There are a number of password vaults on the market that aim to keep your passwords secure, locked behind one single master password that can let you into all your accounts and profiles. While this is a good way to keep your information safe, you could, potentially, still be caught out by a keylogger.
But what if your accounts could only be unlocked by using a physical part of your body? The iris of your eye is unique to you, and it’s by scanning your eye that the company EyeLock aims to keep your passwords secure. Its mouse-sized device, Myris, can perform a quick eye-scan to verify your identity before letting you in.
Connecting to your computer via USB, it scans your eye at a rate of 20 frames per second, looking at over 240 points on the iris to generate a 2048-bit signature unique to each user. To get into your accounts, which are linked via an application, you need to physically scan your eye — photos and videos will not work. And, although there’s a chance you can get a false match, it’s very slim — just one in 2.25 trillion. According to EyeLock, only DNA is more accurate.
This means that you could set highly complicated passwords for your internet banking, VPNs, email, shopping websites and social networks and not have to worry about remembering them.
“Usernames and passwords will soon be a thing of the past, and EyeLock’s introduction of Myris brings us one step closer,” said EyeLock chief marketing officerAnthony Antolino. “People are required to remember dozens of passwords in an effort to secure their data, while organisations and individuals are in a constant struggle to keep their digital, social and financial transactions safe from compromise, breach and theft. Until service providers take the step to eliminate usernames and passwords, Myris enables users to set passwords as complex as they’d like and forget them once linked to the device.”
Myris will be made available globally later this year, although a definite release date and pricing are yet to be announced.
Despite your knowing them and installing software to block them these trackers still follow you.
” Mozilla introducedCollusion, an add-on for the Firefox browser that shows you how companies are tracking you as you surf the Web. A cool visual demonstration of the software illustrates all the links that form as you crisscross just a few popular sites online, including IMDB, the New York Times and the Huffington Post. The software shows the connections between sites you visit and third-party tracking and advertising networks such as Doubleclick and Scorecard Research. It makes plain the invisible web that has been woven through the Web.
The software was created as a protoype by Atul Varma, who explained in a blog postthat he “didn’t know a lot about tracking myself, so I whipped up a Firefox add-on called Collusion to help me visualize it better,” he wrote. “The results were a littleunsettling.”
Collusion will help you understand how you’re being tracked online, but it won’t stop it from happening. For that, you can disable “third-party” cookies on your browser and install other add-ons such as TrackerBlock. A number of internet giants have alsoannounced support for a “do not track” button, though that option may not become available until the end of the year.”
“The PrivacyChoice Chrome extension opts you out permanently from behavioral ad targeting by over 150 companies. While this does not block tracking, in many cases (but not all) these companies will refrain from collecting information from your computer when the opt-out is in place.”
Google‘s privacy Policy Information is like a Bikini,it coceals more than it reveals.
Google wants to store your personal information for the Samaritan service of helping the Society such as identifying disease, correlating data and helping the Society run smoothly.
Your Data becomes anonymous after 9 months and IP address cookies are deleted after this period.
You have the solemn assurances of Google on this.
The Google also will not(?) share your information with any one including advertisers or market Researchers.
You’re about to go out for dinner and have to choose between two identical-looking restaurants on the same street. One is full, the other empty. You’ll probably choose the bustling restaurant, and when it comes to Google Search, we often use the same principle when selecting which results to give you. To bring you the most relevant results for each search query, we look at the usage patterns of millions of people using Google every day.
It is by analyzing these search patterns via our logs data that our engineers are able to improve the search algorithms that determine the order in which our search results appear. If our engineers can see that people are consistently clicking on the top result for any given query, they know they are doing something right. If people are hitting “next page” or typing in another query, they know they’re not delivering the results that people are looking for, and can then take action to try and improve the search algorithms.
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Have you ever wondered what happens when you type your query into the Google search box and what data we store about that search?
Let’s take a simple search like “cars.” When someone types the word “cars” into the Google search engine, the request gets sent from that user’s computer over the internet to our computers, which look for the right search results. Once our computers have found the results, they send these back to the user’s computer, all in a fraction of a second.
