Email Etiquette

 
Email Etiquette

Web is full of suckers.

Most of them pretend to be your Advisor or Savior.
This is true with obtaining VISA.
But they are suckers.

They are out there to get your money and email and more importantly your personal details.

They use your identity to get involved in undesirable activities.
Beside your government or its stooges are the most untrustworthy.
For example your Grama Niladari is not innocent.
He/She provides your information (sometimes incorrect) to the politicos and often leave important documents lying around.

Not in a safe or safe place.

In that way I am against this new trend in e-governace and e-commerce.

They provide these information to third parties and there are no legislation in this country to prevent them doing so.

Most of is done under the name of prevention of terrorism but now used for political mileage.

The police is not selective but they are corrupt.

They have no mechanism to anticipate and prevent disaster.
They are always after the fact and slow to respond.

So with this background my advice is simple.

1. If you do not need an email or not competent enough in using please do not open one.

2. If you do have one do not share it with others.
It is private property like an address.
Like our politicos you cannot have more than one birth certificate or more than one identity card.

3. Hackers are out their to use you as a Zombie.
Identity theft is a serious offense.
Our politicos operate in this way.

4. If you are opening an email, you should have at least two not one, for good reason.

I forgot my password for my private email it took three months for me to recover.

I forgot the 'the pet phrase' and the document that I wrote them was misplaced.
After three months, my memory recovered by accident and the pet phrase (now I have a pet phrase recovery method) was typed in to get back to the normal working order.

This was time I was migrating from Microsoft (dual booting) to Linux so my memory loss was not due to sickness but due to work overload and lack of sleep.

Trying to do too many things one at the  same time and wasting my time downloading Linux at night.

It was appallingly slow and University download was even worse and was restricted.
This was the time I had a university email and it was hacked by a guy who worked there for a while (temporary may be) and did some damage due probably to personal vendetta after leaving the university.

He took the password and the email password document of a particular faculty with him.
This was the time of mistrust and terrorism in its peak and with the most bizarre password (it was stolen) of all, I had was stolen.

The password was file was stored in a Microsoft Server which was available for the hacker/s.

So my conviction to go for Linux for the sake of Security was of paramount importance and the university was slow to adapt to Linux.

I never used university portals for my work and developed my own little private network which is practically dismantled to save my electricity bill NOW.

My daughter's Microsoft computer at home with
wireless connectivity was hacked most probably by a guy in the Engineering Faculty but never ventured to capture the culprit / guy but changed my tactics to be secure.

Coming back, if you forget your password, the easiest way is to give the service provider the alternative email so that they send an instant email for you to have a new password.
This simple technique was not there 15 years ago.

5. The use of alternative email gives you flexibility.

6. I have many emails and one email is for money transactions only and I do not give it to anybody.

7. Another is to keep track with my batch mates and I always get the sad news of demise of another guy with serious illness.

8. Another one for all the academic / magazine articles.

9. The email what I regularly use is called the Junk Email. So anybody who sends an email to it is considered a JUNK MAN / WOMAN.

10. My biggest problem is when I kick the bucket who will be responsible for them.

I have already forwarded them to Apaya Director to take appropriate action since I will be in Apaya as a guest speaker since I have done nothing to stop the Sri-Lankan National / International criminals who go scot free from all their crimes and his / her / their balance of crimes have been credited to my account by accident.

I need to clean my balance sheet at Apaya before I think of my next birth.

Not Sri-Lanka again by default.

I am tired living with criminals, including Cyber criminals.

Managing Passwords

 Tuesday, August 13, 2013

Managing Passwords
 

I think Ubuntu One and few others give concern for good password management.
Naming others would be improper since they are not Open Source based.

What goes behind them and whether they share them with the NSA or a corrupt regimes is open for debate. I have personnel reason to believe they do and my own experience with institutions specially corrupt or vested interests, is on the affirmative.

They are hell bent to breach any privacy one may have.
The reason being that they do not want to be exposed of their sordid acts.
They are paranoid and it is a disease.

