How do I change privacy settings on Twitter?
I just want to know how I can make it so that people have to send me a request in order to follow me.
Settings > Account (You’ll automatically be directed there one you clicked ‘Settings’) > Scroll (That’s needed, I guess.xDD) > Click ‘Protect My Tweets’.
This exploit cannot be patched. The operating system cannot be upgraded. The exploit can completely bypass all your cyber security no matter how good your systems. The vulnerability is introduced every time someone sits down at the computer. Between the keyboard and chair. The exploit is “us”. The weakest link in any security chain is the human operating the computer. And the cybercrims understand this vulnerability very well.
In 2000, the ” I love You” worm made an incredible impression on the computer environment because of how fast the worm had propagated around the world from just one click. How long? One day. The worm started in the Phillipines on 4 May 2000 and made it around the world in 24 hours. By 13 May 2000, the worm had infected 50 million computers. The cost of the worm infection was approximately $5.5 billion in damages and overwhelmed most email systems very quickly. And why did this happen? The “perp” exploited a human weakness to be loved and the victim opened the malicious email and the rest was history.
At Defcon 18 in Las Vegas, a social engineering contest “how strong is your schmooze” was held. The contestants were given a victim whom the contestant was to gather enough data to be successful in their schmooze. There were some rules:
The companies included BP, Shell, Google, Proctor & Gamble, Microsoft, Apple, Cisco, Ford, Pepsi, Wal-Mart, Symantec, Philip Morris, Dell, and Verizon. To the amazement of the sponsors, the contestants were able to get information from all of the companies called. The gamut of company personnel ranged from chief technical officer to sales. “One employee was conned into opening programs on a company computer to read off specifications regarding types of software being used, details that would let a hacker tailor viruses to launch at the system. (Yahoo News, 2010)”
Social engineering is not anything new. One of the early social exploits happened between the Greeks and Trojans. The Greeks shut down the surrounding regions of Troy but could not get behind the walls of Troy. After nine years of war, the Greeks decide to try something else. One morning, the people of Troy see the Greek ships sailing away and this rather large wooden statue on wheels in front of the city. One lone Greek soldier, Sinon still remained, his job was to convince the town’s people the Greeks have given up and gone home.
Sinon complains the Greeks had abandon him and left the wooden horse a tribute to the impenetrable Trojan fortress. The city of Troy was just too difficult to penetrate. Everyone in the town celebrated the victory, with the exception of two people. Laocoon and Cassandra, spoke out against the horse telling people the premise made no sense and something was wrong but they were ignored. The Trojans celebrated what they thought was their victory, and dragged the wooden horse into Troy (Bunson, 1994). That night, the Greek soldiers emerged from the wooden structure and slaughtered the town’s people in their sleep.
To successfully exploit the PEBCAK vulnerability, the cybercrim will do some intelligence work. The exploiter will thoroughly go through any and all websites to extract as much information as possible. Next, the perp will use Maltego to see if there are any interesting bits of information that can be obtained from more sources regarding the target. These guys will look for company victims on Facebook and Twitter to become your friend. The next thing you know these people are getting to know you and will start asking interesting questions maybe about where you work and what you do. The con man can get more from you by being your friend than being a stranger.
Here are somethings to think about:
Ronald Reagan had a pretty good idea – “Trust but verify”. Do not plug unknown (found) devices into your computer, the cybercrims are writing really good exploits that launch when you plug in the device. The people hired to do surveys have a tough job but you can politely tell them you cannot answer questions. Do not put your where abouts on Facebook or Twitter — try calling your friends, they might want to hear from you, plus your friends might not be the only ones who care if you are not home. Do not open emails that are forwarded – even if it is from your mom. And finally, if your mom says she loves you, verify that fact with several other people, she could be saying that because she knows you so well and understands your sensitivity. Be safe, and know your friends – know your enemies even better.
And don’t be a stranger – visit us at
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Neowin.net is reporting that over 10,000 usernames and passwords were publicly disclosed from users of hotmail.com, msn.com, and live.com email services. All of the accounts initially posted begin with the letter a or b, suggesting that this may be the tip of the iceberg.
BBC News contacted Microsoft and was able to confirm the validity of the accounts that were released.
Microsoft has released a public statement saying their investigation determined the IDs were stolen through a phishing attack.
