Business Spam Solutions

Businesses concerned about spam and other computer-related security issues can choose between a large number of software and hardware solutions.  Leading the way for serious protection is Barracuda Networks, a business security firm that provides a large range of spam and virus firewalls that can handle anywhere from 10 to 100,000 users.  Barracuda firewalls can be clustered to support nearly any size of business.  Spam and virus definitions are updated hourly by Barracuda networks and automatically pushed out to customer firewalls.

Of course, hardware firewalls are not the cheapest security solution, particularly for small businesses.  Software-only solutions tend to be cheaper and often have per-desktop licensing to match smaller budgets.  Symantec Endpoint Protection Small Business Edition claims to block 99% of spam in addition to providing malware protection, disk-based recovery, antivirus and email encryption.  Corporate purchasing starts at 5 licences and can be purchased in exact denominations up to 1000.

Finally, services like Google’s Postini can filter spam for businesses (usually ISP’s) before reaching the local services.  Individual users can log directly into Postini using their regular email address and passwords to verify whether filtered mail should be sent through to the user’s inbox.

Consumer Spam Solutions

Quite often,  consumer spam solutions are based on the same technology as the corporate solutions.  For instance, Symantec’s Norton Internet Security is a personal product that offers much of the same security features (including antispam protection) as Protection Suite but at a more consumer-friendly price.  Competing commercial products include Kaspersky Internet Security 2010 3-User and ZoneAlarm Security Suite.

However, it’s the free solutions that many will opt for since many are available for non-commercial use.

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Unfortunately, many of these shows are only available in the USA and only in some cases are the same programs available in other countries via alternative webistes. Similarly, the BBC does not allow its streaming video to be accessed outside the U.K. Even cyberspace can’t escape complicated licensing schemes, it seems.

Typically the response has been to resort to BitTorrent but there is a faster and slightly (though not necessarily entirely) more legal alternative.

Pre-Requisites

Make sure Firefox Web Browser is installed (version 1.0 – 3.6 acceptable)

Installing Modify Headers Plug-in

Open a new FireFox window and surf to the following URL:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/967

Click on Add to Firefox

Click on Accept and Install

If a software installation window pops up then click on the Install Now button

Wait for the plugin installation to complete. Click on the Restart Firefox button

Using the Modified Headers Plugin to View Geographically-Blocked Video

Surf to the web page with the blocked video

On the menu, select Tools –> Modify Headers

If you are running the Modify Headers plug-in for the first time, enter the following text in the two text boxes at the top of the pop-up window:

First text box: X-Forwarded-For
Second text box: 12.13.14.15

Leave the third text box blank. Click on the Add button

Ensure that there is a green dot next to the new header (signaling it is active)
LEAVE THE MODIFY HEADERS WINDOW OPEN
(alternatively, you could click on the Configuration and make sure Always On is checked; this way, the plugin is always active)

Refresh the Firefox window containing the blocked media. The video should (hopefully) start to play properly.

Regards to Andy Mason, who created the original YouTube tutorial.

How Well does it Work?

The Modify Headers plug in is one of many methods that can be used to view geographically-blocked video. Modifying headers does not mask a user’s actual geographical origin and defeating this hack is mostly up to the developers on the streaming media servers. No one workaround is perfect and readers are encouraged to post their experiences using this workaround on various streaming sites (don’t forget to include your country). The following tests were conducted in Canada -

• The Daily Show – Works like a charm. This show was used to develop both the original YouTube tutorial (tested in the UK) and this blog post
• Hulu – Sends a strange message advising to check internet stream. It is a different message than the typical geographic restriction, so it might be related to my firewall.
• Pandora – Does not work. Redirects to the same restriction notice.
• ABC Full Episodes – Works
• CBS HD Videos – Does not work

While the world’s leading social network recently backed down on enticing users with their deceptive “Recommended Settings”, there are still several areas where user data may be vulnerable to third party snooping. Here are 4 steps ever user should take to protect their personal information.

#4– Don’t let Friends Give Away your Private Information

Prevent friends from inadvertently giving away your personal details to an application on their profile.

How:

On the top menu toolbar, select Settings -> Privacy Settings

Select Applications and Websites

Click on the Edit Settings button, located beside the title “What your friends can share about you“

Uncheck every option under the title “What your friends can share about you through applications and websites ”. Click on the Save Changes button.

Why:

Unfortunately, Facebook users must worry about the bad habits of friends as well as themselves. This “feature” is touted as a virtue on the security settings page:

When your friend visits a Facebook-enhanced application or website, they may want to share certain information to make the experience more social. For example, a greeting card application may use your birthday information to prompt your friend to send a card.

