156 - rant default harddrive encryption

156 - rant: default hard-drive encryption

on a similar flavor as post 155 (rant on hacked webmail,) This post, post 156 is a rant. The topic is about any company's hard-drives.

We occasionally read about a corporation or a public/government desktop computer or laptop computer hard-drive having been lost or stolen or the data on it is compromised somehow.  These hardDrives hard drives can contain much privacy info about the customers or individual public persons on them, that if fallen into the "wrong hands" could be used for criminal events.

My2cents on what should be used as a safeguard:
Use current technology, to have all computers encrypted by default.  When the user powers them up or logs on then they can be decrypted for the duration of the session.
This will slow down crime and identity theft, by my gut feeling, a significant amount.  When will this policy be implemented by Governments or corporations? Unfortunately, probably not for a very long time.

[April 15.2013 blurb]:
 Plugging these words into Google search engine should be a good place to begin:
 "default hard drive encryption"
Other potential keywords:
 "Full Disk Encryption"
 "System Encryption"
 "Pre-boot authentication"

155 - rant webmail hacked

155 - rant: my webmail accounts hacked

(long time no write!;  hard to believe it has been so long since my last post.)


In the last several months, what has happened to my friends years ago has finally happened to my webmail accounts. My webmail accounts (but here I am NOT referring to Google or Gmail,) have been hacked into, that is, some-one or " 'bots" have used my webmail to sent spam.  Spam has been sent to all the addresses in my contact list as well as all addresses listed in the body each old piece of email.  How do I know this? I know this because some undeliverable emailSpam has been sent back to me, and it originated from my account!
I have since changed to a more difficult password but some damage has already incurred.  One company has already refused to correspond with me on my compromised webmail account, (presumably because my webmail must have been flagged as a spamming account).

My2cents on What should be done with future technology:
 Webmail/email should start using in addition to passwords, keyfiles.  This likely won't eliminate the problem but should go a long way to slow down the process of breaking into an web-email account.  I hope keyfile inclusions happen soon.

[add April11.2013]- I read an old back paper issue of WIRED. Issue 20.12 (Dec.2012). The cover feature story was an auto-Story where the author Mat Honan, had their accounts broken into resulting in data tampering and data loss (ie, his photos etc....)  The article is titled "Kill the Password" or "Kill the P@55W0rD". The link for this issue online is:
http://www.wired.com/magazine/20-12

The link to the online article itself is:
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/11/ff-mat-honan-password-hacker/

[April15.2013]- (minor format and spelling tweaks above; "webmail" is likely more accurately spelled with a hypen as in "web-mail", but I opt to keep the spelling; added a hypen to the word autoStory to become "auto-Story", but it isn't a real word.  I needed a word to describe a self written event article, similar to when a self written history is called an "auto-biography"; played with the font etc settings to the word "WIRED" as in the title of the magazine)