Are We Under Attack?

November 20, 2009 — Sr Editor

What do the countries of the United States, Russia, Israel, China and France all have in common? They’re preparing for war. A cyber war. That’s according to a report released earlier this week by the security company, McAfee.

These countries are gather cyber intelligence in a way that is reminiscent of cold war intelligence gathering operations. And these same nations are building high level cyber attack capabilities. All this according to a report by McAfee “Virtually Here: The Age of Cyber Warfare.”

Interviews were conducted with experts in international relations, national security and Internet security and the combined conclusion is that the United States infrastructure is vulnerable to a cyber attack.

“While we have not yet seen a ‘hot’ cyber war between major powers, the efforts of nation-states to build increasingly sophisticated cyberattack capabilities, and in some cases demonstrate a willingness to use them, suggest that a ‘Cyber Cold War’ may have already begun,” the report says.

The Fourth of July attacks, constituting a denial-of-service exercise on Web sites in the United States and in South Korea at almost the same time, could have come from North Korea. A type of test to determine that rogue nation’s ability to disrupt communications between the United States and South Korea.

From reading the report, one can easily conclude that if the United States is not already under cyber attack, it soon will be.

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Do You Know How To Practice Safe “S”?

November 19, 2009 — Sr Editor

That’s “S” as in shopping. On line shopping.

While one of the best things you can do to protect your financial and personal interests on line is to hide your ip there are a lot of other practical things you can do to make your Internet holiday season a safe and happy one.

For starters, let’s take a look at your personal computer:

- Get reliable anti-virus and firewall software. So-called “anti-spyware” and “anti-malware” programs are not always what they claim to be.
- Keep your Operating System up to date. If you don’t like the automatic nature of Microsoft updates, do it manually. But just do it.
- Set your email filters to block as much spam as possible. You won’t get rid of all of it, but its a start. And don’t forget to check your spam folder daily for those emails the filter erroneously “thought” was spam.
- Whatever browser you use (i.e. Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, etc.) make sure you have the latest version installed.
- Make regular backups. Those external hard drives are really coming down in price. They’re worth the investment
- Encrypt your wireless network. This one is almost too obvious, but a lot of people don’t do this. If you don’t know how, check out this site Internet / Network Security

Now, let’s take a look at rip-offs:

- If you’re going to shop on line (and its almost unheard of today if you don’t) then you need to use common sense. This is so obvious as it almost goes without saying. Problem is, there is something about the Internet that seems to suck the common sense right out of the brains of most fair-thinking people.
- Make sure the company is reputable. Have you ever heard of them before? You can’t go wrong buying from the major retailers on line. Those purchases are as good as if you bought the item from their brick-and-mortar store in terms of warranty, replacement and return.
- If you haven’t heard of them, then look to see if there are customer reviews of the site and/or its products.
* Do they have phone number you can reach them most days?
* Do they have their own domain name email address (i.e. sales@ourstore . com) or do they use something like ourstore@gmail . com? If its the later, watch out. Not a good indicator.
* Do they have a warranty, replace and return policy? If so, is it reasonable.
* If in doubt about an on line retailer you’ve never heard about before, move on. Pay a few extra dollars for that piece of mind.
- If you’re dealing with company owned on line auctions, be very careful about their policy regarding the use of “buying bids”
- If you’re dealing with participant type auctions (i.e. eBay, etc) then be very, very careful who you’re buying from.
- When using debit or credit cards, make sure the beginning of the URL that is requesting your card information, starts with “https” and not just “http”
- One more time: USE COMMONE SENSE! If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

Now, how about your identify and your privacy:

- Don’t open emails from on line retailers you’ve never heard of before
- A lot of spam illegally uses the names of known retailers, but the links in the email do not go to the real site
- Don’t click on any link from any email that comes from anyone, or any business, you don’t know
- Always use strong passwords and change them frequently
- I know this one is hard to resist, but have some discipline: NEVER give away too much personal information on blogs and social networking sites

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Be A “Money Mule” – Go To Jail

November 18, 2009 — Sr Editor

With the holiday’s upon us, most people are short on cash. And while many folks may have a full-time job, they need that extra cash to make the holidays, and bill paying, a more complete exercise.

