Newsletter of the Potomac Area Technology and Computer Society February 2014 www.patacs.org Page 1 Useful Bits & Pieces—February 2014 By Lorrin R. Garson, PATACS Another Security Threat—CryptoLocker $2 Million Contest It never ends! CryptoLocker is new ransomware which allows cybercriminals to encrypt files on your How are your computer skills? computer and make them unusable until you pay a Are you feeling lucky? DARPA (the Defense Ad- $100-$300 ransom in Bitcoins to the scoundrels to de- vanced Research Projects Agency) is sponsoring a crypt your files. Apparently the villains do decrypt contest to develop an automated mechanism to protect your files, but you can’t depend on it. Infections of the computer networks from attacks; a method that can encryption software are through attachments on e-mail run without the need of human maintenance or inter- (bogus tracking notifications from UPS or FedEx) and vention. See http://www.darpa.mil/NewsEvents/ by clicking on links on some Web sites. The usual pre- Releases/2013/10/22.aspx for details. Incidentally, cautions should be taken in handling e-mail from DARPA (originally named ARPA) was instrumental someone you don’t know and using new and unknown in the development of the Internet. Web sites. Apparently this malicious software can also be spread from computer to computer as well. iPad Air vs. Kindle Fire HDX For more information see http://readwrite.com/2013/11/08/cryptolocker- Which of these two would you expect to have the best prevent-remove- display? Historically Apple has been noted for the eradicate#awesm=~omTXgayBlVxqTn and highest quality display in its products, but in this case, http://www.us-cert.gov/ncas/alerts/TA13-309A. surprisingly, the Kindle is the winner. To quote from SpiceWorks offers a CryptoLocker prevention kit (see http://appleinsider.com/articles/13/11/04/amazons- http://community.spiceworks.com/topic/396103- kindle-fire-hdx-beats-ipad-air-in-display-test, “Most cryptolocker-prevention-kit-updated). impressive of all is the Kindle Fire HDX 8.9, which has leapfrogged into the best performing Tablet dis- play that we have ever tested”. Competition is won- derful! (Continued on page 2) Linux and Open Source News ....................................................... page 3 Evaluating Online Health Information .......................................... page 5 I/O, I/O, It’s Off To Work We Go ................................................. page 7 Are We All Turning Into Magnetic Ink? ....................................... page 8 Goodbye XP ................................................................................. page 10 Internet Alerts Can Keep You Informed ...................................... page 12 Club Notices & Help Wanted .................................... page 14 Page 2 PATACS Posts February 2014 (Continued from page 1) has fallen at an 0.7% annual rate, reflecting Apple's strategy of enhancing its Macintosh family with up- SysTools PST Viewer grades, such as faster processors and superior screens, while maintaining the same price points... In Those who use Microsoft Outlook may find this utility comparison, the average price of a PC has fallen at a useful. Outlook stores its data in .pst files, which in- 4.9% annual rate. Over the 11-year period, then, the cludes e-mail, contacts, calendars, tasks and notes. PST ratio of the average price of a Mac to the price of a Viewer is a freeware tool that allows you to access .pst PC has increased from 1.42 to 2.12... It stands to rea- files to view contents and see if any are corrupted, but son that as the price of an item increases, consumers not edit or export data. It can be downloaded from will buy less of it.” http://www.systoolsgroup.com/pst-viewer.html Corrupt- ed .pst files can be recovered using Outlook Recovery Helium Filled Disk Drive ($49) or Outlook PST Viewer Pro ($69), which can also repair .pst files as well as export content to pdf. HGST (a Western Digital company) is now selling an enterprise-grade disk drive called the Ultrastar Memory of the Future He6 (see http://www.hgst.com/hard-drives/enterprise- hard-drives/enterprise-sas-drives/ultrastar-he6). Micron Technology, Inc. is shipping engineering sam- This is a 6-TB 3.5 inch device. Manufacturers have ples of 2-GB memory modules rated at 160 GB/s. The tried for years to economically create a hermetically theoretical limit of this technology is 320 GB/s. Current sealed, helium-filled hard drive. There are signifi- DDR3 RAM (1,600 MHz) used in many applications, cant advantages in such a drive: (1) helium has including home computers, runs at 12.8 GB/s. This 12- about 1/7th the density of air which results in less 25 increase in speed could have a profound impact on resistance and turbulence of spinning platters, (2) computing. This technology isn’t likely to appear in helium has about 7 times the thermal conductivity of