Sociolatte

Edward Snowde n also know as the whistleblower behind the biggest intelligence leak in NSA history has done a live Q&A with The Guardian. He took questions live and answered queries regarding what he did and why he did it. He also spoke about Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Apple. Saying that their denials to allowing the government access to their servers were false. They are actually misleading their users as to the amount of information they were sharing with the NSA. He also spoke about why he choose Hong Kong and why he fled the US. The Q&A is a good read for people who have been following this saga since it all began. The whole think started with something called PRISM - which gives the NSA authority to seek to snoop on users' data. This could be data from social networks, phone companies and just about anything out there. Many users have since started using the search engine duckduckgo to get their search queries answered. This entire data collection efforts' cod...

Now here's something useful for people who might forget their Facebook password and in addition lose access to their email. You might read the first sentence with a smirk on your face. However there are many people who lose access to their email accounts. You might think it's not possible - but it is. There might be many times when a user might forget their Facebook password and cannot open the recovery email sent to their email accounts. Facebook wants to make sure you can always gain access to Facebook no matter what happens. And to facilitate this Facebook has introduced something called Trusted contacts. What is Facebook trusted contacts and how does it work With Trusted contacts you can add 3 - 5 people who you think you trust the most. These friends need to be on Facebook and once you add them as trusted contacts. They will be notified and can help you if you ever lose access to your Facebook. Make sure you can contact these people offline - phone or someone you can visi...

What seems to be the problem? In November 2011 FBI, the NASA-OIG and Estonian police attested cyber criminals in 'Operation Ghost Click'. The criminals used to distribute DNS changing viruses. What they did was operate a botnet around the world and infected people's computers altering their DNS settings. DNS settings are the settings your computer or PC uses to connect to the internet. If the settings are changed or altered - your PC will not be able to connect to the internet. How does it work? So once your computer's DNS settings are changed when you type in a URL in the search bar. you will not be taken to the site you intend to go. Instead infected computers will throw-up sites that are malicious and misleading designed to trick you into giving your personal information.  Also pointing users to dangerous products. When users click on the ads that accompany these pages the bad-guys stand to make millions of dollars.  Why are computers being affected now? When the FBI...

With all the news of hacking these days it seem it is better to take extra precautions to keep your account secure. Especially if you travel around a lot and need to access your Google accounts from various computers located in different places. It does not take a professional hacker to get access to your account. Someone with a simple firefox extension called firesheep can capture your login details.  By using the Google 2-step verification program you ensure that whenever you login from a different computer other than the one you permanently use, you will need to first enter a code sent on your mobile phone, then your password before you gain access to your account. This ensure that if someone gains access to your account and wants to login via a machine that Google knows is not the one you use, they will need to get the code sent yo your mobile phone before they can enter into your account. This ensure that even if by some slightest chance someone gets your login details they will ...

The code that was used to hack Gmail accounts in China is now publicly available on the internet. And till a patch can be developed internet users across the world need to be vigilant. The hack targetted users of IE6 and till Microsoft can develop a patch users need to be aware of this threat. The guys who posted it on the net did it for good reasons so that people involved in security can download it to test their security vulnerabilities. This code however can be downloaded by anyone from the net and there comes the problem.  So what do you need to do to protect yourself. This program runs like this. You know those e-mails you get that looks like a forward. You see it and it looks suspicious. Well that is the one do not open it. Because that is how this program works you get a mail with a catchy heading and a link for you to open. Once you open that link this malicious program can begin to work. So if you get an e-mail with a link that sounds to good to be true. it probably is. You n...