Stimulating Pixels

As more and more of us become electronic cyborgs (via pacemakers, internal drug delivery systems, etc…) the potential for detrimental hacking of those devices increases as well. See, for example, this story found via boingboing about researchers who have figured out how to hack into a pacemaker and shut it down via remote control.

I can see this being part of a plot to a movie. Some political leader dies and they think his pacemaker just gave out, but it was really an assassination. Of course, there is frightening real world potential for this.

Cnet recommends a free tool called CCleaner that is supposed to have a registry cleaner as part of it. They also list HijackThis as a good tool to look for spyware on your windows machine if you are having specific problems. I’ve heard of that one before, but wasn’t sure if it was legit. Seems so. Mainly, I’m posting these here so I can find them again later.

After I got my house the number of credit card, refinance, home equity line of credit, etc… went up to between 20-30 a week. After doing some checking I discovered how to basically put an end to this.

Go to: http://www.optoutprescreen.com/ and walk through the “Opt-out” process.

Basically, all those companies that send you offers have pulled your credit report along with a batch of other folks to screen for people they want to extend offers to. When you opt-out, it prevents companies from doing this without your permission. The net effect is that within a couple months the majority of that type of junk mail will end. Better for the environment and a time saver for you.

Another benefit is it reduces the risk of identy theft by someone stealing your mail. I did this a while ago and it’s been oh-so-nice.