So, folks will look for a second job. But it is hard, what with a family and all to be able to drive from the full-time job to a 2nd, part-time (”I really hate being here”) kind of job. Many venture out and think that working on the Internet for awhile be the savior of their financial problems. Figuring they can work from home, unsuspecting folks start to look at the “work from home” jobs tha are plastered all over the Internet.

Most are bogus. Despite claims of earning almost unbelievable incomes for a few palty hours of “work”, those claims are unrealistic and untrue. But greed, financial pressure or niave curiosity drive way too many people to respond to those kinds of ads.

And it is sad.

One of the very worst of these scams is the “Money Mule” want ad. It sounds simple and easy. Work from home. Deposit some cash; take a few bucks for yourself and send the rest to gawd-knows-where. A few hours a week of this and you’ve made some decent bucks.

Not really. In fact, you’ve probably broken the law if you do this. For this job is nothing more than money laundering. And by most accounts, that’s illegal.

“Taken in by the chance of high earnings for little work, victims instead end up labelled as criminals. They can also have their bank accounts frozen and are often personally responsible for repaying the full amount of money they have laundered.” Get Safe Online Week: scams and security

Even if you’re desperate, don’t be foolish. You could lose everything participating in a scheme like that.

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How To Really Look Up An IP Address

November 17, 2009 — Sr Editor

There are a lot of different web sites out there that will tell you the location of your IP address. And many have a search funtion wherein you can type in anyone’s IP address and find out where they are located.

Most websites that show IP locations use a database containing references to locations that have been collected. Now some of these databases are more accurate, more up to date than others.

In fact, some websites don’t update their databases very often, if at all. What is also important to realize is that IP addresses can change opwnership. When that happens, and the website has not updated their database, then the IP address will show an incorrect location, oftentimes much farther away than previously owned IP addresses.

ARIN is the American Register for Internet Numbers. And this is the best place to find the true location of any IP address on the Internet.

From their website. Overview

“Established in December 1997, the American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN) is a Regional Internet Registry (RIR) incorporated in the Commonwealth of Virginia, USA. ARIN is one of five (5) RIRs. Like the other RIRs, ARIN:
- Provides services related to the technical coordination and management of Internet number resources in its respective service region. The ARIN service region includes Canada, many Caribbean and North Atlantic islands, and the United States;
- Participates in the global Internet community;
- Facilitates the development of policy decisions made by its members and the stakeholders in its region;
- Is a nonprofit, membership organization;
- Is governed by an executive board elected by its membership.”

The best way to find out the most up to date location, and other relevant information, of an IP address is by using their WhoIs function at that web site.

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Are Refurbished Electronics Worth It?

November 16, 2009 — Sr Editor

As Black Friday and the holiday season approaches, many brick-and-mortar and on line electronic retailers will be offering fantastic savings on a variety of electronic devices. The most common of these will be, of course, lap top and desk top computers.

If the advertised price of the item is almost unbelievably low, chances are its a refurbished electronic item.

The question is, should you buy them? Well, first determine what the word “refurbished” means.

It could have been a simple case of “buyer’s remorse.”. The person who originally purchased the item opened it up, maybe never used it, and just decided it wasn’t for him/her or realized it was not in the budge. So it was brought back. Still, it is technically a “used” item.

In other cases, the original buyer may have had a legitimate problem with the device. The item was brought back and possibly exchanged for something else or the money refunded. At that point, the item should have been reviewed by the store and/or manufacturer and the product made whole again. But even in those instances, the new buyer usually will receive the full Manufacturer’s Warranty.

Another example of the “return” issue will be the new Windows 7 operating system. Some of these fantastically priced computers will have the Windows XP or Windows Vista operating system on them. Will that be OK with you? While XP had its problems, and is a much older OS than Vista, it is more respected than Vista and had far fewer problems than Vista. Can you live with Vista at that discounted price?

Or, would you still be ahead of the game by buying that refurbished computer with the Vista system and buying a Windows 7 upgrade? Something to consider.

If you’re going to buy that refurbished item:
- Make sure the item has a warranty. Do you have the right to return it and get an exchange or refund?
- If the item is being sold “as is” then just say to yourself that you’ve lost “x” amount of dollars and if the item works, consider yourself lucky
- Only purchased from established on line retailers or buy from the manufacturers’ own websites (usually more expensive).
- Read on line reviews of the product but don’t believe everything everyone says. It is, after all, the Internet.
- Be absolutely certain that the purchase price is a real bargain when compared to the average retail price of the same item.

