Hacking And Malware Victim Almost Goes To Jail, The Bad Guy Gets Away.

In early 2007, Michael Fiola was fired from his job. His I.T Department found some really bad material on his computer, these included child pornography images. No one really likes such a man, family and friends abandoned him. Legal proceedings would start soon and Michael would most certainly spend over a dozen years in jail. Michael denied any wrong doing and caused many observers to comment that it was typical for a child pornographer to behave that way. His wife was the only one who believed his story and stood by him during those terrible moments. It took the services of an extremely talented and hard working forsenic investigator, to bring out the truth. As it turned out, the images on the laptop were pretty bad and would prove to be juicy proof in the legal hearing. However it was not Michael who downloaded them, the images appeared on the machine without his knowledge and without any action on his part.

It turned out that the Massachusetts state service that gave Michael the computer was to blame. The I.T department of this office had issued him a laptop that was not well protected. This caused the laptop to be infested with several malware program all without the knowledge of Michael! The story ended well for Michael but it is quite likely that many other computer users could be faced with a similar program. A hacked computer could have it's security compromised and become a puppet, controlled by pranksters and probably fraudsters. The public in general and the legal system in particular has no sympathy for victims like Michael. With the rapid spread of computer and internet usage, frauds related to this technology have managed to keep pace too.

Frightening possibilities exist, a terrorist organization could spread propoganda by sending emails through a computer which had it's security compromised! The U.S could then have the innocent victim rotting in a high security torture prison in the many islands and nations that allow it to open such prisons. Losing a job or being shunned by family members, would be very light as compared to facing systematic physical and mental torture by state investigators. It is unlikely that any lessons will be learned in such cases. The perpetuators of Internet crimes are rarely caught. Special deals with law makers often leave the few that are caught with a light sentence.

There is a very interesting view point that the author of this article would like to make. When you buy a licensed software like MS Windows or MS Office, you do not become the owner of the software. The amount you pay for the licence is something like a rental charge for using the software. It would be illegal to reverse code the software and make any changes to it even if, you are an expert. The reasoning is that, you do not own the software (just rented it) and therefore cannot make any modifications to the software. At the same time, the software publisher (eg. Microsoft) can at any time stop supporting the software and return nothing to you. Given this scenario, it would mean that any security loopholes in the rented software, are the responsibility of Microsoft. The responsibility should not be limited to Microsoft publishing a patch on their website and hoping that you will download it. The resulting damage caused by the security bug should also be compensated for, wait a moment before you criticize this comment. Software publishers are always raising hell regarding piracy and are quick to point out that a software is intellectual property, much like a pen, book, car or house. If this is so let's compare this to renting a house. Let's assume that there was a secret door in the house that you rented, the landlord never informed you regarding this secret door. A thief enters through that door and burgles your house, would the landlord not be held responsible. So let's treat a security loophole in a software as the publisher's (landlord's) respobsibility. The ensuing damages caused by a fraudster exploiting the security loophole should be compensated for by the software publishers. If this is done, the software houses would make a desperate dash to get hold of the fraudsters and the internet would become a safer place to browse, learn, transact and relax in.

Smaller Storage Devices Bring Bigger Data Security Problems

If you have been staying updated with the latest in storage devices, few issues are glaring. The first is that storage devices are growing smaller, thumbdrives have today become lighter, smaller and slimmer. The second thing is that, the storage capacity on these small storage devices is increasing. And ofcourse, all this is happening with a fall in price too. All this sounds great to the tech guys but wait a minute, there are several dangers too. Whether you are a personal computer user or working as an I.T manager in a huge organization, the problems posed by these small storage devices are real and they (problems) are growing.

Losing one such small storage device means that, a lot of your data could fall into alien hands. There was a very interesting and alarming news report a couple of years ago. The report mentioned that, a local town market in Afghanistan had vendors selling used thumb drives! A small investigation by the mighty and powerful U.S army in the vicinity revealed something quite unbelievable. These thumb drives infact belonged to the U.S army and had information stored by army personnel. The data was probably outdated and they decided to discard the thumb drives. These landed in dustbins and the garbage collectors innocently sorted out the garbage and tried to sell them in the local market.

