The Eternal Individual

Some people worry that home security systems only add more work to life’s already hectic routine. These alarms however are not as complicated to operate as you might initially think. No matter what your plans are, you can be confident that protection is one thing less to worry about.

All of us have created a morning routine that we adhere to religiously. After a month or so, using a burglar alarm will become part of that same routine. That’s the greatest thing about it - security for the home and with little input on your part. Also, if you believe that they’re ready, it might be worth passing the activation code to your kids.

An alarm button is a minor but helpful addition to any security system. With a simple press of the button, senior family members will be able to summon help. Your family and your belongings will be well protected when you’re at work or doing chores. A vacation from work and normal life can be great, but there’s always the problem of leaving the house empty. However, try not to allow these headaches to ruin the holiday you’ve probably been planning for months. If your house is watched over by a trespasser alarm, you’ll be able to focus on your vacation. Like the emergency button already mentioned, most home intruder units are now sold with many other additional add-ons. You might be tempted by the wireless alarm variant, an ideal alternative for when you desire an extra layer of security. In addition, bear in mind the multiple types of alarms available. Which one suits you best? For indoor types there are microwave, ultrasonic and glass break models. For outdoor use, there are vibration/inertia sensors, microphonic systems and microwave barriers. The classified ads are going to be your best bet to find what you’re looking for: try typing in “alarm systems New York” or similar into a search engine and work from there. As soon as you have a quality home security system installed, it will only take two seconds to set-up and switch off. Although it won’t dramatically change your life, you’ll find that a burglar alarm will make it simpler and significantly less trying. Best of luck in finding one that suits you!

Well, there she is its use growing she is tropical hurricane Leslie and she is looking for a place for landfall. No word yet all the exact location of landfall, however the supercomputers or crunchy numbers and data taken from the hurricane hunters, buoys in the ocean and satellite imagery from NOAA and NASA.

All this data is being poured over by the national hurricane center in Miami, as well as your favorite folks at the weather Channel and they are getting closer to predict the hurricane Leslie’s exact point of impact to our civilization. It appears we’re halfway through the hurricane season, however if you’ll recall the 2005 Atlantic tropical hurricane season in its record shattering links, number of hurricanes and intensity of those hurricanes you will see exactly why many stop short in saying that we are only halfway through. If you’ll remember that there was actually hurricane on New Year’s Day in 2006.

So that means that this 2006 Atlantic tropical hurricane season could go along for quite a while longer and we might get some even more devastating storms we’ve already have. It looks as if FEMA is indeed doing a great job this year, as it mops up the mess, restores order and helps rebuild the devastated coastline. Consider all this in 2006.

“Lance Winslow” - Online Think Tank forum board. If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance; http://www.WorldThinkTank.net/wttbbs/

As soon as almost all computer users already got used to — or at least heard about — the word “phishing”, another somewhat confusing word appeared. Pharming. Does it differ from phishing — if yes, how?

Two Pharmings

Actually, two completely different fields use the term “pharming” now. We can say there exist two separate “pharmings”.

If genetics or businessmen from pharmaceutical industry are talking about pharming (spelled like that) it might have nothing to do with computers. This word has long been familiar to genetic engineers. For them, it’s a merger of “farming” and “pharmaceutical” and means the genetic engineering technique — inserting extraneous genes into host animals or plants in order to make them produce some pharmaceutical product. Although it is very interesting matter, this article isn’t about it.

As for PC users, the term “pharming” recently emerged to denote exploitation of a vulnerability in the DNS server software caused by malicious code. This code allows the cybercriminal who contaminated this PC with it to redirect traffic from one IP-address to the one he specified. In other words, a user who types in a URL goes to another web site, not the one he wanted to–and isn’t supposed to notice the difference.

Usually such a website is disguised to look like a legitimate one — of a bank or a credit card company. Sites of this kind are used solely to steal users’ confidential information such as passwords, PIN numbers, SSNs and account numbers.

Dangerous Scams

A fake website that’s what “traditional” phishing has in common with pharming. This scam can fool even an experienced computer user, and it makes pharming a grave threat. The danger here is that users don’t click an email link to get to a counterfeit website.

Most people enter their personal information, unaware of possible fraud. Why should they suspect anything if they type the URL themselves, not following any links in a suspiciously-looking email?

Unfortunately, “ordinary” phishers are also getting smarter. They eagerly learn; there is too much money involved to make criminals earnest students. At first phishing consisted only of a social engineering scam in which phishers spammed consumer e-mail accounts with letters ostensibly from banks. The more people got aware of the scam, the less spelling mistakes these messages contained, and the more fraudulent websites looked like legitimate ones.

Since about November 2004 there has been a lot of publications of a scheme which at first was seen as a new kind of phishing. This technique includes contaminating a PC with a Trojan horse program. The problem is that this Trojan contains a keylogger which lurks at the background until the user of the infected PC visits one of the specified websites. Then the keylogger comes to life to do what it was created for — to steal information.

It seems that this technique is actually a separate scam aimed at stealing personal information and such attacks are on the rise. Security vendor Symantec warns about commercialisation of malware — cybercriminals prefer cash to fun, so various kinds of information-stealing software are used more actively.

Spy Audit survey made by ISP Earthlink and Webroot Software also shows disturbing figures - 33.17% PCs contaminated with some program with information stealing capability.

However, more sophisticated identity theft attempts coexist with “old-fashioned” phishing scams. That is why users should not forget the advice which they all are likely to have learned by heart:

• Never follow a link in an email, if it claims to be from a financial institution
• Never open an attachment if the email is from somebody you don’t know
• Protect your PC from malware
• Stay on the alert

Alexandra Gamanenko currently works at Raytown Corporation, LLC — an independent software developing company that provides various solutions for information security.
The company’s R&D department created an innovative technology, which disables the very processes of information capturing — keylogging, screenshoting, etc. It prevents keylogging programs or modules from stealing information.

Learn more — visit the company’s website
www.anti-keyloggers.com