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CurrPorts displays the list of all currently opened TCP/IP and UDP ports on your local computer. For each port in the list, information about the process that opened the port is also displayed, including the process name, full path of the process, version information of the process (product name, file description, and so on), the time that the process was created, and the user that created it.

In addition, CurrPorts allows you to close unwanted TCP connections, kill the process that opened the ports, and save the TCP/UDP ports information to HTML file , XML file, or to tab-delimited text file.

CurrPorts also automatically marks with pink color suspicious TCP/UDP ports owned by unidentified applications (Applications without version information and icons)

Download CurrPorts 1.82
Download CurrPorts 1.82 64-bit

Ensure you are private, secure, and anonymous online!

• Secure your web session, data, online shopping, and personal information online with HTTPS encryption.
• Protect yourself from identity theft online.
• Hide your IP address for your privacy online.
• Access all content privately without censorship; bypass firewalls.
• Protect yourself from snoopers at Wi-Fi hotspots, hotels, airports, corporate offices.
• Works on wireless and wired connections alike.
• Works on the PC and the MAC, including new operating systems (Windows 7 and Snow Leopard).

Hotspot Shield protects your entire web surfing session; securing your connection at both your home Internet network & Public Internet networks (both wired and wireless). Hotspot Shield protects your identity by ensuring that all web transactions (shopping, filling out forms, downloads) are secured through HTTPS. Hotspot Shield also makes you private online making your identity invisible to third party websites and ISP’s. Unless you choose to sign into a certain site, you will be anonymous for your entire web session with Hotspot Shield. We love the web because of the freedom that it creates to explore, organize, and communicate. Hotspot Shield enables access to all information online, providing freedom to access all web content freely and securely. Secure your entire web session and ensure your privacy online; your passwords, credit card numbers, and all of your data is secured with Hotspot Shield. Standard antivirus software protects your computer, but not your web activities.

Download Hotspot Shield 1.47

Here’s something that the struggling hotel sector prefers not to spotlight: it is a favorite target of hackers.

A study released this year by SpiderLabs, a part of the data-security consulting company Trustwave, found that 38 percent of the credit card hacking cases last year involved the hotel industry. The sector was well ahead of the financial services industry (19 percent), retailing (14.2 percent), and restaurants and bars (13 percent).

Why hotels? Well, to paraphrase the bank robber Willie Sutton, hackers hit hotels because that is where the richest vein of personal credit card data is. At hotels with inadequate data security, “the greatest amount of credit card information can be obtained using the most simplified methods,” said Anthony C. Roman, a private security investigator with extensive experience in the hotel industry.

“It doesn’t require brilliance on the part of the hacker,” Mr. Roman said. “Most of the chronic security breaches in the hotel industry are the result of a failure to equip, or to properly store or transmit, this kind of data, and that starts with the point-of-sale credit card swiping systems.”

Full Story ~ New York Times

Do you receive any of these messages when you try to delete a file or folder?

Cannot delete folder: It is being used by another person or program.
Cannot delete file: Access is denied.
There has been a sharing violation.
The source or destination file may be in use.
The file is in use by another program or user.
Make sure the disk is not full or write-protected and that the file is not currently in use.

Unlocker can help.

Change Log:

• New feature: Complete support for 64 bit operating systems with signed driver.
• New language: Basque thanks to Beñat Antxustegi.
• New language: Galician thanks to Delio Docampo Cordeiro.
• New language: Macedonian thanks to Nikola Trencevski.
• New language: Malaysian thanks to Arjuna Puteraz.
• Improved behavior: No false positives for 32 bit version.
• Improved behavior: Handles are now sorted by process instead of appearing in random order when launching Unlocker.
• Improved UI: Locked DLL show as DLL instead of handle number.
• Improved UI: Fixed same process appearing differently depending on cases.
• Promotional feature: Fully optional eBay shortcuts, Bing or Quickstores toolbar depending on location.

Download Unlocker 1.90 (64 bit)
Download Unlocker 1.90 (32 bit)

Facebook’s founder presented new one-click options Wednesday to help subscribers protect their privacy, responding to a torrent of complaints that it had become far too hard to determine and control levels of protection.

In a news conference, Facebook founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg chalked up recent stumbles to growing pains. He said that engineers and designers had holed up in a conference room in their Palo Alto offices over the past three weeks to work on new privacy settings.

