October 22, 2009
Product Review: Kingston MobileLite G2 Card Reader
Kingston Digital, Inc. has released a new flash card reader, the MobileLite G2, which conveniently plugs right into any available USB port to transfer data between a variety of flash memory cards and either PCs or Macs.
The MobileLiteG2 has retractable covers on each side to protect the USB connector and the Flash memory cards from damage. To use the MobileLiteG2, you just push in both sides, plug a compatible flash memory card in on one side, and plug the USB connector on the other side into the computer. The unit is a bit wide, so you may need to use the provided USB extension cable if there is not enough space for the unit.
The device comes in three different package types -- either just the reader; the reader plus a 4GB SD HC card; or the reader plus an 8GB SD HC card. (Note that HC stands for High Capacity. Many newer digital cameras can accept these higher capacity cards.)
When I plugged the MobileLiteG2 into an available USB port on my PC it appeared as two drive letters. In my case, that was F:\ and G:\. The SD card slot turned out to be drive F:\ on my pc. I inserted a variety of SD cards and one microSD card (needed an adapter). All cards were recognized very quickly on my Windows XP system. Data transfer between the card and the computer is no different than transferring data between any two drives or storage devices. It couldn't be easier.
Supported card formats include SD, SDHC, microSD, microSDHC, Memory Stick® PRO Duo™, Memory Stick® PRO-HG Duo™ and Memory Stick® Micro™ (*M2).
The MobileLiteG2 is backed by a two-year warranty.
According to Kingston, the MobileLite G2 is compatible with the following operating systems:
Windows 7; Windows Vista® (SP1, SP2); Windows XP (SP1, SP2, SP3); Windows 2000 (SP4); Mac OS X v.10.3.x+; and Linux v.2.6.x+.
The suggested retail price for the MobileLiteG2 Flash Card Reader alone is $11.00. For the reader plus either the 4GB SDHD card or the 8GB SDHD card, the suggested retail price is $28.50 and $46.00 respectively.
This simple little device will make a great holiday gift for anyone with a computer that doesn't have a slot to read the various card types indicated above. And if you know someone who needs some simple, portable extra storage, or has or will be receiving a new digital camera, they will really appreciate the combination package with the 4GB SD HC card or the 8GB SD HC card.
Richard L. Kuper,
Editor
The Kuper Report
* [Please post your job openings here] *
R.L. Kuper, Inc. - Management Consulting
The MobileLiteG2 has retractable covers on each side to protect the USB connector and the Flash memory cards from damage. To use the MobileLiteG2, you just push in both sides, plug a compatible flash memory card in on one side, and plug the USB connector on the other side into the computer. The unit is a bit wide, so you may need to use the provided USB extension cable if there is not enough space for the unit.
The device comes in three different package types -- either just the reader; the reader plus a 4GB SD HC card; or the reader plus an 8GB SD HC card. (Note that HC stands for High Capacity. Many newer digital cameras can accept these higher capacity cards.)
When I plugged the MobileLiteG2 into an available USB port on my PC it appeared as two drive letters. In my case, that was F:\ and G:\. The SD card slot turned out to be drive F:\ on my pc. I inserted a variety of SD cards and one microSD card (needed an adapter). All cards were recognized very quickly on my Windows XP system. Data transfer between the card and the computer is no different than transferring data between any two drives or storage devices. It couldn't be easier.
Supported card formats include SD, SDHC, microSD, microSDHC, Memory Stick® PRO Duo™, Memory Stick® PRO-HG Duo™ and Memory Stick® Micro™ (*M2).
The MobileLiteG2 is backed by a two-year warranty.
According to Kingston, the MobileLite G2 is compatible with the following operating systems:
Windows 7; Windows Vista® (SP1, SP2); Windows XP (SP1, SP2, SP3); Windows 2000 (SP4); Mac OS X v.10.3.x+; and Linux v.2.6.x+.
The suggested retail price for the MobileLiteG2 Flash Card Reader alone is $11.00. For the reader plus either the 4GB SDHD card or the 8GB SDHD card, the suggested retail price is $28.50 and $46.00 respectively.
This simple little device will make a great holiday gift for anyone with a computer that doesn't have a slot to read the various card types indicated above. And if you know someone who needs some simple, portable extra storage, or has or will be receiving a new digital camera, they will really appreciate the combination package with the 4GB SD HC card or the 8GB SD HC card.
Richard L. Kuper,
Editor
The Kuper Report
Labels: card, data, disk, hc, kingston, Kuper, kuper report, mobile, reader, richard kuper, sd, storage
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June 21, 2008
Privacy & Security Watch: Diebold Summer Sale Offers Used Voting Machines
This also gets categorized under: "Who wants to steal the election?"
According to this article, Premier Election Solutions, formerly known as Diebold, makers of those easily hackable electronic voting machines, (just do an internet search on "hackable Diebold" if you doubt that statement), is "selling off everything from used touch-screen voting machines ($600/each) to ballot boxes ($1,000/each), voter and poll supervisor smart cards that are used to initiate voting on machines on election day ($2.00/each), and tamper-evident security seals ($0.15/each) that are supposed to protect machines from intruders."
