March General Meeting Review 2005
      by Liz Wright

The program at the March 2005 meeting was presented by our president, David Robbins. All who know David are aware that he is very, very knowledgeable and also has the ability to transmit his expertise to those of us who are far less capable. He addressed Internet Security in the meeting and to quote some of his presentation:
“There are many hazards to be aware of when using the Internet. Many people are trying to rob your computer of valuable information. They are people looking to destroy data on your computer, etc., etc.

There are some things that have become basic necessities in today’s computing world. These are such programs as anti-virus, firewalls and spam detectors. Some of these programs can be obtained and used free. Most of the software I use is free for personal use; this keeps the cost of using my computer as low as possible.

Firewalls keep out the prying eyes of crackers that want to use your computer for their use. A note on Firewalls: they should be set to monitor outgoing traffic as well as incoming. This prevents spyware, etc., from sending information about your computer out to its recipients during an online session. SYGATE FIREWALL (for XP, use V.5.6) is a free program in its Standard version. Log onto sygate.com and navigate to the free version.

Anti-virus programs help to protect your computer from being manipulated by someone else. It is more difficult to find free antivirus software. AVG (Grisoft.com) is free, as is Avast!. There are download sites for the free version of AVG, but there might not be any support for it from Grisoft, the developer of the program.

Spam-ware detectors help to keep your private things private. Ad-Aware is a popular, free, spam detector.

Another subject David covered was the use of passwords. He advised against using automatic password recognition offered by many websites. This information is stored on your computer and is available to hackers. This is especially true when you are using online banking, etc. You are far better off taking the time to enter your passwords each time you need it than leaving them out there to be found by someone else. This also helps you remember your passwords, although if you have very many, you may need a hard copy cheat-sheet somewhere.

On the hardware side, a practical tip is to make use of either external or removable hard drives for programs that deal with your personal business. These packages include Income Tax programs, online banking and any other programs you use which contain facts, figures, account numbers, passwords and other information you need to keep safe from hackers. Even genealogy information might need to be safeguarded in this way. The hackers who are looking for this type of thing are usually very sophisticated and will use what they get for their own gain.

The Winners of the Drawing are: