Petaluma, CA - Local aspiring entrepreneur, Dave Todson, was watching TV one late night when he saw a potential business opportunity.  He saw a commercial for LifeLock, that company where the CEO is constantly giving out his social security number.  Dave did a bit a research and learned that the CEO has a shady past but is now raking in the bucks by selling for $120 per year a service that you can perform yourself.

Dave then devised his own strategy for major success.  He got his family to invest $6000 in his business idea.  He then formed “BankLock”, a service aimed at protecting your bank account.  He then rented a moving truck and launched his advertising campaign. 

Needless to say, this story is farcical.  This company is bred on fear and is offering an expensive service that does little actual work.  In fact, the CEO was a victim of identity theft recently for $500.  The thief used his social security number at a check cashing place.  They don’t require a credit check, thus avoiding his “service”.   

Effective Oct. 31, 2007, all three major credit bureaus will offer credit freezes to any individual who requests one.

A credit freeze, in effect, places an electronic padlock on your credit report.  No one can review your credit report until you remove the padlock.  A credit freeze eliminates identity theft at its source—the ability of a criminal to obtain credit fraudulently.

Read more about this new tool here
http://nestmannblog.sovereignsociety.com/2007/10/freeze-out-iden.html

Be safe,
Ray

Sorry about the eye-catching headline, but this is an easy tool to help you react to potential identity theft.

Don’t photocopy your ass literally, but do consider taking five minutes at work one day and photocopy your wallet’s contents.

Simply take every piece of plastic and copy both sides. that way, should there ever be a lost credit card or god forbid, a lost wallet, you have records of every card, card number and support number in one place. It’s a huge time-saver and could be the difference in repairing $400 of lost credit as opposed to $1000s.

Be safe,
Ray

Sorry, I didn’t intend to write an article today (or this early), but I just got another “cute” email from a family member. I think this one had funny pictures of wood or ugly babies or an internet hug or something I couldn’t get through the day without. They feel like it would be appreciated by me so I don’t yell at them.

What they didn’t do: Make my day

What they did do: They just gave my name to spammer

What do I mean? Well, good email collectors (by good, I mean bad guys who are good at what they do) create these “viral” emails and send them to a seed list. then, like the old Prell commercial, they tell two friends and they tell two friends and so on and so on. The next thing you know, there is a email out there with hundreds and hundreds of very valid email addresses, including mine (yet I’ve done nothing to put my info out there except given family members my info). These emails are incredibly valuable tools to true spammers (not just annoying ones, but often dangerous ones)

So what can you do? I suggest three things to help you in this battle:

1. Forward this URL to anyone in your life who sends you these emails. It’s tough to say STOP, but this article might shine some light on these emails for them. It’s a very polite way to say STOP….please!
2. If you feel that you absolutely must send one of these emails, send it to yourself and blind CC the people you want to send it to. This let’s you share email without compromising your friends.
3. Lastly and most importantly, forward this email to 10 friends in the next 10 minutes and receive good luck for a year

Be safe,
Ray

Hello fellow bloggers.  As you know, I am the owner and creator of Safe-n-Secure software.  We use 256bit AES encryption to help you safely and easily protect your files and thus, your identity.  Safe-n-Secure Privatize Platinum is going to be on retail shelves in June.  You can read more about it here.

In anticipation of that, we’d love to generate some online buzz.  That’s where you come in.  If you have a blog or website that either:

• Has an Alexa ranking under 1,000,000
• Has a PR of 4 or more

Then we’d like to give you a copy of our $40 software FREE!  Here’s all we ask of you in return:

Write a blog entry or web page entry which mentions how your readers might use file/folder encryption, a password manager or file shredder to make their lives safer.  The provide a link to our homepage (http://www.getsafensecure.com/) and our blog (www.getsafensecure.com/support).   

Once you do, Let us know where we can find it and how we can contact you.  We will be giving away 200 copies of Safe-nSecure Privatize Platinum Free!  So feel free to promote this offer also!

Thanks for the help,
Ray

By trade, I’m a software/web site designer. I tend do lots of jobs for lots of clients. I am constantly sending sensitive information (mine and theirs) to them through email and instant messaging.

