Cisco Systems uses this program. The Drug Enforcement Administration (USA) uses this program. The Exchange Bank uses this program. McCain Foods Limited uses this program. What program is it? It is Invisible Secrets, and the client list is impressive. Privacy and security are important to these companies and institutions – it is essential to computer protection. This is a preventative measure that individual computer users have to recognize because there is so much information on just one hard drive.

Not only is identity theft rampant, but there are things on the your home computer, work machine, or laptop that are simply private. You not only want protection from outside hackers, you want to safeguard against nosy friends, colleagues and family members.

Invisible Secrets 4 not only encrypts your data and files for safe keeping or for secure transfer across the Internet, it also hides them in places that on the surface appear totally innocent — such as picture or sound files or Web pages. These types of files are a perfect disguise for sensitive information. Using our file encryption software nobody — not even your wife, boss, or a hacker — would realize that your important papers or letters are stored in your last holiday pictures, or that you use your personal Web page to exchange messages or secret documents. With Invisible Secrets 4 file encryption software, you may encrypt and hide files directly from Windows Explorer and then automatically transfer them by email or via the Internet.

We have Invisible Secrets 4 available to our readers at a 40% discount.

Invisible Secrets works on Windows NT / 2000 / XP and Vista. This offer ends June 18th, 2009.

Here’s a question: Why isn’t this program standard on every laptop? With business laptops, government laptops, and personal laptops going missing every day, this security program should be on every portable machine, as well as desktop. This would be an enormous security step in the right direction for dealing with sensitive information that is breached and it would completely bypass the subsequent nightmare of paying for identity theft protection. It’s simple and it’s effective.

If you need large multiples of this program, please let us know. We will try to negotiate a good price for those companies that may need many copies for laptops holding those confidential files. For the individual user, think of the files, emails, pictures, passwords, and other bits of information that you don’t want people to access. That is exactly why we went after this privacy/security program for our readers… and our thanks to the Invisible Secrets people for this generous offer.

• Protect Your Data From Prying Eyes
• Huge Savings on Another Layer of Computer Protection
• Identity Theft Protection
• Windows Security Software
• Safeguard Your Security and Privacy
• Are Hackers Suffering in This Economy?
• Password and Phishing Protection
• Prepare for the New School Year by Protecting Your Information
• One Step for Privacy and Security
• Managing your Passwords: Protection from Phishing / Identity Theft

This is Sushruta’s submission for the HP Magic Giveaway. Feel free to leave comments for this article as you see fit – your feedback is certainly welcomed! If you’d like to submit your own how-to, what-is, or top-five list, you can send it to me. Views and opinions of this writer are not necessarily my own:

Any Linux geek would tell you Linux thrashes Windows in more ways than one. But does it? And why? What makes a system better than another? At this stage, are they even different at all?

If there were no Windows vs. Linux battles, the geek life would have been notably duller. Technology forums would inevitably get boring, and life would generally never be the same. The most contentious issue, of course, is security — Windows is notorious for not having much in that department. However, Vista is loaded with a bunch of new security measures, and claims to be able to thwart malicious software better.

What makes an operating system more secure? The way it’s built, of course. And that is the question we’re asking. But first, some myth-busting.

The biggest security breaches occur when malware is allowed to run with on your system with elevated privileges — which means that it has access to critical programs and data that only your system’s kernel should have. Once it’s reached that level, your PC becomes its humble servant, and can be brought down at the slightest whim. Who gives this malware its privileges? Well, you do.

With Windows XP, the person who installs the operating system becomes the Administrator, so if you’re the only one using your PC, you’ve got the privileges to wreak all sorts of havoc, should you choose to. Consequently, any application you install and run is also accorded the same royal treatment, no questions asked. Now add to that the fact that Windows’ system services run under a user account called SYSTEM (you can check this out in the Task Manager)—the most powerful account on your system, with access to everything critical—and that the first processes that malicious programs hijack are system services. You’ll be drawing pretty accurate conclusions by now…

Vista, thankfully, changes this. The user who installs Vista is still part of the Administrators group, but even this administrator runs with regular, limited privileges. When administrative tasks—including installing new programs—need performing, User Account Control (UAC) kicks in, telling you that you need to give the task a go-ahead before it, well, goes ahead. If you read the UAC prompt and don’t know the program it’s warning you about, you can prevent it from running. But what if you’ve blindly allowed the task to continue ?

