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Author Topic: Cyber Security - Questions and Comments  (Read 107833 times)
OldFatGuy
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« on: October 18, 2008, 07:25AM »

Please post questions and comments here.
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Mystic Knight
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« Reply #1 on: October 18, 2008, 09:19PM »

Excellent post Rich.  I use two anti spyware programs both free.  Adaware and Spybot Search and destroy.  For antivirus I use AVG 8 free version.  I also hide behind two firewalls on on windoze the other on the router.  I don't know if multiple firewalls helps at all.  What I would really like is ghost.  It's hardware that basically hides your ports... it's also rather pricey.

If I could add a note about passwords.  Passwords with a combination of numbers and letters are harder to crack. for example c3a2t1.  I used a web site to generate a random 15 character password for the router.  I would share the link but I can't remember it, but if you go to to the call for help site and dig around you will find it there.  That is where I got it.


OOPS sory 'bout that
« Last Edit: October 18, 2008, 10:20PM by Mystic Knight » Logged

OldFatGuy
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« Reply #2 on: October 18, 2008, 09:42PM »

Excellent post Rick.
Thank you.  But it's Rich.

I wasn't going to get into this yet, but - it's also a good idea to mix in an occasional special character in a password.  Any of the standard printable ASCII characters except white space, with ASCII codes between 33 and 126 inclusive, are allowed in passwords. Thus, all of these special characters are allowed in passwords:

!   "   #    $   %   &    '   (   )    *   +   ,    -   .   /    :  ;   <   =   >   ?   @    [   \   ]   ^   _   `    {   |   }   ~

Also - it's probably not a good idea to use an online password generator.  The technology needed to capture that information is readily available.  If you want to use a generated password, there's a good one here, written in Javascript, and another here, in Perl. If you use any kind of random generator, though, you will have to record it somewhere or you'll never remember it.  Just be sure to record it in a very safe place, preferably completely separate from the computer workspace.
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KiernanKate
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« Reply #3 on: October 18, 2008, 09:52PM »

So if I were to set one of my online passwords, to include a Fada in it.... that'd make it harder to break?
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Mystic Knight
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« Reply #4 on: October 18, 2008, 10:36PM »

Like I said I only used that password for the router and I never saved it.  If all else fail all I need to do is hit the reset and its back to defalt. Smiley
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OldFatGuy
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« Reply #5 on: October 19, 2008, 06:29AM »

So if I were to set one of my online passwords, to include a Fada in it.... that'd make it harder to break?
Well, there are 26 alphabetics, plus 10 numerics, plus 32 special characters. Add in another 26 upper case alphas if you're in a Unix/Linux environment, and you have 26 x 26 x 10 x 32 = 216,320 possibilities for each character in your password.
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Cash
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« Reply #6 on: October 19, 2008, 05:13PM »

So if I were to set one of my online passwords, to include a Fada in it.... that'd make it harder to break?
Well, there are 26 alphabetics, plus 10 numerics, plus 32 special characters. Add in another 26 upper case alphas if you're in a Unix/Linux environment, and you have 26 x 26 x 10 x 32 = 216,320 possibilities for each character in your password.
wait...wouldnt you have to add those together rather than multiply? the multiple effect would occur as you add more and more single characters together to form a string with multiple characters .The number of possibilities would be dependent on the number of individual characters used together?
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OldFatGuy
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« Reply #7 on: October 19, 2008, 06:50PM »

wouldnt you have to add those together rather than multiply?
Oops.  Yes, Mike, you're absolutely right. There are only 94 possibilities for each individual character. So, for two characters, it'd be 94 x 94, or 8836.  And so on.
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tiburongirl
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« Reply #8 on: November 19, 2008, 01:04PM »

Thanks Rich for posting about the dangers of online trading.  There was a ton of important information in your article.  Even though my career with Merrill Lynch was short, I, personally will never do online trading (For one, I technically can't for 2 years anyway, heh).  Even though a person has to pay  commission and fees to a brokerage house, it's well worth it in the long run.

