Solutions against cyber-attacks

Various sites like LinkedIn, eHarmony and last.fm were under cyber-attacks from the hackers with the message written in Russian language. What kind of reason for this attack is this? I surely have my LinkedIn account but then who takes the shit about it. Sure, my Wordpress blog and my Box.net data can be seen there that I may need better passwords for those two services as well as my LinkedIn account and after this blog post, the password change plans will be taking effect from me.

The first issue is that companies need to do a better job in protecting our data and especially our security credentials, not to mention their networking equipment, computer equipment and other equipment that hold the services the companies are doing and especially for the servers that are holding our stuffs. The fact that LinkedIn forgot to salt the password hashes had made the task of cracking password infinitely easier for hackers. If they had salted the password hashes earlier as a proper opportunity, the salt would have minimal overhead to them and would have gone a long way to reduce the impact of the breach. In addition, there are various tools usually, hardware and software tools as well as proper security and business plans that help organization detect and stop these types of attacks.

So things are not perfect and no system can be perfectly secure like breaches will happen and passwords will be released. But how can we protect our passwords and identities?

1. One way is to have a central password safe that all sites rely on for authentication. This is something that Facebook is offering like you can login to various websites with your Facebook account such as Jolicloud, Myspace, Nico Nico Douga to name a few. This has the benefit of allowing you to pick an ultra-secure password and not risk forgetting it. It also means that you can hopefully rely on the universal platform to properly store and secure your passwords in such a way that even if they are compromised, the actual data can not be read. However, the downside is that this may seem to be a poor idea overall for various reasons.
2. Another way is to use a token in your possession that constantly changes. Sites like eBay already provide this functionality and it’s a good way to help secure your identity. Unfortunately for me, I don’t buy things online as I may be nervous to do that and besides, I don’t even have the credit card perhaps for eBay service and it’s not easy to buy things online if you have entered your personal information incorrectly. Even if someone attempts to steal your password, the login will be impossible without the token. This isn’t a foolproof solution though as last year’s attack on RSA proved but it’s another layer of protection that is a step in the right direction. This may be better than the first way but unfortunately if you have to carry hundreds of tokens, this doesn’t help to scale well around on your key chain to access the web.
3. Or the best solution will be to tie access information into your smartphone. Many people are using smartphones, so instead of a token, sites can provide apps for your smartphone or perhaps send the SMS message that contains the password to you. For me, I do have my Ipod Touch but that’s not the case. The downside is that more companies will have access to your phone number and if you lose your smartphone device, you may end up letting anyone to access your data on the web and the device you have lost. Other than this, this may be a better solution than having poorly secured passwords that attackers can easily obtain.

But then, which method am I going to use for higher level of security? This is not the first time we had seen such news like the last year’s April Playstation Network attack. What had that attack got to do with some governmental action? We SURELY NEED to be MORE SECURE but how can we find such tools and solutions for this? You know, during my college days, I had learnt certain modules like IT security as well as certain IT Free Training videos regarding the cyber security related topics and nowadays, there are more IT Free Training videos coming and best of all, the Windows 7 Chapter list is complete this year! Downside though, not all chapters I learnt from IT Free Training were submitted for my juniors to learn last year during my Industrial Attachment Program. At that time, the chapter list wasn’t even complete yet. Furthermore, IT Free Training is even busy with other Microsoft certificated courses so I have even more to learn.

So eventually, let’s get more secure as ever and keep on computing and gaming securely. Refer to my profile to check out my interests.

IPv6 Day is here again to keep the Internet growing and active

Today makes THE DAY OF IPV6! Wow, I’m fucking excited for this and I already have my GogoNet account as well as the GogoClient installed on my computer. However this time, I’m going to make the rest of my workstation enabled to IPv6 as well into installing GogoClient on all the partitions out there.

Today is June 6th, which means that participating ISPs, hardware manufacturers and search engines must stick to their word and permanently enable the IPv6 address system and we’re encouraged to do the same like I already did. The ultimate purpose of this is to allow trillions of users to have their own IPv6 address, instead of just a paltry few billion permitted by the IPv4 standard that continues in parallel. Will the Internet collapse that people will lose their jobs due to this? No, this will not happen thanks to Google and the others having tested the system during the pilot programs.

