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Don't Let it Into Your Computer!

Your computer is an extremely important piece of technology. It needs to be protected with all that you have because not only is it extremely efficient and useful, but it is also extremely expensive. We all have to work hard to earn the money we have and learning to use it wisely is even more important. If you want to protect your computer and spend a reasonable amount of money doing it, you will need to understand antivirus software and its cost. You will need to work out the benefits and price for each software and find one that suits your needs.

The first thing to look for in a antivirus software is whether it blocks spam or not. Spam and pop up ads are one of the most annoying things to deal with on the computer. Not only are these annoying, but they can be extremely harmful for your computer because clicking on the buttons can lead to harmful websites. There are more hackers than we would like to believe and we need to protect ourselves from having our information stolen. If you sign up for fake deals online you might find yourself getting more spam on your computer. The best antivirus software will help prevent this from happening.

Another thing your software should be capable of doing is ceasing people from tracking which websites you visit on the internet. It is very important that you prevent this at all costs because the intention of those who are tracking you are very unclear. Some marketing companies are simply trying to figure out your shopping habits so they know how to attract you for shopping deals. Others are trying to steal your personal information such as credit card numbers and social security numbers. Identity theft is becoming more dangerous everyday and the best antivirus software will help make sure this never happens to you.

The best antivirus software should also be reasonably priced. You should not have to pay through your nose for something because there are so many companies that are offering you their services. Some are famous for their quality service but they also cheat your for money because you are depending on their name. Make sure you are doing your research well and really considering all of the options. Find the best antivirus software for you because you are the only person who knows how to protect yourself.

Don't Let it Into Your Computer!

Your computer is an extremely important piece of technology. It needs to be protected with all that you have because not only is it extremely efficient and useful, but it is also extremely expensive. We all have to work hard to earn the money we have and learning to use it wisely is even more important. If you want to protect your computer and spend a reasonable amount of money doing it, you will need to understand antivirus software and its cost. You will need to work out the benefits and price for each software and find one that suits your needs.

The first thing to look for in a antivirus software is whether it blocks spam or not. Spam and pop up ads are one of the most annoying things to deal with on the computer. Not only are these annoying, but they can be extremely harmful for your computer because clicking on the buttons can lead to harmful websites. There are more hackers than we would like to believe and we need to protect ourselves from having our information stolen. If you sign up for fake deals online you might find yourself getting more spam on your computer. The best antivirus software will help prevent this from happening.

Another thing your software should be capable of doing is ceasing people from tracking which websites you visit on the internet. It is very important that you prevent this at all costs because the intention of those who are tracking you are very unclear. Some marketing companies are simply trying to figure out your shopping habits so they know how to attract you for shopping deals. Others are trying to steal your personal information such as credit card numbers and social security numbers. Identity theft is becoming more dangerous everyday and the best antivirus software will help make sure this never happens to you.

The best antivirus software should also be reasonably priced. You should not have to pay through your nose for something because there are so many companies that are offering you their services. Some are famous for their quality service but they also cheat your for money because you are depending on their name. Make sure you are doing your research well and really considering all of the options. Find the best antivirus software for you because you are the only person who knows how to protect yourself.

How to get a self signed certificate?

SSL makes use of what is known as asymmetric cryptography, commonly referred to as public key cryptography (PKI). With public key cryptography, two keys are created, one public, one private. Anything encrypted with either key can only be decrypted with its corresponding key. Thus if a message or data stream were encrypted with the server’s private key, it can be decrypted only using its corresponding public key, ensuring that the data only could have come from the server.

If SSL utilizes public key cryptography to encrypt the data stream traveling over the Internet, why is a certificate necessary? The technical answer to that question is that a certificate is not really necessary – the data is secure and cannot easily be decrypted by a third party. However, certificates do serve a crucial role in the communication process. The certificate, signed by a trusted Certificate Authority (CA), ensures that the certificate holder is really who he claims to be. Without a trusted signed certificate, your data may be encrypted; however, the party you are communicating with may not be whom you think. Without certificates, impersonation attacks would be much more common.

Step 1: Generate a Private Key

The openssl toolkit is used to generate an RSA Private Key and CSR (Certificate Signing Request). It can also be used to generate self-signed certificates which can be used for testing purposes or internal usage.

The first step is to create your RSA Private Key. This key is a 1024 bit RSA key which is encrypted using Triple-DES and stored in a PEM format so that it is readable as ASCII text.

Step 2: Generate a CSR (Certificate Signing Request)

Once the private key is generated a Certificate Signing Request can be generated. The CSR is then used in one of two ways. Ideally, the CSR will be sent to a Certificate Authority, such as Thawte or Verisign who will verify the identity of the requestor and issue a signed certificate. The second option is to self-sign the CSR, which will be demonstrated in the next section.

During the generation of the CSR, you will be prompted for several pieces of information. These are the X.509 attributes of the certificate. One of the prompts will be for “Common Name (e.g., YOUR name)”. It is important that this field be filled in with the fully qualified domain name of the server to be protected by SSL. If the website to be protected will be https://public.akadia.com, then enter public.akadia.com at this prompt.

Step 3: Remove Passphrase from Key

One unfortunate side-effect of the pass-phrased private key is that Apache will ask for the pass-phrase each time the web server is started. Obviously this is not necessarily convenient as someone will not always be around to type in the pass-phrase, such as after a reboot or crash. mod_ssl includes the ability to use an external program in place of the built-in pass-phrase dialog, however, this is not necessarily the most secure option either. It is possible to remove the Triple-DES encryption from the key, thereby no longer needing to type in a pass-phrase. If the private key is no longer encrypted, it is critical that this file only be readable by the root user! If your system is ever compromised and a third party obtains your unencrypted private key, the corresponding certificate will need to be revoked.

Step 4: Generating a Self-Signed Certificate

At this point you will need to generate a self-signed certificate because you either don’t plan on having your certificate signed by a CA, or you wish to test your new SSL implementation while the CA is signing your certificate. This temporary certificate will generate an error in the client browser to the effect that the signing certificate authority is unknown and not trusted.

Step 5: Installing the Private Key and Certificate

When Apache with mod_ssl is installed, it creates several directories in the Apache config directory. The location of this directory will differ depending on how Apache was compiled.

Step 6: Configuring SSL Enabled Virtual Hosts

Step 7: Restart Apache and Test