Users of Debian Linux, or a Debian derived distro such as Ubuntu Linux, have always had a safe official place to download free software from. We can use the apt-get command to quickly and easily download whatever free software we want from the more than 25,000 free software packages available in the official Debian repositories.
Synaptic is an easy to use point-and-click GUI front end for apt-get. Synaptic can easily download and install, upgrade, or uninstall various programs from the official repositories, while reliably taking care of all dependencies automatically.
Windows users do not have a similar place to go to, or built-in tools to use, to easily download and upgrade reputable, safe, non-Microsoft software. However, for installing an occasional commercial paid for software program on a Linux computer, that would still be downloaded from a companies website. As far as I know, it is just the free open source software programs that are available in the main official Debian repositories.
That is my rough understanding, of how the Debian repositories work. As a desktop Linux user, I am glad that I do not have to download software from god knows where, in response to some pop-up. If I did suddenly decide that I needed new software or an upgrade, I would generally stick to using Synaptic or apt-get to download the software for me from the official repositories, instead of using an advertising script on a script enabled web page to download whatever it is from who knows where.
There are also a few reputable, reasonably well known, commercial software companies, with Linux software, that I have bought software from, for my home computer.
The lack of something like Synaptic and apt-get, and the Debian repositories, is a severe shortcoming of Windows.
Now that I have finally gotten around to reading the linked articles, I see that it says this:
"The scan itself is a javascript that draws the progress bar. The file list that it iterates through when it performs the fake scan is a list of 1,100 names in a file called fileslist.js. That file also contains the 14 fake pieces of malware that it "discovers."
So it seems to me that NoScript would definitely block at least some of the fake anti-virus advertisement does.
I have been using the latest version of the MVPS modified hosts file on both my Linux computer and on my Windows XP computer. However,instead of using the 06-14-06 version which davidshewitt linked to, I have been using the much newer Sept-02-2009 version instead. One link is for, what at the moment, is the latest version of the modified hosts file and the other link is to the installation instructions and general information.
I recently also started using the NoScript add-on and also the Adblock Plus add-on for Firefox on both my Linux computer and on my Windows XP computer. But, perhaps using both the ad blocking host file, plus Adbock Plus, is redundant and unnecessary. With the NoScript ad-on, I occasionally click on the icon, which has now been added to the lower right corner of Firefox. After clicking on that, I can choose whether to temporarily or permanently allow a particular web site scripts.
I do nearly all of my Internet browsing from my Linux box. But, when I occasionally actually dare to use my Windows XP computer to browse the Internet, I use Sandboxie to sandbox my default browser, which in my case happens to be Firefox. I am not an expert on any of this, and am not a regular Security Now listener, but here are a couple of episodes that are about Sandboxie.
There is the NoScript add-on and also the Adblock Plus add-on for Firefox. Perhaps, that might have stopped her from seeing those fake anti-virus scans (I am not totally sure). Those free add-ons are available for both the Linux version of Firefox and the Windows version of Firefox. To add those plug-ins, when using Firefox, just click Tools and then Add-ons and then click "Browse all add-ons" to find whatever add-ons you want.
With the NoScript add-on, I can left-click or right-click a small icon in the lower right corner of Firefox. Then if I want to, I can temporarily or permanently allow scripts to run on a particular web site. Obviously, I will never be allowing any scripts to be run from the New York Times website.
I am not sure if Linux or the Linux version of Firefox is actually vulnerable to any type of drive-by malware or not. But just to be extra safe, I have recently started using the NoScript and Adblock Plus add-ons. Of course I do not run as root, and I have heard that there have not yet been any Linux viruses sucessfully circulating in the wild. But, I am not sure about other types of drive-by malware. I am not an expert or a computer professional.
I have encountered those fake anti-virus scans about three times in recent years. Each time I noted what IP address or URL was being used by the advertisement. As an experiment, I then edited my Linux hosts file to divert that the attempt to connect to that location to the 127.0.0.1 loop back address, which every computer has. When I then went back to the website, I did not experience the fake anti-virus advertisement again. I am not sure if I could have used the hosts.deny file instead, for the same purpose, or not.
I have run across several versions of those pop-up fake online virus scanners, over the last several years, while using Linux. In one case, a Microsoft Warning suddenly popped up saying that my computer was infected with a virus. What was a Microsoft warning doing on a Linux computer which had absolutely no Microsoft products installed on it?
In a couple of those instances, it pretended to scan my C: drive without my permission. It showed a progress bar, as it was supposedly scanning my C: drive. It then went on to say that it had found a couple of viruses and malware on drive C: and also in my registry. Linux does not have a registry, nor does Linux use drive letters.
A minor exception to not using drive letters, would be when trying to run a Windows program under WINE. There is a fake Drive C: in an obscure hidden directory, which Windows programs get to use when running under WINE. I doubt that was what they were talking about.
Another minor exception to not using drive letters occurs when running DOSBox. It temporarily mounts a partition as a fake drive C: when it is running. Old DOS games can then be run under DOSBox on the fake C: drive.
In each case, after supposedly finding the viruses, it suggested that I should purchase and download their anti-virus software to fix the problem (for something like $39.95).
Despite not choosing to purchase their anti-virus product, Firefox asked me what it should do with a Windows executable file which the website was trying to download. It wanted to know which program it should use to try to open the file, or if it should just save it to the hard disk instead. I found myself thinking, "what, do you think I actually might want to try to download run their Windows only malware under WINE or something?" I canceled the attempt to download the Windows executable file.
When using Firefox under Linux, I have recently selected to use both the NoScript and the Adblock Plus add-ons for Firefox. I definitely will not ever be adding the New York Times to my list of trusted sites which is allowed to run executable content. I realize that there have never been any Linux viruses successfully circulating in the wild, but I am not sure if Linux or the Linux version of Firefox might possibly still be vulnerable to some other types of malware or not. So, I decided to start using NoScript and Adblock Plus, as a precaution.
When installing Linux on more than one computer at home, I always make sure that I have the same UID number, on each computer. That way I avoid having permission problems, when accessing my files from an EXT3 formatted external hard drive, using one of my other Linux computers.
On all three of my computers, my user name is Rick and my UID number is 1000. With most recent versions of Debian or Ubuntu, the first user created is assigned the UID number of 1000. So in most cases, I would get the same user ID by default. But if that was not the case, there are are ways to assign myself a specific UID number or to change my UID number.
As someone pointed out in another comment elsewhere, the command below could be used to change a user's SUID number. I modified his example to use my user name.
usermod -u 1000 Rick
When assigning a new user from the command line, I have used something like this to create my user name from scratch, which the UID of 1000:
useradd -u 1000 Rick
Using the chown command, with the correct extra parameters, could be used to recursively change the ownership of all files, within a user's home directory, if that should be necessary after the change.
I do have an external hard drive and several USB keys formatted as EXT3. Because I have the same UID number on each Linux computer, I do not have any permission problems when accessing the files.
I can look inside my passwd file to see what my UID is by typing this:
I always make sure that my user name is assigned the same UID number on both of my Linux computers, so that I avoid the permissions problem of my files supposedly belonging to a different user. In recent versions of Debian or Ubuntu, the first user created is assigned the UID number of 1000 (by default). So if Rick is the first user created on each computer there is not problem.