Part of their statement said “As part of that investigation, we determined that this was not a breach of internal Microsoft data and initiated our standard process of working to help customers regain control of their accounts.”
This raises the question of how many people fell victim to this attack, and is it still underway? I may not be able to answer these questions, but with over 10,000 accounts exposed from the first 2 letters of the alphabet the scope of this fraud could be very large.
Users who have followed Graham’s advice about using separate passwords for each site they use will minimize their exposure to just Microsoft’s online services.
Another question is what Microsoft means by “due to a phishing scheme”. Was this another view your blocked MSN friends website, or was it a direct phish of an impostor Hotmail login page? SophosLabs blogged about these attacks early in September, and it seems likely this may be related.
Computer World reported that this may be a similar attack to the one that disclosed private emails of vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin during last years U.S. election. I find this to be highly improbable.
To compromise 10,000 or more accounts in an apparently serial manner would not be practical by guessing security questions. It is far more likely an that users were duped into providing their passwords to a fraudulent website posing as Microsoft or an affiliate.
My recommendation for users of Microsoft’s online services is to change your passwords immediately. You are better to be safe than sorry, and password rotation is something we are often too lazy to do.
This is a great time to log into those Facebook, Twitter, Gmail, and Yahoo! accounts and do likewise as a simple best practice to prevent yourself from becoming a victim of habit.
Password rotation is not fun, but it is a great preventative to these types of disclosures.
If you are an IT administrator this would be a great time to remind your users to change their Microsoft Live!, MSN, and Hotmail passwords.
Additionally, as always, be sure your anti-spam protection is current and educate your users about phishing and clicking links in email. Sophos Web Appliance customers have been protected against the MSN friends scam for some time now, however technology and education are always the best solution.
My twitter, yahoo, and facebook got hacked into. What will happen to the person who did it?
My facebook and twitter got hacked into and the hacker changed my info around saying that I was gay and not only that but the person also got onto my craigslist account and posted a male for male ad in the personals section and gave out my phone number! Will anything happen to the person who did this?
They’ll be credited with revealing the truth lol
The biggest change in the past few years when it comes to the internet and the way that people use it is the rise of the social media networks. You have seen web sites such as Facebook, Myspace, Twitter and others get big in what seems like overnight. Facebook and Twitter are definitely the two that have broken away from the pack and have become huge as far as web sites go. When people need somewhere to communicate with others then these are the two web sites that they are more likely to go to. But there is a dark side to web sites such as these. Since there are a lot of people that visit and hang out on a web site such as this, there are a lot of attackers that will hang out there as well. Black hat hackers love a prime target and web sites such as these give it to them. One vulnerability in particular is very easy to get hit by on web sites such as these. That vulnerability is identity theft.
Why is it so easy to take someone’s identity on Facebook?
There is probably no other web site that will ask you to expose more about yourself and then put that information in public than Facebook. Sure, there are privacy settings that you can use to make sure that your information is not exposed but most people do not know how to work them. They will share a lot of information about themselves and it is usually for the world to see. Not only do they get your name but they also get other information about you as well. This other information often includes pictures, children, favorite movies, spouses and anything else that you have not explicitly set to private. One or two of these pieces of information would not be enough for an attacker to go after you. But when you add it all up, that is more than enough for a black hat hacker to do some damage. This why, you must take steps to be able to prevent an attack like this from happening to you.
How can you prevent an attack on your identity from Facebook?
The first thing that you must do is be very selective on who gets to see your information. Facebook is for the most part sharing information with people that you know. If do not know a person who is sending the friend request then you should not accept their friend request. Also, make sure that you set the proper privacy levels on everything that you send out. Facebook has different security levels; you just have to be sure to set them. Make sure everything is set to how you want it. Not everyone that is on your friends list has to see everything that you put up. Set the proper permission and that will go a long way to keeping you safe.
If you want to be safe on Facebook and other social media networks then you have to be careful about the information that you put out there. Make sure that it is nothing that will come back to haunt you.
Cellphones, Mobile Handsets
Dell Venue review
By Richard Lai posted Jan 24th 2011 3:16PM
Review
Yes, it’s the Dell Venue, and no, you still can’t buy one outside Hong Kong or South Korea just yet. All we can speculate is that this Android phone is facing the same manufacturing issues as its WP7 cousin, but hopefully we’re wrong. Anyhow, what matters is that we’ve finally gotten our hands on a retail unit of the Snapdragon-packing Venue. So is it worth the wait for Androiders distanced from the Far East? And will this handset be the answer for our love-hate relationship with the Streak? Head on right past the break to find out.
