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National Cybersecurity Bullshit Month

Some of these people make intelligent surfers so angry they want to drink blood.


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You want to pull your hair out. Then you take a moment, take a step back, and you say to yourself 'wait a minute - pull my own hair out? No - I wanna pull their hair out! I wanna kick the shit out of them! Those stupid ignorant fat cats lining their pockets and keeping the world hostage!'

Now you've got the spirit.

What's all the excitement? All the fury? It's the United States National Cybersecurity Awareness Month. The biggest truckload of bullshit to hit our planet this millennium.

It probably started as a good idea. Somebody said 'hey this Internet: it's shit. You get clobbered everywhere you go. Spam in email and your computer is a zombie in a botnet. And lots of my friends have had to fight with Experian to get their identities back - what a load of fucking shit!'

That's probably how it started. And undoubtedly a lot of people agreed, a lot of people had the same nightmarish experiences. But then they thought of Voldemort. And they all clammed up.

Everybody knows where the evil is but no one can say it. Not those chickadees on Capitol Hill at any rate. We gotta be fair. We can't go accusing a corporation of undermining national security! They pay a fuck of a lot of taxes! And I had dinner with them last week! And they gave me and my wife some incredible gifts!

The people are suffering out there. We gotta get reelected. Only one way to do that. Shakespeare summed it up back in 1941 or whenever he wrote that play - 'sound and fury signifying nothing'. We do the same thing we always do.

Try this Google search and see what you come up with.

http://www.google.com/search?q=Microsoft site:staysafeonline.org

Bored Board Members

Now take a look at who's running the show over there.

Tiffany Olson Jones is the president of this ludicrous 'National Cyber Security Bullshit Alliance' (NCSBA). SHE WORKS FOR SYMANTEC.

Lori Bush (!) is secretary of the NCSBA. She works for CISCO.

Jacqueline Beaucher (name ring a bell) is from MICROSOFT where she's the DIRECTOR of TRUSTWORTHY COMPUTING.

['Trustworthy computing' as everyone knows by now has nothing to do with user safety: it's the collected tricks to enforce DRM on Windows computers by - amongst other things - only connecting peripheral devices that deliberately ruin signal quality. See Peter Gutmann's excellent paper on the subject.]

Who else is on this board of clowns isn't important. One can already see Voldemort and his friends have a firm hold and no one but no one is going to accuse them of anything.

Tom Marvolo

Now try to use that Google page to find anything else about Windows. Try this link too.

http://www.google.com/search?q=Windows site:staysafeonline.org

It's amazing what you'll find at this site DEDICATED ONLY TO CYBERSECURITY.

http://www.staysafeonline.org/files/pdfs/k-12/20060927-cyber2-hacking.pdf
Windows no longer sole target; Macs attacked, too By Byron Acohid USA TODAY
SEATTLE - In a widely aired TV commercial, a hip-looking dude personifying Apple products wipes the nose of a sickly businessman representing Windows PCs, and smugly declares Apple's immunity to computer viruses.

Apple security holes. Apple has issued patches for vulnerabilities 35 times since January 2005, including 12 this year. Seven have been to fix flaws in its popular iTunes and QuickTime digital media software. The most recent iTunes patch, issued June 29, plugs a security hole that could allow an intruder to execute malicious code. Apple turned down interview requests for this story.


Turned down requests? You mean they thought you were a bunch of idiots and didn't want to get involved?

Apple and other software vendors are just starting to come to grips with security patches, says Scott Carpenter, director of security labs at Secure Elements. Unlike Microsoft, which has emphasised security since early 2002...

Isn't it great for people in the US to know how their taxpayer dollars are being used?

Firewallz!

The 'firewalls' section of the site is a piece of work that has to be seen to be believed. Here's the section for 'Macintosh OS X'. Check the cute cursor.

This video tutorial shows you how to start the built-in firewall of the Macintosh OS X operating system. This option is available only to users of the Macintosh OS X operating system version 10.2 or later.



Yeah so you better get your system upgraded now!!1!

