Obfuscate: the concealment of intended meaning in communication, making communication confusing, intentionally ambiguous, and more difficult to interpret.

Or to us normal people: Hide, and in this context: Hiding Data I really can’t stress enough how important this is. For any web-based service that allows the storage or presentation of information that could be misused – that web-service should be obfuscating it’s data.

Common Mistake

The single most common mistake is that those creating the presentation and access layer (eg. The Web Developers) for that data often don’t understand what that data represents – to the web-developer it’s just information, in a table, in rows and columns that needs to be queried, filtered and presented

When there’s a lot of information to be processed there is almost always a unique identifier that’s used to filter all that information down to only a single result – ideally the result that corresponds to that unique user/item/profile.

The mistake made is that often that unique identifier is used as the primary key for data access and manipulation – without it being obfuscated!

eg.

• Your Phone Number
• Your Mobile Number
• Your Car License Plate

Surely this information isn’t important though?

Think about the potential once it’s possible to gather enough of this data. What if someone was able to collect all the license plates for the cars in Ireland? What if someone was able to collect all the mobile (cell) numbers for everyone in the country?

One word: Marketing

Or as it’s know to most of us: Spam

..and that’s just the best case…

Surely important information is protected?

It’s all down to context, or for want of a better description meta-data. If you don’t have the meta-data to process that information then there’s not much you can do with it.

And without the context for that information there’s no awareness that that data needs to be protected or obfuscated somehow.

It can’t be that easy – can it?

No?

• Lets take a very well known car manufacturer – ABC. (1 click)
• Lets have a look at their Used Cars (1 click)
• Want the chassis number of that car? No problem (1 click)
• What the chassis number of every used car in the UK from ABC? (one line command at a linux prompt)

We’ve contacted ABC cars to let them know about this and it will be interesting to see what they say…

This week I took part in the inaugural Technology Fast on the RTE 1 radio show The Business http://www.rte.ie/radio1/thebusiness/ You can listen to the show on the website.

This was a great opportunity for me to find out what it is like to have to survive without IT of any kind.

I had to hand over my laptop and my Nokia N71 smart phone. When I handed them over I was lost and it made it hard to work as almost everything that I do is based online.

All in all giving up Technology for 48 hours was an excellent opportunity but not something I will be doing again soon.

Mark

Windows 7 is shaping up to be the most significant desktop operating system upgrade since Windows XP was released more than eight years ago. In fact it is predicted that more than 170 million units of Windows 7 will ship by the end of 2010.

Do you think you or your company will make the big leap and get on the Windows 7 wagon?

If you are planning on working from home, there are some things that you need to take into account. If you follow this guide you may not need to avail of iPing’s IT services.
The first thing that you will need if you are planning to work from home is a dedicated room to work from. In most cases this will be the smallest bedroom in your house. This room may need to be renovated to include some extra power sockets. You may also need to have your telephone line moved into this room so you can have your broadband and telephone line close at hand.

If you are working from home for a company you will need to connect into the corporate network over a VPN connection. This is a secure connection that connects you into the office network and will let you access all of the resources on the office network.

If you are working from home only part time and you have a computer in head office, an alternative to using a VPN would be to use an application like logmein to connect to your head office computer. This would mean that you were able to work on the head office computer from home. This is something you would have to talk to your IT service department of company about as there are some security issues with this solution.

Some companies are now using Virtualization to improve the IT services that they are providing to their users. This means that you would be able to connect to a virtual computer and do your work from home with your laptop or home computer or even if you are out on the road.

If you are working from home and you have broadband in your home office, I suggest that you sign up for a VoIP telephone service.  There are many VoIP service providers and Google search will provide you with a good selection for your country. Large companies who have employees working from home provide them with VoIP phones to work from home with.

Another point to consider if you are using your home computer to connect to the corporate network, is that it is important to make sure that you have good Internet Security. I use Eset Nod and I would recommend this to my customers, as it provides excellent cover.

In addition, you need to have a system in place to backup your data if you are working from home. This is crucial. For people working from home, I recommend online Data Backup;if you would like some more information on this drop me an email.

E-mail has become indispensible now and if you are working from home you will need an IT service provider that will let you access your mail on your computer, online and on your mobile. If you work for yourself and are just starting up, I would suggest that you use the Software as a Service (SaaS) provided by Google Gmail for Business. This IT service will let you use Calendar, Chat, Blackberry sync etc. Your company may already use Microsoft Exchange to provide it’s e-mail service and you will need to contact your IT service provider to set your account up so as you can work from home.