Office computers face another threat from these small storage devices. It is very easy for staff to bring in a thumb drive and load confidential information into the drive. The devices are so small that they can be hidden in shoes, waterbottles etc. A leading jeweler in Asia once faced a situation where one of their designers actually copied the companies designs on to a thumb drive. She then slipped the thum drive into her high ankle shoes and tried to pass security. High security in a jewelry factory ensured that the incident was quickly caught and reported. However, you surely cannot expect this level of security to be maintained in all industries.

Finally, mobile phones with cameras equipped with high capacity small storage devices continue to pose severe security threats. Video clips and images of confidential documents, products and even office and factory layouts can be recorded on these phones. The information can either be carried home in the device or, emailed through the device right out of the office. These phones have their own internet connections and need not tresspass on company networks.

Warning: Information leaked through mobile phones is not easy to detect. Most organizations check belongings of staff only when they leave office. This is not done when staff enters the office. The staff can safely get in a mobile phone equipped with a camera and audio recording facility. The confidential information recorded can include data files, images, video clips and even voice recordings. Once done, the information can be emailed out of the office right from the desk of the staff. The internet connection used is not related to the company network so cannot be intercepted. The staff can then erase the information and leave the mobile phone in the office when going home. A security check at the gate will not find the mobile phone and the information would have left the office without anyones knowledge!!!.

Skype Exposes A HUGE Internet Explorer Farce

Here is something that most techies already know but will easily go down as one of the greatest farces of our time. If you have made attempts to block out skype usage from your computer or network you would already be a victim of this cheap loophole in Microsoft Internet Explorer. Firstly, activate the built in firewall in windows, then specifically choose to block the Skype program on your computer. Save the firewall settings and once again check back to make sure that the firewall settings are as you wished them to be.

Now start skype, try to login and wow, Bill opens the Gates for the skype program. You will be able to successfully login to your skype account and do a normal usage. Now back to the windows firewall settings, here is the surprise. The firewall would have selected Skype as one of the programs that CAN run on your system. And who ever gave skype the authority to do this, well Bill Gates was probably so busy buying and taking over companies that he never knew when he would pocket Skype. So... he allowed that program to conveniently open up the firewall for itself.

We have news that many other programs have the ability to do this trick and play havoc with your firewall. We also heard that microsoft actually helps softwared developers learn how to do this neat 'trick' at your expense. In our opinion this is downright cheating and manipulation as the user of the windows software was never told that the owner of windows might allow certain softwares to overwrite your firewall settings. In pure technical terms this would be hacking, but in terms of business microsoft refers to these software developers as business partners or value added retailers!!!.

Remote Management Of Your Router, Important Information

Useful For Non-Technical Computer Users Too

Routers whether wired or wireless, have certain setup procedures. These procedures control important functions that include who, can access your network, when, for what type of applications etc. To do this, the router needs to be connected to a computer, the computer then accesses the router set up interface and allows the user to configure various parameters. Let us call the computer to which the router is connected (for configuration purposes) as, COMP-A. The user sitting on COMP-A would access the router set up screen through a web browser, enter the required password, make the set up changes and then save the configuration.

It does not matter whether COMP-A is connected or not connected to the Internet during the configuration process. However, technically it is possible to allow any computer connected to the Internet to access the router through a web browser. This is a process that is referred to as 'Remote Management' and most technically minded users would be aware of this. But what we need to do is take care of those users who install a router and are not very technically savvy.

If you do not understand the meaning and implications of remote management of your router, disable the feature. You will still be able to configure your router through the computer to which it is physically connected and that is good enough. Allowing remote computers to access your router through the Internet requires a few important precautions to be taken. You will need to restrict the access to a specific IP address or a group of IP addresses. It is always advisable to change the password required to access the router to something that is different from the 'default' password, this is always a good thing to do.

Enabling the remote management function for your router, could allow others to access your router and reset important parameters that relate to the security of your network. So if you are not sure about how to do a proper control when remote management is open, you can either take the services of a professional or disable the router remote management function.

Digital Cameras, The Aperture Preferred Mode

The popularity of digital cameras has grown rapidly, it has also been responsible for the decline of conventional film based cameras. The 'point-and-shoot' ease of operating a digital camera, makes the whole process look like child's play. However there are a few professional tips that would allow you to get better images from your digital camera.

Most budding photographers use the 'Auto' feature for taking images with their digital camera but, this might not give the best result in all situations. In the 'auto' mode, the camera is programmed to set the aperture and exposure time of your digital camera, you just accept the results that you get. Let us know take the situation where you need to take the image of a building, the building is sufficiently far away for you to frame it in the shooting window. However the light conditions are not ideal, your camera in Auto mode would translate the scene as follows.

