But I’m back now!! And it feels GOOD.

Staying true to the theme of this blog, let us begin with a story. This is the story of my joyful return back to the land of the penguins.

For the past year, I have been woefully separated from my dearest penguin brothers and sisters, wandering aimlessly in the land of windows and apples. A few months ago I finally made up my mind to make this return, and early this month I finally took action.

I took advice from my 19 year old self and decided tinkering is the right way to go, acquired a refurbished midrange laptop and deployed every ounce of nostalgia I possess to get to this point. Let me tell you how things have been going in the past week of owning this magnificent machine.

The moment I got my hands on the package, I opened it with a kind of manic glee known only to people who know they’re about to get exactly what they want. Salivating at the sight of that black clamshell, I popped it open and was greeted with the best message possible. THE BSOD.

I admit my reaction was a mix of apprehension and excitement. I didn’t want to deal with returns and exchanges in case of faulty hardware, but this was definitely an opportunity to dive headfirst into the very exercise I bought the device for.

Doing a force restart and update fixed the issue, and the system booted into windows successfully. Windows 11 was pretty novel to me, and the UI is quite pleasant but the sheer amount of ads made it a bit of an eyesore. I tried to deal with it for a bit, at least to get used to the graphics card but after a solid 2 hours of trying to get the ads to go away I decided to give up.

Downloaded the PopOS iso, balena etcher and flashed a drive. I went with it because I heard that its built for gaming and that it plays well with nvidia cards by design. I was initially disappointed with the lack of customizability on the Gnome desktop environment but decided to deal with it for the sake of the gpu.

After that I tried downloading and launch Steam. Both the flatpak and .deb versions were available on the Pop Shop, but it would just refuse to launch for the longest time. When it finally launched after 5 minutes it was a pleasant surprise, but none of the games seemed to run properly on it. Either the load times were too high or the screen started tearing.

At this point I’m pretty frustrated with Pop since I don’t enjoy how closed off the OS is by design, and the one reason I’m sticking with it isn’t quite working out.

Decided to nuke this and go back to my old love, Manjaro instead. It doesn’t really claim to support anything, but at this point I might as well try and see how it works. I was also really missing AUR and the easy updates.

Did exactly that, downloaded the XFCE version since we love weight reduction in this house. Steam installed and launched on the first try. I was so excited by this development that I went ahead and bought Stardew Valley. It’s now been around a week, and I have managed to cultivate a batch of parsnips, catch some fish, and do a whole lot of weeding. I have also acquired knowledge on how to build a scarecrow.

Of course this experience might simply be because I’m not as comfortable with debian based distros. But a big part of my woes were from not being able to have an obscenely large number of customised keyboard shortcuts. XFCE very nicely tickles that part of my brain so I’m gonna spend more time on this hill for now.

I started writing a basic how-to use ChatGPT for productivity piece, before realizing there’s a lot of nuance to each application. This article will only focus on how to create roadmaps for career growth. The goal is to remove the influence of ads, skill-development peddlers, and “career gurus”, to get a view that is as unbiased as possible.

Okay, let’s get started.

Gaining perspective

Let’s take an example of a student named Alex. Alex is an upcoming college graduate who wants to get a job but doesn’t know where to start. Let’s try to give Alex some perspective of the industry first:

Alex now has a brief idea of industries he could go into. Let’s say he wants to know which industry makes the most money. Rework the prompt a little. We don’t need the descriptions anymore because we already read the first output.

After reading all that, Alex has decided he wants to get into Finance and Investment Banking.

Learning about available roles

Alex must now figure out the available roles in the industry:

Skillset identification

Alex must now learn what it takes to get into these roles.

Alex notices that 4/5 are soft skills that he must develop. However, one major skill is financial modeling. He has learned the basics in college, but he wants to know how it is used in the industry.

He realizes that he has never used Tableau, Bloomberg Terminal, or MATLAB. A quick search on LinkedIn reveals that a lot of recruiters give brownie points to people skilled in Tableau.

