Conspiracy theories run rampent due to PIFTS.EXE

(Looks like some of this was a 4chan gag, check my other post about it)

All of the sudden people around the World are seeing PIFTS.EXE popping up. Norton Antivirus is asking users if they want to accept it. Here what I do know:

Here's some information I pulled from my Zone Alarm Logs. Does this make sense to anyone?
[ad#cricket-right-ez]2009/03/09 18:26:44 -- New Program -- PIFTS.exe -- Destination IP: 67.134.208.160:80 -- outgoing -- blocked -- Destination: ping.lifecycle.norton.com

2009/03/09 18:47:52 -- Program Access -- PIFTS.exe -- Destination IP: -- outgoing -- blocked -- Destination:

2009/03/09 18:48:28 -- Changed Program -- Windows Explorer -- 207.46.248.249.80 -- outgoing -- blocked -- Destination: sa.windows.com
[Via The Symatec Forums]

This indicates that the program tried to change tactics to go out on the net.  I look a look for this and it is SwapDrive.  So this must be an update to Swapdrive but I am unsure as to why it pops up that way.  The other ip is in Africa or at least take the .80 out of the equation and it points to an Africa IP.  (It looks to my mistake in that little part, "to error is human" Check out this  post about it)  Although just recently Norton Decides to Delete that thread and people are really worried about why?  Is this a cover up of some sort because there is a exploit in the Wild that we don't know about?  These are good questions that need to be answered.   Here is what one posted about this just after they deleted the forum thread:

As you can see people are taking this deletion on the community forum thread very seriously, they know something is not right in Denmark.  I also want to point out this one:

I don't know what Norton is up to but this is making me uneasy.  If they are worried about something that they can't explain or don't want to explain then they have made a mistake.  Some users are really worried now because Norton isn't saying anything at all.  I love this post:



As you can see people see this and are worried, I didn't want these to be taken offline like the first post so I make physical copies to put on my blog.  I want to prove to people that these actually existed.  I would advise people to run Hijackthis to see if you can figure out where this is coming from.  I don't know why they would hide the truth, it will bite them in the end.  Anyone want to comment on this, I am quiet curious??

*UPDATE 12:01 am 03/10/09*

Seems Norton Deleted all post about PIFTS.EXe so I don't know what happened but This will have to come out in the open sooner or later.  I just hope it isn't going to be to late.

Update 12:15am 03/10/09*

Seems people have decided to go to the Zonealarm forums to discuss this:



You can visit there forums here.  I am getting more curious about this little situation and now tempted to stay up all night watching this!!

[ad#digg-right]I also found this forum thread from BuckeyePlanet.  I am seeing more and more people blogging about this.  So this must be something REALLY big.  Keep sending me comments if you find anything else.  Don't forget to add me on Twitter.

This looks interesting:
[ad#cricket-1]

Even more interestingly now, after posting a single post asking about PIFTS.exe, which was deleted, and a subsequent post to another forum asking about the deleted posts, which got deleted, I've now been blocked from creating new posts or replies on the Norton forums. They really don't want to talk about whatever this was.

And doubly interesting -- or perhaps not, who knows -- not sure if this is standard practice at Symantic or what, but opening the PIFTS.exe in a hex editor shows a large section of the end of the file consists only of "PADDINGXX" repeated over and over. I've got some background in programming and can't think of a good reason why you would need padding like that on a legitimate executable. However, if an executable in an update has been compromised it may require padding such as that to match the original executable's file size or something. But that's just pointless conspiracy theorizing that likely has no basis. It would be nice though to hear from Norton about what the **bleep** this thing is.
[Via Zonealarm Forum]

I don't know but I suspecting an update went wrong at least from all the indications I'm seeing.

I will say you have several options available to you:

• You could get a Free Anti-virus Software


• You could run without An Anti-virus (Not a great option, wouldn't suggest it)


• You could do nothing and wait. (My recommendation until I find out the the full story!!)

Please let's not start a pandemic over this, I am however worried because Norton has yet to release any public information about this?  I will update as needed but please people let's not go to OVERBOARD on this!!

Google Get's rid of the Trend "PIFTS.EXE, no long there.  It was there last night.  Hmm even more questions and answers? (Click image to view it!!)

On a side note, I do not have access to this file. I've had a friend who told me about this and I started to investigate it and as soon as I did that Norton started to kill the messages. That when I knew it was something big. That is why I blogged about it. I do not have the program. I just know that it is being searched really hard because I've had more people coming to my site than usual. So please don't ask about samples, you can comment on this or ask questions. I provide this for the community to let them know!!

