2007/04/06 Sailorbum Update

[Bubba the Pirate]

Well, I am no longer working in the Rat Race as of Friday.    I am almost all packed up at the apartment.   In 30 hours from putting up handbills, I sold all my furniture.   All I still own is four TV trays and an office chair.   :o) 

I am still looking for some work up near the boat.   There is one last large check I am waiting on and then I'll be on my way north.   

The worst experience so far is going cold turkey on the internet.   I had cable, more for the internet than for the TV, it has been gone a week.    I am now a coffee house wifi vagabond.   MAN!  I didn't know how often I just slipped on the internet until it was gone.   I think it is a good thing in the long run to wean off of it but HOLY COW!    I am working on the web at the library right now.   I will finish my taxes here next week because I won't be spewing personal info into the ether.   

More Later. 

TrT
~~~~~~~/)~~~~~~~
Eat When You're Hungry,
Work When You're Broke.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[AdriftAtSea]

TRT-

Just be careful.  Some people have trojan horsed library computers for just that reason.  If you have a computer with a WiFi card, as long as you're using a secure website, the fact that it is going over WiFI is really meaningless, as even if they break the WEP encryption, they would still have to break the SSL-128 bit encryption used by the on-line tax preparation websites. Using someone else's computer is more of a risk than using your own over WiFi IMO. 

Also, you should probably go to www.jiwire.com and get their database of Wifi hotspots.  They list both free and paid hotspots.

How are you getting up to the boat??

[Lynx]

Thanks for the warning.

[AdriftAtSea]

You're welcome Lynx.

Typing sensitive information, like that found in a tax return, into a computer you don't have control over is generally an unwise idea. 

Keyloggers and trojans are pretty readily available to people who want to cause mischief and the IT staffing to prevent such problems at most internet cafes and public libraries is scant to non-existent.

In the last two months, I've found two key loggers at two local public internet terminals, one was at a local public library, the other was at an internet cafe.  In neither case did the staff even realize what a keylogger was or what it could do. 

In 2005, I was also involved with investigating a keylogger program that was found on a school system's computer labs network.  One of the school system's temporary IT staffers had written and installed it.  While he was not prosecuted for doing so—because they couldn't find evidence of anything beyond installing the software, he was fired.

Unfortunately, keylogger hardware is cheap and readily available, as seen here.  And it often looks fairly innoccuous, unless you know what you're looking at.

Of course, physical security of the machines is the first line of defense against things like this, and in a public library or internet cafe, it basically doesn't exist.

[Zen]

keylogger  :o
I had no idea.  >:(
I never use outside computersi n unkown places, but that is good to know.

[Bubba the Pirate]

Thanks, AAS.    Good Point.   

I still have my truck actually.   I will try to sell it once I get up there.   

TrT
~~~~~~~/)~~~~~~~
Eat When You're Hungry,
Work When You're Broke.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~