Dell Venue review
Hardware
It’s hard to deny that Dell’s come a long way with the styling of its mobile devices, evolving from the cheap-looking Axim Windows Mobile PDAs (although the X50 series received much love from the community) to the now eye-catching Venue duo. Like the Streak, we’ve had people inquiring us about or at least eyeing at our Venue — we’re guessing it’s mostly to do with the rounded chrome sides contrasting the black body, and the vibrant 4.1-inch AMOLED screen certainly helps as well despite its low visibility under strong daylight. Upon closer inspection, you’ll also notice the subtly curved “Shear Design” Gorilla Glass — which is also featured on the Venue Pro — that covers practically the entire face of the phone, thus contributing towards the Venue’s premium look no matter what angle you look at it from. Funnily enough, Dell didn’t place much emphasis on the Shear Design’s ergonomic benefits, but some of us feel that the curvature makes our thumb-swiping gesture slightly more comfortable. Maybe it’s just us.
On a related note, the Venue’s rounded sides and curved back also provide better grip, although there have been a few occasions when our naughty fingertips slipped around the back far enough to interfere with our touch input, especially when we’re lying in bed. Looking back at our other phones for a sanity check, we realised that their sharper edges along the screen are actually pretty effective at stopping our fingertips from accidentally touching the screen; whereas the Venue lacks such “feature” to warn our fingers. Ah well, guess we have to sacrifice a little for the looks.
Going back to the glass: despite our careful handling and short ownership so far, our Venue’s screen has somehow managed to accumulate a couple of light scratches. It sure was a surprise given the Gorilla Glass’ impressive performance in our previous torture test — perhaps our travel through the different climates of Hong Kong, Las Vegas and London made the material more vulnerable. We’ve written to Corning to see whether this is a possibility, so watch this space for an update.
Also noticeable at a close distance is the uneven finish on the chrome sides — slowly tilt them lengthwise under a spot of light and you’ll see small ripples running along them. That said, these are hardly noticeable from everyday usage, but we have a feeling that certain design houses like Apple and Nokia would frown upon this seemingly minor flaw. Regardless, we shouldn’t complain too much — HK$3,999 (US$514) isn’t bad for a Froyo HSDPA smartphone that packs a 1GHz Snapdragon, 1GB ROM, 512MB RAM, a good quality 8 megapixel camera (we’ll come to that later), and a 1400mAh battery that keeps us connected and entertained for a full day (with mainly 3G connection, some WiFi time, Twitter notifications, plenty of camera usage, some Internet browsing, and some music on the go). Speaking of which, we spotted an annoying bug when it comes to charging: we’ve never managed to charge the phone from zero percent using the wall outlet, even after leaving it plugged in overnight; yet plugging it into the computer gets it charging again, and about an hour later — yes, just one hour — we get full juice again regardless of the charging method. Coincidentally, we’ve also seen the same charging issue on the Venue Pro and the Streak as well, so here’s hoping that Dell’s engineers are reading this review.
Dell Venue vs Dell Venue Pro
Of course, we haven’t forgotten about one of the most important aspects of a phone: audio quality. We have no complaints about the earpiece’s performance, and noise suppression isn’t bad even in a noisy environment — it takes just one or two seconds to adjust to your voice. The loudspeaker, on the other hand, gently muddles phone calls from the other end of the line, and distortion is already apparent when playing music at around 70 percent volume (and this is only Diana Krall, not heavy metal). Even the Venue’s headphone mode isn’t perfect — we get a small amount of static noise when our earphones are plugged in; whereas our other phones produce a much cleaner audio through the same buds. Audiophiles need not apply here.
Update: Five days after our review was published, we noticed that something’s wrong with our Venue’s GPS performance — sometimes 3G data connection just dies when we attempt to use Foursquare or Google Maps, thus forcing us to manually re-enable the connection in settings. We thought it was a one-off when we first spotted this before we posted this article, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. Hopefully this is an isolated case.
