Just spotted
an article about the new security requirements for a
DigiD. A DigiD is an online username password for (secure (??)) communication with the government. The ID is also used for filling in your taxforms and submitting them online.
I was, and still am, not in favor of a username and password for communication with the government. Username and password is a very weak form of authenticating people. Especially when those usernames and passwords can be used for identity theft.
Now there are
additional security requirements for having a DigiD. It seems that they require a unique phone number (a cellphone) for non basic services. At this moment there are multiple entries in their database which share the same phone number..... What's wrong with that? I don't own a cell phone. The cell phone I have is owned by my boss. I'm not using this phone number for this ID, because this phone can be used by my colleagues. Same for my wife. That leaves us with the phone number from my good-old analog (non SMS enabled) phone. That's one phone number for two people.... I guess that means that I'll be doing my tax returns the old-fashioned way.. by paper.
Hamachi is a great tool of connecting to your server / PC at home while you are on the road (or at work). The program allows you to create a Virtual Network between (configurable) clients without the need of opening ports in your DLS/Cable modem or router [
screenshots].
I use Hamachi at home where I can access my servers as if it were on the same network.
After a long beta period, they finally released an official final
1.0.1.1 version of this tool (available for Windows,
OSX). If you need some tool for administrating servers on a 'shielded' network, this is the tool to use. Another practical use is for remote assistance for family or friends. Just have them install Hamachi, and when ever they are in need of any assistance, they launch their Hamachi client and you can access their PC for troubleshooting.
How Hamachi Works
Hamachi is a UDP-based virtual private networking system. Its peers utilize the help of a third node called a mediation server to locate each other and to bootstrap the connection between them. The connection itself is direct and once it is established no traffic flows through our servers.
Hamachi is not just truly peer-to-peer; it is verifiably secure peer-to-peer.
Believe it or not, but we are able to successfully mediate p2p connections in roughly 95% of all cases we have dealt with so far. This includes peers residing behind various firewalls or broadband routers (aka NAT devices). It is high-tech and it is really cool :)
Don't worry about other people getting in, because the Hamachi client needs to run, you need to know the name of the created network, AND you need to know the password created for that network.
In the older FireFox versions (<2.0), it was possible to allow cookies from sites you visit, but to disallow cookies which do not originate from that site (e.g. advertisements etc.). These cookies makes it possible for the advertising sites to track your movements on the Internet (amongst other things).
Somehow, the FireFox developers removed that functionality from the user interface, and it seems to be disabled by default. It can be enabled by using the
about:config command (just type it in the URL bar in FF).
This opens the
registry/configuration of FireFox.
Search the config for
network.cookie.cookieBehavior (you can search by using the filter), and set the value to "1" (without the quotes).
