Truecrypt has been a trusted name in on-the-fly encryption for ages (v5 arrived in February). What's new in version 6? Plenty.
One of the biggest advances is support for multiple processors, which provides a boost in the encryption/decryption speed equal to the number of processors/cores in use. Other tweaks have increased the overall speed by as much as 20% in some operations - on top of the parallel processing gains.
And - holy crap - how about being able to run a fully encrypted, hidden OS? Yeah, version 6 can do that, too. There's even a handy guide on Truecrypt's website. It'll also hide volumes, and on Vista and Windows 2008 you can even hide a system volume (not on XP, though).
They've really done it right this time. If you don't have Truecrypt, get it. We've all got some data on our PC that deserves a little extra privacy and protection. Mac and Linux versions are also available, so everyone's invited to the Truecrypt party.
Anyone who has gained super powers through radiation exposure, cosmic rays, or scientific experimentation gone wrong knows how painfully difficult it can be to conceal your identity after the fact. Fortunately, there's a web site that will help you make the process much, much simpler.
Fake Name Generator does so much more than what its moniker implies. Not only will it create a (usually) convincing new name, but it'll also give you a corresponding address, phone number, mother's maiden name, phone number - even a social security and visa number. Though we're not entirely sure it's a good idea to go passing those around.
The clever engine will even piece together an email address and domain name for you AND check to see if they're available. Now that's useful. If you're going for a safe, secondary online identity you may as well have a convincing email to go along with it.
At last we're safe to use our powers for good without fear of being discovered by our nemeses!
So you're thinking, "Hey, I want to be totally irresponsible with my computer and load it up with crapware!" Really, isn't everyone getting tired of having to be so stinking responsible on the Internet all the time? We certainly are. We're ready for system protection that isn't afraid of our reckless browsing, indiscriminate downloading, and general apathy towards good computer usage habits.
...Which is why we love Windows Steady State. It creates a cache file in which your operating system operates, meaning any harmful changes can be undone by simply emptying the cache. After downloading it's a snap to install - just a few obligatory clicks and the usual EULA mumbo-jubmo and you're set.
Our first test was pretty a pretty low-intensity workout. We surfed, bookmarked, set up a POP account and downloaded a few messages, and cluttered up the desktop with a dozen or so hilariously named folders. After issuing the old Windows - U - R we waited anxiously for the system to reboot.
There it was, just as it had been before - no trace of any of our activity. The desktop was still tidy, no favorites or emails were anywhere to be seen. So far so good, but let's try some real abuse!
Freenet is a tool that lets users publish pretty much anything online "without fear of censorship." The software stores your data on a decentralized, anonymous network of nodes made up of other Freenet users' computers. Freenet communications are encrypted and routed through those nodes, making it difficult for anyone to trace what you're doing. The service is useful for communication where a right to free speech is not guaranteed, and for privacy nuts and conspiracy theorists in countries where free speech is supposed to be a universal right, but may not be.
Freenet 0.7 was released this week, marking the first major update in three years. The latest version not only lets users upload data anonymously, but also lets users mask the fact that they're using the service at all by connecting only to computers of people you know and trust.
You can use the Freenet network to share files, publish websites, send emails, or communicate via message boards. The software is Java based and works with Windows, Mac, and Linux systems.
There are two interesting Twitter stories making the rounds this morning. First up is the launch of a localized version of Twitter for Japan. The fact that the microblogging service is branching out to other countries isn't particularly surprising. But what is significant is the fact that the Japanese version of Twitter features advertisements, something which the English language version of the site lacks.
It's likely that Twitter will roll out English ads at some point. The site has no other source of revenue. But whenever you roll out an ad-free service and then start placing display ads on the interface, people will complain. So it's probably a smart move to include advertisements from the get go in Japan.
In other news, an apparent Twitter privacy breach turned out to be a bit of a false alarm. But only a bit. Blogger and Twitter user Orli Yakuel discovered that many of her Twitter direct messages, which were supposed to be private communications between two users, were showing up on her public timeline. This is basically the same thing as posting your private emails on your blog. Not good.
