Replies

Sorry about asking twice, put it down to anno domini.

David

Thanks RG. Fyi RF works fine on Opera too.

When I saw this I decided to have a look at Opera. Installed it and checked out the Add-ons & Settings. A couple of items in the Settings Menu caught my attention. “Allow/Deny/Ask” when Websites want to access the camera, and the same for the microphone. I cannot find a similar option in FF. Do Websites have the ability to activate the camera and microphone. I’ve never seen the camera LED come on?

David.

Thanks guys. IE opened the page after a stern warning.

David

What *I* use when I’m traveling is a free utility from the U.S. Air Force Research Lab called “TENS” (Trusted End-Node Security). You can download a public version ISO from http://www.tens.af.mil.

That TENS sounds interesting, but when I clicked on the link I got: “Your connection is not secure…”

45951-TENS

Bots can hang around forever to out wait any time out. They can also then make attempts from other networks to hide it.

Even the most patient and persistent bot would run out of time if it could only make 3 attempts per day, 1,000 per year. It would take millions of years to work through a 12 character password, and much longer passwords are practical using a password manager. I suppose the truth is most people don’t want hassle, and most businesses see hacking as a tax deductible expense. If your bank account is emptied it doesn’t cost the bank a penny, insurance covers the loss. And who pays the insurance, not the bank, it’s the customers in higher charges, and the shareholders in lower dividends. I can’t help feeling that if the money came out of the CEO’s wallet there’d be a rather more proactive approach to hacking.

David

As a matter of curiosity, have you tried to repeatedly access any of your own accounts? That is, have you tried logging in and failing intentionally? Repeatedly?

I have not intentionally entered the wrong login details, but I have done it with a faulty a keyboard, the shift key was intermittent. And after the third attempt I was locked out. This was with my Bank of Ireland account. The login is 3 steps; a 6 digital user number; either the last 4 digits of a registered phone number, or date of birth (one or the other at random); and then 3 random numbers of a 6 digit PIN. And there is a time constraint too, take too long and it’s over. And if you try and use the Backspace key to go back to the previous page at any time you’re dumped out. I asked about this and was told that it could be a “security issue”. It did involve a phone call, and they did want to know a whole lot more than “mother’s maiden name”, however it left me feeling that they take security a lot more seriously than Wells Fargo in the US.

Or to take a less stringent example I seem to remember being locked out of Windows Secrets once. I believe that was 3 strikes and you’re out. It was a long time ago, can’t remember the details, but I think I had to send an e-mail to get back in. I’m sure someone will correct me if I’m wrong. So to my simple mind the question remains, why not have a limit on every login, everywhere? Can it really be that difficult?

David

Thanks for responding. But surely it doesn’t matter who, or how many, are trying to login. Three strikes and you’re out, not forever, but a bot can’t hang around for an hour and then have another go. Would it be inconvenient? Only once I’d say, after that you’d get it right, maybe even use a password manager. Why everyone doesn’t already do that I can’t imagine.

Of course this wouldn’t help the morons who think “password” or “qwerty” are a brilliant passwords, but there are some as can’t be helped.

David

I hope you don’t think I’m being pedantic, but what the Michael Lasky said was:

“Again, the obvious reason to have the recycle bin is to restore files and folders inadvertently and fairly recently deleted. The time the file was placed in the recycle bin is important; when the bin fills up, the oldest additions are “permanently” deleted to make room for new deletions.” (emphasis added)

This implies that after some time the files and the information contained in them are irretrievable. Anyone who thinks that should run Recuva, or some similar software. I have found hundreds of files in “Excellent condition: No overwritten sectors detected”, many others in ‘Poor condition’, and of course many ‘Unrecoverable’. This was on a 1TB drive months after some of them were “permanently deleted”. I can only guess at what else an enthusiastic identity thief could have found. As far as I’m concerned the only way to delete is to shred.

David

Maybe something that you could have added is that even if a file is “deleted” and not sent to the Bin it is not necessarily gone for good. Simply running a recovery program, like Recuva, will find dozens, sometimes hundreds, of files, documents, images etc., some in perfect condition. If a laptop is lost or stolen a lot of information is potentially at risk. I use Explorer² by Zabkat, vastly better than Windows Explorer, and it has a very convenient “Shred” facility. Now that’s deletion.

David

Thanks for your very comprehensive reply. My wife has only recently started using computers, hasn’t buttoned up the concept of tabs, so she does have a tendency to start multiple instances of Firefox during the course of the day. There are times when she complains bitterly that Firefox won’t close, but what’s happening is that as each one closes it reveals the next one, and the next. Got to brush up on this…

David

Have you checked received or sent mail for any new ones ?

Yes, everything is working normally, sending and receiving, it’s just curious that there was activity at a time when we were asleep. Don’t think sleep walking is involved.

David

Thank you Retired Geek, been away for a few days and just saw your explanation.

David

I have had exactly the same symptoms when booting an HP Envy, Win 7 Pro, 240GB SSD. I spent hours talking to HP, and the SSD drive maker, updated all drivers, all to no effect. In the end I discovered by chance that if I disconnected a powered USB hub before booting there was no problem. Once Windows has started I can plug in the USB hub and it will be recognized immediately, as will the drives, printer and scanner connected to it. Seems like your USB mouse might be the problem. Try booting without it, then plug it in.

David

Thank you for that very clear explanation. In the past I’d been creating images of C drive, today I made another image including that SRP, and HP Tools. So nothing can go wrong… can go wrong… can go wrong…

David.

Thanks to both of you. Was it just chance that Penton made the reset the password? Maybe.

Browni you hit a nail on the head, just one of the many left-overs after the BIOS debacle was the date and time, both wrong. I corrected that in Control Panel, does it have to be corrected in the BIOS as well? Does the date/time effect the certificates? If so shouldn’t correcting it resolve the issue?

Right after posting my question I saw at the bottom of a Firefox window a simple note: “Refresh Firefox…” Well it seemed reasonable that refreshing might resolve all the problems. Foolish me! To my mind “Refresh” means one thing: Wipe out and re-install a blank version of the program is something very different. I rashly assumed that although the settings would be wiped they would subsequently be restored, refreshed, old dead links removed, pristine. It is of limited comfort to see how many posts there are in Mozilla support from other people who made the same naïve decision. All I can think is that something got “lost in translation”.

So now to restore my Old Firefox!

David