(Looks like some of this was a 4chan gag, check my other post about it)

Are you Email domains being blocked by Cricket?

So I got this Tweet from Mai_ling on twitter and she said:

So I did some digging around the net and found it is something that is a common practice for ISP's to block PORT 25.   If you want to find out if Cricket is blocking your mail service you can easily follow these instructions to see if port 25 is actively being blocked.  So what are some options in fixing this little problem.

[ad#cricket-right-ez]Due to spammers exploiting port 25, ISP have been blocking port 25 for other domains but theirs.   You can receive email but not send email.  Most ISP's have a way for you to have an Alternative Port that you can use and you should check with your email domain provider to see if you can send and receive on either a SSL or another Port.

You could set up your email client to receive on port 25 but send out on the SMTP server of Gmail.  This would be useful for people who want to send mail out but not have to change there email address.  People will still see it coming from whatevername@whatever.com.   You can tell Thunderbird to send out on the port and yet use your domain as your email address.

Another possible solution that may work for some is to sign up for Google Apps.  The downside of this is It cost 50$ a year but that is 4.20$ a month to be added on to your Cricket Modem charge.  This looks promising and has a 30 day trial so, if it works then you will know before you have to pay for anything.  This should be dealt with by Cricket, they should have a way for there customers to send and receive email without having to jump through hoops to send email and receive email.

Fake Emails about Windows Support spam!

According to Trend Micro, Some malicious software is being sent to unsuspecting users about Windows SP1 andSP2 having a error that could damage software or even hardware.  See Trends blog with the photos of the fake spam.

[ad#ad2-right]Although from time to time Microsoft does send out security information to Technet subscribers people have also used this in the past to get people to install Viruses and Malware, like this one that installs TSPY_BANKER.MCL. TSPY_BANKER.MCL monitors the affected user’s online transactions and steals banking related information

Microsoft sends e-mail messages to subscribers of our security communications when we release information about a security software update or security incident. Unfortunately, malicious individuals can and have sent fake security communications that appear to be from Microsoft.

[Via Microsoft]

So if you get an email from Microsoft you'll probably want to delete it.  Any Microsoft communications will be sent from the Update center.  You should never install software that is from an untrusted website.    If you are concerned you should check the web and find out what people are saying about the situation and see if it is a scam or true!!  Remember only you can prevent a virus or Malware!

5 Steps in Finding the right Affiliates!

So you want to make Money with your blog but don't know how? I thought I would share with you what I've learned in the past few months to earn enough money to pay for the space and web address. I'll go through each step talking about steps:

First you will need to explore all the great Affiliate programs like OpenX, TMIWireless, Adsense,  Converseon, and Commision Junction.   There is of course even more out on the Internet, but these are ones that I like and have given me some insight as to Commission and Affiliate marketing.  I have been using TMIWIRELESS and Converseon more and more.  I still have Adsense but you have to get a balance on Advertising and what people are wanting.

Find the right fit for you blog and talk about the products you like the most.  I like TmiWireless because you give out free phones and still get money in return and Converseon for recommending Cell Phones. You should figure out what does better, and always keep looking. There are more than a few out that will work for you better. If you know one that I should look into let me know.

[ad#ad2-right]Remind readers about the affiliate programs so others can find them and blog about them.  It can also help with people coming to your site because the will encourage other people to check out what you've written and your recommendations.  You should come up with ways to promote your affiliates and encourage users to click on them and buy stuff from them.   This has brought in money by having them searched and indexed by Google.  You should find a niche that you have very little competition in, that way you get most of the traffic in for your self.

Create a Sneeze page, although this sounds rude, it is really a page talking about having helpful topics around your products or have them for people to find even more information about your affiliates.  Just like I have a Malware Resource, and Cricket Resource, also Cricket Reviews.  These will make it much easier for people to find what they are looking for and make it more enjoyable for the reader.  It also encourages people to come back and stay a while.

Although this is overlooked it is sometimes necessary to remind your readers about affiliates and talk about a product in detail by asking them to comment on a articles and encourage them to link to you.  This will bring in even more people to look at your blog and your reviews to get your page views higher and get more people to click your affiliate links.

I've not followed these steps very well in the beginning of starting my blog but I have learned a lot since then.  I've also learned that you need to update your blog on a weekly or even daily to basis to keep readers to come back.  You should always keep searching for even better affiliates to make your blog better.  You can also start advertising your blog by yourself without the middle but that is of yet I've not done enough on.  I will in the future when I get more experience under my belt.  I hope this has helped you in some way.

