Are you root?

Posted on March 13, 2012 by admin

I was reminded by a comment left this week about a practice that can help keep you safe on the internet.  I have been using this for quite some time and operating systems are pushing users toward this.  It is the practice of not running as an administrator, or “root” from the UNIX/Linux world.

This helps you, to put it simply, by not allowing arbitrary code to run or install on your computer.  Windows started pushing this with Vista where if you try to install or run a new program, or one that is not digitally “signed”, you will be prompted with a warning that this could be harmful and do you want to proceed.  If you are running as an admin it is easy enough to click “yes” and not think too much of it.  However, if you are running as a standard user you will have to type an admin password to continue.

This is great protection compared to the old paradigm where you could click on a bad link, or even just visit a infected website and code would start running in the background on your system without you ever knowing you were bitten.

Newer versions of Linux, Ubuntu at least from my experience, default you to a lower privilege status  forcing users to use the “sudo” function to run programs as root.

In Windows you can manage user accounts from the control panel which you access from the start button (at least until Windows 8).  From here I would recommend creating a special “admin” account and giving it admin privileges and a good password.  Then edit your user account to a standard user (still using a good password).  You can still run programs as an admin by right clicking on a program and choosing “run as administrator”.  This option only appears on programs where the functionality is needed.

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Welcome to Windows 8

Posted on March 3, 2012 by admin

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The Windows 8 Metro interface made for phones and tablets but can be used on PC’s. (it’s my jpg that looks bad not the interface)

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Windows 8 Desktop.  Much as it’s always been sans the start button.

Let me start out by saying that I am routing for Microsoft in their en devour to make a hybrid mobile/desktop operating system.  My dream is to have (I know the hardware already exists) a platform that would allow me to have a smartphone, that could dock in a tablet, that could dock in a laptop/desktop, and have a nice touch interface with all the things I’ve come to love in iOS, with a real desktop environment for getting real work done, and useful for watching movies/playing games.  I’m sure I’m not alone there.

I’m trying this new OS on VMware with a core i5 with 2GB of memory allocated, so I am cutting it some slack in performance which was pretty bad at times especially trying to play games that came with or I downloaded from Microsofts app store.

Microsoft says Win 8 will have a significantly faster boot time.  I clocked just under 2 mins. Granted this is a virtual machine but it’s worth noting that my Win Xp and Ubuntu VM’s boot very quickly, and my native Win 7 boots as fast as 45 seconds.

Microsoft has a good legacy of backwards compatibility with it’s products.  I failed to load a copy of MS Office 2000 I had lying around.  Winpcap, not a MS product, also would not load, making my successful installation of Wireshark useless.

With no apps running I was around 800MB of memory in use.

The metro app with it’s “live” tiles is nice, though I obviously couldn’t make much use of this interface designed for touch.  The app store is pretty barren at the moment, but I do like the descriptions of the apps, in particular the prominent display of what system resources it has access to.

The desktop hasn’t changed very much.  There is the, annoying to me, lack of the start button.  I spent the last couple of years moving from XP to 7, why I now need to learn new ways of navigating to the utilities I want escapes me.  The ribbon type menu bar introduced in Office 2007 seems to be pervasive in Win 8.  I am used to this menu now, and this is a welcome change for me. The task manager was given a makeover and now has more colorful and intuitive ways of reading it’s data.  Ctrl-alt-delete still works, as does “win”-l to lock.

In place of a start button there are two invisible menu bars that advance from left and right by hovering the mouse where the start button used to be or in the opposite place on the right side.  I assume these would be available by “swiping” in from the sides on a touch screen.  I find them clumsy and not intuitive on the PC platform along with the start screen            which just shows a background and a time which made me think my install was hanging until I realized through trial and error that you have to “swipe” up, even with a mouse, to get to the login screen.

It will be interesting to see this platform develop and hopefully it will be an open market.  I would love stick with Google for search and Maps even if I had a Win 8 phone.

 

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My reaction to the reaction to Google’s new privacy policy.

Posted on February 24, 2012 by admin

I’ve heard a lot of reactions to the announced new policy such as this one from CBS “This policy change threatens the privacy of those users of various Google products who wish to keep various parts of their online experience separate”. First let me say that I don’t think I am partial to any tech company. I prefer iOS to Android, Windows to Mac OS, and Chrome to any other browser. PS I am also a fan of LINUX. I use many of Google’s products…Gmail, maps, documents, calendar, Youtube, Voice, etc. All of these services are free to me. ( Yes, I just wrote on this point in my last post). Do I think Google is doing all this for me out of the kindness of their heart, of course not. Is Google collecting and aggregating data about my usage of their products, of course. Their mission statement is to: Organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful. Do they use that information to target my browsing with ads, yes. Is that OK with me, yes and here is why. Google is not forcing me to use their products. If I don’t want them to collect my information I don’t have to use them. I don’t have to click on their ads, or buy anything. They told me in advance what they were going to do. Facebook, Yahoo, and a majority of the places most people go on the web are tracking them and collecting use data at least. I can clear my history from Google and leave it turned off if I choose.
People have become spoiled with all the technology that is not understood and offered without a premium, but none of it is free. It’s always a good idea to learn about the technology you are using weather it’s a smartphone or a kerosene heater.
Bottom Line:
If you are uncomfortable with a company’s practices, don’t use them.
Realize that being on the internet is like being in public, you can’t expect complete privacy.
If you love all the free, and wonderful services the internet offers, expect some direct advertising.
Read Google’s new privacy policy for yourself

If you want to control your Google data you can start by

  1. going to www.google.com/settings before March 1st ,
  2. then go to the bottom of the page to “Go to web history” and click the link.
  3. Then sign in to Google,
  4. then click the “Remove” button. This will clear all of your Google history and pause them from collecting more.

