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Solutions for Identity Theft, Credit/Debit Card Theft, and Personal Information TheftPart I: Overview
Mike Angelo -- 29 June 2005 (C) -- Page 3
KDE's Konqueror Web browser is the best of the bunch. It is friendly and easy to use. It has lots of neat, handy features, such as tabbed browsing, a sidebar, and more. Konqueror is well-designed, well-built, and very solid. And perhaps most importantly, it provides excellent security and privacy protection. For more about Konqueror, please see our article, KDE Konqueror Web-Browser and File-Manager: Well-Built, Feature-Robust, and Free. The Konqueror Browser preference-configuration panels let you select a wide variety of security and privacy options. If you like you can completely shutdown annoyance, security, and privacy risk exposures such as cookies, Active X controls, and JavaScript (JS). You can set cookie, Active X, and JS policies to allow limited cookie, Active X, and JS activity. Or, you can completely lower your shields if you wish and allow cookies, pop ups, and scripts to run wild. You can use the JavaScript preference settings in Konqueror to control pop up ads and messages. Or, better yet, just use the preference settings to turn JS off altogether. We recommend that you disable cookies, Active X, and JS entirely. If you feel you want cookies placed or Active X and JS running on your computer despite the annoyance, security, and privacy risks to which they expose you and your computer, then choose the preference settings that ask before setting cookies or running JavaScripts and Active X. For more about the folly of JavaScript, please see our article Mozilla and Netscape JavaScript Bugs Compromise Privacy and Security. Also, please see the Browser Policies Note in the right sidebar. The question you need to answer for yourself in deciding whether to expose yourself to Spam and identify theft or information theft by using cookies, Active X, and JS is:
If your answer to that question is NO, then forget that Web site and move on!
A very important reason not to display HTML-formatted e-mail is that HTML-formatted e-mail is a major source of viruses, Spam, Trojans, worms, privacy invasions, and other infections and annoyances. Web-formatted e-mail messages also can be very wasteful of hard-drive space and Internet bandwidth. In short, constraining your e-mail reading and sending to text-formatted messages reduces download and upload times, saves hard drive space, helps to protect your privacy, reduces exposure to Spam, and reduces exposure to viruses and other such infections. One reason HTML e-mail is such a privacy and security risk is that the moment you open it, it can send information about you and your computer to evil-doers without you even knowing it is doing that. By the way, Microsoft Outlook automatically opens all HTML e-mail by default. Please see our article, KMail -- One of the Best E-Mail Clients, for more information about e-mail. Today, we just have scratched the surface of the privacy and security exposure that using e-mail, Web browsers, and the Internet can bring about. We will try to get some additional stories about this published soon -- especially ones that explain how the things we have told you not to do operate to invade your privacy and the security of your computer. In the meantime, you need to answer a question for yourself in deciding whether to expose yourself to Spam and identify theft or information theft by opening or using HTML-formatted e-mail. That question is:
If your answer to that question is NO, then forget that e-mail and move on! Looking at the Information Theft and Identify Theft Big PictureToday we focused on personal information that already exists on your computer or that you (perhaps unwittingly) provide to people and to other entities over the Internet. However, there are many other places where information about you can be found. Some can be found on the computers and records of people, government units, organizations, institutions, companies, and business enterprises that have collected information about you -- and doing so without breaking any laws. Unfortunately, you have no control over how these people, government units, organizations, institutions, companies, and business enterprises handle your personal information. They can give it or sell it to anyone they so chose. They do not have to secure it, thus your personal information can be stolen from them too. The real problems that everyone seems to be overlooking are:
We are opposed to laws regulating the Internet. However, there should be laws against people, government units, organizations, institutions, companies, and business enterprises harvesting, maintaining, and distributing information about people. Such laws are not laws regulating the Internet and therefore we are not opposed to them. Just the opposite, we encourage them. We will look at these issues in upcoming issues of MozillaQuest Magazine. In the meantime, when someone asks you verbally, or on an application, or on a form to provide them with your personal information -- just say none of your business, unless of course the information is directly relevant to and necessary for the transaction involved -- and you trust them with your personal information. If they do not like that, just tell them to flake off and then take your business elsewhere! Stay tuned.
Stopping Identity Theft, Paula Zahn Now, CNN, Aired May 26, 2005 - 20:00 ET FTC (Federal Trade Commission) Firewall FAQ, IRChelp.org
KDE, KMail, and Konqueror Articles
KMail -- One of the Best E-Mail Clients (Editor's Choice) KShowmail Shows Potential -- A KDE Tool to Manage and Read E-Mail
KDE Konqueror Web-Browser and File-Manager: Well-Built, Feature-Robust, and Free (Editor's Choice) Tabbed-Browsing Comes to KDE -- KDE 3.1 Released: Binaries and Source Code Available for Downloading Tabbed-Browsing Coming to KDE's Konqueror Browser
KDE 3.0 Released -- Binaries and Source Code Available for Downloading KDE 2.2 Released -- Binaries and Source Code Available for Downloading
Impact of the Mandrake-Conectiva Acquisition on the Linux Landscape Gaël Duval Tells Why Mandrake Linux Is Better Than MS Windows Microsoft PR Does Not Refute Mandrake Linux Better Than Windows Mandrake Linux 9.0, Desktop Magic You Can Use: A First Look
Linux Networking for Windows and Desktop People -- Mandrake 9.1 and LinNeighborhood Gaël Duval and Mike Angelo Discuss Mandrake Business Products and Finances MandrakeSoft Adds MandrakeClustering to Its Business and Enterprise Products Lineup Gaël Duval and Mike Angelo Discuss The HP-Mandrake Computer HP to Ship Desktop PCs with Mandrake 9.1 Linux Pre-Installed - Good News for Mandrake Linux and Fans
Gaël Duval and Mike Angelo Discuss the New Mandrake AMD64 OS Mandrake Linux Corporate Server 2.1 for AMD Opteron
Conectiva, Mandrake, and SuSE Say No SCO in Their Code SCO-Caldera v IBM: Conectiva's Gordon Ho Responds to SCO-Caldera's Linux-Related Allegations
Mozilla 1.3b Browser-Suite Released Netscape 7.02 Browser-Suite Released Mozilla and Netscape JavaScript Bugs Compromise Privacy and Security
Is Netscape Losing the Browser Wars?
Linux for Microsoft Windows Users: #4-- Getting Started Using the Windows-Like Desktop for Linux Linux for Microsoft Windows Users: #2 - Getting Started with The Linux MS Windows-Like Desktop Linux for Microsoft Windows Users: Introduction & Overview
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