When do you "Never Fold"

So I got this email and wanted to show you just how try to get you to link to their site:


I got this email and wanted to talk about how people link to sites they shouldn't.  Although this a real site, I had my doubts from the get go.   You see it talks about sending 21 visitors to my site.  I got to the site Neverfold.net which after I looked and there I am but I wonder why? Because Poker and Calicanis have nothing in common with Poker or at least news and all that.


[ad#ad2-right]As you can see when you go to that site via the link he gives me, which by the way if you weren't paying attention is a hidden link with Neverfold.net/?pg=YKchR. As you can see this is a way for him to know when you click it to put your name on the forum page. You can tell because Ref: YKchR is at the bottom of the email. This is most likely a generated email by a bot, I did even more research to find out more information. I found out that the so call 5k to 7k page views were bogus. I checked with Alexa, and I find out this:



In the last few days the of this site they have dropped from 2k per day to under 1k because of links dieing out. You see Google takes the page rank out when you don't have any new people linking to you in 3 months. So I am guessing this has been going on for quite some time. So I had to make sure before I said anything, I did a Google search for my name in there forums and I came up with nothing. I am guessing there is a Nofollow links going on. So I thought I would also make sure to add the Nofollow link. I also know about Google Juice and how it works and know about the No follow. I have read how others are not quite sure what is going. Found this Gambling Forum where they were talking about this type of email and they weren't to sure about this site. I love how people think you'll link to them without doing some kind of investigation. I encourage all webmasters if you get an email like this you should do your own investigation and not expect the email to be truthful. Since this email isn't being truthful to me, I feel no obligation to give it any more than it is due.

I hate Snopes Spam

As you know Snopes is used to find out about urban Legend and Rumors:

I received a Virus alert from my RSS feed about Email virus warning.  It even adds a Snope URL.  The Author just copies and pasted the virus warning into the blog without even going to Snopes.
[ad#ad2-right]

According to Snopes and I'll quote:
Although the Postcard virus is real, it isn't a "BIG VIRUS COMING" (it's already been around in multiple forms for a long time now), it will not "burn the whole hard disc" of your computer, CNN didn't classify it as the "worst virus" ever, and it doesn't arrive in messages bearing a subject line of 'Invitation.'

[Via Snopes]

Now as you can tell the link described in the blog post was "http://www.snopes.com/computer/virus/postcard.asp". If you went there, you'd have seen this as a not really true and some parts of this might be but that part about burning your Hard drive or even consider the Worst virus isn't true.

Some things you need to consider before forwarding anything is:

• Is it completely True?


• Is it Legitimate?  (True blown warning about something like a product recall  or something important like that)


• Does it Say to Forward? (if so it is probably not wise)


• is it from a Friend (If so you might want to remind the friend nicely that it isn't nice to send spam)

If you follow some of these suggestions you'll be making the Internet a far better place for everyone.  Remember if you don't know, it's time to learn.  if you do know, it is time to teach.  These are the fundamental aspects of using the internet the right way.  Also if it is a fake virus warning you should tell them to get a Free Anti-virus and Firewall to better protect them.  Also  remind them that if they keep their system updated then they shouldn't be too worried.  Remember only you can prevent a Computer Virus and it's up to you keep your system up to date.

Microsoft Releases the Patch Information for March

Microsoft Has Released the Patch information For march and This is what is expected to be patch on March 11, 2009:

• Vulnerabilities in Microsoft Excel Could Allow Remote Code Execution (Kb949029) -- This security update resolves several privately reported and publicly reported vulnerabilities in Microsoft Office Excel that could allow remote code execution if a user opens a specially crafted Excel file. An attacker who successfully exploited these vulnerabilities could take complete control of an affected system. An attacker could then install programs; view, change, or delete data; or create new accounts with full user rights. Users whose accounts are configured to have fewer user rights on the system could be less impacted than users who operate with administrative user rights.  (affected System : Microsoft Office)

[ad#ad2-right]
• Vulnerability in Microsoft Outlook Could Allow Remote Code Execution (Kb949031) -- This security update resolves a privately reported vulnerability in Microsoft Office Outlook. The vulnerability could allow remote code execution if Outlook is passed a specially crafted mailto URI. An attacker could then install programs; view, change, or delete data; or create new accounts with full user rights. Users whose accounts are configured to have fewer user rights on the system could be less impacted than users who operate with administrative user rights. This vulnerability is not exploitable by simply viewing an e-mail through the Outlook preview pane. (affected System : Microsoft Office)


