PC & IT 02 (Nov 08 - Mar 10)

[kennynah]

802 :
what's the difference between the 2 pics, except for the obvious colour differentiation...

[iam802]

the second one has that white border or 'paper' around the picture... like a Polaroid.

Like I say...."only if you have time...." to spend....

[winston]

How Do I Disappear Online? By Dr. Steve Sjuggerud

A year ago today, I was busy unraveling a bank heist...

It didn't involve guns or ski masks. But tens of thousands of dollars disappeared just the same.

The money was stolen online... from the bank account of a close family member.

A thief somehow hacked into the family member's e-mail and possibly used a "keystroke logger" (which tracks everything you type on your keyboard) to get the bank account's password. The thief locked the family member out of her e-mail account and then wired money to his own bank account. (You can read the full story here )

We acted quickly enough to get the money back without a problem. But it opened our eyes to the very real dangers of "living" online.

Outside of going "off the grid" (which I can't imagine doing), what can we do? Apparently, not a lot...

"Privacy no longer exists," a lifetime friend told me at a Christmas party a few days ago. This friend should know – she works for one of Google's biggest business partners. She continued...

"I can know more about you in five minutes than you can imagine. Google, for example, basically knows everything you've done online. When I go to hire someone, they're amazed at what I know about them. I'm not using anything special. People with sophisticated tools and malicious intents do serious damage. Worst of all, you can't hide."

Well, now, that's not very encouraging.

We can do the obvious things... like not opening e-mails (or especially clicking on attachments) from people we don't know and not giving any more information than you have to online. But that doesn't make you safe... That's just the equivalent of living in a dangerous neighborhood but not walking the streets at night.

I'm willing to try other things to protect myself...

Wired Magazine recently had a great cover story on a writer's attempt to vanish

. The writer disguised his online activity by using Tor

. He explained: "Tor masks a computer's IP address by diverting its requests through designated routers around the world. So when I logged in to Gmail from IP 131.179.50.72 in Los Angeles, the logs showed my request originating from 192.251.226.206 in Germany."

Beyond things like Tor, there are also anonymous e-mails, remailers, anonymous web surfing...

But honestly, I don't know if using some of these services is jumping from the frying pan to the fire... What I mean is, Google is the devil we know. We know Google, but we don't know these anonymous sites. Some unknown privacy "cure" could be a wolf in sheep's clothing.

Also, even though I'm just trying to protect my own privacy, I feel like I'm either a weirdo or I'm hiding something if I use some of those services.

This is one case where I need your help... I am an investing guy, not an Internet privacy guy. So please tell me: What works for you? What is convenient, but makes you safer, online? How can you help me, and thousands of other DailyWealth readers? In short...

How do I disappear online? You tell me.

I promise, in an upcoming DailyWealth, I will publish the best solutions for protecting yourself and your personal information online. (I also promise to publish your name, e-mail address, home address, credit card numbers... ha!)

Source: Daily Wealth

[kennynah]

let me try to google for you winston....

[winston]

Ha Ha ... and you will find me at this forum

[kennynah]

i do PI work on your background mah....

since u no interview... difficult to know more about you...

[winston]

Simple Things to Make You Safer Online By Dr. Steve Sjuggerud

Today's DailyWealth shares a few incredibly simple things you can do to dramatically increase your safety and anonymity online...

"You guys really know everything about me..." Maria Bartiromo told Eric Schmidt – the head of Google – on a new CNBC special about Google.

Maria's basically right...

She said, "If I'm a Google user, you have years of my search terms [saved] – stuff that may contain all kinds of incredibly personal data. If I use other Google services, you can see the contents of my email, my documents, my spreadsheets, my personal photos, my voice mail, even the contacts in my address book..."

Then Maria asked, "People are treating Google like their most trusted friend. Should they be?"

The reply from Google wasn't as cheery as the company's name and image... "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place," Google's CEO Eric Schmidt told Maria. "We are all subject in the U.S. to the Patriot Act. It is possible that that information could be made available to the authorities."

Thanks to the Patriot Act, law enforcement and intelligence agencies are legally able to see your Internet activities without a judge's oversight. (You SHOULD be protected from this under the Fourth Amendment – unreasonable search and seizure – but the government gets around the Fourth Amendment because it gets the data from Google... Therefore it's not unreasonably searching YOU.)

