Tech Talk at ShieldsGroup

So today I received this email from eBay….

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I did not sign up for this account, so here’s what I did:

1. I did not click any links in the account, but went to ebay’s website manually in a Chrome incognito window.
2. I tried to log in with the eBay user-id and told it I forgot my password. It sent me a link to recover my password.
3. I did not click that link, but copied and pasted it into the Chrome incognito window. There I was able to change the password.
4. I examined all the account data, looking for other personal information (there was none) and any purchases or sales made with this fraudulent account (there were none).
5. Navigating to the “close my account” section, I was given the option to call eBay. I chose this option, and called, entering the one-time pin the system gave me.
6. After about five minutes on hold, I was able to explain to the representative what had happened, and she, looking over my account, advised me to close the account. I did that, as she waited on the line. She assured me this would end the matter.
7. I noted the content of the call in a file on my computer, and asked her for a call reference number, which she gave me.

So it seems that it was pretty easy to remedy this situation.

In the mean time, I am doing the following:

1. Enabling two-step authentication on my Paypal account. (It’s already enabled on my email accounts.)
2. Keeping a close eye on all my accounts, using an online monitoring system that reports to my phone.

I had all but stopped using Yahoo mail since, in my estimation, they didn’t take security as seriously as Gmail, but in recent months, Yahoo’s offered better protection than in the past.

If you’re concerned about security and using Yahoo for email, here’s five steps to making your Yahoo mail more secure.

1. Turn on SSL (secure socket layers) in Yahoo. This encrypts ALL mail in and out of yahoo, something they should have done years ago, but just initiated under pressure from security experts. You can see how to do this at http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2013/01/08/yahoo-mail-https-ssl/
2. Turn on Two-step verification logins on Yahoo. You can read about that here: http://news.softpedia.com/news/Yahoo-Introduces-Secure-Two-Step-Verification-Logins-239586.shtml (See the note at the end of this list.)
3. Use passwords that are sophisticated. You might use nonsense phrases that have meaning to you with misspelled words and numbers. Then you can easily remember them.
4. Keep your software updated: Java, your browser, MS Office, etc.
5. Also, be sure you have commercial grade antivirus on your PCs. You should use antivirus even if you’re using a Mac. The Java exploit that’s been trashing machines over the past few weeks didn’t care what machine you were running.

Two-step verification may seem laborious, but it’s worth the trouble as it makes it very hard for others to access your email. However, on a machine that has a key-logger (a form of malware), if you use the “Answer your secret question” option, you’re still giving away access to your account. Instead, I always have Yahoo text my phone and enter the code they text.

I still feel Gmail is more secure in that it has actually caught compromises and prevented me from sending messages that I didn’t compose — locking the account until I could resecure it.

However, if you prefer Yahoo, these five steps should help secure your email.

The good Amish men who reshingled my roof weren’t too sure about what to do with my DishNetwork dishes, so they just fastened them down pointed in the general direction.

As you might guess, they ALMOST got it right.

It occurred to me that there might be an app for the Droid that would help me aim my dish. Sure enough, there are several. The one I installed is called Satellite Director by Zekitez.

The instructions are right in the app and it lets you look at the dish (through the camera) while you’re aligning your phone.

You’ll note that the alignment is just a little off in the screencapture here. The reason is because when I lined it up perfectly, I had partial signal loss. I attribute this to my phone being a bit off.

The hardest part was finding which satellites my dish wanted to see. Turns out that I needed to adjust my second dish (the one DishNetwork installed when they upgraded me to HD) to the 128.87W CIEL-2 satellite.

I think, but I am not sure, that the other dish needed to point to the 118.85W ECHOSTAR 7 | 14. Since it was working, I didn’t play with it.

Satellite Director did a great job for me. And so did the Droid!