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It's me, Arif N. In this blog I'll write about my adventure related to computer, programming, and anything that I found interesting. I wish you a happy reading.. :D

I said …

Posts Tagged ‘Internet’

It’s a Big Secrets

Tuesday, 07 April, 2009 17:02 Written by arifn
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In the mid 2005, me and some of my friends created accounts in one bank. I saved some money there and didn’t do any transactions anymore. So I have two accounts, one in my self-chose-bank and university-collaborated-bank. With the end of my graduate study, I closed and withdrew all of the money from university’s bank. So I only have the first account left.

Because I never do any transactions, I forget the PIN of my account. The bank has the facility to reset the PIN via phone call. Days ago, I tried it to reset my PIN. I called the call-center and they did some verification on my identity (wether I was a real client or just a fake). Then they connected me to the PIN-changer machine. I thought this was great, so the customer service knows nothing about my new PIN. So then I continued to listen into the machine.

“Please enter your account number”, I pushed my account number on the phone.
“Please enter your sequence number”, I pushed it on the phone.
“Please enter your secret code”, I pushed my secret code.
“Please enter your new SIX DIGITS PIN“, I waited. What? A six digits? I didn’t prepare for this. At first I thought that I’ll use my birthday numbers. But hold on, if you unprepared and asked about six digits number for your PIN, then you will likely to use your birthday numbers, right? Considering this, I used another sequence of numbers as my PIN.
“Please enter your PIN again”, I pushed it again.

…

Secret words or numbers are largely used as personal secret identity in the world. They usually used to verifiy wether you are real or a fake. This concepts widely used in the real world (like PIN or account numbers) and the clouds (passwords or captcha). Losing the secrecy of this words or numbers can lead to big problems. So I suggested you do at least one of these:

Don’t use commonly used passwords because there’re a lot of people would take a guess about it. According to Threadwatch, these are the 10 most commonly used passwords:

1. password
2. 123456
3. qwerty
4. abc123
5. letmein
6. monkey
7. myspace1
8. password1
9. blink182
10. (your first name)

And yes, birthday were considered as commonly used passwords too. You could Googling for another passwords if you’re so curious. If you used one of these passwords, I recommended you to change it immediately.

Raise your password’s length and use some non-alphabetic character into it. Use a sentence as a password may be a great choice, as long as you remember it. Using non-alphabetic like @,^,*,$ can make your password harder to guess. As long as you remember it.

Don’t write down your PIN or passwords. In servers room, sometimes we can see the passwords for their routers, servers, or services. This could be really dangerous. As for PIN, don’t bring your passwords everywhere and don’t place the passwords paper at the same locations with your ATM / credit cards. Because if you lose your wallet, you will lose everything, your money, and maybe your life.

Change your passwords regularly. Maybe once in two months? Just a few minutes to secure yourself and for your own goods.

So don’t waste your time, go check your passwords now!

You have another suggestions? Go ahead and share it!

Internet at Home

Wednesday, 17 December, 2008 10:09 Written by arifn
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When I was a student, I worked mostly using internet. At that time, the connection at my campus was awesome. I could spend an hour or three surfing the world wide web. Addiction finally caught me. Even at my boardroom, I registered into internet service provided there. I could spent my time on the blue nowhere back then.

Right now, when I was at home, I could find them. There were some internet cafe, but still I didn’t feel like go there. So I always try to find some ways to get connected. There was internet connection provided by telephone service company. I just need to dial up to them and I’ll get connected. But it costs a lot.

One of the alternatives I used was using my CDMA phone as a modem. Using time-based counting, it costs half than the default internet I mentioned before. This connection speed was still better than the default. So I kinda enjoy it, until now.

Couple weeks ago, the telephone company called my dad and gave him an advertisement about internet connection. As a lecturer, they would give my dad a discount if he subscribe to them. The speed was better than the default they gave using dial-up. They provided two packets, time-based or volume-based counting. With the same cost, we could choose 50 hours or 1GB internet connection. Which one should I choose?

At first I was thinking choosing 50 hours. With this option, I think I could download some resources in the net with no volume limitation. I told this option to my dad and he told it to the agent that came to the house. Two days later, the installation guy came. After installation, we got confirmation that the connection for us was volume-based. I felt some disappoint with this. The guy told me that we can change the option in the next month.

After some days playing with the connection, dunno why, I felt the volume-based maybe not a bad options. I could spent hours browsing the net or writing blog with lower cost. It’s because the idle pages didn’t send or receive packages. I couldn’t do this using time-based option. At last, I think I wouldn’t change the option, and stand still with the volume-based instead. What do you think?

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