For more information on working from home and the required IT services just give iPing a call.

I will begin by explaining what a print service is. A company comes into your office and they do an audit on your current printing usage. They will use some high tech tools that will connect to your network and find all your networked printers. This tool will be able to find out how many prints you have done on each printer.

Once they have worked out how many prints you are doing per printer, they need to find out how much you are spending on toner for each printer. This is the place where the real cost of printing sneeks into your printing budget. From my experience and from doing this research, the cheaper the printer that you buy – the more expensive the toner for this printer will cost. You may even find that some of the companies that sell you a printer will only let you use their printer toner in the printer. This is something that really grates, as they can charge what they like for this.

Another point to look at here is how much you are spending on geting your printers serviced. On completion of the print audit, having identified how much you are spending on printing and how many prints you are doing per month, in colour and black and white, the company will make a proposal to you that you will pay them an average cost of say less than 1c per black and white print and less than 6c per colour print.

• From my experience toner will generally cost you more than this alone.
• The key advantages of having a good external company provide you with a print service and the points you should be looking for are as follows:
• If a printer breaks down the company will fix it the next day or replace the printer.
• The total cost of your printing will drop by between 20% and 40%
• The company has a good print management software that lets them know when to send you toner before you know you need it and it just arrives.
• You know in advance how much your printing costs will be for the next few years so you do not get any shocks.
• The print management software provided by the company should give you the information to really streamline your printing service and help with total savings.
• By pooling printers in an office and using printers approprate for your office size you will find that the printing experience of your users improves.

There are some questions and matters to look out for when selecting a print service and they are as follows:

• What are the costs if I print above or below my monthly or yearly quota of prints. A good company will give you a rate nearly identical to what you have in your contract.
• If for some reason you need to remove some offices or printers from the contract what will the cost of this be. Again a good company will be flexible here.

If you are based in Ireland or around Dublin and you are interested in the idea of having print service, please contact someone here at iPing as we have some good companies we would like to put you in contact with.

Until next time,

Mark

If you are looking to improve your google page rank and you are based in Dublin this could be the opportunity for you.

Just reading through the brightspark-consulting blog and came across this event It’s on Thursday 25 February in Google Headquarters from 7-8pm, Find out how you could improve the visibility of your site in the Google index and be found by more potential customers. 1 hour, free-of-charge site clinic session at the European Google Headquarters in Barrow Street, Dublin 4, on Thursday February 25th, 7 pm – 8 pm.

Who can come?

Any business owner with their own website even IT support companies like iPing ?
No particular online experience required, all you need is a website
It’s completely free
The event is limited to 50 participants only on a first-come, first-served basis

Definitely worth it if you can get a place.

Hi everyone, I have been reading all the hype out there about the new Apple iPad and I was wondering if any of you will be running out to buy one?

Over the years I have not used Apple products all that much and we would only provide support to our clients who use them.

I have a feeling that the iPad will be a big hit among graphic design studios, PR companies and some web developers but do you think there is much point getting one outside of this area?

Let me know your thoughts my Apple using friends ?

Mark

It's fairly common today to hear of PCs getting hacked, getting attacked by viruses, controlled by trojans, monitored by spyware - and yet much of it is preventable. You don't need fancy software or hardware (although it does help) to protect yourself better - you just need to look around your computer and spot the door that most people leave wide open; The Network.

You can call it the Internet, Intranet, WiFi, Broadband, Dialup - whatever you wish - is essence though you are connecting your PC to a network of some sort - and chances are these days that you're not the only person connected to it. The more 'social' you make your network to other people the more likely you'll have visitors - and chances are they're not the kind you'd welcome...

The Goal

The ideal is to allow your PC all the access to the network that it needs but to restrict the access that the network has back to your PC. In this way you can prevent many of the common attacks on the network that people expose themselves to without even realising it.

Average Joe

Lets take a look at Average Joe (AJ), sitting at home on his PC, connecting to the internet via his lovely brand spanking new Wireless Router and highlight some of the common pitfalls that you can avoid with some very basic changes.

Correcting Common Pitfalls

Remote Administration:

On nearly all Wireless/Broadband Routers today there is an option to allow you to manage this remotely. Unless you really need to fiddle with your home/business network while you're not in the building there's no reason to have this enabled.