Last year, I was IPv6 enabled with the GogoClient tool on my computer after stumbling upon the news about running out of IPv4 addresses during my college days. I might have tried to implement IPv6 address on my DIR-615 router but it didn’t work that way. Also, the organization which oversees the allocation of IP address, the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority or IANA, ran out of IP addresses to give in February last year during my Chinese New Year days. This caused a serious technical problem that will be effective in the future as the Internet users will have to begin sharing IP addresses if a new IP isn’t put into place. This is like running out of copies of the product you’re selling and there’s no way further customers will be able to get the product. But there’s already a solution all along which is making more copies of the product for instance and deploying more IPv6 enabled devices as well as more encouragement to get ISPs and their customers IPv6 enabled. Now, there will be plenty of newer IP addresses to get around the problem and companies and services and others participating in the deployment of IPv6 have already implemented the new standard.

Now, let’s base this article on the article from Google Official Blog. When the Internet launched operationally in the 80's, its creators never dreamed that there might be billions of devices and users trying to get online. But now, almost three decades later, it appears that there are nearly 2.5 billion people and 11 billion devices across the globe that we’re running out of space. Actually, it might have seemed that IANA and other organizations that manage the IPv4 addresses, had already run out.

In order to connect to the Internet, each device has to have an IP address, a numerical label which identifies every computer, smartphone, tablet, E-book reader, etc. IP address allows machines to find and communicate with each other online. Without the IP addresses, you can’t check the email, visit websites or even watch videos for example and in fact, you can’t even get the network access if you have the invalid IP address. But like a telephone network that is running out of phone numbers, the current Internet is already running out of IP addresses like it’s already happening nowadays ever since last year.

The Internet so far today has space for 2^32 addresses which is about 4.3 billion. The new, larger IPv6 expands the limit to 2^128 addresses which is more than 340 trillion, trillion and trillion addresses. It is enough for essentially unlimited growth for the foreseeable future. Without the rollout of IPv6 which should have happened last year and this year, there will be no room we need to grow the Internet.

While some of your devices may already share a single address, if IPv6 isn’t implemented, you will soon have to share a single address with multiple people or even a whole neighborhood. This is indeed a bad idea and this tangled, constrained Internet will be unsafe and unsustainable.

IPv6 Day which is already happening today is coordinated by the Internet Society, marks the day that they are switching on IPv6 permanently in parallel with IPv4. Looks like Google is one of these participants and they’re proud to experiment the IPv6 networking, virtually all Google’s services have been available over IPv6 for a while but IPv6 access was only available to networks participating in the Google Over IPv6 program. From now on after this day, these services will be made available to any IPv6 network on the Internet.

The complete transition from Google will take some time. I already had my computer enabled to IPv6 the other time and I’m already enabled today. Using GogoClient Utility, I can connect to various IPv6 websites and before this blog post is bound to be posted, there was an invitation to IPv6 Day on Facebook and I wonder if that is an online event, offline event or both. And I can’t even believe that my ISP staff knew nothing about this when I told about it the last time, lol. That is going to sound dishonest like there was no awareness whatsoever.

Sine Mora for Playstation Vita

Well, I still haven’t got past that freaking Arcade Mode as it is hard as balls. I already had certain skills like button-mashing but that was not enough for this game. Having to hold down the Time button while mashing the shot button is going to be a mess. If only there’s a patch that allows the auto-fire to be faster when holding the shot button, the problem will be solved but that will ruin my opportunity to show you the god damn run with button-mashing.

It’s been a few months after the game’s release on Xbox Live Arcade, there’s an upcoming Playstation Vita version with the character from Under Defeat. The HD version of Under Defeat has an additional helicopter as the DLC unit as well as the New Order Mode which is the widescreen gameplay similar to Mamoru-kun Has Been Cursed on Playstation 3. The New Order Mode also has its own soundtrack but the only songs that are new are obviously the stage and final boss BGMs which may seem to be the incomplete soundtrack for sure. It may be a surprise to G.Rev as Sine Mora seems to be influenced by Under Defeat in terms of graphics and with the Vita version containing the character from Under Defeat, this is how Sine Mora can be called as ‘Under Defeat Next Generation’.