Happy Holidays. Have fun and save money!

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Wipe Out The Evidence For Good!

November 14, 2009 — Sr Editor

Need to effortlessly and quickly clean all of your Internet history, your web browsing and your computer use? Then you need to use this very cost effective computer evidence and web history cleaning tool.

Wipe your web surfing and computer use activity permanently! Many programs and web browsers log data of which programs you run, which videos you watch, and which websites you visit. Easily and safely clean this saved data so the next person using your computer, or snooping around in ti, will never know your computer activity.

You can wipe the activity history of dozens of programs such as FireFox, Internet Explorer, Windows Media Player, Yahoo, MSN, and Google. Automatically empty your recycle bin, clear your clipboard or “copy and paste” feature, clean your history of run programs, recently opened files, and more.

Clear My History comes with a full-featured 30-day trial.

Click here for a screen shot on how it works.

Key Benefits & Features

- Purge Stored Web Browser Data – Clear cookies, stored passwords, history, and temporary cache files from Internet Explorer, FireFox, Netscape, and Opera.

- Hotkey Quick Clean – Set a Hotkey to instantly wipe all your history and activity with one quick tap of the keyboard.

- Many Windows History Cleaning Tools – Erase saved clipboard data, purge recycle bin, clear recent documents list, run history, and more!

- Automatic Cleaning – Ability to run when Windows starts and clear the specific settings you select at selected times.

- Clean Tool Bar History – Toolbars like Yahoo, MSN, and Google can store a history of which sites you visit, which are not removed with many standard history cleaning programs. Clear My History can easily clear your website history of these toolbars.

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My Wife’s A “Free Trial” Addict!

November 13, 2009 — Sr Editor

Beware The “Free Trial.” I’ve told my wife that more than a hundred times. But she’s a sucker for “free trial” offers over the Internet. She’s one of those folks that actually likes getting spam. Talk about opposites attracting!

So it was no suprise to me when she accepted some kind of Google ad-words orientated “free trial” for some such thing or another, only to find out that they were going to charge her something like $50 a month for one of those gawdy, tacky pre-manufactured web sites to sell something. Well, after a few hours of phone calls, returning some CD rom that was more sales pitch than it was business advice, and talking with the bank about the charges from a company that we could no longer locate, she finally got her money back.

Think she learned her lesson? No. But have any of you done any better?

A month later, she did it again! This time it was some teeth whitening stuff. She paid something like $1.95 for a “free trial” product, only to find out her account was going to get zapped about $85.00 a month for some supplemental materials. Unless, of course, she said “no” to the item that was sent to her. Meaning she had to send it back (at her expense) and then jump through hoops to get the monthly charges stopped.

I don’t mind my wife’s shopaholic Internet activities. If there ever was a bargain hunter, she’s it. If there ever was a Miss Bargain Hunter pageant, she’d win it, hand’s down.

But what is it about the word “Free” on the Internet that drives people into maniacil frenzies that look more like a drug-induced reaction than clear, rational thought? I would bet dollars to doughnuts that the word “free” must be the most overused word on the Internet. No, probably the most overused word in this lifetime.

There are thousands of “free trial” scams that permeate the Internet.

A big problem why these bogus free trial offers proliferate in the United States is because the governing body of these rascals, the Federal Trade Commission, either doesn’t want to do anything about them or can’t keep up with them. Most likely it is the later.

“The problem is, the FTC has their hands full. They have far more pressing problems than the $69.97 Google Fortune tricked out of you. As long as these guys keep moving, the FTC is unlikely to expend more than some token resources to catch a small handful of them.

“This explains why you see so many of these “Free Trial Offers” for Google Biz Kits and Acai and Reveritrol and Government Grants and everything else. Pull $75 out of 20,000 wallets and you’ve just made a cool $1.5 MILLION dollars. Advertise everywhere, get 1000 signups a day for 40 days, pay half to affiliates, promise customers refunds for just long enough to keep the feds off your back, then close down, pack up shop in Nevada, start all over again in Utah or California or Nevis or Trinadad, rinse, repeat.” Free Trial Scams And The FTC

I’m not going to say that what my wife bought into were scames (although most likely, they are). But I will tell you, as I’ve tried to explain many times to her: Read The Fine Print! Oh yes, I did send her a link to the above article. She wasn’t amused.

