Security

A federal judge in Vermont has ruled that prosecutors can’t force a criminal defendant accused of having illegal images on his hard drive to divulge his PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) passphrase.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Jerome Niedermeier ruled that a man charged with transporting child pornography on his laptop across the Canadian border has a Fifth Amendment right not to turn over the passphrase to prosecutors.

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Securing Windows XP can be a real chore if you do not know what you are doing, but there are some really easy ways to protect yourself. As we all know, Microsoft’s OS (Windows) is really insecure and easily hacked. Microsoft, in my opinion, doesn’t tell there users enough about the operating system, hence making new users prone to virus, spyware, and hijacking.

So here are some really easy things to do on your computer help protect your computer.

1-Changing your boot sequence, and setting BIOS password.

A person can easily still all the data on your hard drive by sticking in a live CD, like Knoppix, loading it up, and taking anything they want. They do this by putting in the CD to the drive, restarting your computer, changing the boot sequence to CD first, and booting their CD. When the user is in, they can take you SAM.SAM file (Windows Password File), crack it, and know your passwords.

It is really easy to fix this problem, but keep in mind, this will only discourage the hacker, or make slow him down, but it is not impossible to get around… like any other type of security.

Restart your computer and wait until the boot diagnostic screen tells you that you can enter the CMOS Config. To enter the CMOS config, hold down the key your boot diagnostic screen says, it will most likely be the DEL, F2, or F12 key.
Once you have entered CMOS, get to your boot loader page (all CMOS Configs are different, so I can’t really say where you will find it on your CMOS) Once located, change the setup to: FIRST= Hard Drive, SECOND= Floppy Drive, THIRD= CD Drive.
Now go in CMOS and find your “Set Supervisor Password” and password protect CMOS so a hacker can not change your boot sequence.
Save all changes

It is as easy as that, but remember the CMOS password will only slow down the hacker, or discourages him, if he really wants to get into the CMOS, he must pull the battery from the motherboard, or reset the CMOS by using the jumper on the motherboard.

2-Saving only NT Hash passwords

Microsoft for some reason saves two password hash files when you save a password to say… your user. You get a LM hash file, and a NT hash file. The difference is that NT hash is newer, and more secure, and LM hash has been used since Windows 3.1.

The funny thing is that you DO NOT need the LM hash at all! Your computer will run perfectly fine with out it, making your computer more secure.

So let’s get rid of that nasty LM hash

Log in as an Administrator
Go to the “Start” menu and click on “Run”
In the “Open:” text box type in “regedit” and click okay.
On the left hand side of the window you will see a tree menu, click on the folder HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE.
Then click on SYSTEM, then CurrentControlSet, then Control, and then Lsa.
On the right side you will see the register file called “nolmhash”, double click and open that.
Change the “Value data:” to 0, and hit OK.

That wasn’t so bad now was it?

3- CTRL+ALT+DEL Real User Check

Some virus are coded to automatically login and begin to execute their code, we can easily stop them but screwing up there login code by making a user push CTRL+ALT+DEL, before logging in. In addition to that, we can change the login from the click and point to a user, to typing the in the Username, hence making your computer more secure (because the hackers won’t know your username).

In addition, say you have a little kid brother, or sister, and they love to screw with your computer. By doing the Real User Check, you can make it harder for them to login.

Log in as an Administrator
Go to the “Start” menu and click on Control Panel. (You may have to type “Control Panel” in your address bar in a explorer window if you do not see it on your start menu)
Go to “User Accounts” Under “Pick a task…” click on “Change the way users log on or off”
Uncheck “Use the Welcome Screen”.

You will now be switched back to the classic login, which is more secure.

4-Make a Lock Screen Shortcut

It is just one of the many human urges we get when we see someone else’s computer, or user logged in and unattended to. One just loves to get on and dink around with another’s stuff to screw it up.

It is so easy just to log off, but we don’t want to because that means closing apps. and when logging back on we would have to load all of are startup items again. So make a handy shortcut right on your desktop that you can easily click and lock the screen allowing no one to make any changes to your computer while not having to close any apps.

