webLOGfor.US

    I just wanted to drop a line in to say Hi to everyone and show I am surviving my CISSP Boot Camp here in Virginia.  We're obviously going over quite a lot of material in a very short amount of time.  These past 2 days we've covered 3 of the 10 Domains.  I now have Information Security and Risk Management, Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery, and Cryptography under my belt.  

    I'm getting conflicting feelings about if I know the material or not.  I'm scoring horribly on the questions in between the chapters.  However if I go to CCCure.org and take one of the CISSP practice test there I am scoring in the 100% range.  I'm not sure which one is a more accurate representation of the 6 hour test I will be taking.  If anyone out there has any ideas or suggestions please post a comment or send me a message via the Contact page.

    I take the exam on Sunday.  Wish me luck! 

    Once I have completed the course I'll post some of my notes and study materials (non-copyrighted of course) for you to peruse in case you're interested.   

    Currently there is no tax on Internet Access in the United States.  This moratorium on Internet taxes, which first appeared in 1998, has been extended several times, with the last extension granted in 2004.  This moratorium is set to expire November 1 of this year.  If it expires, states and other municipalities could put in place a variety of access taxes, similar to those on telephone bills.

    There has been a measure filed to extend the moratorium for four more years.  Without this extension, some say there could be a tax on email or dial-up or broadband connections.  

    In addition Congress is considering a plan to dip into Americans' wallets, develop a new tax system intended to create a "level playing field" for shoppers, businesses and governments, and help states collect sales taxes not being charged on many Internet purchases.

    Let your Congressmen and Senators know how you feel about taxing the Internet.

    Read more about it here.

web log for us – those that feel the Internet should remain a tax-free shopping place.

    I've been reading a lot lately about the launch of Google's StreetView.  If you have not yet experienced StreetView, here is a link to a StreetView of the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco.  The technology that Google is using is quite impressive.  They have roving vans that have 360 degree cameras mounted on their top (see pic on right) that snap images of everything they pass.

     As expected, Google has faced tons of feedback stating that this is a privacy violation.  Google is a company that has prided itself on a do no evil approach to life and business.  They are heavily into the green movement with using solar power for their offices and data center, they pay a lot of attention to making sure that their employees have great benefits, etc. and overall try to keep a good image of themselves.  With a company that has such regard for their employees and the earth, how could they have such disregard to the public?

     The Google Street View idea is great.  As with all great things, it's a double edged sword.  You can do good things with it and you can do bad things with it.  Since Google initiated this effort, and they are the innovators in the field they should take responsibility on making sure it is implemented property.

     Google however, has taken the same stand on these items as they have with items on Youtube or in their search engine.  "Tell us it's there and we will remove it".  I can understand that point for copyrighted items.  After all, if you own the copyright to "War and Peace" all you need to do is search for a few lines of the text to find relevant items.  Similar searches can be made for television programs, songs and downloadable games.  How can a person find a picture of themselves that was taken by a van driving around the streets of a city?  Google could have taken the process a bit farther and blurred out the faces of people.

     A few examples of the pictures that have been taken are below. There is one story I read where a woman looked up her work area only to find a snapshot of her car pulling into her work parking lot.  That item seems perfectly innocent unless you take into account she knows that the parking lot shown is one she never uses.  The picture was snapped on a day where she came into work 2 hours late.

     I won't even go into the whole rationale that terrorists can now see any target they want to plan their attacks.  Want to see Madison Square Garden?  Here it is.

     Than again, you could always ask yourself….how much is that kitty in the window?

     Even TV shows blur out the license plate's of cars they show on Television.

     Honey, what did you do on your lunch hour today?

    On the plus side.  I can see how this can be beneficial to those in the Real Estate market.  You can at least do an initial scouting of a neighborhood long before making a trip out to seethe physical property!

web log for us – those that can see both sides to anything. 

    As with many things in life, I try to re-use as much information as possible.  Leveraging is important with information as it is with money.  I am of the complete mindset that while I may be an innovator and leader in my small piece of the real world, I am not when it comes to the rest of humanity.  Someone somewhere has run into the same problem/situation/event/etc that I have somewhere else.  If I am lucky, they have posted about it on the Internet.

    I consider one of my strong points the ability to find information on a topic, read that information, assimilate it and apply it to my own situations.  It was in one of these quests where I came across a document that was in Word 2003 format that had the read only password protection turned on.  I could not cut, copy, or change any of the text of the document.  Needless to say there was a good bit of information that I thought was worthwhile and could be reused in what I was doing in this document.  I needed to find a way to remove the read only password from the Word 2003 document.  After a bit of research on the Internet I came across this tiny tidbit of information.  Here are the instructions in case you ever find yourself in the same situation.

Note that this is only for the read only password protection of Word files with Word XP or 2003.  If the password is for the opening of the file, this will not work.

1. Make a backup copy of the document.  that way if it gets all corrupted you still have the original you can read.
2. Change the document to view it in HTML code.  You can do this by  pressing the ALT+SHIFT+F11 keys together
3. Hit the F3 key and search for the word "password" (without quotes)
• You should find something like this:
• <w:DocumentProtection>ReadOnly</w:DocumentProtection>
• <w:UnprotectPassword>1602952A</w:UnprotectPassword>
4. Delete these two lines
5. Save the document
6. Close the HTML editor and the word document
7. When you next open the document the password should be off.  if not you have one more step.
8. Go to Tools –> Unprotect Document

There you have it.  If you have any questions, let me know.  Good luck.

web log for us – those that know the answer is out there….somewhere