So let’s 16-Shot in Sine Mora besides shmup games on NES.

Windows 8 RP Part Two with Upgrade Offer

It seems that they are not finished yet and there is more to come after Windows 8 Release Preview release.

So check out the new stuffs and improvements such as more personalization options for the Start Screen, improved multi-monitor support, and new Family Safety features to name a few. Other improvements include Mail, Photos and People apps and we can notice Bing-powered Travel, News and Sports apps. Nah, I’m not using the Bing-powered Travel, News and Sports by the way as I’ve no interest on them so all is left is to use the Bing Search and Bing Weather. IE10 also has new capabilities like Adobe Flash Player and Do Not Track set to on by default.

Ha, it looks like we’re fucking excited and curious in using Windows 8 Release Preview and it’s the same for some of my ex-college classmates. Starting from June 2nd, Microsoft will roll out Windows Upgrade Offer in 131 markets. Consumers who have purchased eligible Windows 7 PCs that are preinstalled with Home Basic, Home Premium, Professional or Ultimate and include a matching and valid OEM COA through January 31 next year will be able to upgrade to Windows 8 Pro for $14.99 which will be redeemable when Windows 8 is generally available. When the consumers register for the Windows Upgrade Offer, they will be able to download Windows 8 Pro starting the day it’s made RTM and the upgrade comes with 90 days of support from Microsoft. I’m already trying out Windows 8 RP on my old computer.

One bonus thing is that if you have a mouse or keyboard from Microsoft Hardware, you’re suggested to try Microsoft Device Center Beta. Device Center allows you to easily customize your mouse and keyboard experience in Windows 8 and is compatible with Windows 8 RP. It also helps bring the touch experience to your mouse within Windows 8 RP as well if you have an Explorer Touch Mouse and Touch Mouse. Microsoft Hardware will have more details to share regarding their Touch Portfolio of products sometime around Windows 8 RTM.

Updates to Skydrive for Windows and OSX Lion

In April, they released preview versions of Skydrive for Windows and Mac OSX Lion, along with big updates for IOS and Windows Phone. There was also a new, more flexible approach to personal cloud storage that allows power users to get additional paid storage up to 100GB just like other cloud storage services have.

It has been an incredible month in May since! The goal is to build a cloud that seamlessly connects your data to the apps and devices you use everyday and that is a promising step with the power of Skydrive as a cloud computing power for Windows 8 which may be comparable to local storage on IOS and Android devices. Well, there should still be hard disk drive or perhaps the SSD drive to store local data in addition to cloud data. This can be what Windows 8 can be installed to as well as the apps. In just a few weeks, more people were using Skydrive than Mesh but I use both of them by the way. People using Skydrive for Windows or Mac are now the most engaged users, syncing files across several devices, sharing with SkyDrive.com and working together with Office Web Apps and Office Client Apps. What about Live Mesh like that?

There will be different updates to be pushed to all the above mentioned platforms. You do not need to do anything to the updates as they are background automatic updates.

Here are a few of the improvements the fixes in the updates:

• Skydrive for Windows desktop will power a cool new feature in the upcoming Windows 8 Release Preview, available in the first week of June which is already happening right this moment. From the Photos app in Windows 8, you can fetch photos stored on other PCs that have Skydrive installed.
• Your Skydrive folder now updates more quickly and reliably when changes are made on other devices, including SkyDrive.com which still leads you to skydrive.live.com.
• The limit on the number of total files in the Skydrive folder is raised from 150K to 10M. This should unblock some power users from easily adding lots of files to their Skydrive folder.

Well, that’s it for the updates but the Skydrive desktop app is still in Beta phase, lol.