[For those who need reminding: 'Macintosh OS X 10.2' (which this clip depicts) was formally superseded in October 2003 - SIX YEARS AGO.] [There's also a section for 'Windows XP'.]

So they're certainly not spending money on up to date teaching materials. What are they spending it on? Tiffany? Lori? Jackie? Any clues?

[People in the US are bound to sleep better at night knowing their NATIONAL CYBERSECURITY is in the hands of three Las Vegas hookers.]

Microsoft+Vulnerabilities? Where?

Try to find anything - ANYTHING AT ALL - that doesn't try to smear Microsoft's competitors. ANYTHING AT ALL that says one iota of truth ABOUT HOW BAD MICROSOFT PRODUCTS ARE. ONE WORD.

Try.

Available for: Windows!

The following additional security tools are recommended. Note all but one are exclusively for Windows.

  • Anonymizer Total Net Shield. $99.95/year. Available for: Windows.
  • BlackIce Defender. $39.95. Available for: Windows.
  • Freedom Firewall. $39.95/year. Available for: Windows.
  • McAfee Personal Firewall. $39.95. Available for: Windows.
  • My Firewall Plus. $39.95. Available for: Windows.
  • Norton Internet Security/Personal Firewall. $69.95 and $49.95/year.
  • Primedius Professional Privacy. $59.95/year. Available for: Windows.
  • Steganus Internet Security. €39.95. Available for: Windows.
  • SurfSecret Personal Firewall. $39.99. Available for: Windows.
  • Sygate Personal Firewall PRO. $39.95. Available for: Windows.
  • VirusScan 7.0. $49.99. Available for: Windows.
  • Windows XP Firewall. $99.00. Available for: Windows.
  • ZoneAlarm Pro. $39.95/year. Available for: Windows.

Finding out how many of their antiquated links are today broken is left as an exercise for the reader.

Würdz of Wisdümb!

The site has many sections selflessly (and without bias) devoted to helping individuals and small businesses get more secure.

  • Viruses and worms are online 'infections'.
  • At their worst, viruses and worms can enable hackers to steal valuable corporate, customer or employee information, increase spam, delete files, or crash your entire computer system.
  • Luckily, viruses and worms are some of the most preventable threats that your company will face.
  • Anti-virus and anti-spyware software is commercially available and easy to use.
  • Don't open unsolicited email messages.
  • Surf carefully. Just as you don't wander into dangerous neighborhoods in the real world, you need to be careful where you surf online. Disreputable sites can be loaded with spyware and viruses intended to crash your computer and steal personal information.
  • The receiving threat. Opening spam emails can put you at risk of contracting computer viruses, worms and other malicious code that is capable of disabling your corporate network or opening vulnerabilities that allow hackers to view and steal corporate, employee and customer data.

You may now be excused to go to the bathroom.

Draft and Implement Cyber Security Plan!

Perhaps the most helpful section is the how-to for setting up one's own cyber security plan. The page is rendered here as a screen dump just in case someone decides they might have to take it down and/or amend it.



But hopefully no one will get such a foolish idea as the page as it stands is a classic.

And it's also a mark of pure genius to tell someone who's viewing a web page that the page can't be found and you don't have authorisation to view it anyway.

Maggie Shiels

Maggie Shiels is purportedly a BBC news technology reporter in SILICON VALLEY. She's written about the brave, competent, and selfless efforts of the NCSBA in thwarting the evil haXors. Yet even though Auntie Beeb have been better of late in making at least a lame mention of the fact NONE OF THESE VIRUSES HAPPEN OUTSIDE THE WORLD OF WINDOWS, Maggie Shiels squeaks by and avoids that strange fact completely.

Catch-22 & Hallowe'en

Both Catch-22 and Hallowe'en are approaching. These are scary times. People everywhere have a right to better (virtual) lives. Write to your governments and demand they stop catering to the bribes of Microsoft and START TELLING PEOPLE THE TRUTH.

See Also
STAYSAFEONLINE.org
BBC News: US 'cyber hygiene effort'

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