However, I also have a third, even older computer, which uses some older version of Slackware. By default, it assigns a UID number of something like 500 to the first user. To make sure that I had the same UID number on that computer, I had to manually assign myself the UID number that I wanted, when using useradd to create my user name. Just like you, I used this command:
useradd -u 1000 Rick
Then when I looked inside my passwd file, I could see that I had been assigned the number 1000. To check that on most Linux distros, I would have typed this:
cat/etc/passwd
I had overlooked, how that was actually his main concern. I guess I should read more carefully, instead of speed reading.
I actually do have an external USB hard drive and several USB keys formatted as EXT3. Having the same UID number on each of my Linux computers, means that each computer knows that those are my files, and that I have my normal permissions for accessing and using those files.
When I use the rsync command, none of the dates or permissions is altered. I use rsync from the command line, about once a week to back up my files onto an external USB hard drive. There is also at least one point-and-click GUI type front end for rsync, which I have not yet tried.
I used GParted to reformat my external hard drive as an EXT3 partition. GParted is an easy to use, free point-and-click GUI type front end for free Parted partitioning program. I have also used GParted to reformat several small USB keys as EXT3. GParted will can also create other types of partitions, such as FAT16, FAT32, NTFS, EXT2, EXT3, JFS, XFS, Reiserfs, and Reiser4 partitions.
If I were using the tar command to bundle my directories and files up into a tar ball or a compressed tar ball, the permissions and dates and everything would have been preserved inside the tar ball. In that case I could have stored the tar ball on a FAT32 partition, without loosing permissions or the correct dates. But instead of doing that, I have been using the rsync command to create a backup copy of all the directories and files and everything onto the external USB hard drive.
I took a Linux class at a 2-year Community College several years ago. The students in that class, also typically took their classes on Cisco routers, Windows certification, or sometimes also A+ certification. At each desk, each student had a Windows XP computer that was running Linux inside a VMWare virtual machine. I was just a part time student at the time.
A few years earlier, back in about the year 2000, I took a 2 credit Unix class, through distance learning from a 4-year college. I was a part time student at that time too. It was a self paced class where we were expected to use our home computers to connect, by Telnet, SSH, FTP, rsync or whatever, to one of the College's several Solaris Unix computers. Each student also had to install the free Unix emulator software which created a Unix like command line environment on their Windows computer at home. They could then use Unix commands at home and could also connect to the remote Unix computer, from the command line.
Since I had a computer with Linux at home, the instructor said that I could use that instead of installing the free Unix emulator under Windows. I could then practice my Unix commands from Linux. I could also connect from Linux by Telnet, SSH, FTP or rsync, to the other computer. Most common Linux commands and Unix commands are the same, because Linux is a Unix clone. I was the only student in that class who was using Linux.
I also took several classes which involved using Windows only software such as Excel or Microsoft Access. I also had a Windows computer, on which I installed inexpensive student versions of those programs. But another option would have been to do those assignments in the computer lab at the college. If any online tutorials or other software is used, I would hope that the software is not Windows only. If it was, then viewing those tutorials from the computer lab might be an option.
I did not have a laptop and did not live on campus, so I can not comment on other aspects of using a Linux computer at a college. Besides that, my information was just as a part-time student, with what may be somewhat out of date information from a few years ago. By the way, this was back before those colleges had WiFi.
I have recently stopped using real answers to those required "Security Questions." The answers to many of those questions are already known by other people and could probably also be found on the Internet. Instead, I plan to memorize a list of some imaginary answers for those kinds of questions. Just in case I ever forget what my imaginary answers are, I will keep a list of those imaginary answers on a piece of paper in my safety deposit box at the bank. I might also record my list of imaginary answers in an inconspicuous spot, such as possibly somewhere like writing it under some insulation, up in the attic.
Here is a sample of the kinds of answers that I am thinking about using. Of course, those are not the actual imaginary answers which I will be using. I will not tell any of my future girlfriends or my imaginary answers. These are roughly the types of answers that I might decide to use.
My mother's maden name was Van Bopeep-Tinkerbell. I was born on Booth Island in Antartica. I graduated from Elephant Island Prep School in Antartica. My favorite place is Needles, California. My first dog was a pitbull/timberwolf mix named Fluffy-foofoo Jr. My first car was a 1923 model E Doble Steam car. My favorite food is road-kill packrat stew. My favorite color is infra-red.
Of course passwords should not be something too easy to guess. Personally, I prefer to use the first letter from each word in a short sentence, to create a pass phrase. To make the pass phrase easier to memorize, I try to make the sentence as humorous or bizarre and easy to visualize as possible. If it rhymes, so much the better. If punctuation is allowed in the password, I have also found an easy to remember trick on how to include a few punctuation symbols, as well as mixing in both upper and lower case letters. Just in case I ever forget, I keep a short backup list of those in my safety deposit box at the bank.
By the way, I still use an old-fashioned pop type email account instead of an web-based email account.
What about OpenOffice Base? That was only added in later versions of OpenOffice. I have Base open right now on my screen. It seems to look similar to Microsoft Access. It has tables, queries, forms and reports. Under queries tab, it has an option called "Create Query in SQL view."
I have not actually yet tried creating a small database with OpenOffice Base, so I am not sure if OpenOffice Base is a mature enough alternative yet, or not.
If someone were using Linux, Kexi would be another alternative that is somewhat similar to Microsoft Access. Kexi is a recent addition to KOffice. I am not sure if Kexi is a mature enough alternative yet or not. I have not yet tried using Kexi. At least at the moment, I do not believe there is a Windows version, yet.
Yes, how could the entire planetary commercial ecosystem possibly get by without Word? I do not know. But, personally, I have these excellent free alternatives installed on my Windows XP computer:
OpenOffice IBM Lotus Symphony (a free office suite which also includes a word processor) Abiword
If I wanted to pay for something, Word Perfect would also be a great alternative.
On my Linux computer, I have these excellent free alternatives installed:
OpenOffice IBM Lotus Symphony Abiword KOffice Scribus
I do not actually have any version of Word or Microsoft Office installed on either computer, and I have not missed it. I do still have my old Office 97 CD sitting on a shelf, but do not currently have it installed. I do not know about the rest of the planetary commercial ecosystem, but personally, I get by just fine without Word.
As a student, I remember the smell of tests and handouts which had been printed on a ditto machine (or some similar technology). Teachers were using that when I was in school in the 1960s and early 1970s. In addition to the smell, I remember the printing on the handouts always being blue or purple (or whatever similar color it was). There was an original, which was sometimes neatly hand written, and then a limited number of copies which could be made from the original. Sometimes the last few copies were fainter and harder to read.
I remember hearing about both ditto machines and mimeograph machines when I was in school. I had forgotten what the difference was. That might have been at different schools or junior colleges at different times. Apparently, the ditto machines must have been the ones that had the distinctive smell.
I can still feel a very slight test anxiety,just thinking about the smell and the color of the handouts.
