Personal Security - Self Defense With a Gun

There have been a couple of news reports of people defending themselves against the bad guys with their guns! Personal protection and home security is very important! The following articles are examples of defending yourself and your home. Please keep in mind that with proper training and practice, you will become more confident with your weapon and will less likely have an accident. When the time comes to use it, you will be more likely to make a valid decision – saving and protecting yourself and or your family!

Police: Home intruder shot, killed by Midtown resident
Anchorage Daily News/adn.com, Published: August 30th, 2010

Anchorage police have identified the man who was shot and killed early Sunday during a failed home-invasion robbery attempt. Robert Kost, 23, of Anchorage died of his wounds after being shot by a tenant of a Midtown triplex in the 800 block of West 23rd Avenue , said police Lt. Dave Parker. Police believe two or more others were with Kost during the robbery attempt just after midnight Sunday, and homicide detectives are searching for them. The others ran away after the shooting, Parker said.

Read more: http://www.adn.com/2010/08/29/1429906/police-intruder-shot-killed-in.html#ixzz0yDTtRRK0

69-year-old Ala. woman shoots home intruder, Decatur, Ala.

A pistol-packing 69-year-old woman in northern Alabama believes intruders will think twice before messing with her again.

Police say Ethel Jones shot an 18-year-old man in the stomach when she found him inside her bedroom at her home in Decatur .

Jones says she sleeps with her gun under a pillow next to her. She says she grabbed it after hearing a door rattle shortly before 3 a.m. Monday.

Police say the suspect removed a window air conditioner to get inside the home. He is in the hospital and faces a charge of second-degree burglary.

http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/home/50195350-76/ala-decatur-woman-decaturdaily.html.csp

Police say man fatally shot alleged mugger in South Dallas
The Dallas Morning News, Monday, August 30, 2010,By Avi Selk

A Sachse man shot his alleged mugger to death in South Dallas early Friday morning, according to police records.

Nicholas Lewis, 22, who lived on Cleveland Street , died in the hospital a few hours after he allegedly held up Jeffrey Hall, 43, in the 1800 block of Pennsylvania Avenue.

Lewis pointed a semiautomatic pistol at Hall and demanded his wallet, according to a police report. Hall told police he handed his wallet to Lewis, who started to ride away on a bicycle.

But Lewis then turned, according to police, and fired at Hall – missing him and striking his pickup.

Hall then pulled out his licensed pistol and shot Lewis multiple times, according to police. Hall shot Lewis in the torso, the buttocks and the head, according to Lewis' sister, who says she watched him die at Baylor Medical Center at Dallas a few hours later.

Lt. David Pughes of the Dallas Police Department said police so far had no reason to doubt Hall's claim that he shot Lewis in self-defense. But it would be up to a grand jury to decide whether to file any charges, Pughes said. Reached at home, Hall declined to comment.

Latasha Lewis said that her brother "had his shortcomings," but that she could not believe he fired at Hall.

"I'm not justifying him robbing," she said. "He was wrong if that's what he did. But if he drove off on his bicycle, the best thing you could have done was to call the police."

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/localnews/stories/DN-shooting_30met.ART.State.Edition2.3583e60.html

Cyber Security - Wi-Fi Security

This weekend I was talking to family about Wi-Fi and the security measure one needs to take when at a Wi-Fi hotspot such as a cyber cafe or even at home. Locking your router with a complex password is a start. However, I cam across an article By Jorge L. Valens, from the Sun Sentinel this weekend that touches the surface of this phenomena. Below are the key points he had:

Looking to set-up a Wi-Fi network at home or enjoy browsing the Internet in public? FIU Network Manager Eric Johnson offers this advice.

1. Protect your network with a WPA/WPA2 encryption and allow it to generate a password for you, rather than choosing something predictable like your last name or birthday.

2. Use common sense when connecting to a Wi-Fi network outside of your home. If you notice more than one network, ask someone at the location you are at, be it a coffee shop or an airport which network is the correct one.

3. Don't do things in public you don't want to be seen. Most public Wi-Fi hotspots are not secured, always assume someone can see what you are surfing on in these places.

4. Use different passwords for different services. Sites like social networking sites don't always default to a secure connection. Bad guys will try to use a password they collect from those sites

5. Be careful about signing on to social networking sites and forums. These sites typically don't use HTTPS protocols and require login/pass to get in. If your social network password is the same as the one for your bank account, hackers will use them.