Fact that this blog post exists is due to the interference with my blog post elsewhere and a site that lacked good security protocol.

They were dysfunctional over more than a year and I do not use the site anymore.
My writings were very docile innocent and not politically involved.
They were bit humorous and the basic ingredients were satire.

Unfortunately for me, out of the top ten, my writings (I was involved in initial setup) filled the top eight and the administrator got paranoid and blocked my name.
I still continued to write (very little traffic) in spite of noticing the administrators handiwork, since my idea was not to reach the top ten.
They used my birthday as a discriminator. 

This institute is now defunct not due to my influence.

 
Who says there is no discrimination in web hosting and social media.
But my writings were there for anybody to read in spite of blocking the rating.
I have collated them and recently deleted 75% of the original writings from that site.
Some of them are now in digital output for posterity, in a book form.

This preamble is necessary since when one opens one’s heart and not the mind in the web, one has to be prepared for insults and discrimination.
Sadly now governments and secret agencies are doing things that one would not suspect 30 years ago.
Technocrats and not the real hard working guys who fill these posts and operating from air conditioned cubicles and are scared to be on the beat and foot.
 
Invariably paranoia develops.

So I think it is necessary to have a bit of paranoia when one enters the web with email to begin with.

How does one have a good password?
 
How one can remember a password with 14 to 16 characters (what banks employ now for an account, with the help of computers)?

To begin with one has to train the brain to remember.
I have a suggestion elsewhere (under web etiquette) that  I do not want to repeat here.

Beginning,

Step 1
One has to remember in blocks of three or four.
To train your mind try to remember your VISA card number.
Front four are almost specific and easy.
The last four should be your next attempt.
Do this every time when you go to the bank or to the till.
Do not worry if you forget.
When you can remember the first and the last lot of four numbers, try the other two lot not in specific way.
Suddenly part of the brain not utilized before get a rush of blood and new neurone networks.
Person with any age with firm resolve can do that.
This subconscious repetitive acts can be easily extended to one's password.

I used to remember all the telephone numbers of my friends by heart in good old days and friends are the ones, one frequently ring and (telephone charges were relatively expensive, then) the brain stores them for good.
 
I stop doing that when cell phones came into existence.
 
One has to have one’s own trick for remembering blocks of three or four.

Try to associate them with pictures, names, pets etc.
 
Your pet fish or dog or cat would have a secret code attached.
Every time you feed them repeat the code (in mind) mentally in no time it get fixed as a long term permanent memory.

Step 2
 
Come with a phrase to include all the 10 to 16 characters in one’s password.
This is the hard part but it can be done.

Step 3
Use elements that one never forgets (unless one has Dementia).
Birthday is an easy one to remember.
 
Use only two numbers from it, not all.

Step 4
Unfortunately this cannot be used if one is English but I will give some hint for them too.
For Sinhala U Mata Banna, or Muta Mata Gahanna Hithenawa or Even Puke Ariya are good enough relatively used rephrases one can remember in trans-literate content, which the English Search engine might have trouble in figuring out.
From that phrase  one can choose four characters (even more if the phrase is carefully constructed) easily.
For English user, one good example is to go to alchemy and remember few Elements from the Tables.
Elements like Argon, Neon, Nitrogen,Bromine could be used at lib.
Or even one can use pentagon, hexagon, octagon or any other scientific or mathematical elements.
 
Again one only remembers four characters.

Step 5
If one has ever used a password before which one has remembered with repeated usage, use the same in the middle or rearrange it and put it in the middle.
 
Which will easily give you at least six characters.

You already got 12 characters now.
 
Use two capital letters easy to access from the keyboard as the leader or the end of the password or leader and end, depending one is right or left handed.

Step 6.
If the web site requires you to use an alphanumeric pick an alpha numeral to satisfy them.
You got 16 in all and 14 probably is adequate.

