Computer Security for Laymen(and Women)

I was driving around tonight, with lots of liquor in my car listening to the radio… What I heard was a guy complaining about his facebook getting hacked. A lot. That bothered me, and as such prompted me to do a short(ish) writeup about internet/computer security, for people who have no idea how a computer works (most of us)…

For starters, if you’ve noticed your e-mail or facebook sending out messages without you, and lots of angry friends bitching about spam, it’s time to get a bit more serious about your security… We live on our computers now and if you can’t protect your digital life, you’re going to regret it.

Good news and bad news. Bad News first: you cannot make your digital life 100% secure, because dedicated people (asshats) will find a way. Even if you disconnect from the internet. Good news is that most of us don’t warrant this kind of attention and most spam attacks and mundane things happen because people aren’t smart or careful. With a few simple steps, you can secure your digital life in such a way that most things won’t bother you.

For starters, let’s make sure your PC isn’t infected, or if it is, it’s cleaned. My advice, if you’re running Windows, go and download Microsoft Security Essentials. It’s free, doesn’t slow down your computer, and will clean off a lot of crap. It ignores spyware, those annoying cookies that track your online info, but it will clean off keyloggers (programs which track your keystrokes and steal your passwords), trojans (viruses masquerading as legit programs) and worms (self-replicating resource hogs). If you want to clean spyware too, google SuperANTISpyware. It works.

Now that your computer is clean, let’s start being smart… Common sense. CHANGE YOUR PASSWORDS!!! Got it?

Allow me to elaborate.

When you make a simple password, be it short, something important to you, or based off a dictionary word, can be cracked easily. My advice is use stupidly long passwords, because most people can’t guess them and it takes PCs a long time to break them, just make sure you remember them. If you DON’T go the obnoxiously-long route, try alt-codes, special characters, underscores… Anything not normal. Because it takes more time to guess. ALSO if possible, DO NOT USE THE SAME PASSWORD TWICE. Don’t use the same phrase for different accounts unless you can’t help yourself. 

I don’t expect anyone to completely change their habbits of how they use their computers after reading this. But a little common-sense and know-how goes a long way. If you want to know more, feel free to leave comments or e-mail me. 

Played my first game of Warhammer 40k Today…

So, I’ve been collecting Dark Angels for a fair bit now… A couple months. Since Dark Vengeance launched I guess. I have painted a 1500 point force and a friend from work happened to have a few armies, that he said he’d be happy to teach me how to play with.

Well I went to my local hobby center, of course no one besides me and him were there. Decent sized table. OpFor is Grey Knights.

My force:
Company Master with a Monster Slayer of Caliban and Artificer Armor
Mastery Level 2 Libararian with Foe Smiter and Meltabombs
2 Tactical Squads, with Vet Sergeants.
|_Squad 1 – Vet with Chainsword & Plasma Pistol, 7 Bolters, 1 Plasma Rifle, and 1 Plasma Cannon
|_ Squad 2 – Vet with Power Mace & bolt pistol, 7 Bolters, 1 Meltagun, 1 Missle Launcher
Deathwing Terminator Sqaud (Power Sword & Storm Bolter, SB&PF, SB&PF, SB&CF, AC&PF)
Ravenwing Attack Squad with Vet Sergeant w/ Chainsword, 1 biker with Plasma Rifle, 1 with Bolt Pistol
Ravenwing Support sqaudron (1 speeder) with Assault Cannon and Heavy Bolter
Rhino with Storm Bolter and HK Missle
Dreadnought with Missle Launcher and LasCannon.

OpFor – Grey Knights
1 Dreadnight with Nemesis Forceweapon
2 Sqauds of Justicars(?)
1 Squad of Paladins
1 Grand master
1 Champion
1 Vindicare Assassian

Short story is he blew up most of my bikes… Then Psy-Quaked me which broke my teleport homers. He worked the Dreadknight into close combat before I could kill it… Then occupied a shitload of my units for the whole game.

His sword was instant death and murdered my master, librarian, and their command squad, as well as most of my termies… Couldn’t punch through the armor. Plus 4 wounds. Come on…

I had to leave before the conclusion of the game, but I was able to kill his vindicare assassin (after he shrugged off 2 lascannon shots…) with my dread. Also used the speeder to whittle down his Justicars…

The dice did not roll well and I lost every unit using plasma to his own gun… Was quite pathetic. I rolled a lot of ones…

All in all, even though I lost, I learned more about movement, and how the actual game is played. It got me to think, and I can’t wait to play again, even though I’ll probably get roflstomped.

Started a new Hobby…

I recently got addicted to Warhammer 40,000. I picked up the Dark Vengeance set for a cool 100 bucks.

Dark Vengeance is an extraordinary value for money considering regular Games Workshop prices. You get a 5 Deathwing Terminators, 3 Ravenwing Bikes, 8 Tactical Marines, 1 seargent, 1 heavy plasma cannon wielder, 1 Librarian, and a Company Master, plus a bonus for special edition set, which is a specially modeled Interogator Chaplain, and that’s just from the Dark Angels.

Representing Chaos, you get 1 Chaos Lord Kranon, 4 Chaos Chosen, 1 “Hellbrute” dreadnought, and 2 squads of chaos cultists.

