Version 1.30
It's important to look for good information. You can depend on false advertising laws and comment sections to keep you from getting dangerous information, most of the time. However, one can still charge $50 for a crappy book, and those that buy these books immediately run out and post 5-star ratings on websites such as amazon.com. The people that write those 5-star ratings can be deluded by the 'buy in value' discussed later or just plain ignorant. Some of the most recent fads that I have seen are the 'Russian warrior' and the Kettle bell fads. It's important to realize that without steroids, strength training is a slow and moderate exercise. If you want to get 'buff' your probably better off dropping to 8% body fat then you are lifting things. Now, if you want to be able to lift your body off the ground, run, jump, and swim like an athlete, then the techniques have already been developed. It's just a matter of finding them. Here are some rules on how to avoid scummy books.
-Read the '1-star' reviews first
The 4 and 5 star reviews are going to be sparkle eyed newbies who have just discovered weight training. They are so excited with their new commitment to fitness that it makes them feel good by recommending, (bragging), to others. However about 50% will drop out in the next month, but their post will still be there, shining the path to a new generation of one month fitness gurus.
Reading the lower levels gives you some idea about what the book or video lacks. It's also smart for a more logical reason: There is no such thing as a 5-star book. Okay, well maybe there is, but if it exists, the statistical probability that it was written in the last 2 years is very unlikely. The one star level of review can almost be pessimistic, but your comparing the tier one levels of a bunch of books, looking objectively at the dissatisfaction. You should not taking a straight number of dissenters, since the publishing dates and thus the number of reviews can vary.
-Avoid Russian, warrior, and 'old world'. While there may be many incredible Russian body builders out there, everything that they know probably comes from exercises shared by the world. There isn't anything incredibly genetically diverse about Russians so the same exercises that work over there, work over here. Plus, someone may have explained how to do those exercises better in English, over here. Russian bodybuilding seems to be the most current fad, and fads are bad!
There is one exception to the warrior rule, Bruce Lee, Bruce Lees books are an excellent addition to your normal martial arts class. His books mainly teach the philosophy of self improvement. He dictates that you should note your body type before beginning any training. Bruce Lee was a short and stringy God of martial arts. If your a tall and chunky naive of the internet, you might take his training exercises with a grain of salt, which is exactly what Bruce Lee recommends. He isn't a God of Martial Arts and fitness for nothing!
Leonardo Davinchi was an awesome man. If you want to be like him adopt his scientific curiosity, not his exercise routine. There's no reason to do an old world style of body building. You can study Davinchi's methods for creating such a system, and make your own, with the benefit of modern day knowledge of nutrition and another ~600 years of improvement on techniques.
-Don't buy in
You know those commercials on the TV and internet. Buy my new procedure and/or exercise machine and you'll have great results! Well there is some psychology to those commercials the first of which is impulse buying. When you buy on impulse, very rarely do you get the best. On top of that you tend to pay more. However, you would feel really bad if you admitted that to yourself, so humans will say the craziest things just because they got suckered out of $150. The best way to not buy in is to find someone that has and use their stuff. Make sure they aren't around to tell you how great their $200 ball of iron duct taped to a stick is, it will influence your analysis. Then you just ask yourself, "What does it do, how well does it do it."
Monday, July 23, 2007
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
True Crypt, A powerful Hard drive encryption tool
Version 1.22
Encrypt, Encrypt, Encrypt.
The freedom to keep personal data out of the hands of those that wish us harm is not a right, and that is why you need to choose secure data storage and good keys for that storage.
Truecrypt is by far the best open source tool that I have seen for encrypting individual files and entire hard drives. It works well on Windows and Linux OS and has manageable transfer rates. There are some strict rules however about intrusion to consider. The first thing to remember is that if someone can gain access to your box remotely they can access your encrypted hard drive. The encryption only works if for you when the drive is unmounted. If you think someone may gain remote access to your computer while your working you need more security, not better encryption. Even if you don't mount your hard drive regularly, the danger of remote attacks still means that keyboard hooks built into the kernel might betray your every keystroke. Once an intruder has that level of access it's easy enough to download your files, including your encrypted hard drive file and your keyfile.
Thus beyond keeping your computer secure from the internet there are three objects you must secure in order for your encryption scheme to work properly.
The first is your key file.
Your password is much too small to reliably encrypt gigabytes of data. Thus a keyfile is used to safely store, encrypt, the master key which can be megabytes in size. The password and the keyfile form the master key that unlocks the data. However, it's important to remember that the keyfile and password come together to produce the master key so it's vulnerable to this attack. If Eve gains access to Bob's system while the encrypted file system is not loaded, She can still get a hold of his keyfile. When someone has your keyfile, your master key is still safe, that is until they get your password. They've only stolen a locked box. Eve's advantage in downloading the keyfile is that if Bob changes his keyfile his master key remains the same. There is now a duplicate key in Eve's box! Thus, if Eve gets a hold of an old keyfile and the old password, she could compromise the system because she retrieved the master key. Simply changing your password and keyfile does not change the master encryption key. So remember, the priority is to keep the masterkey out of the hands of the intruder. If you give Eve a copy of the locked box, she is one step closer to having the master key. If you think you've been severely compromised, you have to create a new hard drive and copy all of the files over to this new hard drive. The simplest way to keep your keyfiles secure is to keep your keyfiles on a USB drive or cd only used at the mounting of the hard drive. You can even get creative and have a script that mounts the hard drive using the keyfile when you plug in the device. Like a key to your house or car, except with a 14 character password to boot. You can simply mount it then stick that 5$ 128mb USB drive on a shelf.
