CyberCoyote - December 11, 2008

NEWS and NOTES
Social Security

I'll admit I had my doubts, but Jim Pavletich (Social Security Administration) gave us an enthusiastic presentation on all the many facets of retirement benefits, ranging form signing up, to benefit payments, to Medicare. There are many fine points for getting the most out of the programs. The best resources are online [www.socialsecurity.gov], but you can call them at 1-800-772-1213 as well.

Medicare is not actually a part of the Social Security Administration. You sign up through the SSA, but after that your account is with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Service (CMS) [www.cms.gov], which is a branch of US Department of Health & Human Services. Confused yet?

"Part D", the Medicare prescription drug coverage may be the most confusing coverage. The Arizona Area Agency On Aging [www.aaaphx.org or 602-264-2255] may be the best place to start for assistance with this benefit. You snowbirds may also need to contact your specific State Health Insurance Assistance Program (SHIP) in your home state for counseling to combat the confusion. {sorry}

One final note: www.socialsecurity.com, www.ssa.com, www.ssa.net, etc. are not genuine Social Security sites. Don't give them your personal information unless you're darn sure you know what you're doing.

Surprise guide

"SIGNONSURPRISE.COM is a local community guide that provides a one stop resource to residents and visitors of the Surprise community. Our useful and easy to use website makes researching local business services and products, community groups, and events as simple as a click of a button." [movies] [news] -- a Dudley find

TECH NOTE
Skype follow up

Has anybody besides Jim Wolfe tried Skype since Bob Talley's demo? I thought not. I've been idly thinking about it (actually for a few years). Then I ran across a nice step-by-step guide in Slate magazine. The focus is on voice, but it seems like a good place to start doing something with Skype.

SECURITY
Watch those thumbs

The ubiquity of thumb drives (flash drives) has not escaped the attention of malware writers. It's dead simple to plant an autoplay.ini file along with your virus or other infectious agent, and the instant your victim inserts the thumb drive, her computer will be infected.

The scenario might go like this: She plugs her thumb drive into a friends computer to download a file or two. His computer is infected but he is clueless. The malware on his computer jumps to her thumb drive, and she takes it home. She plugs her thumb drive into her computer, and presto, autoplay injects the malware into her computer.

Updated in light of new information: Since Windows trusts anything you plug into a optical (CD/DVD) drive or USB port, you have very little built-in defense against autorun attacks. VIPRE provides generic defense against Autorun attacks and would be a convenient way to defend against attacks. Another answer is to disable autoplay entirely.

There's a downside to the latter option. With autoplay disabled, when you try to play a CD or DVD, or start something like a presentation from a thumb drive, nothing will happen. You'll need to open Windows Explorer, and double-click or "open" the file that autoplay was supposed to run for you. If you don't know which one it is, just open the autoplay.ini file with Notepad and see what file is named there. That's the one to run.

ODDS and ENDS
Anthropomorphic photography

I'm sure you'll "get it". But just in case. :-)

Transition

The aging of presidents.

That's all, folks.