Learning a skill

So he tries to figure out how to learn to use Tableau.

He follows this roadmap with about 60% dedication and now has a reasonable idea of how to work with Tableau. Now he needs a way to showcase his proficiency to the hiring managers.

Alex now runs along and creates a project or two, a killer resume, and a cover letter. He then applies for 70 jobs and he gets ghosted by 65 of them, appears for 5 interviews, and cracks 1.

Doing things this way can cut down several days of unnecessary research time, letting you focus on the work that matters. The key is getting the prompts right. Making GPT provide you with the exact results you want can sometimes be a little tricky, but can yield excellent results.

Are you a new computer science student? Looking to get into IT? Wanna learn coding? Look no further. I will give you fabulous advice for laptop buying. I already wrote a laptop buying guide but it’s been a while since then and I want to revisit the topic, but this time we’re looking at only the best of the best. If you plan to code for iOS or macOS, this might not be the place to be. I don’t hate Apple but this article doesn’t address programming for Apple devices. Feel free to read further for some flavourful takes though.

This time, I’m going to look at the laptop buying guide through the eyes of a technically informed person, or at least someone willing to learn a few things.

First of all, let us address the elephant in the room. How much money will it cost? It depends on who you ask. If you ask me, to buy a new one it will be around 30,000 INR at minimum. If you’re willing to get down and dirty, well, 0?

How much CPU do you need to learn programming to an intermediate level? An i3/ Ryzen 3 will suffice. Maybe an i5/ Ryzen 5. You definitely do not need anything above that for just learning how to code.

How much RAM? If you’re running Windows, then at least 8GB. But if you’re willing to explore, then 4GB will get you a blazing-fast computer.

That’s mostly all you have to care about in terms of hardware for programming. I’ll take it a step further and get you the cheapest hypothetical laptop. No compromises on speed I promise. This is all you will need to get started with programming, at least for the first year of your learning.

If you or someone you know has a laptop they wanna get rid of, take it off their hands. If you live somewhere you get cheap electronics, go to the market, haggle, and get an old computer that at least boots for cheap. Another option is to go to the Amazon refurbished store and get a computer there for under 20k.

If you are spending money on an old machine, try to mess around with it a little before buying. Check the hardware.

• Make sure all the keys on the keyboard work (unnecessary if you have an external keyboard).
• Make sure the display has no dead pixels (the only thing that is expensive to repair if things go a little weewoo)
• Check if the touchpad is working (mine works only during a full moon and I don’t really care)
• Check the headphone jack
• Check if the computer connects to the internet properly
• Check if CPU, RAM, and hard disk match the specs you’re being told
• If you really want Bluetooth then check that too (I have used Bluetooth on the computer 3 times in my entire life)
• Check all USB ports
• Check battery (I don’t care about that either, my computer never goes somewhere without a power outlet)

That’s it. The best laptop for programming. You have it. Everything you need to learn how to code will run on this magnificent machine. A device that checks all these boxes will run pretty much all the programming environments you’d ever need as a learner. Sweet right? Give it a cute name, that’s your friend.

Now some troubleshooting tips.

• Always back up
• Don’t give up
• Unless it’s the CPU :)

Having a computer with personality is the best way to learn about computers. Reliable computers are pretty boring and don’t teach you much. If it doesn’t break, you don’t learn how to fix it. Everything I’ve learned about my computer is by breaking something, be it software or hardware. A cheap computer lets you go crazy without being too worried.

If you got your hands on something with at least 8GB RAM and 256GB storage, you can just install Windows and get working.

However, if you have something a little bit more fancy with less than 8GB RAM and low storage, get ready to get up close and personal, and install Linux.

I hope you enjoyed reading this. To learn CS you actually just need the bare minimum. Almost any computer that can boot is enough. As long as you’re willing to do some research.