• Vulnerabilities in Microsoft Office Could Allow Remote Code Execution (Kb949030) -- This security update resolves two privately reported vulnerabilities in Microsoft Office that could allow remote code execution if a user opens a malformed Office file. An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could take complete control of an affected system. An attacker could then install programs; view, change, or delete data; or create new accounts with full user rights. Users whose accounts are configured to have fewer user rights on the system could be less impacted than users who operate with administrative user rights. (affected System : Microsoft Office)


• Vulnerabilities in Microsoft Office Web Components Could Allow Remote Code Execution (Kb933103) -- This critical update resolves two privately reported vulnerabilities in Microsoft Office Web Components. These vulnerabilities could allow remote code execution if a user viewed a specially crafted Web page. An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could take complete control of an affected system. An attacker could then install programs; view, change, or delete data; or create new accounts with full user rights. Users whose accounts are configured to have fewer user rights on the system could be less impacted than users who operate with administrative user rights.  (affected System : Microsoft Office)

These Four are all Critical and should be applied the week of March 11, 2009.  Their are Seven Patches coming out, but these are the main focus.   According to Microsoft they have released MS08-014, MS08-015, MS08-016 and MS08-017 to better help you find out which ones are affected.

Now is the time to get AutoPatcher ready and make sure it is up to date on any patches that might of came out this month that you didn't know about.  Also consider downloading the new version of Anti-virus and Firewall software while you are it.  In case you come accross a rogue virus and need to disinfect it!!  Some of these patches for this month is due to the EXCEL vulnerability that is out right now and is in the wild, so that should be your top priority once Tuesday come around.  Remember hackers will start exploiting these patches on Wensday and you will be racing against the clock.   One last bit of information for the Mac Users you should also apply these patches they are vulnerable to according to Microsoft.  I'll update as more information becomes available!!

Gmail Vulnerable to a Change PW Attack!

Securiteam has made an announcement that Gmail has an issue.  I will quote:

GMail is vulnerable to CSRF attacks in the "Change Password" functionality. The only token for authenticate the user is a session cookie, and this cookie is sent automatically by the browser in every request.

[ad#ad2-right]An attacker can create a page that includes requests to the "Change password" functionality of GMail and modify the passwords of the users who, being authenticated, visit the page of the attacker.

The attack is facilitated since the "Change Password" request can be realized across the HTTP GET method instead of the POST method that is realized habitually across the "Change Password" form.

[Via Securiteam]

One way to prevent this to a point is right now having GMAIL automatically connect securely.  You would go into your settings in gmail and make sure it uses https connection:
This is one way to prevent the cookie attack but is still needing to be fixed.   Since it is using the HTTP GET method it should use the HTTPS method as soon as you try accessing the site.   Google needs to change to the HTTPS Get method instead to prevent this type of attack.   If you have any other ideas for Google just leave a comment.

Cracking and Warez sites are Host of Trouble!!

It is nothing to laugh at and should be understood that gamers have no freedom right now.   That said this new Variant to Virux Trojan is in regards to Win32/Vitro Trojan.  It seems tobe infecting .exe and .Scr files just like this.

According to Trend Micro:
[ad#ad2-right]

The downloaded malware include variants under the FAKEAV, TDSS, and VUNDO families. Infection chains, however, are notable for the presence of VIRUT and VIRUX malware. VIRUX and VIRUT attacks were initially about the volume of infected PCs. The numbers are massive enough to worry Web users and security researchers: around 20,000 PCs are infected per day
Read more: "Crack Sites Distribute VIRUX and FakeAV"

Now it seems to be more and more sites with getting computer infected. It also seems the Malware writers are using these servers for helping infect essentially gamers computers. So for the time being, if you have a favorite game and you want to:

• No-CD Crack (This is good for those who want to play the game without the CD)


• Key Gen Cracks (This is used for pirated version of a game)


• Update Cracks (This is used to prevent CD checking or Also prevent Version Checking)


• Game Cheats (This is usually a small program like a bot or some other way for the gamer to cheat)

And should not be Downloaded or USED!! I don't say that lightly, because Gamers feel they should be able to play any game they want. Although this post will probably make the Gamer developers happy, I do this to tell people that these virus writers are using the gamers to distribute the Virus.   I encourage all the gamers out there, that don't want to loose their games to not download any more of these types of cracks.  It seems the virus writers are wanting to infect systems and slow you down.  You don't want to slowed down do you?  Please consider getting a Firewall and a Free Anti-virus software to better protect your system.

