There’s more to CCleaner than clicking a single button. This popular application for wiping temporary files and clearing private data hides a variety of features, from fine-grained options for tweaking the cleaning process to full drive-wiping tools.

CCleaner is easy for beginners to use – just launch it and click the Run Cleaner button. But there’s a lot more you can do with it.

Consider What You Delete

CCleaner clears a lot of stuff by default. You might want to reconsider clearing the browser caches (Temporary Internet Files for Internet Explorer). Browsers store these files on your system to speed up browsing in the future. When you revisit a site, the site will load faster if images and other files are cached on your system. Clearing these will free up some space and increase your browsing privacy, if you’re worried about that, but frequent cache cleanings can slow down your web browsing.

 

 

Erasing the thumbnail cache (under Windows Explorer) can also slow things down – if you open up a folder with a lot of image files, it will take some time to recreate the cache. Clearing it does free up space, but at the cost of recreating the cache later.

Many other options clear most-recently-used lists (MRUs) in Windows and other programs. These lists don’t take up much space, but can be privacy concerns – if there’s a most-recently-used list you rely on, be sure to uncheck it.

 

 

Whitelist Important Cookies

CCleaner clears all cookies by default, but you might want to keep some. If you find yourself always logging into your favorite websites after running CCleaner, open the Cookies pane in the Options section.

CCleaner can help you with this whitelisting – right-click in the Cookies pane and select Intelligent Scan. CCleaner will automatically add Google, Hotmail, and Yahoo Mail cookies to your whitelist.

 

 

You’ll probably want to add other cookies to the whitelist, too. For example, locate the howtogeek.com cookie in the list and click the right arrow button to add it to your whitelist. CCleaner will leave your How-To Geek cookie alone, so you don’t have to log back into How-To Geek after clearing your cookies.

 

 

Beware the Registry Cleaner

While CCleaner does include a registry cleaner, I’d recommend against running it. The Windows registry contains hundreds of thousands of entries; removing a few hundred (at most) won’t give you an increase in performance. Registry cleaners can accidentally remove important registry values, however, so there’s risk with little reward.

 

 

That said, if you’re dead set on running a registry cleaner, CCleaner is one of the safer ones. If you do run the registry cleaner, ensure you back up any changes you make. You can restore the deleted registry entries from the backup file if you encounter any problems.

 

 

Manage Startup Programs

The Startup panel in the Tools section allows you to disable programs that automatically run when your computer starts. To avoid losing an autostart entry that may be important, use the Disable option instead of the Delete option. You can easily re-enable a disabled autostart entry later.

 

 

Wipe Drives

When Windows or another operating system deletes a file, it doesn’t actually wipe the file from your hard disk. Instead, the pointers to the files are deleted and the operating system marks the file’s location as free space. File recovery programs can scan your hard disk for these files, and, if the operating system hasn’t written over the area, can recover the data. CCleaner can help protect against this by wiping the free space with its Drive Wiper tool.

 

 

While some people believe that multiple passes are necessary to irrecoverably delete files, one pass should probably be fine. If you’re disposing of a hard drive, you can also perform a full erase of all the data on the drive with this tool.

You can also have CCleaner wipe free space every time you run it by enabling the Wipe Free Space checkbox under Advanced in the Cleaner section. Enabling this option will make CCleaner take much longer to clean up your system – CCleaner recommends leaving it disabled.

 

 

Securely Delete Files

You can have CCleaner delete files securely, effectively using the Drive Cleaner tool on each file it deletes. Bear in mind that this is slower than deleting the files normally – that’s why operating systems don’t securely delete files by default. If you’re concerned about privacy, enable this option from the Settings tab in the Options section.

 

 

Include Custom Files

If you use a program that isn’t included in CCleaner’s list of applications, or you have a temporary file directory you want cleared regularly, you can specify custom folders and files in CCleaner. CCleaner will delete these files and empty these folders when you run it.

To add a custom folder or file, open the Options section and use the options on the Include tab. Be careful when adding folders or files; you could accidentally add important files or folders and lose them.

 

 

The custom files you specify here are only cleaned if the Custom Files and Folders checkbox under Advanced is enabled.

 

 

Exclude Files

Likewise, if CCleaner keeps clearing something you don’t want it to clear, you can add an exclusion in the Options section. You can exclude an entire drive, folder, file, or registry key. You can also restrict the exclusion to specific file extensions.

 

 

Manage Installed Programs

CCleaner’s tools include the Uninstall panel, which lists your installed programs. This panel includes a few more features than the default Windows one – you can rename or delete the entries here and any changes you make will also appear in the Windows Control Panel.

You can also save the list of installed programs to a text file – an easy way to keep a list of your installed programs in case you need to remember and reinstall them from scratch.

 

 

Once you’ve got CCleaner set up, you can run it automatically each night or create a shortcut or hotkey to run it silently.

What TrueCaller is

TrueCaller offers a worldwide name and number lookup functionality for your Android for free! It enables you to match phone numbers to names, addresses, social networks, and even pictures!

This looks pretty cool, a worldwide caller id/social networking/phonebook for your Android device.  You can find people worldwide or use the call blocker to get rid of those annoying solicitor calls. It ties directly in with Facebook and LinkedIn to display the most relevant information about the person calling you. Automatic address book updates if your friend changes their information and a good looking interface make this a viable solution for Android users. With over 3million users worldwide the service looks to expand further with the addition of the Android platform.

If you use it, let us know how it works in the comment section below.

Check out the press release below for more information.

TrueCaller Brings More Available, Relevant and Accurate Caller ID to Android

STOCKHOLM (8 May 2012) TrueCaller, the new global social phone book, announced today that TrueCaller for smartphones is now available on mobile devices with the Android operating system.

Owners of Android devices can now benefit from the TrueCaller caller ID application that connects phone number directories from all over the world into one easy-to-use app, for free. TrueCaller protects users from spam calls and enables them to search half a billion phone numbers worldwide.

Recently TrueCaller reached three million users, becoming one of the most popular caller ID smartphone applications.

The main features of TrueCaller for Android are:

• Global Number Lookup service enables users to search and find people from around the world.

• Caller ID functionality instantly shows the identity of unknown callers from abroad, anywhere in the world a call is received.

• Call Filter protects and warns users of fraud, spam and unwanted calls. If a call is received from any of the fraud, spam or unwanted numbers that TrueCaller has listed, a notification will appear to warn of the potentially unwanted call. Users can then choose to answer or block the call.

About TrueCaller

TrueCaller aims to provide relevant information about the people users are communicating with by connecting them to the sources they trust. Three million users have discovered the easy way to see who the caller is. TrueCaller is the most used Caller ID application on the market with social media integrations and intelligent call blocking functionality against spam calls.

True Software Scandinavia AB was founded in July 2009 and launched the service TrueCaller shortly thereafter. TrueCaller has grown rapidly and today serves users in countries from all around the world. With millions of submissions received and ever expanding, the TrueCaller Crowd-Sourced Addressbook offers the most complete coverage of phone numbers available today.

True Software Scandinavia AB is a privately held company located in Stockholm, Sweden. For further information please visit: http://www.truecaller.com.

