Ken Harthun

This post is long overdue. Having completed my How to Secure Your Computer series of articles, it’s time to get links to all of them organized on a single page.
The series debuted on January 4, 2007 here on Ask the Geek, Too. I continued to post them here until March, 2008 when other commitments [...]

Check out this article in my new IT Knowledge Exchange blog (a paying gig for a change!). Seems the Air Force (which I’m a veteran of) has set up a new Cyber Command division. I’m sure it’ll be the geekiest place in the military.
Cheers!The Geek

Many of us have come to know and love the Cisco PIX 500 Series as a robust firewall for the SMB (Small and medium business) customer. Virtually 95% of the clients that my consulting firm services have either a PIX 501 or 506 firewall in place. But as of July 28, 2008, you will no [...]

I sometimes enjoy playing with codes and ciphers. In fact, a long time ago (eighth grade, 1966), I got my introduction to cryptography from a book aptly named Codes and Ciphers written by Alexander d’Agapeyeff. My friends and I had some good laughs getting caught passing encoded notes in class; the nun couldn’t decipher them. [...]

Folks, let me tell you, Techsay.com is bogus. You aren’t going to earn anything unless you lie.  I have been sent five surveys and haven’t qualified for a single one.  Unless you’re Joe Consumer and have no idea about anything related to IT, I doubt you’re ever going to complete a survey, much less earn anything. [...]

Recently, a person I know (who shall remain nameless to prevent embarrassment) had his laptop stolen out of his car. Now, to his credit he had been faithfully backing up his data. Smart guy. He would back up all of his data weekly to a CD and take it home for secure storage. Good plan. [...]

Jessica Foote, one of the PR reps for Zonbu sent me this yesterday:
Hi Ken,
I’m happy to finally be able to share Zonbu’s latest news! Starting today, Zonbu fans can be green and hassle-free on the go. Zonbu is announcing a new Zonbu Notebook. Like the Zonbu Mini Desktop, the Zonbu Notebook is based on [...]

I recently met Dave Hartsock of Dave’s Computer Tips, had a great conversation with him, and decided to jump on board as the contributing editor of his newsletter’s “Security Focus” column. The newsletter is a quality piece of work and you won’t find a nicer guy than Dave.
But Dave has a problem–the writer who committed to [...]

Within the next few years, the personal computer as we know it will be obsolete. A bold statement, perhaps, but ponder these points:

More and more companies are offering vital business productivity applications as web-based services meaning you don’t have to buy and install software on your hard drive.
PC security is nearly impossible for the average user; [...]

No, I’m not talking about that finger; it’ll become obvious in a moment which finger I’m talking about. First, let me ask a few questions:

Is your car parked, empty, in the driveway right now with its engine on?
Is your shower, with no one in it, running?
Is your stove, with nothing cooking on it, turned on?
Is your attic light [...]

Steve Gibson, creator of Spinrite and winner of the Third Annual People’s Choice Podcast Awards in the Technology/Science category for his Security Now! podcast with Leo Laporte of Twit.tv, has just come up with a super-secure multifactor authentication system. Steve calls it “Perfect Paper Passwords” and you can read all about it on his web [...]

If you’ve been following this series of security maxims, you’re probably pretty careful about what you do on the web. You certainly have strong passwords for all of your logins, all of them different, and you don’t go around telling people what they are or keeping them on sticky notes attached to the monitor at [...]

I’ve been playing with the Zonbu review unit on and off for two months now and I’ve certainly been impressed with its ease of use and clean feel. But I’m a Geek and Geeks tend to be able to set up and play with such toys easily while the average consumer sometimes has trouble. The ultimate ease-of-use test would [...]

Every self-respecting computer Geek hates spam. And most normal people do, too. But if you understand what Spam *really* is, you might just come to love it.
The inventor of Spam confesses and explains at www.spam.com.
Enjoy your weekend.
Cheers!The Geek
Have a question? It can be about anything from cooking to science, whatever you’re interested in: Click [...]

The wizards at Redmond have done it again. Not only did they not tell us about the updates to Windows Update on our PCs, they managed to break the XP repair function. From Windows Secrets:
After a repair install of XP, which resets the operating system to its original state, Windows Update can’t install the 80 [...]

According to Secunia Advisory SA26960, If you have the Ask Toolbar installed on your system, you’re at risk. From Secunia Weekly Summary - Issue: 2007-39:
A vulnerability has been discovered in the Ask.com Ask Toolbar, which can be exploited by malicious people to compromise a user’s system. The vulnerability, a boundary error in the AskJeevesToolBar.SettingsPlugin.1 ActiveX control [...]

I first heard of this in the latest issue (Vol. 7, #39 - Sep 25, 2007 - Issue #296) of WXP News.
“A security flaw has been discovered in Adobe’s Acrobat Reader, which is installed on a huge number of PCs. The vulnerability allows attackers to compromise Windows computers…. This problems affects Acrobat Reader versions 7, 8.0 [...]

Most people do, of course, and the best cartoons are the ones that make learning  tough lessons a little easier. PC security lessons are hard for the non-geek user to learn and most people learn them only after getting burned by malware, becoming a victim of identity theft, or suffering financial loss from online fraud. We IT security [...]

The latest WXP News reports that you no longer have to call Microsoft support services to obtain hotfixes; you can submit a request via the web:
Until recently, to get a hot fix you had to call Microsoft support services. Now they’ve made it easier by providing a web site where you can order hot fixes you [...]

I get a lot of ”Ask the Geek” emails from people whose computers won’t shut down properly, either hanging up or rebooting endlessly. (Sometimes, nothing at all happens and you have to press and hold the power button.) Rather than trying to answer each question, I figure it’s time I made this tip available.
So, I wrote a [...]