Security

Have you ever wondered how you could set your webcam up as a security camera and have the images sent to you somewhere else? Maybe you wanted motion detection or noise detection to turn it on automatically? Or maybe that’s just us, and we’re a little paranoid. Regardless, Periscope is a tool that lets you do all of those things with your webcam, and more.

You can trigger it to start recording in several ways: motion detection, noise detection, via Apple Remote, or with a timer. Once it’s on, it’ll capture images and save them to disc or send them to a few other places for review. It works with Flickr, e-mail, FTP, iPhoto, and the now-obsolete .mac (presumably an upcoming version will support MobileMe). You can also time-stamp or add your own logo automatically to your pictures.

Even if you’re not interested in the security applications of Periscope, you might find it useful for making time-lapse videos. With its ability to capture images at intervals, you could theoretically capture your entire day at your desk if you had the disk space. Although we tested it with a built-in iSight, Periscope should work with other webcams.

Not really.

Forgetting your password to Yahoo!, Gmail, Twitter, Hotornot, or “other” sites can be downright annoying and maddening. It’s not a cute situation at all.

But now it might be with the software Cute Password Manager.

For some reason, we end up with 12 different passwords for 25 different sites. It never fails. So a password manager is nothing new.

What does Cute offer that’s different? Well let’s take a look:

• AutoSaving passwords in your browser saves time. Firefox and others has this built in, but it’s nice to have something outside of the browser in case it crashes and dies.
• Cute will generate really strong passwords for you to manage. So you could unify all of your passwords with one that’s solid. And you don’t have to remember it.
• Encrypt passwords and personal data using AES.
• Info is stored on your PC only (No Macs though…boooooo)
• Backup & Restore, Print your passwords.
• Fights Phishing by filling passwords only on matching web sites.
• Imports & Exports your passwords with text and csv format file.

Our main question is, is there a password to get to the password manager (yes, actually there is a master password)? And if you forget it, do you need a password manager for that?

Exhausting.

Also, how secure is this if you have more than one person using your computer? There might be certain sites you don’t want your um significant other um…discovering?

But hey, that’s on you.

Don’t get too cute, but feel free to save some brain space by flushing out your internal memory cache. It’s free, so give it a try and let us know what you think!

Have you ever accidentally visited MySpace? Yeah, we probably have too, though, it was never a noticeable problem. In fact, we can’t even remember it happening, but it seems like it has to have happened… right?

Well, this Firefox add-on promises to detect MySpace in Firefox, and provide a pop-up menu to stop unsuspecting web-browsers from hitting up the social network. The plug-in is obviously a joke, but we found a great use for it anyway — avoiding phishing.

It’s called AmIOnMySpace.com? and it can be used to detect the real MySpace site. If for any reason the message doesn’t pop-up upon first visiting the social network, you’re not on the real site. The biggest problem with using this as a way of avoiding phishing sites is that it doesn’t alert users when leaving MySpace, so it’s still possible to get attacked from within.

[via Digg]

Want to delete some files on your hard disk and make sure that no one will ever be able to recover them? Wipe File is a free Windows utility that lets you wipe files or directories using one of 14 different methods. Instead of simply moving files to the recycle bin, Wipe File will overwrite the section of your hard drive that contained the file making it difficult, if not impossible for anyone to discover what the original file contained.

When you first run the program, all of the menus will be in German, but Wipe File supports 9 languages including English. Just hit the Extras menu to find a list of languages.

If you’re looking for a program that can wipe entire discs or partitions, you might wan to check out Wipe Disc, another utility from the developer of Wipe File.

[via LUX.ET.UMBRA]

It has come to our attention that there’s an Adobe Flash player vulnerability in the wild that may affect your PC.

Simply by visiting a naughty website, the unsuspecting web visitor will be attacked with a piece of code that redirects you to an evil .SWF file that can then execute nasty code on their PC.

Adobe has blogged about the issue, but hasn’t issued any releases, or patches to take care of the problem as of yet. Security firm Symantec says that 20,000 web pages may be affected by this style of attack.

Since there’s no real way around getting hit with this one, you can either disable your flash player altogether, or get the No-Script add-on for your Firefox browser.

[via webmonkey]

UPDATE: Adobe has issued a fix, click here to update. Read here for more info.

