Attn Norton Users!
Folks, this just in:
* Vulnerabilities in Symantec products create worst-case scenario; users urged to update
“Using ominous turns of phrase like “As bad as it gets” and “100 percent reliable exploit,” Google Project Zero researcher Tavis Ormandy yesterday issued an at-times scathing analysis of eight vulnerabilities he discovered across the entire Symantec-Norton security product line.” Read more..
Act now, guys.
Additional Android Adventures…
I have been using my HTC “android” smart phone for a while now, and I can report to you, Dear Reader, that I have not experienced “buyer’s remorse”, nor a case of “the honeymoon’s over” – but, in fact, can say my little ‘droid has “grown on me”. I appreciate it a little more each day. (For those interested, I wrote a 3-part series; which starts here: My First Look At Android, part 1)
I have also a better sense, now, of what I do not like so much (though that has remained fairly consistent). Those things are:
1) bigger screen, please.
2) better battery life (yes, I understand phone maker’s are not responsible for battery technology. And I understand those two requests are counter — a bigger screen drains the battery faster.).
3) Made in America. (Yes. I would pay more.)
As much as I like my little ‘droid, I have not had the time to really explore the universe of “customizations” available that separates the Android operating system apart from the competitors. But I am intrigued, and may even – one day – “root” my phone and take total control. But for now I am just perusing articles such as today’s reading reco: 4 methods to customize Android phones and tablets
“One of the strengths of the Android platform is the level of customization that owners can use to tailor the user experience in every way. Here are my top customizations for Android devices.“
Related: For those thinking of upgrading phones – now that 4G is here .. 4G Wireless Speed Tests: Which Is Really the Fastest?
“By now you’ve seen all the ads pitching wireless companies’ new 4G mobile broadband services and devices. But beyond all the buzzwords and hype, which companies can reliably provide next-generation speed? We decided to find out by testing each of the four major national carriers–AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon–in 260 locations spread among 13 U.S. cities.“
Related (sorta): I am still looking at tablets. But I have decided to hold off, and see how the current fierce competition shakes out (as well as let the prices drop), but I pretty much decided that a 7″ size is my ‘sweet spot’. And, that Android will be my OS.
The weekend’s here. Yay!
Today’s free download: For those of you who like to download Flash games, or YouTube videos, Orbit (a download manager) will simplify your tasks. From site: “It is a free all-in-one downloader which can download streaming media, social music or video from anywhere include youtube, myspace, imeem, pandora, etc. It is famous for its super light, great speed and rapidshare supported.” (Today’s link also includes the review [and video] on C/Net.)
News: WordPress hacked
Security Incident
“Tough note to communicate today: Automattic had a low-level (root) break-in to several of our servers, and potentially anything on those servers could have been revealed.
We have been diligently reviewing logs and records about the break-in to determine the extent of the information exposed, and re-securing avenues used to gain access. We presume our source code was exposed and copied. While much of our code is Open Source, there are sensitive bits of our and our partners’ code. Beyond that, however, it appears information disclosed was limited.
Based on what we’ve found, we don’t have any specific suggestions for our users beyond reiterating these security fundamentals…”
Copyright 2007-2011 © “Tech Paul” (Paul Eckstrom). All Rights Reserved.
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Added Security For Social Networking
A new version of WOT
Folks, I received a ‘heads up’ yesterday that I want to pass along to you.
“It has been a while since I updated you on what’s going on at Web of Trust. Our free website reputation rating add-on has grown to 18 million users worldwide who have rated over 31 million unique domains for trustworthiness, vendor reliability, privacy protection and child safety.
There is a new version of WOT that will benefit our users of social networking sites Facebook and Twitter. The new version of WOT offers the same protection as usual with the addition of reputation rating icons in Facebook, Twitter and with shortened URLs by most popular services, such as bit.ly and t.co.
This will greatly reduce the incidence of risky URLs being passed along and opened.A beta version of WOT for Social Media is available at http://www.mywot.com/beta. (The beta is available for Firefox users only.)”