Richard L. Kuper
The Kuper Report
http://TheKuperReport.com
* [Please post your job openings here] *
R.L. Kuper, Inc. - Management Consulting
According to this article, Premier Election Solutions, formerly known as Diebold, makers of those easily hackable electronic voting machines, (just do an internet search on "hackable Diebold" if you doubt that statement), is "selling off everything from used touch-screen voting machines ($600/each) to ballot boxes ($1,000/each), voter and poll supervisor smart cards that are used to initiate voting on machines on election day ($2.00/each), and tamper-evident security seals ($0.15/each) that are supposed to protect machines from intruders."
Richard L. Kuper
The Kuper Report
http://TheKuperReport.com
Labels: breach, companies, corporations, data, data security, diebold, election, fraud, government, hack, hackable, kuper report, premier, richard kuper, vote
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Privacy & Security Watch: TJX Fires Employee for Disclosing Security Problems
As readers of this newletter know, TJX, the parent company of T.J. Maxx, Marshalls, and Home Goods stores, had a serious security breach over a long period of time. (See http://www.TheKuperReport.com/2007/03/stolen-data-from-tjx-tj-maxx-marshalls.html
and subsequent articles on this subject). Well, it seems they still haven't learned from their mistakes. According to this article, a young employee in a Lawrence, KS T.J. Maxx store tried, but failed to convince management that running their server in administrator mode and giving everyone id's with blank passwords was a very bad and insecure thing to do. So he anonymously posted about this lack of security to an online forum. TJX found out it was him and they fired him. No word on whether they address this serious security breach.
Richard L. Kuper
The Kuper Report
http://TheKuperReport.com
* [Please post your job openings here] *
R.L. Kuper, Inc. - Management Consulting
and subsequent articles on this subject). Well, it seems they still haven't learned from their mistakes. According to this article, a young employee in a Lawrence, KS T.J. Maxx store tried, but failed to convince management that running their server in administrator mode and giving everyone id's with blank passwords was a very bad and insecure thing to do. So he anonymously posted about this lack of security to an online forum. TJX found out it was him and they fired him. No word on whether they address this serious security breach.
Richard L. Kuper
The Kuper Report
http://TheKuperReport.com
Labels: breach, companies, corporations, data, data security, government, home goods, homegoods, intrusion, kuper report, marshalls, richard kuper, security, tj tjx, tjmaxx, x
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September 24, 2007
Privacy and Security Watch: Are you giving away your personal or corporate data to thieves?
Richard Kuper
The Kuper Report
http://TheKuperReport.com
I came across a couple of articles that continue to bring home the fact that many companies and individuals still do not have a handle on ensuring the privacy and security of data:
What's on your hard drive?
When businesses or individuals discard old computers, apparently many are not ensuring that personal or business data has been securely removed first. According to this article, from a sample of 350 hard drives acquired in online auctions, details about salary, company financial data, medical data, credit card numbers, visa applications, details of online purchases, and even online pornography were found.
There are many tools available today for corporate and individual use that can shred the data on your hard drives and other storage devices. They are not very expensive, especially for individual use. Simply reformatting the hard drive, for example, will not wipe the data from it.
Do you or your employees connect to a file-sharing network?
If you connect your computer to a file-sharing network, such as BearShare or LimeWire or the like, you are opening up your computer to anyone who cares to search it and copy stuff from it. According to this article, "Three spreadsheets containing more than 5,000 Social Security numbers and other personal details about customers of ABN Amro Mortgage Group were inadvertently leaked over an online file-sharing network by a former employee." In this case, the computer had the BearShare software installed.
A common search, by those seeking something other than a song, is to search on terms like "password" to find data on connected computers that will net usable information for identity theft and other crimes. In addition, it would seem that most users of file-sharing networks do not take the appropriate steps to limit what can be searched on their computer. Any time you allow your computer to be accessed by others whom you do not know and therefore have no known level of trust, you are looking for trouble.
Regarding the leaked spreadsheet with over 5,000 Social Security numbers and other personal customer details, according to a spokesperson for ABN parent company Citigroup Inc.: "Citi's information-security standards require that confidential information be stored on Citi-managed devices." In the case of the spreadsheet, it would seem the employee had it on his home pc.
* [Please post your job openings here] *
R.L. Kuper, Inc. - Management Consulting
The Kuper Report
http://TheKuperReport.com
I came across a couple of articles that continue to bring home the fact that many companies and individuals still do not have a handle on ensuring the privacy and security of data:
What's on your hard drive?
When businesses or individuals discard old computers, apparently many are not ensuring that personal or business data has been securely removed first. According to this article, from a sample of 350 hard drives acquired in online auctions, details about salary, company financial data, medical data, credit card numbers, visa applications, details of online purchases, and even online pornography were found.
There are many tools available today for corporate and individual use that can shred the data on your hard drives and other storage devices. They are not very expensive, especially for individual use. Simply reformatting the hard drive, for example, will not wipe the data from it.
