Stop people from spying on you using your webcam

With all the talk about unwanted surveillance these days, one of the things I've heard people worry about is the privacy of their webcams.  "Could someone spy on me via my webcam without me knowing it?"  It's unlikely, but possible. 

If you don't want to be seen without your consent, there is an easy way to handle it:  ‎Scotch® tape or its equivalent. 

I've heard of people using duct tape, electrical tape, masking tape, etc. but I prefer the clear, but opaque ‎Scotch® tape for a few reasons:

1. ‎Scotch® tape allows light through, which enables your computer's light sensor to gauge the ambient light and adjust your screen brightness accordingly.
2. This tape allows you to see the "camera active" LED next to the lens when it comes on.  This can be an indicator that someone is watching, so you'll know when it's happening.  Note that some eavesdropping toolkits are able to monitor your webcam without  turning on the light, so the light alone isn't a perfect indicator.
3. The tape is easily removable without leaving a residue.  That means you can easily use your webcam when you want to without a lot of hassle. 

How well does it work?  Take a look at these two views - one normal view, and one with tape over the lens. 

As you can see, a simple bit of inexpensive tape does the trick. 

One other thing to keep in mind:  This does nothing to keep people from listening in on your microphone... 

Make your car more "hands-free friendly"

In my state, use of mobile devices is prohibited while driving, unless you're using them in a hands-free mode.  I've been doing that since it became a law but it was a bit of a pain sometimes because there was no good place to put my phone and it would slide around while I drove.

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I looked around for a holder for mobile devices, but all the ones I found required drilling holes, sticking an adhesive disk on my dashboard, or sticking a suction cup to my window.  I didn't want to damage my car's interior, and those ones that stick to the window block my view and fall off at inconvenient times. 

Recently, I discovered a great solution for this problem: the Mountek nGroove Universal CD Slot Mount for Cell Phones and GPS Devices.

This is a well-built mount for your mobile devices, which fits in the CD slot in your car.  There is an adjustable "gripper" that you expand to grab the inside of the CD slot to hold the mount in place.  The device holder portion of the Mountek is adjustable to fit most mobile devices and hold them in place securely. 

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I've been using this mount for a couple of months and it is great.  Not only does it keep my phone from sliding around, it also allows me to put my phone in a position where I can easily see the GPS guidance using Waze, Google Navigator, or other mapping software.

I don't use my CD player much in the car, but on the couple of occasions when I needed to, I just loosened the adjustment thumbscrew on the Mountek, took it off, added a CD, and remounted the Mountek. 

I'm very happy with the Mountek nGroove Universal CD Slot Mount for Cell Phones and GPS Devices- it seems very sturdy, meets my requirements, and doesn't damage the interior of my car. 

Families are mightier than legislation

I generally try to avoid ranting here, but I'll do just a bit of that today.

In the past couple of years, there have been a lot of tragic acts of violence, such as the one this past week in Boston.  According to what we're told by the media, there is a thread between the perpetrators of violence:  they all had family problems or parental issues, and became bitter about something.

In dealing with some crises within my own family over the past few years, we've gotten some great advice from one of our doctors: spend more time together as a family; pay more attention to what your children are doing ("be nosy" is her description); and eat dinner together as a family.​  It isn't so much the dinner itself, as the excuse to get together and talk about things in a casual but interested way.

This was hard and frustrating at first, and we felt very inadequate (especially for the first year).  In fact, we resorted to "Table Topics" cards in the beginning to help us figure out how to get the conversation going.  Surprisingly, the family dinners every night have made a huge difference in our ability to communicate.

It was tough to have good conversations in the beginning, but we learned to ask better questions and to stay away from emotional lightning rods.  We also learned to be better listeners without jumping right to judgment or attacks.

Slow and steady wins the race

We've been doing this consistently for a couple of years now, and it has made a marked difference in the strength of our family, the moods and outlook of our children, ​and the relationships between us.

We are by no means perfect, but we're better off than we were when we spent all our time running different directions and being "too busy to eat together."  