Secure Your WiFi:

This is a subjective one. Do you want to share your internet connection with anyone in the area? If the answer is 'No' then you need to make sure that you configure your Wireless Network properly. First and foremost this means choosing an encryption mode and setting a token/password. If you're wireless router supports it choose WPA-2 or WPA and try to choose a token/password that someone standing outside your house couldn't guess.

If you're a little lost on the whole WEP/WPA/WPA-2 thing and want more info you can check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wi-Fi_Protected_Access and this article on the NeoWin forums.

Don't open common Ports:

If for some reason you do need to open ports on your Router to the internet to allow you to connect then choose ports that only you (and your colleagues) know rather than opt for the default port for the protocol.

Default Ports: SSH (22), HTTP (80), HTTPS (443), FTP (21), MS Windows Remote Desktop (3389)

You can then use the options on your Router to remap the ports back to the actual ports that need to be connected to inside your network;

Exposed Port (7421) -> Internal Port (22)

By using a port number that's not the default you make it less likely that someone will be able to determine what service you have behind that port as well as prevent a lot of the zombie-type bots out there ont he internet from just trying to brute-force attack your server/PC

Enable your Firewall:

There's a Firewall built into all versions of MS Windows from XP onwards (XP, VIsta, Win7) and there's no excuse for not using it. It's one of the simplest ways to protect your PC on the network. If you don't like the Firewall built into MS Windows there's lots of alternatives - but for me - it does the job, doesn't complicate setup and is SFOS (Significant Female Other Safe)

Disable File & Print Sharing:

Unless you need to share files from your own PC this option should be disabled. In the case of AJ above there's no need to have File & Print Sharing enabled as he's going to be the only person on his home network.

The advantage here is that it's simple to switch on and off so that you can enable it only when you need to.
There's many more ways you can prevent your PC from attacks on the network - I've only highlighted a few simple ones that you can make, which shouldn't affect your day-to-day use of the PC and yet can protect you from many of the common ways in which less scrupulous people try to monitor, control or just plain trash your computer.

If you're concerned about the security of your home or business network - feel free to give us a call here at iPing and we can help you secure and manage your network better.

The big question is... should we embrace or avoid Windows 7? This is the question I am going examine in this entry and I hope that I will be able to help you make an informed choice about whether to adopt Windows 7.

After the nightmare experience so many people had with Windows Vista on it's release; it is no surprise that people have been waiting for positive reviews before trying Windows 7. So let’s get cracking and have a look at three of the features of Windows 7 that have really impressed me.

1. Improved Speed over Windows Vista

One of the big problems experienced with Vista was the speed at which it performed; so this was one of the big challenges that the people at Microsoft had to address. They did this by redesigning how Windows 7 displays graphics to your monitor.

Windows 7 can not start to display things before all the background information is worked out. So you do not get that feeling that your computer is freezing. This change has reduced the wait time for applications to load, save and respond to users' requests. How this was achieved is not important, what is however important is the fact that this feature really improves usability in Windows 7 over Windows Vista.

2. Home Networking & Media

It is no longer the case that people just use a network in the office, therefore Microsoft have really catered for the home network in Windows 7. The ease at which you can now share your files between computers in your network will surprise you. It is also so much easier to connect printers to your home network and also to connect to your home Wi-Fi connection.

There are loads of new features in Windows 7 to make it easier to share all your MP3s, Videos and TV shows throughout your house by using your home network in Windows 7. You can view music or recorded TV shows from remote computer and play them across the home network. If you want to watch a recorded TV show, you can easily transfer it to your laptop so that you can watch it on the laptop at another time.

3. Not So Many Annoying Pop-ups

One of the things that really annoyed me about Windows Vista was the fact that when I wanted to do anything with my computer I got a pop-up box asking me if I was sure I wanted to do it; also if an application was looking to do something we got the same pop-up. These constant pop-ups became really quite frustrating. In Windows 7, Microsoft have introduced a setting where you can adjust the settings to reduce or switch off these annoying little pop-up boxes.

My experiences with Windows 7 are all positive and I will be suggesting to my clients based in Dublin to consider installing Windows 7 on new PCs.

If you would like to talk to someone in iPing about Windows 7 or your IT support in Dublin please drop us a LINE