This Month:

What's New

Warnings

Internet

FYI

Year in Review

Any suggestions, recommendations or ideas found on this site are applied at your own risk.

 

You must give some time to your fellow men. Even if it's a little thing, do something for others - something for which you get no pay but the privilege of doing it. Albert Schweitzer

Have problems or ideas you would like to have us address?  Let us know!
Like most sites, this one is designed for an 800x600 screen resolution.
For previous newsletters click here.  (Web Printing Hints)

A Few Reminders...

If you have a new computer: Save your original CDs!
No Operating System Restore CD?  See our July 05 newsletter

• Be sure to activate the antivirus application immediately! 
   
• If your new computer is more than *90 days old, or
  if you have not paid for a subscription within the last year,
  your antivirus application is out-of-date and you are not protected. More details on this issue in the March 02 newsletter.

* Many new computers come with a 90-day free trial version, but after that period you must pay to renew the subscription.  Wonder if your antivirus is up-to-date?  Click here

Looking to buy a new computer: 

Click here for some ideas that may help your decision.

Another Year Nearly Gone

The Original Hacker

Kevin Mitnick, arrested in 1995 and after jailed for five years, is now an ally of security firms and businesses.  Today Kevin is educating people on the problems of social engineering, e.g., callers tricking you into revealing usernames, passwords, credit card numbers and the like.  More.

Protecting the People? 

Another example of government protecting people from themselves. 
Or do they create all these laws to justify their jobs? 

Based on this chart there are over 43,900 laws in Minnesota alone.  That does not include Federal or local laws that we cannot even begin to count.

Sorry to digress, here is the story...

In New York, politicians are considering a bill that would make it illegal to have an unsecured wireless network.  The article.  While unsecured networks are not a good idea, we just do not feel the government should be stepping in with laws.

We have done a couple of surveys in the area and have found most detected wireless networks are secure but there are still a few that are not! 

If your wireless network is not secure or you are not sure, read our February newsletter.

 

Holiday Train Again this year, Annandale will host the Canadian Pacific Holiday Train.  On Tuesday, December 13th at 8 pm the train will stop at the Lions Memorial Park. This year Celtic-pop artists the Ennis Sisters and Canadian Country Music Association Hall of Famer Tracey Brown will be joined by Nashville recording artist T. Graham Brown, Minnesota's John "the voice of new folk" Gorka and Wisconsin folk-rocker Willy Porter.  More information Please bring nonperishable items for the local Food Shelf.  Cash donations are equally welcome! Dress warmly, arrive early, park downtown and enjoy the show!

What did you agree to?

Remember last month's newsletter regarding the EULA?  Well, the folks at Sony (with a very weak EULA*) are planting "digital rights management technology" on your computer if you play certain CDs. 

* "this CD will automatically install a small proprietary software program ... intended to protect the audio files embodied on the CD."

This "technology" is basically a hacker's toolkit used to create a back door into your computer.  The end purpose is to stop you from making copies of the CD but this tookit could be compromised and exploited by an actual hacker!

Initially, rather than allowing removal of this potentially illegal software, Sony was going to work with antivirus companies to insure hackers could not take advantage, but after much criticism, Sony has made an uninstaller available.   Be aware, if you attempt to remove it manually (according to some accounts) the CD drive will become completely disabled. 

But as quick as this started, it is over.  Sony will stop usage of rootkits.

Because of problems like this (and even from well known sources) we urge extreme caution when loading "personal use" programs.  Which leads to a real controversial subject: business administrators should probably prohibit personal use of the computer completely.

Such innocent use of the computer like playing games and music, checking email and web surfing can (these days) easily compromise company security or result in destruction of company data and should probably be prohibited. 

Firewall Settings

The above made us think about our own security.  Although we operate behind a hardware and software firewall, we decided to review the applications allowed to access the Internet. 

Opening our Client Firewall settings and reviewing the programs list, we found a few items that need not have access to the Internet.  The list included programs long since uninstalled but still appearing in the firewalls list.  So we removed all questionable programs from the list (which effectively blocks access to the Internet) and will wait and see what happens.  If those applications attempt to access the Internet, the firewall will ask us to allow or deny access at which point we need to find out if the program is legitimate/needed.

Virus Count

Last year about this same time there were 68,549 known viruses.  At the time of this writing, there are a little over 70,760.  It is comforting to know virus releases have slowed to only about 2,200 a year...