Of course, I travel a fair amount in my job so we aren't always together at dinner, but there is always one of us parents eating with the kids, talking with them, and keeping tabs on how they are doing.  I also call and text with my kids a lot from the road - which I didn't do in the past.​

 The bottom line?  We thought we were paying attention as parents before - we've found out we were wrong.​

Laws are no substitute for family

I bring this up because I see a lot of laws designed to prevent "the next senseless act of violence," and I don't believe laws will help.  I think we need to find ways for people to spend time with their families and build stronger connections, stronger values, and to provide outlets (safety valves?) for those with serious emotional or psychological stress, who may feel that nobody cares.  No law can do that.​

Making a shift like this can be scary, since you may feel unprepared to have probing conversations with your children, or you may want to be their friend vs. their parent.  Or, you may not know how to deal with the anger and angst of a teenager.​

The only way I know is to "just do it" and get some help from a counselor that can help you develop the skills, confidence, and techniques to get through to the other side.​

It isn't easy, but it's worth it.  Start by doing it for your kids, but trust me - you'll get as much out of it as they will.

Maybe none of this would have prevented any of the recent acts of violence, but I don't think it would have made things worse.​

</rant>​

Is "monkey" your password?

A while back I wrote about passwords and how to tell if yours has been compromised.  Meanwhile, I have been watching the news with fascination regarding many of the well-publicized password leaks and breaches, and have been amused at some of the popular passwords.  Seems like there are a lot of basketball fans out there who like to use "jordan" as their passwords in honor of Michael Jordan.  There are also a lot of profane passwords, as well as "password," "12345678," and other simple passwords.  

One password that was amusing to me -- and for which I have no explanation -- is the popularity of "monkey" as a password.  It showed up pretty high on LinkedIn, Gawker, Sony, and a few others…who knew?

Anyway, I recently ran across an info graphic that I think does a nice job of putting the password complexity in context, and I thought I'd share it here.  Pretty interesting to see how minor increases in the length and complexity of your password can make a huge difference.  And remember - the Pros are the guys you should be worried about - not the "Noob" hackers.

Should you change your password?

There have been a lot of well-publicized data breaches in the news lately, and I always wonder if I've been affected by them.  When credit card data is affected, you get a letter from your bank or card issuer (I've gotten a few), but when it comes to web site hacks that go after passwords, you never know.  Or do you?

I'd like to share a couple of resources you can use to find out whether you should be concerned, as well as a couple of things to help you increase your password effectiveness in the future.

Find out if you've been a victim

A site called "ShouldIChangeMyPassword.com" has aggregated (as of this post) 11,802,026 compromised passwords from a large number of the publicly disclosed data breaches.  If you go to the site and enter your email address, it will tell you if your email shows up in the list of compromised accounts.  In my case, I've been breached at least once, as the graphic below shows.

My password was compromised in the Gawker Media breach but, fortunately, I used a unique password so my exposure is very limited.  I also changed my password the moment I found out (Gawker was very responsible in their notification, and I knew within a few days).

Other sites you can use to find out if your password's been compromised include:

• LinkedIn leaked password checker
• eHarmony leaked password checker

 Stronger passwords in the future

If you want to protect yourself better in the future, here are some tips that can help:

• Use different passwords for each site you visit
• Use complex passwords (mixture of upper & lower case, numbers, random characters that aren't in the dictionary, etc.)
• Don't write your passwords down

The challenge with this is that it makes it nearly impossible to remember what password belongs to which site.  To make it easier, I recommend using a "password vault" that can generate complex passwords for you and then help you remember them.  The best ones are multi-platform, never store your data in an unencrypted form, and allow you to share your password data securely across multiple devices.

I've tried quite a few of them and the one I like best is called "1Password."  It works on Mac, Windows, Android, iPhone, iPad, and I've been using it faithfully for a couple of years.  It stores an encrypted data file on your system (the makers of 1Password don't store your passwords on their own systems), and it easily shares your encrypted password data using Dropbox as the conduit.

1Password also has the ability to store other information such as credit card numbers, software license keys, and more.  It can also generate and stores secure passwords for you, which makes it easy to satisfy the tips I mention above.

If you want to take a more manual approach, there is a good "personal algorithm" method using Steve Gibson's "Password Haystacks" model, detailed on the Gibson Research Corp. site.  This is also a great educational site on how longer passwords offer exponentially more security.