About Filesharing Sites/Bit Torrent

Filesharing sites are finding new ways to get around their legal issues. Movies and music that people have put their cash and sweat into are protected by law. Those who run websites to distribute such materials don't feel they deserve compensation. New filesharing sites are cropping up daily and I won't mention any by name, but they all look the same. They offer much for practically nothing.

Here's how they work. You get a flyer in the postal mail or an email saying they have service available for a pretty reasonable (or even a ridiculous price). You go to the website and sign up for an account providing them a credit card number. Hey it's only a few bucks a month, so it's ok, right? Maybe not!

Once you log into your account, you can search for the material you want. Up comes a list of what you want. It's there for free! Great! Um, no, not great. These bit torrent sites are illegal. Once you download these materials you are in violation of copyright law and subject to prosecution. The company you subscribed with gets off scott free because they are just providing you storage space or links or whatever lame excuse they come up with. It's not their content...other bad guys are putting them up on the web and not getting caught.

So the question you have to ask yourself is: "Do I feel lucky?" Well do you? Do you feel you'll not get caught and do you feel it's ok to break the law if it financially helps you?

Personally, I'd rather blow the whistle on these places and pay for my content.

Oh and another thing you have to consider is safety. Do you trust these people and the files they put up? Are you clever enough to find out if they have been repackaged and malicious code put in them?

Stay safe!

Say No to Ransomware

Ransomware is a type of malware that holds your computer hostage with threats that you may lose all the files on the disk with no hope of recovery, unless that is, you pay a fee for the only program in the world that will clean up your computer.

Bullies come in all types, but this type of cyber bully doesn't deliver what he promises. Occasionally we hear from you that you paid for "the program" and it didn't do what it was supposed to do. Most of these ransomware criminal gangs originate in eastern Europe where they receive your payment electronically. When the program fails to do what it promises, they have no online support phone number for you to call.

I remember a trip to the Grand Canyon quite a few years ago. It was memorable because we were "held up" at "gunpoint" while riding the stagecoach. The "robbers" wore bandana masks and acted shady. You could clearly see that they were bandits. It's not that easy to tell who the bad guys are online. There are no guns or covered faces online, but behind your internet connection is a really, really bad guy.

Legitimate software vendors don't hold your files for ransom. This is how the bad guys operate. If a program "offers" to clean up your computer, don't accept. It may sound like a good deal, but that 20$ or 50$ could end up costing you a lot more. If those bad guys use your credit card information for nefarious purposes, then your credit may go down the tubes and you may have problems for years to come.

So what do you do???????

1. Plan ahead. Install a program now that will work in safe mode. Safe mode turns off a lot of malware, but not all programs will work in safe mode. Very few will. Download Malwarebytes Antimalware now and keep it up to date. Buy a registered version of it. It's worth the money.

2. Press control alt and delete at the same time. Choose to restart your computer and do it in safe mode by pressing F8. Once in safe mode, you can run a scan to remove the ransomware.

3. Backup your data today. That way if your computer does get hijacked, you are ready.

5. Take it to a professional if you need to. Instead of messing it up further, sometimes it's better to let the professionals save your data. If you wait too long the price can soar over 1000$ so, in comparison, paying a tech service a couple hundred dollars isn't that bad. Know your limitations. Asking for help doesn't mean you are not smart, it means you are smart.

Hope that helps. Don't get hijacked. Scan regularly and stay on the lookout for online bandits.

What is a Man in the Middle Attack?

It's a form of electronic eavesdropping. When you connect to an insecure wifi, you risk being victim to a MITM (man in the middle) attack. This happens a lot at airports and other free hotspots.  Information, often sensitive, is passed to another person, but along the way is intercepted by another person.  Let's examine the scenario.

You're at an airport. You're bored to tears waiting a couple of hours for your flight. You discover the airport has a free hotspot so you jump on to check emails, browse the web, etc. Hey it's free, right? You are hooraying because you don't have to spend money. That's where the hurrahs stop!

When you connect to an insecure wireless, anyone in range can record what is going onto the internet. It's called sniffing. If that traffic includes your username and passwords, then you are giving those passwords to someone who has enough time on their hands to sift through a lot of nonsense to get to your passwords. Once they have your password to your email, then they can gain access to your other accounts, like banking which is why I recommend a separate email address just for money matters. (And not a free email account, a paid one!)

You have to be on guard against MITM attacks wherever you are. Even at work. Say someone new comes to your office and sets up a wireless router in the office so they can plug many devices into the network. Even they don't realize they are doing anything wrong. If you see a wireless router in a coworker's office, let your manager know. Probably it was just a mistake, but that mistake can leave others open to account hacks and identity thefts.

