Sarah Learns Cyber Security (Part 1 - Passwords And TextSecure?)

Sarah Learns Cyber Security (Part 1 - Passwords and TextSecure?)

In my hands I hold a weapon of mass destruction and madness, a tool that only a few short years ago was every science fiction movie’s wet dream.

I own a smart phone. (LG Nexus 4, running Android 4.3 Jelly Bean) Now I kinda hope that people who know more than me will read this and maybe throw me a bone. And I kinda hope that people who know less than me will read this and perhaps reconsider their own security practices.

I am terrified of my cell phone. I’m not scared of cancer or radiation or that my head will explode while pumping gas. But I am very, very afraid for my safety.

And perhaps the biggest problem is that I want to have my cake and eat it too.

I want to be social and take awesome selfies with my friends on my adventures. I want to be able to quickly check my bank account so I can discreetly see if I can grab dinner with my friends. I want to be able to look up a map for new places to check out or directions when I am lost.

But I also want to be safe. I don’t want to inadvertently become an accessory to a crime because I was geotagged in a location while on a photo adventure. I don’t want my financial information stolen from me, or my location broadcast to predators. Or anyone for that matter. It freaks me out that Google knew within a week that I had left my last job.

Maybe I watch too much Person Of Interest. But what scares me the most about that show is how dead on it is. It’s not that hard to get people’s information, most people give it away willingly, and there is a Machine. It’s called Google. But watching this show really opened my eyes to how blind I’ve been and how ignorant I am when it comes to my own safety.

The fact is, I don’t feel safe with my phone. I am terrified of this thing. I am so scared every time I check my Facebook, or send a text message. These scenarios I describe are not worst case scenarios. These are common, real life situations that are not that difficult to accomplish.

When ATM’s first became a thing, my mom was terrified of them and refused to use them. It took some hard core convincing on my dad’s part to convince her that it was okay. I remember telling Ocean the following story:

“Like, I don’t get it. My mom is a computer scientist project manager who’s afraid of an ATM. How lame is that?”

His response: “Your mom was afraid because she’s smart and her fear was not irrational at all.”

And now here I am, the next generation of paranoia, and it’s my cell phone that I am trying to avoid using.

I am thisclose to selling my smartphone, and jumping back on the CDMA network with a talk and text phone. CDMA is way more secure than HSPA. (One of many reasons why it’s considerably slower.) But knowledge is power and I see many people I look up to using their smart phones. Professional hackers, cyber security experts, mobile security experts, military and police personnel, developers… they are not afraid of their phones. And if they can feel safe using their phones, then maybe with some knowledge, I can feel safe using mine too.

It’s not that I have anything to hide (well, perhaps a few questionable pictures), but rather the fact that I feel like my life isn’t my own. I feel like I can be blackmailed or made very, very vulnerable by an inanimate object and that’s scary to me.

Step 1 - encrypt phone… I don’t really know how this works, but encryption is good, right? Sounds legit. Seriously. I know what encryption is, but how this works to keep me safer, I’m still not really sure.

Step 2 - password protect that shit. When I still worked in mobile sales, I used to cringe every time someone would hand me a phone with no password. In fact, if you do nothing else, put a password on your phone. (Thank you Ocean for drilling that one into my head a year ago.)

Step 3 - turn off GPS, Bluetooth, NFC, Wi-Fi when you are not using them. My resurgence of smart phone paranoia started again when I was messaging someone over Facebook and all of a sudden, I saw that it was also messaging my GPS co-ordinates and a handy dandy little map of where I’m messaging from. It’s a damn good thing I know him and trust him.

Step 4 - Realize that you don’t trust Facebook’s ever changing privacy policy because you don’t understand it, change the password on your phone, go in and remove location permissions *again* because Facebook seems to find some way to reinstate those without my knowledge far too often for my liking. Start messaging this guy over email.

Passwords are supposed to be the key to our safety. The cliff notes crash course on passwords… the longer, the better. The more you mix up, numbers, special characters, capital and lower case letters, the safer you’ll be. And have a different, unrelated password for everything. Great fantastic advice. Now back to the real world for a moment… how the hell am I supposed to remember all these passwords and still be safe? AAAHHHHHH!!!!!!!

Step 5 - Install TextSecure. All my security smart friends are using it, so it must be legit. Almost lose my shit when half of my text messages stop sending properly. Lose ability to send multimedia messages. Hand phone to Amadeus and say “fix it!!!!!” Regain ability to text him, but no longer able to text Smile or Wink. Wait until next morning to have Wink walk me through what happened, why it stopped working and how to fix it. Smile has zero issues with the installation of his app or sending and receiving messages between TextSecure users.

