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Posts published in “Security”

WWPL: The World Wide Party Line

By Christine Hall on June 26, 2013 |

Humor, Internet and Security

WWPL: The World Wide Party LineOnline with Univac

I don’t think there are very many people my age who’ve ever expected much in the way of privacy online.

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Oh, maybe in the very early days some might’ve naively figured that if they didn’t actually interact with a site, like if they just went to the New York Times to read an article or something, they were pretty private, but they soon learned about tracking cookies and hackers with keystroke logging tools and right away understood that everything done online might possibly be being observed.

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Microsoft Nemesis Dies, SCO Lives & More…Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson

Microsoft Nemesis Dies, SCO Lives & More…

By FOSS Force on June 21, 2013 |

Internet, Mobile, News, Obits, Politics and Security

Friday FOSS Week in Review

We may be paranoid but they are out to get us

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In week three (or is it week four?) of the Spy vs. Spy scandal, the Obama folks keep saying things like “what’s the big deal?” while trying to convince us that the secret oversight court called FISA (we prefer “the Star Chamber”) has nothing but our constitutional rights in mind when it rubber stamps requests to secretly steal our privacy. Obama likes to talk about transparency. Indeed, he becomes more transparent by the moment; we’re beginning to see right through him. The 22nd amendment should now be seen as a face saver for Mr. Obama–as we would think no self respecting liberal or progressive would vote again for this man who once represented our best hope. Pity.

Continue readingMicrosoft Nemesis Dies, SCO Lives & More…
Seeking Surveillance Safe Search Enginesixquick Safe Search Engine

Seeking Surveillance Safe Search Engines

By Christine Hall on June 14, 2013 |

Internet, Politics and Security

While helping our colleague Dave Bean as he worked to get his essay on Google and the NSA ready for publication, I found myself wondering if any of this latest news on the government’s forcing their nose into everybody-in-the-world’s business would have any lasting effect. Sadly, I figured not–if there was any change, it’d only be temporary. I’ve spent too many years on this planet to expect too much in the way of permanent change for the better.

** If you're finding this article useful, please consider supporting our work through our FOSS Force Independence 2026 fundraiser. **
Christine Hall

Christine Hall has been a journalist since 1971. In 2001, she began writing a weekly consumer computer column and started covering Linux and FOSS in 2002 after making the switch to GNU/Linux. Follow her on Twitter: @BrideOfLinux

FOSSForce.com
Continue readingSeeking Surveillance Safe Search Engines
Google: The Thin Line between Search and Surveillance

Google: The Thin Line between Search and Surveillance

By Dave Bean on June 14, 2013 |

Copyright, Internet, Politics and Security

One could argue that Google is a corporation whose content and cash flow results from their ability to survey the Internet with unfettered access to users’ information under protection of the Safe Harbor Provision of the DMCA. The provision is a corporate loop-hole that allows Google to not be held responsible for content that might otherwise be personal, private, or illegal as defined by the U.S. Constitution and The Geneva Accords. Google claims to be software without moral judgment and purposely refuses to admit that it may be facilitating mafia-style corporations counterfeiting without license and thus profiting through illegal gain by eradicating people’s property rights as otherwise guaranteed.

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Dave Bean

Dave Bean is an Internet Radio pioneer who has worked for Musicmatch Internet Radio, baseBeat.com, OnRadio.com; and currently as a Music Curator for Internet Radio at Slacker.com. As an owner of independent record labels, he was one of the first to license songs to eMusic and iTunes.

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Internet: Basket In Which We Put All Our Eggs

Internet: Basket In Which We Put All Our Eggs

By Christine Hall on May 29, 2013 |

Internet, News, Politics and Security

Every school kid knows not to put all your eggs in one basket.

Up until about 1999 or so, I thought we were being cautious and smart about this newfangled Internet thing that had us under its spell. Then there was a now forgotten news story that told me exactly how completely we were being seduced by this new technology.

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Microsoft was working on a new version of Windows, Whistler I think, and it got hacked. Somebody broke into the computer they had it on and downloaded it, which was big news in the tech press but hardly anywhere else. Microsoft audited the code, attempting to make sure it hadn’t been tampered with, and found it clean. There were no trojans or back doors installed. None they found anyway.

