Hackers And Hoaxes

Everyone who has an ISP, understands, or at least knows about how hackers use viruses, Trojans and other web nasties, to infect and mess up your computer. No headline news there. (Unfortunately, we still don't understand why they do it, or at least I don't.) But hackers don't have to write malicious code or hijack your browser to do some serious damage to your system. Oh no... A well written email with no attachments, can do the trick. They only have to start a rumor.
Hackers can easily manipulate you into trashing your own computer. All they have to do is begin a hoax.

What do I mean by that? Let me explain.

Have you ever gotten emails from people you know that say something like: Scan your hard drive for such and such a file! If you find it delete it immediately! Pass this on. Warn everyone you know!

These emails are originally generated by a hacker and spread throughout the Internet to get you to delete files you need, thus creating havoc for your system. They are hoaxes.

Hoaxes work incredibly well for getting average people to cause their own computers to malfunction. the hacker doesn't have to spend any time creating malicious code and a method of distribution, all they have to do is play on the human tendency for hysteria; send out a warning that something evil is spreading, and if you find it on your computer, get rid of it!

Recently I was tracking a thread on a forum, where the moderator warned everyone about a file that he found on his system that was a keylogger. (A keylogger is a malicious program designed to track your every move through monitoring your keystrokes.) He warned everyone to search for a file, ans2000.ini and, "delete the booger."

I scan my system every day, with several different virus/ spyware programs, and I never picked up this file with any of them, so I decided to do a Windows Explorer search for it. Sure enough, I found it on my hard drive. Oh My God!

Before hitting the delete key though, I looked it up on the web. I Googled the specific file and found quite a bit of information on it. The file ans2000.ini is used in the keylogger program known as ProBot SE. However, it is also used in many other legitimate programs as well. Ok, so now what do I do?

Well, I contacted my go-to guy, Jim Gray, owner of Quikonnex, and asked him what his thoughts were. He told me to open the ini file, in Notepad, and read it. Sure enough, this file did have an association to another program on my system. It is part of ActivEbook Compiler. It was right there in print, at the top of the file.

Now had I just freaked out when I found the file, and deleted the booger, I would've trashed my ebook compiler, making it useless to me. Two points for the hacker who started the hoax!

Hoaxes are just as dangerous as live viruses, because they inspire you to destroy your own programs. I am sure they are a particular kick for the one starting the hoax, as they are getting you to do bad things to your own system. Fear is a powerful motivator, and hoaxes, by design, are created to cause panic and fear in the less experienced Internet traveler.

So, before going and deleting files from your hard drive, go check them out. Do a search for them and read the information you find. Don't just go deleting things without learning about them first, or you just may end up cutting your own throat. And, NEVER forward these types of warning emails to others until you know for a fact that the information is correct, or you're likely to have your friends and family after you for misinforming them.

Resources for validating virus/ hoax information:

http://vil.mcafee.com/hoax.asp
http://www.vmyths.com/
http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/hoax.html
http://www.f-secure.com/virus-info/hoax/

The Key To Distributing Articles

So you have written a great article on your area of expertise, but how are you going to distribute it?

This is where many people fall-over in the article publishing business. If you create an article and put it on your site people aren’t just going to turn up and read it.

This reminds me of an old story I was told by a friend. When he was a child he decided to make chips and sell them to make some pocket money. He made the chips and set up the stall in his parent’s kitchen. Of course being young and naive, he didn’t tell anyone he just expected people to turn up! Of course they didn’t. The same goes for your article writing. In order to be successful, you must circulate the article.

The best way to circulate the article is to use one of the top distribution services and article directory services. For example:

• Articlesnet.co.uk
• Isnare.com
• Submityourarticle.com

These companies will either put your article up on their site, and due to the high traffic readerships of these sites you will gain extra readers. Alternatively if they are a distribution service they will email your article to lots of ezine and newsletter authors. They, in turn, will then email your article to all their readers. Obviously the article has to be of a high enough standard. Many of the distribution services have arrangements with other large article sites and will automatically submit your article to these sites.

One final tip to aid in circulating your article is to create an RSS feed. You can then distribute your article RSS feed and ping all the major RSS search engines. They will index your article and this again allows you to tap into many more readers.

I hope these tips help you in your article publishing.

10 Helpful Tips For Running A Profitable Web Site

1. Address your targeted audience on your business site. Example: "Welcome Internet Marketers". If you have more than one, address them all.

2. Make sure your content and graphics are relevant to your web site's theme. You wouldn't want to use a bird graphic on a business web site.

