Internet Security

**Crazy Jim Wood** · 11-23-10 12:49

Originally Posted by Willieherman [View Original Post]

It has been my experience that sending money to Western Union is a big red flag for rip-off. It may be different in your area, but not in mine.

No, I am not sending money "to" WU. I am sending money through WU to people I know, there is no scam. I am not just sending money to WU. The problem is, WU wants the people I send money to to provide my name and phone number. For obvious reasons I do not want the chica to know my full name and phone number, because I don't want them calling my house or googling me and showing up at my front door one day.

**Willieherman** · 11-23-10 10:51

It has been my experience that sending money to Western Union is a big red flag for rip-off. It may be different in your area, but not in mine.

**Crazy Jim Wood** · 11-23-10 10:42

With the Nazi regime now ensconced in the USA, every aspect of our lives is subject to the most intense scrutiny.

I try to send WU and the person I sent the money to says she cannot get it unless I tell her my name, my city, and my phone.

Well, I do not want her to see these things!

WTF!

She has the MTCN, it is a small amount of money. There is a space where I can put a security question. Her name is on it. Why can't she just get the money from WU by presenting the MTCN?

Is this just some local idiocy at this particular WU, or is this WU everywhere?

I finally found a WU that does not require me to present I'd, I use a fake phone number and PO box. But now the assholes on the other end want me to give my info to the chica so she can get the money.

Does anyone have some advice on how to send money annonymously?

To be honest, it is not so much Big Brother I am worried about, as it is all the other idiots. Not to mention the chica on the other side and the s / o back home.

**Rich60** · 05-27-10 21:29

Microsoft has a free anitvirus program thats pretty good and free updates for personnel computers.

http://www.microsoft.com/security_es...s/default.aspx

R60

**Misfit** · 04-04-10 05:09

I also use Spybot Search & Destroy. It's excellent & free.

Misfit

**Grimpy** · 03-31-10 00:55

One thing for many of you who run without antivirus to consider: Many of the major Internet Service Providers provide an antivirus program for you to download and install as a part of your service, either for Free or for a discounted amount. I know ATT offers McAfee (my deluxe pacakage comes with the ability to install on 7 computers), and I also know Comcast offers Norton Security Suite (not sure how many licenses you get there.)

You may also want to consider the free antivirus packages Avast! and AVG.

As to malware protection, I have used Spybot Search & Destroy from SaferNetworking for almost 10 years now. They're much better for cleanup after the fact, not livetime protection, although they do have some good protection in the way of the Immunize function and TeaTimer to try to stop any changes to known areas that malware likes to take hold.

**Misfit** · 12-20-09 06:24

Cost me a Ben, but am now completely protected with the software Norton 360 Premier Edition with automatic updates every 15 mins. Comes with a 1 yr. license included. Virus & Spyware removal, also a Firewall. Not promoting the software, just a simple comment.

Misfit

**Misfit** · 08-23-09 06:31

Guys be careful on what you click on when watching porn vids on the net. Last weekend I got a nasty program downloaded into my system. It was called braviax.exe
It corrupted my Norton Anti-Virus, Norton Firewall, Spybot, & everytime I booted the computer it would disable my Windows Firewall.

I finally had to buy a Spyware Removal program named Ad-aware Plus which finally got rid of the Malware & fixed my registery. All my programs are fine now. Just be careful on what you let inside your computer.

Misfit

**Member #1174** · 08-21-09 06:53

Jackson, thanks for your post on the Wtby board. It reallys helps to alleviate me of the worries about the site security. My kudos to you!!!

C'est tout.

**Jack Ryan** · 08-20-09 18:24

Originally Posted by Bubba261

....well done, handled perfectly. And thanks for the lengthy explanation, many other members were concerned with the reaons and ultimate outcome of this "confrontation".

Thanks again.

Jackson Thank You for all you do.

Jack

**Bubba261** · 08-20-09 18:07

....well done, handled perfectly. And thanks for the lengthy explanation, many other members were concerned with the reaons and ultimate outcome of this "confrontation".

Thanks again.

**Horndog132** · 02-04-09 06:46

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The online networking site ******* has identified and barred some 90,000 registered sex offenders from using the site over the last two years, ******* revealed to an investigative task force on Tuesday.

The "shocking" number was 40,000 more than ******* had previously acknowledged, according to Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, a co-chairman of the task force of state attorneys general looking into sex offenders' use of social networking.

*******, owned by News Corp.'s Fox Interactive Media digital division, disclosed the figures to the task force in response to a subpoena.

