I've seen people posting Updates/Comments etc about "Working Free FB credits" on various groups and status updates

The status update /post on pages / on groups , says something about a working way to receive 100 ( or 1000) or something free FB credits and gives you a link to go to. Folks-- you will NEVER find anything like this that is legit. STOP CLICKING it.



DO NOT CLICK THESE, just ignore them or comment on them saying " With all due respect, these things will NEVER work and will only spam people. PLEASE do not re-post things like this. Thank you "

HOWEVER, if you HAVE clicked it you'll be taken to and will see a page that looks like this :

Since these appear to be outside sites I guess the thing to do ( IF you have already clicked on the site) is, don't click anything else but instead - RIGHT-click page > view page info > Click the Permissions tab at top > Un-Check ALL of the default settings and block them all that way. You'll not see any confirmation or anything so just close page.


It WILL have given you cookies. So, very top left of your screen (at least with Modzilla Firefox) click  Tools tab,  if you only want to delete these cookies I guess hit clear last hour (or how ever long) Under "details" you'll see options, make sure cookies is checked and then click "Clear Now"

I'm sure there is a better / easier way but I'm not savvy enough to make a 1 button block for these things. I'll let you know if I find someone who is.

Do you play Farmville, Mafia Wars, YoVille or other Zynga games ? Tired of the scams ?

Once again this site  has many of your blocks and fixes.

My solution would be this however, stop supporting Zynga. Scams and spam surround Zynga games like flies on manure. I'd not be suprised if they are taking kickbacks to act slowly or look the other way when it comes to these scams. Zynga and it's CEO have proven time and time again (language warning in vid) that they are only concerned with profits. And once they have your money, good luck getting it back. Just ask the mom of the preteen who took her credit card  and spent $1,400 on FarmVille.


Zynga games : FarmVille, Café World, Mafia Wars, Texas HoldEm Poker, Fishville, PetVille, YoVille, Vampire Wars, Street Racing, CityVille, FrontierVille, TreasureIsle, Fashion Wars, Pirates, Special Forces, Warstorm, Pathwords, WordTwist and more....



Hmmm... I think I'll get in on the action and make my own app (link to come soon)

Tired of seeing "Your Stalkers", "See what this girl did" etc and being tagged in photos?

There are some sites you should check out. The best one I've found with up-to-date blocks. I've made many blocks myself which are on their list now. (Not necessarily added by me but they have the ones I did now in some way) And you can also add the ScamSniper on facebook to help.
 
The Bulldog Estate also turned me on to an incredible way to open several pages at once to make blocking faster. You simply paste the links in there, summit and then open em.

WARNING - this will open new tabs for each. So you decide if you can handle it. The over 250 (and growing) blocks for these sites would probably not be a great idea to do all at once. The site has them broken into groups that are manageable.

They also have much more info on various apps/games that you play on facebook and such and the scams that surround them like flies.


If you have been the victim of one of these scams you can watch this video telling you how to clean it up.

The "Do not add this person" and Amber Alert fakes

I was asked on facebook this by the wonderful Heidi McSexiness (name changed to protect identity) :

A friend just posted this:
"ATTENTION ALL FACEBOOK USERS DO NOT ADD LINDA SMITH ALSO IF SOMEONE CALLED JASON LEE ADDS U DONT ACCEPT IT IS A VIRUS TELL EVERYBODY ON UR LIST IF THEY ADD THEM U ALSO GET THE VIRUS TOO COPY AN PASTE PLEASE REPOST******THIS AS BEEN CONFIRMED BY FACEBOOK"

Is this true or just a hoax?


Hoax : It's the first one on this list. These and similar are always fake that I'm aware of. To begin with, adding someone on a social networking site will not give you a virus. In order to get a virus you'd have downloaded and opened something. Generally speaking these are usually some jilted ex trying to get back at his now Ex-GF and her new BF or some other similar "I want to see them suffer" type of thing.

While on the subject, Amber alerts seen in e-mail, twits and on social networking sites are sadly hoaxes 99% of the time. Normally its some jerk trying to get that person arrested or harassed over nothing. This type of cyber-bullying has been around since the early days of the net and on party lines and such.(1)

If it's an amber alert check http://www.amberalert.gov/ . They have a search engine and if its remotely similar it will pop it up. Be sure to actually read the alert if it does pop one up, people quite often use real ones and just change it a bit to suit their needs.