Software
If you’ve already taken a gander at our Streak 2.2 update review, then you’ve pretty much seen this all before. Straight out of the box you get the full-screen Stage UI widgets (for music, Twitter, Facebook, recent apps, contacts, and mail), quick scrolling between homescreens in the area below the widgets, a backup and restore app (for SMS, ringtones, bookmarks, apps, etc.), a sync utility to go with its Windows desktop suite (for multimedia and Outlook management; installer preloaded on the 16GB microSD card), Quickoffice suite, TuneIn Radio app (no FM radio, though), and Swype keyboard. The usual every-day apps like Music, Gallery, and Camera are of the stock flavor, and obviously you get Flash and live wallpaper support to boot. All is good here, except for the backup and restore utility: it doesn’t really work. Well, it managed to restore once, but then it failed to revive the apps from the same backup after our second and third factory resets, despite the confirmation messages that said otherwise. Until Dell and Nero fix this bug, our advice is to just make a new backup after each restoration.
Even though superficially the Venue’s OS is identical to the one on the Streak, we noticed that the former has no landscape mode for the homescreens. Ironically, this is quite the opposite of the portrait-less problem we had on the Streak before 2.2. But on the bright side, the overall UI has been pretty smooth for us, and perhaps that’s why Dell’s decided to disable homescreen rotation — we did notice that there was a two to three-second delay between rotation on the Streak. As for benchmark performance, we got about 33 FLOPS on Linpack, 30fps on Neocore, and a humble score between 801 and 827 on Quadrant which is just behind the Galaxy S. Nothing outstanding, but nothing bad, either.
Dell Venue screenshots
Camera
Ah, now this is where it gets interesting. As mentioned earlier, the Venue comes with an 8 megapixel AF camera that doubles as a 720p camcorder, but there isn’t a front-facing camera. As with the resolution, picture quality has also been given a big boost compared to the Streak — the colors are almost spot-on even when cloudy or at night, although sometimes it requires a few shots and some tapping on the screen to get the focus just right in the dark. As far as settings go, you’d struggle to find anything missing — have a look at our stash of screenshots of the camera app in our software gallery and you’ll see a vast number of options to tinker with. Just to name a few: face tracking, macro, exposure, scene modes, color effects, auto exposure modes, and many more. In fact, there are probably too many of them on that messy menu — we almost missed the nifty panorama mode (it stitches four shots together, and you get visual aid for aligning when shooting) near the bottom of the long list, not to mention what a pain it is having to scroll all the way down to enable or disable it at launch.
Another niggle we have is the lens cover on the battery door. It doesn’t cause any problem in well-lit places, but at night, we noticed that the cover is prone to adding haze and reflections to our images, so be warned. A far more serious but less intermittent problem lies in the camcorder mode — you’ll notice that the night time clip in our sample video below suffers from two glitches early on, followed by audio and video going slightly out of sync. But since then we haven’t been able to replicate this bug. Otherwise, video quality isn’t bad, although it could do with a little bump in frame rate.
Dell Venue sample shots
Wrap-up
All in all, Dell’s delivered a solid phone that comes in nice package, as well as a form factor that’s no doubt more tolerable for the average joe. For what it’s worth, the Venue is certainly a very attractive deal (in Hong Kong, at least), especially with its relatively new OS, slick UI, and a surprisingly good camera. If Dell gets around to tweaking the charging issue, audio quality, camera app, and camcorder performance, then the Venue would pretty much be the must-have phone. Well, except we all know that it probably won’t get its 2.3 update until a gazillion months later. Anyway, it’d be good enough if Dell can amend some of these bugs before the Venue lands in other countries, if ever.
http://www.dellvenue.com
I’m so confused? PLEASE, help me!?
A month or two ago, I entered a playwriting contest. Not long afterwards, i got a letter in the mail from the Artistic Producer of the event, saying that I got a runner-up position. So today, I went to do the workshop for the script, and they (the Director) kept referencing my play as the winner. But on the press release, twitter, facebook, etc, it says that another person was the first place winner. She sat beside me the entire time, and didn’t say anything about it, but I could tell she seemed a little bugged. I didn’t want to say anything either, because he was directing my show and he had what he had in his notes. But her script also had a star on it. Tomorrow’s the actual presentation. Do I tell the director that I’m not the winner, or let my play be performed last (which is typically where the first place one goes) and stuff? I’m just really confused and I don’t know what to do…
And who won? Her or I? (It doesn’t really matter right now, I’m just curious…)
If you really know for sure you’re right then I’d talk to the director in private about it. Just say something simple 
Honesty is the best ! It’s good karma
