crylam

It is hard to not worry about the safety of our inner-connected world. Malware, ransomware, hackers, phishing, trolls....the list of people and organizations who want to make our life difficult, dangerous, and expensive seems to grow as quickly as algae in a backyard swimming pool. On average, there are 244 new cyber threats a day. I am a humble example, as my post of a few months ago made clear when a hacker broke into my computer. Your patient information from your health insurer, or financial details ripped from your credit card company are fair game. Disabling a hospital's admittance system for an entire country happened this past summer. And, don't even get me started on Equifax. Making money off my private information, giving me no way to "opt out," and then losing it all. Enough! If you follow even the most basic of common sense steps, the odds of your home computer becoming someone else's to control are increasingly possible. Those who decided to hack int...

Blog reader, Rick from Oregon, read my post from a few weeks ago,   Do You Have a Smart Speaker?  and decided to issue a challenge. He suggested I buy an Amazon Dot and try living with it for a few weeks. If I didn't find it useful he offered to buy it from me. That sounded like a win-win deal, so I took him up on the offer;  my $50 Dot arrived on July 26th and was installed in the living room. The Dot is the little brother to the Echo, the device that is getting most of the press. The Dot does what the more expensive version does but with a smaller speaker. If using the Dot to play music it should be plugged into a sound system or a better quality speaker.  Otherwise, it is the same device: an always on voice-activated command center. In the almost three weeks I have had the Dot, how have I used it? I started by asking it to answer some random, silly questions, like the  distance to Mars, the current temperature and chance of rain, the start time of a baseball...

No particular topic or focus this time, just some loose ends to clear out off my desk. They aren't worth a full post, just a few paragraphs each: *Britbox   This is a streaming service I became aware of after seeing an article in the New York Times. Betty and I enjoy many of the British shows that make their way to PBS, Netflix, and Amazon Prime. While humor from the U.K. often eludes us, British crime dramas are a very nice change of pace. Since the police don't carry guns, crimes are solved more with intellect and old-fashioned sleuthing. There is much less violence, no explosions, and no on-screen shootouts. If a gun is used in a crime, these programs tend to show the victim after the detectives enter the story. The appeal of American shoot-em-up crime shows has worn quite thin. Documentaries and lifestyle shows that feature the beautiful U.K. countryside are enjoyable, too. It is interesting to us that the hosts are not usually "Hollywood" beautiful. Rather,...

Amazon Echo This topic seems like a logical one after my experience with computer cyberattacks. A smart speaker is one that allows you to ask a question, play a certain type of music, ask about the weather, or order a product without the effort involved in getting out of your chair. Talk to a smart speaker and it handles your needs. Amazon has its Dot and  Echo while Google sells Home. Other companies offer similar products, either as a standalone product or hooked to a home security system. A smart speaker is usually connected to your home wireless network. It has a speaker and a microphone. A "trigger" word, like the default,  Alexa, for the Echo, causes the microphone to activate. After receiving a command, question, or other accepted action, that audio clip is sent to a server that executes your command, all in the blink of an eye.  Third party apps can be programmed to turn on and off lights in your home, set your thermostat, lock or unlock doors, cha...

My recent computer hacking problems have forced me to think about what I could live without. and what would diminish my life's satisfaction. Some things are essential to me, some to my happiness and sense of satisfaction. Others are a part of of daily life but I could certainly function without them. This list is by no means complete, but it might be a thought starter for you, too.   It would be very difficult  or very unpleasant to live without: My wife and family Could I physically survive without them? Yes. Would it turn my world upside down and remove a large share of what I feel makes my life meaningful? Absolutely. If things ever begin to unravel I want to have those most dear to me by my side.  Freedoms If I had been born someplace other than The United States or another country in the developed world my sense of what constitutes key freedoms would probably be very different. But, being born to a middle class family in 1949 in Ame...

A few days ago I noticed a massive bump in the number of daily visitors to Satisfying Retirement. Six times the normal views showed up on the blog's stats page. For no discernible reason I was in the top tier of retirement bloggers.  I figured a bunch of computers had clicked on the spot for some reason, one I didn't immediately figure out. The number of spam comments didn't increase dramatically. The comments came from the normal folks and regular blog readers. There hadn't been a huge spike in book sales. So, I assumed the traffic spike was just an odd occurrence. Then, on Friday afternoon I learned differently: my computer had become loaded with malware, trojan programs, ransomware, and other not-so-nice software. My home wireless network had been overwhelmed with attacks, many of which got through. The computers began behaving erratically. The printers stopped printing. When I tried normal fixes for typical computer glitches the problems only became worse. Finally, ...

The holiday shopping season has begun in earnest. Projections are a 10% increase in online sales over last year, which already set records. Unfortunately, that means a growing opportunity for those who want to separate you from your money, your online identity, or plant an infected piece of software on your computer. I received information from Enigma Software Group, a company that markets anti-malware software. There were sobering statistics on the spike in growth of this dangerous phenomenon.  The company also gave me some tips to pass along to help keep you safe. Be on high alert for: 1) Spam emails and links promising great deals. Malware makers know that people will be on the lookout for great prices on everything from Xboxes to phones. They'll send bogus emails promising super low prices. And those emails will contain links that can install malware if they are clicked. The bad guys will also post bad links in Facebook and Twitter accounts that they hijack. 2) Fake ...