The light around the image would be calculated, the camera would set the aperture and exposure time for your digital camera. It is likely that you will get a dark image, the exposure time might be too long for a humanly held digital camera. This will mean that the image is out of focus and dark, but what if you wanted a better exposed image with little or no camera motion.

Firstly, you would set the digital camera to the 'Aperture Preferred Mode', this is often marked as 'P' on many digital cameras. The aperture is also called the 'f'-number and could be in the range of f4, f5.6, f8, f11, f22 etc. The larger the aperture number the smaller the aperture. The aperture is like a hole controlling the amount of light that will pass through the lens. The more the light passing through the lens the better the exposure, remember that there is a possibility of over-exposure too. As the aperture number increases (the aperture size decreases), the portion of the scene that remains in focus (depth of field/focus) increases. The bigger focus area is ideally suited to take images of buildings and monuments.

So the first thing that you will need to do when in the Aperture Preferred Mode is to, set an aperture number that is as high as possible. This will mean that the aperture size gets reduced and the amount of light passing through the lens decreases. To compensate for this, the camera will (automatically) set a slower shutter speed which, will in turn allow more light to pass through the lens. So you now have a smaller aperture size (large aperture number) and a slow shutter speed. A slow shutter speed will most likely cause your hands and the digital camera to shake, this will ofcourse ruin the sharpness of the final image.

In such a situation use a sturdy camera stand (tri-pod) and mount the camera firmly on the tripod. When you have framed and composed your image, gently depress the 'shoot' button on your digital camera. The chances of the camera moving or the degree of the movement will be drastically reduced. You will end up with a sharper and better exposed image. There are a few devices that can help you trigger the 'shoot' button more smoothly (no chance of moving). One of these devices is a cable that fits on to the 'shoot' button. The other end of the cable has a trigger button that can be depressed to shoot the image. With technical advancements, many digital cameras today have an option to trigger the shoot with a wireless device.

Experiment with the 'aperture preferred' mode on your digital camera, the results will gradually become more impressive. The aperture preferred mode is an option that lies between the 'auto' (completely automatice) mode and the 'manual' (both aperture and shutter speed are manually set) modes.

Beware Of Shipments To Singapore, Indonesia And Nigeria

There is an alert from our network security team. This online fraud is not new but seems to shown a strong revival in the past few months. You receive an email from a prospective 'buyer' requesting for payment mode clarification. The email would read more or less like the content shown below.....

I am xyz from Singapore (or Indonesia or Nigeria) and would like to buy some items from your website. But before I do this, I need to know if you accept Visa (or Mastercard or AMEX). Let me have this information and I will place the order.

Another fraud which is similar to this has the content as shown below:

I have seen your website and would like to buy 50 pieces of 22k Gold Chains payment will be through my AMEX card. I will need you to ship these chains to my retail stores in Nigeria.

The important thing about the the 22k Gold Chains mention is that, the cybercrook picks up the exact title of some merchandise that is listed on your website. The words are so similar that it is very likely that a cut and paste operation was used for the text.

Beware of these online frauds, stay away from such emails and delete them the moment they arrive. What is alarming is the text content, it has a surprising uniformity and has remained this way for many years now. There is every possibility that, one large group of fraudsters is behind this fraud. Many honest and budding online sellers have got financially ruined by falling for this internet fraud. The thought of being able to make a big sale brings about an excitement and not even a small degree of caution is felt.

Read Before You Try To, Boil Water In A Microwave

The convenience and speed with which cooking can be done in a microwave oven is truly impressive. Many people even use the microwave to boil water for a quick cup of tea or coffee. You should however be ware of a dangerous thing that could occur when you try to boil water in a microwave oven.

It is highly advisable to place a wooden spoon or even a tea bag along with the water in the microwave oven. Technically the water in the microwave gets superheated, this can prove dangerous if there is only water in the container that is placed in the microwave oven. A slight jerk or movement to the vessel with water that is superheated can cause the water to 'burst' out of the vessel.

There have been cases of accidents reportedly caused by boiling water in a microwave. If you can avoid it, use a stove or other heating decide to boil water. But, if you must boil water in a microwave oven, read the report on this topic at this link: http://www.health.food-recipe-cooking.com/boiling-water-in-a-microwave-01.htm