Common false amber alerts will contain some nice sounding details including maybe the tag # or name of the person they want harassed. Also they will generally end with something like : " Please Copy & Paste this as your status. Imagine if this was YOUR child. You'd want help"



(1) There was an incredible article I read many years ago in Rolling Stone I think it was (and again later in my Computer Security classes) about a blind little kid who could hear the tones in a phone and tell the number. He would "swat" (sending swat teams to people homes) people who would not do as he wanted IE - phone sex etc. He's a perfect example of advanced cyberbullying. This is not the very long article I was thinking of, but it will due. Go to (currently) the 2nd article down on the site. Be sure to check out the 911 recordings to hear how this boy would "punish" those who disobeyed him. 
 

My beef with major name computers

Sadly most major brands of PCs are made to fail within 1-3 years.

There is a dual purpose in doing so. First and foremost, people want small little PCs and laptops even though in doing so, it can't cool properly and doesn't have room for powerful enough fans. Secondly, now your PC is dead and just after the 1 year warranty as well (even if you could get them to properly honor it).

Chances are you don't have a spare and need a quick cheap replacement because you probably haven't been saving for one and thus, have a good chance of buying one of the major name pre-made ones.

Most people don't realize they can get a nice desktop made for about the same price as a "Pre-made" store one. It'll probably be significantly better with better quality and have about three times the lifespan ~ IF~ done by trustworthy, reliable people.

I know that many of you have "Nightmare" stories involving these companies who pump computers out like crazy without proper testing. Feel free to share them !


In the photo you'll see the new CherryPal. OMG it's so cute !!! (no joke it really is) and for $249 it can be yours. But for $50 more and obviously a bit larger I can show you ones that kick it to the curb ! (The CherryPal only has 256 ram and it's hard drive is actually a 4 gig flash drive .... that's right, 4g "Hard Drive")

- Information from various sources such as: The New York Times and http://news.cnet.com/ and of course, myself.

Making your sites (including Facebook) more secure with ONE LETTER

 FIREFOX USERS - There is a free plugin that will give you https wherever it is supported. (I have had some issues with it. Doing more testing and research atm )

I've said this before but there is a way to help make most sites you visit more secure with ONE LETTER. Simply add " s " after http in your address bar. This forces the site to run in secure mode like you see on pay pal and many other areas. Granted this doesn't work in a lot of places such as apps but it will give you a little piece of mind and reduce your chances of being compromised.

Best thing to do is, hit Ctl+Shift + Del . When all your cookies and stuff are deleted ( yes I know its nice to have your PC save your fav sites etc) but this time make sure you type in https before all your favorite sites and bookmarks. This way it should remember your preference for "secure"

One fellow blogger collected 20-40 identities within 30 minutes at a Starbucks using a simple program available to anyone. That's including facebook logins, twitter, and credit cards I believe.

Thanks all for helping make us more secure !

ADDITION

 A question was posed to me on facebook:

Jess McSexypants ( names changed to protect identities) -  Is there any way of having the 's' there all the time?

If she was referring to on FB the answer is yes and no.


The reason the answer is yes and no, is that when a person connects to a website via HTTPS, the website encrypts the session with a digital certificate. You can tell if they are connected to a secure website if the website URL begins with https:// instead of http://  When a site wants to be more secure or maybe just get more traffic(1) They apply for a digital certificate from a CA (Certificate Authority).The CA will issue an encrypted digital certificate that contains the applicant's public key and a various other identification info. Yada yada basically what happens is a "digital handshake" and confirmation that this is indeed the site it claims to be and is secure. The digital cert has to be leased on a yearly basis from the CA. Prices vary dependent on many factors but the fact remains that it costs money. This might not be a cost they can afford or maybe the cert has expired and has not been renewed/updated yet. Many sites including this one cannot be made https. This does not mean that we aren't trustworthy, just broke.
 

Facebooks's Q/A involving their security OPT IN features and https.

(1)  Why secure equals more people. This is due to not being " questionable " by anti-virus / web-security programs such as Norton. It will instead come up with a green check-mark or something similar instead of a gray ? mark.



 (Props to my computer security professor ) And one of the millions of "Security Now" podcasts that I think I heard all of this on originally.