In a recent post on my personal blog, I discussed all of the things that Facebook shares with 3rd party companies when you participate in those online quizzes, or give people bumper stickers, play Mafia Wars, or whatever else you may be doing on Facebook. What I didn’t really discuss was: what you can do about it.

The easiest and first thing to look at is your “Application Settings” page. You can get there by clicking the “Account” drop down on the top right of any page while you’re logged in to facebook, then clicking the “Application Settings” option. Once there, you can see a list of the programs you have used in the last month. On the top of that page, there is a “SHOW” drop down, which has other sorting options.

I like to sort by different categories to try and figure out how many applications really have access to my information. Remember, you’re not just filling out a quiz, you’re allowing the company that made the quiz application to access all kinds of information, both while you’re taking the quiz, and forever after. You may also be giving them the option to post comments on your wall, your friends’ walls, and who knows what else. Once sorted, you can find programs that you may not want to give permission to anymore and just click the “X” in the far right column. The fewer applications with permission to access your information, the better off you are!

Also recently in the news, many users of have responded to the opt-in / opt-out privacy settings proposed by Facebook. Facebook claims they’re trying to provide more information to your friends, but they’re mostly out trying to get more application developers and advertisers onboard, harvesting all of the information about you and your friends in the name of the almighty dollar. But to the average user, none of this “opt-in” and “opt-out” crap makes much sense. There is even enough of a threat to your personal information that even several United States Senators are considering legal action against Facebook.

These “opt in / opt out” privacy settings are really the full control, what you allow your friends to see, what you allow non friends to see, what you allow people searching Facebook to see, what search engines can see when they save your information to their search engines (you know, when you search your own name on Google and your Facebook page shows up). There are a ton of settings, but take them one page at a time and you can really decide how secretive you want to be.

Facebook, by default, “opts” to share a lot of your personal information. To begin your private information embargo, click on Account on the upper right of a page, then click Privacy Settings. It will take you to a main page of different privacy categories. Let’s start with “Profile Information.”

On each page, you can choose whether you want your information shared ONLY with your friends, Friends of your friends, friends and your networks, or everyone. You can also “customize it” even more, and choose to hide specific information from specific people, if you desire.

Once you’re done with your Profile Information page, go back to the Privacy Settings page (remember, click the Account button on the top right, then choose Privacy Settings). Now choose another category, and decide what you’re willing to share with everyone in each of those categories.

This will take some time, and maybe some people don’t care, but I for one don’t want my phone number showing up on Google, or maybe you don’t want to deal with a jealous ex, or some company sending you junk mail. There are all kinds of reasons to reclaim as much of your Facebook privacy as you can.

This is a rewrite of a bulletin I put out in March of 2009. I still find this to be a common issue which I feel needs addressing.

Recently, a slew of my friends, family, co-workers, and just people on the street, have come to me with the same question: “I think I have a ton of viruses, how do I fix it?” The simple fact is: you probably don’t have a ton of viruses!

Antivirus 2009/2010 (looks like Windows Security Center) and Antivirus 360 (looks like Ad-Aware) are new POP UP PROGRAMS, usually contracted while surfing the internet – even on legitimate websites. This anti-virus lookalike program will pop up with the sole purpose of making you panic, telling you that you need to click to fix the problem NOW. If you then click the “REMOVE ALL THREATS” or “FIX THIS NOW.” If you’re lucky, at this point, it will ask you to BUY their “special” virus and “mal-ware” removal program.

If you’re unlucky, it will actually start to install a virus on your computer. It LOOKS like it is there to help, warning you have several viruses, but when you click on the banner to “fix this problem” you are actually installing the very bad payload, which is, itself, a virus. The virus then disables your ACTUAL anti-virus program (if you have one); it blocks the ability for your antivirus program to retrieve updates capable of fixing this problem. All in all puts you in a very deep hole of problems.

What you need to know: If you did not tell the computer to do a virus scan, and suddenly it pops up and says you have dozens or even hundreds of viruses, it is one of these FAKE pop ups! No doubt in my mind. Most Virus Scanners can find one or two viruses when they’re running their automatic scans in the background. If you did not start a manual Full System Scan, your computer will never tell you that you have 300+ viruses – it can’t find that many without doing a manual scan. So if something ranomly tells you that you’re sunk, don’t panic, take a deep breath and laugh it off: you already know their tricks!

If one of these pops up on your computer: your safest practice is to immediately save anything you are working on, and restart your computer. Do not try to close the window that is alerting you of all of the viruses; shutting down the computer will close the pop up. If it does happen to be a legitimate problem or something is actually installed on your computer, and it will pop back up next time you turn on the computer. If it does not come up after a restart – it was likely nothing more than one of these fake pop ups, and nothing has been installed on your computer!

I personally dealt with one of these pop ups, recently, where even when you clicked the “X” in the top right, to close the program, it refused to exit. It would say “are you sure you want to close” then as soon as you clicked “YES” – another window popped up with the same “virus alert!” It is trying to trick you in to clicking the wrong thing, thus installing the “payload” which could do anything from causing the computer to go slow by infecting other computers, to stealing files off of the computer, to even crashing the whole thing, requiring a complete rebuild. That is why I recommend immediately shutting down and/or restarting the computer.

If you have accidentally “installed” one of these “antivirus” programs, in an attempt to solve the problem it created, you might not be entirely out of luck, as the website MalwareBytes.org has an anti-malware “removal tool.” At this time, it is the only recommended removal software I have come accross, earning recognition from several “tech” websites as the best possible solution to those who may have clicked on a fake anti-virus banner, next to wiping the computer clean and rebuilding it.

Above, I have included a few “screen shots” of what these fake antivirus programs might look like, these are only a few variants, there are literally dozens popping up (no pun intended) right now.

Thanks for reading, I hope it was more “edu-taining” than jargon heavy gibberish!

If you’re really interested in the technology part, check the ISC’s article.

I only recently decided to start blogging on this website because I feel that it is important to communicate to people the things that they really need to know about. You won’t see frequent updates, but I just intend to be informative and helpful for you. If you have any questions or would like my feedback on a particular issue, please use the contact form. I can respond in the form of a new blog post, or direct response email.

Recently, news broke that a Windows Update has been causing “millions of computers” to get a “Black Screen of Death.” The story is that an undetermined recent update causes all computers to black out what is on the screen.

The story was broken by a company called PrevX. PrevX is a new company, a recent entry in to the anti-malware arena. Reviews of their new product have been very positive and they seemed like a fantastic new company. But this recent story has lead me to start taking a closer look at the company.

The story broke without them first going to Microsoft. In the computer industry, this is a big no-no. It is considered more professional and in the best interests of everyone involved to try and work towards a resolution, rather than try to make a fool out of someone. Instead, PrevX started saying that this would inevitably affect thousands to millions of Windows users.

Microsoft, along with several other independent researchers, examined the problem closely and realized that, simply: it’s not happening as PrevX has described it. While the problem is indeed real and can happen, it is without a doubt not being caused by recent Windows Updates.

If you would like a little more information, I encourage you to read up on the official statement from The Microsoft Security Response Center