Until recently, the Delhi police department in India had been enjoying a baffling long streak totally free of complaints. Of course, it’s a lot easier to keep a clean slate when you never check the complaint database in the first place. Because someone lost the password. Eight years ago.
Police over in India did not manage to act on hundreds of corruption complaints in a time frame of up to 8 years, simply because there was one niggling issue that caused the inaction. Apparently, it was reported that the police themselves have no clue as to what the computer password is. This caused Delhi officers to be unable to operate a portal that actually carried more than 600 complaints, where this particular lapse actually went undetected since 2006, at least according to the Indian Express Newspaper. The complaints hailed from India’s very own anti-corruption agency that is known as the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC).
Police Password Lost For 8 Years In India original content from Ubergizmo.
Encrypt All Synced Data in Chrome
Posted in: Today's ChiliThis article was written on March 27, 2012 by CyberNet.
One of the capabilities I love in Google Chrome is that it can sync most of my data across all of my browsers. It does a really good job of making sure my extensions, preferences, themes, bookmarks, passwords, and more are always available to me no matter which computer I’m on. The concern you might obviously have with doing something like that is how secure is your information?
By default Google will encrypt the passwords it syncs, but that’s all they will encrypt. Things like your history, bookmarks, and everything else is all stored on their servers without being encrypted first. That’s easy to fix though! If you take a look at your sync settings in Chrome there is an option to Encrypt all synced data instead of just encrypting your passwords. There is really no reason for you to not turn it on, because the data being synced is so small in size that any kind of performance hit from doing this would be negligible.
While in the settings you can also choose to set the encryption password to be something other than the password to your Google Account. If you really want to sync your data but want the most security possible these two settings are probably things you want to change.
Copyright © 2014 CyberNetNews.com
Password Protect Your Photos
Posted in: Today's ChiliThis article was written on January 21, 2008 by CyberNet.
I’m sure at some point or another you’ve wanted to password protect a photo that you were sending to someone else. Maybe it was a confidential image that you didn’t want to end up in the wrong hands, or a personal photo that you wanted to keep secret.
A handy tool called LockImage is here to save the day. It’s a free (and open source) program that will let you create an executable file containing a single image. You can then password protect that file so that so that the contents are kept confidential.
LockImage consists of a single file that is just 32KB after it’s uncompressed… and no installation is needed. It took me a minute to understand just how you create the executable file, but it’s actually rather simple:
- Download the LockImage binary (currently labeled LockImage-0.1-bin.zip). Extract the contents of the download, and then run the executable contained inside.
- Go to File -> Open, and browse for the image you want to password protect. The image will open up in the viewer.
- Go to File -> Save As, choose a file name, and type in the password you want to use to protect the image.
After completing those steps a new executable file will be created. Upon launching the executable you’ll be prompted for the password before being able to see the image:
This is a really new project, and I could see it becoming a great tool for sharing photos with family and friends. One thing that I hope the developer will work on is a way to include multiple images in a single file so that you can send if off as a gallery.
Note: Many email services and file sharing sites don’t allow executable files to be shared.
Thanks to Aziz for the tip!
Copyright © 2014 CyberNetNews.com
A lot of people I know mix up their passwords because they have so many accounts online. Sometimes, it gets difficult to keep track of all the passwords you’ve created and used over the years.
Aiming to provide an alternative to passwords is eyeLock’s Myris iris scanner.
The Myris is exactly what its name implies. But how do you use it?
Well, first of all, you’ll have to set up a profile and key in all of your passwords. You’re then supposed to “teach” Myris how to recognize your eyeballs by following a short series of instructions. From that point forward, you will then be able to log in your email, bank, and social media accounts simply by having the Myris scan both of your eyes.
The team behind Myris claims that a double-iris scan is one of the most foolproof biometric security systems available, offering a false acceptance rate that is only bested by a DNA test. In fact, the chances of a false match are 1 in 2.25 trillion.
Myris will be available later this year and will be priced between $200 to $300(USD).
[via Dvice]
There are programs and services that can store your passwords for various websites and type them in for you. But if you set a login password for your computer, you better remember that or you’re screwed. Or you can fund Jonty Lovell’s invention. Lovell came up with a small USB device that can reset the login password of Windows computers.
Lovell simply calls it the Password Reset Key. It works with computers running Windows NT, Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8 or Windows 8.1. To use the key, set your computer to boot from USB, plug the device in and restart your computer. You’ll then see a fairly understandable interface, which you can check out at 0:27 in the video below.
Lovell is well aware that his device can be used in unethical ways. Speaking with CNET, Lovell said that his invention is a testament to the “inherent insecurity of the Windows password system.” He even revealed how you can protect yourself from his invention: use disk encryption.
Lovell is currently raising funds for the Password Reset Key on Kickstarter. A pledge of £8 (~$13 USD) gets you a copy of the software, which you can install on any USB drive. Pledge at least £10 (~$16 USD) and you get a key-shaped 1GB drive with the password reset software pre-installed on it.
[via CNET]
PSN users around the world have been booting up their various consoles only to be confronted with a message saying their passwords are incorrect. They’ve then had to go through the rigmarole of creating new login details, usually while still in the dark as to what happened to their accounts in the first place — and whether they might have been hacked. Sony has since put out an explanation via various official channels in the US, EU and Japan, saying that only “some” users have been affected and that the password resets are “purely a precautionary measure” for “routine protection.” We’ve contacted the company for clarification on its policy about contacting users individually in this sort of situation, and also to see if we can find out a little more about this “non-specific” threat to certain accounts.
When hackers break into the databases of the great and good—like Adobe
A new way of verifying you’re a real person and not a spam machine might eliminate the chore of typing phrases like “beetle sausage” and so on, with a start-up looking to gamify the art of verifying you’re a human.
Your personal information is definitely very precious to you, which is why you should take all the possible and necessary steps to prevent any kind of personal information from getting stolen or abused. Passwords are one sensitive area which we have had to talk about in recent memory, and unfortunately for those who use Google’s Chrome web browser, you run the danger of having your user passwords exposed, “courtesy” of a security flaw within the Chrome browser itself. In a nutshell, this particular flaw would enable just about anyone who is able to gain access to a user’s computer in order to check out the slew of stored passwords straight from the settings panel itself.
Credit to software developer Elliott Kember for discovering this when he was importing his bookmarks from Apple’s Safari browser to Google Chrome. Kember realized that it was “mandatory” to import saved passwords from one browser to the other, and he did not feel quite right about that. After snooping around, he realized that Google does offer protection for the passwords from being viewed whenever a user is logged in and has Chrome up and running. All one needs to do is head on to the advanced settings page, click on the “Passwords and forms” option, and follow that up with “Manage saved passwords”.
Another way of doing so would be to type “chrome://settings/passwords” into one’s browser search bar, and clicking the ‘show’ button located next to a list of obscured passwords will do accordingly – revealing the passwords in plain text.
Google Chrome Carries Danger Of Exposing User Passwords original content from Ubergizmo.