Right click on the desktop and click on New> Shortcut.
A wizard will come up and ask you to “Type the location of the item:” Point it to your Windows/System32/rundll32.exe (example: C:\WINDOWS\system32\rundll32.exe) Click Next
Name the shortcut something like… Lock Screen
YOU’RE DONE! That easy!

Well that was simple.

I hope you found all these tips helpful and trust me, it really does help. Questions are comments may be posted.

This simple guide shows you a couple tools helpful to logging into wireless networks whether they have encryption on our not.

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The Bush administration on Wednesday asked a federal judge to order Google Inc. to turn over a broad range of material from its closely guarded databases…Nicole Wong, an associate general counsel for Google, said the company will fight the government’s effort “vigorously.”

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The January 4, 2006 Dept. of Homeland Security Daily Infrastructure Report Highlighted a free online video and that shows the viewer the exact tools and procedures they need to hack into a person’s computer.

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Finding myself always being asked questions at school about hacking, security, and how to exploit the faults in the schools server, and not being able to answer them because of the simple fact that I’m in Cyber Corp (Geek Squad of the School, like the cyber police.) and how I could get in trouble for letting the information out. It suddenly struck me that I should post these hacks, security issues, and exploits on “MY BLOG!!!�? Yup…finally hit me that I could tell you everything you wanted to know about how to crack passwords, and why I hate Microsoft so much…are you ready?

One of the most annoying things about Windows is that in order to have a decent experience, you need to reformat and reinstall Windows once every 6 months at most, or you will have to endure the pain and suffering of all hell breaking loose on your computer, once a year. The reasons behind this are long and complex to an extent, but primarily they stem from the fact that Windows requires software manufacturers to repeatedly overwrite various shared components with their own custom versions, hence making them vulnerable. To make matters worse, software writers are allowed to pitch files all over your hard drive. On a good day an uninstaller will seek and destroy the majority of these files. So the uninstallers, if they don’t fail outright, leave a lot of junk behind. All of this leads to awful performance over time, and an increasing number of crashes and other crap. Since MicroSucks is so stupid and won’t get rid of there registries, and I have no clue why they hold on to them, spyware and viruses are easily tucked away hidden, until you do a spyware search.

So, you are going to reinstall Windows if you know what’s good for you. But if you are like most computer people, you took that stack of manuals and documentation that came with your computer and put it in a safe place, such as a fire, the trash, or even sold it on Ebay for that money you needed to pay that guy off for the bet you placed. Needless to say, that Windows serial number is long gone, or at the very least it is inconveniently located on the back of the machine partying with the elephant sized dust bunnies that have gathered in the darkness. But fear not my little hackers, code crackers, slackers, Eric has an answer! Windows being about as secure as the US-Mexico border will cough up the goods with a little persuasion from Keyfinder. Best of all, it won’t cost you anything to regain this valuable string of letters and numbers. Of course, I am sure some people will put it to more nefarious purposes. You bad wittle kiddies.

Speaking of nefarious (cool word huh), have you ever forgotten your administrative password for Windows (or maybe you need to break into your bosses email before he reads that email you accidentally sent to the whole company while drunk on Saturday night documenting his affair with the less-than-runway-super-sized-model, or for us younger tots, you want to show your teacher up for that “F�? he/she gave you for proving him/her wrong)? Have no fear, MicroSucks comes to your rescue…again, with a handy knowledgebase article explaining just how one might go about this. (OK, this is another reason why MicroSucks… sucks, they tell you how to retrieve passwords on there own OS, which we all know only leads to the cause of havoc.) How to log on to Windows XP if you forget your password or your password expires

I know there is still a lot of unanswered questions, and I know a lot of people want to know how I make my “programs�? (*cough*viruses) and I know that people want to know how to successfully use NET commands non-remotely, and remotely, but I’m not going to answer those right now, I’ll leave you wanting more . If you have questions or comments, or need to know how to do something else, let me know in the comments. Until next time, enjoy!