Creating a One-Time Use Credit Card With PayPal
If you do a fair amount of shopping online, you’ve probably thought about what happens with your credit card information from time to time. Most of the time, it’s ‘conveniently’ stored for you so the next time you shop with Company X the transaction will go even smoother. This is a terrible idea. What happens when (not if, when) the site is compromised? What if the company is a fly-by night? What if you have a keylogger installed on your computer?
There are a ton of bad things that can happen when you submit personal information from your computer. This is why I love the one time use credit card option that PayPal offers. I’m going to show you how to set up the PayPal Firefox extension, and help you generate your first one-time use credit card!
Installing TrueCrypt 5.1a & 6.1a On Ubuntu 8.04, 8.10 or 9.04
TrueCrypt was finally made available for Linux with the release of version 5.1a. Here’s how to install it.
**Update**
I have been made aware by Onopoc in the comments section that this same tutorial will work with TrueCrypt 6.1a as well. Simply change the name of the file in the respective spots where the exact file name is used
Installing TrueCrypt
- Open a terminal window and type: ‘wget http://www.truecrypt.org/downloads/truecrypt-5.1a-ubuntu-x86.tar.gz’
- Once that is done, type: ‘tar zxvf truecrypt-5.1a-ubuntu-x86.tar.gz’
- Now go to ‘Places‘ –> ‘Home Folder‘ and look for a file called
‘truecrypt-5.1a-setup-ubuntu-x86‘ and double click on it
- You should get a dialog box asking you what you want to do with it. Choose ‘Run in Terminal‘
- You should now see another dialog box with the option to ‘Install TrueCrypt‘ at the bottom. Choose this.
User Question: Whats Your Favorite Application/Tool/Algorithm & What Files Do You Protect?
So I just installed Skribit today, and about an hour later I got my first user submitted question for a post. I thought it was a really good question that definitely deserved my attention. Also, if you were the person who asked this question, please email me at (randy AT randyjensenonline DOT COM) so I can give you a link to your blog/website/Facebook page/etc.
Whats Your Favorite Application/Tool/Algorithm & What Files Do You Protect?
Favorite Encryption App/Tool
TrueCrypt. This one’s not even close. This thing is the best of breed and anyone serious about security should be using it. I also like AxCrypt for encrypting single files you want to send securely.
Encrypting Thumb Drives With TrueCrypt
Last week I wrote a post on how to encrypt entire hard drives with TrueCrypt. We all know how easy it is to have your laptop lost or stolen and how important it is to protect sensitive data. However, something that is even easier to lose and often has just as sensitive data on it is thumb drives. I know personally I’ve lost a couple of them over time.
Today we’re going to learn how to encrypt these drives to keep them from prying eyes.
Setting Up
Just a few things to get you prepared for the encryption process.
- Grab TrueCrypt if you don’t already have it.
- Make sure your thumb drive is plugged in and move everything on it to your desktop. This is important because TrueCrypt is going to format the drive during the encryption process.
- Open the main TrueCrypt window
Using AxCrypt to Encrypt Individual Files
In today’s digital age, computer security is more important than ever. In addition to people storing more and more personal data on their computers, they are also sending personal data back and forth through email and other online transfer methods. In addition to this, if you send personal files burned on a cd/dvd through the mail, what happens if a postal worker gets curious or your package gets lost?
Here’s the question: How do you keep people from spying on your data while in transit, either physical or digital?
Normally I would say TrueCrypt, hands down. The biggets problem? It’s got a bit of a learning curve and is probably overkill for most people.
Enter AxCrypt.
Paypal Security Key and Multifactor Authentication
After listening to an episode of Steve Gibson’s Security Now podcast about the new PayPal Security Key, I promptly ordered one.
If you’re not sure what the Security Key is, it’s a small dongle that is linked to your PayPal and eBay accounts. It has a small screen that shows you a six digit number when you press the button. Why is this important?
Well, I’m glad you asked. This brings security to a whole new level that’s referred to as ‘multifactor authentication’.
Single Factor Authentication
To understand how the key works, you need to understand how the current system works. When you login to your PayPal (or eBay, last time I’m going to say that, promise), you will type your username and password and you’re logged in. This makes it very easy for hackers to get into your account either by compromising PayPal’s servers or with some type of keylogger. This method is called single factor authentication. It’s simply “something you know” (or something a hacker knows:).
How Not To Dispose Of a Computer, and What You Can Do To Do It Right
For the past couple months, I have been trying to get the pieces in place to start a charity that donates old computers to underprivileged children. The only problem is, where do I get the computers?
The complex I currently live in has trash-pickup every day and people just put the trash near the sidewalk. Well, the other morning I was on my way to work and someone had thrown out two perfectly good computers (although old), a monitor, a keyboard, and a mouse. Seemed like a perfect opportunity to get a start on my non-profit venture.
I hauled the computers three stories to my place and headed off to work. That night I came home and decided to plug one of them just to make sure they were actually still working. Sure enough, the Windows ME splashscreen popped up to my enjoyment. God how I miss the ME days. What a classic operating system. It could easily be compared to such great OS’s as Windows 1.1 and Mac OS 9.
Windows Update For Daylight Savings Time
This is for all you Windows XP users out there. If you don’t know about the daylight-savings time change, read this Cnet article. Basically starting this year, daylight-savings time will be extended by four weeks. Microsoft just released a patch this Tuesday to make sure everything is taken care of without a hitch, so just make sure you have automatic updates turned on or you run the updater manually.
…oh and by the way, when I said “without a hitch”, I meant mostly without a hitch. Microsoft just released a statement that there is not a patch for it’s calendaring programs (eg. the one in Outlook) which means you should double check all your appointments in March and April.
New "No-Traces-Left-Behind" Browser Turns Out to Be Adware
I just read about a new internet browser called Browzar earlier today. Since I was at work all day, I had to wait to try it out. For once, I’m glad I was at work. Later in the day, I read another article “Browzar Is Fake and Full of Adware“.
Turns out the browser is no more secure than IE and could have been built by any amateur programmer. In addition to this, you can’t change the homepage and you get incredibly odd results from the built in search engine which uses Overture, a pay-per-click search engine.
This is the only time I will ever say this. “Stick to Internet Explorer”.
Two New Phishing Scams Arise
Just heard today that there are a couple new phishing scams making their rounds. Both are being spread by email with attachments. So don’t open attachments.
The first scam claims that it’s a Microsoft security update and the other is a fake iPod invoice.
Now Microsoft has recently released a real security patch, but as you know, this is never done through email. If you want to get MS updates, turn on automatic updates and you’ll be just fine.
The iPod email claims you will receive an iPod via FedEx and about $500 debited from your account.
Be on the look-out, and be smart. Read my post on smart security here for more tips.