In my earlier post, I described my vague recollection of the low tech registration process at one junior college in about 1973. There was a large room with desks along each wall. At each desk there was an instructor in charge of signing students up for his several classes. There was a long slow moving line of students waiting to sign up for one of the classes being offered at that desk. When I got to the front of the line, I would find out what sections of that class were still open. If the class that I wanted was full, they could add me to the short waiting list. For each class that the student was signing up for, there was another long slow moving line to get in for that class.
At each desk they added my name to a list, if I remember correctly, they also handed me a punched computer card, to hand to someone else later.
If I discovered that the section of a class that I wanted was full, I would have had to choose a section that was on different days and at a different time. That change, might have caused me to have to go back to one the earlier lines and choose a different section, for one of my earlier choices.
After several hours of standing in those lines, I could get in another line for finalizing my choices and paying. At that point I probably also handed someone my several punched cards.
The process could be a little frustrating and slow, which might partially explain why one student lost his temper and fired a gun into the air while going through that process, one semester. I missed out on seeing and hearing that happen. My memory of all that is very vague, so I hope my description, is not too inaccurate. But anyway, that is roughly my recollection of how we did it at at one junior college in Arizona in about 1973.
I remember signing up for classes, at a small Community College, back in about 1973, back before things were so computerized. They used a very large room with dozens of desks on all 4 sides of the room. If I remember correctly, each desk had a sign saying what classes you could sign up for at that desk. An instructor or two, from that department, sat at each desk. For each desk, there was a long, slow moving line of students waiting to try to sign up for one of the classes offered at that desk.
Upon reaching the front of a particular line, I could see which sections of the particular class that I wanted, were still available (if I remember correctly). They then handed me a punched card (also known back then as a computer card) and probably also wrote my name down on a list.
I could then move onto another line to sign up for another class. Finally, I must have gone to some other line to finalize my selection and hand in my collection of several dollar bill sized punched cards.
At least, that is roughly what I remember. But, that was a long time ago and I am struggling to remember the details, which I may have described incorrectly. An instructor, from back then, would probably remember that process much better. My biggest fear while standing in one line, was that some of the sections of the other classes which I wanted, were probably filling up as I stood there. Back then, I probably thought that students walking around carrying punched cards, was high tech.
One year, at that junior college, a student got so frustrated, that he fired a gun into the air and was arrested. I was not there at that time and missed seeing that. Perhaps classes that he needed were already filled up or something. I'm not sure what the problem was.
In the 1983 "Back to School" movie , starting Rodney Dangerfield, I vaguely seem to recall a registration process that involved many tables along the walls, each with a long slow moving line. In the movie, to clear the room, they started a rumor about a very famous person arriving in a limousine out front. With the long lines temporarily gone, Rodney and his son quickly and easily signed up for the classes and times they wanted.
Just in case are not old enough to remember punched cards, here is what Wikipedia has to say about them:
Actually, thinking further about what I just said, most my experiences with manual chokes were on 4-cylinder cars with SU carburetors. So, I do not remember if we also held the peddle to the floor on cars with manual chokes and conventional carburetors or not. So I am not sure if it was because of the automatic choke or not.
If I ever get around to trying to start our old late 1950s era gasoline powered dump truck, I might discover the answer to that question.
I should have said multiplication and division instead of addition and subtraction. My only experience with slide rules was the 2 weeks we spent using them, back in my 8th grade math class. I had forgotten some of the details of actually using them.
As I look at the instructions of one of dads old slide rules, I do not see addition and subtraction mentioned. I doubt that dad would remember either, since he only made very limited use of them, on rare occasions, back in the 1940s and 1950s. One of his two old slide rules is a used ivory on wood model that he purchased used from someone back in the mid-1940s or earlier.
Wikipedia does mention an obscure, rarely used method for performing addition and subtraction on most slide rules.
You are half right, I believe we actually pumped the gas peddle several times and then held the peddle to the floor, before starting the engine.
If you took off the air cleaner and looked down into the carburetor, as the gas peddle is pumped, you could see a small squirt of fuel with each pump of the gas peddle. The accelerator pump in the carburetor gave the small squirt with each pump. So with the engine not running, the air/fuel ratio got richer with each pump. But, if you pumped the peddle too many times, the engine would be flooded and would not start. If the engine were flooded, we would have to wait at least a few minutes before trying again.
During normal driving, the accelerator pump would added an extra squirt of fuel as the car started to accelerate. That was to compensate for the brief lag in fuel arriving from either the idle circuit or the main jets of the carburetor (or possibly both).
I forget exactly why we held the peddle to the floor. It may have had something to do with how the automatic choke behaved. With the air cleaner off, I seem to recall seeing something happen with the choke, buy I don't remember exactly what. On older cars that had mechanical chokes, we did not hold the gas peddle to the floor. But on those vehicles, we just pulled out the choke lever, part way or all the way, to choke off some the air going into the carburetor to get a sufficiently rich air/fuel ratio. As the engine warmed up, or we started going faster, we pushed the choke lever back in.
Most of what I said above, did not apply to European made 4-cylinder cars with SU carburetors such as MGs and pre-1972 Volvos.
As someone who is not a mechanic, that is the best that I can remember it and explain it.
When I was a college freshman in the early 1970s, this was our world:
Cell phones did not exist, although most doctors had some type of telephone in their cars.
Home computers and on-line banking and on-line shopping did not exist. Text messaging did not exist. Facebook, MySpace and Twitter did not exist (I still don't know what they are).
Some of the older telephones still were the rotary phones, where we had to dial the number. We could hear the pulse type dialing being used. The newer phones probably had the buttons and tones, by then. If we dialed 0, by itself, we could talk to the operator. If I am not mistaken, we still had to pay extra, on our monthly bill, for each extra telephone in the house.
Typewriters were used to type letters. Some were electric and some were purely mechanical.
Many secretaries knew how to take dictation by shorthand.
Slide rules were frequently used by engineers and scientists to perform addition, subtraction, roots, logarithms and trigonometry. Pocket calculators did not exist. However, adding machines did exist.
Nearly all of the appliances that we owned were controlled by mechanical knobs and levers. It was more of an analog world, although large businesses did have computers.
Many businesses still used punched cards to store data for computer databases.
We were being encouraged to used trans fats instead of saturated fats because they were supposedly less dangerous than saturated fats. Now we are being told that trans fats are even worse.
Cars needed a minor tune up every 6,000 miles and a major tuneup every 12,000 miles. Engines usually needed to be overhauled at about 100,000 miles. Most of our gasoline powered cars had carburetors. To start a car when it was cold, we had to pump the gas peddle several times first. On some older cars, we also still had to use a mechanical choke.
Police cars could do about 140 MPH and policemen carried revolvers instead of pistols.
I hoped I would not be drafted and sent to Vietnam. Fortunately, the war was winding down by then, an few people were drafted that year.
AIDs did not exist and I had never even heard of herpes, until several years later.
If a young person asked the barber to not cut his hair too short, the barber frequently cut it somewhat shorter than he wanted anyway (for some reason). Eventually barbers stopped doing that.
