privacy Archives - Code Curmudgeon

Phishing Alert – Secret Army Gold

Two phun phishing emails in two days. Both from the same domain, nac.net, which you might want to add to your block list. Yesterday...

Just a quick reminder to keep yourself safe in your email. Some of the phishing scams are incredibly good – they imitate the actual...

Ah, the lure of free open WiFi! Who can resist? Avoid flakey signal from your smartphone, get faster access and avoid data usage caps....

There is currently a national debate going on in the United States about the challenges of security vs. security. Some are calling it privacy...

CAN (Controller Area Network): Controller Area Network aka CAN aka CAN Bus is a wiring standard for vehicles that enables communication between various components and devices without having a host computer. For example doors, brakes, transmission.
brute-force: Brute-force is a technique of trying every possible combination when attacking a system. Rather than using a sophisticated method or insider information, you simply start at 1 and try every possible thing. For example if you have a 4 digit password, you can run attacks starting with 0000 and continuing through 9999 until you get in. Secure systems normally take steps to make sure attackers cannot use this method by putting time delays and lockouts into the system.
backdoor: An intentional vulnerability or weakness left in a system that allows certain privileged people to access a system while bypassing normal security mechanism. Backdoors are accessible to everyone but not intended to be published - relying on "security through obscurity". In general they tend to be found and published and used by the wrong people.
bad actor: a person or group who actively seeks to break computer security, compromise applications, or steal data for malicious purposes. Sometimes called hacking, but hackers but or may not have good intentions.
BASIC: Beginners All Purpose Symbolic Instruction Code. A programming language designed specifically for beginners.