However, virtually anyone can become a Facebook developer just by downloading the development guide, and it is safe to assume that not all of them are solely interested in enhancing your user experience. If you don’t specifically uncheck the items in the list above, they can be shared with third party sites by way of your friends’ applications – even if you have set the information to to viewable only by friends or yourself.

Note that all information you’ve specifically set to public can still be read and analyzed by third party applications and websites. But more on that later.

#3 – Prevent Search Engines from Indexing your Information

Modify security settings so that even your public information is not indexed by search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing.

How:

On the top menu toolbar, select Settings -> Privacy Settings

Select Search

Uncheck the Allow Indexing checkbox. The change should be saved automatically. Navigate to somewhere else in Facebook then return to this page to ensure the changes were saved.

Why:

Having your addresses, birthday and recent pictures available to anyone who can type your name into a search engine is a virtual invitation to identity theft. Stalkers would also benefit from your addresses, which can now be placed into Google Street view for a 3D walk-around of your home, workplace and places of leisure.

#2 – Restrict Profile Pictures to Friends Only

Some users have reported that the photo album for profile pictures was made visible to non-friends – even if profile pictures had previously been set to friends only. For optimal privacy, profile pictures should remain visible to friends only.

How:

On the top menu toolbar, select Settings -> Privacy Settings

Select Profile Information

Click on the Edit Settings button, located beside the the title “Photo Albums”

Find the photo album titled “Profile Pictures”. Select “Only Friends” from the drop-down menu. Click on the Save Settings button.

Why:

Many profile pictures contain friends, places and special events. This can be as revealing to snoops and predators as broadcasting where you go on Friday night.

#1 – Remove ALL third party applications

Do not add any games, surveys or other applications to your Facebook account. Remove any that exist and make sure those applications do not still have access to your personal information.

How:

On the top menu toolbar, select Settings -> Account Settings

Look at the list of applications. Third party applications will be denoted with an “X” on the far right side of the table. Click on each of the X’s to remove the applications. The changes should be saved automatically. Navigate to somewhere else in Facebook then return to this page to ensure the changes were saved.

Why:

Ok, sit down. We know how fun it is to compile your stalkers list and that you’ve found some pretty nifty wooden fish in Treasure Madness. However, you are also exposing all of your information -public and private- to third party developers for whatever purposes they deem worthy.

And who develops these apps? Sometimes it’s law enforcement, who are increasingly monitoring Facebook and Twitter communications for tax cheats and copyright infringement. It could be government monitoring for political dissent – Iran, for instance, has threatened the Tehran-based family of an Iranian-American blogger if he continued to criticize the nation’s governance via his Facebook account.

Most of the time, however, the application developers are simply rogue upstarts selling ads or are, more nefariously, data miners that sell personal data to marketing firms. Of course, that information is then used to build marketing strategies to make you buy stuff – possible even through Facebook.

If you still don’t have any doubts about the scruples of these application developers, listen to the words of Mark Pincus, CEO of Zynga (Mafia Wars, Farmville)

Sound like the kind of fellow you want to provide with your personal details?

Download: Mirror#1

Simplicity is key when presenting statistics to management or customers. Data analysts are often tempted to put as many details as possible on the standard “one sheet” template; however, too many numbers on a page can cause confusion about where to initially focus. When reducing the number of statistics on a page is not an option and summary stats are not appropriate, traffic-lighting is a quick and effective method to highlight trends or draw attention to information that need to be addressed.

Included:
-Example Excel File
-Full tutorial

-Financial Services is the most targeted industry sector overall
-Paypal, Ebay, Amazon and the major banks are the most targeted companies
-North America is both the primary target audience and the region were the largest number of phishing sites are hosted
-Websites are by far the most popular portals through which to gather information, although an increasing number of phishing scams instruct targets to call a telephone number

Below are screenshots from a phishing email I recently received. Have a look at the warning signs –

Subject Line implies user information is outdated
The subject line typically implies that your user information or financial particulars need to be manually updated.

Incorrect recipient address information
Incorrect addresses include:
-Name spelled incorrectly
-Incorrect email address that mysterious reaches your inbox
-Email is addressed to multiple recipients
The email sent to me had the wrong address but the correct domain, which made it worth obscuring for the purpose of this tutorial.

Impersonal greeting
Phishing scams rarely know the real names of its targets and tend to rely on general greetings like “Dear user –“

Ultimatum
The email could imply that updating user information is mandatory for the user or that the same email was sent to all users for the company being spoofed.