Folks, I have not had a chance to test this beta, but I am a fan of Web Of Trust (aka “WOT”) and have recommended it here many times before (see, You have received an eCard.. WOT?). If you use Firefox, and you Facebook and Tweet, you may want to give this add-on a test drive, and be safer on the web.
Copyright 2007-2011 © “Tech Paul” (Paul Eckstrom). All Rights Reserved.
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If You Have An Android Phone, Read This
Adrian Kingsley-Hughes has posted an article that all smart phone owners should be aware of, and Android owners should read very carefully. It contains a list of apps that have been poisoned to “root” your phone and steal all your info.. and maybe do more than that. Worse (scarier), these apps are on the app Marketplace. And, I may have downloaded one.
Stolen apps that root Android, steal data and open backdoors available for download from Google Market
“To many of its fans, the openness and freedoms offered by the Android mobile operating systems is one of its main selling points. But that openness come with a price – it makes it easy for nefarious types to sneak malware into apps. And that’s exactly what they are doing.”
I am going to provide his list of infected apps, but just because you don’t see one you recognize as having installed doesn’t mean you should skip reading his article (click here to read it). It contains info we all should know.
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Toward the bottom of his article is a link to another of his articles, which describes what you need to know to keep your phone safer.
Again, this is important enough that I am asking you to read the article (click here to read it) and forward it to all your friends and family who own smart phones. Android, and Google’s app Marketplace are not the only targets of the cybercriminals. Apple’s store is no better off, and they do not vet their apps for malware.
Makes me glad I haven’t used my phone to check my balance…
Related: Study: Cybercrime cost firms $1 trillion globally (that would be in 2010..)
Data theft and breaches from cybercrime may have cost businesses as much as $1 trillion globally in lost intellectual property and expenditures for repairing the damage last year, according to a new study from McAfee.
Make no mistake: the Evil Doers are going after all Internet-connected devices.
It’s a brave new world.
How nice. Someone is trying to send me a free computer. I like free computers.
Copyright 2007-2011 © “Tech Paul” (Paul Eckstrom). All Rights Reserved.
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A New Wireless Router
“Internet security made me decide to buy a new router...”
Folks, the very first article I published was, “The first Tech Paul Post: secure your web connection Increase the security of your Internet connection for less than $50“, which described the importance of using a router/WAP – especially in the era of ‘always on’ high-speed Internet connection – and provided the How To for enabling the protection features.. such as wireless encryption (WEP/WPA).
Linksys Wireless-G WAP
If that was the first thing I wrote about, I must have thought it was pretty important.
Well, guess what? I still do. (In fact, a router’s NAT may be the most important defense available.)
Since I wrote that article, in June of 2008, computers (and technology) have changed and progressed (at the exponential rate known as Moore’s Law) and routers and WAP’s (aka “wireless access points”) have as well. In 2008, “Wireless G” was the standard, which has a whopping 54 Mebabits-per-second “speed” (way more than my 3 Mbps Internet connection has). I have been using a Linksys WRT 54G, arguably the “most popular” router/WAP ever sold.
Today, 300 Mbps wireless is available to us with “Wireless N” hardware (aka “gear”)(way more than my 3 Mbps Internet connection has). Many offer “Gigabit LAN” (wired) ports as well. And, Wireless N has been on the store shelves long enough now that the prices for this new hardware are well within the range of the “average consumer”. But it wasn’t these facts which got me onto thinking it was time to upgrade my router. My Linksys was serving me well (and I am not trying to do any “media streaming”).
It was Internet SECURITY that made me decide to buy a new router
While chatting with a friend, it inadvertently came to my attention that an Enterprise Grade security feature was now being offered to us consumers (sometimes called “SOHO”), finally! (I had written letters to the manufacturers about this..) This feature was previously only available on “gateway appliances” costing thousands.
Have I got your attention?