In many states our social security number was used as our drivers license number. Grocery stores would not accept credit cards, so we usually paid by check. When writing a check at the grocery store or elsewhere, the cashier or clerk usually wrote our driver's license number on the back of our check. Over the decades, many thousands of people have seen my driver's license number and written it on the back of my thousands of checks.
While I agree with most of what you say, I had a few thoughts about the first scenario you described. Suppose this were a home, instead of an apartment. Then assume that he had at least used the chain lock, or better yet while talking though the intercom, he had asked the guy to hold his identification up to the peephole.Lets also hope that the homeowner also has a solid core wood door or a steel door with a wood veneer. Lets also hope that he has a reinforced door frame and a good quality dead bolt.
Then, suppose the angry guy starts trying to kick open the well built door and door frame. It would most likely buy the homeowner and his entire family, sufficient time to retreat to the master bedroom and open the gun safe and grab the shotgun or a hand gun. In my scenario, lets assume there was an already loaded, double barrel shotgun or a partially loaded pump shotgun in the quick opening gun safe.. The guns in the gun safe, could already be loaded.
If only a chain lock had been used instead, the family could probably still buy themselves enough time to open the gun safe, if they had a slide bolt on the door to the master bedroom. It would also help if that door were a solid core door that was better framed than the usual flimsy way that most interior and exterior doors are framed.
I do not have much experience with guns, but that is my thinking on the subject. With a properly designed house and a few well thought plans, I believe that the family members could most likely get to their guns in time, in many scenarios.
By the way, I don't like the way that most new homes put the children's bedrooms on the opposite end of the house, as the master bedroom. If an intruder were in the middle of the home late at night, the father should not have to walk past the burglars to get to the children's room.
A slide bolt on the door to the master bedroom, would also reduce the chances of waking up, to suddenly find a gun pointed at the home owner's head.
Here is something that I forgot to mention in my post above. That is that I would have liked to have known both sides of the story. I deal with the public at work, and occasionally run across customers who are incredibly angry and rude just because some very minor mistake has been made (which does not happen very often). That is despite the fact that our business offers unusually good quality for a very reasonable price, especially when compared to our other local competitors. We also gladly do refunds. Most of our customers are very happy and most are return customers. Many say they will recommend us to their friends.
Despite that, over the years, I have occasionally had angry pushy customers shouting at me for 30 minutes or more. In those rare instances, it is usually about some minor mistake made by some other employee who is not on dutry at the time. There is usually absolutely no possible way to provide them with what they need that day. In one case, a pushy customer made various threatening comments such as "I'll just sleep with your wife to get even." In a few cases, as I was trying to revise some complicated paperwork, they would interrupt me about every 15 seconds, to complain that I am taking too long. I have actually had to say, "if you keep interrupting me every 15 seconds," I definitely can not do get this done quickly.
In such instances, it takes strong self control, to not loose it an just punch the unbelievably rude customer. I have sometimes asked them to please go to our competitors in the future. We are not so desperate for customers that we need to put up with that. What little they are paying us, does not make it worthwhile for us to be shouted at for 30 minutes or so, so I always hope they will never come back again. Behind the counter, we have a list of customers the we never want to do business with again.
In one case, an angry pushy customer, said he was going to complain to my boss and try to get me fired. He asked when would the owner be in. I said dad will be in this afternoon, you can talk to him then.
The point is, that in some situations, it is understandable that the employee could only take so much abuse, before just loosing it and blowing up and punching the guy. I just wish I knew what both sides of the story were in this situation. Many of us had probably had situations like that at work. So when comparing this to my previous post, I am not sure which would best fit the facts.
Some homes have an intercom and a peephole by the front door. When someone rings their doorbell, they can answer the door without opening the door. They can just talk to guy through the intercom and ask them to hold up their ID to the peephole. They even have wide angle peepholes now.
I had a newspaper route as a 12 year old boy, back in the 1960s, and had to go door to door, once a month, collecting the money. Several of my customers had intercoms back then. I would just hear a voice from the intercom, asking what I wanted. Eventually, the housewife would come to the door and had me cash or a check.
About once a year, I hear about a rapist or or guys doing a home invasion, pretending to be water company employees or something like that. So, I do not think is is unreasonable to ask to see the guys ID before letting him in.
In this case the Verizon repairman probably thought he was being asked to show his ID, just because he was black. In the photo in the article, the Verizon employee does not appear to be wearing a uniform or even a shirt with the Verizon name on it, so it is understandable that the customer would be suspicious. The photo just shows a 30-something guy wearing a T-shirt and shorts. The customer had every right to be suspicious and ask to see his ID. If some people are reluctant to open their front doors to 12 year old white newspaper boy, then surely they would be at least as suspicious of a guy wearing a T-shirt and shorts.
By the way, I once helped install a door on a new house and could hardly believe the amazingly flimsy method used to install most door frames, using wooden shims and a few small short nails and screws. How did anyone ever think that was as acceptable method of installing a door? If I ever have a custom home built, I will find a way to make the door frame much more sturdy. I would use either a solid core wood door or a steel door with a wood veneer. I would also use a good quality deadbolt on the door. However, I am not an expert on the subject.
Have the Feds not noticed that several companies have been selling RFID blocking wallets, to people who are concerned about protecting their privacy? Did it not occur to the Feds that maybe their people might also need such a wallet or something similar for their ID cards?
Were they also totally unaware of efforts of anti-RFID chip organizations, such as spychips.com, to publicize the privacy problems with RFID chips? I have been hearing warnings from Katherine Albrecht and others on talk radio and on the Internet, for several years now.
The Feds should not have been surprised about the possibility of their being scanned.
I live in Arizona which allows the open-carry of a firearm without requiring any kind of permit. If someone wants to carry a concealed weapon, that is different, and they would then need a concealed-carry permit for that. The concealed-carry permits are fairly popular, and quite a few of the local people seem to have them (although I don't).
<p>I occasionally see middle-aged or older guys, coming into our small business, with a pistol on their belt. I am on the edge of a smaller city in Northern Arizona. The first time or two it surprised me, but I have gotten used to it. One old guy usually comes in wearing a cowboy hat, gun and cowboy boots, just as if he were some cowboy from the old west ridding into town. The grumpy old guy, used to come in with a revolver in his holster, but now he carries a Glock pistol instead.</p>
<p>In addition to those who I saw openly carrying their pistols, there were probably others that I didn't know about, who had a concealed-carry permit and were probably carrying something concealed. I am not very much of a gun person and am not familiar with the exact details of the gun laws in Arizona.</p>
I have also been thinking about getting one of those RFID blocking wallets. Has anyone actually tested how well the various ones work? Here are several examples of the RFID blocking wallets that I have run across:
Re:Per-desktop activities assignments
on
KDE 4.3 Released
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· Score: 1
Replying to my own comment, I did find an article about KDE 4.3.0, which does specifically say that it is now possible to have separate wallpapers on each virtual desktop. So even though I don't know what a plasma shell or a plasma widget is, it sounds like separate wallpaper on each virtual desktop is now possible once again.
Slashdot Mirror
Users of Debian Linux, or a Debian derived distro such as Ubuntu Linux, have always had a safe official place to download free software from. We can use the apt-get command to quickly and easily download whatever free software we want from the more than 25,000 free software packages available in the official Debian repositories.