Convoluted hyperlink
Hyperlinks in email messages should be distrusted in general, but long and convoluted hyperlinks like the one above should cause heightened suspicion. As you can see, the URL ends in a .dll file which is very irregular. Also this apparently “ebay link” has a very long URL that contains what appears to be a randomly generated number. This is a sign that the URL itself is temporary and automatically generated such to stymie anti-phishing efforts by police and corporations. URL’s containing raw ip address (eg 204.184.56.12) are also a strong indicator that the email is not legitimate.

No offer of additional information
There is no URL FAQ or phone number contact for users wanting to inquire about privacy concerns or why personal information needs to be updated.

Warnings from email client
A well-designed email client can detect many of the irregularities listed as well as check for suspicious points of origin (e.g. spoofed emails) and links to insecure servers. In this case, Thunderbird has cautioned that the URL does not in fact redirect to a subdomain at ebay as the email displays, but rather an unknown website in Hong Kong

Warnings from web browser
If for some reason you actually clicked on the URL in spite of previous warnings, your web browser might give another warning still. In this case, Firefox has alerted me that the URL has already been reported as a forgery. Although it’s hard to see in the above screenshot, the URL background is white, which in Firefox (and most browsers) means that I am not on a secure connection – kind of strange for a site requesting secure personal information, non?

Final Thoughts

Most phishing email messages won’t contain all of the above characteristics and probably will contain other defining characteristics not mentioned. Phishing is an evolving practice due to its lucrativeness and increased usage by organized crime. If you receive an email that contains one of the above characteristics then be extremely cautious. Email messages containing more than one should probably be reported to your ISP and immediately discarded. If the email is threatening the termination of a service, simply let it happen. No company worth doing business with is going to maintain its records by firing off thousands of email messages to various Hotmail and Yahoo accounts in hopes of reconciling its financials.

As for anti-phishing software, there is no silver bullet application to prevent 100% of attacks. Personally, I have found that a combination of Thunderbird email client, Firefox web browser and ZoneAlarm Security Suite have identified every phishing attempt received so far. Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 also has anti-phishing facilities that are said to be effective.

If you ever read webhosting reviews of reputable hosting companies, you’ll have an idea that these hosting service providers provide good scam protection besides their cheap web hosting services. Just read the detailed review of ix web hosting or the famous hosting company powweb. Therefore, it’s not desirable to always prefer the cheapest hosting web that doesn’t supports other features.

1. Try following some of the tips provided by Alien X in the comments section
2. Visit the Blink7 page on the newest available patch for network gaming with Age of Mythology: (click here)Â

Important Note -

Try this tutorial first, and if it does not work for you then try AlienX’s suggest listed below in the comments section (thanks to AlienX!)
Background -
Tutorial: Internet Gaming with Age of Empires 3 and Hamachi

Age of Mythology typically defaults to the internal IP address rather than the Hamachi address during network play. This behaviour can prevent players from hosting multi-player games over Hamachi networks. Luckily there is a workaround …

Open Hamachi and record the IP address

Right click on the windows Start button. Click on the Explore menu item. Windows Explorer should open.

Navigate to directory where Age of Mythology was installed. By default, the game installs to the following directory:
C:Program FilesMicrosoft GamesAge of Mythology

Right click on the AOM.exe file. Click on the Copy menu item

Minimize all windows. On the desktop, right click and click on the Paste Shortcut menu item. A shortcut named “Age of Mythology” should appear on the desktop.

Right click on the “Age of Mythology” shortcut. Click on the Properties menu item.

Click on the text box beside the “Target” label. Modify the text box contents by adding the following switch:
OverrideAddress=x.x.x.x
Where x.x.x.x represents your Hamachi IP address.
For example, if you installed Age of Mythology in the default directory and your hamachi IP address is 5.5.10.10 then the text beside the Target label should read as follows:
“C:Program FilesMicrosoft GamesAge of Mythologyaom.exe” OverrideAddress=5.5.10.10
Click on the OK button.

Double click on the desktop icon to load Age of Mythology

Click on the Multiplayer button. Click on the Lan / Direct IP button.

Select a user name and click on the OK button

Click on the Host button.

Verify that the IP beside the “Alternate IP” label matches your Hamachi address (note:The IP never matches on this machine, but multiplayer gaming still works when I provide my real IP to other people. The same may be true of you).
You are now ready to host an AOM game using a hamachi address.

Regarding the note above, please share your experiences with this solution so the detail can be conformed re: the last slide.

Open a web browser (e.g. Internet Explorer, Firefox). Click in the address bar and type http://www.theglobeandmail.com
Press enter.

