Enemy of Entropy
Archive for Geekery
Why You Need a Software Firewall, and Security at Wifi Hotspots
I’m getting tired of answering questions at Yedda or Yahoo!Answers, then seeing my answers scraped and used as content on other people’s blogs. I’m probably going to keep answering the questions, but just answering with a pointer to a post here or at one of my other sites. Ordinarily, I’d put this particular answer over at another site, but I’m rebuilding it right now.
The question from cherris: “What about good firewalls? Most people think that just a good AV will help but what happens when you are on a wifi connection, one that might not be your own so you have no real line of defense?”
I’m not sure who “most people” are, but they would be wrong. Every computer should have a properly-configured software firewall as well as constantly updated anti-malware software installed. The hardware firewall built into your router at home might keep some bad guys out of your computer, but it doesn’t do a thing about anything on your PC that tries to communicate with the outside world. So if you put in a CD or other media that has malware on it, the malware communicates with its home computer on the internet somewhere, and your hardware firewall has no reason to care, right? But a well-configured software firewall would give you an alarm and stop that communication, and you would find the malware before it could take root in your PC and start sending your personal information all over the world.
Windows has had its own firewall for some time — since XP at least (I think it began there, but I don’t feel like checking to be sure right now). I happen to prefer other solutions, but using the Windows firewall is much better than nothing at all. I recommend Eset Smart Security as an excellent all-in-one solution for Windows users. It is easy enough for non-geeks, but highly configurable for geeks. It won’t slow down your system and performs extremely well in rigorous testing.
Of course, you want to check periodically to make sure that your firewall is on and working, because some malware will try to disable the firewall, or try to open a port to allow itself through.
Yes, your software firewall is also going to help protect you when you’re at a wireless hotspot, but there are also other steps you should take to protect yourself when you connect outside your home or office environment.
- First, make sure you physically disable your wireless hardware unless you are at a trusted hotspot. Otherwise, hackers can use it to connect to your computer and compromise your security.
- Make sure that windows file sharing is turned off.
- Make sure that you’re connecting to a legitimate hotspot. Bad guys like to set up honeypots with names like “hotspot” or “tmobile” or even “guest” . Check the directions for the place you’re at to make sure that the SSID you connect to matches what they say it should.
- Consider buying a subscription to a hotspot provider. T-Mobile and Boingo (I’m sure there are others, but they come to mind) provide software that encrypts your connection for greater security.
- Use VPN, either through your employer or by signing up for one of the many personal options available now. (See LogMeIn Hamachi , which is free for non-commercial use.)
- Connect to a remote computer using GoToMyPC or a similar service.
Even with all of those precautions in place, don’t ever send any bank information, passwords, credit card numbers, or any other sensitive information across a wireless connection unless you’re certain that you’re on a secure site (look for the https in the URL and the padlock symbol in the lower right-hand side of your browser). Many sites offer two options for signing in, with one being slower but more secure. Always chose the slower, more secure option when you’re at a hotspot.
Airset for iPhone!
I’m so excited! We (our family) have been using Airset as our “groupware” for the past few years — a way to coordinate our calendar and contacts easily. Our criteria included something that would be available wherever we happened to be that would sync with Palm PDAs.
Well, Palm hasn’t really been burning up the world in terms of innovation. In fact, they moved away from PalmOS in their own most recent smartphone! Last year Sam got an iTouch, and while I resisted, he finally converted me to the dark side last fall.
The process of getting the current Airset data into the iTouch, though, has been a little annoying. I used Airset’s Desktop Sync utility to synchronize between Airset and Outlook (even though I don’t use Outlook for anything any more), then iTunes synchronized contacts and calendar to the iTouch. The only real advantage was that if I did happen to use the PDA for something, I had only to sync it to the PC, and since its software also synchronized with Outlook, it was ready to go.
Now I’ll just have the data in two places: Airset and my iTouch. I can excise Outlook from my PCs! Unless I want to keep using the PDA for some reason, of course. There’s just one program for the PDA that I have not yet replaced satisfactorily on the iTouch, Wakefield Software’s HealthFile. That’s for another post, though.
Sam just realized that he can’t use Airset for iPhone, though — bah. The way it works is by pretending to be an Exchange account, and the iTouch only allows one such account. His work email account takes up that slot. Boo 
It would be better if they’d developed an app. I think that if his employer wants him constantly available, they should give him a Blackberry. They do expect him to support the things, after all!
Now to begin the Evil Outlook Excision!
Whoops!
I’ve discovered that my blog posts stopped cross-posting over to my LiveJournal acccount at some point in September. Many of my more vocal friends actually read my posts over there, so anything I’ve said since then might as well have been tossed into the bit bucket. I’m going to rework those posts and re-do them. Some were rather time-sensitive, like some important birthday wishes! Sorry James, Dean, Michelle, Jeff, and Will! (Not that my nephew actually reads my blog, but it’s the thought that counts, right?)
At least I wasn’t the only person having the problem. It seems that everybody using the Live+Press Plugin had the same issue as soon as they upgraded to WordPress 2.8.x. I’m sure Live+Press will be fixed soon, but I’m not a coder and I have all the patience of a two-year-old, so I’m trying a new plugin now, JournalPress. If you see this on LJ, it worked!
ETA: Well, it didn’t work. Grrr. I’ll cross-post manually.
Victory!
On with the quotations obsession project. I swear, it’ll be useful for something other than keeping me busy. Someday!
Anybody know php/MySQL well enough to help me do that?
Anyway, one reason that I keep going is little successes like the one I just experienced.
I love research, and I’m attempting to find information on every single author (8,353 at this very moment) and some kind citation, preferably original, for every quotation (34,444 of them). Yes, that will keep me busy for awhile. The fact that many people cut-and-paste bits of text from all manner of sources, then lump them all together with little or no attribution, makes me crazy — especially since it seems that vast numbers of people conflate Oliver Wendell Holmes Junior and Senior, or Alexandre Dumas père et fils.
Anyway, there’s one quotation credited to “Milton Acorda” all over the internet and in many books: “Without freedom, no one really has a name.”
Other than the one sentence, the man doesn’t exist. I’ve looked for him several times, to no avail.
I don’t know if the book I found in Google Books wasn’t there before or what, but tonight I happened to search on the quotation itself again, and voilà ! It’s the last line of a poem, “Proposed Dedication for a Monument to Lount and Matthews,” published in the book More Poems for People by Milton Acorn.
No, my work isn’t going to end world hunger or anything like that, but I find it satisfying. And every little win helps my overall attitude, which isn’t really positive most of the time lately. Now if only someone would pay me to do this sort of thing!
I missed what?
It was National Grammar Day AND Gamemaster’s Day, and I didn’t realize either until the day was almost over!
It was date night, though, and my favorite GM and I did play, so at least there’s that. I’ll have to get him a make-up present, though.
You know all those different click-to-give sites? I very geekily gathered up all the ones that I know about and stuck the links on one page so I don’t have to try to remember them, or install shortcuts or toolbars or what-have-you. It isn’t gorgeous, but it is convenient.
I finally got started on Season 1 of Shadow Unit, now that Season 2 has started. Good stuff!
And finally, just so I can close the tab that’s been open for a couple of days, a new wrinkle in that whole nature/nurture debate: Child Abuse Alters Stress-Fighting Gene.