San Francisco – The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is urging a federal appeals court to block an attempt by disgruntled businesses to make an end-run around the federal law that protects Yelp and other online forums from liability for their users’ reviews. In a friend-of-the-court brief filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit Friday, EFF argues that the strong protections for hosts of forums in Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA) must be upheld to foster free speech online.

CDA 230 protects online service providers from liability and lawsuits over user-generated content, except in very narrow circumstances where the providers created or developed content themselves. In this case, several businesses filed suit against Yelp, claiming without factual support that the popular review site manipulated and manufactured reviews in order to coerce businesses to advertise on the website. A lower court already found that mere speculation of interference with public reviews was insufficient to evade the broad protection Congress created for online forums, and granted Yelp’s motion to dismiss the case. In its amicus brief, EFF argued that lowering the standards for when a forum like Yelp has to be dragged through litigation would effectively chill online speech.

“The broad protections provided by CDA 230 are one of the main reasons we have so much speech online,” said EFF Senior Staff Attorney Matt Zimmerman. “If online service providers like Yelp could be held liable for material posted by any one of their millions of users merely upon thin claims of ‘manipulation,’ providers would feel pressured to censor or eliminate forums altogether. The result is fewer places for people to participate online and a loss all of us who rely on user reviews and other user-generated material.”

“The goal of Congress in enacting CDA 230 was clear: to ensure the Internet is a robust platform for users’ free speech,” said Senior Staff Attorney Marcia Hofmann. “Users post millions of reviews on Yelp each year, but sites like this wouldn’t exist without CDA 230′s protections. We’re asking the appeals court to make sure that sites like Yelp continue to thrive and remain vigorous forums for Internet users to share opinions and recommendations.”

For the full amicus brief in Levitt v. Yelp:
https://www.eff.org/document/amicus-brief-7

Contacts:

Matt Zimmerman
   Senior Staff Attorney
   Electronic Frontier Foundation
   mattz@eff.org

Marcia Hofmann
   Senior Staff Attorney
   Electronic Frontier Foundation
   marcia@eff.org

If dragging and dropping is just a bit to slow for sending files to your cloud syncing service of choice, this little Windows trick will put it one click away.

This actually works for any folder or app, and we’ve featured how to do it before—but it’s sometimes hard to see when the Send To menu is actually useful. This is one of those cases. To add Dropbox to your Send To menu, just open up Windows Explorer and type this in the navigation bar:

%APPDATA%/Microsoft/Windows/SendTo

Press Enter, and then open up another Explorer window. Create a shortcut of your Dropbox, Google Drive, Skydrive, or other cloud syncing folder and drag it to the SendTo folder you just opened up. That’s it! Now, whenever you right-click on a file or folder, you can just click Send To > Dropbox and it’ll appear in your Dropbox folder. Be sure to check out previously mentioned DropPub, too, for an easy way to send them to your public folder and get a shareable link.

Quickly Send Files to Dropbox, Google Drive or SkyDrive from Windows 7 | NirmalTV.com

Google has launched its free online storage service, yes Google Drive is here now. With Google Drive, get free 5GB space on cloud server. The storage files can be sync with mobile devices, computer and online. You need a Google account to use this service.

In Google Drive you can access your Google Docs, and it is also integrated with Google+, you can share your stuff from drive to Google+ easily. It is very much like Dropbox but also integrated with Google’s other services and more free online space.

Google Drive is available for Android, PC, soon it will also be available for iPhone and iPad. Everything on your Drive get sync with all your devices which makes you to access your data anywhere.

The other main competitor with Google Drive are Dropbox and Microsoft’s SkyDrive which are already doing good, but Google Drive is going to eat a lot of share of them.

GooglePlusBlog

Last year universal password browser extension Last Pass was the target of an alleged hacking attempt and ended up having to ask users to… change their passwords. While Lastpass relies on a browser plug-in to do its work, it competes with Roboform which uses software and a USB key. Now a new company aims to take these guys on, but without any hardware or software installation and no browser plug-ins needed (which will become a problem since IE10 within Windows 8 (Metro) will not support plug-ins).

my1login can sign users into their sites with one click, without the need for any 3rd party site integration. iPhone, iPad and Android apps are also in the pipeline. It’s now raised $1 million in funding for the service which launched at the beginning of last month, based out of a former autopsy room within the University of Glasgow.

When they set up their account, users create a secure phrase that encrypts all their logins within their browser before being sent over the Internet and stored, and since their secure phrase is not stored, even my1login is unable to read these details.

Users can create complex unique passwords for each site (my1login does the hard work of remembering them) and don’t have to type passwords to log into sites, bypassing rogue key-loggers.

my1login also provides users with a dashboard view of information and messages from email and social networking sites.

The startup hopes to go viral by allowing users that refer the service to get an upgrade to the ‘pro’ version of the product.

Crunchbase

• MY1LOGIN

Company:
My1login

Website:
my1login.com

Launch Date:
September 2007

Funding:
$1M

my1login is a FREE solution that resolves the problem of remembering multiple logins, passwords and PINS by providing a safe way of accessing them via a highly secure personal portal.

There’s no need to install software and the users personal portal can be accessed from any web device, signing them into sites with one click.

When they set up their account, users create a secure phrase that encrypts all their logins within their browser before being sent over the internet and…

Learn more

Rep. Rogers is adamant that CISPA, the Cybersecurity Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, is cybersecurity legislation intended to help protect critical infrastructure intrusions and private and government information. But as we’ve written in the past, CISPA is a bill that allows for companies to spy on users, pass along the information to government agencies like the NSA, and potentially filter or block Internet traffic, which could serve as justification for action against sites like Wikileaks. That’s why we’re calling on users to contact Congress to speak out against this bill.

One of the scariest parts of CISPA is that the bill goes above and beyond information sharing. Its definitions allow for countermeasures to be taken by private entities, and we think these provisions are ripe for abuse. Indeed, the bill defines “cybersecurity purpose” as any threat related to safeguarding or protecting a network. As long as companies act in “good faith” to combat such a cybersecurity threat, they have leeway to protect against “efforts to degrade, disrupt, or destroy [a] system or network.” This opens the door for ISPs and other companies to perform aggressive countermeasures like dropping or altering packets, so long as this is used as part of a scheme to identify cybersecurity threats. These countermeasures could put free speech in peril, and jeopardize the ordinary functioning of the Internet. This could also mean blocking websites, or disrupting privacy-enhancing technologies such as Tor. These countermeasures could even serve as a back door to enact policies unrelated to cybersecurity, such as disrupting p2p traffic.

The Cato Institute warned that one could imagine: “a sysadmin with a vigilante streak reading ['cybersecurity systems'] to include aggressive countermeasures, like spyware targeting suspected attackers.” Their analysis continued, “After all, ‘notwithstanding any other provision of law’ includes provisions of (say) the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act that would place such tactics out of bounds.” We think that a rogue sysadmin is not the only concern—no matter what the intention of the bill is now, as political realities change this language can be used to justify the sort of aggressive countermeasures that we’ve described, or more. This could happen not just in unusual circumstances, but as a matter of policy.

The defense of networks is one reason why the Heritage Foundation is backing the bills. In a letter of support (PDF), Heritage discussed how CISPA gives private entities “clear legal authority to defend their own networks.” While we think private entities should be able to defend their networks, they should not be able to do without accountability in a manner that threatens free speech or disrupts the Internet.

