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Safely Using a Public Computers

When the inevitable time comes to use a public computer, which seems to happen to us all. There are somethings we need to pay attention to ensure that we have the safest and private computer use. Although there is one thing to remember in reality there really is no way to be a 100% sure that the computer you are using is secure. It is better to assuming that the public computer is compromised and what ever you do may be available to someone else including your passwords.

Inherit Risk

1. Malicious software

2. Check surroundings, most common way to steal information is shoulder surfing, which is someone watching over your shoulder.

3. Watch your stuff, don’t leave the computer or your stuff alone even for a min as something could be loaded onto the computer or someone could swipe your stuff.

Warning: When using USB thumb drives or portable hard drives can be dangerous especially drives with U3 technology built in. If you were to stick a usb drive into a compromised computer it can copy the data off your usb drive and then install a malicious software which can be used to install itself onto your home computer. To solve this problem is to disable autorun from your computer. This can be done by downloading TweakUI from Microsoft and disable autorun for the drives. You can also temporary disable autorun by holding shift when you plug it into your computer. Make sure you scan the usb drive to make sure that nothing was install on it.

To protect your data on your usb drive from being access you can download a program called truecrypt which can create a encrypted file which can contain all your sensitive data, so if your usb drive is copied the thief is unable to access it without the password. Due remember that if you mount the truecrypt file onto a public computer it than can be copied.

Few tips to increasing the Security

1. Use Portable applications

   If your use to carrying around an usb thumb drive or even an ipod, having portable applications on the device makes cleaning up after using a public computer much easier not to mention you can carry all your personal settings with you. A great site for a suit of portable applications is PortableApps.com.

2. If possible choose a place where the public computer is reinstalled for each user

   A good Cafe, or library that is concern for computer security and privacy will use programs such as SteadyState by Microsoft which is free to roll back the operating system each time the computer reboots.

3. Run a web-based malicious scanner

   Running an free web-based malicious scanner is easy way to check for virus. You may not be able to remove them but you will at least know if the computer may be compromised. However, just because nothing was detected it doesn’t mean the computer is clean, as malicious scanners are at best 24hrs behind on new malicious software, also hardware key loggers are impossible to detect through software.

   Here are few free Online scanners:

   1. HouseCall

   2. BitDefender

   3. kaspersky

4. Boot from an another device

   Use an live CD or boot from a USB drive, if possible. This just plan out avoids all software issues, however you still need to be aware that there may be a hardware key logger on the keyboard which could still monitor your keystrokes. Other than that there is no cleanup of your information required.

5. If checking your web-mail such as yahoo, gmail, hotmail make sure to use a secure ssl connection which is https:// and a lock at the bottom of the browser.

   This basically encrypts the data being transmitted to the computer including your password. However remember to change your password when you get to a secure computer as it doesn’t protect you against keyloggers.

6. Don’t save passwords, Avoid if possible

   If you must use passwords make sure to click not to save, also when you get to your home or a secure computer change your passwords that you used on a public computer.

7. Don’t do Online Banking

   Just don’t do Online banking there really is no way 100% secure a public computer.

8. Don’t enter credit card info

   Again no way to completely secure the public computer.

Clean UP

1. Delete Browsing History

   If your not using a portable applications such as portable Firefox, than deleting your Internet history should be one of your first steps. To do this on Internet Explorer go to tools | Delete Browsing history | Delete All

2. Don’t save locally

   This is more of a nice thing to do rather than security thing. Just don’t fill the public computer with junk.

3. Delete temporary files ( *.tmp, *.chk, ~*.* )

   When using other programs other than a Web browser it may save temporary infromation on the public computer incase of failure, memory reasons, and etc. To delete these search for *.tmp, ~*.*, *.chk and delete all files found.

4. clear the pagefile

   Most public computers will not allow the clearing of pagefile however you may be able to delete it by deleting c:\pagefile.sys it is usually hidden so you will need to click view | Folder options and the view tab than scroll down to than deselect hide protected operating system files.

5. Reboot

   Basically clears the ram which may contain sensitive data.

Help build a Simple Web Tablet

Michael Arrington over at Techcrunch has launched a project to build an open source web tablet. I find this to be a fantastic idea. Personally this idea is basically what I been wanting to buy. Hopefully they will be able to pull it off. The hardest part is going to be getting the hardware companies to produce everything.

Laptop Died

Haven’t been able to post much as i been spending my free time trying to figure out what exactly happen to my laptop. It was my main pc. It seems the cpu, video card, or motherboard has died. As I don’t have any spare parts to test it. I am kind of stuck at the moment. I am hoping its either the cpu or video card because their about the only things i can replace at a reasonable price.

10 Reasons To Switch To Ubuntu

1. Its Free
2. Customizable- many distrubutions to fit your need
3. Very supportive communities
4. Open Source – Pretty much insures there is always be a way to change and update the software regardless if the company or group quit working on it. Also insures there are no hidden backdoors to the software.
5. Great Alternatives to essential software such as open office as a alternative to microsoft office.
6. Almost no virus or spyware – what few exist typically can only do damage to the local user not the system.
7. No need to defrag
8. No Windows Genuine Advantage
9. More Stable than Windows
10. Easy Updates for system and apps – This is one of my favorites because windows is just nearly impossible to keep up with updates to applications unless the application comes included with a updater.

Cat problem

Anyone got some cheap and effective suggestions to discourage cats from spraying and tearing up my porch? There are about 5 cats running my neighbor hood tearing up things. Part that makes me most angry about it is most of them have collars. Also they keep me up at night. I heard of sprays and stuff but I really don’t have money to waste.

Keeping Your Computers In Sync

There are several pieces of good software to keep your computer in sync.

1. GoodSync - is my favorite syncing tool and they offer a free version which is what I use to keep my documents the same on all my computers.

2. SyncToy - is a free sync tool offered by Microsoft. I suggest the beta 2.0 version.

3. Allway Sync – offers a free limited verison but does a excellent job of syncing.

Know a good syncing tool?

Google pushes for "white space" frequencies

Google is pressing the US government to allow the unlicensed frequencies of TV “white space” to be used for wi-fi.

For those that don’t know the white space is a buffer zone so that things signals aren’t interfering with other products such as television programming, but with the move to digital that isn’t as relevant. Google point as long as devices are approved and tested not to interfere than there is no reason this space should not be used.

I agree with google there is no reason to let a valuable frequencies sit unused for no good reason.

Source: BBC News

2 Great time saving software

Here is 2 very handy software to save you time throughout the day. All of which are for windows.

Texter - which allows you to use a hostring that when activated replaces it with a predefined text. This can save you with emails and signatures or if you often find yourself answering the same questions over and over.

launchy - which is very similar to quicksilver on mac, basicly allows you to quickly launch a application without having to find it in the start menu with a few keystrokes. It even becomes faster the more you use.

Problems

I doubt I will be updating this much as I am looking at losing everything. Through some bad decisions and damn credit cards, and a serious decrease in income I am looking at losing my home. I have a job which pays alright but my investments went though the crapper.