Do you or your employees connect to a file-sharing network?
If you connect your computer to a file-sharing network, such as BearShare or LimeWire or the like, you are opening up your computer to anyone who cares to search it and copy stuff from it. According to this article, "Three spreadsheets containing more than 5,000 Social Security numbers and other personal details about customers of ABN Amro Mortgage Group were inadvertently leaked over an online file-sharing network by a former employee." In this case, the computer had the BearShare software installed.
A common search, by those seeking something other than a song, is to search on terms like "password" to find data on connected computers that will net usable information for identity theft and other crimes. In addition, it would seem that most users of file-sharing networks do not take the appropriate steps to limit what can be searched on their computer. Any time you allow your computer to be accessed by others whom you do not know and therefore have no known level of trust, you are looking for trouble.
Regarding the leaked spreadsheet with over 5,000 Social Security numbers and other personal customer details, according to a spokesperson for ABN parent company Citigroup Inc.: "Citi's information-security standards require that confidential information be stored on Citi-managed devices." In the case of the spreadsheet, it would seem the employee had it on his home pc.
Labels: abn, bearshare, citigroup, computer, credit, crime, data, disk, drive, file, id, identity, limewire, password, pc, privacy, security, sharing, stolen, theft
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April 26, 2007
Privacy and Security Watch: Lawmakers decry continued vulnerability of federal computers
Corporate computers are not the only ones being breached. The Federal Government (and state and local governments as well) are also not doing a good enough job of protecting the data from unauthorized access. In the case of the Federal Government, some of our lawmakers are finally waking up to this problem and speaking out about the issues. Read all about it here.
Richard Kuper
The Kuper Report
http://TheKuperReport.com
* [Please post your job openings here] *
R.L. Kuper, Inc. - Management Consulting
Richard Kuper
The Kuper Report
http://TheKuperReport.com
Labels: breach, data, data security, government, Kuper, kuper report, law, personal data, personal information, richard kuper, security
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Privacy and Security Watch: Group calls for federal data security breach notification law
With the massive data breach of TJX (see various articles on TheKuperReport.com), several banks are suing TJX Companies Inc. over the data breach that "exposed at least 45.7 million credit and debit card holders to identity fraud." You can read more about that here.
Because of this and the many other breaches at other firms, the Cyber Security Industry Alliance (CSIA) is lobbying Congress to pass a law that will require companies that are breached to notify victims. Read all about it here.
Richard Kuper
The Kuper Report
http://TheKuperReport.com
* [Please post your job openings here] *
R.L. Kuper, Inc. - Management Consulting
Because of this and the many other breaches at other firms, the Cyber Security Industry Alliance (CSIA) is lobbying Congress to pass a law that will require companies that are breached to notify victims. Read all about it here.
Richard Kuper
The Kuper Report
http://TheKuperReport.com
Labels: breach, data, data security, government, Kuper, kuper report, law, personal data, personal information, richard kuper, security
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March 22, 2007
Privacy and Security Watch: Stolen Data from TJX (T.J. Maxx, Marshalls and HomeGoods stores) since 2003 Used in $8M Scheme Before Breach Discovery
According to recent reports in eWeek (links below), massive amounts of data, dating back to 2003, were stolen from TJX (T.J. Maxx, Marshalls and HomeGoods stores) over an extended period of time, starting in 2005. The breach, or intrusion as TJX prefers to call it, was not discovered until December 2006.
This is just the latest story in the ongoing issue of data security. Companies need to get their acts together and ensure that they are protecting the personal and private data of their customers. It may be time for the government to step in and create financial incentives for companies to do this. Of course, the Federal government and many state and local governments are guilty of not protecting the personal and private data of its citizens either, so they would also have to fine themselves (not likely). So this problem will continue to be a major problem until the public starts making its voice heard and making this a priority for government and corporations to take more seriously.
Here are the links to the TJX story:
Stolen TJX Data Used in $8M Scheme Before Breach Discovery
TJX: Data Theft Began in 2005; Data Taken from 2003
Richard Kuper
The Kuper Report
http://TheKuperReport.com
* [Please post your job openings here] *
R.L. Kuper, Inc. - Management Consulting
This is just the latest story in the ongoing issue of data security. Companies need to get their acts together and ensure that they are protecting the personal and private data of their customers. It may be time for the government to step in and create financial incentives for companies to do this. Of course, the Federal government and many state and local governments are guilty of not protecting the personal and private data of its citizens either, so they would also have to fine themselves (not likely). So this problem will continue to be a major problem until the public starts making its voice heard and making this a priority for government and corporations to take more seriously.
Here are the links to the TJX story:
Stolen TJX Data Used in $8M Scheme Before Breach Discovery
TJX: Data Theft Began in 2005; Data Taken from 2003
Richard Kuper
The Kuper Report
http://TheKuperReport.com
Labels: breach, companies, corporations, data, data security, government, home goods, homegoods, intrusion, kuper report, marshalls, richard kuper, security, tj maxx, tjmaxx, tjx
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