CISPA is intended to protect against catastrophic cyberattacks and economic espionage, but the broad definitions of CISPA unfortunately allow for much more. Contrary to what Rep. Rogers says, CISPA is not “a sharing of threat information bill only.” CISPA’s language is so vaguely defined that it could allow private companies to take a wide range of actions in order to defend their networks. While some of these actions might be perfectly appropriate, others could have disastrous consequences for our civil liberties.

Help us beat back this legislation—send an email to Congress and participate in our week of action against CISPA.

 

Continuing our campaign against the cyberspying bill better known as CISPA, EFF has signed on to two coalition letters urging legislators to drop their support for the Rogers cybersecurity bill (HR 3523). One coalition is focused on the disastrous privacy implications of the bill, while the other identifies major government accountability issues it would introduce.

The coalition behind the privacy letter represents dozens of groups, including the ACLU, the American Library Association, the American Policy Center, the Center for Democracy and Technology, the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, and many others. In the letter, the groups explain how CISPA as written would be devastating to our privacy rights:

CISPA creates an exception to all privacy laws to permit companies to share our information with each other and with the government in the name of cybersecurity. … CISPA’s ‘information sharing’ regime allows the transfer of vast amounts of data, including sensitive information like internet use history or the content of emails, to any agency in the government including military and intelligence agencies like the National Security Agency or the Department of Defense Cyber Command. Once in government hands, this information can be used for any non-regulatory purpose so long as one significant purpose is for cybersecurity or to protect national security.

The second letter — sent by a coalition including OpenTheGovernment.org, Mucrock, James Madison Project, the Sunlight Foundation, and many more — took aim at the ways in which CISPA would decrease government accountability.

[T]he bill unwisely and unnecessarily cuts off all public access to cyber threat information before the public and Congress have the chance to understand the types of information that are withheld under the bill. … Other information that may be shared could be critical for the public to ensure its safety. The public needs access to some information to be able to assess whether the government is adequately combating cybersecurity threats and, when necessary, hold officials accountable.

These letters should prove to be a valuable addition to the cybersecurity discussion taking place in Washington right now. It’s not too late for your voice to be a part of that discussion, either: #CongressTMI, our social media campaign to contact your Congressional representatives is running now, and we’ve also made an action alert for you to e-mail Congress about your opposition. Take action today against this privacy-invasive attack on public access to governmental information.

The IPA published today by Twitter (on GitHub, no less) should ensure that Twitter can amass a defensive collection of software patents without giving its developers cause for alarm.

If you’re wondering how developers feel about software patents, Andy Baio’s take is instructive. Baio, a former Yahoo, helped Yahoo file several patents and has lived to regret it. “Yahoo’s lawsuit against Facebook is an insult to the talented engineers who filed patents with the understanding they wouldn’t be used for evil. Betraying that trust won’t be forgotten, but I doubt it matters anymore. Nobody I know wants to work for a company like that.”

Pragmatism Meets Idealism

As much as many developers would like to see software patents abolished altogether, it’s unlikely that’s going to happen. It’s certainly not likely enough that a company like Twitter can ignore the possibility that it will be a target for software patent suits.

Twitter can’t simply sit out the patent arms race, as much as it might like to. But what it can do is strike a policy that both protects the company and assures developers their inventions and cooperation won’t be used against them. Thus, the IPA.

A defensive patent portfolio, that developers can be assured will be used only to defend against software patent assaults or with their permission, strikes the perfect balance. The company doesn’t have to antagonize its employees, and it doesn’t have to be left totally vulnerable to lawsuits.

As Yahoo has shown, an assurance that patents will be used defensively has to be put down in writing. Management changes, sometimes very rapidly. A company’s position on software patents can flip overnight – so developers can’t rely on verbal assurances that software patents won’t be used offensively.

Why Every Company Should Adopt the IPA

The agreement put forth by Twitter, or something very much like it, should become industry standard for a number of reasons:

1. Companies that adopt the IPA are going to have a competitive edge over companies that do not. If a developer has the option to work on two interesting projects, with similar pay and perks, the knowledge that their work won’t be used against them in the future is likely to be a persuasive tie-breaker.

2. Companies that adopt the IPA are less likely to need incentive plans to convince developers to file for patents. As Baio wrote, Yahoo helped amass its arsenal with a “patent incentive program” that awarded “sizable bonuses to everyone who took the time to apply.” With an IPA in place, employers can make a much stronger case to employees that they should help with patent applications.

3. It could ultimately reduce the number of pure-play patent trolls that buy up software patents from failing and desperate companies. What’s the only thing worse than a competitor with a patent portfolio? A litigation company with no products but patent suits and every incentive to file nuisance actions, with little downside for failure.

4. The IPA can act as a poison pill for the patent portfolios of companies that don’t succeed. They can still sell off patents for companies that wish to have a defensive portfolio – but the patents couldn’t be used offensively without the inventor’s permission.

The Next Step

Twitter’s IPA is a good step, but the company should go one step further. Not long ago, a group of companies that were involved in Linux development created the Open Invention Network (OIN). The idea is simple: Form a patent pool that lets any company attacked use the patents for defense, but the companies in the pool cannot sue another for patent infringement.

A larger patent pool is in order, and Twitter could get the ball rolling. Any company that offers the IPA to its employees for all current and future patents should be able to join the patent pool. Assuming Twitter gets some traction with the IPA, it could start a trend that helps curtail the systemic abuse of software patents.

Ultimately, that’s good for Twitter – and for any company that looks to make its money by innovation rather than litigation. And that’s good for the entire industry.

Is your Gmail account nearly full? If it is you can either purchase more space or go through and individually delete every cat picture attachment. Alternately, you can use a clever Google Docs trick shared by tech blog Digital Inspiration to sort your Gmail messages by size and quickly delete space-hogging junk.

We’ve covered webapps that do this before, but if you’re uncomfortable granting access to a third party this method keeps everything within the Google ecosystem. It’s a pretty simple four-step process that first links Google Docs and your Gmail together. Once that’s granted it then creates a spreadsheet of all your big messages. When it’s done you can sort by size and start cleaning out those data hogs with a couple clicks, no third party authorization required. Hit up the Digital Inspiration for a sample spreadsheet and full guide to running through this for yourself.

Sort your Gmail Messages by Size using Google Docs | Digital Inspiration

Over the past decade, and particularly in the past year, media and civil society have had success through naming and shaming companies acting as “repression’s little helper”: U.S. and E.U. companies who have helped authoritarian countries censor the Internet and surveil their citizens with sophisticated technology. Today, EFF published a whitepaper outlining our suggestions for how companies selling surveillance and filtering technologies can avoid assisting repressive regimes. 

In that vein, the newly-amended Global Online Freedom Act (GOFA), just passed by a House Sub-Committee, while far from perfect, is an important step toward protecting human rights and free expression online.  

This is not the first time that GOFA has been proposed, nor is it even the first time the bill has been approved by the House sub-committee; a 2007 version, which literally named the countries to which filtering technology would be restricted (Belarus, Cuba, Ethiopia, Iran, Laos, North Korea, the People’s Republic of China, Tunisia, and Vietnam), was also approved by the House but never came to the floor for a vote.