Days like today, I want to take off : GMAIL Down!!

It looks like they are having some troubles with Google MAIL today. This is one of those days I would love to actually go into work to day. If you want to check the status of Gmail You should visit there support page. I have checked it out and it does appear to have a problem with HTML and JAVASCRIPT, but the IMAP functionality seems to work just fine. I have been able to to receive email through IMAP although being kind of slower then normal but It is at least working. SO "DON"T PANIC", the service will be up and running sometime today!!

*Update*

As Of 7:30am EST the service is back up on my network. So like I said no worries. Good Job Google!!

And the Oscar goes to . . . Not these guys!

Sans Internet Storm is reporting on Anti-virus Scareware tactic. I'll quote from them:

[ad#ad2-right]

ISC reader Gary wrote in to let us know that searching for "oscar presenters" and "oscar winners" with Google brings up a prominently ranked result on a web server in Poland, on a subdomain of "beepl", which - surprise, surprise - includes a malicious JavaScript. The end result currently seems to reside on stabilitytracewebcom, and is yet another incarnation of the "Fake Anti-Virus Program" malware that we have covered repeatedly. Watch out, the EXE has a meager 6/39 on Virustotal.
[Via Sans]

I did my own research and it is true they are at least 3 sites with the .pl Domain that are used to send you to these fake sites. You should consider checking your system for possible viruses if you been to these sites and are worried. You should also report any site like this to Phishtank to fight this type of scare tactics. Please remember if you are worried about your system this is the best time to install software to prevent these types of scare tactics. Remember you don't always have to buy software to be safe. There are free anti-virus and Firewall solutions at your fingertips, use them well. It is also a good idea to make sure you have the latest updates from Microsoft while your at it.

Being a Bad BOT!

I had the strangest thing happen today, Seemed a Bad Bot was Crawling my pages. I was getting at least 60 page views an hour from this bad Bot!! The individual IP's of this Bad Are:

65.208.151.112
65.208.151.113
65.208.151.114
65.208.151.115
65.208.151.116
65.208.151.117
65.208.151.118
65.208.151.119

[ad#ad2-right]After the first initial hour of this going on, I started wondering what this bot was doing.   I did some more research into this little bot.   I did find out it is owned by Kintiskton LLC.  (Twitter Search)

Anyways It bothers me that when you do a Google Search for this company, it comes back with no company.  Some people have already did there research and have come up with very little.

I dug even more and some are saying this might be Homeland Security, and I have my own thoughts on this.   I might be paranoid myself but if there is no company out there and the IP keeps coming back, I assume it is BAD mojo.  Some people worry that it is a hacker probing for vulnerabilities and that worried me.

I decided with the Help from Godaddy, to ban the lot of IPs.  I figure someone is trying to get information or trying something they shouldn't, I'll stop it myself.   If you have Wordpress and are also having problems with this ip, you can ban it by adding this to your HtAccess file:

order allow,deny
deny from 65.208.151.112
deny from 65.208.151.113
deny from 65.208.151.114
deny from 65.208.151.115
deny from 65.208.151.116
deny from 65.208.151.117
deny from 65.208.151.118
deny from 65.208.151.119
allow from all

This is how you block those ip in the HtAccess file. Thanks to Wordpress for showing me how.

Tech Journalist breaks the silence -- Journalist got Pwned!!

It was another ordinary day for this tech journalist. He had just waken up from his lovely dreams and hadn't realized that he was being baited with Phish. Yes that is correct he actually gave out his password to an Phish site and didn't know it.

I have to admit that he didn't hide it, in fact he decided to post about how he got Pwned and what happened.

The Face Of A Facebook Phishing Scam
[Click Picture to see the full story]

[ad#ad2-right]As you can see the site : Facebookcom.awardspace.com is a phishing site and should never give out your information to third parties.   Some things to remember if you get an email with a link sometimes won't send you to the real link.  This can be easily done just like blogging.  You don't know where you will end up when you click an email link.   One thing to remember is if in doubt log into facebook the old fashion way and see for yourself.

You could be the next person to have your Identity taken away from you.  So what should you do to prevent this type of phishing attacks, assume any email you get from Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, and Any other Social Sites to be a possible phish email.   These are always going to be a problem for these sites.  The spammers want access to be able to spam your friends and family with links, or to make you look foolish.  This is the reason they do it for Money or just for laughs.