Part of the reason we made Safe-n-Secure Privatize was to provide us with the tools to send clients their functional specs, design specs and invoices in a secure manner.

This password protection for files has proved invaluable for both us and them, but sometimes we just need little bits of text secured. Making a text file and securing it with Privatize seemed like a bit of overkill.

Introducing a new software tool called Safe-n-Secure Privacy. It is the fast easy (and free) way to encrypt and share text.  It has an open text box for you to enter your text. Then you can encrypt it with a password.  Privacy outputs completely secure text for you. Then, add it to email, IMs or anywhere you need a little privacy. It’s unreadable without the password!

And the best part? It’s going to be free! Free to use and free to share.  Today, we are releasing Privacy as a public beta, please feel free to download and share your feedback.

Safe-n-Secure Privacy™ uses 256bit AES protection, the same great protection that the US Government and Privatize Platinum use. It’s unreadable without the password!

Get Safe-n-Secure Privacy

Be Safe,
Ray

I recently came across a great new service available for getting some of your favorite software titles for free! It’s called TrialPay. We were so intrigued, we have worked with them to offer their service for our $40 title.

Here’s how it works:

1. you browse through the advertisers
2. you select and complete one of the offers
3. in exchange, they pay your purchase price for you (in our case, that’s a $40 savings for you!)

And they have some really nice advertisers. I looked and saw:

• Blockbuster Online - sign up for their online rental service (think NetFlix) for just $9.99
• SeattleCoffeeDirect - Select two 12 ounce coffee selections for only $9 and get a Stainless Steel Coffee Grinder completely FREE.
• 250 Free Business cards from VistaPrint - you just pay the shipping
• CinemaNow.com - Signup for a Free 7 day trial and download full movies to your computer
• and 100 more!

You find an advertiser offer that works for you and they’ll pay your $40 for you. It’s really a win-win deal. Check it out

Be well,
Ray

I recently came across WidgetBox.com. They provide web site widgets for you to add to your website or blog. You simply place a small bit of code on your website, then you can add and remove widgets from your account page. No changes to your code. It’s pretty cool!

I saw clocks, blidgets (blog widgets) and other fun to see once widgets. I really think they are nothing more than a novelty until they start developing tools for community and communication.

I took a shot and converted our Random Password Generator into a widget. It turned out pretty cool. Scroll down the page on the sidebar, I’ve installed it for you to see.
Be Well
Ray

Each year I sign up on dozens of online sites. I try to manage the amount of potential spam I receive by using my free email account on sites I find questionable. Lately, thanks to my friend Craig, I have been turned on to a new trick.

What Craig did was buy his own URL. They are literally $14 for two years. If you use GoDaddy (and many others), you get a free email box.

Doesn’t sound like much of a solution, does it? What Craig then does is make that a “catch-all” box, meaning anything@craigsurl.com lands in this box. He then proceeds to signup at sites using their name @ craigsurl.com

So, if he signed up for this blog, he would use getsafensecure@craigsurl.com Then these emails would land in his general box with this site’s name on it.

What this allows him to do is at least see where the leak is in his circle of trust.  Perhaps then he could spread the word.  Plus, if he started getting Viagra emails to getsafensecure@craigsurl.com, I would have  some splainin to do.

Be safe, Ray

Before I begin, this article is a personal admission as well as a warning for others. Hi, I’m Ray and I was a Password Mismanager. There are millions of people who put themselves at risk everyday and kinda know it? I’m not sure if we think we aren’t worth a hackers time, but we are. The worst part is that deep down, I think we are all aware we’re doing it. But I’m recovering and you can too.

First, let’s identify some of the symptoms:

• You let the browser remember your password for you

Ouch! This one bugs me on two levels. First of all, you are leaving the keys to your house on the front porch. You’re making it almost too easy for hackers. You are neatly wrapping your exposed passwords in a box and begging the world to write a hack to have it delivered like a pizza.

Secondly, while it makes it easy for hackers to get your personal passwords (and thus your personal identity information) it makes it impossible for you to actually remember your own passwords. It’s like placing a number in speed dial. You just don’t even know it anymore.