Find an article of interest underneath the “Globe Insider” banner. Click on the article title.

Highlight the article title and copy to the clipboard. One way to copy text is to highlight the text, right-click on the highlighted area and click on the “Copy” menu item.

Sanity Check: If the article is subscription-only then the web page will feature only an excerpt from the article along with a word count and the option to either subscribe or purchase the article directly.

Click in the web browser address bar and type

http://www.google.com

Press enter.

Click on the Google search box and paste the article title copied from the Globe and Mail page. Click on the Google Search button.

Search the Google results for the insider article. The correct article will have globeandmail.com in the URL and typically appears within the first 5 results. Click on the link to view the page.

The subscription article should appear in its entirety. Enjoy!

Note to the Globe:

Your anticipated annoyance aside, this doesn’t even count as hacking. In fact I discovered it by accident while adhering to the truism that virtually no subscription site allows Google to cache protected content. Anyone who googles the name of a Globe article that they hoped to find elsewhere for free could accidentally come across your so-called protected content. The Google method described above isn’t hacking on our part; it’s bad security on yours.

To your credit, at least you aren’t charging $10 for back articles like Sun Media (whose scheme can be defeated using similar methods – perhaps this is why they’re circling the drain).

An IP (Internet Protocol) address is a unique address within a network used by devices to communicate with other devices within the network. Computers, printers, routers, and network hard drives are examples of devices that could have an IP address within a network.

IP addresses are generally assigned according to country and internet provider. There are also some specially reserved IP addresses or IP ranges that are universally understood:

• Local Machine IP – The IP address 127.0.0.1 (localhost) is always synonymous with the local machine. This IP address is valid only within the local machine environment, as every computer is its own “localhost”.
• Private Network IP’s – The IP ranges 192.168.0.1-192.168.0.254, 10.0.0.0–10.255.255.255 and 172.16.0.0–172.31.255.255 are reserved for private internal networks, such as a home networks or corporate intranets. These IP addresses are only valid within the local network and cannot be used if, for instance, a user wanted to connect to another user over the internet. Thus, it is typical for a computer to have an IP address for the local network (e.g. 10.1.2.1) and an IP address visible to the Internet (e.g. 65.34.24.24), which is itself one large network.

For the purpose of this tutorial, private network IP’s will be referred to as internal IP’s while internet-accessible IP’s will be referred to as external IP’s.

Why would I need to know my IP address?

1. Network gaming [internal or external]
2. Running a private server (e.g. FTP, HTTP) [internal or external]
3. Windows file sharing within an home network [internal]
4. … and any time another computer or service needs to identify your machine for commication or software deployment

Method #1: Using the Windows Command Prompt for IP Lookup

(Assumption: You are using Windows 2000 or XP. Windows Vista is probably the same but it will be a cold day in hell before …)

The easiest way to determine a computer’s IP address is by using the windows command ipconfig.

Click on the windows start button.

Click on the Run option on the start menu. A pop-up window entitled “Run” should appear.

Type command in the text box (Windows 2000 users: use cmd instead). Click on the OK button.

Type ipconfig in the Windows command prompt and press the Enter key.

Lookup the number beside the label “IP Address”. This is at least one of the computer’s available IP addresses.

Recall from earlier that certain IP ranges are reserved for internal addresses. In this case the IP 192.168.1.101 represents the computer’s IP address within the LAN. Other machines on the LAN (e.g. computers, printers, network drives) can communicate with the computer using this IP address, but the address is unavailable to computers over the internet. The external IP address is required to connect to a network game or other service hosted outside the LAN. Fortunately, the external IP address can usually be determined by visiting certain web pages.

Method #2: Using an existing Web Page for IP Lookup

There are several instances where Method #1 cannot be used to obtain the required information. The most common instances are as follows:

• The external IP address is required but ipconfig only returns an internal IP address
• The Windows command prompt is disabled (this is sometimes done within corporate networks as a security measure).

Several web pages on the internet are dedicated to displaying a visitor’s external IP address.

Open a web browser and visit the following URL:
http://whatsmyip.org/

The external IP address will be displayed at the top of the screen.

It’s better to save helpful tutorials in to your pc so that you can have an online file sharing access with anyone of your friends in time of need. Some backup hosting sites do provide an online backup support for your websites. All kinds of data recovery programs are really helpful the data recovery of important files that had been deleted mistakenly.

Generally referred to as a social news site, Digg is technically a user-driven news aggregator. Registered Digg users can “digg” (i.e. bookmark and submit) an article on a web page by submitting a URL, along with a brief description. URL submissions are placed on display for other Digg users (registered or not) to read, comment on, rate, and bookmark for themselves.