One thing to remember is having a strong password will make it that much harder for you to be phished because if you can't remember it you will be more careful.  I will keep preaching this having a good Firewall and Anti-virus will also prevent you from getting viruses from these type of phishing attacks.  It will also make it much more harder to go to sites that smell like Phish.  Remember only you can keep your identity a secret.

ThePirateBay might be blocked in the US

I was looking around on Google and thought I just for giggles check out the Piratebay complaints. I tried going to the site and here's what Popups:



[ad#ad2-right]I tried on OpenVPN and my Local ISP, It keeps saying that. I then tried on my Cricket Modem and it tells me the connection has been interrupted, like something stops the connection in the first place. I can ping it and I can Tracert the Site but I can't even view it. I would like to know if Anyone else is having this problem also. Although I've not checked Thepiratebay.org complaints for quite some time because I've been so busy with my website. If you want to watch your favorite shows check out these sites like Hulu, CBS, NBC, ABC, ABC FAMILY and TNT.TV for free. I am just curious as to what happened and does this have anything to do with Net Neutrality?   Anyway I wanted to talk about this and see what people are saying.  Anyone know what is going on?  Let's talk about this and help everyone by saying what you know.   I don't know if Thepiratebay.org is down but I do wonder if someone is preventing people from getting to the website.   I'll update when I have more information.

Understanding Adsense for the Beginner

So you have a website and you'd like the site to pay for itself. That can be arranged it however depends on your website performance. You see you won't make a lot of money if you don't have several things going for you. I thought I share with you my experience with making money through Adsense. As you saw, I made enough money to pay for the website for 5 years. It isn't hard to make money it is however very difficult to keep getting the money. Most people don't know the tricks to making money with Google's Adsense.

I'm here to help you out a little with understanding it and getting even more money from your adsense.   So here we are 3 months into to putting Adsense seriously on my site and let's take a look shall we:



As you can see I started off quite slowly as I figured out how to best do it but gained momentum after that.    First Month I made $17.19 and the Second Month I made $45.57, the last month I made $64.99 totaling $127.75 leaving me with 16.75$ from the few previous months that I tinkered with Adsense.   So where do you start?  I found that to be the hardest part, because of the complexity of where I could put the ads.   I tried having strips breaking up the text in my blog post that really didn't get me hardly any clicks.  Then I started to incorporate the Adsense into the posts.  I learned how to do it through a great blog post and I'll talk about that later.   Here's what you need to know right now though:

[ad#ad2-right]
• Create good content --  This goes without saying that if you don't have good content people will never find your site.   There are a multitude of ways to create content.   Some of the most useful for me is How-to, finding a Niche, and Also just blogging about what you passionate about.   These will often draw people to your website.


• Gjaylaramieet people to link to your post --  This will help with search engines because they do some math to figure out if your a real site and how trustworthy your site is on the internet.


• Use Microblogging --  It is well known people use Twitter, Friendfeed, and others a like to tell people what they post about.   It can be great place to help promote your blog and get people to come more and more to your site.


• Try not to annoy the users with Ads -- This is the most important if you want people to come back to your site you should make sure you don't send people away from your site.  People will not want to come back if you annoy them to much.   So it is essential that you keep them happy.


• Find a good blog theme -- A good theme helps bring people to your site by making it easier to read and find what they are looking for.  You might also consider making a sneeze page to keep people coming back to your site.  This will help your readers and make it more of your own.  You might also want to buy a theme for your blog sooner or later.

With These tips and tricks you too could be on your way to having a great blog.   I would be willing to bet that soon I will be triple that amount if I keep up with what I am doing.   I hope you tell people about this blog and let people know how good this blog is for you.   Remember only you can prevent virus infections.

Looks Like Monster.com and UsaJobs.gov was Hacked : Change your PW!!

[ad#ad2-right]

As is the case with many companies that maintain large databases of information, Monster is the target of illegal attempts to access and extract information from its database. We recently learned our database was illegally accessed and certain contact and account data were taken, including Monster user IDs and passwords, email addresses, names, phone numbers, and some basic demographic data. The information accessed does not include resumes. Monster does not generally collect – and the accessed information does not include - sensitive data such as social security numbers or personal financial data.