In the past, EFF has had extreme reservations about GOFA in part because it sought to add more items to the U.S. export restrictions, which could easily mean that activists and people seeking to secure their own networks would lose out more than repressive governments. But in many respects, GOFA has come a long way, thanks in large part to the efforts of its authors in seeking feedback from the tech community and civil society.  The bill still needs more definitions and clearer definitions of key terms, and we are not yet ready to support it, but we’ll be watching it closely. The current version of GOFA would:

1. Require government assessments of “ freedom of expression with respect to electronic information in each foreign country.”
2. Require disclosure from companies about their human rights practices, to be evaluated by an independent third party.
3. Limit the export of technologies that “serve the primary purpose of” facilitating government surveillance or censorship to governments in countries designated as “Internet-restricting.”

But let’s take a deeper look…

Transparency

The bill contains a number of excellent measures that would ultimately encourage more transparency amongst software and hardware companies, as well as online service providers.  The companies involved have been notoriously secretive and have often refused comment to reporters when their products have been found in authoritarian regimes.

Section 103 of the bill would require that the human rights reports already written for each country by the State Department include assessments of country’s Internet freedom, including the availability of Internet access, and government attempts to filter or censor nonviolent, political, or religious expression. Section 103 would also require assessments about the extent to which authorities in a given country have sought information on an individual or group relevant to their nonviolent activities, as well as the electronic surveillance practices of a given country. 
These assessments–undertaken by US diplomatic personnel–would also include the input of human rights organizations, technology and Internet companies, and other “appropriate nongovernmental organizations.”  The inclusion of NGOs is an important addition, since we are concerned that the State Department process could be vulnerable to politicization.  Because of this, we’d like to see the role of non-governmental organizations increase as the bill develops further. Additionally, since the most robust research on Internet censorship and surveillance has come from the academic community and independent researchers, these must be added too.

Importantly, the bill should also be extended to require transparency from all companies providing tools and services that can be used for surveillance and censorship, and not just companies providing Internet communications services. Transparency from technology vendors and providers of other services is as important as transparency from Internet service providers.  In fact, the transparency sections also can and should reach a broader range of technologies and companies than the export restrictions, which should remain narrow if they are to exist at all.  As a result, we recommend decoupling the transparency and export restrictions.

Human Rights Standards for Companies
We also commend Sec. 201, which sets up a good framework for human rights due dillgence procedures for companies operating “in any Internet-restricting country” (a designation upon which we will comment below). It requires reports that must be approved by the most senior level of a company, and independently assessed by a third party. These reports would be made either to the Securities Exchange Commission or to a multi-stakeholder initiative that conducts independent third-party audits.  Unfortunately, only the SEC reports are to be made publicly available online (with an exception for classified information). This should be fixed, but otherwise, the human rights due diligence standards are similar to those in the Human Rights and Technology Sales standards EFF has published today.

All of the aforementioned reports are to be constructed on the basis of Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which states that everyone should have the right to: hold opinions without interference, freedom of expression (including the freedom to seek, receive, and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers and through the media of his/her choice).

Internet Restricting Countries

While there is much to like in GOFA, we still have extreme reservations about giving the Secretary of State sole authority to determine that a country is an “internet-restricting country.” The Secretary is to determine, based on the review of evidence, whether the government of the country is “directly or indirectly” responsible for a systematic pattern of substantial restrictions on Internet freedom during any part of the preceding 1-year period.  As we noted above, one way to help mediate that is to increase the role of non-governmental organizations, academic institutions and independent researchers.

More transparency should also be injected into this process.  Already a description of evidence used by the Secretary of State to make the determination, as well as all unclassified portions of the report must be posted online, which is good.  Unfortunately, this only applies to countries placed on the “internet-restricting countries” list. The Secretary of State should include information about countries left off the list: Politics and diplomatic pressure can cut both ways. To better ward of claims of politicization, the public should be able to see the evidence for why a country has or has not been included.

We also have concerns about the “Safe Harbor” provision of the bill, in Sec. 201(a)(3), which would allow companies to circumvent reporting requirements by joining the Global Network Initiative (GNI) or another multi-stakeholder group (defined in the bill as a group made up of civil society, human rights organizations, and companies, and committed to promoting the rule of law, free expression, and privacy).  While as members of the GNI, we believe that membership in it or similar initiatives should be encouraged, companies should not be given a pass for reporting to the public or fulfilling any other requirements merely for joining such groups. The Safe Harbor could still allow the companies to avoid reporting to the SEC, but it must not allow them to avoid public reporting. Moreover, companies should have to participate in a Multi-Stakeholder group as defined in the bill under section 201(a)(3)(B), including having an independent body provide honest analysis of a company’s exports laid out in the bill. The GNI could be one such group, of course, but it shouldn’t have special status.

Export Restrictions

We also continue to be concerned about the export restrictions, although the bill is now much less worrisome than it once was.  The authors smartly now propose only a very limited export restriction that reaches only sales to government end users in Internet restricting countries. As an organization with a long history of fighting the overbroad application of export restrictions, we’re still concerned, but the limited scope here can at least minimize the chances that these regulations could hinder activists in foreign countries from getting, for instance, technologies that can help them monitor their own communications for security vulnerabilities and backdoors. We will need to watch this process carefully, though. At a minimum, the bill should create a very clear and simple process for those seeking to provide technologies to people overseas to challenge any agency action that oversteps this narrow category.

Waiver

We’re also concerned about the broad waiver provision.  It allows the President on a case-by-case basis to certify to Congress that “it is in the national interests of the United States to” issue an exemption. We think the President should have to justify any waiver publicly, to the extent that any part of the analysis is not classified. Also, the standard should be more robust than just the recitation of “national interests.”  That is too easily abused.

It’s not hard to see that much of the technology that was misused by governments during the “Arab Spring” was originally sold to countries that were “allies” of the US at the time. Yet, most of these technologies were easily and quickly used to suppress dissent of citizens. A prime example is Egypt, which likely was an ally of the U.S. when it purchased the Narus surveillance technologies used against democracy activists.  Similarly, Libya bought technology from France under the guise of fighting terrorism, but used the technology to surveil activists, human rights campaigners, and journalists. Would such a waiver provision be used for Bahrain—still a staunch ally of the US—where several cases have emerged in which activists were tortured while being read transcripts of their text messages and phone calls?

Intellectual Property?

Finally, for no good reason the bill now references intellectual property: “No provision under this Act shall be construed to affect a country’s ability to adopt measures designed to combat infringement of intellectual property.” This provision appears to have no substantive impact, but instead appears to have been included to appease Congressional offices (and their content industry patrons) that seemingly require that intellectual property be mentioned in any law that also mentions the Internet. Frankly, the inclusion of this provision makes Congress look unserious. It simply has no place in a legislative proposal aimed at curbing the use of technology to aid in torture, summary execution and other deadly serious human rights abuses. It should be removed. 

By Patrick Steele, EFF Activist Intern

CISPA, the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act of 2011 (HR 3523), is the new bill threatening civil liberties moving quickly through the House. In the past, we’ve documented the numerous problems with the bill and with other cybersecurity legislation.

