Read all of this

Folks, truly a ‘must read’ for you today. Please read the whole article, and please have your thinking caps on.

* Google turns in a user for allegedly possessing criminal material

“Find out how Google detected illegal activity on their systems and how they responded to the discovery.” Read more..

[ .. and you may want to peruse the numerous comments as well .. ]

And if that wasn’t enough for you, More Good Reading: Hacked Canadian ISP leads to virtual currency theft

“A hacker who gained privileged access to a Canadian ISP’s network hijacked net traffic from foreign networks and stole more than $83,000 in virtual currency.

The hacker, who experts believe may be a former employee of the Canadian ISP and is working alone, compromised the servers of firms that generate virtual currencies like Bitcoin and Dogecoin.” Read more..

[ um.. “firms that generate virtual currency”..? ]

*      *     *

Today’s quote: “There is no great genius without a mixture of madness.” ~ Aristotle

Copyright 2007-2014 © “Tech Paul” (Paul Eckstrom). All Rights Reserved.

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All we really have, in the end, are our stories.
Make yours great ones. Ones to be proud of.
And please, never forget – one person can make a difference.
Find a way to make someone’s day today.
(Best advice I ever heard? Don’t sweat the small stuff.)

Best High-speed Internet Provider Where You Live

To locate and identify what types of Internet services are available where you live, what they cost, and what people are saying about them (user reviews) — a service locator is a good place to start: such as the one at the very useful website, Broadband/DSL Reports. (No. It is not just for DSL.) Simply click on the “find service” tab, and enter your ZIP code.

If upgrading to a faster type of connection simply is not possible where you live, you may be able to “tweak” your TCP/IP Settings for slightly better performance. This involves changing things in the Windows Registry, and so I recommend that you use a safe tool to try this (if you try it at all), and one of the best of these can be found on the “Tools” page at DSL Reports. Use the tools there to determine if there are any problems with your settings, and follow the recommendations (particularly, “Tweak Test”). Then download Dr. TCP and make the adjustments recommended by the Tweak Test tool to “optimize” your connection. Run another speed test or two (or three). If there’s no improvement, use Dr. TCP to revert to your previous settings.

Of Interest: Get It While You Can – Microsoft Office Starter 2010

“Typically when you buy a computer these days, you will see Microsoft Office Starter 2010 included in the deal. Microsoft Office Starter 2010 includes Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel, with limited functionality and is ad supported. Recently, on the blogging circuit, I noticed that it was discovered that Microsoft Office Starter 2010 could in fact […]” Read more..

Today’s quote: “A person who is nice to you, but rude to the waiter, is not a nice person.” ~ Dave Barry

Copyright 2007-2011 © “Tech Paul” (Paul Eckstrom). All Rights Reserved.

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Banned From The Internet For File Sharing?

Internet service providers are cooperating more and more with copyright holders to crack down on illegal downloading and peer-to-peer file-sharing.

Becky Waring published a very interesting ’round-up’ look at the current state of the ‘battle’ between copyright holders (primarily RIAA) and the very popular (yet largely illegal) “Torrent” P2P file-sharing phenomenon on Windows Secrets.

There are some tough new laws recently enacted, or under consideration, in many countries following the recent convictions of the operators of the popular Pirates Bay Torrent search engine in Sweden ... laws that could get people “blacklisted” from the Internet.

Internet Service Providers are coming under increasing pressure to use technology to identify people using Torrent applications and punish them, and Torrent users are using technology to escape detection. This ‘battle’ poses some very serious questions about the issues of privacy and technology.

Ms. Waring has done an excellent job with this article, and I invite my readers to read it. Please click the link below.

ISPs assist in cutting off file-sharing users

Today’s free link: KidZui – Free, Safe Internet Browsing for Kids

Copyright 2007-9 © Tech Paul. All rights reserved. post to jaanix

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Rural Areas Stuck With Dial-up?

The other day I was helping a client via my remote desktop tool (over the Internet) and I thought this person really had a problem, but they weren’t talking about that — they were talking about Outlook.

It was like they were ignoring the elephant in the room.

So, finally, I asked. Er.. um.. pardon me, but.. don’t you think there’s a problem with your Internet?

“What do you mean?” they replied.