• You keep track of your passwords in a text document on your computer

I’ve never done this, but I know people who do. This is a poor practice. There are hacks written literally looking for files named passwords.doc or passwords.txt

• You never change your passwords….ever!

This was my most heinous offense. I’ve had one password forever. It’s easy to remember and possibly listed on every website I’ve ever registered at. I bet it would be real easy to try username combos and that password at any of the major banking or shopping sites. If it was my password 3 years ago, it would be my password now.

• You use the same password for most sites

This is another very common symptom. This is how hackers make their money. They get your password via a benign little email signup and try it at a ton of major financial sites.

A side note: more and more sites are looking sketchier and sketchier. I often wonder if they are just setup to get a username and password combo to try everywhere. Think about it, it’d proably work on many of us. Be careful!

• Your password can be found in the dictionary

The easiest hack to write is called a brute force attack. They write a program which tries every word in the dictionary. And your not safe when you use a 3 for and E. They’ve figured out that we do it and they’ve written all these combos into their hack.

So what’s a Password Mismanager to do?

There are many tricks to recover from password mismanagement. Here are a few home remedies:

Use different passwords everywhere
I know this is a pain, but it truly limits your exposure to fraud and identity theft.

Change your passwords 3-4 time a year for high risk sites (banking, brokerage, frequent shopping)
Again, this is a pain, but again you are doing some real damage control.

Securely store your list of passwords and sites
Having to open a piece of software to get your passwords everyday may also be a pain, but so is working with a lawyer to restore your credit.

While it is painful to protect yourself, it doesn’t have to be hard. That’s where we come in.

We are Safe-n-Secure software and we have developed several titles to help. We have an inexpensive, but powerful tool fo remembering your passwords. For only $14.99, we offer Safe-n-Secure Password Manager. With it you can manage your passwords using 256 bit AES encryption, the same level of encryption that the US Government uses. It features a quick search tool, many categories and a backup scheduler. If you’re interested, you can read more at here

We also have a data protection suite, Safe-n-Secure Privatize Platinum. It takes that password manager and bundles it with a tool for password protecting files, password protecting folders, shredding sensitive documents and best of all: it contains a license for protecting three computers. If you’re interested, you can read more at here

I hope your rehab goes as smoothly as mine did!

Be safe,
Ray

When you first got your computer, it came from the factory optimized to run properly. As you surf the internet, add files and software your computer gets further away from it’s optimal settings. There are several primary areas that could be causing your computer to run slow. The most likely reason is that your registry has become corrupt and your system is essentially running in circles with its internal processing.

The second most common problem is that you have too many programs running behind the scenes. Not the programs you know about that are running but the behind the scenes programs you may be unaware of. There can be literally hundreds of programs of various sizes running in the background. These are eating up your computer’s available processing capacity and can bring your system to a literal stand still.

So what did you do wrong?

Truth be told, you did nothing wrong. Spyware, adware, malware and viruses are figuring out more and more ways to get on your system. Sometimes you are tricked into clicking a link that installs it. Links to spyware can be deceptive. For example, a Web site that’s trying to push spyware onto your computer might open a window that looks like a Windows dialog box, and then trick you by installing when you click a Cancel button to close the dialog box. Sometimes, spyware pushers will put a fake title bar in an empty window, and then install spyware when you try closing the window. Sound familiar?

Sometimes, unscrupulous companies piggyback their adware and spyware with free software. That’s why it’s so important to verify your free trial software is spyware and adware free. We work with Softpedia Labs to assure all the software we sell is certified spyware free!

Don’t worry, there’s hope!

Without help, you have no way to prevent adware or spyware. Old antivirus programs don’t even prevent adware, since they didn’t consider them viruses or worms. First, you usually give permission to install adware, although you do so unwittingly because adware and spyware pushers are deceptive. Second, adware doesn’t behave like a typical virus or worm. It doesn’t spread like a worm.

Browse though our software tools to see if we can help. We offer tools for backing up, preventing spyware and viruses, password protecting files and so much more.

Making your computer productive again is our ultimate goal!

We want to help you protect and repair your computer at a fraction of the cost of a new system. We developed the Safe-n-Secure line of software to protect you and we partnered with other top companies to repair you. Please feel free to contact us with any questions.