(Via Technology Review.)

Panda Cloud Antivirus hits Internet for free

(Via USA Today.)

I have had good success using Panda before with particularly nasty malware so this new service is worth checking out.

Technology Review has a summary of recent activity in the cloud anti-virus market.

Messagelabs, now part of Symantec, with a wide range of cloud security services for the business market started this managed cloud anti-malware services trend now being adopted in the consumer market.

as a formula:

V = B – C’ – SI – L

where

V is Value

B is Benefit

C’ is the remaining Costs

SI is the Security Investment and

L is the Losses

The formula makes sense. The trick is sensibly quantifying the variables.

Smart Meters Not Ready for Primetime

(Via Technology Review.)

He has recorded a podcast interview on Facebook security.

He is also a Toastmaster who has documented the top three Facebook security risks covered in his Facebook Party-Pooper speech.

Then he provides a link to Tom Eston’s recommendations for Facebook privacy settings.

Steve Dotto has also done a Cybersafe DVD on social networking security which is definitely worth watching.

On page 96 of the July issue of Wired (and online at the link) there is an article on The Great Wall of Facebook describing the battle over the Internet and user data by Facebook and Google. Really compelling reading about what it at stake on the evolution of the Internet as these two titans battle it out.

Bookmarks are your friend

Of course you should rarely have to remember and type in an address (URL) to get to a web site or blog since all Internet browsers let you save the address as a bookmark. In the Firefox browser there is a menu item called Bookmarks that lets you save a web site address as a bookmark and organize your bookmarks into folders if you like. Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browser has the same features but inexplicably uses a different name – Favorites. Use this feature to save bookmarks of the sites you want to go back to so you can select them from the menu and never have to type in a web site address again. Your really favorite bookmarks can even be saved in the browser toolbar so you don’t even have to select them from the menu – they are one click away. As an added tip note that you can name the bookmark whatever is meaningful to you – you don’t have to use the default web page name so you can make it easy to pick out the site in your menu or toolbar.

If you want to get fancy and you happen to use more than one computer there are a couple of tools to make your precious bookmarks available wherever you go. The Foxmarks Firefox addon can be installed into Firefox and it synchronizes your bookmarks on all the computers you have (that have Firefox with the Foxmarks addon installed). An even more universal approach is to save your bookmarks in the cloud (on the Internet) using a service like www.delicious.com. This not only makes your bookmarks available to you from any computer but also any browser and you can even be social about it and share your wonderful site selections with friends.

Your browser has memory and can type

Tired of trying to remember usernames and passwords and having to do all that tedious typing over and over again. Now that you don’t type in URLs anymore why should you type in usernames and passwords? Firefox (what a wonderful browser to download) has a feature where it remembers your site information and enters your username and password for you. You just have to tell it that you want it to do the work for you.

To tell Firefox your preferences you select Preferences in the Firefox menu and you will see the following if you click on the security icon.

While we are in the security preferences panel you might as well check all the boxes to get your full value (make your browser work hard since after all you are the boss). You want to remember passwords for sites and it is a very good idea to use a master password especially if other people are sometimes on your computer. If you don’t set a master password anyone who uses your computer can get into all your sites. If you setup a master password every once in a while the browser will ask for it to confirm it is you but you only have to remember one password instead of a different one for each site. If you have a master password for your account and never let anyone else use your account then you probably don’t need your browser to ask extra questions about who you are and can leave Use a master password unchecked.

Once you have these security settings saved in Firefox you only need to enter the username and password the first time you visit a site. Then you will get the following question from your Firefox servant:

Of course in most cases you will click Remember since the whole point is to put your browser to work. Now you will never have to remember passwords again and you can take that yellow sticky note off the side of your monitor. On the off chance you grow nostalgic and want to check on the passwords you set back in the old days you can always go back to the Firefox preferences panel and click the Saved Passwords… button. If you created a master password you will have to enter that and then you can see all your passwords conveniently organized by site. You can even do searches if you have so many that you don’t want to look through them all.

What if you are using the Internet Explorer browser? Well it has similar features but haven’t you downloaded Firefox yet?

Let me know how I can make it easier or what else you would like your browser to do for you in the comments.

D’Arcy Norman has an instructional post contrasting the Facebook terms of service with that of Flickr which appears to be more reasonable. Apparently Facebook has gone back to their previous terms of service which doesn’t give them ownership of all your content but if at least some people were not vigilant and complained this would have slipped under the radar until whoops … people eventually find out they have given up all their rights to their own content. I have had similar concerns about the slideshare online service.

Steve Dotto has been raising awareness in his cybersafe video and speeches about how youth especially need to know that content posted to social networking and other sites creates a permanent record of items that they may not be quite so eager to share in the future. The possible impacts are even more frightening when combined with social networking terms of service that remove a persons right to stop publishing their information in the most obvious and public of places.

Perhaps as a public service one of the online legal experts like Lawrence Lessig or our own Michael Geist could publish or point to a centralized guide to what terms of service for the major online social networking services people should be cautious of. There has been some discussions related to this topic on Michael’s blog particularly the comments made by “handler”. One interesting video has been posted by Vishal Agarwala who apparently has worked for a Facebook competitor. There might be a comment on this topic by Michael in his interview (video currently not available?) with the Calgary Chapter of the Fair Copyright for Canada group which is, perhaps ironically, a Facebook group.

If I find that a terms of service issues reference source exists somewhere I will let you know. (Could wikipedia be a possibility beyond just terms of service examples?). Until then we will all need to exercise some legal skills and read the fine print.

Update: Facebook today invites users to chime in on new terms of service. The new principles and process seem to be a step in the right direction.

Two years ago criminals in Ottawa used a fake job search site for the purposes of collecting identity information from resumes and other information submitted by job seekers.

Ottawa Identity Theft

If anything these scams are only increasing as they can be very lucrative and very difficult to recover from.

Here are some tips with regards to identity information and searching for work:

Identity Theft and your online job search

Job Seekers vulnerable to identity theft

ScamBusters on Identity Theft

Wikipedia on Internet Fraud
Check out the “Work at Home” schemes.

Government of Canada Identity Theft Resources

Canada’s Federal Privacy Commissioner Identity Theft Fact Sheet