If you really want control use software designed to block advertising elements, and learn about cookies and how to block them. (Warning. Disabling cookies and other blocking strategies will cause many websites not to work. This is where you see what you are not paying for)
Learn about scriptno for Chrome or noscript for firefox.

 

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Update

Posted on January 14, 2012 by admin

I wrote previously about checking your privacy and security settings in Facebook.  Last week I was helping someone with this and noticed that the options had changed considerably since the last time I had looked at them.  I wanted not only to point this out, but to underline a principle.  Things change quickly in the technology world.  Addressing your security and protecting your privacy are not single events, but need to be ongoing processes.  I don’t mean to single out Facebook.  I think it is safe to say that sites that offer their services for free should be given extra scrutiny as user information may be part of their business.  To be fair this is not always a bad thing.  We have an amazing array of free services offered to us today that would not be possible without advertising and data collection.  I personally accept that a certain level of privacy is lost for my access to “free” services but I also believe in being aware and having the choice in what information of mine is used and how it is used.

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One of my favorite sites

Posted on October 7, 2011 by admin

I wanted to pass on and support one of my favorite resources, www.grc.com There is a wealth of information available at this site, as well as many free tools to improve your computing life. If you find it as helpful and informative as I do I suggest purchasing a copy of the “Spinrite” hard-drive utility. It might even save you from having to call me to fix your computer.

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Keep your batteries healthy

Posted on October 7, 2011 by admin

We spend alot of money on smart phones, laptops, and all kinds of electronic devices that use batteries. More and more those batteries must be replaced by an authorized tech of the manufacturer, so we want to keep those batteries around as long as possible. The standard right now is Lithium Ion batteries. These are different than the older NiCad and similar batteries. While these older batteries were kept healthy by fully discharging and fully charging the battery, Lithium Ion batteries like to be kept charged as much as possible. The worst thing you can do for a modern battery is to fully drain it on a regular basis. So keep those iPhones and laptops plugged in when you can and your battery will hopefully last till your next device.

ADDENDUM: It may be occasionally beneficial or necessary to discharge the battery to 5% to re calibrate the software that runs the battery.

Secondly, for long term storage of said batteries it is best do discharge to 40% and refrigerate.

For all you want to know about batteries check out batteryuniversity.com/

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Banking Trojans

Posted on September 19, 2011 by admin

Of all the things we do online today that we want to protect, perhaps none is more important than our online banking. As such a high profile target the bad guys have lots of tools for getting at this info. In addition to good security practices, and personal firewall and antivirus software you can find a tool that will specifically scan your system for Banking Trojan at http://fitsec.com/blog/
then look under the headline “Tool Release: A Banking Trojan Detection Tool”. This is a small executable file for Windows that will check for several well known Banking Trojans.

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How secure is https:

Posted on September 16, 2011 by admin

Over the last several months the organizations responsible for issuing the certificates that make httpsecure, secure, have been under attack. While this isn`t a widespread issues for end users yet, some basic understanding of how it works is helpful. For now, if you use the Firefox browser try the plugin “Certificate Patrol” it will let you know if anything unusual is going on with the sites you login to. I will add more on this later

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Always update

Posted on August 31, 2011 by admin

We have all seen, and been annoyed by, a dialogue box pop up and inform us that “Updates are available”. Whether those updates are for Windows, Flash, Java or any other application they are important. The company is offering you something for free, more code. They had to pay someone to develop that code, host it on a server, and push that update to you. Why, would they give you something free which they had to pay to make… because it’s important. Updates fix problems with the program. They may be user complaints, such as “it always crashes when I do ….”, it may be improvements to the user interface, but more often than not these days they include fixes to security vulnerabilities. If you haven’t noticed internet/information security is always in the news these days. Our networks and our data are under attack. Software developers, and security experts are working hard to protect you from these threats, take their free code. If you are a “power user” then you may want to read the details for each update and see what it is and if you really need it. Otherwise, just install it. That is of course if it is from a reputable company for a product you have, but that’s another post.

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Facebook faux pas

Posted on August 9, 2011 by admin

While I don’t use Facebook often I do have an account.  I use it to share stuff with friends and family in other cities and states.  I know there are other means for this but everyone uses Facebook, at least for now.  So, being the security zealot that I am, I want my Facebook LOCKED DOWN.  If you use Facebook their are numerous security and privacy options at your disposal, but you have to utilize them.  Facebook is about sharing and tend to give you the most open options as the defaults.  You can set what others see on a photo by photo, post by post basis, as well as on a broader scale.  One thing you definitely want to do is to check the “use SSL” option.  Facebook does not make it easy to navigate the privacy and security options so you really have to dig around in there.  Remember, the more popular Facebook becomes, the more of a target those who use it are.  If you don’t think it’s a big deal, Google “firesheep”.  Happy surfing.

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