Here is a good deal and frankly if you do not have one of these between your PC and your Cable,Fios or DSL modem you are asking for trouble. make sure to turn on wireless security of course!

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If you are interested in security then you know that the single worst thing you can do is load a pirated Operating System onto your computer. Case in point is there is now a Botnet with over 10,000 zombie computers out there running the new RC for Windows 7. Microsoft is off the hook for this one because it’s illegal software that’s causing the trouble. sure it’s not for sale yet and people real really really want it. but it’s the same crime as the Wolverine movie being downloaded from torrents weeks before the release date.

My Advice is to only load Operating system software where you can verify that it has not been tampered with between the producer and yourself. This can be done with MD5 hashes or with physical media from a known legitimate vendor I seriously Doubt that the SPAM you got that promised Vista for $20 OEM is legitimate so don’t ask me what I think. Be Smart because when you install a corrupted O/S in this way the provider of this could have manipulated many elements under the hood. For Example in the Malware that masquerades as a Virus Warning I’ve seen it redirect links on a google Search result and block connection to windowsupdate.microsoft.com imagine if it redirected software update to servers under their control [this is usually the case in these enterprises- a legitimate site will be compromised – not in a way that is noticable to the owners of the site but the dynamic nature of some element will be used to distribute Spam etc. it’s not uncommon that pharmacy spam is done this way where a company that is publishing using dynamic pages is turned into a shopping cart for one of these spamming groups. in this way the spam is never directly traced back to the origin of the SPAM but to an innocent company whos only Crime was not securing their application.

So Be Smart and don’t use Illegal Software. if you are using legal software but don’t have an antivirus or anti-spyware software you should check out

. Happy computing

I hope that the folks who are infected right now using this illegal software are facing for being ignorant, if they know better than I hope much worse happens than just a slow machine.

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So do Scammers. This is a Quick rant today about Adobe PDF Files and the Spam I just noticed in my Gmail account. This is so important to take  notice of.  Fortunately for me and other Gmail users Google has a good Spam Filter and this threat was lurking around in my junk mail folder and not in my inbox.  But, there are  I’m sure a ton of places where this might have gotten through.  I didn’t click on the link nor investigate any further but I just want to bring this to everyone’s attention so we can be better informed. With the popularity of PDF as a document type and the past Present risks that an older version of the Adobe reader presents to a Windows user these days made the hair on the back of my neck stick up when I see that the Internet criminals wanting to infect more machines are offering a download of  PDF reader software. I can’t STRESS THIS ENOUGH the only place that anyone should ever download the Acrobat Reader software is from adobe themselves.  this is the link http://get.adobe.com/reader/ it’s the safest place to get it.  That’s it for now

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Part 1 of 3 : Network basics and DNS.

So you’ve got a demo web site you want to show off but you don’t want a free host mucking up your design with their ads, you want your own URL instead of http://ISP/YourNameHere . What is an aspiring webmaster/web developer to do.  I recently was asked to help a buddy of mine out and came up with a few items for him to get his demo server up and running.

I’ve decided to share this info here so you can have a platform to demo your ideas.With that in mind, what you do with the information is and will always be your responsibility.

first that nifty Http://www.NameIWant.com/

           The first thing you need to do  is to contact  a company who provides service that will allow internet users to find your computer by name.  no not cj09482043.frf.gh.isp.ars.ggg.blah.co.uk or what ever a reverse DNS look up will return from your ISP.  The trick is to use a company called no-ip.com. they can register a domain name for you  and will direct  internet traffic over to your home PC or any other host that you control on the internet. 

so now I have traffic coming to my home IP address. it’s not working Why?

could be a few things.

possibility #1 no Server is listening/Windows Firewall or ipchains has not been modified. the first one is the service is not started or the web server program is not running at the moment. start it up and test by using http://localhost  if your site comes up locally but not remotely it could be a software firewall, I plan to write a  tutorial for the windows firewall in another post in the near future.

#2 router is not configured to send in traffic to the Sserver  If you end up with the control panel for your internet router you will need to take a few minutes and set up the router to do what is called “Port Forwarding” there are hundreds of possible routers so I suggest you get the manual out for your router and start there. of course you could always send me a note at csciumbata@hotmail.com can’t guarantee a reply but if I get enough of the same question you will see it on the site.

#3 your ISP enforces their rules and does not allow the inbound port 80 traffic (rare but possible) I’ve seen this on community WiFi networks so a rogue server does not go up and take over all of the bandwith.

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Saw This gem and thought it would be fun to share it here. They have it spot on. This kinda makes me want to never use twitter but I’m wise enough know it’s just like the way I felt about Beavis and Butthead many many years ago, I really didn’t want to like it, I REALLY didn’t want to… but a few months later there I was howling at the TV, ended up one of my faves of uh…. huh, huh, huh, yeah-huh huh, all time.
haven’t used my twitter account much yet, hit me up http://twitter.com/chrissciumbata

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