No computer is slower than the human using it. — Me, 2023

Okay have fun bye.

USE SLAX USE SLAX USE SLAX.

Okay now that the motive of this post is evident, allow me to explain myself.

Like most lovers of open source, I distro hop a lot. A proclivity towards seeing new desktop environments and user interfaces meant this was inevitable.

Everywhere I go with my laptop, my Ubuntu live USB comes with me. It’s lovely for troubleshooting during those times when my computer gets in one of its moods and refuses to boot. That is until I destroyed the live install while trying to do an upgrade and killed the process because I got too impatient waiting for it to complete (rookie mistake).

Naturally, after 2 years of having the Ubuntu live stick, I felt the need for change. At the time I went with Ubuntu because it had the best persistence support (that I knew of) and I sometimes plug it into other computers. However, it had a few major flaws. It boots really slow and is one thicc operating system, at least by Linux standards.

So I started a search. I had a few requirements.

i. Should boot fast

ii. Have native persistence support

iii. Small footprint

My search led me to a few options — Puppy Linux, Antix Linux, and Slax.

I quickly discarded Antix Linux. The last kernel upgrade was on 3rd October 2022, nearly a year ago. It also seemed like a little bit of work to get running and I didn’t wanna spend too long trying to get it to work.

I did seriously consider Puppy Linux. However, much like Antix Linux it seemed to have too many things with the potential to go wrong, and it did not have native persistence support. It seems that persistence is easy to enable but I had only around an hour and I needed it to work properly quick quick.

So I went to the Slax website as a last shot before giving up and just sleeping. BUT THE UNIVERSE HAD OTHER PLANS. Slax seemingly ticked all my boxes. It had an iso footprint of about 300 MB, had native persistence support, and claimed to boot quickly. I also loved that it was Debian-based (there is also a Slackware version), so I was already familiar with how to use it because I used ParrotOS for about a year as my primary OS.

The next step was to download and flash (or so I thought).

I downloaded the iso file (you have to give your email and the download link is sent to your inbox). I tried to flash it normally using balenaEtcher, but I got a message saying there are no bootable entries. Confusing but whatever, we roll.

We did not in fact roll. The stick wouldn’t boot because….there were no bootable entries.

Decided to read up (ugh). Turns out Slax is more magnificent than I originally thought.

Here’s how to get Slax to boot. Make sure your USB uses the FAT32 filesystem (just format the USB if it doesn’t):

i. Mount the iso file and copy the slax folder to the USB

ii. In the USB go to the folder /slax/boot

iii. Run the file bootinst.sh

THAT’S IT YOU HAVE SLAX BOOTABLE USB WITH PERSISTENCE SUPPORT ENABLED BY DEFAULT.

Then I booted into Slax. The whole affair was so smooth I almost teared up.

Then I remembered it comes with nothing preinstalled, just xTerm, network manager, file manager, and task manager.

This of course is beautiful because I could do whatever I wanted. However, my agenda was to just have something that could run on whatever hardware, whenever I needed it to. I just ended up downloading Chromium and GCC before calling it a day.

My point is that, if you’re looking for a distro for a live USB that just performs a few functions and is very lightweight, Slax is your best friend.

Happy Tinkering :)

I was home for the vacation. Of course, like every Indian household ever, there is really no such thing as coming back. You never really left. While this does bring a great sense of belonging, it also means you have to do everything you used to do before you left for whatever soul-searching you embarked upon. In my case, this included the household laundry. And of course, like every peace-loving desi child, I started doing it before I could be chastised for my irresponsibility.

There is nothing obviously revolutionary about how I do my laundry. It’s the standard holy trifecta of wash, dry, and fold. However, now I viewed everything through the curious eyes of a newly minted algorithms student from college. And much like every insufferable CS major, I felt the need to make my degree my entire personality.