Synaptic is an easy to use point-and-click GUI front end for apt-get. Synaptic can easily download and install, upgrade, or uninstall various programs from the official repositories, while reliably taking care of all dependencies automatically.
Windows users do not have a similar place to go to, or built-in tools to use, to easily download and upgrade reputable, safe, non-Microsoft software. However, for installing an occasional commercial paid for software program on a Linux computer, that would still be downloaded from a companies website. As far as I know, it is just the free open source software programs that are available in the main official Debian repositories.
That is my rough understanding, of how the Debian repositories work. As a desktop Linux user, I am glad that I do not have to download software from god knows where, in response to some pop-up. If I did suddenly decide that I needed new software or an upgrade, I would generally stick to using Synaptic or apt-get to download the software for me from the official repositories, instead of using an advertising script on a script enabled web page to download whatever it is from who knows where.
There are also a few reputable, reasonably well known, commercial software companies, with Linux software, that I have bought software from, for my home computer.
The lack of something like Synaptic and apt-get, and the Debian repositories, is a severe shortcoming of Windows.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debian
Now that I have finally gotten around to reading the linked articles, I see that it says this:
"The scan itself is a javascript that draws the progress bar. The file list that it iterates through when it performs the fake scan is a list of 1,100 names in a file called fileslist.js. That file also contains the 14 fake pieces of malware that it "discovers."
So it seems to me that NoScript would definitely block at least some of the fake anti-virus advertisement does.
I have been using the latest version of the MVPS modified hosts file on both my Linux computer and on my Windows XP computer. However,instead of using the 06-14-06 version which davidshewitt linked to, I have been using the much newer Sept-02-2009 version instead. One link is for, what at the moment, is the latest version of the modified hosts file and the other link is to the installation instructions and general information.
http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm
http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.txt
I recently also started using the NoScript add-on and also the Adblock Plus add-on for Firefox on both my Linux computer and on my Windows XP computer. But, perhaps using both the ad blocking host file, plus Adbock Plus, is redundant and unnecessary. With the NoScript ad-on, I occasionally click on the icon, which has now been added to the lower right corner of Firefox. After clicking on that, I can choose whether to temporarily or permanently allow a particular web site scripts.
I do nearly all of my Internet browsing from my Linux box. But, when I occasionally actually dare to use my Windows XP computer to browse the Internet, I use Sandboxie to sandbox my default browser, which in my case happens to be Firefox. I am not an expert on any of this, and am not a regular Security Now listener, but here are a couple of episodes that are about Sandboxie.
http://www.grc.com/sn/sn-172.htm
http://www.grc.com/sn/sn-174.htm
There is the NoScript add-on and also the Adblock Plus add-on for Firefox. Perhaps, that might have stopped her from seeing those fake anti-virus scans (I am not totally sure). Those free add-ons are available for both the Linux version of Firefox and the Windows version of Firefox. To add those plug-ins, when using Firefox, just click Tools and then Add-ons and then click "Browse all add-ons" to find whatever add-ons you want.
With the NoScript add-on, I can left-click or right-click a small icon in the lower right corner of Firefox. Then if I want to, I can temporarily or permanently allow scripts to run on a particular web site. Obviously, I will never be allowing any scripts to be run from the New York Times website.
I am not sure if Linux or the Linux version of Firefox is actually vulnerable to any type of drive-by malware or not. But just to be extra safe, I have recently started using the NoScript and Adblock Plus add-ons. Of course I do not run as root, and I have heard that there have not yet been any Linux viruses sucessfully circulating in the wild. But, I am not sure about other types of drive-by malware. I am not an expert or a computer professional.
I have encountered those fake anti-virus scans about three times in recent years. Each time I noted what IP address or URL was being used by the advertisement. As an experiment, I then edited my Linux hosts file to divert that the attempt to connect to that location to the 127.0.0.1 loop back address, which every computer has. When I then went back to the website, I did not experience the fake anti-virus advertisement again. I am not sure if I could have used the hosts.deny file instead, for the same purpose, or not.
I have run across several versions of those pop-up fake online virus scanners, over the last several years, while using Linux. In one case, a Microsoft Warning suddenly popped up saying that my computer was infected with a virus. What was a Microsoft warning doing on a Linux computer which had absolutely no Microsoft products installed on it?
In a couple of those instances, it pretended to scan my C: drive without my permission. It showed a progress bar, as it was supposedly scanning my C: drive. It then went on to say that it had found a couple of viruses and malware on drive C: and also in my registry. Linux does not have a registry, nor does Linux use drive letters.
A minor exception to not using drive letters, would be when trying to run a Windows program under WINE. There is a fake Drive C: in an obscure hidden directory, which Windows programs get to use when running under WINE. I doubt that was what they were talking about.
Another minor exception to not using drive letters occurs when running DOSBox. It temporarily mounts a partition as a fake drive C: when it is running. Old DOS games can then be run under DOSBox on the fake C: drive.
In each case, after supposedly finding the viruses, it suggested that I should purchase and download their anti-virus software to fix the problem (for something like $39.95).
Despite not choosing to purchase their anti-virus product, Firefox asked me what it should do with a Windows executable file which the website was trying to download. It wanted to know which program it should use to try to open the file, or if it should just save it to the hard disk instead. I found myself thinking, "what, do you think I actually might want to try to download run their Windows only malware under WINE or something?" I canceled the attempt to download the Windows executable file.
When using Firefox under Linux, I have recently selected to use both the NoScript and the Adblock Plus add-ons for Firefox. I definitely will not ever be adding the New York Times to my list of trusted sites which is allowed to run executable content. I realize that there have never been any Linux viruses successfully circulating in the wild, but I am not sure if Linux or the Linux version of Firefox might possibly still be vulnerable to some other types of malware or not. So, I decided to start using NoScript and Adblock Plus, as a precaution.
When installing Linux on more than one computer at home, I always make sure that I have the same UID number, on each computer. That way I avoid having permission problems, when accessing my files from an EXT3 formatted external hard drive, using one of my other Linux computers.
/etc/passwd
On all three of my computers, my user name is Rick and my UID number is 1000. With most recent versions of Debian or Ubuntu, the first user created is assigned the UID number of 1000. So in most cases, I would get the same user ID by default. But if that was not the case, there are are ways to assign myself a specific UID number or to change my UID number.
As someone pointed out in another comment elsewhere, the command below could be used to change a user's SUID number. I modified his example to use my user name.
usermod -u 1000 Rick
When assigning a new user from the command line, I have used something like this to create my user name from scratch, which the UID of 1000:
useradd -u 1000 Rick
Using the chown command, with the correct extra parameters, could be used to recursively change the ownership of all files, within a user's home directory, if that should be necessary after the change.
I do have an external hard drive and several USB keys formatted as EXT3. Because I have the same UID number on each Linux computer, I do not have any permission problems when accessing the files.
I can look inside my passwd file to see what my UID is by typing this:
cat
I always make sure that my user name is assigned the same UID number on both of my Linux computers, so that I avoid the permissions problem of my files supposedly belonging to a different user. In recent versions of Debian or Ubuntu, the first user created is assigned the UID number of 1000 (by default). So if Rick is the first user created on each computer there is not problem.