Huh? So I said, “Well, no offense but, it’s slower than molasses in January.” (I suspected a hefty spyware infection..)

Fortunately, my client laughed, and told me that where they lived, all they could get was dial-up Internet. And it was running “pretty good” lately at 28 Kbps.

Kilobits? That’s so.. early-to-mid-1990’s!

Tip of the day: If you live in a “rural area” and neither cable nor DSL service is available (yet), and you would like to join the world of “Mega” (aka “broadband”), you do have some options you may not be aware of.

Option 1: Satellite.
Satellite providers, such as HughesNet and WildBlue, can provide up to 1.5 Mbps (equal to basic DSL) for residences, and faster for (pricier) “Business” plans.

Option 2: Microwave.
This is also know as ‘fixed wireless’ and ‘wireless broadband’, and has a range of about 25 miles from the transmitter. (It works kind of like a radio station). Often, these are set up by small, independent ISP’s, and finding them is done by geography. KeyOn is one that covers the area my client was in, and you might try an indexing service like this one, to locate a provider near you. This will give you speeds “up to 50x’s faster than dial-up”.

Option 3: (The wave of the future?) WiMax.
WiMax is also a microwave technology, capable (I have read) of speeds of up to 70 Mbps. US residents will have to wait for this technology to become ubiquitous, but if this sounds appealing, take a look here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WiMAX.

Today’s free link: http://www.broadbandreports.com/ is the place to go to find a high-speed service near you (the “Find Service” tab). But it is much more than just that; you can find reviews of ISP’s, and there’s tools for testing and tweaking your speed, and much more.

* hidden bonus for those of you who read all the way through: Free ZoneAlarm Pro – One Day Only!

Copyright 2007-8 © Tech Paul. All rights reserved. post to jaanix

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News Items: Death of Web Radio, ISP Spying

A couple of recent tech headlines have caught my eye, and because of their dire implications, I thought I should pass them on to you.

Loyal readers may remember that a year ago now I wrote about the “day of protest” and the Internet Radio Equality Act which was vital to the future of free, public Internet radio and webcasters. (to read my article, click here.)

Today’s title is premature, but not by much. The Copyright Royalty Board ruling that we were warned about is set to take effect. This is all about DRM and “protecting artists”, and so an obscure Federal judge is going to change our current ability to listen to music. Forever.

“Pandora is one of the nation’s most popular Web radio services, with about 1 million listeners daily. Its Music Genome Project allows customers to create stations tailored to their own tastes. It is one of the 10 most popular applications for Apple’s iPhone and attracts 40,000 new customers a day. Yet the burgeoning company may be on the verge of collapse, according to its founder, and so may be others like it.

“We’re approaching a pull-the-plug kind of decision,” said Tim Westergren, who founded Pandora. “This is like a last stand for webcasting.” ”
To read the rest of this Washington Post article, click here.

Your ISP is spying on you:
The second headline probably really won’t surprise anyone — there’s a lot of people watching our surfing habits, and developing profiles on us (for the purposes of bringing us “more relevant” ads). I almost ignored it, as the lead paragraph wasn’t all that shocking..
“Cable One last fall conducted a six-month trial of a network-based technology that tracks consumers’ Internet movements in an effort to amass refined data on Web-surfer habits that can be sold to advertisers at premium rates.”

But I was intrigued.. what did they mean by “network technology”??? Then I did get shocked and alarmed.

Someone has decided that the firewall technology known as DPI (“deep packet inspection”) may as well be used for full data mining of the traffic flowing through the service provider. Evil, evil someone.

You see, DPI is a method that can see through encryption. It is used for security purposes as it can read every word going over the wire and look for viruses and malware, and sensitive corporate data.

Basically, those Cable One customers had every word they typed read and recorded.. every website they visited.. and any attempts they made at maintaining their privacy (using proxies, anonymizers, or encryption) were foiled at the wire.
To read the whole article, click here.

It’s for better advertising! Yay!
[Attention advertisers: Haven’t you figured out that we ignore you? What do you think the mute button is for? The TiVo? AdBlocker software? Stop wasting your money! You’ve all been duped into believing a huge fallacy.]

Today’s free link: is a repeat, it’s the word “Pandora”, above.

Copyright 2007-8 © Tech Paul. All rights reserved.
post to jaanix

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