What I am referring to is sometimes called (marketed as) “dual firewall”, “packet filtering”, and more precisely “SPI“. I won’t bore you with the Geek gibberish and technicalities (you can click the link if you are interested) but, short version: the router analyzes each ‘packet’ of your Internet ‘traffic’ to make sure it belongs, and the good ones do a basic antivirus scan of the ‘packets’ as well. That’s right: antivirus in your router. I want that. So I bought a new router. (Not all new routers have SPI/”dual firewall: you have to look for it.)
Dlink DIR-655
What I looked for: What I wanted in a new router (and, maybe, you do too) boiled down to 3 “factors”. Um.. four factors, actually.
* Gigabit Ethernet ports
* 300 Mbps version of Wireless-N
* Dual firewall/SPI
and…
* Under $100
What fit my bill best turned out to be the DIR – 655 from D-Link. It is an older model, and I found it priced at $70. (For those interested in a “virtual tour” of the DIR- 655, http://support.dlink.com/emulators/dir655/ss20/dir655_firewall.html.)
Unfortunately, I happened to get one of the devices which had a ‘bug’ and would not do a special, advanced ‘trick’ (port forwarding) which I needed for a special device I have. Most folks will not need port forwarding, but I did, so I returned the D-link. I could have tried a different DIR – 655, not all of them have that ‘bug’… and I really liked it, but I wanted to explore.
Netgear-WNR3500L
Next up was the WNR3500L from Netgear.
The Netgear was priced the same as the DIR-655, even though instead of 3 antennas, it had none.
Just kidding! The Netgear’s antennas are internal. Otherwise, the specs are much the same. I decided enough experimenting, and decided to stick with this make/model, and I did not put any special “firmware” on it, such as dd-wrt, though, as a Linux box, doing so is (supposed to be) simple.
I did not try the lesser known products – such as Billion. And.. if I had it all to do over again, I would probably be not so .. “thrifty”, and get a D-link DIR – 825, (about $130) as it has the additional feature of “true dual band” (that’s important when looking at dual bands.. most make you choose a bandwidth.)
Now I have Gigabit for my wired network, significant wireless range and speed improvements (and could “stream” Hi-Def video if I wanted to) and improved Internet safety for all the devices on my network.. for under $100.
Not bad!
Related articles:
* Protect Yourself With a Router
* How to secure your wireless network
* Protecting your network–use your router for access control (repost)
* How To Limit Your Roommate’s Bandwidth And Keep More For Yourself.
* Which Is Better, Ethernet Or Wireless?
* Gigabit Ethernet Didn’t Make Internet Faster
* Boost your wireless for 25¢
Copyright 2007-2011 © “Tech Paul” (Paul Eckstrom). All Rights Reserved.
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Friend of the Internet Surfer Award #5
Gizmo Wins First TP – FOTIS Award Of 2011
STOP. THINK. CONNECT.
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Winner of the 2011
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It is vital we take actions to secure our computers, and reduce our chances of becoming victims of cyber-crime. Doing so not only protects yourself – but because we are all connected to the Internet – helps keep the web a safer place for everyone.
Computer security is a complex and confusing subject – and there are many choices one faces. Fortunately for us, there is a free online tool – a “wizard” – to help steer us in the right direction. I have endorsed it here before. And, better yet, the solutions it offers are free as well.
But! I believe this helpful tool is so important in today’s world, and in recognition for it’s quality, and helpfulness, that I am awarding its creator – Gizmo of Gizmo’s Freeware.com – the fifth-ever Tech Paul’s Friend Of The Internet Surfer Award.
“This Wizard has been designed to help you select the best free security software for your PC based on the version of Windows that you use, your technical computer skills and your general level of security risk.“
Gizmo’s Security Advice Wizard asks you a series of questions, analyzes your answers, and then provides you with a customized, personal security recommendation — a complete recommendation — including download links to free solutions.
Bottom line? I have run through the Wizard several times, as various types of users, and each time the recommendations the Wizard provided was spot on with how I would answer.
I enthusiastically endorse Gizmo’s Security Advice Wizard and encourage you to go there and give it a try. Odds are good you will learn something. The folks there at Gizmo’s freeeware get a tip of my geek hat, and my thanks for going through the effort of creating this wonderful advisor “wizard”.
