Another Day, Another Hidden Data Breach Exposed

Pfizer lost data, blah, blah, blah. All these reports do is strengthen the arguments for credit freezes and against data brokering. If we could freeze our credit reports, this wouldn't be a problem and if they didn't rape us for our data, this wouldn't have happened (oversimplified, yes, but it's the basic idea). Tags:

New NASA Space Suit

Because it's neat: MIT is working on a new suit that is far more flexible and lighter than the current puffy things. JTAG ERROR: No slashdot_ht index defined

The State of the RIAA Today

One defendant of the RIAA inquisition has just been awarded attorney’s fees against the RIAA. The article does a good job of summarizing the history of this case and includes links to articles about more resistance from defendants and the courts againts their unethical practices. It’s worth a read.

US Builds Iraqi Biometric Database

Under the guise of security, the Iraqi people are being cataloged into a US database. First, I want to make it clear that I do not necessarily oppose this move in that it's possible that it will be used properly to target terrorist while leaving innocent people alone. As with all the various privacy concerns here, though, the problem is in what else they plan to do with the data. And let's face it, the US governement has a sad, sick, history of abusing our data and privacy. JTAG ERROR: No privacyorg_ht index defined Tags:

A Blurb About Manhunt 2

I don't know a lot about this game other than it's very violent and has been banned from the UK. Reading about it doesn't make it any better:
“In Manhunt 2, players can mutilate their enemies with an axe; saw their skulls in half castrate them with a pair of pliers; or kill them by bashing their head into an electrical box, where a power surges eventually blows their head apart, ? the letter charges. “On the Nintendo Wii, players will actually act out the violence. One review of the game describes using a saw blade to "cut upward into a foe's groin and buttocks, motioning forward and backward with the Wii remote as you go. ?
Wow, you couldn't make it more real if you tried. Parental groups in the US aren't necessarily determined to ban it and would be satisfied with just giving it an Adult rating. While this is a completely reasonable request and, as far as I'm concerned, a blatantly obvious decision, Take-Two (the game's producer) is fighting this for purely monetary reasons:
An Adults Only rating, however, could be a death blow to the game, since Nintendo and Sony, maker of the PlayStation platform, currently have policies that bar AO-rated games for their systems. That would limit sales for use only on personal computers.
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Your Printer Spies on You

I just want to remind everyone about this so here’s a list of printers that print yellow “Tracking dots” on everything you print. The dots can be used to trace a print directly back to your printer in case of a crime or if something you printed is anywhere near a crime thus possibly involving you. Tags: ,

Beware Microsoft “Try before you buy” Deal

A Slashdot user warns us not to use the “Try before you buy” deal based on his experience with the same deal and Office 2003. He said it changed all the file types to 2003 so when the trial was over, he wasn’t able to access any of his files. Usually, the program will warn you before updating the format, but it won’t warn you that anything you create from scratch during the trial will be locked into the newer program. And as you can read in the comments, most people agree that it’s ridiculous that Microsoft refuses to make the files backwards compatible. Tags:

No Unistall Command in Vista?

Apparently, a recent update to Vista has disabled program uninstall. That sounds like a big problem to me, but so far, no word from Microsoft on the issue. Tags:

Hackers Winning Microsoft DRM Battle

Let’s hear it for the winning team! Yeah! Tags:

More Bad News For the RIAA

Two things today: This and this. I didn’t have the strength to summarize these, but check them out if you’re a fan of watching the RIAA scum writhe.

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Making Good Passwords

To understand what makes a good password, let's talk about what makes a bad one first.
Making good passwords can be complex, but here are some tips and tricks that will make it easier.

Password Protection

Once you've taken the trouble to make a good password, the next step is to keep it safe!
Now that you've done all this work, you have to learn the most important rule of all: DON'T GIVE THEM AWAY!

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Bad Passwords

To understand what makes good passwords, first check out some of the worst passwords out there and what makes them so bad.

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Password Tips and Tricks

It's impossible to expect someone to make good passwords by just giving them some rules. There are tricks that make your passwords secure and easy for you all at the same time.

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Password Protection

It's really a skill to come up with secure passwords that you can remember. Once you've learned how, remember that it doesn't matter how good you are if you don't protect your password properly.

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Password Mugging

A disturbing new practice among websites and services is where they ask you for your user name and password to other sites. I call this "Password Mugging"

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