Maybe Google won't do anything bad with your data. ("If we broke our trust with our end users, then they would leave," Google's CEO said.) And maybe the government won't do anything bad either...

But what about the real "bad guys" out there? What about guys like the person who hacked into my family member's bank account? These guys pose extraordinary danger... trafficking in your stolen data and looking for the right sucker to take advantage of.

It's nothing personal. It's like the Mafia... It's just business – big business. So let me back up and ask you... All things being equal, which house will likely get robbed first?

A) My house, with an alarm company sticker in the window, which says something like, "This House is Secured By ABC Security."

B) My neighbor's house, with no alarm company sticker.

Let me make my point another way: If a buddy and I are running from a bear, I don't have to be faster than the bear to get away... I just have to be faster than my buddy.

In short, predators typically go for the easy prey... the wounded... the low-hanging fruit.

So today, as a very minimal step, I urge you to get yourself some Internet "alarm stickers," so to speak... You must start now, at the very least, taking a little more precaution than your neighbor.

I have spent more time doing research on this subject than I have on any other DailyWealth. When it comes to investments, I have a background. But I don't have a background in this stuff, so I had to put in the time.

In the search for a solution, I have signed up for all kinds of services and installed all kinds of crazy things on my computers to see what works. I have gone through hundreds of suggestions from readers and checked each of them out. I have talked with Internet security experts and privacy experts.

I could write a huge report on what I've learned (and I might just do that). It is all quite scary.

But today's DailyWealth is about a few incredibly simple things you can do to dramatically decrease the likelihood of having people snoop on you and your life. Let's get started...

1) Start by limiting your exposure to Google.

Whenever you use Google, it logs your search terms and your computer's IP address. And once you log into Gmail from anywhere, Google can log your activity then, too. I have two simple and easy solutions for you.

Instead of Google, you can use 1) www.startpage.com to do your searches. StartPage doesn't capture your IP address.

Solution 2) is to use www.scroogle.org

(make sure you type in ".org" on this one). Scroogle is pretty nifty... You request the search at Scroogle, it asks Google for your search, and then it reports those results back to you. One useful feature is you can set Scroogle as your default Internet search engine in your web browser.

Also remember, if you're a Gmail user, as long as you're logged in to your e-mail, your actions online are being logged.

I have nothing against Google... It just happens to be the biggest search engine. I just fear "the bad guys" and Big Brother, and what information they might extract to use against you.

2) Improve your passwords!

Using "Fido123" for everything from your Amazon account to your bank account simply isn't good enough. An exceptional resource you should try for this is RoboForm: www.RoboForm.com

3) Whenever possible, use more than just one layer of security with your financial accounts.

You usually have to ask for this. But Bank of America, for example, will send you a randomly generated, one-time-use password delivered to your cell phone by text message. Others will send you a credit-card-sized random number generator. Between the randomly generated password and the password in your head, you should be in good shape.

Of course, these three things are above and beyond doing "the usual"... which means updating Windows regularly, using firewalls, anti-virus, etc. But you should absolutely do the above three things – at least.

Seriously consider more drastic measures as well...

I'll share some of the more drastic measures I've tested and found to be useful – including using a more private e-mail service than Gmail or Yahoo and ways to hide your IP address from Google and even your Internet service provider – in tomorrow's DailyWealth.

Until then... good (and safe) investing,

Source: Daily Wealth

[kennynah]

The Patriot Act, was a consequence of 9/11 attacks... and there are people who believe this attack was an inside job.. i'm sure you all must have seen the documentaries...

[winston]

I'm Personally Taking Drastic Measures By Dr. Steve Sjuggerud

A week ago, I was blissfully ignorant. Now I'm officially spooked...

As I explained in yesterday's DailyWealth, the government has the legal right to access your entire Internet activity history without asking for any permission. It's authorized through the Patriot Act, which runs around the Fourth Amendment – "unreasonable search and seizure" – by getting the info from Google (or whatever search engine) instead of you.

And when you learn just how sophisticated and terrible hackers can be, you realize Google and the government are the least of your worries.

In all my research over the last week, I've been blown away by two things:

• How truly evil computer hackers can be with your data. Remember my family member, who had $32,000 stolen from her bank account ? And we got off relatively easy.