As a further precaution, we want to remind you that an email address could be used to target “phishing” emails. Monster will never send an unsolicited email asking you to confirm your username and password, nor will Monster ask you to download any software, “tool” or “access agreement” in order to use your Monster account.
[Via Monster.com]

UsaJobs.Gov is a partner with Monster.com so You should think about changing your Password.    They Also think this will be used for Phishing, if you have any doubts to the authenticity of email.  I'd suggest doing a google search on the company or name of the person who emailed you that way you can be well informaed before you do decide how you will handle it.   Also Remember most times if they ask you download software, it is probably Malware and should be scanned by your Anti-virus software.

Microsoft to Cut 5,000 Jobs Starting Today:

There are reports that Microsoft will start laying people off starting Today Jan 22, 2009.
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Microsoft said it will cut up to 5,000 jobs in research and development, marketing, sales, finance, legal, human resources and IT over the next 18 months. The first 1,400 jobs will be cut Thursday.

[ViaPcWorld]

I really hate to see this happen but I did suspect this to happen.   I get a feeling this isn't the last we will see of Microsoft doing something like this.   I would suspect it will become even more than 5,000 jobs.  I will take a guess and say 16,000 will be the total or close to it. If you want to see the other layoffs I've talked here are few:

• Google Search


• Largest Employer : University of Pittsburgh Medical Center is planning layoffs!!


• Mahalo Lay’s off around 10% of it’s workforce!!


• Viacom and ATT layoff some people. (12,850 People)

I have several differnent articles about the layoffs but I did speculate they will lay off 16,000 people so I am sure it will happen in the next few months.  Only time will tell!!!

Setting up Email Filters for Twitter Phish -- Getting Phishing out of the way

Ok So we've all had the problem of having to deal with this twitter phish, and you can see there are more and more twitter spam.

So how do you start Filtering out the Bad twitter spam?

I'm using Mozilla Thunderbird so this will not be a complete way for people who use other email software.

Once You find your way to this menu you would click new and then you do this:

Now once you've named your twitter filter, I named it "Twitter Spam" but you may name it whatever you would like.   I then selected to "Match all of the Following", if you don't do this it will send all direct messages to your spam folder.  You'd get no direct message from anyone about anything.   I told the filter if it was from "*@postmaster.twitter.com".   Once you done that you would click the plus sign to add [ad#ad2-right]another row and then I selected the "Subject".  I selected that to filter whatever is in the subject body of the message and filtered for "http://*.access-logins.com".  Then I clicked Move Message to Spam Folder.  You can move it to your own twitter spam folder, it is just nice to move it away from the important stuff.   You also if you like can Mark it as read also by clicking the Plus sign and selecting "Mark as read" so that you don't have to worry about reading each and every one.   For people who are wondering the Asterisk is a Wild Card which means it does not matter what is in there that is import to prevent getting spam from people you know or from sites you know are phishing.

Some people might like to do this for Google Mail and I see no problem in people doing this before you even get the email but if you're not using Google mail and would like to do this for your email hosting account by all means follow these steps and you shouldn't get much phish direct messages.  I will say if they us another Free hosting account you'll get it for the time but it won't be constant.   I hope this helps people get this out of there way.  Soon this will be in the past.

If you suspect you will get more blogspot.com links also you can set up a seperate filter to filter for "http://*.blogspot.com" just follow the instructions just like you did but use that instead of the other internet address.  I'd also tell people to not Direct message you about a site  if it is important to look at to reply to you but don't direct message you. 

Reviewing Roboform: Great Password Manager

I've had Roboform for the last few months checking it out working with it seeing what is the pro's and cons of it. Here's what I've found out.

Limited number of passwords for non-license (Limited to 10 passcards - login information and password) -- This doesn't surprise me in fact once I'd started using it I had to buy it. You see I've got so many places I like to visit and so many logins it isn't easy to track them all. This helps me login to each and everyone of them very easily. Although if you only have a limited amount of sites the free version will work well for those people too.

Defeats Key loggers -- This is good for those who have family members who use the same computer just in case someone installs a virus that tries to steal your sensitive information. Can be put on a portable thumb drive with use to a library or open platforms. This also will prevent key loggers from getting your login information.

Generates strong passwords -- This is a must in my field, I'm so tired of having to come up with a password. Now this is generated on the fly. Click a button and you have a password generated. Tried this out on several sites that would tell you how strong it is and all of the said excellent.

Works with Firefox, Internet explorer, and MSN/AOL -- Now being that I don't have a MSN or Aol I do not know this I have however tried this on Internet explorer and Firefox very easily. It works well with Vista no major problems. I have tried it with Google Chrome and it seems not work at all with it. I do not know if they will start supporting it and only time will tell!!