It turns out that Twitter probably wasn't responsible. Rather, Orli was testing a new service called GroupTweet, and entered her account info instead of setting up a new account. But this raises another issue. There are a huge number of third party tools for Twitter. And many require you to enter your login information. While we've been pretty happy to do this in the past, figuring the worst that could happen would be that someone would start sending out Tweets in our name and we'd delete our account, the possibility of our private messages being made public hadn't really occurred to us. There really needs to be a better way for third party applications to access your Twitter data without requiring your username and password.
If you're like most of us, you probably spend at least 16 hours a week Googling your name to see what the internet says about you, and more importantly, what other people will find out if they look you up. IdentiFight provides a new tool in the effort to protect, hide, or at least identify your publicly available data.
Here's how it works. You enter your email address into IdentiFight's search engine, and it will look you up on a list of popular social networks and then display the results. The service appears to be facing some scaling issues and has disabled Facebook, Digg, MySpace, and Yelp searches for now. But we were still able to track down some slightly inaccurate data using IdentiFight (apparently someone forgot to update his Friendster profile when he moved from Princeton to Brooklyn).
The first time you notice an ad that seems to be targeted just at you, it might be kind of cool, or kind of creepy. Sure, it's great that you send an email to a friend using Gmail about a vacation you're taking in Mexico and then you noticed an ad for discounts on hotels in Cancun. But umm, that means a Google machine is reading your email, right? The same thing happens when you visit many other web sites that gather data about you and then serve up customized ads targeted toward you.
Apparently one New York legislator decided this was all rather creepy, not cool. Assemblyman Richard Brodsky has drafted a bill that would make it illegal to use your personal information without asking you first. Of course, there are many ways to ask for permission, like by burying a question in a long EULA that you have to OK before signing up for a web service. While the law would only affect New York state, the internet knows no state borders, so in order to comply companies would probably have to change their policies entirely.
On the one hand, we applaud Brodsky for attempting to protect the privacy rights of consumers who may not even realize that big companies are gathering and using their data. On the other hand, isn't it a few years too late for this kind of legislation? Aren't most of the folks who care this deeply about privacy rights already using anonymizing software on their PCs, opting out of everything they can opt out of, or unplugging their computers and moving into caves?
The folks at Google Blogoscoped have uncovered what appears to be a pretty glaring privacy hole in online photo sharing site SmugMug. Like many online photo sharing services, SmugMug allows users to mark images as public or private. If your images are private they won't show up on your profile page and other users are only supposed to be able to find them if you send them a special URL, which is not password protected.
Sure, a password would make the page more secure, but it would also make it more inconvenient for your friends, family, and colleagues to see your vacation photos. But as long as there's no easy way for the general public to find your photos, they're still secure from prying eyes, right?
Maybe not. The problem is that SmugMug gives images a predictable URL string, starting with http://www.smugmug.com/gallery/1000. All you have to do is change the number and you'll start to find photo album after photo album, whether they're market public or private.
As Google Blogoscope's Philipp Lenssen points out, the solution could be as simple as using a random string of characters. But the CEO of SmugMug replied in an email to Lenssen that the system wasn't built for randomized strings, and changing it now would be expensive. And you know what? If most SmugMug users remain blissfully unaware that their "private" images might be publicly accessible then maybe it's not wroth the time and money to fix the flaw. But we kind of think SmugMug and any other company that claims to offer users some level of privacy should really be willing to improve their system when flaws are pointed out.
Even if you have a computer at home, on occasion you'll find you need to use the public computers at a library, internet café, or your local copy shop. Traveling, technical glitches at home, or the sheer convenience of checking on something right now brings almost everyone to a public computer once in a while. It brings a few people -- whether they own computers or not -- to public computers daily.
I have a confession to make. In a former life, I was a systems librarian. I know what's on public computers. No, I don't have your personal information. I removed that from the public computers, along with a lot of keylogging software, viruses, and spyware. What I do have is a few little tricks to keep your private information private.
The cardinal rule of public computing is the most obvious. It's also the one most often broken. Sometimes there's no avoiding breaking it. Sometimes, though, it seems there is a digital variety of the "belief in immortality" that's usually attributed to young adults. This digital immortality seems to affect people of all ages.
If you're one of those people worried that one day Google will own all of your personal data, you'd better sit down. Google has launched a new service called Google Checkout Trends that shows what people are buying from merchants using Google Checkout.