“We don’t pretend that we are perfect,” Zuckerberg said in an interview. “We try to build new things, hear feedback and respond with changes to that feedback all the time.”

The changes, which will be introduced over the next few weeks, mean that one click can block any third-party sites from tapping into Facebook’s goldmine of data on a user. A similar one-click option will allow a user to stop applications on Facebook from tapping user information unless told otherwise. And in a reversal of a confusing feature introduced in December, users will be presented with simpler options on who gets to see information.

Instead of being forced to customize every status update and photo for a “friend” or more broadly, users can put information such as employment history and vacation videos into buckets designated either for friends, friends of friends or everyone on the Internet.

The changes come amid growing scrutiny from U.S. and European regulators over the privacy practices of Internet giants such as Facebook and Google. The European Union told Google, Yahoo and Microsoft on Wednesday that their search engines don’t comply with European privacy laws and told them to prove they are making user information anonymous.

Full Story ~ The Washington Post

A U.S. government computer security system that can detect and prevent cyber attacks should be extended to private businesses that operate critical utilities and financial services, a top Pentagon official said Wednesday.

William J. Lynn III, the deputy defense secretary, said discussions are in the very early stages and participation in the program would be voluntary. The idea, he said, would allow businesses to take advantage of the Einstein 2 and Einstein 3 defensive technologies that are being developed to put in place on government computer networks.

Extending the program to the private sector raises a myriad of legal, policy and privacy questions, including how it would work and what information — if any — companies would share with the government about any attacks or intrusions they detect.

Businesses that opt not the participate could “stay in the wild, wild west of the unprotected Internet,” Lynn told a small group of reporters during a cybersecurity conference.

Full Story ~ Associated Press

CCleaner is a freeware system optimization, privacy and cleaning tool. It removes unused files from your system – allowing Windows to run faster and freeing up valuable hard disk space. It also cleans traces of your online activities such as your Internet history. Additionally it contains a fully featured registry cleaner.

Latest Changes:

• Added support for Microsoft Office 2010.
• Added Opera search field history cleaning.
• Added Real Player SP cleaning.
• Added “Analyze” and “Clean” context menu options to rule tree parent nodes.
• Added “Restore default settings” button to Advanced Options.
• Improved Opera favicons cleaning.
• Improved support for Media Player Classic.
• Improved cleaning of shortcuts on 64-bit machines.
• Improve localization support.
• Fixed bug with Russian translation.
• Minor bug fixes.

Download CCleaner 2.32.1165 Slim (no toolbar)
Download CCleaner 2.32.1165 Standard
Download CCleaner 2.32.1165 Portable

Facebook Inc. has rankled politicians from Amsterdam to Washington for failing to protect personal privacy. Yet for all the criticism, users are flocking apace to the world’s largest social network.

Facebook had 519.1 million users last month, up from 411 million in September, according to ComScore Inc. And the site continued to add traffic this month, even as U.S. lawmakers, the American Civil Liberties Union and 30 European countries lodged complaints that Facebook has been reckless with personal data.

“I don’t think we’re going see an immediate and large migration away from Facebook,” said Augie Ray, an analyst with Forrester Research Inc. in Foster City, California. “There isn’t a real clear alternative for people to do the sorts of sharing that they’ve really come to expect and enjoy. What Facebook needs to make sure is that their actions don’t create demand for that competitor.”

Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg and other executives will unveil a simplified approach to privacy controls today at the company’s headquarters in Palo Alto, California. Critics have blasted the current approach to privacy as overly complex and tilted toward making more information public. The past few weeks have been “extremely humbling,” Facebook Vice President Chris Cox said yesterday.

Full Story ~ Bloomberg BusinessWeek

With all the privacy issues surrounding Facebook, many people are considering quitting the site altogether. If you’re not ready to take it that far, here’s how to avoid the privacy breaches without completely deleting your account and losing touch with your friends.

Should I Quit Facebook Altogether?

We’ve all had that one friend who deactivated his/her Facebook and was never seen again, because no one could establish contact. As if the telephone, email, and IM were never invented, many people are at a loss as to how to contact you if your Facebook isn’t an easy click away. Even if the situation isn’t quite that dire, Facebook is still how a lot of people keep connected, and severing that connection completely is a big deal.

But now, privacy-minded folks have many legitimate reasons you should quit Facebook (or reasons you should but can’t go through with it), the same thing is on everyone’s mind: Is the grief of quitting worth avoiding future privacy breaches?

Full Story ~ lifehacker