The article also had more important points to remember:

Leaving the default security settings switched on in a home wireless router is never a good idea.

Elias Montoya, technology director for Abadin Cook, a Miami-based law firm, said users should make sure to stick to a strong password, such as the WEP 2 generated password, that mixes characters, numbers and letters rather than choosing something predictable like their home phone number or leaving the default password.

"The [Wi-Fi] user should be in the mindset that nothing is 100 percent secure. … If someone is intent on hacking you, they will," Montoya said.

Wi-Fi use in public places, such as coffee shops, is becoming increasingly popular, but these networks are typically wide open, said Johnson.

"You should always treat any Internet activity you do at these locations as if it's being monitored," he said.

Johnson added that people should stay away from doing anything that they would not want to be seen, such as online banking.

Many coffee shops offer free, secure Wi-Fi to customers.

For the complete article, click here.

Stay safe out there in cyberspace!

Personal Security - Protect Against Cell Phone Cloning

This week, we discovered that our Sprint cellular phones were cloned. This is usually done to make fraudulent telephone calls. The BILL for the calls goes to the legitimate subscriber – us! I am finding out that this cloning phenomenon is very popular in areas with large immigrant populations. The cloner or THIEF is also able to make effectively anonymous calls, which attracts another group of interested law-breakers. Thanks to my wife for checking our account periodically, the anomaly was caught early.

As a reminder to everyone, check your cell phone bill each month, whether for plan features or charges you didn’t ask for, all the way to issues like what my wife found on our account – anonymous long distance charges and unknown phone numbers. It is especially important because many people opt for auto pay on a cell phone bill, and given that these issues generally take a couple of weeks to research and resolve, auto pay could be triggered before the bill is fixed, prompting other issues in your bill paying lifestyle.

Speaking with a family member that works in a Sprint call center and with the Sprint customer service representative, they have a fraud department, which is where we were directed to once we called Sprint initially. Their sole job is to research issues like this cloning fraud case. They are generally responsive. In our case, it was obvious that our accounts were tampered with. I can only assume the fraud department analyzes the cell phone usage pattern. The fraud department works well with us and will work well with you if it is obvious.

Cloning required access to ESN and MIN pairs. ESN/MIN pairs were discovered in several ways:

Sniffing the cellular network
Trashing cellular companies or cellular resellers
Hacking cellular companies or cellular resellers
Cloning still works under the AMPS/NAMPS system, but has fallen in popularity as older clone-able phones are more difficult to find and newer phones have not been successfully reverse-engineered. Cloning has been successfully demonstrated under GSM, but the process is not easy and currently remains in the realm of serious hobbyists and researchers. Furthermore, cloning as a means of escaping the law is difficult because of the additional feature of a radio fingerprint that is present in the transmission signal of every mobile phone. This fingerprint remains the same even if the ESN or MIN is changed. Mobile phone companies can use the mismatch in the fingerprints and the ESN and MIN to identify fraud cases.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) defines cellular fraud (cell fraud) as the unauthorized use, tampering, or manipulation of a cellular phone or service. At one time, cloning of cellular phones accounted for a large portion of cell fraud. As a result, the Wireless Telephone Protection Act of 1998 expanded prior law to criminalize the use, possession, manufacture or sale of cloning hardware or software. Currently, the primary type of cell fraud is subscriber fraud. The cellular industry estimates that carriers lose more than $150 million per year due to subscriber fraud.

BOTTOM LINE:

Remember, to prevent subscriber fraud, make sure that your personal information is kept private when purchasing anything in a store or on the Internet. Protecting your personal information is your responsibility. For cell phone cloning fraud, the cellular equipment manufacturing industry has deployed authentication systems that have proven to be a very effective countermeasure to cloning. Call your cellular phone carrier for more information.

For more information on protecting your personal information, see the FCC’s Protecting Your Privacy consumer fact sheet at www.fcc.gov/cgb/consumerfacts/protectingprivacy.html. For information about other communications issues, visit the FCC’s Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau Web site at www.fcc.gov/cgb, or contact the FCC’s Consumer Center by e-mailing fccinfo@fcc.gov; calling 1-888-CALL-FCC (1-888-225-5322) voice or 1-888-TELL-FCC (1-888-835-5322) TTY; faxing 1-866-418-0232; or writing to:

Federal Communications Commission
Consumer & Governmental Affairs Bureau
Consumer Inquiries and Complaints Division
445 12th Street, SW
Washington , DC 20554