consumer devices for several years. For more infor- air which aids in cooling, and (3) helium is inert un- mation see http://investors.micron.com/ like air which contains oxygen. All this results in a releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=793156 more efficient disk drive that is quieter and runs at a cooler temperature. It’s uncertain when this type of Adobe Seriously Hacked HDD will be found in home computers. Numerous sources, including the “Holiday 2013 edi- Buffalo DriveStation DDR tion” of MaximumPC (pp 9-10), have reported that Ado- be was seriously hacked last October with data on 2.9 This is an unusual external disk drive which comes million customers being compromised. Also source in either 2-TB or 3-TB capacity. What makes it spe- code for Adobe Acrobat, ColdFusion, and ColdFusion cial is the device has a 1-GB of DDR RAM inside Builder was accessed (downloaded?). Historically the enclosure, which provides a dedicated buffer to Adobe Acrobat/Reader has been consistently problemat- the internal disk drive. The result is the DriveStation ic in terms of security with frequent patches being re- DDR provides a remarkable sustained maximum leased. If you use Adobe Acrobat Reader, consider one disk write speed of about 210 MB/sec. This ap- of the following alternatives: Foxit Reader (Windows proaches the speed of some slower solid-state devic- & Linux), Nitro PDF (Windows & Mac), PDF- es, well, until the capacity of the 1-GB RAM is ex- XChange (Windows only), Preview (Mac only), or Su- ceeded. The device is connected using USB 3, matra PDF (Windows only). which as a maximum throughput of 600 MB/sec. However, if the device is connected to a USB 2 port, Price of Apple Computers throughput would be limited to 40 MB/sec. See http://the-gadgeteer.com/2013/09/09/buffalo- Do you think the prices of Apple’s PCs are high com- drivestation-ddr-review/ pared to PCs? Yes, it’s true and the difference is getting greater. The following is quoted from http:// tech.fortune.cnn.com/2013/11/19/apple-mac-charlie- wolf/?iid=SF_F_River “…the average price of a Mac www.patacs.org February 2014 PATACS Posts Page 3 There are five selectable OSM map layers: Standard Linux and Open Source News (default, shows all map features), Cycle Map By Geof Goodrum, Potomac Area (highlight features and services for bicyclists, also Technology and Computer Society see http://www.opencyclemap.org/), Transport Map linux(at)patacs.org (highlight public transportation), MapQuest Open (an open data collaboration with MapQuest), and OpenStreetMap Humanitarian (focus on disaster relief efforts in de- veloping countries). These and others are described There are many online map services to help you find at http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/ places and get around, but most have restrictions on Featured_tiles. reprinting or publishing the maps, particularly with regard to copyrights on the map data itself The OSM Project home page initially displays a (Google Maps http://www.google.com/intl/en_us/ Standard layer map (Europe and the United King- help/terms_maps.html dom), and a welcome window with a location MapQuest http://info.mapquest.com/terms-of-use/, search box (using http://www.geonames.org/, anoth- Microsoft Bing http://www.microsoft.com/maps/ er open data project) in the upper left. Across the product/terms.html) top are menu items for Edit (current map view), History (recent edits to OSM map data), and Export The OpenStreetMap (OSM) Project (download selected map data) along the left, and (http://www.openstreetmap.org) is different. Volun- GPS Traces (GPS data entries), User Diaries, Copy- teers (amateur and professional) worldwide contribute right, Help, About, Log In, and Sign Up. On the to OSM map data under an open data license that al- right side is a toolbar with icons for zoom in and out lows free reuse as long as OSM contributors are cred- of the map view, “Show My Location”, map layer ited (http://www.openstreetmap.org/copyright). Any- selection (also displays checkboxes to show Map one can alter or build upon the data in certain ways, Data and Map Notes), share (create embedded but must distribute the result only under the same li- HTML or a web link to the current map view, or cence. The OSM Project encourages everyone to con- export the view as a graphic file), a map key (only tribute and improve the map data, with an emphasis for the Standard map layer), and a tool to add notes on local knowledge. That is, you probably know more to the map for other mappers to see (useful for indi- about your neighborhood trails, bike paths, businesses, cating map errors or updates). Mouse controls in- road construction, and other map features as they exist clude double left click to zoom in on the map view, today than a cartographer in an office across the coun- and holding the left button while move the mouse to try.