Internet Explorer 10 on Windows 8 RP

They might have built the experience by extending IE’s underlying architecture to provide a fast, fully hardware-accelerated browsing engine with strong security and support for HTML5 and other web standards. The browser may provide the best protection from malicious software on the web while providing convenient control over your online privacy. How true this can be when it comes to Windows 8 tablets and on ARM devices? If they are supposed not to have desktop support, then there’s still sign of virus infection that targets the desktop mode files which may contain both the core of the Metro and desktop experiences. Perhaps, the Metro style browsing experience is the best way to browse on the touch screen devices. Metro style browsing offers you a full-screen ,immersive site experience like other browsers on the tablet devices except that this one’s completely chrome-less. Using the Charms bar, you can share and print stuff and search for various stuff you want to look for but what’s missing though, is the bookmarks for Metro edition. In other tablet OSes, their web browsers surely have the bookmark management. Sure, you can search by text as well as to share something and switch the tabs. Eventually, the fast speed is still focused on the SSD devices and other computers that are even better than mine to be frank.

The Release Preview version of IE10 Metro edition includes its own Adobe Flash Player Metro version. How the heck did Adobe collaborate with Microsoft like that? With Flash Player on IE10 Metro, this won’t be a problem accessing certain Flash stuff so it’s kind of fair enough just like using other tablet devices. So sites like YouTube may still have best experience with Flash as watching videos like that in HTML5 mode is kind of bitchy in terms of the interaction and there’s still delay whatsoever. Can IE10 Metro edition get around the problem for HTML5 mode of YouTube? In fact, the Javascript is also the pain in the ass like things refuse to work when clicking on the Javascript links on the browsers.

What about copying some stuff from IE10 Metro browser on the tablet? I haven’t seen this working like that as I’m using Windows 8 on my laptop. Can you copy the picture, whole paragraph, whole sentence, certain words or perhaps, parts of the screen on the Windows 8 tablet? If this kind of copying is there, good for the company. Otherwise, it’s a serious shame on Microsoft. There will be AutoCorrect when you enter stuff on the browser.

There are certain things like double tapping to zoom in and out and toggling full screen on and off on the browser. For toggling full screen on and off by double tapping, this is in Release Preview when focusing on HTML5 video.

The SmartScreen and InPrivate browsing are still there but the other parts of security are missing in IE10 Metro version. If those from the desktop version are put in Metro version, then the Metro version will be as secure as I can guess. What’s new in Release Preview is that there will be Paste and Go command for fast navigation to copied URLs or search terms on the clipboard. The address bar supports the progress indicator when the page is loading and includes indicators for site compatibility and tracking protection. The navigation bar includes commands for Find On Page, and Open in IE on the desktop mode which is supposed to be unnecessary for tablets. Opening IE desktop edition is for compatibility with sites that require legacy plug-in technologies, or for when you are using desktop tools and wish to continue in your existing workflows. Perhaps not all plugins are likely to work correctly on desktop web browsers.

Then there comes a disadvantage though for Release Preview version, the page flip which flips through the entire webpage which is not a good thing. It should be in the Reader app, not the web browser because the PDF files are like virtual books on the Kindle and Ipad where you can flick left and right to flip pages and flipping pages like that on the web is a lousy idea. Imagine that you’re reading articles on the news or blogs and you see some navigations on the top side, left side and right side of the web and you flip like that to see the next article. That is freaking awkward and there’s no flipping on this blog either as we’re already moving on to abstract/futuristic sort of blog design on this blog. You know, transitioning to next tabs may be worth it. After all, the article section is vertical so is the rest of the blog layout.

Like the desktop version of IE10, you can clean up the tabs in the Metro version. I guess this closes the other tabs leaving the current tab intact.

IE10 takes a clean, “low nag” approach to notifications. All alerts and user prompts come through a notification bar at the bottom of the screen. It uses the Metro style “fly-outs” when more interaction is needed. This is like the Open With Metro edition when you want to use which app to open which type of file like opening PNG files with Photos app for instance. Notification bars automatically dismiss as appropriate. Downloads in the Metro style browser protect you from malicious software via SmartScreen’s Application Reputation similar to the desktop edition. The Release Preview adds support for “pop-up” windows as background tabs in the Metro style experience.

In Release Preview, the developers can provide higher resolution PNG file site icon and specify the tile background color. With IE10, sites can provide background notifications for new messages and other account activity on the website. The site can also program additional commands that appear in IE’s navigation bar in a touch-friendly way, the same way that sites can program jumplists for desktop edition.