• How most ordinary folks really don't care about this stuff. Over the last week, I've talked to a lot of people. And the consensus was, "I'm not worried. Nothing bad has ever happened to me."

Well, if you've never been burglarized, does that mean you should leave your house door unlocked? You shouldn't wait until something bad happens before you learn how to protect yourself.

The goal of today's DailyWealth is to show you how to put your Internet privacy completely back in your own control, by doing two simple things.

I asked our readers for their insights on this issue... One reader really expressed it well:

"My privacy isn't particularly that important to me... I'm quite happy to tell multiple websites my real name, have them remember me, etc., as long as it's MY CHOICE. But my RIGHT TO PRIVACY – that's profoundly important to me."

I don't know about you, but I feel the same way. So I've taken some much more drastic measures...

I've tested all kinds of things that claim to help you retain control of your privacy online. The results, quite frankly, were generally terrible. Most programs resulted in an unacceptably poor Internet experience... and not much certainty I was doing things a whole lot safer than I was before.

A few things have performed admirably, and I am using them now.

First, I've switched my free e-mail provider.

I have switched out of Yahoo and Google over to Hushmail, a privacy-focused e-mail provider based in Canada. The benefit here is U.S. authorities can't cite the Patriot Act and get whatever they want... They need to be granted a Canadian court order. While you may choose a different provider, Hushmail does everything I need it to do. But nothing is air-tight...

Even Hushmail was raided by U.S. authorities a couple years ago... Officials were looking for information about three criminals.

Hushmail's CEO explained the company's position: "Hushmail is useful for avoiding general Carnivore-type government surveillance, and protecting your data from hackers, but definitely not suitable for protecting your data if you are engaging in illegal activity that could result in a Canadian court order."

That's fine with me... In fact, that's exactly what I want.

You may want something different. Whatever your level of paranoia, somebody will sell you something to offset it... and it will probably be slow, and it probably really won't do you much good. But I found Hushmail works.

Second, I'm now surfing the Internet securely and anonymously.

I am currently using what I've found to be an extraordinary service... from CryptoHippie (www.cryptohippie.com). Long-story short, it makes it so nobody – not Google, not even your Internet service provider, not the government, and (theoretically of course) not a hacker – can track your Internet activity back to you.

This service is not free, but it's worth every penny. (I tried the "free" and cheap services, but you don't want them... You surf too slowly to be functional and they're potentially even riskier than doing nothing at all.)

I've now had many conversations with Paul Rosenberg, one of the founders of CryptoHippie. It's important to know who you're dealing with when it comes to your security. Paul came highly recommended, from my most trusted contacts. So I'm comfortable paying the price he charges.

I asked Paul if he would offer a free trial to his service for you.

Paul agreed to make an extraordinary offer for DailyWealth readers... You can try his CryptoHippie Road Warrior service (which is what I use) for free for a week. Just sign up between now and Sunday night. Paul wanted me to add that "every DailyWealth reader is guaranteed the free trial, but you may have to wait a few days if demand runs hot."

Again, this is a special offer for DailyWealth readers. You must click here or type in https://secure.cryptohippie.com/DailyWealth.php to take advantage of it.

I am testing more promising things, too. They just get more and more complicated, and a little slower, as you go. For a few examples...

One thing you can do is run your Internet browsing program (like Firefox) from a USB flash drive... you know, the little thumb-sized drives that plug into your USB port. You can actually plug these into any computer and start up Firefox straight off of the USB flash drive.

You can then leave without leaving a trace on the computer you used. The full story is here and I'm testing each of these services described. It's a bit slower, but it might be right for some folks.

Or, if you're a bit more computer savvy, True Crypt (www.truecrypt.org) is quite an impressive little security program. But True Crypt really takes security pretty far.

I could go on... But the goal today is to put your personal Internet privacy back in your own control, to help you stop the spread of your personal information, starting today.

I can't believe how truly evil some folks are with your data... and I can't believe how most ordinary folks really don't care about this stuff.

You should care. CryptoHippie's Road Warrior and Hushmail don't slow you down a beat. I am using them, and can recommend them to you. Check them out. They're worth it.

Source: Daily Wealth

[iam802]

I do use TrueCrypt. Great for your laptops, thumbdrives etc.

Another alternative is PGP which is a commercial product. http://www.pgp.com/

I'm sure there will be some who have use it before as well.