Step 7
Do not tell your method to anybody.
Do not share your password even with your spouse.
One day you me be divorced!
That is real and if you have time read my book on “Myths, Miracles and Marriage”.
Usually perfectly normal people become paranoid after getting married.
That is my medical experience.
It is often the people who are near and dear (sometimes, so called friends) who steal your password, not a rouge who breaks in for quick takeaway and getaway.

Keep the record of the method in a secret hiding place that you only have access.
In case one day you forget.
The best place to Hide is your brain.
Not even a brain surgeon would have any access.



When resetting the password.
When you change the password, drop two and take two from your birthday.
Pick four alternative block of four from your catch phrase.
Jumble your original password or add a new one.
Follow the rest as required and one may be able to go on till eighty to ninety since you practised your own method and is almost specific to YOUR BRAIN which a hacker may not be able to penetrate or crack.

Unless you are one of twins there are no two people alike.
Even in them their are subtle differences not due to genetics but the brain behaves differently, even in twins.

Foot Note
But beware your doctor with a short memory or who is cash strapped who might steal your birth day or the catch phrase that you utter to him every time you visit.
Remember doctors forget their passwords more often than their patients.
They will never tell you.
That is why they record every word you utter and then get the vital diagnosis
wrong.
In this computer age doctors have become robots (unlike good old days) and not real humans.
If they ask you do you forget your passwords
Straight away say NO.

The stupid guy will ask you to state the password and put it in his computer memory which is not protected from hackers.
Even the nurse can steal it, if she/he is inclined.

I trust my doctor does not apply to passwords when you do visit him/her, next time, round.
That includes me too.
I might do that, catch your password, certainly not to steal but because my brain is getting absent minded I might put that in my computer, easily accessed even by a little kid.
Do not worry, I do not practice now by choice not by design anyway.
You are safe with me, my dear.

Hackers, Holidays, Homing Folder and Homing In

January 22nd 2018 / 22-01-2018

Hackers, Holidays, Homing Folder and Homing In

Definitions

Hacker (term), a contentious term used in computing for several types of persons

C1. Hacker (computer security) or cracker, who accesses a computer system by circumventing its security system

C2. Hacker (hobbyist), who makes innovative customization's or combinations of retail electronic and computer equipment

C3. Hacker (programmer subculture), who shares an anti-authoritarian approach to software development now associated with the free software movement

Hackers and Holidays
I refer to the category C1 in here since this is the holiday time and all the developers with FOSS mentality are holidaying and enjoying the Christmas, the shady guys become active by default during holidays.

I won’t go into detail of how to manage your security which has to be the responsibility of the individual.

If one leave the back door open, thieves will walk in.

You have two back doors unlike in a house.

1.The biggest of it is YOUR EMAIL with a loose password.

2. Unsuspecting back door is Your Browser with cookies to spy on your likes and dislikes

3. The deadliest is the combination of the two thieves.

YOU sign in and forget to sign off.

The second thief, the browser keeps a memory of your log in and often the encrypted password.

The best security I advise is not to have an email and not to browse the WEB but take a nice story book of your liking or get  your Amazon’s Kindle or Noble eBook and read during the holidays.

If you cannot resist both of the above vices, I have a few tricks up my sleeve for you, with the hacker’s mentality in me ignited.

Have two browsers or may be three with Amazons silk included.

Go for a light weight browser, Midori,  Ice Weasel type for your simple activities.

Then have any Gorilla Type of browser with your liking.

Then you have to do your own hacking.

Go to the properties and take all the cookies out or decommission them for good.

I have tried all the other methods but this the best remedy, I have found for the holidays.

I of course do a full format by the end of December of in January.

With so many Linux distribution in store already downloaded, I have to toss a coin and select the first five.

If you are PARANOID (It is a disease many of us, especially westerners have when they come here on holidays and do not recognize as it is and become non-human) what one has do is to download a live Linux CD with TOR (to RAM) in it and use it at lib.

There are many including Pollipix.

If you are in a country with a dictator running the day to day affairs these are an added security.

Do not PLEASE use the D.O.D's L.P.S (Light Portable Linux) even by accident an it is only for Russian Secret Service KGB developed by American CIA .

