Archive for the ‘Security’ Category

Know what you’re doing!

You can get some great deals when buying stuff online, especially when money is tight in a recession, but how do you know that you’re being safe when grabbing a bargain?  There are a few tips to know when buying online…

•    The website you are looking at might be very professional but that doesn’t necessarily mean everything will be alright – make some checks and do your research before you hand over your card details.

•    Make yourself aware of the trader’s complete address – if something goes wrong then you won’t be left with an email address as the only way of communicating with the business.

•    Know your rights – If the company you are buying from is based abroad then you should make sure that you have the same rights as you would if you had bought from a UK based company.

•    Make sure you check exactly where the company is based – just because the web address ends in “.co.uk” doesn’t make it a British business.  Find the physical address so you can be sure.

•    Don’t forget about the postage and packaging charges as they’ll often b stuck on quietly at the end of the process. Find out what the businesses charges are and work out how much you will be paying before you find out too late.

•    Use websites that provide a secure way of paying – you can identify websites that provide these encryption facilities as there will be a little padlock at the bottom of the screen which you can find when you’re filling out the necessary forms.

•    Make sure you know what the company you are buying from will do with your information – you don’t want to discover that your credit card numbers are being used abroad because the company you used didn’t guarantee your privacy.

There are a few things that you need to look out for when buying online.  Make sure you keep the following standards in mind when doing your online shopping;

•    The business should protect your privacy – if they don’t say that they do then you would be safer to find another site.

•    Secure payments are a necessity – you don’t want to wind up losing thousands of pounds because the online company you used didn’t secure your payment.

•    Make sure the site informs you exactly what contract you have entered into by purchasing from the business. Don’t be kept in the dark – you should be aware of everything that is going on.

•    You need to be aware of exactly how to cancel an order if necessary – find out before you purchase in case you decide you want to cancel and then find out that you can’t.

•    You should be told how long you would be expected to wait for your delivery before you purchase – you could spend a lot of money buying a product and once the money has gone you could be told that you’ll receive the delivery in 2 months – gutted!

What about you?

Have you found our advice helpful?  Leave us a comment and let us know what you think…

So the Ministry of Dumbass…sorry, I mean Defence, has gone and lost another memory stick full of information. *slow claps* well done guys.

This time the details of 100,000 men and women of the armed services, and their families and a further 800,000 people who had applied to join the services. It is particularly worrying due to the fact that it carries the potential of targeting people who worked in Northern Ireland or more recent conflicts.

Unbelievably this data was stored on an unencrypted drive, even though with the information you could easily steal someone’s identity.

The MoD released this statement: “On Wednesday 8 October we were informed by our contractor EDS that they were unable to account for a portable hard drive used in connection with the administration of Armed Forces personnel data. This came to light during a priority audit EDS are conducting to comply with the Cabinet Office data handling review. The MOD Police are investigating with EDS.”

This is just another case of carelessness with our privacy. When you see the statistics of all the other times data has been ‘misplaced’ it makes you wonder who is to blame. Is it the clumsy assistant who leaves a documents on a train? Or are the high ranking officers whose job it is to control the flow of data to blame? Or failing that is it EDS’s fault? Are they providing the correct type of security? A quick look around the internet throws up much better network security companies.

As if we need it, here’s a rundown of the MoD’s recent idiocy;

• January: The MoD admits losing a laptop with 600,000 applicants for the armed services – which was unencrypted.
• March: The MoD admits losing 11,000 ID cards over the past two years.
• July: The MoD admits losing 87 storage devices containing classified material since 2003.
• September: An MoD secretary leaves two documents on a train from Waterloo. He’s about to be charged with offences under the official secrets act.

It’s scary when your nation’s security is compromised by some idiot with a lack of concentration. How long will it be before something serious happens because of a security lapse like the ones above?

As the Zimbabwe problem continues to worsen the rights and wrongs of outside intervention are coming to the fore. More and more people are calling for governments around the world to intervene in what is fast become a desperate situation with more opposition party supporters arrested over the last couple of days. Is Robert Mugabe set to grab power back from the people once again?

It seems that each and every government around the world had a view and opinion of the situation as the voting approached but now that it is over the silence from many quarters is deafening. The situation is starting to slide out of control again, but the main question is, do we actually have the power and the right to interfere with the internal wranglings of Zimbabwe?

Many governments around the world set a precedent for themselves when they all jumped on the band wagon to attack Iraq and affectively drop in an occupying force. While there were many good reasons to take up the plight of the Iraqi people, there were possibly just as many reasons for the West not to become involved. So why is Zimbabwe any different?

Many people see the problems of Zimbabwe as localised and something which is unlikely to spread to neighbouring countries. If this is the case then the leaders of West have little to fear directly hence the reason why so many are ?talking the talk but not walking the walk?. Have you heard the US government speak out about the troubles? Have you heard fellow African leaders criticise Robert Mugabe in public?

The truth is that the West had no more right to invade Iraq as it does to become involved with Zimbabwe, but Zimbabwe is less likely to impact directly on the Western world and this is probably the reason why military action is unlikely to happen. Now if they found oil in Zimbabwe, well that might be a different story……..