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Secure your on-line identity

Recently on twitter I saw some 'tweeters' I knew of sending me garbage tweets and I asked them directly on Twitter "Did you send this"?

The answer was "no" and asked on Tweeter how come this is happening?

One answer was hackers trying to look for accounts they can break into. Another said that she was phished recently?

This reminds me of customers asking me did my account get hacked?

Seems like old habits die hard. Hackers are still trying to steal your online identity without a doubt.

As I pointed out at an evening presentation on 1 March 2010 do not make it easy for hackers to access 'crack' your password.

What is meant by that?

Let's examine 4 layers of password.



Level 1 - The Easy password



bear husband LOVER 19590112 &*)%%%!@!@



possible passwords but the one think they have in common is that a password cracker can most likely decode these.



Level 2 - Mixing 2 cases



Bear Dave bear123 !forget !$5%7*



All right maybe a little tough but the first 3 might be decodeable



Level 3 - Mixing 3 cases



SandyX45 1)2(abc Day$%^ q1@w3$



Maybe these are tougher but better yet



Level 4 - Mixing 4 cases



2@4$Date 6^Gu3T0 Gr3Ym!m!



Good luck cracking those .



For further information on security , check out http://www.grc.com/ and http://www.securityfocus.com/



For examples on phishing go to http://www.nk.ca/blog/index.php?/categories/25-Phish



What to do if you think you have been compromised



1) Update then run your anti-virus!! Most anti-viral programmes come with some ant-spyware. The key is update all definitions daily!

2) Run anti-spyware programmes. There are other malicious software (malware) that anti-viral programmes will not pick up.

I recommend you at least run 3

a) Superantispyware found at http://www.superantispyware.com/

b) Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware found at http://www.malwarebytes.org/mbam.php

c) Spybot - Search & Destroy found at http://www.safer-networking.org/



These 3 programmes will find malicious software that is not viral yet can compromise your security. Again please update these daily.

Clean up daily!!

Clean your computer of unwanted cretins and electronic parasites. Recently a lady looked as if she signed up for services from Carolina USA but instead a Lebanese ISP hijcked her credit card. Be careful out there.

Usenet will never be dropped by NetKnow

Recently some big Internet Provider announced that they are dropping USEnet Newsgroups aka Internet Newsgroups declaring that service passe.



I hope all their customers bolted and these providers have to shut down their internet operations!



USEnet is a cornerstone, fundamental and integral Internet service. Without it Internet would not exist!



Netknow declares it will carry USEnet unless the service dies a natural death. Also look at Google Groups which is Google Portal to Usenet.



Sorry, but if you do not have the internet fundamentals, you should perish. Saying USEnet/Internet Newsgroups are passe is as good as saying Internet e-mail is useless.

damn phreaking hackers

REcently Passive FTP is no longer the case. Today one of my customer's tried to teach a new customer how to FTP. Unfortunately, she had to abandon the teaching session and sounded annoyed an fustrated. If I had know in advance, I would have told her that you cannot use Passive FTP mode and that might have solved the problem. The reason for turning off passive FTP is to prevent hackers from getting passwords.



I phreaking hate hackers.