Security

Earlier this year, the New York Times posted a story about the goal for California to remotely control thermostats in homes.

In concept, I can understand the reason why the energy commission would back a proposal like this.

Reducing individual customers’ electrical use — if necessary, involuntarily — could avoid that, Dr. Rosenfeld (California Energy Commission member) said. “If you can control rotating outages by letting everyone in the state share the pain,” he said, “there’s a lot less pain to go around.”

Forget about the security implications for a moment and look at the practicality of this. Take a look at what really is going to happen in the construction world should this law pass. continue reading...

Keep the data on your screen invisible to roving eyes. Not bad if it gets a little to bright to see your display either.

Thanks to Bekathwia for the pic. continue reading...

Alex at the Sunbelt Blog points us to a study in Europe that says that last year 64% of people were willing to give away their password for a chocolate bar. They indicate that this year only 21% of people were willing to give away their password

Some of the key points from the study indicate that women are more likely to give away their password than men.  45% of women were willing to give away their password but only 10% of men were willing to give theirs away.

The real question that comes to mind for me is how accurate the study really is. I almost never stop to be interviewed by someone. I am not interested. I don't want to spend the time... and I wonder about the people that take the time.

Although, it doesn't hurt if the person asking for an interview is cute. continue reading...

I mentioned that I have a new computer. Today, I needed to access my online banking from my new computer. I entered my password correctly and was taken to a screen that prompted me for the following:

I don't ever remember answering these questions before, but I must have. The problem is that I read so much that I don't know if my favorite book then is the same as my favorite book now. I don't know what city I was born in because I was born on an Air Force Base and never cared to learn more. I have a favorite movie... well I did when I was a kid, so I know that one because I have used that as an answer in many places.

So, I clicked on the "forgotten the answers link" and it told me to call.

I called. They reset my password so that I can start over. continue reading...

Maybe De-legitimize isn't a word...

A couple of weeks ago I wondered if companies were less relevant if they have to use spam. Microsoft had used some comment spam on another blog I maintain. I guess it is becoming more and more common place for a legitimate company to spam other sites in order to get traffic.

Alex at the Sunbelt Blog pointed out that even security companies are starting to use spam... to give you tools to avoid spam, no less.

You know, the least they could have done was used correct spelling... or make it a little relevant to the conversation. So, the question I pose... is a company less legitimate if it has to use spam to drive traffic? continue reading...

Recently, I decided that, even though my work is reliant on email and the internet, I needed a fax number.

So, I decided to get an IP fax number from an online provider. A number of years ago I had done the same... in fact, I had used that number for about 4 years. In both cases, I had the same experience.

Every so often, I recieve faxed documents from various locations that shouldn't come to me. What is more... many times, those fax documents come with very private information. The most recent fax I received was for a loan application for a particular individual... containing very private information.

If I was malicious, identity theft would be easy. If you use an online provider be sure that those who are sending faxes to you are using the right fax number. If they don't have to send your private information via fax, don't do it. If you are a business that needs to send a fax, make sure the fax number you send to is the right number.

Better yet... just move to email.  continue reading...

A few years back, I needed to rebuild my computer. I was very careful to back up my hard drive. As I started to load the new operating system, I reformatted the hard drive but couldn't load the system for some reason. I tried again. No luck. I finally realized that I deleted my backup that I just created. Then, I realized that that through the process, I also deleted my original. Can you believe it? The most recent backup that I had created prior to that was about 8 months old. Yup, I lost 8 months of data. 8 months of data that was very important. Or, at least data I thought was important. Of course, I had a pretty sick feeling in the pit of my oversized stomach. Over the next couple of years, I found there were definitely files and documents that I really could use. I spent a lot of time rebuilding old data. Obviously, I now have a better back up strategy in place. I back up my data to an external drive on a daily basis. But, it makes me wonder of the valuation of a disaster recovery plan. For my small business, I really don't have a large quantity of information that needs to be backed up. But, it is important that I have a backup. If your organization is rather large, it could be more costly. Your data could be located in file cabinets, on physical desktops, on computer desktops, on CDs, on various servers and on the internet. It can be a very costly proposition to have a good disaster recovery plan. For example, if you have a lot of file cabinets, what is the best way to back up that data? Really, it is not practical to make a photocopy of that data and store a set of boxes off site. Really, the most cost effective way to back up that data is to scan the documents and store electronically. The problem is, that can be a very costly process. If you are a very small organization, it may not be too costly, but you have to not only consider the cost of the software, but the cost of the support, related hardware (scanners, MFPs, etc) as well as the labor for conversion and end user/admin training. Even for a small organization, the costs can be multiple thousands of dollars or even tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars for large organizations. With the decision of disaster recovery comes the need for determination of how much you should spend. What is the value of that disaster recovery system. The fact is, there is no way to truly understand that value of any type of disaster recovery system until you actually have a problem. When you have all the data in the world, it is easy to say that you "need" it all. When you lose the data, it becomes easy to understand what you really need. In order to value a disaster recovery system, you must take a realistic look at your data and what it would cost to replace. If you need to save it before a disaster, you need to have it after a disaster. Look at what you have. If you don't need it, get rid of it. If you need it, plan appropriately for a disaster. Corey Smith Co-founder of Resumango where you can build a better resume for free