I think that maybe a huge part of this is that I just don’t understand how the technology works. Even with the safe practices I have put in place, I really am mostly following what I see the people at the hacker space doing with their phones, watching Person Of Interest and trying to do the opposite.

And after all of this, if my phone is safe and yours is not, then we’re all at risk. God, I almost feel safer having unprotected sex with strangers. Or in this technology revolution that we are living in, is our ignorant smart phone use equivalent to the sexual revolution of the 60’s? Will this be all fun and games until people start to get seriously hurt and we all have no choice but to scream out “for god’s sake wear a fucking condom!”.

One day in the future, my kids will be sitting there telling their friends, “Oh my god, like, my mom is a computer scientist security expert who’s scared of her own phone. How lame is that?”

And I will totally deserve that one.

So I will now also publicly say, Mom you were right to be scared of the ATM. You were right and I was wrong, you can now sing the “I was right” song.

Also, I think my next step is to learn more about what encryption is and how it works. And passwords. There must be a magic trick to remembering safe passwords.

Learning to Love Yourself

We tend to focus on looking for love, hoping for love, and waiting for love. Yet if we look to others to meet that basic need then we’ll always be empty and unfulfilled.

That is, for others to love us in a healthy way, we must first be able to nurture ourselves … and to love and honour who we truly are. The steps below can help you work towards this goal.

1. Decide to treat others with love and respect: As you seek to bring joy into others’ lives you’ll find that they repay you with kindness and love.

2. Practice random acts of kindness: “Play it forward” by doing random thoughtful things. That will turn you into someone you respect yourself – and you’ll also find that others are more generous to you.

3. Let go of the past: What happened in the past is merely history now. Today is a new day, and you are starting a new page. Let go of disappointments, hurts and any grievances you hold against yourself, other people – or the world!

4. Forgive yourself: We all make mistakes, or we regret some bad decisions. Don’t ridicule, berate or criticise yourself for that. Instead, forgive whatever happened, and give yourself a break. It simply means you’re human – and are not infallible.

5. Practice positive self-talk: Write down and repeat affirming statements and truths … like “I am gifted” … or “I’m a true and loyal friend”. Post these statements on the mirror and repeat them to yourself.

6. Think through what you really want in life – You can carve out your own path and you choose your own destiny. Your life is a gift and you can choose what you will do.

7. Be persistent: Work wholeheartedly at loving yourself. If you’ve suffered in the past then be compassionate. Be ready to acknowledge and work through your pain. You deserve that respect – and it will help to set you free.

8. Celebrate your accomplishments: It’s easy to ignore or to downplay what we have done – but don’t be blind to your successes and accomplishments. They ought to be acknowledged as they’re part of who you are.

9. Think of someone you want to be like and emulate them: Doing that will build those qualities into your life as well – so it is easier to like, love and accept yourself.

10. Be yourself and trust yourself: Be true to yourself – and don’t care what others think. Learn to trust your instincts and to follow your own heart. Also, learn it’s OK to say “no” and to do your own thing … And you don’t have to feel guilty for not pleasing everyone.

11. Don’t compare yourself to others: Every person on the planet is different and unique. We all have different talents and different histories. Discover who YOU are and then invest in being you!

12. Work on receiving love: When someone pays you a compliment or tries to show you love, don’t quickly brush it off – but try and see it as a gift. That is, a gift that shows you’ve value and are loved, and loveable.

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mydickneedscpr

11 years ago

8 Incredibly Effective Total-Body Exercises. Try These For A Month See Every Muscle In Your Body Get

8 Incredibly Effective Total-Body Exercises. Try these for a month see every muscle in your body get defined. Do 3 times a week 15-25 reps with 30 seconds break in between. Repeat 2-3 times as you get stronger.

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mydickneedscpr

7 years ago

Spiritual Alchemy : The Ego

…Excerpt from The Book of Lambspring…

“A savage Dragon lives in the forest, Most venomous he is, yet lacking nothing: When he sees the rays of the Sun and its bright fire, He scatters abroad his poison, And flies upward so fiercely That no living creature can stand before him, Nor is even the Basilisk equal to him. He who hath skill to slay him, wisely Hath escaped from all dangers. Yet all venom, and colours, are multiplied In the hour of his death. His venom becomes the great Medicine. He quickly consumes his venom, For he devours his poisonous tail. All this is performed on his own body, From which flows forth glorious Balm, With all its miraculous virtues. Here at all the Sages do loudly rejoice. “

~~Another long post but please bare with me. This applies to all of us.~~

The Ouroboros is the Dragon biting its own tail. This is a representation of the power of the ego mind and the dissolution of this part of yourself. I find the alchemical viewpoint on the ego flawed to a certain extent.