3. Alert visitors by email when you add new content to your web site. This will remind people to revisit your web site.

4. Offer a way for visitors to contact you on each web page. List your email address, fax number and phone number.

5. Give people the option of viewing your web site offline. Offer it by autoresponder or printer friendly version.

6. Make sure a least 50 f your content is original. The other option is to offer something else original other than content, like software or an online utility.

7. Offer your visitors incentives for revisiting your web site. You could give them new content, ebooks, software, ezine, etc.

8. Publish a FAQs for your business, product and web site. They could have questions about multiple parts of your business.

9. Make sure all links on the navigational bar are clickable. If people can't get to where they want to go, they will leave.

10. Organize you web site in logical and profitable sequence. You don't want to give a freebie before they learn about the product(s) you're selling.

Top 10 Ways To Protect Yourself From Online Identity Theft

Identity theft is becoming a bigger problem as more and more people are making the internet a bigger part of their lives. People who are new to the online medium often fall prey to ‘phishing’ or other internet identity theft schemes. In many cases the ‘phishing party’ uses your credit card to order goods for them selves, in other cases they will apply for credit cards, set up bank accounts, and take advantage of your good credit rating. Correcting these issues involves a lot of time energy and stress, so here are ten tips to help you from becoming a victim of identity theft.

Use a disposable email account. Keep your business or personal email account just for business or personal communication. If you are going to be making purchases online, joining newsgroups, or subscribing to mailing lists and ezines use a disposable email account. There are many online free accounts such as yahoo, hotmail or grail, and most of them can interface with popular email clients like outlook or outlook express. Use one of them for all of your shopping transactions.

Disguise your online identity. If your real name in Mary Smith try to avoid using email accounts with name like msmith@example.com when dealing with people you don’t know and trust. If you were born in 1972 don’t chose msmith1972@example.com as your email account.

Use different level passwords. Use one password for your personal information, use another for your business accounts and a third for your disposable email accounts or mailing lists you sign up for. Don’t use sequential passwords like password1 for personal use password2 for business, and password 3 for disposable accounts.

Use strong passwords. Don’t use your birthdates, year you were married, or your children’s birthdates. Avoid choosing passwords that consist entirely of letters or numbers. Also try to avoid using passwords that are actual words. The best passwords are mnemonic phrases like “my father ate three apples for breakfast”. Take the first letter of each word and convert the number into numbers and you end up with “mfa3a4b”.

Rotate your passwords. You should change your passwords every 6 to 12 months. If you suspect your passwords have been compromised change them as a safety precaution.

Use only one credit card for all of your online purchases. If any of your other credit cards have online transactions you know they are fraudulent. If you see offline purchases for your online credit card you also know they are fraudulent.

Use credit cards instead of debit cards. While many debit cards now offer online purchase protection it’s easier to dispute fraudulent charges than to recover debit card funds that have already been spent.

When you make purchases online make sure your transactions are secure. In the address bar you should see “https” and not “http”. There should also be small lock icon in your browser. If this is your first purchase from the company make sure the issuing company is someone you have heard of like Verisign, or Thawte.

Check a company’s privacy policy. When you make your first transaction make sure your check the privacy policy, look for logos from consumer groups like Trust-E and the better business bureau. Click the logos to make sure they are authentic.

Never open or fill out email requests for you to update you account or credit card settings via email. These are ‘phishing’ scams people use to try and secure your personal information. Many of them are growing increasingly sophisticated and go to great lengths to look exactly like the companies website using their exact logo

A Note To Our Non-Muslim Visitors

We want to remind you to the fact that there is no compulsion for man to accept the TRUTH. But it is certainly a shame upon the human intellect when man is not even interested in finding out as to what is the TRUTH!.

Islam teaches that God has given man the faculty of reason and therefore expects man to reason things out objectively and systematically for himself. To reflect and to question and to reflect.

Nobody should press you to make a hasty decision to accept any of the teachings of Islam, for Islam teaches that man should be given the freedom to choose. Even when man is faced with the TRUTH, there is no compulsion upon man to embrace it. But before you begin to form an opinion about Islam, ask yourself whether your existing knowledge of Islam is thorough enough. Ask yourself whether that knowledge has been obtained through non-Muslim third party sources who themselves have probably been exposed to only random glimpses of Islamic writings and have yet to reason on Islam objectively and systematically themselves.

Is it fair that one should form an opinion about the taste of a particular dish just by heresay from others who may themselves not necessarily have tasted the dish yet?. Similarly you should find out for yourself about Islam from reliable sources and not only taste it, but digest it well before you form an opinion. That would be an intellectual approach to Islam. It is up to you to make the next move.

