Category: Security

A Nice Radio Programming Program

I recently purchased some handheld radios. Now it is time to program them. The vendor recommends RT Systems, Inc. for the programming software.

So far, the company, website, and program are impressive. There’s a huge list of radio brands their products will program. Their website has how-to videos and nice knowledge base section.

Although I’ll use the software to program the radios now, I’ll still take the time to familiarize myself with how to program them in the field. While listening to an ARRL On the Air podcast, they mentioned the importance of knowing this. Getting it programmed just right, at home, is great. But sometimes I’ll want to change that when I’m not at home. It’s better to know how to do that before I need it.

How To Make Your Technology Work For You? Don’t Trust Home Automation, Don’t Trust Tech Companies.

Out of all this, I’d recommend Brandon Jackson’s YouTube video (15 minutes 30 seconds long) at “The Customer’s Perspective in the Amazon Account Lock out” and his Medium post at “A Tale of Unwanted Disruption: My Week Without Amazon“. His video is dated June 14 2023 and his post is dated June 4 2023. (Both were last accessed on June 16 2023.)

Also, here’s an article by Thomas Claburn in The Register, dated June 15 2023: “Amazon confirms it locked Microsoft engineer out of his Echo gear over false claim“.

In case none of those links work at some unknown point in the future, here’s a summary: Amazon customer (Jackson) notices his Amazon Echo device is not responding. He contacts Amazon and is told an Amazon delivery driver heard someone in his house make a racist remark at the driver who was delivering a package. Jackson checks the date and time of delivery on footage from multiple cameras on his property. He has footage of the driver delivering the package, footage includes audio. There is no racist remark on the audio. He sends the footage to Amazon, it takes Amazon a full week to reinstate his account. During that time, multiple home automation devices which could be accessed by Amazon’s Echo and Alexa now cannot be accessed because he’s frozen out of his account.

In his post and video, Jackson goes into a bit of detail about his home setup. He wasn’t completely locked out of his home automation. He was only locked out of being able to access them with Amazon’s services. But as he points out, the average user would likely not have the skills and knowledge to set up multiple access systems the way he did. So the average user would have been stuck.

I am a bit more skeptical of home automation than Jackson. There is a whole ecosystem of certifications, codes, standards, statutory law, case law, and other requirements for home appliances. The same is true of the electrical distribution system to the home and inside the home. Those ecosystems arelargely unknown to the public because they generally works.

The software controlling those home appliances is still new enough it does not have that same regulatory and legal ecosystem. So it currently relies on consumers deciding where they will spend their money.

But as Jackson points out, most of these home automation systems are concentrated in two or three large companies. And those companies cover so many fields that a customer may have an expectation based on their experience in one area, which can be unrelated to what they’ll experience with the same company in another area.

So, while I am still skeptical of home automation in general, I agree with Jackson that if home automation is used, try to have it running locally.

And in general, don’t rely on big tech companies.

Warning: Zipped Files in Windows Are Not Locked

I’ve recently been helping a friend organize some files from a series of backup drives and thumb drives.

I’m finding several zipped file folders. I’m often looking into the contents of those zipped file folders.

I’ve found that while I can’t paste anything into the zipped file folder while it’s still zipped and compressed, I can delete files and folders out of those zipped file folders. I can do that while the folder is still zipped.

My friend thinks the “zip files” are a sacrosanct golden standard. I’ll explain to them that they’re not.

Technician Tuesday: How fast do I want life to come at me?

I was originally going to write about another useful Windows program I’d found.

Then I read this latest post on Axis of Easy, by Mark Jeftovic at EasyDNS. Among other things, there’s reports of concerns from U.S. politicians about the amount of information collected from users’ smart phones by TikTok if I install their app.

If I follow the links from Axis of Easy, I go to ZeroHedge and then to a Summit News post written by Steve Watson on November 21, 2022.

I’ve had lots of friends who decide if they doubt or believe news based on whether they like the source. For me, I look at what is said first and then worry about the source later. Can TikTok collect that information if I install it on a smartphone? It’s possible. There are other smartphone apps which have been accused of gathering a lot more information than they need to, and sometimes more information than they admit to in users’ permission settings.

The same problem exists in PC programs. In 2019, there were concerns about the Zoom webconferencing app installing a web server, unasked, on users’ Macintosh PCs. Here’s a story about that from The Register on July 9, 2019, by Tim Anderson.

I don’t currently run GlassWire or WireShark or any similar program. I suppose that might be the next thing for me to do, install something like that to monitor which programs like to gossip and which don’t.

Mindset Monday: Do some weeding on your technology.

I’ve often read it’s a good practice to look through all my online accounts. And then to see which ones are still active and where I can log in. Lastly, it’s a good practice to cancel any accounts which aren’t likely to be used again.

Those are all good practices. And they are things I don’t make a regular habit of doing.

In episode 388 of the Software Defined Talk podcast, Coté and Schafer had a different way of describing it. Systems which are never pruned and always grow would be called a tumor in the body. They suck up resources and create additional risks for the system in the long term.

Now I feel much more motivated to clean those old accounts and old programs. And yes there are lots of risks from old unused accounts hanging around. Those are accounts which can be hacked and it doesn’t make a lot of sense to have that risk for something which won’t be used again. I did know that, but I wanted to avoid weeding through my old accounts.

Technician Tuesday: Finding a way to regularly backup my files.

For many years I backed up my files by creating copies on other disks or other drives. I only did this when I remembered.

This is still the method many people use.

Over ten years ago I went to a presentation by a woman who was speaking about data, electronic files, backups, and so on. She said that she had talked to multiple parents and grandparents who had lost many early pictures of their children because the pictures were on a cell phone, and nowhere else. The cell phone died, and so did the pictures.

I broke out of my own bad habits after reading comments about businesses destroyed by computer crashes. That finally made me appreciate the difference between time and money. The money to buy a replacement computer probably can be found. The time to recreate all the lost files probably cannot be found.

I did install a program which regularly backs up my computer files, some time last year.

There are multiple ways of creating file backups. Currently I’m using Macrium Reflect which creates a disk image. I can also use a program which will only back up certain files and directories I choose. Maximum PC magazine had a recent article listing various useful programs for Windows, including a backup program. I will start going through that list and seeing what I like and what I don’t.

(That decade-ago lecturer also said if you really want to save photos for posterity, print them out. Nothing digital will be as reliable. I believe that, yet that is something I haven’t yet done myself. That will be a project for late this year or early next year, to start picking which photos I want printed and looking into how to get them printed.)

Technician Tuesday: Learning about SSL and TLS (2022 August 16)

There’s theory and there’s practice. Many things are easier to know if theory and more difficult to put into practice.

Using HTTPS, SSL and TLS (HyperText Transport Protocol Secure, Secure Sockets Layer, and Transport Layer Security if you like your acronyms spelled out) seems fine in theory. Getting this website to use HTTPS by default is proving more difficult in practice than I expected in theory.

Humility is good for the soul. This is building character. This is really annoying me.

While I figure it out, here’s some external website links I found useful:

When I look up information on how something works or why I should use it, I try to look up information from people who’ve designed it, who sell it, and who use it.

Someone non-technical explaining something to non-technical audience who “just wants it to work” will often have information and perspectives which a more technical writer won’t think to mention.