/etc/passwd
However, I also have a third, even older computer, which uses some older version of Slackware. By default, it assigns a UID number of something like 500 to the first user. To make sure that I had the same UID number on that computer, I had to manually assign myself the UID number that I wanted, when using useradd to create my user name. Just like you, I used this command:
useradd -u 1000 Rick
Then when I looked inside my passwd file, I could see that I had been assigned the number 1000. To check that on most Linux distros, I would have typed this:
cat
I had overlooked, how that was actually his main concern. I guess I should read more carefully, instead of speed reading.
I actually do have an external USB hard drive and several USB keys formatted as EXT3. Having the same UID number on each of my Linux computers, means that each computer knows that those are my files, and that I have my normal permissions for accessing and using those files.
When I use the rsync command, none of the dates or permissions is altered. I use rsync from the command line, about once a week to back up my files onto an external USB hard drive. There is also at least one point-and-click GUI type front end for rsync, which I have not yet tried.
I used GParted to reformat my external hard drive as an EXT3 partition. GParted is an easy to use, free point-and-click GUI type front end for free Parted partitioning program. I have also used GParted to reformat several small USB keys as EXT3. GParted will can also create other types of partitions, such as FAT16, FAT32, NTFS, EXT2, EXT3, JFS, XFS, Reiserfs, and Reiser4 partitions.
If I were using the tar command to bundle my directories and files up into a tar ball or a compressed tar ball, the permissions and dates and everything would have been preserved inside the tar ball. In that case I could have stored the tar ball on a FAT32 partition, without loosing permissions or the correct dates. But instead of doing that, I have been using the rsync command to create a backup copy of all the directories and files and everything onto the external USB hard drive.
I took a Linux class at a 2-year Community College several years ago. The students in that class, also typically took their classes on Cisco routers, Windows certification, or sometimes also A+ certification. At each desk, each student had a Windows XP computer that was running Linux inside a VMWare virtual machine. I was just a part time student at the time.
A few years earlier, back in about the year 2000, I took a 2 credit Unix class, through distance learning from a 4-year college. I was a part time student at that time too. It was a self paced class where we were expected to use our home computers to connect, by Telnet, SSH, FTP, rsync or whatever, to one of the College's several Solaris Unix computers. Each student also had to install the free Unix emulator software which created a Unix like command line environment on their Windows computer at home. They could then use Unix commands at home and could also connect to the remote Unix computer, from the command line.
Since I had a computer with Linux at home, the instructor said that I could use that instead of installing the free Unix emulator under Windows. I could then practice my Unix commands from Linux. I could also connect from Linux by Telnet, SSH, FTP or rsync, to the other computer. Most common Linux commands and Unix commands are the same, because Linux is a Unix clone. I was the only student in that class who was using Linux.
I also took several classes which involved using Windows only software such as Excel or Microsoft Access. I also had a Windows computer, on which I installed inexpensive student versions of those programs. But another option would have been to do those assignments in the computer lab at the college. If any online tutorials or other software is used, I would hope that the software is not Windows only. If it was, then viewing those tutorials from the computer lab might be an option.
I did not have a laptop and did not live on campus, so I can not comment on other aspects of using a Linux computer at a college. Besides that, my information was just as a part-time student, with what may be somewhat out of date information from a few years ago. By the way, this was back before those colleges had WiFi.
I have recently stopped using real answers to those required "Security Questions." The answers to many of those questions are already known by other people and could probably also be found on the Internet. Instead, I plan to memorize a list of some imaginary answers for those kinds of questions. Just in case I ever forget what my imaginary answers are, I will keep a list of those imaginary answers on a piece of paper in my safety deposit box at the bank. I might also record my list of imaginary answers in an inconspicuous spot, such as possibly somewhere like writing it under some insulation, up in the attic.
Here is a sample of the kinds of answers that I am thinking about using. Of course, those are not the actual imaginary answers which I will be using. I will not tell any of my future girlfriends or my imaginary answers. These are roughly the types of answers that I might decide to use.
My mother's maden name was Van Bopeep-Tinkerbell.
I was born on Booth Island in Antartica.
I graduated from Elephant Island Prep School in Antartica.
My favorite place is Needles, California.
My first dog was a pitbull/timberwolf mix named Fluffy-foofoo Jr.
My first car was a 1923 model E Doble Steam car.
My favorite food is road-kill packrat stew.
My favorite color is infra-red.
Of course passwords should not be something too easy to guess. Personally, I prefer to use the first letter from each word in a short sentence, to create a pass phrase. To make the pass phrase easier to memorize, I try to make the sentence as humorous or bizarre and easy to visualize as possible. If it rhymes, so much the better. If punctuation is allowed in the password, I have also found an easy to remember trick on how to include a few punctuation symbols, as well as mixing in both upper and lower case letters. Just in case I ever forget, I keep a short backup list of those in my safety deposit box at the bank.
By the way, I still use an old-fashioned pop type email account instead of an web-based email account.
What about OpenOffice Base? That was only added in later versions of OpenOffice. I have Base open right now on my screen. It seems to look similar to Microsoft Access. It has tables, queries, forms and reports. Under queries tab, it has an option called "Create Query in SQL view."
I have not actually yet tried creating a small database with OpenOffice Base, so I am not sure if OpenOffice Base is a mature enough alternative yet, or not.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenOffice.org_Base
http://www.openoffice.org/product/base.html
If someone were using Linux, Kexi would be another alternative that is somewhat similar to Microsoft Access. Kexi is a recent addition to KOffice. I am not sure if Kexi is a mature enough alternative yet or not. I have not yet tried using Kexi. At least at the moment, I do not believe there is a Windows version, yet.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kexi
http://www.koffice.org/kexi/
Yes, how could the entire planetary commercial ecosystem possibly get by without Word? I do not know. But, personally, I have these excellent free alternatives installed on my Windows XP computer:
OpenOffice
IBM Lotus Symphony (a free office suite which also includes a word processor)
Abiword
If I wanted to pay for something, Word Perfect would also be a great alternative.
On my Linux computer, I have these excellent free alternatives installed:
OpenOffice
IBM Lotus Symphony
Abiword
KOffice
Scribus
I do not actually have any version of Word or Microsoft Office installed on either computer, and I have not missed it. I do still have my old Office 97 CD sitting on a shelf, but do not currently have it installed. I do not know about the rest of the planetary commercial ecosystem, but personally, I get by just fine without Word.
As a student, I remember the smell of tests and handouts which had been printed on a ditto machine (or some similar technology). Teachers were using that when I was in school in the 1960s and early 1970s. In addition to the smell, I remember the printing on the handouts always being blue or purple (or whatever similar color it was). There was an original, which was sometimes neatly hand written, and then a limited number of copies which could be made from the original. Sometimes the last few copies were fainter and harder to read.
I remember hearing about both ditto machines and mimeograph machines when I was in school. I had forgotten what the difference was. That might have been at different schools or junior colleges at different times. Apparently, the ditto machines must have been the ones that had the distinctive smell.
