Here’s a freebie for you.

But it’s not me but Pandora Corp. that are giving something away.

Starting June 26th at 00:01 Pacific Standard Time (time conversion) which is equivalent to GMT / UTC 07:01 and finishing at midnight (PST) Wednesday, June 30th  they are giving away its signature computer monitoring software, PC Pandora 6.0, absolutely free!

Me, I’m against monitoring without first having discussion but if you’ve already reached that stage or you have another need for it, then I say grab it while you can.

Here’s how to get it:

Vist PC Pandora and use the code FREESUMMER2010. As I say – the giveaway will last until midnight on the 30th or until 50,000 units have been given away.

I’d barely got my new series of “Internet Safety Sunday” up and running when I was approached by Brightfilter to see if I was willing to review their software.

Of course I said yes and made it abundantly clear that to do it justice I would need an unrestricted version and that it would be totally unbiased without fear of favour. The only pre-deal I agreed to is that I’d let the company see this review first so that they could “respond to it as necessary” – you can see their response at the end in red.

So…

Who are Brightfilter?

They are a Bath (UK) based company that is fairly new (since 2004) to the world of filtering but appear to have made quite an impact already. They provide internet security solutions that “protect children online both at school and at home”.

From information found on their website they only “provide solutions” that meet standards or guidelines published by groups such as: CIPA; IIA; ISPA and IWF. They are also now a McAfee Premier partner.

What do they offer?

The easy answer is to say see the web but in short they offer:

• Family surfing protection and
• Educational surfing protection

Though these two broad sweep categories are far from the complete picture. The first is via a windows application and the second is typically via an appliance such as the McAfee Web Gateway unit.

Here’s an interesting find.

Yesterday I blogged about how to hide your IP address and today I caught up with one of the many blogs (EFF in this case) I follow who posted about “encrypting the web”.

In short, it’s a plugin for Firefox released by the Tor Project and EFF that encrypts all your search requests and attempts to encrypt all standard web browsing. Read all about it here.

It’s still in beta but it’s a start.

I say grab it now.

N.B. it doesn’t hide your IP or stop search engines from logging but it does stop ‘in the open‘ intercepts.

According to NetLingo, these are the top 10 of 50 acronyms you as a parent need to know (emphasis mine). For the full 50 click through on their link above.

1. 8 – oral sex
2. 1337 – elite -or- leet -or- L337
3. 143 – I love you
4. 182 – I hate you
5. 1174 – nude club
6. 420 – marijuana
7. 459 – I love you
8. ADR – address
9. AEAP – as early as possible
10. ALAP – as late as possible

I’m not sure I fully agree with all of them or even a lot of them but Netlingo’s unstated point is valid – that parents need to understand what their children are up to when on the web, texting or in real life (IRL).

I make no excuses for coming back to this time and again – not knowing what your children are doing is not an excuse. You should know and to some degree you should also understand.

• Have you ever come across an acronym you don’t know?
• Do you rely on ‘trust’ or google or ?
• Is there anything about tech you don’t understand and what do you do about that?

Have you ever considered hiding your IP address?

It’s a bit like trying to hide your post or zip code – it’s not easy but it can be done. But today’s post is focusing on why we should consider this and not a one of them is for illegal reasons.

Here’s some reasons why you might hide your IP:

• to protect your privacy from search engines ‘profiling’ your surfing habits.
• or from marketing companies sharing information or profiling.
• to stop your ISP from keeping logs of your activities.
• to overcome geographic blocks.
• to stop competitors knowing about your research of them.
• fear of being persecuted.
• or simply as a matter of principle – after all how many of us are ex-directory with our phone numbers?

Have I missed any obvious reasons?

Do you hide your IP?

Why or why not?

A goodly number of years back…2002 to be precise, the EFF published a whitepaper on protecting your online privacy.

Despite this being 8yrs ago now the advice is still apposite and really it mostly boils down to common sense. I’ve linked to the original as they go into greater detail but here for your edification are the main points:

• Do not reveal personal information inadvertently.
• Turn on cookie notices in your Web browser, and/or use cookie management software or infomediaries.
• Keep a “clean” e-mail address.
• Don’t reveal personal details to strangers or just-met “friends”.
• Realise you may be monitored at work, avoid sending highly personal e-mail to mailing lists, and keep sensitive files on your home computer.
• Beware sites that offer some sort of reward or prize in exchange for your contact information or other personal details.
• Do not reply to spammers, for any reason.
• Be conscious of Web security.
• Be conscious of home computer security.
• Examine privacy policies and seals.

That’s it – ten succinct and common sense pointers.

Have you any old advice that still applies equally today?

Do you bother to protect your privacy?

So the church hosting account got hacked.

I don’t really know when but the first I was aware was a very terse email from our hoster:

Hello,

We regret to inform you that your account has been suspended for the following reason:

compromised account, spamming

Please contact us as soon as possible to discuss your options for reinstatement.

Sincerely,

Well ok that’s fair but surely they could have given us a clue as to what caused them to be aware of this so we are better able to fix it, prevent it happening again and discuss it.

Turns out the rather simple password that was used for the cpanel account was just that – too simple and consequently the hacker placed a few ‘iffy’ PHP files that were (so I’m told) sending out spam.

I’ve passed the file onto my eldest – he does PHP – and asked him to look it over.

The lesson today … use strong passwords.

Don’t know how or worried about remembering them? Then read this about various password utilities. Need to create a strong password and don’t have one of the listed tools in my link then try this online password generator. My advice, at the very minimum use the defaults but preferably up the character count to 16 or more.

Want to know what makes a strong / secure password? Then have a read of this article.

• Do you use strong / secure passwords?
• Do you have a different one for each site you access?
• Do you use any tools to help you?

First off, what is phishing?

phishing is the criminally fraudulent process of attempting to acquire sensitive information such as usernames, passwords and credit card details by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication. [quote]

According to the Anti-Phishing Group this type of attack is very much on the rise – it is, as I’ve maintained before (e.g. 1, 2), that we should learn about the hardware and software we use and understand what we need to do to ensure the security of said items.

Let me state upfront – you can’t prevent phishing attacks, but you can prepare yourself by taking certain precautions.

• Ensure you keep your computer OS, software, drivers, etc., up to date.
• Ensure you frequently scan your system (either schedule it or manually run) with a top class security tool such as Malwarebytes or similar.
• Ensure (especially Windows OS users) that you keep your anti-virus up to date; that it is running and that it is still working as well as you hope. Check out what independent reviewers / testers such as AV Comparatives think of your AV.
• Always check the full URL of a financial site to ensure you are where you think you are – better still, type it yourself rather than use links in an eMail.
• Don’t trust any eMail that asks for any personal information, especially financial.
• Always check that the email from your financial institution is actually from them.
• Never give out your personal logon details to anyone – this includes your bank as they should never need that information.
• Take the approach of never trusting any eMail or web link unless you are 100% satisfied that it is genuine or has come from a trustworthy source.
• Equally, never open any attachments (especially from friends) unless you know they are sending it. It never hurts to double check.
• Finally, when logged in, ensure your browser is in secure mode.

In short, apply some common sense and avoid providing anything of a financial nature to a faceless website or eMail.

As I said above, you can’t prevent phishing attacks but by applying the above steps you will go a long way towards avoiding falling for their traps.

Also remember that only a few ever fall prey to these attacks and I’m hoping the above advice will reduce those numbers even further.

Have I missed any advice in my bullet points?

Do you take active steps to avoid scams?

Or are you a blind truster?