Here is a list of organizations and influential people that expressed concerns about the dangerous civil liberties implications of the bill. Though each organization or person may differ in their terminology, they all reach the same conclusion—CISPA is not a “sharing of information bill only.” It is an expansive bill that enables spying on users and allows for unaccountable companies and government agencies that can skirt privacy laws.

To add your organization to this list, please email activist@eff.org.

Access Now in CISPA: The latest attempt to establish a massive surveillance state

“Rogers (the bill’s author) says that the bill aims to ‘help the private sector defend itself from advanced cyber threats,’ but what it does is allow unlimited sharing of personally identifiable data amongst and between private companies and the government, without a single safeguard for privacy or civil liberty.”

Access Now’s petition for companies to withdraw support of CISPA can be found here.

American Civil Liberties Union in Kicking off “Stop Cyber Spying Week”

“Keeping our computer systems secure is a real concern, but CISPA is absolutely the wrong answer. The bill would create a loophole in all existing privacy laws, allowing companies to share Internet users’ data with the National Security Agency, part of the Department of Defense, and the biggest spy agency in the world—without any legal oversight.”

Avaaz.org in Stop CISPA Contact Form

“The US Congress is sneaking in a new law that gives them big brother spy powers over the entire web—and they’re hoping the world won’t notice. We helped stop their Net attack last time, let’s do it again.”

The Cato Institute

The Cato Institute has published a series of articles analyzing cybercrime, its truth, its myths, and the hard math behind legislation such as CISPA and the inherit problems with cyber security bills such as this.

“The cybercrime surveys we have examined exhibit [a] pattern of enormous, unverified outliers dominating the data. In some, 90 percent of the estimate appears to come from the answers of one or two individuals. In a 2006 survey of identity theft by the Federal Trade Commission, two respondents gave answers that would have added $37 billion to the estimate, dwarfing that of all other respondents combined. This is not simply a failure to achieve perfection or a matter of a few percentage points; it is the rule, rather than the exception. Among dozens of surveys, from security vendors, industry analysts and government agencies, we have not found one that appears free of this upward bias.”

From Cybercrime Statistics to Cyberspying

Further Articles:

Cybersecurity Hype

Soviet-Style Cybersecurity Regulation

Should a Congress that Doesn’t Understand Math Regulate Cybersecurity?

Cybersecurity: Talking Points vs. Substance

The Center for Democracy and Technology in Cyber Intelligence Bill Threatens Privacy and Civilian Control

“If the bill merely extended to other companies the opportunity to receive classified attack signatures from the NSA so they could better defend their networks, CDT would actively support the legislation. However, the bill goes much further, permitting ISPs to funnel private communications and related information back to the government without adequate privacy protections and controls.”

Contact your representative page

Demand Progress in CISPA Is The New SOPA: Help Kill It

“CISPA demolishes existing barriers between the government and the private sector — and between government agencies — that restrict data sharing without cause, effectively allowing information about Americans’ use of the Internet to slosh back and forth uninhibited.”

Fight for the Future in its newly launched webpage focused on CISPA

“A cybersecurity bill that lets any company share your info with all of government, with no limits. In short, CISPA is the end of meaningful privacy for anyone with personal data on US-based services.”

Free Press in Free Press Action Fund Joins Stop Cyber Spying Week to Protest CISPA

“As it stands, CISPA could lead all too easily to governmental and corporate violations of our privacy and attacks on our right to speak freely via the Internet. While there is a need to protect vital national interests, we can’t do it at the expense of our freedoms.”

Reporters Without Borders in Internet Advocacy Coalition Announces Twitter Campaign to Fight Privacy-Invasive Bill (CISPA)

“In the name of the war on cyber crime, it would allow the government and private companies to deploy draconian measures to monitor, even censor, the Web. It might even be used to close down sites that publish classified files or information.”

Sunlight Foundation in CISPA is Terrible for Transparency

“The FOIA is, in many ways, the fundamental safeguard for public oversight of government’s activities. CISPA dismisses it entirely, for the core activities of the newly proposed powers under the bill. If this level of disregard for public accountability exists throughout the other provisions, then CISPA is a mess. Even if it isn’t, creating a whole new FOIA exemption for information that is poorly defined and doesn’t even exist yet is irresponsible, and should be opposed.”

Tim Berners-Lee – Inventor of the World Wide Web Speaks Out Against CISPA

“[It] is threatening the rights of people in America, and effectively rights everywhere, because what happens in America tends to affect people all over the world. Even though the Sopa and Pipa acts were stopped by huge public outcry, it’s staggering how quickly the US government has come back with a new, different, threat to the rights of its citizens.”

The White House’s Statement on Cyber Security in The Hill

“Any cybersecurity bill with information sharing provisions “must include robust safeguards to preserve the privacy and civil liberties of our citizens.” The White House declared they would not support a bill that would “sacrifice the privacy of our citizens in the name of security.”

As we have seen in a previous EFF blog post these privacy sacrifices are numerous and extensive.

 

Other Organizations Voicing Concerns About CISPA’s Impact on Civil Liberties

Advocacy for Principled Action in Government

American Association of Law Libraries

American Association of University Professors

American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression

American Society of News Editors

American Policy Center

Association of Research Libraries

Bill of Rights Defense Committee

Center for Media and Democracy Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington –CREW-

Cyber Privacy Project

Center for Media and Democracy

Center for National Security Studies

Center for Rights

Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic

The Constitution Project

Community Research

Consumer Federation of America

Consumer Watchdog

Council on American-Islamic Relations

Cyber Privacy Project

Defending Dissent Foundation

DownsizeDC.org, Inc.

Entertainment Consumers Association

Essential Information

Feminists for Free Expression

Freedom of Information Center at the Missouri School of Journalism

Government Accountability Project

Hon. Bob Barr

iSolon.org

James Madison Project

Liberty Coalition

MuckRock

National Freedom of Information Coalition

National Coalition Against Censorship

National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers

National Whistleblower Center

OMB Watch  

Openmedia.ca

OpenTheGovernment.org

Patient Privacy Rights 

Privacy Rights Clearinghouse

Project On Government Oversight – POGO

PEN American Center

Personal Democracy Media

Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility – PEER

The Pullins Report

Republican Liberty Caucus

Reverse Robocall

The Rutherford Institute

Society of American Archivists

Society of Professional Journalists

Special Libraries Association

Tech Freedom

Understanding Government

Utah Foundation for Open Government

US Bill of Rights Foundation

Washington Coalition for Open Government

EFF Releases New Government Documents on Drones and Law Enforcement Training

EFF recently posted three new sets of documents obtained through FOI requests. Yesterday, as reported in the Wall Street Journal, EFF released the lists of private and public entities that have been granted authorization by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to fly drones in the United States. The lists were obtained through EFF’s lawsuit against the FAA, which seeks a variety of information on domestic drone authorization and use. The lists provide the public with the most thorough accounting to date of the organizations operating drones within our borders. Yesterday, along with EFF’s disclosure, Congressmen Ed Markey and Joe Barton sent the FAA a letter (pdf) asking the agency to disclose information similar to that sought in EFF’s FOIA suit.

A second, related release, which we blogged about previously, was obtained through a public records request to the Miami-Dade Police Department for information on it’s drone program. In response, the Miami PD released its Certificate of Authorization (COA) for its drone – the first time a COA has been made publicly available.

