Do you know what ToR is?

It's a way to anonymously use the Internet.  Handy for people who want more privacy, whether they're spies, or dissidents in hostile countries, or just people who want privacy.

To use it, you download software, and configure it to connect to the internet, where your traffic connects to random places,  gets encrypted, bounces around the web, getting reencrypted or decrypted and finally gets completely decrypted and leaves from another random place before it goes to its final destination.  YOUR AMOUNT OF PRIVACY AND ANONYMITY IS COMPLETELY A FUNCTION OF HOW WELL YOU UNDERSTAND EVERYTHING ABOUT IT ( and the internet, likely )

It exists on the generosity of people running "Exit nodes", the places that accept connections, bounce traffic around, or squirt data out.

Unfortunately, if someone uses ToR to do something illegal, the authorities might go after the person running the Exit node, and because of the nature of Tor, it's REALLY HARD TO FIND THE ACTUAL CRIME.  This could be a problem to the person in custody, in spite of the fact they haven't (really) done anything wrong.

You have been warned.

Perry

App maker thinks it's OK to hijack your twitter account

If they think you've pirated the app, Enfour will use your Twitter credentials and post a confession.

I know what Apps that do (really) unexpected things are called - "Malware".  And I'll accuse them of that, just on my blog though.

This is the problem with apps that take your credentials from other services, you never know what they'll do with them until it's too late.

Don't buy toshiba laptops

Blah - I don't know what it is with some of these companies, but Toshiba shut down a blogger that put their repair manuals online.  This simply means that they'll cost that much more to repair, or if an authorized center won't fix it at all, you're out of luck

There are way more manufacturers out there

The Privacy Racket

I performed a vanity search a minute ago, to see how easy it was to link a username to my real identity, and I came across "mylife.com", which showed my name, town, age, and my immediate family's names and ages.  If I wanted to remove my information on line, I had to create an acocunt and gice them more information.  Great.  so I called them on the telephone.

They quickly removed my information with a minimum of additional information, they only verified my previous address (!).

Then the kicker.  The nice woman on the telephone informed me about all the places with public information on the web, and how difficult it would be to call them all.  On the other hand, there was a great service called "Safe Shepherd" which would make all those telephone calls for me for only $60 per year!

Such a deal!  Racket?  Scam? whatever.  sheesh. what will they think of next?

According to Wikipedia they have a free service too - wonder why the nice young lady didn't mention that?

Perry

When you want something real bad...

That's exactly what you get.

Or, "What's worse than online voting?  How about email voting?"   WHAT COULD THEY POSSIBLY BE THINKING?

Yes kids, this is not The Onion , but someone in New Jersey thinks you can securely create an online voting system in a week, and use email.

Hello, HELLO?! Read this - yes "recoil in horror" - ( his words ).

This is not "Which Jersey Shore member are you most like?"  This is for the COMMANDER IN CHIEF OF THE MOST POWERFUL COUNTRY IN THE WORLD.

There are truly bad people out there that want to steal the election, and they have WAY MORE RESOURCES than (bleeping) NEW JERSEY in the MIDDLE OF THE WORST DISASTER maybe EVER!

Please don't do this!

Perry

Patch Java, now and forever

If you don't need Java JRE on your PC, get rid of it. If you need it, patch it. If you can't patch it because some silly application is not compatible with the patch, kick the [beep] of whoever supplies that application.

Yet another danger of cloud computing...

From an article in Ars Technica, "For example, if the government accidentally seized iCloud servers containing the only copy of priceless family photos, you'd need to be prepared to explain why there are pirated MP3s in your iTunes folder."

 The user who was an example a paid customer of Megaupload wants his business files back.  The DOJ looked at the contents, and found "numerous videos produced by Mr. Goodwin have as their soundtracks recordings of popular copyrighted music." and "music files with MD5 values that matched the hash values of pirated versions of popular music"

IANL, but it looks to me like a storage facility that was seized by the government, and its users want their spaces back.  If the facility was seized for a pattern of housing stolen property, and that's what the customers have in their spaces...  Well?  How about customers that have non-stolen property commingled with thing that are provably a problem?

Well, I guess the standard recommendations for cloud computing still stand, maybe now more than ever.

Our hearts and prayers go out to the people in the mid atlantic states in the wake of the hurricane  :-(