Windows XP Gets Another Reprieve

This just cane across the wire, from Network World. According to the article at http://www.networkworld.com/news/2008/100308-microsoft-grants-windows-xp-yet.html?code=nldailynewsam162720, Microsoft has extended availability of Windows XP for new machines until the end of next July.

According to the article, the catch is that you must pay for Windows Vista Business or Windows Vista Ultimate. However, since that is equivalent to saying that you must pay for Windows XP Professional, which you want anyway, this catch hardly seems like a show-stopper.

Further into the article, there is a report, attributed to a group in Florida, that more than a third of all new computers are being downgraded to XP.

Guard Your Card

For a long time, I've had a queasy feeling about these nifty card scanners that started appearing everywhere about fifteen years ago. The first place where I saw and used one was in a Ralph's Grocery store in San Diego, California, in about 1994. Now, they are everywhere.

Theoretically, these should be much more secure, because the card never leaves your physical possession, and the information is encrypted, and processed by software that is required to meet very high standards. Rules made and enforced by the card issuers set a very high bar, and prohibit the merchant (grocery store, gas station, or whatever) from storing your card number, PIN, and Card Security Code in their own data base, unless it is secured against unauthorized access. The merchant is supposed to hold onto it just long enough to validate it, and process the transaction. I learned all this last year, when I was commissioned to write an interface to a merchant gateway.

Reality Intervenes

Technology is neutral. It doesn't care how it is used. It doesn't matter whether that technology is a pocket knife, a credit card scanner and its accompanying software, or the technology to split the atom. Until our collective wisdom catches up with our technical skills, this means that any technology is not only subject to abuse and misuse, but that it will be abused and misused.

In "Credit Card Skimming: How Thieves Can Steal Your Card Info Without You Knowing It," Cisco Security Expert Jamey Heary gives a guided tour of how thieves can steal your card number and PIN right under your nose. I wish the pictures were better, and I'm sure that there are better ones where those came from, but it's a start, and it confirms my long held suspicion, kept solely to myself until now, that these machines could be usurped.

Do your own research. You have been put on notice.

A Simple Spam Solution

In his recently updated e-book, Spam-Proof Your E-Mail Address, 2nd Ed., available at https://windowssecrets.com/spamproof/buy.php, Brian Livingston outlines many simple, free things that you can do to spam-proof your e-mail address. All of these work well if you can afford to follow his first suggestion, which is to start fresh with a brand new email address. Regrettably, this isn't always a realistic option. For instance, my primary email address, which I've had since 1996, is too widely known and used, and I risk losing good business if I change it.

If you are in similar circumstances, I've devised a method that works almost perfectly at segregating the mail that matters, yet is implemented using conventional Outlook rules (no programming!). The rule is simple; all mail not otherwise classified is segregated into a folder, _New from Contacts, if the sender is in my address book. I skim the subjects in the Inbox, but that rule, along with others that filter based on content, using such keywords as VB, DataEase, C#, Perl, and so forth, pretty much leaves nothing but junk in the Inbox. If a new message manages to fall through the cracks, the sender gets added to my address book, and future messages land in the _New from Contacts folder.

This rule is so simple that I am surprised that others have not jumped on it long ago, because it's been available in Outlook since at least Outlook 2000, and maybe Outlook 97. What's more, it can be implemented in any mail program that has something equivalent to the Outlook Rules Wizard. Before I migrated to Outlook in 1998, I used Eudora, and it had rules, even back then. I'm almost certain that Thunderbird and Netscape Mail have some form of rules engine. Even Outlook Express has a rules engine, called the Inbox Assistant.

Welcome to Wired Wisdom

Welcome to Wired Wisdom, where you'll find the personal musings of computer pioneer David Gray, of Irving, Texas. For the present, it is my intention to concentrate on matters of personal security in the wired world.