Finally, EFF also posted over 2,000 pages of records released in response to a FOIA request to DHS’ Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (FLETC). EFF sought information on FLETC’s Mobile Device Investigation Program, which teaches federal officials how to conduct investigations based on information obtained from cell phones and other electronic devices.

EFF Attorney Weighs in on DOJ’s Unfulfilled Promise of Transparency

Earlier this week, EFF Senior Counsel David Sobel co-authored an article in the National Law Journal documenting – yet again – the Obama administration’s failure to live up to its promise of openness and transparency.

While the Obama administration continues to tout its transparency accomplishments, the authors noted that, “[a]s attorneys who each have more than 30 years’ experience litigating FOIA cases in the federal courts, our assessment is decidedly less rosy.” In particular, the article faulted the Department of Justice (DOJ) for the “breadth of situations in which DOJ will fight to maintain official secrecy,” even in spite of a clear promise from Attorney General Holder to only defend FOIA withholdings when disclosure was clearly prohibited or would produce actual harm.

The article concludes:

Three years ago, we rejoiced when President Obama re-established important open-government tenets, and his new attorney general promised DOJ would vigorously enforce the law’s public disclosure requirements. Unfortunately, we are still waiting to see that promise fulfilled.

You can read the full article here.

The Secrecy of Dissent Within the Government

Two items this week demonstrated the troubling issue of government secrecy ocurring at the intersection of questionable governmental policies and internal disagreement between individuals and agencies within the federal government.

The first, reported by Spencer Ackerman at Wired, concerns a secret memo written in February 2006 by a top adviser to the State Department. The memo warned that the Bush administration’s use of “cruel, inhuman or degrading” interrogation techniques amounted to a “felony war crime.” However, not only was the memo secret until this week (after a three-year wait for the State Department to respond to a FOIA request), but, according to the memo’s author, Bush administration officials determined the “memo was not considered appropriate for further discussion and that copies of [the] memo should be collected and destroyed.” Luckily a copy survived and you can read Wired’s full report, and the released memo, here.

In a second, strikingly similar example, a recently released memoir, Traitor: The Whistleblower and the American Taliban, describes the story of a Justice Department attorney who blew the whistle after her legal advice was disregarded. A book review from Secrecy News provides the background: Following the apprehension of Jon Walker Lindh—an American citizen arrested in Afghanistan for fighting American forces alongside the Taliban—Jesselyn Radack, a DOJ attorney and specialist in legal ethics, advised that Lindh not be interrogated without an attorney present. Not only was Lindh not provided an attorney during interrogation, but the DOJ “publicly denied having received any such legal advice, and even destroyed evidence to the contrary.” Steven Aftergood of Secrecy News writes:

Ms. Radack was not looking for a fight, but only to do the right thing. For her trouble, she was forced out of her Justice Department position, put under criminal investigation, fired from her subsequent job, reported to the state bar, and put on the “no fly” list.

You can read the full review here.

Some secrecy is inevitably needed so that officials within the federal government feel free to air viewpoints internally and without inhibition. Ultimately – and at least in theory – this allows lower level employees to provide candid opinions, and permits officials with decision-making authority to choose the best legal or policy analysis from the many. This, in turn, ensures sound government policies are ultimately chosen.

Secrecy in the name of honest debate is one thing, but the government’s action in both these cases demonstrates something far more troubling: the destruction of dissent. Not only does the destruction of these memos likely run afoul of government record-keeping regulations, but the suppression and destruction of the evidence of dissenting viewpoints undermines the integrity of the government’s final policy position. The need to silence dissent is a hallmark of flimsy ideas.

EFF Releases New Government Documents on Drones and Law Enforcement Training

EFF recently posted three new sets of documents obtained through FOI requests. Yesterday, as reported in the Wall Street Journal, EFF released the lists of private and public entities that have been granted authorization by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to fly drones in the United States. The lists were obtained through EFF’s lawsuit against the FAA, which seeks a variety of information on domestic drone authorization and use. The lists provide the public with the most thorough accounting to date of the organizations operating drones within our borders. Yesterday, along with EFF’s disclosure, Congressmen Ed Markey and Joe Barton sent the FAA a letter (pdf) asking the agency to disclose information similar to that sought in EFF’s FOIA suit.

A second, related release, which we blogged about previously, was obtained through a public records request to the Miami-Dade Police Department for information on it’s drone program. In response, the Miami PD released its Certificate of Authorization (COA) for its drone – the first time a COA has been made publicly available.

Finally, EFF also posted over 2,000 pages of records released in response to a FOIA request to DHS’ Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (FLETC). EFF sought information on FLETC’s Mobile Device Investigation Program, which teaches federal officials how to conduct investigations based on information obtained from cell phones and other electronic devices.

EFF Attorney Weighs in on DOJ’s Unfulfilled Promise of Transparency

Earlier this week, EFF Senior Counsel David Sobel co-authored an article in the National Law Journal documenting – yet again – the Obama administration’s failure to live up to its promise of openness and transparency.

While the Obama administration continues to tout its transparency accomplishments, the authors noted that, “[a]s attorneys who each have more than 30 years’ experience litigating FOIA cases in the federal courts, our assessment is decidedly less rosy.” In particular, the article faulted the Department of Justice (DOJ) for the “breadth of situations in which DOJ will fight to maintain official secrecy,” even in spite of a clear promise from Attorney General Holder to only defend FOIA withholdings when disclosure was clearly prohibited or would produce actual harm.

The article concludes:

Three years ago, we rejoiced when President Obama re-established important open-government tenets, and his new attorney general promised DOJ would vigorously enforce the law’s public disclosure requirements. Unfortunately, we are still waiting to see that promise fulfilled.

You can read the full article here.

The Secrecy of Dissent Within the Government

Two items this week demonstrated the troubling issue of government secrecy ocurring at the intersection of questionable governmental policies and internal disagreement between individuals and agencies within the federal government.

The first, reported by Spencer Ackerman at Wired, concerns a secret memo written in February 2006 by a top adviser to the State Department. The memo warned that the Bush administration’s use of “cruel, inhuman or degrading” interrogation techniques amounted to a “felony war crime.” However, not only was the memo secret until this week (after a three-year wait for the State Department to respond to a FOIA request), but, according to the memo’s author, Bush administration officials determined the “memo was not considered appropriate for further discussion and that copies of [the] memo should be collected and destroyed.” Luckily a copy survived and you can read Wired’s full report, and the released memo, here.

In a second, strikingly similar example, a recently released memoir, Traitor: The Whistleblower and the American Taliban, describes the story of a Justice Department attorney who blew the whistle after her legal advice was disregarded. A book review from Secrecy News provides the background: Following the apprehension of Jon Walker Lindh—an American citizen arrested in Afghanistan for fighting American forces alongside the Taliban—Jesselyn Radack, a DOJ attorney and specialist in legal ethics, advised that Lindh not be interrogated without an attorney present. Not only was Lindh not provided an attorney during interrogation, but the DOJ “publicly denied having received any such legal advice, and even destroyed evidence to the contrary.” Steven Aftergood of Secrecy News writes:

Ms. Radack was not looking for a fight, but only to do the right thing. For her trouble, she was forced out of her Justice Department position, put under criminal investigation, fired from her subsequent job, reported to the state bar, and put on the “no fly” list.

