Sarah Palin’s Email Hacked

Last week Alaskan Governor and Republican Vice Presidential Candidate Sarah Palin’s Yahoo email account was deliberately hacked. The offender’s took screenshots of her email inbox and posted them for the world to see. Besides the fact a government official shouldn’t be using a free public email service to hold classified federal documents, a normal consumer can take precautions so it doesn’t happen to you.

How did the hackers get into Governor Palin’s Yahoo email? Yahoo asks a series of security questions to reset your password. These security questions you can choose, however most of them are generic such as, “What city were you born in?”. The answers to all the security questions could be discovered with a simple Google search. Thus, you must pay attention to your email security settings.

Tips to improve email security:

• Pick security questions only you know the answers too
• Don’t use the same password on every website you visit
• Use a free password keeper to remember all your passwords

Do you have any tips to keep your passwords safe?

Read story -
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7624809.stm

Dispel the Rumors @ Snopes

Have you ever received an email that seemed questionable? For example, pass this email on to all your friends and join us on this date to boycott a certain product. Have you ever received a telephone call from a telemarketer that seemed probing and afterward realized you’ve divulged too much information? Find out on Snopes if what just happened to you is a scam, rumor or urban legend.

Snopes is the myth buster of the Internet. If you’ve just experienced something that just seemed too good to be real, then this is the website to get to the bottom of things. Snopes uses a rating system of true, false, multiple truth values, undetermined and unclassifiable veracity.

Whether you are interested in finding out the truth about Sarah Palin or if the Post Card Virus is real, then explore this site. For years, there was an urban legend that Mikey, the kid from Life Cereal, died from drinking Coke and eating Pop Rocks at the same time; this is false. Explore topics in Religion, Music, Politics, Movies, History, Travel, Weddings, Sports, Legal, Computers, Business and Cokelore at Snopes.

What is Snopes?

• Find out if what you’ve heard is True or False
• Discover Urban Legends
• Internet Myth Buster

Dispel the rumors that are running wild in your head at Snopes!
http://www.snopes.com

Gift Card Buy Back?

In this day and age of gift cards, the question soon arises, “What I am supposed do with all these cards before they expire?” Gift cards these days have expiration dates and even worse can gather added fees the moment you use them. Now there is a service Leverage Card that will let you, exchange, purchase or buy gift cards. The best part is that the website is easy to use and it’s free!

Jennifer Mathe and Mark Roberts started the website back in 2005 when both the co-founders found that shopping had simply become too complicated. Too many rules were being applied to gift cards and it was getting out of control, thus Leverage Card was born. They also created a blog dedicated to saving consumers money called the SavvyWallet.

Sign up today and save your gift cards…
https://www.leveragecard.com/

Consumer Alert: AT&T Bundle

Have you noticed the new AT&T boxes popping up everywhere? These big refrigerator looking structures are now enabling cable service. If you are in the market to switch to the new AT&T cable service, read between the lines. Some friends of mine just purchased the new bundle that included telephone, internet, and cable, however they got blindsided.  Consumer tip: Make sure you read the fine print and ask the right questions before you sign-up for any service.

My friends already had AT&T for telephone and used TIME Warner for cable/Internet. Here’s what happened when they switched (good and bad):

• Landline telephone service became Internet telephone
• Need to buy special box for each TV
• More channels than old service
• Faster connection speed
• Paying about same price

AT&T didn’t tell my friends about the extra boxes and downgrade to Internet telephone, so be aware consumers.

Do you have a similair story to tell?

A Tip to Protect Your Computer

You may not know it, but at this moment your computer is most likely being crawled by Internet bots. What are these software applications doing? They are scanning your machine, dropping snippets of code on to it and watching your surfing habits. Generally these bots are sending information back to numerous companies in an effort to market to you more efficiently. The good news is you can fight back against the bots by installing a couple of free programs that will remove their malware.

I have been running both programs on my machines because they seem to work differently and catch unique items. Note: These programs are not virus protection software; they are programs designed to only remove bots from your machine.

Spybot Search and Destroy
http://spybot.com

Ad Aware
http://lavasoft.com/products/ad_aware_free.php

Did you find a bunch of bots after you ran the software?

Mobile Traffic Cam

Once you step outside your door, there are cameras everywhere. Fox 59 News out of Central Indiana is utilizing their cameras to the consumer’s advantage. They have launched a new service called “Traffic Authority: Mobile” that delivers real-time traffic conditions straight to your cell phone.

Indianapolis residents can now have up-to-the-minute local traffic conditions right in the palm of their hands. Download their free mobile application and have access to over 60 cameras in the Indianapolis and the surrounding areas.

Would you like to have a free service like this in your area?
http://www.freetrafficcams.com/indianapolis_fox_59

Skype to the Rescue

With Skype I am able to call anywhere in the USA for $3 a month (even less if I pay for a year at one time). But does it work? Find out the skinny on this great free web communication tool.

Explore the world of Skype.
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Roving ATMs?

Last year, a friend of mine was a victim of credit card fraud at the gas pump. Their card got duped by a pseudo reader. The thieves in this instance created a reader that retrofitted over the top of the actual reader. When the credit card slid through, they got the credit card number.

I was talking with Mark Reichard the other day and he mentioned another identify theft story that made me think twice. Now there is growing trend by troubled minds to create dummy ATM machines. These machines are generally placed in malls sitting out in the open. You walk up, insert your ATM card and enter your PIN. The screen then reads “Temporarily out of Service”. You then walk away and try another machine. After a few hours of collecting account numbers and pins, the machine is rolled away.

If you think this scenario happened to you, go up to customer service and ask about the suspicious machine. If you get a reaction that a machine doesn’t exist in that location of the mall, then proceed to cancel that card.

More on Story

Gas Pump Bait & Switch?

If you are among the many people that haven’t stepped inside a gas station in years and always pay at the pump, then listen up. There is a concerted effort by gas station owners to charge you a different price per gallon depending on if you pay with cash or credit card. There is now a cash price and a credit card posted for gasoline. Keep a look out for signs posted to signify the different price levels.

The reason for this price change is two parted. The owners want you to stop in to pay in person with cash so you are lured to buying a snack while you check-out. Also, it costs the owners more for the monthly credit card transactions and they want to pass the fees on to you. The next time you travel to the gas pump, pay attention to the price per gallon after you swipe your credit card, the price per gallon could change.

Do you think it’s fair companies are now charging different prices for gas based on purchase method?

Ebay Ratings

I don’t know how often you make purchases on eBay, but I did notice they recently made big changes to their feedback policy. In the past you had three boxes to choose, negative, positive or neutral. You would choose one and then leave a detailed message about the transaction. However, now eBay has removed these settings and added what they call detailed seller ratings (DSRs). This new system is more or less the NetFlix or 5 star rating system.

eBay states, “Now, buyers can leave sellers an overall positive, neutral, or negative Feedback and ratings on four aspects of their transaction: accuracy of item description, communication, shipping time, and shipping and handling charges. The rating system is based on a one- to five-star scale, with one star being the lowest rating and five stars being the highest.”

Furthermore, “The average of each DSR is displayed on the seller’s Feedback Profile page. DSRs do not impact the overall Feedback Score, but provide a more complete picture of the member’s performance as a seller. DSRs are also a factor for eligibility for key seller benefits, including advantage in listing exposure, membership in the PowerSeller program, and eligibility for PowerSeller discounts on final value fees”

I think this eBay’s DSR feedback system is more granular, but I am not sure it is as clear for the consumer as the old system. Now instead of just looking for good or bad feedback, you have to look at a myriad of rating variables.