Now, it's not quite as bad as it sounds. Google is anonymizing the data before releasing it. So there's no way you can use this tool to find out what Steve from the office bought his wife for their anniversary. Not yet anyway. But you can get a picture of what items are popular over time, and how two items compare with one another. For example, you can search for "ipod, zune" to see which item sold better last month.
Or at least that's how it works in theory. Right now the service seems to be down. Ionut Alex Chitu at Google Operating System grabbed a screenshot of the service last night showing that it must have worked at some point. But even Google's suggested searches return no results right now. Let us know if you have any better results in the comments.
How much data do you think Google has about you and your browsing habits? Crazy amounts. Scary amounts. Volumes of data that make our veins run cold and keep us awake at night. But, hey, they kinda own the web, right? So what can you do?
Forty One of the most popular 100 sites on the web use Google to track their visitors. As it turns out, it's pretty simple to opt-out of Google Analytics data collection. Blog Boing shows us how, "For the more privacy cautious between us the solution for preventing any site's Google Analytics to record any information on us is quite simple. Just add to your hosts file the following lines:"
This little "hack" keeps your computer from contacting Google's Analytics data collection servers, thus keeping your data out of Google's incredibly wealthy hands.
Remember back in July when Ask.com told us the company would "soon" be launching a tool that would let you automatically erase your search history to protect your privacy? Yeah, well soon is finally here, 5 months later.
The world's fourth most popular search engine has officially launched AskEraser, the most aggressive search engine anonymizing tool we're aware of. All you have to do is click the little AskEraser button at the top right side of the screen. A window will pop up asking if you'd like to turn on AskEraser. Once enabled, Ask will no longer keep records of your search terms or place cookies on your computer.
AskEraser works with the service's web, image, video, maps, news, blog, and local search engines. The feature is not retroactive. If Ask.com already has your search history, it won't disappear just because you turn AskEraser on today. But the site will "forget" your data after 18 months.
Now for the funny part. AskEraser will remain on until you click the AskEraser button again to turn it off, no matter how many times you visit the web site. How does the search engine remember your preferences? By placing a cookie on your computer that lasts for two years. Yeah, it's kind of ironic, but the alternative would be requiring you to click the button every time you visit the site.
Ever since Facebook announced its advertising platform earlier this month, people have been wondering if the service isn't a bit of an invasion of privacy.
Now it looks like Facebook has backtracked a bit after hearing complaints from users. The response makes sense. It's hard to capitalize on your huge popularity as a social network to launch an advertising platform if the users are threatening to leave. And more than 50,000 Facebook members have signed a petition complaining about Facebook Beacon.
In a nutshell, Beacon lets Facebook send messages to users letting them know that their friends bought concert or movie tickets or other goods online. Current Facebook members are already probably sick of receiving messages letting them know when a friend signs up for any new Facebook application, whether it be Scrabulous or a Zombie tag game. But once you start reporting people's buying habits, well, that's kind of crossing a line, isn't it?
The petition asked for the right to opt-out of the program easily. Yesterday Facebook responded by saying Beacon would become an opt-in program. Each time Facebook wants to send out a Beacon message, the service will ask users for permission first.
Techcrunch is reporting this morning that real estate sales company Time Lending California has acquired social networking site BOOMj.com. Time Lending admits that it deals in "direct marketing" and BOOMj.com is a site aimed at the Baby Boomer (and older) generation. Let's connect the dots, shall we?
Since it's not likely that social networking is part of Time Lending's business model, what other reason could they have for buying BOOMj? An opt-in mailing list full of sitting ducks, perhaps? According to a BOOMj.com press release, the merger (or acquisition, depending on which section of the release you read) will provide "shareholder value," give the company "access to capital markets," and "enhance (their) visibility and market awareness."
Truecrypt has been a trusted name in on-the-fly encryption for ages (v5 arrived in February). What's new in version 6? Plenty.
There are two interesting Twitter stories making the rounds this morning. First up is the launch of a 
If you're like most of us, you probably spend at least 16 hours a week Googling your name to see what the internet says about you, and more importantly, what other people will find out if they look you up. 