We then store some data about this exchange: the search query (“cars”), the time and date it was typed, the IP address and cookie of the computer it was entered from, and its browser type and operating system. We refer to these records as our search logs, and most websites store records of visits to their site in a similar way.
Here’s what a typical log entry at Google looks like:
But what does this all mean?
IP address:
123.45.67.89 is the IP address assigned to the user’s computer by his or her service provider. Just like other websites, when you ask Google for a page (a search results page, for example), we use your computer’s IP address to ensure that we get the right results back to the right computer.It’s important to remember that IP addresses don’t say exactly where an individual user is, or who they are. In fact, some Internet Service Providers (ISPs) give users a different IP address every time they log onto the web. The most Google can tell about a user from his computer’s IP address is that user’s general location (for example, Boston) and possibly the ISP they use to connect to the Internet. Only the ISP (who actually controls the user’s account) can match an individual with an IP address.
Time and date:
25/Aug/2011 10:15:32 is the date and time the user typed the query into Google.
Search query:
http://www.google.com/search?q=cars is the search query, in this case “cars.”
740674ce2123a969 is the unique cookie ID assigned to a browser the first time a user visits Google. Like an IP address, a cookie doesn’t tell Google who a user actually is or where they live – it only identifies a computer. You can delete these cookies at any time in your computer’s browser.
Time limits on data retention
We anonymize IP addresses after 9 months and alter the cookie numbers in our logs permanently after 18 months. This breaks the link between the search query and the computer it was entered from and is similar to the way in which credit card receipts replace digits with hash marks to improve customer security.
Here is what an IP address could look like in our logs after 9 months: 123.45.67.XXX. After 18 months, the cookie will be replaced by a newly-generated cookie number.
Google was the first major search engine to announce time limits on the retention of logs data, and we’re pleased that others in the industry have followed our lead.
Just like cookies in the offline world, online cookies don’t last forever. Google cookies expire after two years. Additionally, Google has always allowed people to use its services without cookies (though this may mean losing the use of some features or functions of particular products).
Why we store search logs
We use search logs for many purposes, for example, to keep our services secure, develop new features that make search faster and more relevant, and even to predict outbreaks of disease.Learn more
It’s good to know what’s stored in a search log when you search on Google. Read the next topic: How ads are targeted by Google.
Some of the things we learn from how people search can be useful for communities all over the world.
Disease
Imagine that somewhere in a remote place a man goes to Google and types in [fever]. Seconds later somebody nearby searches for [muscle ache]. And when more and more people from the same region start doing a similar search, it’s likely that something’s up.
Sometimes general patterns of search behavior match up closely to things happening in the offline world. When those correlations are strong, it can be possible to use spikes in a particular search to understand real-world behavior more quickly than traditional methods can notice a change. Using the aggregated searches of millions of people, we can help spot flu outbreaks or changes in economic conditions, giving professionals more time—and better information—to make decisions.
In 2008, we found that some search terms are good indicators of actual flu activity. It turns out that traditional flu surveillance systems take between one and two weeks to collect and release surveillance data. But Google search queries can be counted automatically very quickly. By making our flu estimates available each day, Google Flu Trends can provide an early-warning system for outbreaks of influenza. We have used the same insight to look at patterns of other diseases and have created an early warning system for dengue fever.
It’s important to remember that Google Flu Trends can never be used to identify individual users because we rely on anonymized, aggregated counts of how often certain search queries occur each week. We rely on millions of search queries over time, and the patterns we observe in the data are only meaningful across large populations of Google search users.
Economics
By studying the way people search, we can also pick up on other important trends, like changes in the economic climate. For example, the Bank of England tracks search trends related to consumer behavior in the United Kingdom. By watching out for changes in demand for goods, mortgages and concerns about inflation, the Bank hopes to improve the speed of economic reporting and the responsiveness of fiscal decision making.
Google Correlate
Because we believe there are so many things that can be learned from aggregated search activities, we’ve introduced Google Correlate. This allows researchers to upload their own data series and see a list of search terms whose popularity best corresponds with real-world trends.
If you are using your user name as your password, 43 percent of all password-guessing attempts simply re-entered the user name.
