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Responding to email notices you receive.
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In short, DON'T! Email notices are to ONLY alert you of a reply to your private message or your ad on this site. Replying to the email just wastes your time as it goes NOWHERE, and probably pisses off the person you thought you replied to when they think you just ignored them. So instead of complaining to me about your messages not being replied to from this site via email, please READ that email notice that plainly states what you need to do in order to reply to who you are trying to converse with.
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IMPORTANT! PLEASE READ!! About the Google Adsense ads being displayed
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Posted 08/15/2025
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Yeah, I know. They are a pain in the butt. But they pay the bills to keep my server running. Just a fact of life, I am afraid.
Want to get rid of them? Simple. Just become a Contributor level member or above and they will be gone. -> Please click HERE."
Is that too much for me to ask of you to keep this site running? Well, sorry about that. I too wish I could get everything for free. But alas.....
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Addendum: 01/10/2026
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Google Adsense ad revenue for December, 2025 was just $30 over the cost of the lease for the server running this site. So, in effect, the money providing the incentive for me to continue running this site is coming SOLELY from the paid memberships and sponsorships here. Which honestly ain't much....
Yet another privacy worry
- Thread starter Lucille
- Start date
Fangthane
Tuck Frump!
That's not nearly as scary as what can be done with a fairly new cell phone feature called NFC (Near Field Communication) (Near Field Communication). It basically allows you to use your phone as a credit card, by just swiping it in close proximity to another NFC-enabled phone or checkout device. Shortly after its inception, a pretty serious security flaw was exploited. It allowed a hacker to beam a script which would force an NFC-enabled phone to navigate to a malicious website of their choice, putting personal information such as credit card numbers at risk.
http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Mobile-and...ices-Hacked-Through-NFC-Security-Flaw-641824/
Those of you sporting a Galaxy S3 or other recent high-end phone may want to make sure that you have the feature disabled. It's another valid reason to look into rooting your Android smartphones. Once you have access to the root level of your OS file system, you can often make changes that you otherwise wouldn't be able to make. Some of which can increase security/privacy.
http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Mobile-and...ices-Hacked-Through-NFC-Security-Flaw-641824/
Those of you sporting a Galaxy S3 or other recent high-end phone may want to make sure that you have the feature disabled. It's another valid reason to look into rooting your Android smartphones. Once you have access to the root level of your OS file system, you can often make changes that you otherwise wouldn't be able to make. Some of which can increase security/privacy.
bigalosu
Turtle lover
Supposedly all Apple products have a kill switch and I read an article awhile back about imported Chinese electronics and components having something similar. Losing the ability to use your cell phone is one thing, but when satellites, radar, missile guidance systems, etc. can be turned off by a potential enemy, we have a problem.
Fangthane
Tuck Frump!
I think that the "kill switch" amounts to little more than a backdoor left by the software developers. I don't think it's anything new. With the proper know-how and inclination; pretty much anything run by firmware, that has a network connection to download, or hardware interface for side-loading scripts, has the potential to be hacked into and/or operated remotely. As they keep packing more features into gadgets, they need more software to make it all work, inherently increasing the potential for malicious use of coding exploits.
Those who actually develop the jailbreak software for Apple devices have been taking advantage of small security exploits for years, and they're pretty crafty about it. At one point, a certain jailbreak script was stored in a display buffer code, so it would be run as soon as the screen initialized, bypassing a security patch that was previously released by Apple. You could tell if an iPhone or iPod was jailbroken by that method by watching the screen as it booted up to the point where it displayed the Apple logo. A small line of pixels would appear where it shouldn't have been. It's amazing what people can do with computers; the good as well as the bad.
Those who actually develop the jailbreak software for Apple devices have been taking advantage of small security exploits for years, and they're pretty crafty about it. At one point, a certain jailbreak script was stored in a display buffer code, so it would be run as soon as the screen initialized, bypassing a security patch that was previously released by Apple. You could tell if an iPhone or iPod was jailbroken by that method by watching the screen as it booted up to the point where it displayed the Apple logo. A small line of pixels would appear where it shouldn't have been. It's amazing what people can do with computers; the good as well as the bad.