Secure Password Solution

I'm looking at using this: I have a number of passwords and sometimes I'm not sure which goes with what, and so it may be that this
The Easy, Any-Browser, Any-OS Password Solution has a good answer and here's why: "Of all the password management utilities out there, I consider LastPass the most elegant compromise between convenience and security, and if you're not using it already, I recommend you start. It's mostly free, plugs into nearly any browser or smartphone, is KeePass compatible, and just works."
So, I'm checking it out. If you do too, let me know what you think.

Watch out There's a Google nasty about

Just in the last two or three weeks someone gained access to my gmail account. I've changed my password. The interesting thing was what they did. They reset my signature file and enabled an automatic 'out of office' reply both with an advertising letter. So every time someone emailed me an automatic reply with advertising was sent. Apologies to anyone adversely affected by this and thanks to those who pointed out that it was happening.

The worrying thing was that the password concerned was one that scores well on encryption strength, being a combination of non-dictionary words and numbers (in fact a version of a Bible reference). I'm wondering whether they just got lucky or whether there is something else to be concerned about.

Webmail security

Webmail users really should read this article if you ever log on to your account in a public place. Make Your Webmail More Secure - Wired How-To Wiki: This may be OTT for normal usage, but if in doubt it's a great tip: "If you're using a public computer, just enter part of your userid, then use the mouse to go to the password box and enter part of your password, then mouse back to the userid... throw in some mistakes and backspaces, too. This technique will scramble userid and password keystrokes captured by hardware or software spy tools."

Prince Charles is right

Regular readers will know I'm no royalist, and I aver that I'm no fan of the King in waiting. However, when I heard Charles Windsor commenting on the matter of farming and GM crops, I thought that he'd be slammed and that it would be a shame because, essentially, he has a point. Here's why,

Despite the clamour, however, he is,... essentially right. The widespread adoption of GM crops may well threaten the world's food supply. It will probably throw millions of small farmers off the land, and it will almost certainly produce shanty cities of the sort he calls 'unsustainable, unmanageable, degraded and dysfunctional conurbations of unimaginable awfulness'. While GM technology may not be the direct cause of such horrors, it will perpetuate the system of industrial agriculture that makes them inevitable. It's a threat acknowledged in a 2008 report from the World Bank and UN agencies. Based on the work of more than 400 scientists, it concludes that the present system of food production – and the way food is traded – have led to an unequal distribution of benefits and to serious ecological damage. It was also contributing, the report found, to climate change.

However, we should note this from the New Scientist.

The problem is that a dispassionate assessment of the green credentials of GM crops is almost impossible to come by at present, given the ideological baggage, mistrust and value-laden prejudice that have accompanied the technology throughout its tortured existence. It is clear that Prince Charles simply ignores or completely distrusts any data that challenges his own prejudices, or his contention that fiddling with nature is wrong.

He is to be congratulated for highlighting the importance of food security, even though the message is buried beneath a mountain of bile on the more peripheral question of whether GM crops are to blame for everything bad on this planet.

He should remember, however, that all farming – including organic farming – interferes with, and steals resources from, his beloved nature.

A key question is whether de-intensification of agriculture in rich countries simply transfers intensive production to other parts of the world, perhaps resulting in even worse environmental degradation overall. Whatever the answer, it would be interesting to know where Charles himself gets his data to support his assertions.

Graham Harvey: Prince Charles is right to attack intensive farming | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk:

Draw your password; more secure

Sometimes I have recommended using a pattern on a keypad as a password because it may be easier to remember and numerically more random and secure. But this is even better...

in the wake of growing concerns about traditional ‘weak’ passwords created from words and numbers, Newcastle University computer scientists have been developing alternative software which lets the user draw a picture password, known as a ‘graphical password’.
“Many people find it difficult to remember a password so choose words that are easy to remember and therefore more susceptible to hackers,” explained computer scientist Jeff Yan, a lecturer at Newcastle University.

And did you notice it's a British university not for from home?
Oh, and in case you're worried that it would have to be an exact replication:

if a person chooses a flower background and then draws a butterfly as their secret password image onto it, they have to remember where they began on the grid and the order of their pen strokes. It is recognised as identical if the encoding is the same, not the drawing itself, which allows for some margin of error as the drawing does not have to be re-created exactly.

So perhaps ATMs will end up with you drawing on their touch screen rather than entering a four-digit PIN.
Password Protection With Easy To Remember Drawings

Anti Phishing Phil

It's a game, it's online and it educates you into avoiding phishing scams. It's clearly something to book mark and pass on to people who send you emails with worrying attitudes to things on the internet.
Phish

Children's NIR can't be guaranteed as safe

I can't help feeling that this 'trial run' of ID cards /NIR rather blows the gaffe on the whole enterprise, particularly the claim to protect our identities from misuse.

Though it stresses the sophistication of the electronic security surrounding the databank, it acknowledges: "No system can be 100% guaranteed against misuse." The government was warned by family campaigners that parents would be concerned about the number of people able to search the database, and about the potential security risk.

I think that this is a recognition, in effect, that the concerns about NIR wrt security are well-founded and that in reality there is no security. Time to stop wasting our money on developing this white elephant.
330,000 users to have access to database on England's children | Special Reports | Guardian Unlimited Politics

Technorati Tags: ID_cards, NIR, UK, security, costs

Geldoff's right; it is enlightened self interest

Of course enlightened self interest might be seen in a more ecological perspective as creating virtuous cycles. This is in response to the failings of G8 nations so far to make good on their pledges about aid to Africa at Gleneagles. The reason we should care, according to Bob is this.

"If we do not take a responsible and long-term view of Africa, and its need to develop and make progress, we will end up ultimately with our own self-interest back in countries like Germany and the UK being damaged as a result of the poverty, the conflict, the mass migration, the spread of terrorism and so on,"

It seems to me that we can choose death or life at the moment. Either we aim to increase world security by helping others or we spend our money on arms. (Which appears to be the current kind of thinking that is leading the developed nations: tool up ready for the unrest that climate change, less oil and no real change in poverty will bring).
In 2005, G8 pledged $50bn for Africa. Now the reality | Special reports | Guardian Unlimited

Technorati Tags: global, aid, trade, peace, war, Africa, development

An Open Letter to a Digital World

This is written by an experienced IT engineer after spending 5 hours clearing spyware, trojans and the like from his wife's Windoze PC:
"It's time for anyone running a Windows PC to switch to Linux.
You see, the Windows platform is not just insecure - it's patently, blatantly, and unashamedly insecure by design and for all the lip service to security it's really not going to get better, ever. To make matters worse, it's more expensive and gives you fewer necessary applications right out of the box than Linux. Everyone, even Microsoft, knows this - they are just too afraid to say it. "

I've made the switch and if I can do it most people probably can. Try Ubuntu .... see column on the side.
Linux Opinion: An Open Letter to a Digital World (LinuxWorld):