You can read the full review here.

Some secrecy is inevitably needed so that officials within the federal government feel free to air viewpoints internally and without inhibition. Ultimately – and at least in theory – this allows lower level employees to provide candid opinions, and permits officials with decision-making authority to choose the best legal or policy analysis from the many. This, in turn, ensures sound government policies are ultimately chosen.

Secrecy in the name of honest debate is one thing, but the government’s action in both these cases demonstrates something far more troubling: the destruction of dissent. Not only does the destruction of these memos likely run afoul of government record-keeping regulations, but the suppression and destruction of the evidence of dissenting viewpoints undermines the integrity of the government’s final policy position. The need to silence dissent is a hallmark of flimsy ideas.

For a while now, Mozilla has been looking beyond the core browser features to expand Firefox’s capabilities. Last week, the Firefox team showed an interesting new demo at the IETF 83 meeting in Paris. In this demo, the Firefox team shows a new browser-based video chat feature for Firefox that is completely based on JavaScript and other open standards. The most important of these standards for this demo is WebRTC. With WebRTC – which is part of the developing HTML5 standard – developers can enable real-time services, including file sharing, voice calls and video calls right in the browser.

This demo also makes use of the organization’s experimental Social API, which sits on top of Mozilla’s Persona browser-based identity service.

A partial implementation of WebRTC will only come to Firefox’s experimental nightly builds later this quarter, so it will be a while before you will be able to use these features yourself (though there are, of course, already plenty of Flash-based video chat tools out there).

Just like HTML5, the WebRTC standard is still under heavy development. It’s worth noting, though, that all the major browser vendors (Mozilla, Microsoft, Google and Opera) have voiced support for this technology and the Chrome Dev channel, for example, already offers a WebRTC API.

For now, this is obviously just a demo and it’s not clear if Mozilla will actually bake this feature directly into Firefox. Given that Mozilla has shown interest in adding all the underlying technologies to the browser, though, it wouldn’t come as a major surprise if it would at least offer its own video chat feature as part of the Persona initiative.

If you’re an Android and a PC, you should check out BlueStacks — before hackers catch on or Chrome sneaks in this functionality, take advantage. The startup’s software has been going like hotcakes over the last few months, as it’s offering a much-needed service for Android and PC users, having developed software that allows Android users to run their apps on all Windows PCs, tablets, and laptops — without any modifications.

Thanks to this appealing concept, BlueStacks lured $7.6 million in venture funding pre-launch, before adding another $6.4 million a few months later — all from investors like AMD, Citrix Systems, Andreessen Horowitz, Ignition Ventures, and more.

The startup finally released its public beta on March 27th, and so far users have been eating it up. In the first 10 days after its release, BlueStacks’ App Player racked up more than 1 million downloads, with over 12 million apps collectively being run by its users. It’s on the heels of this early traction that the company is today announcing it has found yet another investor — this time from global telecom giant, Qualcomm.

Acting through its venture arm, Qualcomm Ventures, the chipmaker invested an undisclosed amount in BlueStacks, but from what we’ve been hearing from those familiar with the matter, the round was in the seven-figure range.

The startup now has over $15 million in outside investment, which is notable both in size (relative to the age of its product) and for the fact that BlueStacks has been able to bring together (at least symbolically) two of the biggest semiconductor/chipmakers on the market — Qualcomm and AMD. Not two names one typically finds side-by-side on a startup’s roster of investors.

“Consumers are increasingly looking for computing experiences that enable them to access their apps across different platforms,” said VP of Qualcomm Ventures Nagraj Kashyap. “We believe BlueStacks is well-positioned to capitalize on the marriage of mobile and PC.”

Again, for a recap for those unfamiliar, BlueStacks’ App Player is a free software download that gives Android users the ability to get one-click access to their apps on any Windows PC, including full-screen viewing. In turn, the startup’s Cloud Connect lets users push apps from their phone onto their PC easily and remotely, turning PCs into extensions of any Android-based mobile device, using their own personal cloud-based app channel.

Obviously, the big goal for BlueStacks is to bring the some 450,000 Android apps to those billion-odd PC users out there. If done right, it’s a fairly sizable market, to say the least. The other key to the startup’s beta release was the new ability to run graphics-intensive Android apps on desktop PCs, using its patent-pending technology called “Layercake.” Essentially, as we wrote at the time, Layercake allows Android apps to run on x86-based PCs, including apps written for the ARM processor, like Angry Birds Space or Fruit Ninja, for example.

The beta release leverages the PC’s graphics card to enable apps running graphics-intensive engines like Unity to process without hiccups, and also offers accelerometer tilting and pinch-to-zoom smartphone UI features to the desktop via mouse and keyboard prompts. Users can also now download apps from within BlueStacks even if they don’t have an Android phone, and can send and receive SMS messages on their PCs.

The company partnered with the developers behind apps like Fruit Ninja, SliceIt!, Barnes & Noble’s Nook, Townsmen, Evernote, Defender and StumbleUpon for its beta release. Shainiel Deo, the CEO of Halfbrick (the makers of Fruit Ninja), said that the appeal of BlueStacks’ software is that developers don’t have to port or modify apps to run them on PCs, meaning there’s no heavy lifting for those who’ve already developed apps for Android.

Of course, Android fragmentation could be a problem, as some users of the Samsung Galaxy Nexus in particular have complained of trouble in syncing app data between devices and PCs — beyond simply syncing APKs — something which will be crucial for its long-term viability. It will also be interesting to see how BlueStacks deals with security, as some users pointed out that the software could become a victim of having to make repeated security upgrades as hackers catch onto loopholes.

But, in the meantime, BlueStacks could offer Android users a great way to avoid using data-time on their smartphones, reducing bills across the board. It also offers Android developers of all stripes access to the billion-user PC market, something which has previously only been offered for a select few, like Rovio and Cut the Rope.

In that sense, BlueStacks wants to become a developer platform, by which developers can build for Android and get a PC app version for free. It’s without a doubt a smart play, and with big money from Andreessen, AMD, Qualcomm and more there’s reason to believe its product will continue to improve, though it will certainly be interesting to see how sustainable the company’s concept can be in the long term. If Windows 8 tablets take off, long-term viability could be within reach.

For more on BlueStacks, check ‘em out at home here. Below you’ll find a demo video of Fruit Ninja fullscreen on a PC using BlueStacks software:

Crunchbase

• BLUESTACKS

Company:
BlueStacks

Website:
bluestacks.com

Launch Date:
2008

Funding:
$14M

BlueStacks, a Silicon Valley-based company that is developing technology to allow users to run Android apps on x86-based devices. Their beta-1 version was released March 27, 2012 and is available for download at http://BlueStacks.com

Learn more

(Credit:
Sharon Vaknin/CNET)

Spring has sprung, and while your neglected garage might be beckoning, the tech you use in your daily life could also use a little cleaning love.

Over the last week, our How To superheroes put together spring cleaning guides for all the tech in your life. From clearing up space on your hard drive to sprucing up your
Android or
iPhone, we’ve got you covered. Take a stab at the guides that suit you best, and waltz through spring with a revived collection of gadgetry.

Six ways to breathe life into your slow PC
Your once-new Windows PC can become sluggish over time. Instead of running out to buy a new PC, try these spring cleaning tips first.

