Free Computer Consultant ………. Daily Insights

Amazon.com is being sued by a 17 year old after remotely logging back into Kindle devices all over the world to delete the classic book “1984″ which it found to be a pirated copy that had been offered for sale.

This is disturbing to think that Amazon feels the right to reach back into a device to delete something that had been purchased. Automatic refunds were given but that does not compensate this teenager who had written extensive notes about the book for a class assignment.

All of those notes now reference a non-existent book.

This is shameful of Amazon to think they can do this with no prior notice to consumers that they even had the ability to do this, let alone the right.

While this is not exactly “cloud computing”, I am less than enthused about the Kindle for this very reason. When I buy something I want it in my own personal possession, and this is one reason why.

I hope this lawsuit does achieve class action status and I further hope that the courts will prevent Amazon or anyone else from doing something like this in the future.

When it rains it pours. I recently found my dream solution for Anonymous Web Surfing and then my friend Peter Grandich had this video on his blog. (The secure tunnel I’m using is a product of GoTrusted.)

Now I’m not ordinarily aligned with the ACLU on much; unfortunately that has changed since 9/11.

The video pretty much says it all. But if that wasn’t enough, Bruce Schneier had more privacy eroding news in his monthly newsletter this month too.

For instance, do you think pressing *67 before making a phone call will hide your caller ID? Not if it’s going to an 800 number (because they pay for the call they get to know). There are many services that easily allow you to forward your calls to an 800 number of yours and voila’ – there’s the caller ID. Now a service allows you to program that in automatically.

(The same company offers a fee service that will offer up a phony caller ID to protect you.)

Anonymous Web Surfing not only protects your information when surfing over open WiFi (airport, cafe, school, etc) but also hides your real IP address (which can tell approximately where you are located) and the content of your surfing.

My previous post covers more advantages of a service such as this and why I do NOT use Tor.

Past is prologue; start today protecting the amount of data you “litter” for others to capture, store forever, and maybe use against you.

Start your GoTrusted free trial now.

There are a number of reasons why a person (with nothing to hide) might want to surf the internet anonymously. Let’s take a look:

• You are using open WiFi either at home, airport, cafe, school. It is very easy to snoop on internet traffic going through open WiFi networks and is done all of the time.
• Your legitimate work or hobby may entail your surfing web pages with words or phrases, which, taken out of context, could result in attracting unwanted interest from TLA’s (three letter agencies) with a propensity to send black outfitted employees with jack boots kicking in doors at 3 am.
• Perhaps your surfing needs are blocked by corporate or family filters that prevent you from the information you need (think “breast cancer research” to name just one).
• You don’t want to trust your local ISP and everyone working there to not “accidentally” monitor your instant messaging, email or surfing.
• You desire to add one more layer of protection to your online banking and brokerage activities.

The list above is not all inclusive as to why you might be interested in a very low cost anonymous surfing solution, but it’s long enough to get the picture.

For quite some time users with a flare for adventure have at one time or another tried to download, install, configure and use the widely known “free” internet anonymizer called “Tor”. Tor is free, getting a bit easier to use than in the past, and does do a reasonable job of providing internet surfing anonymity.

Tor uses volunteers to offer their computers as Tor servers, sacrificing some of their own bandwidth, to allow Tor clients such as yourself to mask their online identity.

Here are a couple of reasons why I think Tor falls short and you should look at a pay service (although I consider $5.99 per month for a quality service that WORKS to be reasonable):

• Tor is not for the average everyday user to install and trouble shoot
• Tor, every time I have tried it, reduces my internet connection to a CRAWL
• Tor servers are volunteers, unknown to you – certainly many of them are provided by the aforementioned TLA’s (three letter agencies with bloated “war” budgets and propensity to dress employees in black – head to toe)

Here is the anonymous surfing solution I use

Whenever I buy something, if possible, I try it before I buy it. That’s why I love free trials. GoTrusted offers a 7 day free trial of their anonymous VPN service for safe WiFi use and internet anonymity and I signed up.

What I expected was a solution that was semi difficult to install and would slow down my internet connection.

NOT!