In making your move, Islam continuously reassures you that your rights to freedom of choice and freedom to use that God-given faculty of thought and reason will be respected. Every man has that individual will. No one else can take that away that will and force you to surrender to the will of God. You have to find out and make that decision yourself. May your intellectual journey towards the TRUTH be a pleasant one.

The Quran says:

" Let there be no compulsion in religion: Truth stands out clear from Error: whoever rejects Taghut (evil) and believes in Allah hath grasped the most trust worthy hand-hold, that never breaks. And Allah heareth and knoweth all things. " (Qur'an 2:256)

'When you have understood what is Right and what is Wrong (Evil), it is Forbidden for you to do Wrong.' 'Right and Wrong is defined by Allah swt the Creator the Sustainer. Right is to follow the Qur'an and Sunnah (Purpose of life) in all walks of life. Wrong ((bad) evil) is to do the opposite. The Punishment for Not following the Qur'an and Sunnah (working against Islam) is Clearly Stated and Warned by Allah swt.

Please find more information below

Say: "Truly am I A warner: no God Is there but Allah, The One, Supreme and Irresistible,-

"The Lord of the heavens And the earth, and all Between, -Exalted in Might, Ever-forgiving." (TMQ38:65-66.)

"Praise be to Allah, who has sent to his servant the Book, and has allowed therein no crookedness:

(He has made it) Straight (and Clear) in order that He may warn (the godless) of a Terrible punishment from Him, and that He may give glad Tidings to the Believers who work Righteous deeds, that they shall have a goodly Reward,

Wherein they shall remain for ever,

Further, that He may warn those (also) who say, "God hath begotten a son". (TMQ18:1-4.)

"Say: "O my Servants who have excessively wronged their own souls, despair not of God's Mercy: for God forgives all sins for He is Most Forgiving, Most Merciful.

Turn to your Lord (for forgiveness) and bow to His (Will), before the Penalty comes on you: after that you shall not be helped." (TMQ39:53-54.)

"It is He who has created for you (the faculties of) Hearing, sight, feeling And understanding: Little thanks It is ye give!.

And He Has multiplied you Through the earth, and to Him Shall ye be gathered back.

it is He who gives life and death, and to Him (Is due) the alternation of Night and Day: Will ye not then understand?."(TMQ23:78-80.)

"How can ye reject the faith in Allah? Seeing that ye were without life and He gave you life; then will He cause you to die and will again bring you to life; and again to Him will ye return." (Qur'an 2:28)

"Have We not made for him (mankind) a pair of eyes? And a tongue and a pair of lips? And shown him the two ways (good and evil)?" (TMQ90:8-10)

"And I Created not the Jinns and Mankind except they should Worship Me (alone)." (TMQ50:56)

"Verily! We have made that which is on earth as an adoration for it (the earth) in order that We may test them (mankind) as to which of them is better in deeds." (TMQ18:7)

"This day I have perfected your religion for you, completed My favour upon you, and have chosen for you Islam as your religion (way of life)". (TMQ Al-Ma'idah:3)

"But those who believe (in the Oneness of Allah - Islamic Monotheism) and do deeds of righteousness, We shall soon admit them to Gardens, under which rivers flow (Paradise), abiding therein forever (eternal home). Therein they shall have companions pure and holy: We shall admit them to shades, cool and ever deepening (Paradise)." (Qur'an 4:57)

"And seek help in patience and As-Salat (the prayer) and truly it is extremely heavy and hard except for Al-Khashi'un [i.e. the true believers in Allah - those who obey Allah with full submission, fear much from His Punishment, and believe in His Promise (Paradise, etc.) and in His Warnings (Hell, etc.)" (Qur'an 2:45)

"(They are those) who are certain that they are going to meet their Lord, and that unto Him they are going to return." (Qur'an 2:46)

"Every soul shall have a taste of death: And only on the Day of Judgment shall you be paid your full recompense. Only he who is saved far from the Fire and admitted to the Garden will have attained the object (of Life): For the life of this world is but goods and chattels of deception." (Quran3:185)

"O ye who believe! Persevere in patience and constancy; vie in such perseverance; strengthen each other; and fear Allah. that ye may prosper." (Quran3:200)

"O ye who believe! Fear Allah as He should be feared, and die not except in a state of Islam." (Quran3:102)

"..Our Lord! You have not Created (all) this without purpose, Glory to You!...". (TMQ3:191)

"O ye who believe! enter into Islam whole-heartedly (by obeying all the rules and regulations of the Islamic way of life); and follow not the footsteps of the Satan (Evil One); for he is to you an avowed enemy." (Qur'an 2:208)