The top 10 most common passwords: 1. Your user name 2. Your user name followed by 123 3. 123456 4. password 5. 1234 6. 12345 7. passwd 8. 123 9. test 10. 1
These tools will help you Browse the Internet with out any Trace.
Possible that some one might have circumvented this as well.
If you want to use the Internet without anyone knowing who you are or leave an untraceable phone number or email address, then these tools are for you.
Big String. Big String offers self-destructing IMs and emails for those who don’t want any evidence of their online communications. Use with many popular IM clients.
Mozilla Firefox, Portable Edition. This free web browser leaves no personal information on your computer. Not only can you use this anywhere, but no one will know you were there.
x Paranoia mod. This Firefox extension is great for those who want to leave nothing behind on the computer. With a couple of clicks you can clear all your Internet history, passwords, cookies, and cache.
Bugmenot.com. If you’ve ever had to register with a site just to read an article or watch a video, then you will want this tool. Find login information for many websites that require registration and never have to give your information again.
10 Minute Mail. Use this tool to get an email address that is good for 10 minutes, then expires. This is a great way to register with sites that require an email validation or just to cover your tracks.
inumbr. Get a disposable phone number that you can use to forward calls to any other phone in the U.S. No one will be able to trace you with this number.
GrandCentral. Here’s another phone option when you don’t want to be traced by your number. Consolidate all your phones into one with this tool that gives you one voice mailbox and one number for all your phones.
drop.io. Want to share a top-secret online file with someone and then have no sign of the evidence later? This is the tool for you. The file is deleted after 30 days.
Fake Name Generator. If you need a name, address, email, or even a UPS tracking code, use this handy tool to generate any one of the necessary fakes.
cl1p.net. Create a note or upload a photo that you can keep for yourself or share, then delete it when you are finished with absolutely no sign of what you had.
Browsing Security
Hide My Ass!. Hide your identity with this free tool. This proxy service will hide your IP address so no one will know you.
Tor. This free service allows you to hide your Internet identity with a “network of virtual tunnels.”
Guardster. Another proxy service that hides your IP, this one is available in both free and for a fee versions. The free version does not work with encrypted SSL sites.
Megaproxy. Paste the URL for whatever website you want to visit into this tool and you will have a completely private look at your target site. No registration or downloads needed to use this tool.
Scandoo. Get real time protection when surfing the Internet with warnings about websites before you click on them. Based on ScanSafetechnology, this home version is free.
ShieldsUP!. Check out this tool to learn what information your browser is sending out.
Privoxy. Privoxy is an open source non-caching web proxy with advanced filtering capabilities for enhancing privacy, modifying web page data and HTTP headers, controlling access, and removing ads and other obnoxious Internet junk.
What Is My IP Address?. Use this tool to ensure your IP blockingsoftware is working correctly and not revealing your true IP address.
Clusty. Use this search engine when browsing. Clusty doesn’t save your information or track you at all when you use it.
Scroogle. Try searching Google with this tool. Scroogle uses SSL to send your search terms to Google with encryption, then does the same when sending the results back to you.
Computer Security
Using the Internet is a huge open door for people to stick their nose in your business. Use these tools to slam that door tightly shut.
Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware. This anti-malware software is one of the best tools available for removing crap from your computer. Best when used in conjunction with Ad-Aware to keep your PC 99.999% malware free.
avast!. This free anti-virus software is one of the best available (for free or for a fee) at protecting your computer. This tool will alert you any time malware is detected and even checks incoming email. avast! also includes a boot-time scan option.
Ad-Aware. The free version of this software does an excellent job of protecting your computer against spyware and adware. The paid version gives you real-time protection which is not available with the free one.
Sandboxie. This free tool is great for both protecting your computer and getting rid of evidence. It works as a temporary storage area for information that would normally go to and from your hard drive. When you are finished in the “sandbox,” you can just clear it out.
ThreatFire. Use this in conjunction with your anti-virus to fend off malware. ThreatFire detects malicious behavior such as capturing keystrokes and also serves to defend against zero-day threats.
SnoopFree Privacy Shield. The ultimate free software for the ultra-cautious, this tool will detect any method of privacy invasion through your keyboard, screen, and open windows.
