Category Archives: Security

7-Zip, Encryption, Free Software, Security

Encrypting Your Stuff – Part 1

Leave a comment

This week, it’s all about encryption. First, let’s encrypt a zip file. If you are putting things like financial information, passwords, or personal data up to the Cloud, it should be encrypted. This post will be a tutorial for doing just that.

1. Download and install 7-Zip. Here’s the link:  http://www.7-zip.org/download.html

The program is free, don’t worry about it. It’s also trustworthy and does not add toolbars or additional software.

2. Create a folder that contains the various files that you want to zip and encrypt. You can encrypt one file, or a whole folder. We feel that a folder is best for uploading to the Cloud but you can just as easily do this to one file. Zipping, if you didn’t know, takes a folder and all of the files in it, makes them smaller by taking out the empty space within the file, then creates a new ‘zipped’ file. Windows itself can do this but it won’t encrypt that file. Encryption here means ‘lock it up with a password’. Once you get the folder set up, move it to somewhere that’s easy to find. We put ours inside of our Dropbox folder.

3. Open 7-Zip then navigate to the folder you just created. That’s easier said than done but, if you put the folder in your Dropbox folder, it will be very easy to find.

Photo of 7Zip 1
This is probably what you’ll see when 7Zip starts up.

4. See the green + sign up on the top left? Just under that is an icon of a file folder with a green arrow pointing up. Keep pressing that icon until you get to the root directory of your computer, most likely that will be C:. When you get there, double click on the C:  You’ll see something like this:

Photo of 7Zip 2
This is something like what you’ll see next. Look for the Dropbox folder.

 

5. When you see the folder you want to zip and lock with a password, highlight it (click on it once), then go up to the top and click on File. This is what you will see:

Photo of 7Zip 3
7-Zip then Add to Archive.

6. Now 7-Zip knows that you want to create an archive. The menu that pops up gives you several options to choose before 7-Zip creates that archive. Here’s the menu:

Photo of 7Zip 5
Don’t get nervous, we’ll walk you through this.

 

7. For now, there are two sections of this menu for you to fill out. The first is the Archive Format. The choices there are shown in this menu:

Photo of 7Zip 6
It’s probably best to choose ‘zip’ here.

 

There are several different kinds of ‘zip’ files (zip is the generic term just as kleenex is generic for tissue). 7-Zip has its own kind and there are ‘tar’ files, etc. If you are always going to be accessing the file from the same computer, choosing 7z is fine. You must use 7-Zip to open 7z files, right? That’s why ‘zip’ might be better. With that archive format, you can use just about any zip program to unlock it, including Windows.

8. Next we have to choose a password. That’s easy but, and this is vitally important, make sure you remember the password. If you lock a file or folder with this system and forget the password, there is no way you can unlock it easily. Whatever is in that file is lost, for all intents and purposes. Read that again, we’ll wait.

 

9. Once you choose OK, 7-Zip works its magic and the file or folder is zipped up tight. We chose the 7z format and this is what we see when we look in the file’s original location:

Photo of 7Zip 7
There it is. You can double click on it now.

 

10. Double click on the zip file and this is what you’ll see:

Photo of 7Zip 8
Enter the password. That sucker is locked up for good!

 

11. Enter the password and the file opens. Enter the wrong password and it won’t. It’s locked up tight.

 

That’s the basics of locking up a file or folder. You can secure a single file or a whole folder with this. The larger the file or folder, the longer it takes but 7-Zip is fast, don’t worry. Now you can take that archive and email it, put it on a flash drive, send it up to your Dropbox, whatever. It’s quite secure.

TIP: You might be asking yourself, how secure is this system? As you know, governments have all the toys to open this kind of file. They have computers and programs specifically set up for this. They can open it. Can your tech friend Raoul open it? Probably not. It would take him years to find the right combination of letters, symbols and numbers…your password, in other words. That’s why you have to make a good one!

Thanks for reading!

Like us on Facebook and we’ll like you, too. Here’s the link: Computers Made Simple on Facebook

 

 

 

Keep Safe Online, Privacy, Security, Security Questions

Security Questions – Don’t tell the truth!

Leave a comment

Besides a good password, security questions are another way to keep your different online accounts safe. This is a good thing, isn’t it? Well, it is a good thing if you select the answers to those questions carefully. Remember, you don’t have to tell the truth when you choose an answer. Lie a little.

Here’s an example that you might see on the Internet when signing up for a new service:

 

Photo of Security Questions
Anyone who knows you might be able to answer these questions.

These are typical security questions. Before you simply plunk in ‘Benji’ and ‘Sheboygan’, think about it. Who knows where your parents met? You and anyone that you’ve told the story to.  Maybe your childhood friend is still a friend. Maybe he’s your husband! Here’s where you can lie a little, just to keep your accounts a bit safer.