Because, yes folks, in today’s world you need security protections when on the Internet.
BTW — I am not alone: PC Magazine rated this a Top Site for 2010 as well.
Please point your less-savvy friends and loved ones to this site.
Previous winners:
* First-ever Tech Paul’s Friend Of The Internet Surfer Award
* Tech Paul’s Friend of the Internet Surfer Award for October
* Tech Paul’s Friend of the Internet Surfer Award for December
* Tech Paul’s Friend of the Internet Surfer Award – 2010
Copyright 2007-2011 © “Tech Paul” (Paul Eckstrom). All Rights Reserved.
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Chosing The Best Security Programs – For You
A Quick & Easy Way To Choose The Best Free Security Programs
“..different people have different security needs.“
Choosing security programs for your PC can seem overwhelming. There’s antiviruses, anti-spywares, and “security suites”.. and they all claim to be the best.
I am constantly asked for my recommendation on what is the “best” free antivirus, or “most effective” anti-Spyware, and, “which security suite should I buy?” Who has the best firewall? Makes sense: I am a Tech, as well as a World Renown Tech Blogger (ahem).
I have posted my advice here several times (use my “Search” tool) over the course of 1,000+ Tech – for Everyone articles. I also have published a list, including links, of free AV’s (click here) and AS’s (click here). But my advice has always been quite general.
There’s a reason for that –> you. I don’t know you. I do not know your Geek skilz level. I do not know if you are a pirating/Bit Torrent-ing maniac. I don’t know if you’re still on Windows ME and all you do is e-mail, or if you are on Windows 7 64-bit and you have a Run as command prompt shortcut in your QuickLaunch… or you fit somewhere in between.
Do you watch online porn?
Needless to say, different people have different security needs. How you answer the questions above will have a huge impact on how I would advise you. Fortunately, I have found an answer – Gizmo’s Security Advice Wizard. And I have added it to my Blogroll.
Gizmo’s Security Advice Wizard asks you a series of questions, analyzes your answers, and then provides you with a customized, personal recommendation — a complete recommendation — including download links to free solutions. Bottom line? I have run through the Wizard several times, as various types of users, and each time the recommendations the Wizard provided was spot on with how I would answer. Great minds really do think alike.
I enthusiastically endorse Gizmo’s Security Advice Wizard and encourage you to go there and give it a try. Odds are good you will learn something. The folks there at Gizmo’s freeeware get a tip of my geek hat, and my thanks for going through the effort of creating this wonderful advisor “wizard”.
Because, yes folks, in today’s world you need security when on the Internet.
Today’s free link: Gizmo’s Security Advice Wizard
“This Wizard has been designed to help you select the best free security software for your PC based on the version of Windows that you use, your technical computer skills and your general level of security risk.“
** Software License Giveaway Drawing **
The folks at SPAMFighter have generously donated 5 licenses for SPAMFighter Pro to me, to award to my readers.
SPAMFighter is a community-based spam filtering tool for Outlook, Outlook Express, Windows Mail and Thunderbird that automatically and efficiently filters spam and phishing fraud – keeping it out of your Inbox.
For contest details (and to enter), click here.
Copyright 2007-2010 © “Tech Paul” (Paul Eckstrom). All Rights Reserved. 
post to jaanix.
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• About Tech Paul
I am a Retired computer & network technician. I used to think the machines were pretty cool. Now I don’t.
They’re anything but.
I regularly posted how-to’s and tricks & tips and general computing advice here starting in 2007. (Use the Search tool to find answers. But be aware, many are rather dated.) Sometimes I answered (your) specific questions in an article if I believed the answer was generally helpful to “everyone”. All the writing you see was my own, typos and all. There always is/was an implied “IMHO” in what you see here.
Note: You are responsible for using this blog and its content. I am in no way liable for any losses caused by user error, viruses and/or other malware, hardware or software failure, or any other conceivable reason.
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