Ramblings of an old Doc
DrJBHL's Articles » Page 20
January 10, 2016 by DrJBHL
  This app was released back in August. I remember seeing some post about privacy tweaks in Forums…but this little gem offers over 200 tweaks in the categories you can see in my screen shot which was captured on the source page . If you’d like to see a list of the tweaks, go here . You can see screen shots of each category here . I posted on version 2.1 quite a while ago . This one’s for Windows 10. What’s new? Seeing the concerns being raised about ...
January 9, 2016 by DrJBHL
  Forbes on line just gave its readers some malware…because “On arrival, like a growing number of websites, Forbes asked readers to turn off ad blockers in order to view the article. After doing so, visitors were immediately served with pop-under malware, primed to infect their computers, and likely silently steal passwords, personal data and banking information. Or, as is popular worldwide with these malware "exploit kits," lock up their hard drives in exchange...
January 3, 2016 by DrJBHL
  MS is having problems in China, so it decided to “modify” W10 for the Chinese government. There are no specifics, but what do you bet one of the changes will be related to “Privacy Settings”? Folks all over the world have expressed concerns over what and how ‘depersonalized data’ is being collected…but the Chinese government more so…wonder why? In the past, China has managed to get its own official versions of Windows XP. So, T...
January 2, 2016 by DrJBHL
  Well, it’s free, and it works, for MacOS and Windows. It will clean and speed up Firefox, Pale Moon, Chrome, Opera, Thunderbird and Skype as well, with an up to x3 increase in speed. No, it won’t speed up IE or Edge. Why does it work? It works because with time you get larger and more fragmented databases. “Firefox (and sometimes it's add-ons) uses SQLITE databases to store lots of its settings. By the time the databases grow and Firefox starts working slowly. SpeedyFo...
December 31, 2015 by DrJBHL
  Although Google has reported it with respect to Chrome, it likely affects other browsers. It’s from AVG and it installs automatically without permission whenever the user installed the main AVG AV software. Since Chrome has similar tools, it isn’t even necessary. AVG set their browser extension to bypass the normal vetting process by the Chrome Store. This allowed AVG to change the user’s home page when opening the browser and new tabs. Apparently, it also did not encr...
December 28, 2015 by DrJBHL
  What an amazing athlete… Meadowlark (I always loved his name!)…joined the Harlem Globe Trotters in 1954…played with greats like Wilt Chamberlain…brought happiness and joy to millions all around the world. They were serious players as well. Here’s a video…not great quality…but there are others. I’m gonna miss you, Meadowlark…Rest In Peace. Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/29/sports/basketball/mea...
December 26, 2015 by DrJBHL
  The Windows Club has put together a really excellent list of resources for graphics creators, designers…and artists…all really good free sources. I’ll spare you the screen shots…the urls are what matters, after all. You can read more at the linked text above, descriptions of the offerings at each website…and there’s lots! http://www.freepik.com/ , http://www.fordesigner.com/ , http://www.freevector.com/ , http://downloadpsd.com/ , http://www.vecteezy.c...
December 23, 2015 by DrJBHL
  “Superfish” enabled “man in the middle” type attacks on Lenovo computers, and since other OEMs have models which have been found vulnerable to similar attacks.  the software generated its own root certificate so it could intercept traffic from secure sites and overlay its own ads on the page. If hackers were to gain access to this certificate, they’d be able to spoof secure websites and steal sensitive data. Now MS will no longer allow ad injection...
December 20, 2015 by DrJBHL
  “CISA was meant to allow companies to share information on cyber attacks — including data from private citizens — with other companies and the Department of Homeland Security. Once DHS had all the pertinent details, they could be passed along to the FBI and NSA for further investigation and, potentially, legal action. The thing is, critics saw the bill as way for government agencies to more easily keep tabs on Americans without their knowledge.” – engadg...
December 19, 2015 by DrJBHL
  This filter is part of your MS OS as well as IE and Edge. It’s like Google’s SafeBrowsing BUT it has a wider scope, and it works system wide. So, MS has added protection against “drive-by” attacks to the service. “Drive-by attacks originate often on trusted websites where they are executed through third-party scripts such as advertisement or hacks. If it often the case that they don't require user interaction for execution and that is it enough for the user to visit a websit...
December 16, 2015 by DrJBHL
  People don’t know it…because Adobe hasn’t told them. Yet. I use Bridge all the time to organize my images, but have recently gone over to Lightroom to do my cataloging because I can do basic adjustments and use presets and then edit further in Photoshop (there are just things Lightroom can’t do) and then take them back into Lightroom to finish, if I need. “ Bridge CC is Adobe’s flagship desktop media browser and powerful digital asset manager t...
December 13, 2015 by DrJBHL
  Bye bye unlimited storage…MS says some users were abusing that. Maybe, maybe not. Define “some”. I figure it’s really about money…hey, that’s what corporations do. Especially those with crappy smartphones. So, MS storage had been changed from 15 GB (remember when you’d get 500 mb for each friend you brought in?) to 5 GB free and 15 GB of Camera roll bonus. MS has recanted after a good deal of disappointment was vented, and MS is lett...
December 12, 2015 by DrJBHL
  So…this is something you really want to know, and thanks to Tomer Bitton and Udi Yavo, you can find out for free. The reason you want to find out is that RWX vulnerabilities are the worst…since they allow remote code execution. Also, AVs aren’t the only target. Data Leak Preventers (DLPs) are also. There are 400 million AV users, so…there might be many folks with a false sense of security. Tomer and Udi’s freebie will check any AV you are using for this vulnerability. The co...
December 9, 2015 by DrJBHL
  “Nemesis” infect Windows computers before your security software loads. It’s a ‘rootkit’ – so it will infect your computer’s core components (hardware and software) while often disguising its actions. “In this case, the Nemesis malware goes a step further and infects the hard drive boot record, which is the very first piece of code which executes when a computer is switched on. It's this code which launches an operating system such as Windows; such an infection is also know...
December 8, 2015 by DrJBHL
  Slipstream has found even more vulnerable bundleware on Lenovo, Dell and Toshiba computers. Again, these vulnerabilities are serious, high level and can be triggered remotely with System level permissions. Lenovo... Lenovo Solution Center creates a process called LSCTaskService that runs with full administrator rights, and fires up a web server on port 55555. It can be instructed via GET and POST HTTP requests to execute code in a directory a local us...