I can still feel a very slight test anxiety,just thinking about the smell and the color of the handouts.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ditto_machine
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mimeograph
In my earlier post, I described my vague recollection of the low tech registration process at one junior college in about 1973. There was a large room with desks along each wall. At each desk there was an instructor in charge of signing students up for his several classes. There was a long slow moving line of students waiting to sign up for one of the classes being offered at that desk. When I got to the front of the line, I would find out what sections of that class were still open. If the class that I wanted was full, they could add me to the short waiting list. For each class that the student was signing up for, there was another long slow moving line to get in for that class.
At each desk they added my name to a list, if I remember correctly, they also handed me a punched computer card, to hand to someone else later.
If I discovered that the section of a class that I wanted was full, I would have had to choose a section that was on different days and at a different time. That change, might have caused me to have to go back to one the earlier lines and choose a different section, for one of my earlier choices.
After several hours of standing in those lines, I could get in another line for finalizing my choices and paying. At that point I probably also handed someone my several punched cards.
The process could be a little frustrating and slow, which might partially explain why one student lost his temper and fired a gun into the air while going through that process, one semester. I missed out on seeing and hearing that happen. My memory of all that is very vague, so I hope my description, is not too inaccurate. But anyway, that is roughly my recollection of how we did it at at one junior college in Arizona in about 1973.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punched_card
I remember signing up for classes, at a small Community College, back in about 1973, back before things were so computerized. They used a very large room with dozens of desks on all 4 sides of the room. If I remember correctly, each desk had a sign saying what classes you could sign up for at that desk. An instructor or two, from that department, sat at each desk. For each desk, there was a long, slow moving line of students waiting to try to sign up for one of the classes offered at that desk.
Upon reaching the front of a particular line, I could see which sections of the particular class that I wanted, were still available (if I remember correctly). They then handed me a punched card (also known back then as a computer card) and probably also wrote my name down on a list.
I could then move onto another line to sign up for another class. Finally, I must have gone to some other line to finalize my selection and hand in my collection of several dollar bill sized punched cards.
At least, that is roughly what I remember. But, that was a long time ago and I am struggling to remember the details, which I may have described incorrectly. An instructor, from back then, would probably remember that process much better. My biggest fear while standing in one line, was that some of the sections of the other classes which I wanted, were probably filling up as I stood there. Back then, I probably thought that students walking around carrying punched cards, was high tech.
One year, at that junior college, a student got so frustrated, that he fired a gun into the air and was arrested. I was not there at that time and missed seeing that. Perhaps classes that he needed were already filled up or something. I'm not sure what the problem was.
In the 1983 "Back to School" movie , starting Rodney Dangerfield, I vaguely seem to recall a registration process that involved many tables along the walls, each with a long slow moving line. In the movie, to clear the room, they started a rumor about a very famous person arriving in a limousine out front. With the long lines temporarily gone, Rodney and his son quickly and easily signed up for the classes and times they wanted.
Just in case are not old enough to remember punched cards, here is what Wikipedia has to say about them:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punched_cards
Actually, thinking further about what I just said, most my experiences with manual chokes were on 4-cylinder cars with SU carburetors. So, I do not remember if we also held the peddle to the floor on cars with manual chokes and conventional carburetors or not. So I am not sure if it was because of the automatic choke or not.
If I ever get around to trying to start our old late 1950s era gasoline powered dump truck, I might discover the answer to that question.
I should have said multiplication and division instead of addition and subtraction. My only experience with slide rules was the 2 weeks we spent using them, back in my 8th grade math class. I had forgotten some of the details of actually using them.
As I look at the instructions of one of dads old slide rules, I do not see addition and subtraction mentioned. I doubt that dad would remember either, since he only made very limited use of them, on rare occasions, back in the 1940s and 1950s. One of his two old slide rules is a used ivory on wood model that he purchased used from someone back in the mid-1940s or earlier.
Wikipedia does mention an obscure, rarely used method for performing addition and subtraction on most slide rules.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slide_Rule
You are half right, I believe we actually pumped the gas peddle several times and then held the peddle to the floor, before starting the engine.
If you took off the air cleaner and looked down into the carburetor, as the gas peddle is pumped, you could see a small squirt of fuel with each pump of the gas peddle. The accelerator pump in the carburetor gave the small squirt with each pump. So with the engine not running, the air/fuel ratio got richer with each pump. But, if you pumped the peddle too many times, the engine would be flooded and would not start. If the engine were flooded, we would have to wait at least a few minutes before trying again.
During normal driving, the accelerator pump would added an extra squirt of fuel as the car started to accelerate. That was to compensate for the brief lag in fuel arriving from either the idle circuit or the main jets of the carburetor (or possibly both).
I forget exactly why we held the peddle to the floor. It may have had something to do with how the automatic choke behaved. With the air cleaner off, I seem to recall seeing something happen with the choke, buy I don't remember exactly what. On older cars that had mechanical chokes, we did not hold the gas peddle to the floor. But on those vehicles, we just pulled out the choke lever, part way or all the way, to choke off some the air going into the carburetor to get a sufficiently rich air/fuel ratio. As the engine warmed up, or we started going faster, we pushed the choke lever back in.
Most of what I said above, did not apply to European made 4-cylinder cars with SU carburetors such as MGs and pre-1972 Volvos.
As someone who is not a mechanic, that is the best that I can remember it and explain it.
When I was a college freshman in the early 1970s, this was our world:
Cell phones did not exist, although most doctors had some type of telephone in their cars.
Home computers and on-line banking and on-line shopping did not exist. Text messaging did not exist. Facebook, MySpace and Twitter did not exist (I still don't know what they are).
Some of the older telephones still were the rotary phones, where we had to dial the number. We could hear the pulse type dialing being used. The newer phones probably had the buttons and tones, by then. If we dialed 0, by itself, we could talk to the operator. If I am not mistaken, we still had to pay extra, on our monthly bill, for each extra telephone in the house.
Typewriters were used to type letters. Some were electric and some were purely mechanical.
Many secretaries knew how to take dictation by shorthand.
Slide rules were frequently used by engineers and scientists to perform addition, subtraction, roots, logarithms and trigonometry. Pocket calculators did not exist. However, adding machines did exist.
Nearly all of the appliances that we owned were controlled by mechanical knobs and levers. It was more of an analog world, although large businesses did have computers.
Many businesses still used punched cards to store data for computer databases.
We were being encouraged to used trans fats instead of saturated fats because they were supposedly less dangerous than saturated fats. Now we are being told that trans fats are even worse.
Cars needed a minor tune up every 6,000 miles and a major tuneup every 12,000 miles. Engines usually needed to be overhauled at about 100,000 miles. Most of our gasoline powered cars had carburetors. To start a car when it was cold, we had to pump the gas peddle several times first. On some older cars, we also still had to use a mechanical choke.
Police cars could do about 140 MPH and policemen carried revolvers instead of pistols.
I hoped I would not be drafted and sent to Vietnam. Fortunately, the war was winding down by then, an few people were drafted that year.
AIDs did not exist and I had never even heard of herpes, until several years later.
If a young person asked the barber to not cut his hair too short, the barber frequently cut it somewhat shorter than he wanted anyway (for some reason). Eventually barbers stopped doing that.