Comodo Firewall. Keep out hackers with this free firewall. This program is one of the best when it comes to protecting your computer.
WinPatrol. Protect your privacy and your computer with this free tool that works by alerting you to “hijackings, malware attacks and critical changes made to your computer without your permission.”
AVG Free Anti-Virus. Get anti-virus and anti-spyware protection from this free software. This software also includes a scheduled scan option.
TrueCrypt. This disk encryption software will keep nosey-parkers at bay. You can create a virtual encrypted disk, encrypt USB flash drives and hard drives, and more.
Trustable Downloader. Download files from the Internet without worries of Trojans, worms, or viruses with this free application. As described, this tool will help guard you against government spying on its citizens.
SiteAdvisor. This software alerts you before you visit a website that has spyware or harvests your information for spam. Use their color-coded system to alert you to the potential dangers of websites.
Peer Guardian 2. This IP blocker is capable of blocking incoming and outgoing connections. You can also select to block spyware, adware, and educational and government ranges.
GlowWorm FW Lite . Mac users can use this software to be informed when a program attempts to make an outgoing connection. Not only will this tool protect your information, it also guards against malware.
Laptop Tracking
If someone makes off with your laptop, know how to stop them with these tools.
Adeona. If you want to guard against someone taking your laptop, check out this tool. This software continually tells you where your laptop is located without the interference of any third party to help you track and recover your computer.
iAlertU. Another laptop protection and tracking device, this one specifically for Macs, this software is based off mouse and keyboard movement which sets off an alarm, takes a photo of the thief, and emails the photo to a specified email address.
Spying on Those Out to Get You
If you know someone is trying to get to you, then turn the tables on them with these tools that will help you get the dirt on them.
GotVoice. Take advantage of the 14 day free trial to have your target’s voice mail sent directly to you. If you need more time, get another 14 day trial with different information.
Decoding Social Security Numbers in One Step. You can’t get everything out of that magical number with this tool, but you can narrow down the state and year of issue with any social security number instantly.
Keylogger. This free software allows you to log everything entered on the keyboard so you can track computer usage. Be sure to use the stealth mode so your target doesn’t know you are tracking him.
Decode Your License. This article describes how you can get a driver’s license from any state and decode the barcode on it to receive personal information. You will need the Internet tool described in the article and a scanner.
Webcam Spy. Use this software to spy on your target using a webcam. The software activates the webcam with a motion sensor for an auto on and off feature. Spying on your target isn’t the only use for this–you can also use it in your home to see who comes by when you are gone.
Maps for Monitoring Occurrences
Whether you are looking for evidence for your conspiracy theory or trying to put all the pieces together on a plot you know is about to be hatched, then these maps will help you get all the information you need.
Global Incident Map. Find out where terrorism is occurring around the world with this mapping tool. You be able to find plenty of patterns to put together your own theories.
HealthMap. This tool will keep you posted on health alerts. Find outbreaks by geographical location, disease, or chronological occurrence.
Who is Sick?. This Google map-based tool shows symptoms for any geographical spot. You’ll be able to track any type of outbreaks with this tool.
Incident1. Track police, fire, and emergency services on this map. You can also do a search by zip code or select a region within the states.
Incidentlog. If you live in the northeast and couldn’t find anything on Incident1, try Incidentlog for more options. This map is populated from a different pool of data.
Havaria Information Service Alert Map. Find everything from earthquakes to hazmat incidences to biological hazards on this world map. You can narrow the results by country if you don’t want to see the world view.
GeoMAC Wildfire Information. This map shows where wildfires are currently burning throughout the United States or check out past wildfires since 2002.
Piracy Attacks Maps. Pirates on the high seas are not a thing of the past. Use this map to track current piracy around the world.
UNEP: Atlas of Our Changing Environment. Sponsored by the United Nations Environment Programme, this map includes incidents that document environmental changes around the world. Click on each incident to see photos and read the story.
Google Maps Mania. This unofficial site follows the incredible array of various interactive maps being used in conjunction with Google Maps. Find a map that tracks your favorite passion or create one of your own.
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