For any security question, use completely different answers, ones that aren’t guessable. For your first car, you could put the answer as ‘123’. Mother’s maiden name? Tokyo. First pet’s name? Smith (assuming it wasn’t named Smith!).

When you use a series of numbers or names or words that don’t match any of the questions, your account is completely secured from anyone who happens to guess your password. Sure, they may have your password solved but they won’t be able to get past your security questions.  We showed you last time how to create a strong and secure password using mnemonics. This technique is somewhat similar, using easy to remember words that have no relation to the questions being asked. There are no rule books as far as security questions go. You’re dealing with a computer, not a real person, so you can say anything you want. Lock up your accounts with a good password and crazy answers to security questions and you’ll be a whole lot safer online. Good luck!

Thanks for reading! Why not like us on Faceboo? Here’s the link: Computers Made Simple on Facebook 

Password Recovery, Privacy

Passwords – How to create a good one

1 Comment

No visuals today, just common sense. As you know by now, about the only people you can keep out of your email and social networking accounts are your friends and hackers. Hackers in this case means people not associated with your government or your local authorities. The key to keeping your online accounts safe is a good password. The longer a password is, the stronger it is. The problem with this is that long passwords are hard to remember, right? Here’s how you can create a unique, reasonably hack-proof password.

1. Today we’ll use something named a mnemonic which will help you remember your new password. Mnemonics are easy ways to remember things, sometimes they are visual, sometimes they are simply bits of information that you remember easily because they are part of your everyday life.

Photo of Mnemonics 1
What a post about mnemonics without Keanu Reeves?

2. Let’s run through some things that are easy to remember. Your birthday, year of birth, address, first phone number, cell number, height, weight, first teacher’s name, first pet’s color, etc.

3. On your keyboard, each number and many letters type something different when you press the Shift key. Additionally, some numbers resemble letters. 3, for instance, could be an E or a zero could be an ‘o’. Let’s see if we can make something out of all of this:

Birth date: 1972

Height: 172

Street Address: 102 Moxley

Pet’s name: Ginger

If we mix and mingle these stray thoughts, we could come up with something like:  19!)@Mox&@Gin

How did we come up with this string of gibberish? 19 is obvious, first two numbers of the birth date. !)@ is 102 but typed with the shift key pressed.  Mox is obvious. &@ is the leftover part of the birth date while Gin is clearly part of the pet’s name.

Why not try this technique for one of your email accounts? Make sure it’s one that you have a second means of access, in other words one that has a security email account that will be contacted if you forget your password. Better yet, write the password down in Notepad and mail it to yourself at another email account. Use a clue word, something like pizza to search for. Don’t use ‘password’ since this is a dead give-away for anyone searching through your emails.

After you’ve created the password, try typing it a few times while running the original sources through your mind. You may see it as 19102Moxley72Ginger but don’t worry about it. Just remember to shorten the things that have to be shortened and use the shift key where necessary. It will begin to be like a rhyme, something that you won’t be able to forget if you wanted to! Our example is 13 digits, plenty long enough to stump even the smartest normal hacker out there. It would take a very long time for an average computer using brute force to crack it. Email providers and social networking sites lock your account anyway if you try the wrong password several times in a row.

Good luck and let us know if you’re got similar suggestions for a secure email.

Thanks for reading!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Email, Encryption, Privacy, Security

Encrypt Your Emails – Part Two

Leave a comment

In our last post, we described how to encrypt an email using JavaScrypt, a simple but effective way to hide your personal information from prying eyes. That post is here: Encrypt Your Emails For Free. Today’s post assumes that you’ve read the linked one so, if you haven’t read it yet, head over and check it out. We’ll wait…

Back? OK, here we go. The message that we used yesterday was very simple but the encoded message was obviously encrypted. What if we still wanted to encrypt a message but didn’t want it to look as if it was in code? It’s pretty clear that an encrypted message would raise suspicions about its content, even if that content was completely innocent. Here’s how to solve that problem.

Steganography is the term for this process, hiding something in plain sight. There are several ways to do it but, for now, let’s stick with what we learned yesterday. To accomplish this task, you must have two browser windows open. First, open up the link from yesterday’s post. Here it is: JavaScrypt Encryption.

When the page opens, run through the same process as we described previously, generate a code, write a simple message and then encrypt it. You’ll end up with something that looks like this:

Photo of Steganography 1
Gobbledy guck, mishmash, pure Blarney, right?

 

It’s painfully obvious that this is an encrypted message. Let’s make it look like bad poetry. Open this page: Stego! Text Steganography. Both pages are by the same person, more on him later, so they look very similar. What we’re going to do here is simply copying and pasting from one browser window to the other. Our aim is to hide the encrypted message in text that looks vaguely normal, in other words ‘words’. Let’s get going:

1. We will use the encrypted message in the photo above. Highlight it then right click and choose Copy. Go to the Stego page (link just above this), click in the pink box, right click and  choose Paste. Under the pink box is the word Hide. Click it.