Services in Linux run as separate users, with access only to files that they own; more often than not, they don’t even have the rights to use the terminal, so they can’t run commands or start other services. This is where the multi-user approach comes handy again—since users are isolated from each other, services can’t access the data used by other services. The Apache server, for instance, runs as a user called www-data, which only has access to the Web pages it serves. If a hacker exploits an Apache vulnerability to get into the www-data user account, he can’t really do much to the other services, because www-data doesn’t own those files. He can, however, mess with Web pages, so while this isn’t a doomsday scenario, it’s certainly not ideal.

What is the scope of the damage it can do? Again, with both Linux and Vista, damage caused by malware is restricted to the service it exploits, and the files that the service can access. What happens when the malware goes about its dirty deed? With Vista, if a critical service—like the Remote Procedure Call (RPC) service—is compromised, all manners of chaos may ensue. Every application under Windows needs to use RPC, so you’re sunk without it. With Linux, services aren’t as tightly integrated with the OS, so while your Linux PC can be crippled—some applications won’t run, you may not have network access and so on—the kernel is still safe, which means that with a little root wizardry, it can be brought back to life again.

Bottom line: for daily desktop use, both systems are equally secure — but if things do go wrong, they go more wrong with Windows.

• Firewall and Computer Security
• Watch Windows XP Hack Itself!
• Windows 7 Security
• Protecting Your Privacy and Security
• Hidden Microsoft Security Gem
• When is Your Birthday?
• Backup Security and Synchronizing (even for Macs!)
• Free Firewall (or a Bargain) from Sunbelt
• Identity Theft Protection
• Don’t Believe Everything You Read

Chris | Live Tech Support | Video Help | Add to iTunes

http://live.pirillo.com/ – The round table discusses the free Comodo Firewall, and other Security programs for your Windows machine.

Four of my friends joined me for this discussion: Kat, SC_Thor, Wirelesspacket, and last but certainly not least… Datalore.

Kat started this discussion off, based on a comment she received to her blog post with her recommendations for Windows Protection Software. Someone wrote in, claiming that the free Comodo firewall is not as good as what people think. As I pointed out, Comodo IS a very good firewall. It is easy on system resources, and it just plain works.

Regardless of your product choice, always make sure to use a firewall. Keep yourself protected, no matter how good you think you are. A combination of a hardware AND software firewall is best. Always have an Anti-Virus program running, and possibly even an Anti-Spyware one, as well. Layers of protection like this will help keep your computer safe from all the nasties that are out there.

Want to embed this video in your blog? Use this code:

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• Windows 7 Security
• Is Microsoft Windows Security a Myth?
• Windows Users – Patch Today!
• System File Checker and Utilities
• Watch Windows XP Hack Itself!
• Free Firewall (or a Bargain) from Sunbelt
• Windows 7 – How Soon Should You Upgrade?
• Best Buy and Windows 7
• Windows 7 eBook
• Prepare for the New School Year by Protecting Your Information

[Posted with tongue planted firmly in-cheek]

• Is Microsoft Windows Security a Myth?
• Firewall and Computer Security
• Hidden Microsoft Security Gem
• Windows 7 Security
• Protecting Your Privacy and Security
• When is Your Birthday?
• Backup Security and Synchronizing (even for Macs!)
• Free Firewall (or a Bargain) from Sunbelt
• Identity Theft Protection
• Don’t Believe Everything You Read

So, Max has been fun to play with – if only for its basic photo slideshow capabilities. The newspaper-styled feed reading is a bonus, although I’d like to see its layout aesthetics merged with FeedJournal functionality (which pumps out PDFs of your feeds for free). This is the kind of “Windows” I just can’t wait to see on the desktop.

But as the title of this entry states, there’s a Microsoft security tool that really hasn’t received the attention it deserves: DropMyRights. Bad name, great idea. With it, you can easily run programs outside of Administrator mode:

DropMyRights is a very simple application to help users who must run as an administrator run applications in a much-safer contextâ€â€?that of a non-administrator. It does this by taking the current user’s token, removing various privileges and SIDs from the token, and then using that token to start another process, such as Internet Explorer or Outlook. This tool works just as well with Mozilla’s Firefox, Eudora, or Lotus Notes e-mail.

• Watch Windows XP Hack Itself!
• Protecting Your Privacy and Security
• Is Microsoft Windows Security a Myth?
• Firewall and Computer Security
• When is Your Birthday?
• Backup Security and Synchronizing (even for Macs!)
• Free Firewall (or a Bargain) from Sunbelt
• Identity Theft Protection
• Don’t Believe Everything You Read
• Windows Security Software