What I found is a phenomenal service that is:

• Simple to setup
• Easy to use
• FAST! – Not only did I see ZERO decrease in web pages loading, but I ran many tests with SpeakEasy’s internet speed test. My download speed was not decreased measurably at all; and my upload speed is actually FASTER!
• Bonus spam protected email address

I originally expected I would use the GoTrusted secure tunnel only when I specifically had a need for it. But since it is every bit as fast on the downloads and actually measures FASTER on the uploads, why not use it all of the time?

This is one of the few products in recent memory that actually EXCEEDED my expectations and I cannot give it a high enough recommendation.

Get your FREE Trial here and start Anonymous Web Surfing right now.

Many people have used a free antivirus program from Grisoft known as AVG Free.

For the most part it has been a decent free antivirus program, although not a complete internet security suite.

With version 7.5, Grisoft made the program harder to find. Now with version 8 they are adding a “feature” that kind of helps you but only by “phoning home”.

When you upgrade to AVG version 8, you have the option to install the AVG Security Toolbar which comes with Yahoo! search box (I have written about the default addin crap that previously trusted vendors were polluting our machines with in this post).

With the AVG Security Toolbar you get another “bonus” whether you want it or not – LinkScanner.

When you search, LinkScanner “phones home” to check the sites returned by the search, much like McAfee’s SiteAdvisor (the only offering from McAfee that I recommend) except that it leaves your IP address on Grisoft’s servers which could potentially identify you in conjunction with the search.

Virus Bulletin has stated that in the process of checking out a site, LinkScanner emulates actually going there!

You can turn off LinkScanner, and I recommend you do so. Double click the AVG icon in the system tray. Under Tools, Advanced settings you can choose LinkScanner and uncheck “Enable AVG Search-Shield”.

You will have to restart your browser, but then you should be good.

There have been many reports in the news lately of beauty queens whose title is under attack or whose crown has been taken away due to unladylike photos or other information surfacing on the internet.

Miss New Jersey and her blackmail issue is only one of the more high profile, recent cases.

Our local news just last night mentioned a local county fair beauty pageant where 7 of the 8 contestants have their myspace.com and facebook.com profiles marked “private”, so only their friends can see them.

Girls, wake up. If you are beauty queen material then you ought to know that your circle of friends includes some who are just waiting for an opportunity to put a knife in your back.

If winning notoriety in a pageant is high on your list of importance in life, then maybe you will have to sacrifice having racy photos of yourself, your underage drinking and where your boyfriend puts his mouth in public available in high resolution on the internet.

If you think marking your myspace or facebook entry “private” is really that secure, then think again. MySpace has been hacked before at the server level, you don’t think there is someone who can hack (or guess) your password (No1Queen)?

I suppose you regularly login to your internet blogs, websites and spaces over WiFi at the campus? That’s secure.

Information that is sitting on any server attached to the internet is NOT private. Learn that now.

The internet is not, nor ever will be (IMHO), known for privacy. If you don’t want the photos in the tabloids, then destroy them.

Better yet, don’t indulge in the behavior that will get you de-throned in the first place. Almost everyone has a cell phone or other camera device; and if it’s not that it could be a security camera, and the people with access to those tapes are not always stupid – they know opportunity when it knocks.

Knock, knock.

This Yahoo! Tech story is the first time I have seen anyone in the mainstream have any concern about privacy.

Even many oldsters are banging the drum “Privacy is impossible anymore, just forget about it”. Ok, let’s say that’s good advice (though I don’t think so). How smart is it to flaunt your life on the internet? Yes it works for Paris Hilton, but she obviously is in it for something other than the money.

I am glad to see that videos, photos, etc can now be posted with limited access on sites such as Youtube; but even before that was possible, many just don’t seem to care.

If you don’t care about your own privacy, fine. Perhaps I should include some links here to identity theft help websites. But think twice before screwing it up for your children, other people’s children or even other friends and acquaintances who you happen to have captured with your digital photography.

And while you are at it, remember those naive youngsters who have been fired or not hired because of what their employer or potential employer read on their myspace page or captured at the corporate firewall from their IM.

Loose lips sink ships, as they used to say. And if a picture is still worth a thousand words, then what’s a video worth?