Category: Personal Security

Watch your back

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Re-calculating

Every time I jump onto a plane it’s a chance to re-calculate my life choices and look at things from a different angle.  This time around, I’ll be testing out the Google DNS alternative 1.1.1.1 from a technical and personal perspective.

1.1.1.1 for consumers should speed things up a bit and sidestep the monitoring and logging from Internet Service Providers.  Naturally, I’ll start with my PS4 and later on selected routers and servers.

Breaking up is hard to do

Leaving the default settings active is the easier thing to do and creates a nice comfort factor as things just work as expected.  Messing with your settings and configuration can cause you a world of headaches.  As usual, the best practice is backup, backup and then test your backup.  Warning: You can “BREAK” your internet connection by messing with DNS.

In the meantime, check 1.1.1.1 for a non-technical guide to a brand new cleaner Internet experience.

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Out of warranty, uninsured and not supported

It’s pretty hard to convince an individual to invest any time into a Personal IT disaster recovery plan.  Even if they have experienced some IT loss, folk simply think their gadgets will continue working forever,

A visit to an Apple genius bar will see a constant flow of disparate anxious end-users who are there because of some kind of IT failure.  As an engineer, it’s great solving problems and putting out fires but most incidents can be easily avoided.

Did you backup today?
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Ethical justice

Aiding and abetting is a standard crime in the physical world.  The message is being pushed out strongly to Malware authors that if your tools are used in a crime you will be prosecuted.  Security researchers face the same challenge but abide to ethical standards.

No more hiding behind the keyboard

Taylor Huddleston was selling this tools for a bargain at 25 USD, it worked and naturally was a hit with all types of hackers.  Read on

Why can’t this same approach tackle the rampant gun crimes in the US?

Ethically inappropriate?

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Disaster recovery

It’s never gonna happen but when you are hit with a major digital failure it’s always good to where your data is.

Despite having a fairly robust set-up it’s really hard to stay focused and not succumb to the emotional inconvenience of an IT failure.  It always happens when you are busy, traveling and distracted with real life.  Individuals seldom practice the scenario and companies are on high alert standby to fleece you of any hard earning monies to fix the issue.

“everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth”. Mike Tyson

Titan Attacks! Did you Back-up today?
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Make me redundant

In my early career, the word redundancy used to strike fear into my well-being. Decades later it’s a place a comfort and represents resilience.  Backing up the backup and testing the back-up routinely is an easy habit to adopt. Sadly. For  many end users, they simply store all their precious data on a single device with unknown backup status.

Where’s my data?

A family member nearly lost over 5000 images because they critically failed to even grasp the relevance of backup or data management.

The strategy should always be protecting the data first and the end-point device second but unfortunately, we love our shiny phones way too much to think that way.

Zero gameplay or medication today