Ego: is the part of all of us that has been programmed by our subconsciousness/ our upbringing/ our environment. It is the part of us that is in essence who we think we are. This is also the part of us that lives in the lower 3 chakra of survival. These are also where the animal instinct lives.

Alchemical Process: Is to break down the ego. In the explanation above it states “ in the hour of his death” is speaking of the ego. We are told that it is the process of destroying the ego into its base form of spirit. Via working with the elements you impart your spirit into it and in the process of working with the physical you will effect the spiritual. One can also do this via mediation on the Tree of Life. It can be done via the practice of Yoga, also the cleansing and working of chakra.

Now that we see where the ego comes from and the process of destroying it. Lets dive into what that means for us as a collective. The ego is a part of you as much as your hand is. It has learned from its surroundings to make you who you think you are. It is the part of you that wants to be validated. To be right all the time. To feel like it “belongs” to something bigger than itself. It will be the 1st part of you likely to feel slighted or start an argument even though in hindsight it really wasn’t a big deal. It is the animal you that will fight if cornered.

As you can see I am explaining the ego as “IT”, a thing but this is how gurus and sages want you to see it. Although IT is a part of you you can’t just “destroy” the ego, just like you can’t cut off your hand. What happens when you corner an animal? The creature fights back..correct? It’s the same thing with the ego. We can’t destroy it for IT is at the moment YOU. I was under the impression (self taught of course) from spiritual books/youtube that the ego needed to be dissolved. In some cases many teachers mention the destruction of the ego mind. Well what do you think happens when one tries to kill anything with consciousness? It fights back.

This is my experience.

The soul will make attempt after attempt to teach the mind. The mind can’t comprehend spirit since it can’t be explained by the senses. These experiences are seen, by the ego, as being done to us instead of for us. The ego is quick to pass the blame onto another never seeing itself as the cause of the effect.

Here is the main point…. the ego can’t be destroyed but it can be joined. This is the case of the previous emblems of polarity. Joining the heart and mind. The heart can understand spirit and what it is showing, but one needs to watch how one is acting and reflect often on the previous experience.

I never really knew what that meant till spirit showed me. Time after time I was given experience to show me my actions were affecting others. I said to myself “that’s not me” and “I’ve grown” and truth is it was only an excuse. I actually had to agree to myself that it was in fact…ME! I had to take responsibility for my own actions on how I make others feel. You can’t imagine how hard that was. To admit that all my reading and learning was for the edification of my ego. The male power of learning “occult knowledge” did not put into a tangible format something I could understand.

I had to stop and review the past. See how I talk to others. See my reaction and how it was handled. Know that in the moment I used “well I’m being funny” as an excuse to put others down. This was in no way intentional, but the end result was not putting anothers feeling before my own. To turn the other cheek and not make that off color comment. I let the ego run me instead of the other way. I saw it happening but it was like a train wreck. I couldn’t stop it or so I thought.

So the Ego can’t and does not want to die anymore than you want to step in front of a train. We can train the ego through self reflection on how to act. Use the mind at what its good at. Remember how in the past certain bad experiences made you feel. Think about yesterday and how you interacted with others. Tell your mind this is not how we want to act. I know it sounds crazy but your ego and spirit are separated.

The apply the heart. Do unto others as you would have done to you. See that your feelings are an indicator of how others are projecting. Watching every moment now in the present and making the right decision. Even if you feel slighted, it truly is only words and feelings. Now I’m not saying to let abuse happen, but the small things which truly are small in the grand scheme of our daily lives.

One can merge the ego with the spirit. Let what you learn filter into your heart. Let the feeling flow but redirect the anger through the heart and not let the ego answer for you. Be more forgiving, even though you really don’t want to. That resistance is your ego. Don’t destroy/kill/dissolve your ego but let it pass your physical knowledge of your world around into the feeling of love.

The ego does not want to die. So why “kill’ it? Let it work for you and with you. Train it to see the emotion and not react. Let the reaction come from the heart. I found out that we are not supposed to be connected to the universal mind….but be connected to the universal heart! Humans are heart based. We are letting our environment keep us in the animal instinct of survival.

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mydickneedscpr

7 years ago

This Gene-Editing Tech Might Be Too Dangerous To Unleash

With gene drives, scientists are trying to supercharge evolution to eradicate malaria and save endangered species from extinction. But is this DARPA-funded tech safe enough to test in the wild? One of its creators isn't so sure.

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mydickneedscpr

7 years ago