| "Facebook is a free-access social networking website that is operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. Users can join networks organized by city, workplace, school, and region to connect and interact with other people. People can also add friends and send them messages, and update their personal profiles to notify friends about themselves. The website's name refers to the paper facebooks depicting members of a campus community that some US colleges and preparatory schools give to incoming students, faculty, and staff as a way to get to know other people on campus." as quoted from Wikipedia. The Facebook excitement Remember the first time you joined Facebook - a while ago - and the urge feel to be connected with your current friends from school, university, church or office, your brothers or sisters or in-laws. Because now you could see what everybody are doing, what they feel or think, you could see photos of yours or theirs, when are their birthdays, what are their favorites music and movies, and some personal information such as e-mail addresses, phone numbers, home addresses, and where they work or study. You feel so great about it and encourage others to join Facebook. Practically - you use Facebook as platform to share your information, activities, feelings, and opinion to all of your 'Friends' on Facebook.  You even feel more excited when - out of sudden - you meet some people from the past - including your old best friends from high schools whom you have not heard from for many years. There were days - when you have to accept so many new Facebook friends including current or old friends, friends of your brother, friends of your dorm roommate, friends of friends, and - without realizing it - the list of your Facebook friends have gone longer by each day. In the span of weeks or months - your network grows so fast - it is simply too overwhelming to check them all of them since they're all mixed into one long 'Friends' list. Facebook make it easy for you to add new friends. By a simple click 'OK' you will then be connected to a friend and that will give you 'rights' to access their Wall, Info, Photos, and other things your friend has on its Facebook pages. It is reciprocal 'rights' - as your 'friends' will gain the same access to your information. Facebook's default privacy settings includes:
Now, let see how Facebook manage your information  Facebook only give us four options on whom we want to share those information with, i.e. 1) Only Friends, 2) Friends of Friends, 3) Everyone on Facebook, and 4) Exception for individuals. No option for close friend or so-so friend groups. The default is option 1). Some of us do not know that we can change the privacy settings. Most of us will accept this default option automatically without even checking it.What some of us do not realize is the risks by putting our personal detail on the OPEN for ALL 'FRIENDS' - including the one we do not really know (e.g. friends from the past you barely remember, friends of your cousin, and friends of friends). Besides the Privacy Setting - there are also applications on Facebook - such as MyCalendar - that pull your profile information, photos, your friends' info, and other content that it requires to work. Off course - they could only do that with your consent - by clicking "Allow" button. There were real cases where people were fired or lost their chance to get hired or even divorced- because of the information share by them or their friends thru Facebook. There were real cases where identity was stolen and misused - usualy the owner do not realise it until it was too late. Just google it to get to know those cases - e.g. google for "facebook identity stolen". Facebook - Common Sense Checklist  I think I scare you enough. The following are some common sense checklist on how to guard your privacy and protect yourself while you still could enjoy sharing news with your friends on Facebook:1. Ask yourself - if you need to share specific personal information on your profile - such as home address, e-mail, mobile number, birthday, education info, work info, and relationship status to anyone? 2. Ask yourself - do you know who could access all of those information and how you could control it?  3. Ask yourself - before accepting the friend invitation - if you really know who they are?4. Ask yourself - before accepting the application invitation - if you really know what information you will share to that application? 5. Ask yourself - do you want all of your Friends (including your current / potential employer, spouse) to know your past activities? So ask yourself again - have you done enough to Guard Your Privacy and protect yourself while using the Facebook? If you are not sure - then it is time to check your Account, Privacy, and Application Settings now! Some useful links: |
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Guard Your Privacy on Facebook
Friday, May 15, 2009
Build a Secured Home Network
| Internet has becoming our daily chores - from basic activities like using e-mail, social networking sites, instant messaging, to more serious tasks such as banking, investment, and shopping. We are using internet at school, office, and home. With cheaper unlimited broadband connection plan available in most developed countries, no access restriction, and latest wireless devices and LAN technology - people are spending more time connecting from home. Cheaper unlimited broadband has becoming reality in country like Singapore. With less than SGD 20 (USD 13) per month, we could have 1Mbps unlimited broadband connection at home. Let's be honest - for those who is working for corporates - how much time you spend on non-business related internet activities at the office including checking personal e-mail, Facebook, and doing instant messaging with your friends? Even though it is not bandwidth issue anymore - with nowadays high speed connection. It is more about reduced productivity time of employees that forced the management to apply internet access restriction to certain sites - from office network. Majority of home with broadband connection now has wireless router and wireless computer(s) and other device(s) to access the internet thru the wireless home network. Suddenly everybody in the house now has internet connection - dad needs access to internet banking services, mom wants to keep in touch with friends thru the social networking sites, and kids needs to do their home work thru e-learning sites. Home Network Security Concept While internet makes our lives much easier and convenient - e.g. less trip to banks and efficient communications - it has its own issues. Security is at the top of those issues. Identity thief and fraud due to spyware, data loss and corruption due to computer virus, sex predator uses instant messaging to prey innocent children, and the list goes on - your screen will be filled up with them. At the office or school - they are IT professionals being paid to pay attention on these IT security issues. Back at home - whether you like it or not - you have to become the 'IT security' to safe guard your family from the 'dark force' of the internet. The question is how we could secure our home network - since not everybody has degree on IT or network engineering?  