Backing up your passwords -- it is really easy to back up your passwords database on Roboform. Just copy and paste and your done. No needing to find a hidden Directory, Roboform Database for Vista is in the My Documents folder under "My Roboform Data" Folder. All you need to do is copy that to a USB key and no worries Roboform automatically encrypts the passwords so without the Master password you can't use them.

No need to remember Passwords -- Yes that is right you no longer have to worry about remembering your passwords all you have to do is click a button and Roboform fills the required input forms. It can be annoying if you use the free version because you only can save 10 passwords then the rest you will have to remember.

Easily speed through login screens -- This is the best part of Roboform because no more having to type in the site you need to go to login. Roboform does that for you without any problems. You just pick where you want to go and Roboform takes you through and fills the information in before you know it. I absolutely love this feature because You don't have to type in the place you want to go it will automatically take you there.

Roboform has several version -- Roboform can be made portable and also be put on PDA's (Personal Digital Assistant) or a Mobile Phone(Windows Mobile, Palm, Symbian, or Blackberry). This is great for those who need to have your passwords on more than one type of device. Keeps it safe like big brother still need a master password to get to it. It also makes it just as easy to surf to the important websites with ease.

Download Roboform:

• Roboform


• Roboform2Go

To Buy Roboform:

• Roboform


• Roboform2Go

I strongly recommend this to anyone who has problems remembering passwords or want to upgrade there passwords to the next level.  This will ultimately protect you far better than trying to remember all your passwords.   This however is a personal and this will not protect you 100% but will get far closer to the 100% than just doing it alone.  Remember only you can protect your sensitive data and nothing else can stop password stealing 100% of a time.

Are you worried about your identity?

So after the fiasco of the other day, I decided I will talk about security and why you should worry about new websites that you have never heard of.   People are not worrying about there identity and keeping there identity safe.   You see whenever someone signs up to a service without thinking about their password being stored or even used maliciously.   You see when most people don't use more than one or two passwords for all there accounts and then you use the same password with a new website.  Are you asking for your identity to be stolen?  In one of my previous blog posts I talked about not having any privacy on the internet.

So How can you protect your privacy?

When ever I come across a site that I don't know about and I want to protect my account from being compromised I find out what I can from several places:

1. [ad#ad2-right]Google -- Yes this is quite common to use to find out about what people are saying asking the keywords like is it a scam or what people are saying about the site?  This can be very useful to make sure I don't get scammed by a company for instants the Nationwide marketing scam.  Although this is really important when you get things that sound questionable.  This can be very useful with regards to keep your wallet safe.


2. Whois Network -- If there is a site you've not heard about and have a question about it you can always do a whois lookup.   This is a great resource for finding out how long the site has been up and who owns it?  The problem with this is most people who have a website aren't worried about security and privacy.   So you make sure this site isn't a phish site or to make sure the site isn't being used improperly.


3. Sitetiki --  a good site to do some research.   It's a wiki like Wikipedia but for websites and if they are good or bad.  It also has a spammer list for people to watch and make sure not to go to.  These sites are usually redirect spam sites uses for email.

What about Personal privacy?

With this I also want to talk about security online to prevent people from gaining access to your accounts online by guessing the password.  Some sites also like to phish for your account information and use the information gained to take control over your account so here are some useful links to help protect your account information:

• [ad#cricket-right-ez]Roboform -- This is good for generating a really good random password and remembering it.  This will keep people from guessing the password and also make it easy to come up with another good password.  This will also fill out the required site forms that usually use to sign into website.


• A good VPN Service --  If your like me and you have to use free wifi from time to time and want to make sure you have privacy on the net.  This is good for security on any open wifi network and you don't want to have anyone watch you while your browse online.  In case someone is interested what VPN's are used for here is the link to let people understand it better.


• Perfect Paper Passwords -- This is coming from Security now Episode 115 and he talks about this to better help people make the best possible passwords.  Listen to it and it will help you understand more about security.

These are just a few ways to prevent people from gaining access to an account.   After doing some research on this and thinking about this in bigger detail.   I would like to make a public apologies about the fiasco yesterday and what happened.  In all truthfulness everything didn't seem right with the doings of the going on with website.   I also was worried about the twitter spam it was sending out as you started the service.   I didn't know until later that it was a real person trying to make a product twitter users could really use.   I have learned from my experience and I will work harder next time and not be so quick to act next time.   If I was the company that bought that site, I'd also offer a job to both of them for being intuitiveness on coming up with a really good product.