Christine Hall

Christine Hall has been a journalist since 1971. In 2001, she began writing a weekly consumer computer column and started covering Linux and FOSS in 2002 after making the switch to GNU/Linux. Follow her on Twitter: @BrideOfLinux

FOSSForce.com
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Essential WordPress Security Plugins

By Christine Hall on May 16, 2013 |

Internet, Security and Tutorial

WordPress logoA few weeks ago I told you about some security precautions to take when using the open source web platform WordPress to protect your site against brute force attacks. However, those precautions are just the beginning. A website administrator has to be forever vigilant to keep the bad guys away.

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Luckily, there are many plugins available to help keep your WordPress site safe and secure. Today we’re going to discuss three security plugins that I think are essential.

Christine Hall

Christine Hall has been a journalist since 1971. In 2001, she began writing a weekly consumer computer column and started covering Linux and FOSS in 2002 after making the switch to GNU/Linux. Follow her on Twitter: @BrideOfLinux

FOSSForce.com
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FOSS Force Poll: We Don’t Trust Oracle Or Java

By FOSS Force on May 14, 2013 |

Browsers, Internet and Security

Back in March and April, when the Java browser plugin was getting hammered with security holes that were being exploited in the wild, we conducted a couple of unscientific polls here on FOSS Force to determine how our visitors were handling this security crisis.

To call the problems that Java was experiencing at the time a “crisis” is not an exaggeration. If you’ll remember, the situation was considered so serious that here in the U.S., the Department of Homeland Security was urging everyone to disable the Java plugin.

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These two Java polls were among the first we conducted on FOSS Force and received about the fewest votes of any polls we’ve conducted so far. Undoubtedly, this was partially due to the fact that we were just beginning to conduct polls on the site, and so polling here was something new to our visitors. Also, our articles on Java security issues received a smaller number of page views than most articles we publish. However, low readership notwithstanding, we will continue to cover serious security issues, because we think it’s important that we do so.

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Why Schools Require MS Office; Nokia Plays Rope-A-Dope & More…

By FOSS Force on May 10, 2013 |

Browsers, Business, Humor, Internet, Media, News, Potpourri, Security and Software

Friday FOSS Week in Review

Pretty fonts coming to Linux?

Most of us here at FOSS Force have been using various flavors of Linux for thirteen years or so. During that time we’ve gotten used to reading comments on the ugliness of fonts in Linux, especially when it comes to browsers.

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We’ve never particularly understood this or noticed any homeliness in regards to Linux fonts. Of course, we’ve also never been able to understand reviewers who write about how unexciting they find fonts like Times New Roman or Ariel to be. In our experience, Hunter Thompson is brilliant and compelling no matter what font is being used to render his rants, while Tom Wolfe is a pompous ass, no matter how humble a typeface used to display his insufferable prose.

Continue readingWhy Schools Require MS Office; Nokia Plays Rope-A-Dope & More…

Spy vs. Spy; Wikipedia Sports New DB & More…

By FOSS Force on May 3, 2013 |

Browsers, Distros, Humor, Internet, News, Politics, Security and Software

Friday FOSS Week in Review

Goodbye to Fuduntu, hello to FuSE

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We already knew, of course, that Fuduntu was history, that the beloved distro was to be no more, evidently due to the fact that it was becoming nearly impossible to support GNOME 2 in any sort of meaningful way. We also knew there’d been talk among the developers at Fuduntu of continuing with a new distro. Well, now it’s a done deal and most of the developers of Fuduntu will be working on a new distro based on openSUSE.

Continue readingSpy vs. Spy; Wikipedia Sports New DB & More…

Senate To Kill Current Version Of CISPA

By Christine Hall on April 25, 2013 |

Internet, News, Politics and Security

U.S. News & World Report was the first to announce this afternoon that the Senate will evidently not vote on the cybersecurity bill known as the Cyber Information Sharing and Protection Act or CISPA. According to a report published on their website, the news organization has received assurances of the bill’s death from an unnamed member of the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation that has been considering the bill as passed last week by the House of Representatives:

** If our coverage matters to you, please consider supporting our work through our FOSS Force Independence 2026 fundraiser. **
Christine Hall

Christine Hall has been a journalist since 1971. In 2001, she began writing a weekly consumer computer column and started covering Linux and FOSS in 2002 after making the switch to GNU/Linux. Follow her on Twitter: @BrideOfLinux

FOSSForce.com
Continue readingSenate To Kill Current Version Of CISPA