On top of all that, you get 6 regular D6s, a scatter die, translucent green templates, 2 measuring sticks, a quick play, and reference book, and a miniature rulebook with all the rules needed to play. No need for the 80 dollar hardcover huge one.

Mind you, the rulebook has all the rules for the game, just not the hobby related stuff. Still freaking sweet.

So obviously all the DA have an interesting color scheme. Well here’s how you paint the tactical Marines and those with robes

Info from GW:
Paint power Armor with a black primer coat, then a Caliban Green base with Nuln Oil wash. Edge highlighting with Warpstone Glow and then thinner with Moot Green.

For robes, start with Zandri Dust, then wash with Seraphim Sepia. Layer except in the recesses with Ushabti Bone, and then highlight the most raised areas with Screaming Skull.

The robe colors should also apply to the terminator scheme.

Ravenwing should be abbadon black base, edge highlighting with grays. GW was vauge on this, I recommend using Mechanicus Gray or lighter and then a gray or two lighter for the final edge high lighting. Eyes can be Mephiston Red base, with Wild Suns Scarlet in the front, and either Ceramite, or White Scars for the “glare marks”. Of if going green, try some more Caliban Green base and Warpstone in the front.

Good luck.

Woo

Going for my pistol license. In NY.

Control

Fall is upon us (at least here in the north-east United States) and that means that for some, within a few months, we’ll be blanketed with that white shit from God we all call snow.

Winter is one of my favorite times of year, because of Christmas, New Years, the opportunity to snowboard, skate, and take freezing walks with someone special (so you both don’t freeze), but there’s a reason I hate winter as well; it’s the snow.

Snow is white, but really it has no color. It’s just tiny water droplets that froze around some molecule of something less pure. It falls in inches. It sticks to everything and weighs a ton. It covers our cars making us start our commutes 20 minutes early to defrost the windshield!

Most importantly, and annoyingly, it blankets our roads, causing our tires to lose traction sooner, and thusly a loss of control. It makes our braking less effective, makes our cars more prone to spinning, and slows them down more than any other force in the world save friction by forcing us to drive slower to maintain control.

But like everything else in life, you can look with a pessimistic eye or an optimistic eye; it can be a hindrance to your driving, or an opportunity to improve it!

Car control, real car contol, fine car control is a skill not many people bother to master anymore. It’s something everyone can at the very least improve. With control comes better efficiency. Both in terms of gas mileage and time taken to travel. Every winter I learn more about car control. Everything has to be perfect in winter, braking; so you don’t plow into anyone, acceleration; so you don’t bog, turning; so you don’t careen off the road. Yet every winter I see more and more accidents from people who were too confident or under attentive.

This winter, I urge each and every driver to try and improve their driving. Even if you only once go to a parking lot after a heavy snowfall and practice sliding, you’ll still have practiced and know more in depth how to counter the slide. I think if everyone in the US took their driving even half as seriously as the Finnish do, that we would have fewer accidents and more people that enjoyed their cars.

I don’t understand why when cars are such a huge part of our lifestyle as Americans, we know so little about them.

Again, I urge everyone reading; improve your driving this winter. It may save your life, it will most likely save you money, and it will probably help you enjoy your car instead of it being a chore. Like anything else though, you have to want to improve yourself for it to be effective. But, please, if not for you then for the safety of others, become a better driver. I promise you will not regret it.

So Let’s Pretend For a Moment

… That I haven’t lost a lot in my life. That my parents haven’t split, that my breakups weren’t all disasters, that my cars haven’t all been disasters, that I haven’t been working the same minimum wage job for 3 years on the edge of getting fired and that my mind isn’t a briarpatch of hatred for all those things surrounding a frightened child who just wants to get the things he loves back, but everytime he ventures into the thorns he gets hurt…

Let’s pretend that isn’t the case. Let’s pretend this last relationship meant as much to me as it did to her (which was apparently not much), wouldn’t I still be depressed, that I’m again (still) single and feel like I wasted my time every night that I tried to stand by her and stay with her?

Maybe this is just an angry rant today with no basis in anything, but I miss her. Not my big ex. God no. She’s been further and further from that little boy, in fact she’s on an island with a bunch of other bitches out past the horizons of his vision.

The one I miss now is the girl who’s been occupying that little boy for some time now. While walking around the various natural paths in the briarpatch, the young boy, came upon a young girl. She seemed to be wandering as he was! He stopped and said hello. She returned the favor and they began to get to know each other. They walked around showing each other the trails. The boy even had to help the girl fend off the shadows in her own mind on occasion.

The Boy and girl became good friends. The boy worked hard to make sure they girl was enjoying herself, that she was happy. The girl smiled and hugged the boy. Sometimes even kissed him.

The boy and the girl navigated the briarpatch and the boy never once complained. Until he met some of his friends, and the girl found one of them to be more interesting and left the boy in the briarpatch… Without a word.

I miss this girl, but I can’t say anything to her… She doesn’t seem to care about me, my feelings or any of the things I did for her… Which to me hurts more than anything. Apathy sucks.

Girl: “I’ll be around for a while”
Boy: “until someone better comes along or you get bored?”
Girl: … No…

…Guess someone better came along.

The Briar Patch

Still hackin’ my way through it. Seems like it’ll never end sometimes. I hope I get through it.