The Dragon that Guards the Data: No Pet Names in Passwords!


A number of people have wound up calling me to help them recover their computers when the problem was simply that some website had been given permission to send notifications. When browsing, be very careful. The more popular the category in which you’re searching, the more likely there are bad websites pretending to serve your…
I have made the point before that security and convenience tend to conflict. Having a secure password is harder than having one that’s easy to remember. Generally, if it’s easy to remember it’s easy to crack. Two-Factor Authentication is similarly inconvenient. I was reminded of that today when I was logging into a site and…
I’m just calling attention to this again, because I so frequently find all kinds of utilities on people’s machines. They don’t know what they are and don’t use them. They come from add-ons to installations. I wrote about this just under a year ago, in a post titled Security and Performance Tip: Installing Software. The…
Here’s an evaluation of Spybot Search and Destroy. I’ve also found the tool useful, but not as one’s sole protection.
The hope of getting something for nothing was encouraged with the advent of computers and software. For technically oriented people, it’s fairly easy, and relatively safe, to steal software. You just copy it. For many, especially in the early days, this didn’t seem like stealing. After all, where is the thing that you’re stealing? I…
I’m writing this article so that I can refer callers to it. It’s going to be very, very basic. I’ve been getting calls from people who have been referred by my clients, generally with serious malware issues on their computers. When I look at the machine I invariably find that there is a fairly simple…
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