Has Your Email Been Hacked?

The fear of many people is that their email has been hacked and they might not even know it till it is to late. Personal information, pictures, credit information and just your sense of security can all be stolen. There are a couple of things you can do to check your account, one is simply checking the information on your page and the other is a great website that you can run your email address through.

1) If you have google mail it is easy to check the history of IP address used to access your email. If someone other then yourself is accessing it then it will show that persons IP address. Lets start from the beginning.

A - Open your gmail account
B - Scroll down to the bottom of the page
C - At the bottom right hand side there will be the words "Last account activity" with the number of minutes or hours it has been since your account has been accessed. Under this is the word "Details" and it will be underlined. Click on the work "Details"
D - A pop up window will show on your screen and it will give you details of when and were your account has been accessed. If you are the only person then you can feel at least safer that you have not been hacked.


2) There is a web site that takes all of the email address that have been openly hacked, places like Yahoo, Sony and Adobe of all had user information hacked. Adobe (best known for PhotoShop) lost over 150 MILLION user information to hackers.

Thankfully there is an easy solution to check if your email information has been compromised. http://haveibeenpwned.com/  covers many of the companies. It only asks for your email account and you do not have to give it any other information. When you enter your account it immediately tells you if you are safe or if you need to change your passwords.

I hope this has helped.

Windows Password Hack

I was asked for the simplest way to hack a computer that had password protection. There are actually many reasons that a person would need this and many of them are actually legal. Just a hint, if you plan on using this for any illegal activity then you are simply a moron that needs to get a life.

The software you will need is called Ophcrack and you can download it free HERE.

I would suggest that you use the "liveCD" version.

Now get ready, this is NOT difficult.

1) Download the software
2) Burn to a CD
3) Set the computer you wish to Hack to boot from a CD. This can usually be found in the BIOS/CMOS setting of your computer.
4) Boot off the CD you burned
5) Choose graphical interface
6) Wait any where from 1 minute to 20 minutes and you will have the password.

Pros

• Software is free for download online
• Passwords are recovered automatically using the LiveCD method
• No software installation is necessary to recover passwords
• No knowledge of any existing passwords is needed
• Ophcrack works with Windows 7, Windows Vista, and Windows XP

Cons

• Passwords with more then 14 characters can not be cracked.

This is a great piece of software but PLEASE use only as a responsible adult would.

To You Know Who

Leave me alone.... it has been long enough.

We are over and have been for years. I am happily married and just want you to leave me alone.



Keep pushing me and this blog goes live again.

I Can Get Your Social Security Number

 

This blog is NOT intended to be used for ANY illegal usage, this particular article is to be a warning to the reader and the need to keep private information private. 

As I scan the dark side of the internet looking for information for my different publications I keep running into something that seem obvious yet is hidden in plain sight. Identity thieves and hackers value a Social Security Number above most things. We, the honest folk, stupidly give them enough information so they can in a few minutes have everything they need to get our number 80%+ of the time without us every knowing it or even being able to verify that someone has been snooping.

Facebook, Tumblr, Myspace..... thanks, you gave me most of what I need to know.

Follow the steps

The SSN is made up of nine digits

I need two pieces of information from you
1) Your date of birth. Most people give this out without thinking
2) Where you were born. Once again nothing to hide.


To simplify matters (but not necessarily needed) the last 4 digits of your SSN. Think about how many times you give that out. You do it on websites, all types of applications and just about any and every where. We do this because we think the last four digits are not enough to do us any harm.

There are fine tuned algorithms that will fill in the first 5 digits and rougher ones that will get the last 4 digits (if you have not already given them away) at a fairly high percentage rate.

 An example of the problems that could happen would be a credit card verification service, they recognize the challenges of data entry from illegible forms and usually allow up to two digits of the SSN to be wrong even giving multiple attempts before black listing an IP address. You would assume that they would use a higher protection scheme then just an IP address verification (they are out there) but most if not all do not employ the measurements you would expect.

A good bot computer can go through create and verify 40-60  social security numbers a MINUTE. This is not good news for us average folk. Keep your birth date, place you were born and if older where you applied for your SSN private..... otherwise you may not be so happy one day.



I purposefully left off this blog where you can get the software to do this. My readers are honest people and frankly we do not break the law.

Back Up Your Facebook Account

There comes a time when you realize that your Facebook account holds many things that are important to you. There are pictures, friends list and private messages that you really would not want to lose. I personally needed to find old inbox notes and wall posts so that I could start legal proceeding against a woman who had been stalking me for over a year. The nice thing about this system of back-up is that even if you have blocked someone or they have blocked you the information is still there.

This is the easy and Facebook approved way of saving all of the information that has become your "virtual" life.

1) Under the menu under "Account" Click "Account Settings"

2) Click "Learn More" beside "Download Your Information"

3) You will then be asked to verify your password

4) After verifing your password it will give you the opportunity to download your Facebook account.

It may take awhile for Facebook to format your information and you may have to check back a little later. This does give you access to your old pictures, posts and notes and most everything.

Facebook Friends Informaion

Have you ever wondered who rejected your friend request or who mysteriously dropped off you friends list? This is a simple solution to find out.

You need to be running Firefox web browser.

Click here and install Greasemonkey.

After you have installed Greasemonkey and restarted your browser

Click here and install Facebook Friends Checker

That is it.... nothing more to do.

When the script detects that someone you used to be friends with is no longer one of your friends, a message will appear informing you about who it was and giving you a link to their profile page. The script checks by default once per hour when on Facebook, but this time can be increased through

Tools >
Greasemonkey >
User script commands... >
Set time interval to check for removed friends.

It is really a nice thing to have and use.

Free Proxy Software

If you are hacking, snooping or just wanting to hide your tracks on the internet then you should us Proxy Software to change your IP address. Your IP address is recorded on any website you visit (including this one). I have had people who get upset that they can be traced when visiting a website but the fact is EVERY website can and does do this.

1. Click Hotspot Shield to get your free anonymous proxy server.

2. Go to www.whatismyip.com and check your IP Address.

3. Now, install Hotspot shield software on your computer.

4. After installation, run Hotspot shield and the free proxy software will open itself in a default browser. Then, the software will connect with fastest available anonymous proxy server.

5. Now, go to www.whatismyip.com site again and check your IP address. You will see it has changed.

Disabling Hotspot Shield is even simple. Disabling is achieved by going to Hotspot shield icon in taskbar, right clicking and selecting Disconnect/OFF.

It is as simple as that. You are now anonymous and can search the web with less likely hood of being seen.