Live.TWiT.tv had a great discussion this week between Barrett Lyon and Richard Stiennon on the topic of the recent Denial-of-Service attack on several U.S. Government websites and South Korean websites. You can find the video of this discussion on OdTV.me.
Other related links:
You do backup, right? Do you backup everything and maintain an offsite copy? Excellant!
I keep meaning to write up my backup routine. But in the mean time, one area that I am weak in is backing up my Google Docs documents. There does’nt seem to be an automated way at this time. But there is a simple manual way with the use of Firefox, Grease Monkey, a Grease Monkey script called Google Docs: Download and DownThemAll.
Google Docs has become my primary suite for word processing and spreadsheets. Those things need to be backed up too! If Google turns evil or dies just when I need a document then I want to have my work available somewhere. Check out Google Docs: Download for instructions on how to get all this working together to backup your Google Docs.
Once DownThemAll is complete, all the documents are local on my computer and then get backed-up by my regular means and copied offsite.
SO the next time you are checking your backups, make sure you backup the stuff you have in the cloud too!
The Conficker Working Group, a group of companies, agencies and organizations with an interest in putting a stop to the Conficker Worm, has a great little tool for quickly testing weather you have one of the three versions of Conficker.
Click on the image of the Conficker Eye Chart and it will present a page with six images. If any of the top row of images does not load then you might have a problem with Conficker.
Visit the site for a better explanation.
It’s too bad that every virus or worm wouldn’t provide a simple means like this for their detection. So make sure your operating system stays up-to-date and that you run an up-to-date anti-virus protection. And don’t install crap!
Of course, if you are on a Mac or Linux computer then you wont have a problem at all. At least not with Conficker.
I hope this is an April Fools joke! A bill has been proposed in the U.S. Senate that would empower the government to set and enforce security standards for private industry.
From the Washington Post: “Senate Legislation Would Federalize Cybersecurity”
The proposals, in Senate legislation that could be introduced as early as today, would broaden the focus of the government’s cybersecurity efforts to include not only military networks but also private systems that control essentials such as electricity and water distribution. At the same time, the bill would add regulatory teeth to ensure industry compliance with the rules, congressional officials familiar with the plan said yesterday.
The legislation is co-sponsored by Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John D. Rockefeller IV of W.Virginia and Sen. Olympia J. Snowe of Maine, my home state.
On the face of it, this sounds good. A government agency who is responsible for monitoring and reacting in conjunction with other agencies in the event of an attack on our nations cyber-infrastructure.
But I am not in favor of a bigger government. Also, I think there is a lot of good going on in the private sector in regards to security. They don’t need regulation. I believe that Homeland Security already has authority to respond to threats and attacks on the internet. I prefer that legal due process remain in place and fear that a new agency would be given powers to circumvent the courts.
I guess we shall see how this turns out and I look forward to reading what more inteligent and thoughtful writers have to say about this idea.
Read the entire article:
Unless you have been living under a rock, then you’ve heard about the Conficker worm and that it’s expected to start communicating with other computers on the Internet on April 1, 2009. Tomorrow! It’s not clear what to expect but the hype is growing. The following is a list of links if you are looking for more info or help.
So if you think you are in trouble then check these links out. But whatever you think, you should always maintain an up-to-date computer, with up-to-date anti-virus and anti-spyware tools. Be careful what you agree to when you get a pop-up from the internet.
Stay safe and happy computing!
