Govt spying on online purchases

Unveiled recently at a wiretapping and eavesdroppers conference, a small Arizona company is selling a box* you can plug into a network and use to secretly spy on what people are saying and doing (i.e. shopping) on what are supposedly "secure" websites, such as Gmail, Ebay, Amazon, etc.

This companies wiretap box requires the cooperation of the same companies who tell your browser what websites are safe to go to.
This box, with the (voluntary, coerced, blackmailed, or bribed) cooperation of the Certifying Authority (CA) allows government agencies, law enforcement or anyone with enough money to use this box to intercept your email, read it and then let go on to its destination.
Also, it can be used to spy on your shopping habits (because its been proven that most bureaucrats are bored and curious voyeurs).

So just be aware that you may be being spied upon by people you would rather not know what your email says or what you are buying.

And no, there's nothing you can do about it.

Here the link to a couple of articles on the topic, here, and here.

*I say "box," but it is actually a router; "box" is easier to understand for the non-technical audience.

Should you care about 4G?

4G is the new next-generation of cell phone network speeds.
Technically, 4G means "4th Generation network." Yes, the ads promise it to be faster, better, etc.,etc.; but should you care?

The short answer is "not really."

The long answer is if you are an average user with a non-smart phone, this wont matter to you.
If you have a smart (Windows, Android, or i) phone, the speed difference wont be tremendous, and probably not existent anywhere 3G doesnt reach now.

You're better off using Wi-fi, wherever its available. In fact, most major networks (except Verizon) are expanding their wi-fi networks to handle the expected increase in data traffic.

PDF overtakes Word as virus spreader

As it happens, Adobe's Acrobat PDF(Portable Document Format) program has overtaken Microsoft Word as the program most attacked by viruses.

This is because Microsoft has been trying very hard to fix any and all of the loopholes in Word and Office that allow viruses to attack them, while Adobe has not.

This has become a problem because more computers have some version of Adobe Acrobat on them than have Word, and most installed versions of Acrobat are old and unpatched; this allows loopholes in the program to be exploited by the bad guys.

See the article here: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/03/09/adobe_reader_attacks/

If you would like an alternative to Acrobat, try the free Foxit PDF Reader: http://download.cnet.com/Foxit-Reader/3000-10743_4-10313206.html

MagicJack's agreement allow spying on your phone calls

If you have the MagicJack USB phone service you may want to know that by using it you are allowing the MagicJack company to listen in on your phone calls and sell any information obtained to advertisers who will then pay MagicJack.

I'm not saying that you should not use the service; just be aware that anything you say while on the phone will be used to target advertising at you, and that confidential information between you and the person to whom you are speaking may be sold to interested third parties such as your employer or your health insurer.

Here is the link to the article: http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2008/04/14/magicjacks-eula-says.html

Malware causes Windows crash during Auto Update

ZDNet has a story about a piece of of malware(virus, spyware, etc.) which infects Windows below the operating level, which caused some PC's to stop working during or right after Automatic Updates in February.

This type of malware is called a 'rootkit', because it is a 'kit' of programs that infects Windows at the 'root' of the software.
If you looked at the listing of all of your files and folders, you would notice that all of the folders appear to start downward from the Desktop and branch out from there; kind of like an upside down tree. (This is why the listing is called a "folder tree.")

The very top is called the "root," like the root of a tree; If you have access to the root of any computer, you can do anything you want, even reprogram the whole computer.

Next Explorer wont run on XP

Microsoft's newest version of Internet Explorer wont run on Windows XP, according to the general manager of Microsoft's Internet Explorer group.

He said at a recent conference that a "modern browser" needed a "modern operating system" to run.

Also, of note, because of security concerns surrounding Internet Explorer 6, some large and popular websites have announced that they will no longer be allowing computers who are using IE 6 to access their websites.

This may not seem fair, but it is in the best interests of all concerned. Anyone who is still using Internet Explorer 6 really should be using IE 7 or 8.
The newer versions will help in preventing virus attacks for you and help these websites from being attacked; which is also good for you.

New hard drives may hurt XP performance

Ars Technica has a good article on why Windows XP may be slower when using brand new hard drives: http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2010/03/why-new-hard-disks-might-not-be-much-fun-for-xp-users.ars

It boils down to bigger hard drives need more error correction space to keep your data intact; and so, as hard drives get bigger, it becomes harder to maintain the integrity of your data.
The solution is to change the size of the storage areas on the hard drive so that it is easier to maintain the integrity of the data.
Because Windows XP was created before this was an issue XP has to perform more actions to read and write data of off these newer hard drives, which makes everything slow down.

This is another good reason to move on to Windows 7 as soon as possible.