Pierow’s Prattle

My Permissions is a free web service that links directly to the application permission management pages on eight social networking sites. (Such as Facebook, Twitter, Google, Yahoo, Linkedin, Dropbox, Instragram and Flickr)  Click on the link and it opens the app settings control panel of the selected service in a new tab.  MyPermissions.org makes it easy to find the otherwise difficult to locate privacy settings that often go unaltered.

[http://mypermissions.org]

Reddit had an interesting post on removing yourself from online public information search sites.  In part:

“Thanks to LawyerCT for bringing this topic up on /r/technology. She also provided a list of the top sites online that hold data on you.”

Intelius.com* – Opt-out

Acxiom.com – Opt-out

MyLife.com – To request that a Member Profile or Public Profile be deleted, please contact Customer Care at 1-888-704-1900 or contact us by email at privacy@mylife.com. Upon receipt of these requests, and confirmation that you are requesting that your own profile be removed, please allow MyLife 10 business days to complete this removal. It may be necessary to contact you to validate that you are the profile owner requesting the removal. This is to ensure the correct identity and profile ownership before completing these requests, and is for the protection of our users and their privacy. (more…)

“Lightweight Portable Security (LPS), created by the US Department of Defense, is a small Linux live CD focusing on privacy and security, for  this reason, it boots from a CD and executes from RAM, providing a web browser, a file manager and some interesing tools. LPS-Public turns an untrusted system into a trusted network client.”

[Unixmen]     [http://www.spi.dod.mil/lipose.htm]

[Download the LPS-Public ISO image, version 1.2.2 (16 July 2011)]

“If you have been troubled by recent revelations that your cell phone can be used to reveal details of your personal life, this item will probably boost your concern level. It turns out that there is actually a commercially available device specifically designed for sucking data out of your handheld. In fact, Cellebrite Ltd. (www.cellebrite.com) has just released Version 2.0 of its Universal Forensic Extraction Device (UFED), designed to provide “law enforcement and government intelligence agencies with new capabilities for improved extraction, retrieval, and analysis of mobile phone data.” (more…)

Hotmail has recently developed two new features to help protect Hotmail Accounts.  The first lets you report a friend’s account as compromised by simply clicking a link.  The second prevents you from using common passwords that make your account easy to hack.

[Hey! My friend’s account was hacked!]

Unionhawk at Lifehacker discovered a way to find the serial number of your IOS device (iPod, iPhone, etc.).  Useful if the device needed to be reported stolen.

“My brother’s iPod was stolen earlier today (set his bag down and left it unwatched for 2 seconds, came back and it was gone). We didn’t have the serial number, however, I was able to find where iTunes stores every serial number of every iPod that has ever been synced with that iPod. Just go to ~\AppData\Local\Apple Computer\iTunes\iPodDevices.xml, and it lists all serial numbers. Then you can check each serial number here to ascertain which one you’re looking for based on the model: [selfsolve.apple.com]“

WordPress.org has just posted the following on its blog:

“Earlier today the WordPress team noticed suspicious commits to several popular plugins (AddThis, WPtouch, and W3 Total Cache) containing cleverly disguised backdoors. We determined the commits were not from the authors, rolled them back, pushed updates to the plugins, and shut down access to the plugin repository while we looked for anything else unsavory.”

[via TechCrunch]

Three suspected members of the Anonymous hacking group have been arrested in Spain. The trio are said to have been involved in co-ordinating the group’s activity in that country. The arrests were made simultaneously in three Spanish cities – Barcelona, Valencia and Almeria. Anonymous has claimed responsibility for attacks on Sony, Spanish banks and co-ordinated action in defence of whistle-blowing site Wikileaks. A statement from the Spanish national police force said that a computer seized in the home of one person it arrested was used in the hacks. The arrests were the culmination of an investigation that began in October 2010. It involved Spanish cyber police combing through millions of lines of chat logs to identify who was behind the group’s activities. (more…)

WSUS Offline Generator

WSUS Offline Update allows you to update Windows Operating System software (XP, Vista, Windows 7, etc.) along with Microsoft Office products without an internet connection.  It does this by downloading all of the available patches and putting them into an ISO image that you can burn and take with you.  This is particularly useful when trying to patch computers that have no internet connection or on systems with extremely slow internet connectivity.  It could also be used to ensure that a system is fully patched prior to connecting it to a network to help prevent virus infection and security breaches.

The software is released under the GNU GPL and is completely free – though donations are welcome.

http://www.wsusoffline.net

Security researchers Alasdair Allan and Pete Warden revealed today that the iPhone and iPad 3G regularly tracks the location of your iOS device and records the co-ordinates along with timestamp in a hidden file.

Allan said in a post on O’Reilly Radar:

“Today at Where 2.0 Pete Warden and I will announce the discovery that your iPhone, and your 3G iPad, is regularly recording the position of your device into a hidden file. Ever since iOS 4 arrived, your device has been storing a long list of locations and time stamps. We’re not sure why Apple is gathering this data, but it’s clearly intentional, as the database is being restored across backups, and even device migrations. ” (more…)