First - imagine that your home network is your own house. Your home router is the house perimeter. Your computers are the room inside the house. Your data is the people who is living in the house that need to be safe guard.As your house needs door(s) to allow people go in and out the house - your router needs 'port(s)' to let the data go in and out the home network. There are hundreds of logical ports used by router to communicate. As the real doors in the house - we need to control when the port(s) need to be opened and closed. While you use lock and bolt to secure the door - router use firewall setting to lock the ports. There is similar concept in the devices. It also has logical ports to communicate with external world and firewall to help you to secure the logical ports. As you do not want people from outside to go inside the house and steal your belongings. You should ensure that your home network is as secure as possible. Securing the router  Router is the most important part of home network. It control the data traffic and filter who could go in and out the home network. There many brands and models of routers in the market. Some models are integrated with modem and some are stand alone router. Some are wired and others are wireless. Wireless router is probably the most popular choice for home network since it offers flexibility and economically more sensible than wiring the whole house with Ethernet cables.There are two aspects in securing a wireless router, i.e. the wireless and the router's WAN ports aspects. Securing the wireless router is protecting the perimeter from unwanted access within the range of the wireless network. The latest wireless router typically will support different type of access control, including WEP, WPA & WPA2. The most commonly used wireless security for home network is WEP (Wireless Equivalent Privacy). The WEP uses encrypted shared key. Without wireless security - anyone within the range of your broadband will be able to gain access to your home network - and might do some damage. Securing router's WAN port is protecting the perimeter from the rest of the internet. Most router has firewall features including MAC Filtering, Website Filtering, Network Address Translation (NAT) and Stateful Packet Inspection (SPI). The last but not the least - change the router's Administrator password and the SSID. DO NOT use the default SSID and password as they are written on the router manual. Guess what - some people knows and exploit that! Securing the devices Securing the perimeter alone is not enough. When you bring your laptop and connect to internet using free hotspot (e.g. aiport or malls) your laptop will be exposed to the internet. Similarly - if you use your computer to access some 'uncertified websites which may inject spyware, virus, or trojan into your computer without you realizing it. That is why we need to secure the devices. Common devices in the house including - home computer, laptop, network printer, network storage, IP Camera, and smart phone. For home computer and laptop - securing the device means you have to:
The following is one example of home network which comprises of:
 (Click the diagram to zoom in) Home network has becoming basic requirement in the house. It become the center nerve of your security monitoring, entertainment, and productivity solution. As more people in the house are using and relying on home network - it is wise to put extra attention to make it secured.As you always checking and locking your house's doors and windows regularly. You should also check and ensure your router and devices are properly secured. Some useful links: |
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
iPhone: My Dream Comes True
"The iPhone is an internet-connected multimedia smart-phone designed and marketed by Apple Inc. with a flush multi-touch screen and a minimal hardware interface. The device does not have a physical keyboard, so a virtual keyboard is rendered on the touch screen instead. The iPhone functions as a camera phone (including text messaging and visual voicemail), a portable media player (equivalent to an iPod), and an Internet client (with email, web browsing, and local Wi-Fi connectivity). The first-generation phone hardware was quad-band GSM with EDGE; the second generation also adds UMTS with HSDPA. Apple announced the iPhone on January 9, 2007. The announcement was preceded by rumors and speculation that circulated for several months. The iPhone was initially introduced in the United States on June 29, 2007, and has since been introduced worldwide. It was named Time magazine's "Invention of the Year" in 2007. On July 11, 2008, the iPhone 3G was released. It supports faster 3G data speeds and Assisted GPS. On March 17, 2009, Apple announced the iPhone firmware version 3.0, due to be released in mid 2009." Quoted from Wikipedia.com.To me personally - I've been using iPhone 3G since August 2008 when it's launched in Singapore thru Singtel - iPhone is like a dream come true. A portable device that allow me to make / receive phone call, e-mails, connect to internet, play my music, movies, games, and much more - on the go. Like most people - I've been using primarily Nokia and Sony Ericsson mobile phones for years and never really experience Apple's product until I have my iPhones. Have tried to use HTC smart phone - running Windows Mobile OS - only for 1 month. But after this - I don't think I will switch to an ordinary phone ever again. :) 5 years ago - I was skeptical about '3G'. That was when people were still searching for 'killer applications' that could help drive the data usage up. Big show stoppers for 3G were: a) the tiny screen most of mobile phone at that time were using, and b) content distribution, how do you get the application and in turn who would be developing those, and many other reasons why the take up of 3G was very slow. In my opinion - the key driver behind the success of iPhone are:  1) iTunes's App Stores users could buy / download their favorites applications which are developed by thousands of individuals and companies. There are more than 25,000 applications available in App Stores and as of now there are almost 1 billions of application being downloaded by iPhone users world-wide (1 Billion App Countdown).2) Intuitive user interface - incl. multi-touch screen and accelerometer which both are used heavily by most applications thru the iPhone SDK. One thing unique about iPhone in comparison with other mobile phones is the continuous development of its OS and SDK. Most iPhone users - including myself - are very excited to wait the release of iPhone OS 3.0 this summer with a lot of new features (see iPhone OS 3.0). With only 2 models (so far) to support - Apple could focus in developing new features thru its phone operating system. For the end users - it would be like getting a new phone with more advance features for free. As any other successful products - we could expect a lot of copy cats - or some people like to call it 'iPhone killer(s)'. RIM (company behind Blackberry), Google with its Android OS, and Microsoft with its Windows Mobile OS are setting up their own version of iTunes App Store. By next year we should know whether or not these companies could break App Store's record - 1 billion downloads within 9 months (Wiki's App Stores). With the unlimited applications and content the user could experience - it's very hard to imagine that anyone do not like iPhone. So far the following are the list of my favorite applications: 
Let's see what will happen in June 2009 - as a lot of people are expecting the new generation of iPhone 3G will be released (recent Apple's Insider news) - during Apple's WWDC 2009 (annual event for Apple's developers) in San Fransisco. To learn more about this dream device check out the Apple's iPhone web site and its recent iPhone ads. |
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