Clean up and speed up your Mac with these 5 tips
Boost your
Mac‘s performance and reclaim hard-drive space with this handful of spring cleaning tips.

Spring cleaning tips to spruce up your iPhone or iPad
Here are a few tips to keep your iPhone or iPad running smoothly

(Credit:
Photo by Nicole Cozma/CNET)

Tips to speed up and freshen your Android phone or tablet
Do some spring cleaning on your Android device and improve your user experience.

Clean up and organize your digital movie and music collections
These tips and tools will help you finally whip your growing collection of movies, music, and video files into shape.

Five steps to a fresh start on Facebook
In the spirit of spring, follow these five steps to revamp your Facebook account and give yourself a fresh start on your most frequented social network.

It seems kind of ridiculous that if someone acquires a single number, your identity can be stolen. Even so, that’s the unfortunate reality of identity theft. But how does it happen? And is there anything that can be done to stop these common causes? Let’s find out.

How Identity Theft Works

First things first, your social security number isn’t necessarily a magic ticket to your identity—it’s really more like a cheat code. If you know where, when, and how to use someone else’s number, you can effectively steal their identity and cause them significant hardship. Former public and now private investigator Randy Barnhart explains how easy it is to gain a line of credit in someone else’s name if you know what to do:

Many retailers offer credit cards, most offer Visa and Master Card accounts as well. If I have someone’s social security number, all I have to do is complete a one page credit application using the stolen SSN and hand it to a cashier that is 18-20 years old. The cashier enters the SSN into their system and a line of credit is issued. Depending on the victim’s credit rating, the line of credit can be $1000 to $100,000. Usually the cashier hands me a temporary shopping pass with a limited balance that I can use immediately. If they have multiple identities, the thief can open several accounts and max out the credit line very quickly.

Barnhart suggests that this would be simple to stop, as additional security checks would be required, but this would involve the sacrifice of convenience—something we’re not always eager to abandon. It’s also not the sort of thing retailers want to give up because they make a lot of money off of providing you with a credit line.

Even still, that’s just one example of the many problems that can arise from identity theft. We tend to concentrate only on the monetary damage, but much more can occur. Matt Davis, a victim advisor for the Identity Theft Resource Center, explains many of the other issues:

ID thieves can use an social security number to procure your medical benefits, social security, unemployment, file false tax returns, and even pawn off their criminal charges when they have run-ins with the law on you. The possibilities are limitless with the right information and an informed thief. A credit report will not show you if anyone is running up criminal charges as you, using your medical insurance to finance medical procedures, or creating a fraudulent job history report by working under your information.

Basically, your identity is valuable to different kinds of people for different reasons. You might be targeted for a line of credit or because an illegal immigrant needs “lawful” employment and health care. Monitoring your credit report isn’t enough. You need to pay attention to everything if you’re going to catch a thief.

How to Counter Identity Theft

There’s no way you can stop a young retail cashier from processing a credit application they don’t know is fraudulent, or much of anything that would stop the thief once they have your social security number. Your goal is to make sure that number stays with you and doesn’t get in the hands of anyone you don’t trust. The easiest way to procure a social security number from a victim is by going through their trash, as your mail will sometimes have your number on it. There are also other ways your number can leave your protection. As a result, you’ll want to do the following:

• If your social security number does appear on any documents, destroy them before you throw them out.
• Never give out your social security number to any third-party unless you know they need it (e.g. a credit application) and you trust the organization. Before handing it over, you may want to ask what measures they take to ensure social security numbers are not recorded. For example, a friend of mine works in a sales job. They’re not allowed to have cellphones or any devices connected to the internet. They can’t use computers, either, aside from the one provided. This is to make it virtually impossible for them to record any credit card numbers they receive from a customer. While a company is not going to outlaw pencil and paper, therefore not completely eliminating the possibility of your social security number leaving the building, they likely take several countermeasures to help protect you. If you’re worried, ask. Whoever is requesting the number likely knows about them since they live with them every day.
• Before handing over your social security number to any company, ask if it will ever appear on a document they send you in the mail. Also find out how it is securely stored on their servers so it will be protected in case of a hack.
• Avoid entering your social security number online unless you are absolutely sure you’re on a secure connection and dealing with a company you can trust. If you’re not, call them to verify or don’t do it.

For more tips, read our guides on protecting yourself from identity theft both online and offline.

How exactly does someone take advantage of knowing your social security number? | Quora

Photos by Christopher Titze (Shutterstock), Diego Cervo (Shutterstock), and Valeriy Lebedev (Shutterstock).

Reader users can choose between adding a cursive-looking signature or drawing their “mark” directly into their PDF documents with a simple toolbar (shown here).

But wait, there’a more. New features of Reader include additional annotation tools, so you can add comments, sticky notes or other marginalia to your PDFs. And also starting today, Adobe has a mobile update 10.2 to Reader that will have e-signature capability, as well. It is available for both iOS and Android phones.

E-signatures are not exactly popular, probably adopted by only a few percent of users – comparable to the use of encrypted emails. And this is the case despite the numerous warnings of PDF exploits and other infections that are easily installed inside these types of files.

One issue has been the extra-purchase and steps that are needed to set things up. Another problem is the lack of awareness that Reader is a free app and its feature set has greatly expanded over time. It used to be that you needed to pay for a different version that would allow you to edit or annotate files. With Reader X, that is no longer the case, and you can do a fair amount of collaboration with the free software.

Having these annotation features and e-signatures available directly inside Reader might be the push that will get more people to begin using both of them. Or there might be other factors inhibiting adoption of e-signatures. We’re about to find out.

See Also

• Adobe Joins Forces With PayPal For Automated Forms Processing
• 10 Most Important Flash Platform Developments of 2010
• AIR for AppUp: What Developers Need to Know
• Silverlight Developers: Are You Going to Move On?

Tweet

Google+ is definitely not all things to all people, nor does Google want it to be. It does offer some great features and a relatively uncluttered interface, and this week’s release of a few new features might attract some new users. Here’s what you can expect to see by Friday:

• The most significant changes come to your navigation. With the new design, you’ll move around over on the left instead of up top, and there are some neat new changes to the ribbon. Some of the button items will show you options when you hover over them, speeding up your social maneuvering, and every one of them can be dragged and dropped into the ordering you prefer. If you’ve got an app you can’t live without, just drag it into the More section for quick access.

New Google+ Navigation.

(Credit:
Rob Lightner/CNET)

• The look is somewhat cleaner and easier to scan through. Conversations are gently separated into “cards” that make browsing easier on the eyes. Photos and videos are sharper and pop out of the screen. Each conversation card now features an “activity drawer” accessible from the bottom right that shows reshares and +1s.

Activity Drawer in Google+.

(Credit:
Rob Lightner/CNET)

• One of the key features in Google+ is Hangouts, the easy social-meeting spaces that make real-time video connections as simple as possible. Google has made it much easier to find and join Hangouts. Your Invite list is continually updated, and public or On Air Hangouts are easily searchable. Popular Hangouts are listed and refreshed regularly.

Browsing Google+ Hangouts.

(Credit:
Rob Lightner/CNET)

That’s it for now. Google is promising more new features to come, but we’ll just have to wait to see what they cook up next.