Category: Secure

Save Your Gadgets and Power Bill This Christmas

At this time of year many of us will be doing the rounds to see family, friends and relatives and, in some cases, this may involve a decent amount of travel (intrastate, interstate or international). If you are going to be away from home you might consider doing the following: Completely shutdown your computers (as …

Continue reading

HTTPS Everywhere – An Easier Way to Force SSL

HTTPS Everywhere Preferences

Last month, I covered how you could use Firefox with the NoScript add-on to force Secure HTTP (HTTPS) in order to protect yourself when using social networking websites on an unprotected wireless network or general usage anywhere else. The NoScript solution works fine but if you are less technically minded it could be a bit …

Continue reading

Sony PlayStation 3 Slim Preview

Yesterday, hopefully you would have seen the video unboxing of the Sony PlayStation 3 Slim (320GB model). Today, I recorded the preview video to show you around the console (in particular the stuff on the front, back and also the little flap to unscrew the hard drive should you wish to remove and replace it). I …

Continue reading

Panasonic 3D Blu-ray Player (DMP-BDT300GN) Preview

Yesterday, I showed off the video unboxing the Panasonic 3D Blu-ray Player (DMP-BDT300GN). Today, I managed to record the preview video to show you around the hardware itself  (primarily the various interfaces on the back and what you can expect to find on the front) and also touch upon a couple of the major features of …

Continue reading

The NAB Saga – Were You Affected?

These days, many people reckon the banks are giving the regular person a raw deal with bank fees and mortgage interest rates all while record profits are being raked in. That aside, people have an expectation to be able to access their money at a time and place convenient to them. The wife and I …

Continue reading

Hotmail Finally Implements Complete SSL

Hotmail - Connect with HTTPS

In a development that could be seen as a response to the havoc that FireSheep has created in the last week, Microsoft has finally enabled complete SSL security for its Hotmail service. Previously, authentication would be encrypted using SSL but users would then be switched back to plain HTTP (which of course is insecure). The …

Continue reading

BlackSheep – Detect FireSheep on an Unsecured Wi-Fi Network

Last week, I wrote about FireSheep,  a newly released add-on for Firefox, allowed everyone including amateur hackers and snoopers the ability to not only identify individual social networking sessions currently in progress but also the ability to impersonate those people. This was made possible by intercepting cookies being broadcast in the clear (i.e. completely unencrypted) …

Continue reading

Force Secure HTTP with NoScript

NoScript - HTTPS Settings

Yesterday, I blogged about how FireSheep made it quite easy for the average person to impersonate other users on social networking websites that were using the same insecure wireless network. The simplest thing a user can do is to force secure HTTP (or HTTPS – HyperText Transport Protocol Secure) but this can be a chore …

Continue reading

FireSheep – Why You Should Be Worried About Unsecured Wi-Fi Networks

You may have caught glimpses in the news about a Firefox add-on called FireSheep but you may or may not know of its capabilities and the implications it will have upon your interactions online. In a nuthsell, this add-on allows a user to see the social network activities that are taking place on an unsecured …

Continue reading

Biometrics and Multi-Factor Authentication

As computing power increases and bad guys are looking for ways to steal things like usernames and passwords, it’s natural that the technology industry has been looking for new ways to make it more difficult for unwanted parties to gain access to information and resources (such as personal finances). Today, Citibank made an announcement that …

Continue reading