security

For years now I’ve subscribed to Mark Hurst’s Good Experience newsletter. This week he wrote A Warning Sign on the Way to Digital Utopia, which should be required reading for anyone that owns a computer.
Less than twelve hours ago I sadly had to repeat a conversation I’ve had dozens — if not hundreds — of times in my life.

When you are doing something on your computer, save it. If it’s important, save often. If it’s really important, save often and save it somewhere other than the computer you’re using. If it’s really, really important, save often, save it somewhere other than your computer, and save it someplace other than the same place where your computer is.

That’s it. It’s not rocket science and it’s not complicated. It can be tedious, yes. It can feel like a waste of time, yes. But when you’re on the last page of your novel and you spill coffee on the keyboard and when you get home from Starbucks to find that the dog has eaten your backup CDs, you’ll be very, very glad that you have an extra copy at the office (or your mom’s house, or a safe-deposit box).

If you’re getting that annoying message telling you that your copy of AVG Anti-Virus is about to expire, you can get the new version here.

My girlfriend and I had dinner last night at The Rainbow Room and then went to see The Perfect Victim play at the Whisky A Go Go on Sunset Blvd. We didn’t know it in advance, but the Whisky was hosting a “launch party” for a new concert review web site, TheConcertGoer.com, so there were several bands playing and they were filming.

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Once again I found myself in trouble at the Los Angeles International Airport, and once again it was (arguably) my own damn fault. Last Thursday I flew Southwest to Providence, Rhode Island to testify in court on behalf of my dad, who was in the midst of a textbook “frivolous lawsuit”. I detest being late in general, and even more so when it comes to flying. I am the guy that gets to the airport at least two hours in advance. My adventure began almost as soon as I got out of my friend’s car.

I was told by the Southwest skycaps at the curbside check-in that my flight was canceled. “What?! Why?!” I exclaimed. I was told by the first skycap that it was because of inclement weather in Rhode Island. He directed me to his superior, who told me that it was because of a mechanical problem with the plane. (Much later in the day I would be told that the flight was canceled because there simply weren’t enough people wanting to fly from LA to Providence that day to justify sending an entire plane on the route.) She took my luggage and got me on the next flight, due to leave for Phoenix in three hours.

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I happen to be one of the (apparently very few) people in this country that has not only read the Constitution of the United States, but also understands it and — by gosh! — thinks it’s a pretty good way to run a country. So I tend to get really, really upset when presented with a “law” that I know is not a law.

At fozbaca.org I found a link to an excellent article written by a U.S. citizen about how to fly without any identification. You do realize that there is no “law” that says you must present ID to get on a plane, right? According to this article, the airlines just want to make sure you’re not using someone else’s frequent flyer miles. They blame it on the government because, well, just about everyone is a sucker.

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How’s this for retarded? I recently moved. Yesterday I went to Washington Mutual’s website to change my address for my checking account. Today I realized that I am out of checks. That’s okay. I can order checks on-line and they get delivered in like three days. But when I went to the website to order a new set of checks, I got this message:

We’re sorry. Our records indicate that you have changed your address within the last 30 days. For your security, we do not allow web- or phone-based check orders within 30 days of an address change. Please visit a financial center or wait 30 days to submit this order.

Gaah! How in the world is this making my life more secure??

I can’t remember where I found this one, but Checking Out the Checkpoints - The curious irrationality of airport security is a great editorial.

Q. Is there any way to work around the Outlook security update?
A. Way One Way Two Way Three

Here is a must-read: 7 ways to protect your home PC

I recently changed my SHELL / FTP passwords at DreamHost because of the little Blogger security breach. (I don’t use Blogger any longer, but I thought I’d be on the safe side.) Customer Support sent me the following message:

After looking further into your account it was discovered that you only changed one character between your old and new password (and that being the 10th character in your password). However UNIX password encryption only cares about the first eight characters. Thats why you should probably limit your password to 8 characters because anything after the 8th character doesn’t matter.

“A UNIX password can be up to eight characters, any extra characters will be discarded, making the passwords ‘Still won’t talk, eh, Spiff?’ and ‘Still wo’ mutually interchangable.”

To some, Hurtubise is a cult hero. He’s burned through more than $100,000 and gone bankrupt building a 150-pound protective suit of titanium, plastic, chain mail, galvanized steel, rubber and thousands of feet of duct tape.

To test his invention, Hurtubise has been run over by a truck, hit by a moving car, smashed in the shins with a sledgehammer, scorched with flames, and hacked at with chain saws.

In two of the more interesting experiments, he’s withstood pointblank blasts from a 12-gauge shotgun and intentionally fallen from the 150-foot Niagara Falls escarpment.

Saying it has received information that new terrorist attacks may be planned inside the United States or abroad in the next several days, the FBI on Thursday asked local police to be on the highest alert and urged all Americans to be wary of suspicious activity.

Y’know. Just in case you were feeling comfortable or anything. Right. Now I’ll start being wary. Like I haven’t been feeling just a tad edgy for the last month …

For some reason I cannot FTP or SMTP to davidgagne.net from my office. I know you’re asking, “David, what does that mean?” It means I can’t upload anything to my site from work (no new songs!), I can’t send eMail through my davidgagne.net account from work, and I can’t modify any of the files at davidgagne.net from work.

I think, for some reason, my company is blocking ports 21 and 25 from my desktop. It doesn’t really make much sense, from a security point of view. I can kinda understand why they would kill my FTP access, but why stop me from sending SMTP but not from receiving POP? Are they worried that I’m going to send a virus from work, but not that I might receive one here? Who knows?

Yesterday I thought the problem might be with Dreamhost, but they told me that there is nothing wrong with my eMail or FTP. Then I realized that I could still FTP through Blogger and greyMatter, and that I can eMail and FTP from home. So the culprit must be something done by the administrators of my office network connection in Kentucky.

You don’t even care, do you?

Can ‘Military’ Technology Beat Digital Piracy?

” … if the hacker persists, and continues making ”aggressive” attempts to disable InTether’s defenses or pierce its vault, he’ll get ”the white screen of death.” His InTether receiver, together with all the InTethered files stored inside it, will be destroyed. Attacks ”would have to be pretty aggressive and multiple” in order to trigger the white screen of death …”