I’m not a social person.  I’m content with sitting at home and watching movies or building web scripts by myself.  With the advances in web-based multimedia and streaming content, it has become easy to simply visit a website to watch your favorite TV shows.  Until recently, each major network had its own website for watching their shows, and it was necessary to have a list of all the participating networks.

Just a couple months ago I discovered Hulu, a website designed to deliver streaming video directly from the major networks.  It’s regularly updated, and is authorized to carry the published content so there are no questions about copyright infringement.  I think this is the future of television, and I look forward to seeing a greater variety of content in the future.

I’ve been hesitant to fully adopt wireless networking, and with good reason.  It isn’t secure.  While the technology has advanced significantly since it’s inception, I’m not convinced that wireless data can’t simply be plucked out of the air.  Despite efforts to encrypt wireless data in transit, the data is readily available for anyone with the knowledge and motivation to decrypt and view it.

Evidence of my concerns has recently been published in a research paper from two German researchers, Martin Beck and Erik Tews.  The paper describes how the Chopchop WEP attack can theoretically be applied to WPA-TKIP, and includes proof-of-concept code.

So how do we protect our data from these methods?  There are a few solutions for the time being, but it’s only a matter of time before they are also defeated.  The first solution is to use AES protocol instead of TKIP.  The second is to upgrade from WPA to WPA2.

Some other methods for securing a wireless network are as follows:

1. Change the default admin login details on wireless access points.
   Most hackers/crackers know the default login details for popular devices.  Changing those details is the first line of defense.
2. Change the default SSID on wireless access points.
   Like the admin login details, most hackers/crackers know the default SSIDs for popular devices.
3. Disable SSID Broadcasting on wireless access points.
   Broadcasting the name of your access point equates to announcing that you have an available WiFi signal.  Authorized users should already know the name, so it’s not necessary to announce it to the world.
4. Setup a LAN access list so that only specified devices can connect to wireless access points.
   Although MAC addresses can be spoofed, this provides another layer of security.  In order to connect to the network, a hacker/cracker would have to match the MAC address to one of the devices that have been mapped out in the access point.  It’s like searching for a needle in a haystack.
5. When not in use, disconnect wireless devices from the network.
   If wireless devices aren’t connected to the network, they can’t be compromised.

Most people who know me will agree when I say that I’m a computer geek.  I spend hours upon hours scouring the web in search for tech info and playing with new software.  I’ve been a huge Opera fan for many years, but when they “upgraded” their mail storage format, I was upset to learn that my files had become corrupted.  Although I had backups, somehow they too had become corrupted and I was left with years of unretrievable mail archives.  It was at that point that I finally parted ways with Opera and migrated to Firefox as my browser of choice.

Although I found a replacement browser, I was less than impressed with Mozilla Thunderbird for email.  Since I had invested a large sum of money into Microsoft Office 2007 for school, I decided to give Outlook a try.  My first complaint about Outlook was the subpar anti-spam capabilities, and I started searching for plugins to address that concern.  Unfortunately, I was unable to find anything worthwhile until recently.

As it turns out, Trend Micro has a free anti-spam plugin for Outlook and Outlook Express.  The bad news is that the current version will expire on December 31, 2008.  I’m hoping they will release a new version for 2009.  Nevertheless, I thought this was worth mentioning because Trend Micro may decide to continue supporting this product if more people use it.  If you’re an Outlook or Outlook Express user, give it a try!