Photo of Steganography 2
Click the Hide button.

 

2. Once you click the Hide button, a new message appears in the orange box at the bottom.

Photo of Steganography 3
What’s this? Some gibberish?

 

3. What we have now is an encrypted message that has been transformed into something that looks a bit less intimidating and a whole lot less suspicious. What do we do now? We can’t decrypt this gibberish, not directly anyway. We have to ‘unhide’ it. Normally you would have to copy the words from an email then paste them into the orange box. For now, just erase the encrypted message in the pink window and leave the words in the bottom window. Like this:

Photo of Steganography 4
Empty the top box and click the word Seek.

 

4. Click Seek and the original encrypted message will appear in the top box again.

Photo of Steganography 5
Voilà! It’s back again.

 

This two page, multi-step process takes an email, or any text document for that matter, encrypts it, then changes the encrypted message into something that resembles normal English. If this text happened to be buried in a much longer document, there’s a good chance that it wouldn’t be noticed. While this whole thing takes a bit of extra time, we think you’re more likely to slip beneath the radar, if you know what we mean.

TIP: In order to use this system, all of the settings have to be the same for the encryption and the decryption as well as for the ‘hiding’ and ‘seeking’. Each page of the site gives you ample information to change the settings to your own specifications but be sure to make a record of those settings if you want to have a problem-free experience.

The site that we’ve linked to here belong to John Walker, co-creator of the Autodesk company and its software (AutoCad). Both pages that we’ve mentioned can be downloaded and run on your computer, no Internet connection is necessary. In other words, you could perform all of your encryption/decryption tasks ‘offline’.

Should you encrypt your emails? That’s up to you. We don’t but we sleep a bit better knowing that, if the need arises, we could. If you think the process described here is new, it’s not. The two pages we’ve mentioned were created in 2005. We are not naive enough to think that this simple encryption process is invincible to decryption by a third party and neither should you. What we have described here will keep your private information out of the hands of people who shouldn’t be snooping in your stuff anyway. Besides, it’s fun to experiment with this and it makes very interesting chatter at the dinner table, right?

Thanks for reading! Like us on Facebook and you’ll be able to keep up with our latest news and posts: Computer Made Simple on Facebook.

 

 

 

Password Recovery, Security

Recover Saved Passwords in Chrome

Leave a comment

If you have recently lost your Facebook or Youtube password, here’s a quick way to recover it without going through the ‘Lost Password’ routine on the website. Our example here is for Google Chrome but we think this will work in a similar fashion with Firefox. We recommend Chrome, however.

1. The single ‘must have’ here is that you must have saved the password when Chrome asked you “Would you like Chrome to remember your password?” If this is the case, move on to step 2.

2. In any window or tab, look for the three horizontal lines up on the top right side.

Photo of Password Recovery1
Click on the horizontal lines.

 

3. Click on the word ‘Settings’ when the menu pops down:

Photo of Password Recovery 2
Click on the words Settings.

 

4. The page that opens up will have the words ‘Show advanced settings’ down near the bottom. Click there:

Photo of Password Recovery 3
Click on the words.

 

5. What you’re looking for now is the Passwords and Forms section. If you have the ‘Offer to save passwords I enter on the web’ box checked, click on the words ‘ Manage saved passwords’.

Photo of Password Recovery 4
This only works if you have let Chrome remember the passwords.

 

6. The next few photos have been edited but you can get the idea of what you’re looking at. The first thing you see is a list of your saved passwords. The website will be on the left while the passwords (hidden) will be on the right. In between is your username for each site. Here’s the first pic:

 

7. Now, you’re probably asking, “What good is this? The passwords are all hidden.” Well, click just to the right of any password and the word ‘Show’ will appear. Like this:

Password Recovery 8
Click just to the right and choose ‘Show’.

 

8. Once you click ‘Show’, the password appears. Cool huh?

TIP: As you can see, this trick can be used to recover usernames, passwords and websites. Seems like fun, right? It’s not so much fun if you are on a shared computer, however. Can you see how this little secret can be used against you? Do you really want everyone who uses your computer to be able to access your passwords and usernames? We think not. Suit yourself but on a shared or public computer, we would NOT recommend that you let Chrome (or any browser) save your passwords.

If you don’t want Chrome to remember your passwords, go back to the menu and uncheck the box that reads ‘Offer to save passwords I enter on the web’.

There is another way to recover passwords in Chrome, even passwords that you haven’t saved. We’ll get to that in another post.

Thanks for reading!