Kim
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YayBabySeals
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« Reply #9 on: November 20, 2008, 09:25AM »

This is a good topic to have on here, Rich...since obviously everyone here is a computer user (even if it's only to check the forum, hehe), this is info that is worthwhile for everyone to know.

My company is primarily a government health IT contractor, so we have access to very important/confidential data. Therefore, we don't mess around with computer security here. One trick I always use is to "lock" my computer when I walk away from it in the office, even if it's just to go to the bathroom. This way if anyone tries to get in & look at my computer, they won't be able to, unless they know my password.

Here's how to lock your machine for the folks who don't know how to do it:

1. Hit Control-Alt-Delete.
2. Click "Lock Computer".

Or, for those who are fans of keyboard shortcuts (like me), you can just hit the Windows button on your keyboard and then the "L" key.
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OldFatGuy
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« Reply #10 on: November 20, 2008, 09:48AM »

Here's how to lock your machine for the folks who don't know how to do it:

1. Hit Control-Alt-Delete.
2. Click "Lock Computer".
Another handy trick is to password protect your screen saver.
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Scott
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« Reply #11 on: November 27, 2008, 08:31AM »


Here's a weird question.  I work on and upload a small bit of graphic images (particularly of Celtic Woman).  Is it possible that if I have a virus on my computer that it can hitch itself into my JPG files?  It would seem to be an effective way for a virus to travel all over the place... Sad


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OldFatGuy
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« Reply #12 on: November 27, 2008, 11:11AM »

For most types of graphics file formats currently available the answer is "no". A virus (or worm, Trojan horse, etc.) is fundamentally a collection of code (i.e. a program) that contains instructions which are executed by your CPU. Most graphics files, however, contain only static data and no executable code. The code that reads, writes, and displays graphics data is found in translation and display programs, and not in the graphics files themselves. If reading or writing a graphics file caused a system malfunction it was most likely the fault of the program reading the file and not of the graphics file data itself.

With the introduction of multimedia we have seen new formats appear, and modifications to older formats made, that allow executable instructions to be stored within a file format. These instructions are used to direct multimedia applications to play sounds or music, prompt the user for information, or display other graphics and video information. And such multimedia display programs may perform these functions by interfacing with their environment via an API, or by direct interaction with the operating system. One might also imagine a truly object-oriented graphics file as containing the code required to read, write, and display itself.

Once again, any catastrophes that result from using these multimedia applications are most likely the result of bugs in the software and not some sinister instructions in the graphics file data. Such "logic bombs" are typically exorcised through the use of testing using a wide variety of different image files for test cases.
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Cash
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« Reply #13 on: November 27, 2008, 01:24PM »

Thanks Rich for posting about the dangers of online trading.  There was a ton of important information in your article.  Even though my career with Merrill Lynch was short, I, personally will never do online trading (For one, I technically can't for 2 years anyway, heh).  Even though a person has to pay  commission and fees to a brokerage house, it's well worth it in the long run.

Kim
I am also fearful of any on-line financial transactions, perhaps to the point of an unhealthy paranoia. Financial people have finally stopped trying to get me to do it. It is cheap to just call a human now, when in the past that meant maybe hundreds of dollars.

On the USB Drive article, I have a problem with one, though I dont think its actually security related. But I took it to Kinkos to get a few pics printed out, and they had to create some type of file, so I told them to save it to the flash drive, that way if I needed it again, I wouldnt have to pay their 'administrative' fee of $3 (or whatever exact amount, cant remember now) again. Now I cant save anything more to the drive.

A good subject for future articles would be cookies. I always turn my computer to block them, unless I need them for some web page (like MySpace) Again I may be too paraniod.  Roll Eyes
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OldFatGuy
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« Reply #14 on: November 27, 2008, 01:55PM »

A good subject for future articles would be cookies.
I'm working on an article on Understanding Active Content and Cookies.  Coming soon to a forum near you.   Cheesy
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