what security programs do you use?

[|iR|Focalor]

Does pulling the BIOS battery & shorting out the battery connections on the MB still erase the BIOS info (including password)? 

I dunno, does it? I would think if you effectively erased the BIOS data, then the motherboard is basically a useless paperweight until you get one of those bios chip thingymajiggers to reflash the BIOS data to it with another computer. Anyone who knows enough to know that will erase the chip probably won't want to do that because of what it will do.

I think he just doesn't want mom and pop seeing whatever it is, and chances are he probably knows a little more about computers than they do. Problem is, if it's a computer other people in the house have to use sometimes, then locking the whole thing out with a bios password isn't a viable solution.

[VaeVictis]

if you pull the cmos battery and let it sit for a little bit (just like 30 seconds) it should clear all your bios settings

[QwazyWabbit]

Did anyone read the original post? It's a shared computer. Setting a BIOS password is not a valid solution. External drive might be a solution but you have to purge the temp folder and shortcuts after each use and it doesn't cover browsers. The only viable solution is separate user accounts, then every user has a separate desktop and profile and nobody interferes with anybody else. Simple, let the OS do the job it was designed to do, same as Linux. Only the Admin of the computer can cross over into other users spaces, same as Linux.

[|iR|Focalor]

Did anyone read the original post? It's a shared computer.

Apparently you didn't read it. He never says its a shared computer, just that he leaves it on with others in the house.

[Krlll Mule]

The cipher was developed independently from any NSA twiddling, unlike DES, so there is little cause to think NSA has a backdoor.

           

With all due respect Wabbit, you are quite naive.  

Have you not noticed the integration of spook agencies and companies like Google, Microsoft, Facebook, etc.?  Every keystroke is run through some system.  Don't fret, it's all to keep you safe.

[QwazyWabbit]

I had a cousin at NSA. He was involved in the breaking of the Japanese code as a traffic analyst in the navy during WWII. I got to hear a first-person, eye-witness account of the how they determined that AF was Midway. He was promoted up the ranks and eventually attended the Naval War College, one of the rare times a former enlisted man and non-Anapolis-graduated officer has done so. He eventually retired as a Captain. We had a discussion several years ago about codes and cryptography before he passed away. One of the hardest problems facing agencies like NSA today is the PKI and the availability of good crypto in the hands of the common man. Not because of what the common man might be hiding, they really don't care about our porn collections, but what it does to traffic analysis. If every message is encrypted it becomes impossible to discern traffic that is meaningless to their mission versus traffic they should be interested in.

[reaper]

You can't export certain cryptography, but they can click save as, and no one will ever know.  Even if they save the jibberish data, what does it matter if the source can't be traced.