Have some files on your PC that you’d rather not have your roommate looking at? Want to send some top secret government documents over email without the risk of someone intercepting your email and reading your files? Flexcrypt Folder is a free encryption utility for Windows that can password protect any group of files for you.

Once you’ve installed Flexcrypt Folder, all you have to do is highlight a file, folder, or group of files that you want to encrypt and right click on them to bring up the context menu. Select Encrypt using FlexCrypt Folder, enter a password, and you’re all set. The program will create a self extracting archive that can only be opened with the correct password.

In other words, you can send the file to anybody you want, and they don’t need to install anything on their computer to extract the contents. They just need the correct password.

[via Shell Extension City]

There’s been a lot of discussion about a Debian bug going around.

The bug affects SSL certificates on servers, which means visiting a compromised server could leave your info in the open, without you having the faintest idea.

Here’s a quick rundown:

“All RSA & DSA keypairs generated with OpenSSL on affected systems (any Debian-based system between roughly Sep-17-2006 and May-13-2008) are trivial to guess. The fix is not so simple. After updating OpenSSL on an affected system, you need to figure out if any of your crypto keys are affected.” [...] “You need to regenerate all such keys and replace your SSL certificates as well. “

That’s all very techy, but if you’re running a Debian server, you know exactly what’s up.

Now there’s a handy Firefox extension that will alert you when visiting a potentially compromised site. The extension works a little magic in the background to determine if the SSL certificate you’re trusting to keep your transaction safe is one which could be dangerous, thus giving you a little added protection from the rough and ragged world of cybercrime.

You can download it here.

[via codefromthe70s]

Lavasoft has released Ad-Aware 2008, the latest version of the company’s popular anti-spyware utility for Windows. Ad-Aware 2008 comes in Free, Plus, and Pro varieties. The free version lacks real-time spyware detection, scheduled scans, tech support, and anti-virus software. But it still does a pretty good job of finding spyware on your system,

The latest version boasts quicker updates and scans, lower resource usage, and an enhanced rootkit removal system. Ad-Aware Plus will set you back $26.95. For $39.95 you can get Ad-Ware Pro, which also adds command line support, a process watch module, and network drive scanning. If you’re not sure which version provides the features you need, you can check out the comparison chart.

Or you can rely on other free anti-spyware utilities like Spybot or Windows Defender.

[via Sizzled Core]

With rumors flying about a summer release for the next-generation iPhone, a lot of people are going to selling off their current iPhones on eBay or Craigslist. Of course, you’ll probably wipe the data from your phone before you let it go, but how can you be sure it’s completely erased? Files have been recovered from refurbished iPhones already, so it doesn’t hurt to take precautions.

First, do a restore of the phone from iTunes, with all syncing options turned off. That means clicking through each tab in the iPhone menu to make sure photos, videos, contacts and calendars aren’t syncing to the phone anymore. Next, make 3 new playlists that are each big enough to use all of your iPhone’s storage. Set one of them to sync, and fill up your phone with it. Then switch to the next one, sync it, and do the same with the third. These playlists should write over any remaining personal data, and leave your device lemony-fresh and ready to change hands.

[Via Hack a Day]

This is primarily for our readers in the UK, but it’s part of a growing trend that should concern Internet users everywhere. Phorm is a notorious advertising system that tracks the browsing activities of customers of huge companies like BT (a major British ISP) and Virgin Media. The data is collected and used to sell targeted advertising, which has a lot of people up in arms over privacy concerns.

Information rights activists aren’t known for sitting idle when their privacy is threatened by spyware, and that’s where AntiPhormLite comes in. The program, available for Windows XP and Vista, runs as a standalone up or within a second browser of your choice. It calls web pages on its own, generating a fake trail of browsing activity that should make Phorm’s data completely useless. AntiPhormLite won’t hit your bandwidth, because it only grabs the HTML from each page it hits, leaving out the heavy stuff like Flash, and avoiding any dangerous executables.

You can run AntiPhormLite as a standalone app or within a second browser of your choice. The AntiPhormLite has a thorough, and entertaining, FAQ that should address any concerns you might have about running the app. Our favorite bit? “Just run it and go and watch TV if you want. Someone somewhere will assume you like to shop for red shoes and caravans and be rubbing their hands with glee.”

[via BoingBoing]