Nothing is really “free” on the Internet. You’ll pay a price for it, one way or another. And in the process, you’ll become one of the thousands upon thousands of Internet victims that may not have only lost some money, but your identity as well.

A word to the wise. And I hope my wife is reading this, too!

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Your ISP As Police

November 12, 2009 — Sr Editor

An international treaty called ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) is being discussed between the United States, Japan, the European Union, Canada, Australia, Mexico and Singapore.

“The Internet chapter of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, a secret copyright treaty whose text Obama’s administration refused to disclose due to ‘national security’ concerns, has leaked. It’s bad.” Secret copyright treaty leaks. It’s bad. Very bad.

No country, including the United States, has released details about the contents of this treaty. It attempts to deal with the pirating of software and other artist productions known as “intellectual property.” Protecting the rights of people who create songs, software and other intangible products is good. But how the treaty goes about enforcing this protection is bad.

The United States has drafted a special section for the proposed treaty. And it goes like this: If you are merely suspected of downloading material that is copyrighted, via the Internet, your Internet Service Provider (ISP) would be required to police your activity on the Internet; cut off your Internet access and remove the content on your computer without any proof of an actual violation.

That’s scary.

“As it stands, the leaks [of the treaty draft] suggest Internet users around the world are headed for a new regime of IP enforcement – a culture of invasive searches, minimal privacy, guilt until innocence is proven and measures that would kill our normative behaviors of file-sharing, free software, media downloading, creative remixing and even certain civil liberties.” U.S./International Copyright Treaty Leaked, Trouble Ahead for ISPs & Users

If the drafts are approved, your Internet Service Provider would be held responsible for any infringing content being uploaded or downloaded.

Will this make them the new “Internet Police”?

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Pirate Bay Issues: They Won’t Go Away

November 11, 2009 — Sr Editor

You remember the Pirate Bay website. It was famous (or is that notorious) for copyright infringement involving its free file-sharing websites. The owners were sentenced to jail.

The site is back in the news, again. Wish they would just go away.

Seems that the Internet Service Provider (ISP) that previously supplied the bandwidth to The Pirate Bay website, but had to discontinue that when threatened with some rather huge fines for doing so, has appealed the case to a Court of Appeal.

“This is the first time in Sweden that an operator has been ordered to stop delivering Internet to someone. We want to know if it’s correct to do so,” said Black Internet CEO Victor Möller at the time. Ex-Supplier of Pirate Bay Bandwidth Given Leave to Appeal

The case is an important precedent in Sweden, and possibly elsewhere, as the issue is whether or not a bandwidth supplier can be forced to cut off its services to a web site that has convicted of wrong doing.

The implications are interesting.

- Did the ISP know of Pirate Bay’s activities?
- If it did know, did the ISP aid and abeit in those activities by providing bandwidth?

If the ISP didn’t know what Pirate Bay was doing (which is a little hard to imagine) then they should not be held to that standard. But even if they did know, are they still responsible? Were they (the ISP) profitering off the ill-gotten gains of Pirate Bay?

The controversial web site lives on in debates on issues that have yet to be resolved. The results will be most interesting.

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Justice Department Seeks Visitors’ IP Addresses

November 10, 2009 — Sr Editor

The United States Justice Department wants this information about a site’s visitors:

- IP address
- time of visit
- email address
- physical address
- registered account
- Social Security numbers
- bank account numbers
- credit card numbers
- and more.

The site is run by the left-of-center organization called The Independent Media Center and according to them, they work for “promoting social and economic justice” and “social change”.

The federal grand jury subpoena also issued orders that the folks receiving it couldn’t talk about the subpoena. Say what? The Justice Department is telling a news organization that it can’t report the news?

I looked over the site. Its really not my cup of tea in terms of content and direction. But whether you’re left-of-center, right-of-center or anywhere else on the spectrum, and an American, this is has to be troubling to you.

Why does the current administration’s Justice Department want the IP addresses and other information from any news site? Given the recent ban on Fox News by the current administration, I find this entire situation an excellent example of “chilling” the rights of Americans.

Kevin Bankston, a senior staff attorney at the San Francisco-based Electronic Frontier Foundation, representing The Independent Media Center said “This is the first time we’ve seen them try to get the IP address of everyone who visited a particular site. That it was a news organization was an additional troubling fact that implicates First Amendment rights.” Justice Dept. Asked For News Site’s Visitor Lists

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