Blog/October 2011/Oct 28th

Oct 28th (See this week's devar torah)

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Hi, again!

First week "back at work". Not easy transitioning from 100% rest to full-bore activity, but alas! it must be done. Daniela has been busy with work and studies. Sarah has been busy with work and friends. Esther and I have been busy with work. Nothing out of the ordinary.

As you know, here in the Land we released a thousand terrorists to retrieve one soldier. Here's one of the terrorist's statements about what she did and whether she would do it again. Lovely lass. The result of our feckless leaders making "deals" with the Arabs is to encourage them to maintain their tradition of magical thinking.

The "Occupy Wall Street" movement has been filled with anti-semites railing against how the "Joooz" control Wall Street. Of course, that sort of vitriol is endemic amongst the loony-left, even though many Jews are part of (and organize) these movements. Here's a news clip of an interview with one sensitive soul in Los Angeles. Suggestion: they should all go occupy Jupiter!

I've been harping on the need for personal computer security for a long time. Of course it's a much bigger issue than just controlling access to the data on your own computers. Recently the Israeli government gave us good reason to be paranoid. Even though the original breach is several years old, the lackadaisical approach to systems security evinced by our government is still apparently common. And you too, wherever you are -- need to be aware that when you entrust your data to "the government" (or to Google, or Facebook, or ...) those data are only as secure as the weakest link in the security chain. Of course, in the case I mentioned above, Israeli citizens had no chance to "opt out" of the database, nor were we informed of the breach until just recently (although it has been common knowledge for a long time). This greatly strengthens the argument against adding "biometric" information (fingerprints, retinal scans, etc) to the government database.

Once something has been put on "the web", it is essentially there forever. So to protect your privacy in this highly interconnected Google age, you must think carefully before putting anything out on "the web". Similarly, if you use GMail, you need to be aware that you are entrusting the privacy of your communications to Google -- which, in order to show you "context sensitive advertisement" when you look at your mail, scans your mail for "key words". Most people are unaware that GMail does in fact read their mail -- even if that "reading" is done by a "robot", so to speak. Furthermore, Google has in the past (and will in the future) turned over any emails it has to governmental agencies, once asked to do so.

What can you do about all this? If you use GMail, make sure that anything sensitive (containing your government id numbers, or bank accounts, or passwords or anything else you don't want just anyone to see) is encrypted with strong encryption. The far better solution is not to use GMail or any other provider which has physical control of your data (though that is not always a realistic option for many people). In addition, you should not keep "old emails" around (especially not on GMail!) on a public system (if you must, keep them on your own machine and delete them from the public system).

Next time around I'll concentrate on how to maintain privacy and anonymity when browsing the internet (and why you may want to do so). B"H, I'll also take you step-by-step on how to set up a really secure machine. Until then...

This week's shabbat menu: homemade ḥallah, spicy tomato soup, zucchini stuffed chicken, peas and carrots, rice pilaf, eggplant, ḥumus, guacamole, Chinese cabbage salad, breaded schnitzel, potato kugel, hard boiled eggs, chocolate cake, cookies

Until next week,
shabbat shalom!

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