This distribution is worse than your email and the Gorilla browser and it sends all your transactions to a web-eavesdropper without your knowledge.

HOME FOLDER
This is where all your junk is.
What you do with your junk is your own pejorative.

Best defense mechanism is to not to have a home or home folder but become a vagrant or a vagabond.

Homing In

Switch off the computer.
Go to the up market.
By some wine, beer, cookies, chocolates, music CD (NO VIDEO PLEASE) and anything else you may think that Santa Claus won’t bring for YOU and
Home In and enjoy with your dear ones.

Unfortunately the holiday won’t last long, so make best use of it now.

For me because of our industrial action, this is the shortest holiday we have had for a long time, I can remember.

I made another mistake beginning of this year.

That is to blog a piece a day which I kept till now except one day.

I am glad I missed one in the very beginning so that I got out of the regimented or the religious enthusiasm.

Both are bad for your health and the sense of humour.

I am hoping to dream a lot and I will be back with some dreams (only if I dream some good ones).

Till then Good Bye and special thanks to Linux Guys/Girls who made 20th birthday of Linux in September a happy occasion for me to write few books on Linux, too.
In its 21st birthday, the KILLER organization called Cloud Computing will emerge and only UBUNTU is ready with this challenge.

Special thanks to Ubuntu for Ubuntu One and UNITY desktop.

I am waiting to buy a Tablet but this is the only godforsaken (Ceylon) country where they try to open private universities but have not allowed (unofficial ban) Amazon wireless service for me to read a Kindle (not even my books in Kindle) Fire this Christmas when I am bored with our Media (both private and government).

Reason for this unofficial ban of Amazon probably is due to the Education Department won’t be able to donate the books (20 years outdated-some of them especially IT and Science) they published with religious vigor to unsuspecting students.

Debian on a USB Stick

Thursday, September 26, 2019
Debian on a USB Stick

Making a Bootable USB stick (USB 2) with Debian 9.8.0 is humanly impossible.
1. I tried it with the latest DVD (First out of the 3 DVDs).
2. It has enormous amount of packages and does not fit in with a 16 GB stick.
3. Writing took nearly four (4) hours and aborted with failure to install software.
4. I tired to (thinking that it might help to recover).
It did not (probably no space left) write a Grub file.
5. I could mount Debian on a USB 3 64 GB stick (no installing) with MultiSystem Software.
6. I tried UnetBootIn and failed.
7. Now Linux does not support writing a Grub file on a USB stick.
My advice is to use SSD external drives.
I have several and discarding all Old USB sticks.
Alternative is to try other Linux distributions on USB sticks.
AVLinux supports booting from a USB stick.
I do not know whether Peppermint, ElementaryOS or PinguyOS support USB booting.

It is time to say Good Bye to USB 2 sticks, except for data writing.
I am not sure one needs a swap partition for SSDs but all the same reserved some space for swap.
SSD does not support Master Boot Record and one cannot install a second Linux distribution.
I have Debian on my Mater SSD but I reserved  J.F.S partition for a second distribution. It is unusable.
New technology does not support Old very but productive methodology.
My old turntable drives with terabyte capacity have three or four distributions installed with over 500 GB left for my data (films, photos, books and record of my Document Files).
One does not need cloud to store data, especially if your Internet connection and supply is pretty slow.
It is true in my case and I work only past midnight.

The technicalities behind it are tricky, but MBR is constrained by the capacity and limited number of its sectors—only 32 bits are available to represent logical sectors. You can find out more on Microsoft’s TechNet blog, but it means that MBR can only use up to 2TB of storage space. Anything larger than that, and the extra disk space is marked as unallocated and unusable.
 

GPT allows for 64 bits, which means that the storage limitation is 9.4ZB. That’s a zettabyte, which is one sextillion bytes or a trillion gigabytes. In practice, what it really means is that GPT has no real-world limit. You can buy any capacity drive and GPT will be able to use all of the space.
In short: MBR can support up to 2TB; GPT handles up to 9.4ZB.