In many states our social security number was used as our drivers license number. Grocery stores would not accept credit cards, so we usually paid by check. When writing a check at the grocery store or elsewhere, the cashier or clerk usually wrote our driver's license number on the back of our check. Over the decades, many thousands of people have seen my driver's license number and written it on the back of my thousands of checks.
While I agree with most of what you say, I had a few thoughts about the first scenario you described. Suppose this were a home, instead of an apartment. Then assume that he had at least used the chain lock, or better yet while talking though the intercom, he had asked the guy to hold his identification up to the peephole.Lets also hope that the homeowner also has a solid core wood door or a steel door with a wood veneer. Lets also hope that he has a reinforced door frame and a good quality dead bolt.
Then, suppose the angry guy starts trying to kick open the well built door and door frame. It would most likely buy the homeowner and his entire family, sufficient time to retreat to the master bedroom and open the gun safe and grab the shotgun or a hand gun. In my scenario, lets assume there was an already loaded, double barrel shotgun or a partially loaded pump shotgun in the quick opening gun safe.. The guns in the gun safe, could already be loaded.
If only a chain lock had been used instead, the family could probably still buy themselves enough time to open the gun safe, if they had a slide bolt on the door to the master bedroom. It would also help if that door were a solid core door that was better framed than the usual flimsy way that most interior and exterior doors are framed.
I do not have much experience with guns, but that is my thinking on the subject. With a properly designed house and a few well thought plans, I believe that the family members could most likely get to their guns in time, in many scenarios.
By the way, I don't like the way that most new homes put the children's bedrooms on the opposite end of the house, as the master bedroom. If an intruder were in the middle of the home late at night, the father should not have to walk past the burglars to get to the children's room.
A slide bolt on the door to the master bedroom, would also reduce the chances of waking up, to suddenly find a gun pointed at the home owner's head.
Here is something that I forgot to mention in my post above. That is that I would have liked to have known both sides of the story. I deal with the public at work, and occasionally run across customers who are incredibly angry and rude just because some very minor mistake has been made (which does not happen very often). That is despite the fact that our business offers unusually good quality for a very reasonable price, especially when compared to our other local competitors. We also gladly do refunds. Most of our customers are very happy and most are return customers. Many say they will recommend us to their friends.
Despite that, over the years, I have occasionally had angry pushy customers shouting at me for 30 minutes or more. In those rare instances, it is usually about some minor mistake made by some other employee who is not on dutry at the time. There is usually absolutely no possible way to provide them with what they need that day. In one case, a pushy customer made various threatening comments such as "I'll just sleep with your wife to get even." In a few cases, as I was trying to revise some complicated paperwork, they would interrupt me about every 15 seconds, to complain that I am taking too long. I have actually had to say, "if you keep interrupting me every 15 seconds," I definitely can not do get this done quickly.
In such instances, it takes strong self control, to not loose it an just punch the unbelievably rude customer. I have sometimes asked them to please go to our competitors in the future. We are not so desperate for customers that we need to put up with that. What little they are paying us, does not make it worthwhile for us to be shouted at for 30 minutes or so, so I always hope they will never come back again. Behind the counter, we have a list of customers the we never want to do business with again.
In one case, an angry pushy customer, said he was going to complain to my boss and try to get me fired. He asked when would the owner be in. I said dad will be in this afternoon, you can talk to him then.
The point is, that in some situations, it is understandable that the employee could only take so much abuse, before just loosing it and blowing up and punching the guy. I just wish I knew what both sides of the story were in this situation. Many of us had probably had situations like that at work. So when comparing this to my previous post, I am not sure which would best fit the facts.
Some homes have an intercom and a peephole by the front door. When someone rings their doorbell, they can answer the door without opening the door. They can just talk to guy through the intercom and ask them to hold up their ID to the peephole. They even have wide angle peepholes now.
I had a newspaper route as a 12 year old boy, back in the 1960s, and had to go door to door, once a month, collecting the money. Several of my customers had intercoms back then. I would just hear a voice from the intercom, asking what I wanted. Eventually, the housewife would come to the door and had me cash or a check.
About once a year, I hear about a rapist or or guys doing a home invasion, pretending to be water company employees or something like that. So, I do not think is is unreasonable to ask to see the guys ID before letting him in.
In this case the Verizon repairman probably thought he was being asked to show his ID, just because he was black. In the photo in the article, the Verizon employee does not appear to be wearing a uniform or even a shirt with the Verizon name on it, so it is understandable that the customer would be suspicious. The photo just shows a 30-something guy wearing a T-shirt and shorts. The customer had every right to be suspicious and ask to see his ID. If some people are reluctant to open their front doors to 12 year old white newspaper boy, then surely they would be at least as suspicious of a guy wearing a T-shirt and shorts.
By the way, I once helped install a door on a new house and could hardly believe the amazingly flimsy method used to install most door frames, using wooden shims and a few small short nails and screws. How did anyone ever think that was as acceptable method of installing a door? If I ever have a custom home built, I will find a way to make the door frame much more sturdy. I would use either a solid core wood door or a steel door with a wood veneer. I would also use a good quality deadbolt on the door. However, I am not an expert on the subject.
Have the Feds not noticed that several companies have been selling RFID blocking wallets, to people who are concerned about protecting their privacy? Did it not occur to the Feds that maybe their people might also need such a wallet or something similar for their ID cards?
Were they also totally unaware of efforts of anti-RFID chip organizations, such as spychips.com, to publicize the privacy problems with RFID chips? I have been hearing warnings from Katherine Albrecht and others on talk radio and on the Internet, for several years now.
The Feds should not have been surprised about the possibility of their being scanned.
I live in Arizona which allows the open-carry of a firearm without requiring any kind of permit. If someone wants to carry a concealed weapon, that is different, and they would then need a concealed-carry permit for that. The concealed-carry permits are fairly popular, and quite a few of the local people seem to have them (although I don't).
<p>I occasionally see middle-aged or older guys, coming into our small business, with a pistol on their belt. I am on the edge of a smaller city in Northern Arizona. The first time or two it surprised me, but I have gotten used to it. One old guy usually comes in wearing a cowboy hat, gun and cowboy boots, just as if he were some cowboy from the old west ridding into town. The grumpy old guy, used to come in with a revolver in his holster, but now he carries a Glock pistol instead.</p>
<p>In addition to those who I saw openly carrying their pistols, there were probably others that I didn't know about, who had a concealed-carry permit and were probably carrying something concealed. I am not very much of a gun person and am not familiar with the exact details of the gun laws in Arizona.</p>
I have also been thinking about getting one of those RFID blocking wallets. Has anyone actually tested how well the various ones work? Here are several examples of the RFID blocking wallets that I have run across:
They also have RFID blocking passport sleeves such as this one:
Replying to my own comment, I did find an article about KDE 4.3.0, which does specifically say that it is now possible to have separate wallpapers on each virtual desktop. So even though I don't know what a plasma shell or a plasma widget is, it sounds like separate wallpaper on each virtual desktop is now possible once again.
http://www.kdenews.org/2009/08/04/kde-430-released-caizen