How Digg can benefit your blog

Two words: heavy traffic. A popular Digg article can easily send thousands of new visitors to a website in a single day. A website does not need an explicit link to Digg in order to receive the benefits of Digg exposure; however, adding a link at the end of every post will give regular and special interest visitors the opportunity to promote an article to a large news-oriented audience. The larger form of the Digg button also specifies the number of times an article has been bookmarked, which can be used as an indicator of its popularity among targeted visitors.

How to add a Digg button to WordPress Posts

Digg support can be added directly to a WordPress blog via editing the PHP code for certain files within the blog’s theme. The main challenge is finding the correct files to edit, since WordPress themes can have different file structures. As such, this tutorial will be more of a strategy for altering a theme to add Digg support. To address most of the common issues users will encounter, a more complicated theme will be altered.

Prerequisites:

• A WordPress installation with the ability to edit theme files (generally speaking, online services that do not allow you to upload your own themes also won’t let you edit existing theme files)
• An account with administrator privileges (required for editing theme files)

Login to your site using the URL http://www.yoursite.com/wp-admin, where “www.yoursite.com” represents the root directory of the WordPress site. Enter the login and password then click on the Login button.

Click on the “Presentation” menu item, located on the top menu bar

Click on the Theme Editor menu item, located on the menu bar second from the top.

Going forward, the exact instructions may differ depending on the theme being used.

In General two pages need to be altered:

• The page that contains the main “loop” for the front index of the blog
• The page that displays content for a single blog post

First, look for the index page. The list of available theme files are listed long the right side of the window. It is best to start by searching a file that contains the term index or main index. In the case of this template (Unnamed One 1.0) the best candidate appears to be “Main Index Template”.

Generally speaking, an article link to digg should be placed directly before or after the content. In WordPress the content for a post is represented by the WordPress tag the_content.

Perform a search for the “the_content” in the index page.

Unfortunately, for this WordPress template the content tag does not appear directly in the index page. However, notice there are two PHP include tags for the php pages westagnewstop.php and theloop.php. The latter page sounds like a likely place to find the content tag, since a code loop is used to display each blog post on the front page.

Click on theloop.php and once again search for “the_content”.

Find the end of the PHP tag containing “the_content” (PHP tags end with the characters ?>). Press the return a key a few times to create space before the subsequent code. Paste the following code in the empty space.

Click on the Update File button

Click on the “Preview Site” link at the top of the admin page to preview changes. If the changes were successful, each blog post will be followed by a small digg icon showing the number of diggs that have been performed on the article. The user should also be able to click on the digg icon to submit the blog post to dig. If the blog post already has more than one digg, the region showing the number of diggs should like back to digg.com and shows a description of the article along with any comments from Digg users.

At this point, Digg links are available on the site’s index page, but not single-article pages. To add digg links to single-article pages, perform the same tag search and code insertion described above for the single post page. For the template in this example, the page is called “Single Post” but as always the name can change from template to template.

Alternative Methods for Adding Digg to WordPress

Sociable is a WordPress plugin that easily integrates bookmarking to multiple social news sites. Bloggers can configure their sites so that each post contains submission links to del.ici.ous, Digg, Furl, Newsvine, Yahoo MyWeb, Slashdot and dozens of lesser-known social news networks. As of writing, Sociable does not support use of the larger and more descriptive Digg buttons; however, its ease of use and support for multiple news sites may appeal to users who prefer an unobtrusive display or do not wish to edit PHP code.

Note: This tutorial may not be used to illegally reproduce copyrighted materials. American readers should review the Digital Millennium Copyright Act before attempting to circumvent any form of copy protection.

Software Alternatives

Please use the Google search bar to find the latest version of the software listed below.

Alternatives to DVD Shrink -

DVD Shrink is one of many transcoding tools available on the market. Other transcoding tools include the following:

Nero Recode
Slysoft CloneDVD
Rejig

Quality appears to be a religious battle, though DVD Shrink and the (apparently defunct) Instant Copy 8 appear to be the most frequently mentioned in online discussions.

Alternatives to DVD Decrypter -

DVD Decrypter was recently bought out by Macrovision Europe, which subsequently took to product off the market and forced most websites to cease distributing the install files. While DVD Decrypter is by far the best choice for ripping protected discs, there are several viable alternatives:

DVDFab Decrypter
SmartRipper
Vobrator
DVD43

Further Reading

The Doom9 website and forums are the best sources of information related to transcoding, encoding formats and other topics related to video.