Oh man, if only there’s a trademark button about linking to specific Metro apps at Windows Store just like linking to specific IOS app at the ITunes App Store. What this mean is that if you’ve stumbled upon Wordpress App for Windows 8, you can click on the button that brings you to Windows Store and goes directly to Wordpress App just like clicking on the button that goes to ITunes App Store. Moreover, you’re going to need ITunes client in order to download apps using your computer. However, an inaccurate thing they did was to add Get App For This Site command from the menu that has Find On Page and View On The Desktop. That sounds kind of bullshit not because Windows 8 isn’t still finalized yet.

Now, for Charms that cooperate with IE10, the Search charm is an optional way to search stuff on the net elsewhere the Devices charm can allow you to print, project and play to external device.

Next, IE10 offers the same industry leading security, privacy and reliability features, building on IE9’s SmartScreen, XSS filtering, Application Reputation, InPrivate Browsing, Tracking Protection and Hang Detection and Recovery. Well, it seems that those features on the desktop edition still behave like those on IE9 as well like there’s no difference whatsoever when the browser crashes for example. For Metro version, I don’t know the actual difference. In addition, IE10 makes the security and privacy more convenient with Enhanced Protected Mode for better isolation of website content in each tab, and new in RP is one simple setting for sending the Do Not Track signal to websites. The Do Not Track signal may be damn useful as if nobody can mess with you like that but if you’re using other browsers or perhaps Windows 7 and below, who knows?

Summary of improvements from CP to RP version

• Support for full-screen HTML5 video, including double tap that toggles full screen on and off.
• Support for Flash in Metro IE10
• Context menu for Save Image and Paste and Go
• Support for High-Res image for pinned sites tile in Start Screen. Pinned sites on Start Screen? Well, that’s not considered bookmarks like that by the way
• Integrated network troubleshooting tools in Metro style IE
• Auto-complete drop down in Metro style IE
• Do Not Track setting for RP version

Overall, this may seem to be quite okay for desktop and laptop users but for tablet users, it’s like a freaking disappointment due to the fact that there’s not enough good work done and therefore, the browser is kind of slightly below average for tablet users. It was average for CP version for tablet users but hopefully, Microsoft should try even harder or there will be scolding for sure for not putting up enough finalized resources on the web browser. It’s okay for desktop and laptop users but it’s not for tablet users. So the Metro version of IE10 RP for tablet users will be more like IE10 Cloud Release instead.

Windows 8 Release Preview

The Consumer Preview version in my computer is already struggling with dis-functionality like hell due to some infection or perhaps some deep OS modification with the tools that allow you to customize the Start Screen and the Charms Bar. For the Start Screen customization, it’s basically the font colors, tile colors, colors for the bottom bar and the right bar which is kind of like Settings bar or something and the custom backgrounds while the Charms Bar customizer tool allows you to have custom icons in addition to custom bar colors. What a cool thing to allow custom icons but for the Start button, it’s kind of unfortunately inaccurate by the way. Another struggle is the serious delay when the incorrect password is entered. This can affect the tablet devices. It’s a shame on Microsoft for such laziness like this as it is already an annoying technical problem.

The Release Preview is the final pre-release and its Internet Explorer 10 Metro edition has the Flash support. However, the real on-going bastard is that we still can’t move the freaking tabs in Metro edition. Other features in Internet Explorer 10 Metro edition are apparently missing compared to the Desktop edition such as managing Bookmarks for example. I mean in other smartphones devices’ web browsers like Safari for IOS, you can manage bookmarks but I don’t know if you can move tabs in Ipad version. The Skydrive Metro app is sort of manageable but the automatic synchronization can surely happen in Desktop edition although the desktop version is still in beta phase by the way. In addition, there are more Metro apps in stores for us at Windows Store but certain Xbox Live games on Windows 8 are unfortunately not in Release Preview Windows Store. Instead, they are under Xbox Live for Windows 8 Marketplace which will be coming in final version of Windows 8 or something.

Now, for Xbox Live service on Windows 8 Release Preview, I finally manage to get connected but even then, I’m still able to use my Xbox 360 console to view pictures, music and videos from my computer easily through these Metro apps on the Dashboard compared to Windows Media Center whose controls on the console are way too delayed.