Tech Stuff

Antivirus Software? Yeah, Sure.

If you want your Windows PC to be secure, here are the essential steps.

1. Use a modern operating system. Sorry, folks—Windows XP simply isn’t secure enough for ordinary people to use today.

2. Keep your OS up to date and backed up. Turn on Windows Update and make sure it’s running properly.

3. Keep applications updated also. Remove unwanted programs that could represent a security threat.

4. Be suspicious of any new software. If you’re not sure a program is safe, don’t install it.

5. Set up standard non-administrator accounts for unsophisticated users. With a standard account a user needs to talk to you and convince you to enter the administrator’s password before installing any new software.

6. Use a modern browser. If you’re still using Windows XP and Internet Explorer 6, stop it.

7. Install an antivirus program and keep it up to date. I recommend the free Microsoft Security Essentials, which is available for download or as an optional update on systems where Windows does not detect an antivirus program.

And one final word: Don’t be paranoid.

The article (Do you really need antivirus software?) is more substantial than what I’ve quoted above. That said, it’s not long and well worth your reading time.

Do You Trust Google?

It turns out Google’s Street View cars found out more about Internet users than previously acknowledged. Last Friday, the company said the cars, which roam the world taking pictures for its location-based applications, scarfed up e-mail addresses, URLs and passwords from residential Wi-Fi networks they passed by in dozens of countries.

[…]

Some privacy advocates say Google’s admission highlights a common attitude among high-tech firms that rush to get out new technologies without enough consideration of how consumers may be harmed in the process.

“First they said they didn’t gather data; then they said they did, but it was only fragments; and today they finally admit entire emails and URLs were captured, as well as passwords,” said John Simpson, director of consumer advocacy group Consumer Watchdog. “Maybe some Google executives are beginning to get it: privacy matters. The reality, though, is that the company’s entire culture needs to change.”

Source: Google ‘mortified’ that Street View cars scarfed up e-mail, passwords; privacy criticism intensifies

If they’re stealing and abusing data from people, what are they doing with the data people give them willingly?

Think: Gmail, Buzz, Maps, Docs, Search, API, and on and on!

Oh, and let this be another reminder to secure your wireless networks, OK?

Facebook Privacy: Oxymoron?

Just askin’, OK? 😀

Many of the most popular applications, or “apps,” on the social-networking site Facebook Inc. have been transmitting identifying information—in effect, providing access to people’s names and, in some cases, their friends’ names—to dozens of advertising and Internet tracking companies, a Wall Street Journal investigation has found.

The issue affects tens of millions of Facebook app users, including people who set their profiles to Facebook’s strictest privacy settings. The practice breaks Facebook’s rules, and renews questions about its ability to keep identifiable information about its users’ activities secure.

The problem has ties to the growing field of companies that build detailed databases on people in order to track them online—a practice the Journal has been examining in its What They Know series. It’s unclear how long the breach was in place. On Sunday, a Facebook spokesman said it is taking steps to “dramatically limit” the exposure of users’ personal information.

Better read the whole article, I suppose: Facebook in Online Privacy Breach; Applications Transmitting Identifying Information.

Advice Needed: Cable Phone Service

Where we’re moving to allows us to finally get broadband access.

I can go with Qwest DSL and phone service.

Or I can go with cable for both internet and phone service.

WavePhone is delivered through your existing telephone wiring and the fiber-optic network already in your neighborhood. You can even keep using your regular home phone handsets. If you want to make a call, simply pick up the receiver and dial.

WavePhone uses digitally delivered packet cable technology to deliver carrier-grade IP telephony over a private network. That ensures a higher quality of service QoS with consistent and significantly better audio because WavePhone doesn’t suffer performance issues that might result from dropped packets. For you, that means crystal clear sound, and no annoying echoes or sound delays.

Source: Wave Broadband

I’m so old-fashioned, the idea of not using a phone company for phone service seems mighty strange and suspect.

So…what are the upsides and the downsides to using cable phone service?

Heeeeelp!!!!

New Virus Spam: ‘Here You Have’

I just learned about this, thanks to Drudge.

A global e-mail virus spammed inboxes this afternoon, slowing — and in some cases halting — work at offices around the world as employees watched their inboxes inexplicably fill with e-mails under the subject line “Here you have.” Some workers were forced to go without e-mail altogether, as the flood of spam put their services out of commission.

Organizations including NASA, Comcast, AIG, Disney, Proctor & Gamble, Florida Department of Transportation and Wells Fargo are just a few of the organizations apparently affected by the worm, which appears to have sent out hundreds of thousands, if not millions of e-mails.

When contacted by ABCNews.com, security firm McAfee said it was investigating the attack but confirmed that it had affected corporations around the world. Although McAfee did not disclose how widespread the attack was, around 4 p.m. Thursday afternoon, the subject of the spam e-mail, “Here you have,” was the second hottest search on Google trends.

[…]

On its blog, McAfee said that because multiple variants of the worm are spreading, it “may take some time to work through them all to paint a clearer picture.”

And with those multiple variants come other subject lines. So maybe you should read more of the story: ‘Here You Have’ Virus E-Mail Spreads Online.

Above all, love God!