"This shocking revelation, resulting from our subpoena, provides compelling proof that social networking sites remain rife with sexual predators," Blumenthal said in a statement.

Blumenthal's office said it was awaiting a response to a similar subpoena issued to Facebook, another popular social networking site that his office said also might host "substantial numbers of convicted offenders."

Facebook's Chief Privacy Officer Chris Kelly said in a statement it was working with Blumenthal's office but said the site had "not yet had to handle a case of a registered sex offender meeting a minor through Facebook."

"Unlike ******* or other social networking sites, Facebook has always enforced a real-name culture and has developed and deployed social verification and powerful privacy rules that allow people to interact in a safer and more trusted environment," the statement said.

Two years ago, ******* commissioned background verification firm Sentinel Safe Tech Holdings Corp. to create a national database of sex offenders after reports that some of its teenage users were abducted by sex predators.

Sentinel operates a U.S. database of sex offenders that includes as many as 120 details for each offender, from their names and addresses to their scars and tattoos, Sentinel Chief Executive John Cardillo said.

Before the national database was created, information on convicted sex offenders was available only locally.

******* said on Tuesday the technology had enabled it to identify 90,000 users as registered sex offenders -- people who have been found guilty of sex crimes and ordered to register with law enforcement officials -- and had removed and blocked them from the site.

"We can confirm that ******* has removed these individuals from our site and is providing data about these offenders to any law enforcement agency including the Attorney General's in Connecticut," *******'s Chief Security Officer Hemanshu Nigam said in a statement.

(Reporting by Edith Honan; Editing by Ellen Wulfhorst and Philip Barbara)

**Black Treechas** · 01-25-09 15:21

Without thinking, I went to usasexguide.com instead of usasexguide.info. The com site brought up a bunch of stuff like free movie clips, webcams, etc. So like an idiot I clicked on one, and got a really really nasty virus. It was a little costly and time consuming. If you go to the com site by accident, leave it right away, don't be tempted to try anything there.

**NobodyYouKnow** · 01-13-09 18:19

Originally Posted by Square Tree

How does a history/internet browsing cleaner such as Crap Cleaner (CCleaner) compare to the CleanUP and the Eraser products mentioned in earlier posts??

I'm not sure how they compare. CCleaner will find your browser's cache and clean it but you have to turn on the secure deletion in the options, and it handles cookies. Eraser would be less useful as it would involve more work to remove the files, and CleanUP appears to just delete temporary files and not in a secure manner.

"delete in a secure manner" means to overwrite the existing file with random data multiple times. The more passes of random data written, the less likely a snooper will be able to glean useful information, even if they "recover" the file.

**NobodyYouKnow** · 01-13-09 17:49

Originally Posted by Fred Reed

The hard drive version of Linux is better than windows for internet security. However if the police raid your house, they can access the files on your hard drive.

The truly paranoid can always encrypt their filesystem(s). Here's an article describing how to encrypt the / filesystem in linux http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/7743, and it contains a reference to an article describing how to encrypt just your $HOME directory. Don't forget your encryption password, or you're screwed.

Windows can do something similar, but I've never used either, so I don't know how good/bad/indifferent a job they do.

Addendum: if you carry a USB thumb drive with any sort of sensitive information on it, you'll probably want to encrypt the thing. These things are ridiculously easy to lose, misplace, or have swiped. For that, you might want to look at TrueCrypt, a free open source encryption program:

http://www.truecrypt.org/

Since my day job is that of BOFH, let me give thumbs up to CCleaner, Eraser, Malwarebytes, Spybot Search and Destroy, Spyware Blaster and the free AVG anti-virus program. I had a couple of clients come in with a nasty little infection, and Malwarebytes cleaned it right out.

Oh, and the folks who made CCleaner have released a free disk defragmenter
http://www.defraggler.com/

One should have bootable CD/DVDs to recover a system that doesn't want to load the OS, be it windows or linux. If for no other reason than to be able to copy your important files to an external HD so if you need to do a wipe & load, you won't actually lose anything.

Ultimate boot cd: http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/ has a boatload of diagnostic utilities and recovery tools. Personally, I'm partial to the Clonezilla/Gparted live CD http://gpartedclonz.tuxfamily.org/ to make an image of a freshly installed machine, and acts like the Ghost program in that you can restore that computer back to that image at any time.

And if you're going to sell/give your computer to someone else, you really should get a copy of Darik's Boot and Nuke live CD http://www.dban.org/ and wipe those disks. I'm partial to an 8 pass PRNG Stream erasure, but YMMV.