More Spy Stuff - Secret Passwords

Being former spies and everything (NOW CUT THAT OUT!), we're highly adept at managing passwords. Passwords are really a poor way of securing access to a website, but until the cost of moving to something more secure is outweighed by the cost of theft, not much is going to happen. So what to do?

Here are some triple top secret ways of managing passwords on the interwebs:

Use a gadget. We like Keypass, which you can download here. It runs on Windows, Mac, Unix and pretty much anything else except your microwave oven. Keypass is a password database that lets you store lots of information about a website beyond just the password. It's portable, meaning it will run on a USB stick, so you can carry it around with you and run it on a windows machine without having to install it.

Use the browser. Not nearly as secure, but very easy to use. Most current versions of all browsers support remembering user IDs and passwords. As long as you're the only one with physical access to your machine, this is ok. Never use this method on a laptop, for obvious reasons.

Use yellow sticky notes. Write down all of your user IDs and passwords on sticky notes and attach them to your monitor. Then take a very high resolution picture of your monitor and email it to me. I'll take really good care of them. Promise.

Make a hard to guess but easy to remember password. Here's a good trick - choose a memorable date - graduation, wedding, birthday, zombie apocalypse, etc. Then make a simple statement about that date. For example, "I moved into the Sea Breeze apartment on June 12, 2002." Now take the first letters of the phrase, the numbers, and the punctuation, and turn it into something like this: "ImitSBaoJun12,2002." Easy to remember and rock solid.

Finally, if you want to have some fun with secret passwords and codes, try this. It's a web-based re-creation of the German Enigma machine. Set the rotors, type in a message, and out comes gobbletygook. Reset the rotors, paste the gobbletygook into the message line, and wa la! Why would you use this? Well, we use it as a verification code for gift certificates. When we print one, we encode the recipients name and print it on the certificate. That way, only they can use it.

We used a similar technique to communicate with our secret spy handlers back when we were in Jaka

THE REMAINDER OF THIS MESSAGE HAS BEEN REDACTED BY THE FEDERAL WITNESS PROTECTION PROGRAM. GEEZ, GUYS - WILL YOU CUT IT OUT ALREADY? FRANK ALMOST HAD A HEART ATTACK WHEN HE READ THIS POST AND JUST BARELY GOT IT REDACTED IN TIME. HELP A FEDERAL AGENT OUT, OK?

Kit from Q

In every James Bond movie, 007 pays a visit to "Q", an aging scientist with excessively bushy eyebrows, who dispenses high-tech widgets and gizmos. James then uses these gizmos to save the day (and his skin) during the rest of the movie.

James needs Q's gadgetry to survive in a very scary world. If you're on the internets, you're in a scary world too. So while our eyebrows don't quite rise to the level (get it?) of Q's, we thought we'd give you some gadgetry that you might need in the dangerous world of cyberspace.

Things You Don't Need

If you've watched any cable TV, you almost certainly seen ads for an alleged service called MyCleanPc.com. Pay careful attention to this ad, because almost everything it says is wrong. A slow running computer, blue screens, and email that takes more that 3 seconds to load are not, as the ad says, "usually the signs of a virus". Neither will any of these things cause "permanent damage to your computer." Sites like this one are a waste of money and precious bodily fluids.

Neither do you need gadgets called "registry cleaners". These purport to fix your registry, because we all know a registry with errors must be bad, right? Well, horse hockey. Registry errors are almost always benign, and these "cleaners" stand as good a chance of screwing something up as they do of fixing something, which probably doesn't need to be fixed in the first place. So Just Say No.

What You Do Need

Assuming you're a Windows kind of guy / gal / android, Get Microsoft Security Essentials here. Better than most of the $50 per year or more commercial anti-virus packages. And not as likely to lock you out of your computer (sorry, McAfee) or do nasty things to your computer (sorry, Symantec). Make sure it auto-updates.

Run Malwarebytes occasionally. If you do get infected, Malwarebytes is a great tool for uninfecting you.

Use Revo Uninstaller (free version) when you want to remove a program from your computer. The"moderate" setting will work just fine. And CCleaner is a very useful tool for brushing your computer's teeth and getting all the leftover spinach out from between it's little silicon incisors.

You Mac users out there shouldn't be so smug anymore - as Apple market share grows, the bad guys have more and more incentive to target you. And Safari is one of the easiest browsers to crack.

You Ubuntu peeps can just smile quietly to yourselves and keep trying to figure out Gimp.

Tomorrow - useful photo editing tools and our secret Cold War -inspired recipe for poisons used in Ja

THE REMAINDER OF THIS POST HAS BEEN REDACTED BY THE FEDERAL WITNESS PROTECTION PROGRAM. SERIOUSLY, WOULD YOU GUYS CUT IT OUT ABOUT JAKARTA ALREADY? WE'RE GETTING TIRED OF MOVING YOU.

Look, honey - we're on the internets!

So we've been trying to lay low, under strict orders from our contact in the Federal Witness Protection program, but we just couldn't stand it any more. We're live and blogging!

... crickets chirping ...

Apparently we've been doing too good a job staying under cover.

Anyhoo, welcome to the official blog of Yellow Bug Boutique, a Etsy (and occasionally Artfire) store specializing in fine home furnishings with a scientific bend, and some way cool artsy-fartsy stuff that we do just because we want to. This blog is dedicated to the proposition that all you people out there in the dark probably don't give a flying toot about this blog, but we're going to have fun with it anyway.

So by way of introductions, heeeere's us! Cindy is the artiste in residence here in the Yellow Bug Bungalow. Cindy has been crafting, sewing and decorating for longer than we care to talk about. She was one of the very first employees of the original Michael's craft store, working directly for Michael Jeffrey in Store #1. In fact, Michael tried to talk young Cindy into foregoing college and becoming a buyer for him.

Unfortunately for her bank account, but fortunately for Yellow Bug, Cindy turned down the offer and flitted off to college, where she met the other half of the team (being me). I'm a technology guy from the Old School (I actually had a Commodore 64), and I'm a consultant for a specialty consulting firm. My job is to look confused and fix the printer.

We've got two kids, one dog, and a few moderately healthy house plants. We've watched far too much Monty Python, Start Trek (TOS purists), and Marx Brothers and it has permanently warped our senses of humor.

Next post - something actually interesting and helpful!

NOTE: THIS POST WAS NOT MADE BY FORMER COLD WAR SPIES WHO PERFORMED A CERTAIN SERVICE IN JAKARTA. PLEASE DON'T TRY TO FIND THEM.

SINCERELY,

THE FEDERAL WITNESS PROTECTION PROGRAM