Be safe out there and avoid MITM attacks by never connecting to insecure Wifi!

Fakers! Posers! We don't like you!

Fake IDs are all the rage with young people. Even if you are  beyond the age where  you are even carded anymore when you order a glass of wine you still  have to be on guard against fakers. All kinds of them are out there in force. They'll dupe you if you are not always on guard against them.

There's some ways to spot these fakers:

1) They email a long list of email recipients and all their names start with the same letter. That means a webcrawler (software tool bad guys use to come up with email addresses off web pages) has gleaned your email addresses and an attack is starting. Delete without opening.

2) You receive a zip or exe file unexpectedly from someone you don't know. The more clever ones will use clever addresses like scanner@yourcompany.com and support@yourcompany.com.

3) Obvious mistakes exist in the email like they are talking about your Epson network scanner when your company doesn't even buy network scanners from that company.

4) There is bullying going on. IT techs are usually pretty polite people. If they are not, they don't last long in IT. Then you get this email from emailadministrator@penfedrealty.com (that email address is non existent) telling you that you must log in and change your password from 6 characters to 8 characters using the link provided or your email account will be deactivated. Whoa! Really? Back off you cyber bully!

5) Faker domains are also used a lot. What if you got an email from it@yourcompanyIT.com? Would you open it? Please don't! It's a faker domain and there's nothing but trouble in that email. You'll also see faker domains when you google. This mistake happens a lot with those of you who have a bit of computer knowledge. You google something to find the answer and click on a domain that isn't safe because they've registered a poser domain. Things that your download from hp.com are MUCH more safe than things you download from everythingyouneedhp.com.

Stay safe. Stay diligent. Hope that helps!

How to Avoid a Download Disaster

The word Google has become a word that every computer uses as a verb. Everyone "googles" items they are interested in learning more about. Often we google programs that we download. That is where you can get into trouble.

Repackaging is when someone downloads a program and adds their own components to it and then makes it available for download. Those extra components can be beneficial to you or, more often than not, malevolent.

How do you know what's safe and what's not? I'll use an example that I encountered today.

VLC is a media player that is available for free. It reads practically everything. It's free and useful so this is a recipe for disaster waiting to happen.

Google "download VLC Media Player."

The list includes the download from the publisher VideoLAN, but it also contains the download from other sites. I trust CNET a tech site, but how do you know which of the other sites are safe? You don't really. It's best to download the item from the publisher.

Most people will just click on the top one no matter what it says. Don't do that anymore. Read to make sure you are not getting a repackaged software.

And don't ever download anything from a "filesharing" site (like filehippo). They aren't safe. Bad guys set them up. We don't like to trust bad guys, do we?

C Cleaning Time

When your C drive gets completely full, a lot of things don't happen. Automatic updates don't download, automated defrags don't happen. Sluggishness occurs. It can prevent you from opening ANY file or it can crash your hard drive completely.

Checking your C drive status is easy. Double click on Computer or My Computer to open it. Then, right click on Properties. Blue is used space and purple is free space. Never go beyond 75% blue. 

To fix it:

• Download and run CCleaner from piriform.com. Run this weekly or more often if you do a lot of recreational browsing. You would be surprised how much trash this program finds.
• Old files can fill up a C drive quickly. If they are not used regularly, burn them onto a CD or copy them to a flash drive.  You can make a secondary backup to a cloud-based storage, but I wouldn't recommend relying 100% on a cloud solution.

Get Rid of the Old Bag

Or at least clean her up a bit. She's been hanging around too long. Aren't you sick of her?

Replace HER with THIS! Isn't she a beauty? Is your bag old? Is it in need of replacement? Bargain laptop bags from 10 years ago aren't anything near what most laptop bags are today. Bags today have more padding to protect your laptop.

Other reasons to update your bag:

• Added compartments for other items that you carry often. Today's bags have compartments for today's technologies: ipods, cell phones, etc.
• Update your lifestyle: they have roll-on bags, laptop backpacks which might better serve the professional on the go. Even they have bags with personal alarm systems built in.

• Update your image. A clean, fresh bag can send the message you want to send to your clients. 
• An important factor to consider when you buy a new laptop: your screen size might be larger than your old laptop and your old bag might not fit your new multimedia system.
•  Laptop manufacturers often give deals at the time of purchase that can't be beat. When I bought my new laptop, I really didn't need one, but it was only 10$ to do so. Shortly after that my old laptop bag was damaged and I needed to use the new one. I was glad I had the spare one.