls shred; old bills, please shred, and old expired cards, pls cut into little bits.
The second bit is, well a little simpler. The story goes like this: A computer security journo. gets this IM from a friend..suitably edited it goes:
It gets better
So the dude, haiving hit pub conversation jackpot, decided to transfer all this very personal stuff onto a video ipod.
And then it got better (or worse if you are the Blonde)
HOW CAN ANYONE BE THAT STUPID! Well perhaps the reason lies in ignorance of a few basic facts...
One has to be especially careful about office hardware and networks. Not only can they record , they do record every letter you type (including IM, mail, blog , documents and VoIP), they have aright to do it AND they will sack you for misuse if they should choose to!! Hence, stuff like Orkut, please keep it off work. This is something that Claire Swire and Peter Chung found the very hard way, when their rather risque mails, sent from official id, went around the world in days!!
The last bit is simpler to control: install a couple of free anti-spyware progs, one firewall and one anti virus. Ad-aware and Spybot are essential (and if you are crazy enough to use Internet Explorer then Javacools' spywareblaster is a good idea). The best firewall in the Business is Zone Alarm and for personal use it is free. AVG Antivirus is pretty good (ranked 3 in P C Worlds latest charts) and it is free for personal use.
Having said that, prevention is better than cure. For very personally intimate stuff, it is a very bad idea to shoot yourself in flagrante delicto,
here
The second part of my advisory is about computers and general internet interaction. This is classified into three parts, advertant, inadvertant and positively criminal! The advertant bit is generally about protecting personal data. Ever lost a banking password? All they require from you is name, date of birth, and perhaps a transaction or two. Hence, do not throw away statements (bank/credit cards)! Internet banking passwords must not resemble "jesal0610" [due apologies to any Jesal's out there who are born on 6th of oct.] nor must your date of birth be any part of any PIN. Hence, old statements, pls shred; old bills, please shred, and old expired cards, pls cut into little bits.
The second bit is, well a little simpler. The story goes like this: A computer security journo. gets this IM from a friend..suitably edited it goes:
Boy have I got a story for your SecurityFocus column. My brother-in-law just bought a used Intel 20" iMac. The seller was a nice looking blonde, who didn't wipe the disk.It gets better
For some reason, he thought he needed her password to reinstall the system, so he called her and she gave it to him. Well, he had already seen some pornographic pictures on the hard drive that weren't password protected. Most of them weren't too explicit, aside from a couple of [oral sex] shots. But the password uncovered some videos where she gets sodomized, apparently by her boyfriend, or only one guy at any rateSo the dude, haiving hit pub conversation jackpot, decided to transfer all this very personal stuff onto a video ipod.
And then it got better (or worse if you are the Blonde)
My brother-in-law doesn't watch a lot of television, but somehow he figured out that the blonde is the host of [a very popular television show in that country]! I saw the vids and I went to the official website, and there she was. There's no doubt about it, it's the same womanHOW CAN ANYONE BE THAT STUPID! Well perhaps the reason lies in ignorance of a few basic facts...
- When you delete a file (and even after emptying the recycle bin), there is enough software available to retrieve those files.
- Moving a file is not the same as deleting
- Copying a file onto a portable device is certainly not deleting it
- Do NOT give out your password to anyone - whatever the reason!
One has to be especially careful about office hardware and networks. Not only can they record , they do record every letter you type (including IM, mail, blog , documents and VoIP), they have aright to do it AND they will sack you for misuse if they should choose to!! Hence, stuff like Orkut, please keep it off work. This is something that Claire Swire and Peter Chung found the very hard way, when their rather risque mails, sent from official id, went around the world in days!!
The last bit is simpler to control: install a couple of free anti-spyware progs, one firewall and one anti virus. Ad-aware and Spybot are essential (and if you are crazy enough to use Internet Explorer then Javacools' spywareblaster is a good idea). The best firewall in the Business is Zone Alarm and for personal use it is free. AVG Antivirus is pretty good (ranked 3 in P C Worlds latest charts) and it is free for personal use.
Having said that, prevention is better than cure. For very personally intimate stuff, it is a very bad idea to shoot yourself in flagrante delicto,
however big an exhibitionist you may think you are. If the relationship ends, or a PC is hacked, that stuff WILL find itself into most unsavoury hands!! (re: Paris Hilton, Allegedly Britney Spears, and now the very bright (blond) TV Anchor!!)... Exactly how long will the journos, friends, bro-in-law resist the temptation to post the material on YouTube??
Be safe .... till next time......
Full article by Scott Granneman is
here
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