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As you may already know, I am a huge believer in two-factor authentication. You should keep in mind that two-factor authentication is not the absolute answer to Internet security problems. It is critical that you keep your computer patched with current antivirus software and that you browse and use email with care.
I won’t get too much into the technology other than to say it involves using two of the three factors: a) something you know, b) something you have, and c) something you are. The majority of Internet two-factor authentication implementations use the first two factors, since determining something you are (such as a fingerprint or retinal image) involves considerably more logistics than is reasonable for a remote service. The something you know portion of the system is trivial and widely accepted as username/password combinations. Of course, password complexity is extremely important and will be the topic of a future post. That leaves us with something you have as the simplest and most common second factor.
It is worth noting that a second username/password combination can never be considered a second factor. Theoretically, an infinite number of passwords is still part of something you know. The primary reason that this is important is malware, particularly key-logging software. This is the reason I am disappointed in PayPal’s two-factor implementation, as described in my previous post on the subject. If you do implement two-factor authentication with PayPal, you should make sure you never bypass it or you risk exposing your account.
There seems to be a lot of hype out regarding Microsoft’s next version of their PC operating system. The public opinion of Windows Vista—however flawed it might have been—clearly left a deep impact on Microsoft. Whether people arguing the criticism regarding Vista is founded or not, there is no argument that the general populous views Vista as a failure.
With that in mind, this is Microsoft’s big chance of redemption. When Windows 7 was announced, people were immediately excited to see if Microsoft could make the dream operating system for PC users. I have been running the Windows 7 Release Candidate for several months now, and here are some quick thoughts.
Let me point out that Microsoft spent a whopping 6 billion dollars on development with Windows Vista. So anyone who thinks this isn’t Windows Vista at heart, is completely wrong. Windows 7 is an advanced version of Windows Vista. Microsoft has also deployed the biggest OS beta testing process in the history of operating systems. What does this mean? They are definitely looking to get Windows 7 right in the public’s eye. Read the rest of this entry »
I recently had the opportunity to test another hosted service, Draftix.com. I found it by searching for some software that would help with season ticket group distribution. I was creating a new season ticket group of varying ownership and figured there had to be someone out there who’s already figured out how to do it easily using software or even Excel.
After doing a quick Google or Bing (I’ve tried using Bing lately – maybe more on that in another post) I stumbled upon Draftix. Interestingly, Bing provided the only direct path to Draftix- the second result, while Google (using the exact same “season ticket sharing software” query as linked to above) didn’t have a link to Draftix in the first 200 results (I gave up looking after 200). Google’s second result did find a site (Vator.tv) that holds a review of Draftix that leads you to the Draftix site. This is a perfect example of why relying on only one search provider (and Google is getting a lot of negative press about this lately) can limit your “view” of the Internet substantially. An analogy would be if you rely 100% on one news service for all of your current events (The same kind of negative view a lot of people have of CNN.) Read the rest of this entry »