The second thing you need to secure is your encrypted drive. The advantage of the encrypted hard drive is that it is one singular file that unless complete is useless. This means that if we make our Hard Drive file large, it will be more difficult to steal remotely. One will have to have physical access to the machine.
The third and arguably most important is to keep your password secure. Also, it is important to mention that your TrueCrypt password needs to be very large. 20 or more characters. While it's possible to use a very strong 16 or 20 characters it is difficult to memorize 20 random characters. A common way around this problem is to find a good technical manual and a line that has capital and lowercase letters, numbers, and special characters like:
int *p = numbers + 2; // An iterator that starts at numbers[2]
Then roll a 20 sided dice (12) and chop off either the end or the beginning.
int *p = numbers + 2; // An iterator that starts a
Now you can put this book on the shelf and remember the pg number (300). After a while you will memorize the password. If your extra paranoid you should change it by then.
Required Further Reading:
http://www.truecrypt.org/
http://www.truecrypt.org/docs/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt_(cryptography)
http://www.truecrypt.org/docs/security-precautions.php
Encrypt, Encrypt, Encrypt.
The freedom to keep personal data out of the hands of those that wish us harm is not a right, and that is why you need to choose secure data storage and good keys for that storage.
Truecrypt is by far the best open source tool that I have seen for encrypting individual files and entire hard drives. It works well on Windows and Linux OS and has manageable transfer rates. There are some strict rules however about intrusion to consider. The first thing to remember is that if someone can gain access to your box remotely they can access your encrypted hard drive. The encryption only works if for you when the drive is unmounted. If you think someone may gain remote access to your computer while your working you need more security, not better encryption. Even if you don't mount your hard drive regularly, the danger of remote attacks still means that keyboard hooks built into the kernel might betray your every keystroke. Once an intruder has that level of access it's easy enough to download your files, including your encrypted hard drive file and your keyfile.
Thus beyond keeping your computer secure from the internet there are three objects you must secure in order for your encryption scheme to work properly.
The first is your key file.
Your password is much too small to reliably encrypt gigabytes of data. Thus a keyfile is used to safely store, encrypt, the master key which can be megabytes in size. The password and the keyfile form the master key that unlocks the data. However, it's important to remember that the keyfile and password come together to produce the master key so it's vulnerable to this attack. If Eve gains access to Bob's system while the encrypted file system is not loaded, She can still get a hold of his keyfile. When someone has your keyfile, your master key is still safe, that is until they get your password. They've only stolen a locked box. Eve's advantage in downloading the keyfile is that if Bob changes his keyfile his master key remains the same. There is now a duplicate key in Eve's box! Thus, if Eve gets a hold of an old keyfile and the old password, she could compromise the system because she retrieved the master key. Simply changing your password and keyfile does not change the master encryption key. So remember, the priority is to keep the masterkey out of the hands of the intruder. If you give Eve a copy of the locked box, she is one step closer to having the master key. If you think you've been severely compromised, you have to create a new hard drive and copy all of the files over to this new hard drive. The simplest way to keep your keyfiles secure is to keep your keyfiles on a USB drive or cd only used at the mounting of the hard drive. You can even get creative and have a script that mounts the hard drive using the keyfile when you plug in the device. Like a key to your house or car, except with a 14 character password to boot. You can simply mount it then stick that 5$ 128mb USB drive on a shelf.
The second thing you need to secure is your encrypted drive. The advantage of the encrypted hard drive is that it is one singular file that unless complete is useless. This means that if we make our Hard Drive file large, it will be more difficult to steal remotely. One will have to have physical access to the machine.
The third and arguably most important is to keep your password secure. Also, it is important to mention that your TrueCrypt password needs to be very large. 20 or more characters. While it's possible to use a very strong 16 or 20 characters it is difficult to memorize 20 random characters. A common way around this problem is to find a good technical manual and a line that has capital and lowercase letters, numbers, and special characters like:
int *p = numbers + 2; // An iterator that starts at numbers[2]
Then roll a 20 sided dice (12) and chop off either the end or the beginning.
int *p = numbers + 2; // An iterator that starts a
Now you can put this book on the shelf and remember the pg number (300). After a while you will memorize the password. If your extra paranoid you should change it by then.
Required Further Reading:
http://www.truecrypt.org/
http://www.truecrypt.org/docs/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt_(cryptography)
http://www.truecrypt.org/docs/security-precautions.php
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