On one unremarkable day when I was doing my laundry, I was thinking about how to cram the most clothes for drying into the meagre space we have on our balcony. We have one of those cloth drying frames that are the staple of every city household hard pressed for space and a few ropes tied to the ceiling….and clothes from an entire household where everyone goes to work every day. And that’s how I figured out that I was using the greedy approach to do laundry.

The greedy approach is simple: Find the best possible solution at the present stage. Discard any woes about the future.

In the case of my laundry, it means finding the largest article of clothing that I can directly see in the washing machine. Then spread it in the smallest possible space that fits that article of clothing. I also refused to move clothing around, simply waiting for the next best fit to come along.

The results were mixed.

In most cases, I took up much less space with higher uniformity than was typical for the rest of my family’s laundry techniques. If I was really lucky, I got to do a second batch of laundry in the remaining space.

Sometimes, I ended up with blank spaces in the clothesline because I refused to move things around to make space, but overall still had more uniformity in cloth sizes in one area.

Very rarely, I’d end up with a large piece of clothing I didn’t see in the beginning, that could no longer be accommodated in my arrangement.

My conclusions thus are,

1. The greedy algorithm is great, although not perfectly optimal for laundry.
2. Perhaps this amount of optimization is adequate for laundry.
3. If laundry kept my mind as busy as my hands, none of this would have happened.
4. It can also be concluded that laundry, despite its overwhelming dreariness, does allow creative growth.

I hope you all have a lovely day, dear readers.

I’ve been using my keyboard for a few years now. Every now and then it needs a good cleaning to get rid of all the gunk that slips in through the gaps in the keys. I don’t own any keyboard-specific tools, so I just use random things around the house to get the job done.

My dad once said, “If you’re using too much force, you’re doing it wrong”. I just keep that in mind when tinkering with things, and in this case, I suggest that you do too. That being said, here’s one way to do it:

Step 1: Disconnect the keyboard

Make sure the keyboard is disconnected from the computer. Fold down the legs and lay the keyboard flat. This prevents unnecessary pressure on the body of the keyboard when you press down to remove keys or wipe the surface. Click a picture so that you don’t forget which keys go where.

Step 2: Remove the keys and stabilizers

All the keys come off pretty easily. If you have a key puller, then that’s great and you can use that. I just use the flat edge of the handle on a nail cutter to pry the keys off. Once you’ve taken out the keys at corners, you can even use your fingers to pull the rest out. Remember to be gentle, please. Also, make sure whatever you are using doesn’t have sharp edges, or it will scratch the body of the keyboard when taking the keys off and we don’t want that. Some of the larger keys like shift, enter and space bar have metal stabilizers under them.

• Remove keys Razer Cynosa V2
• Removing keys Razer Cynosa V2

Step 3: Dust things down

I used a thick artist’s brush for this bit. You may use a makeup brush, or a paintbrush, or really just blow the dust away if you don’t have any of those things. Just make sure you don’t blow the dust right into your own nose or spit into the keyboard by blowing too vigorously.

If you are using a brush, you can hold the keyboard upside down and dust it. Razer suggests spraying compressed air at the keyboard, so you can do that if you happen to have a can of compressed air lying around.

Step 4: Wipe

This step isn’t always necessary but it does leave the keyboard looking as good as new, so I like doing it. Use earbuds, cloth, tissue, or an old eye shadow applicator (new if you love your keyboard very much). Run it between the key slots to remove the more stubborn particles of dirt and use the brush to dust them away.

If you happen to have any crusty, dried spills on the keypad, slightly dampen your weapon of choice and rub the stain away. DO NOT let liquid squeeze out and go into the keyboard. If there are no stains you don’t need liquid to clean near the keypad.

For the frame, I wipe with a mix of water and sanitiser using a tissue, or just use baby wipes (I’m reasonably certain the keyboard is less sensitive than a baby’s butt).

Step 5: Pop the keys back on

Pretty self-explanatory. I like to wipe the keys before putting them back on. Just don’t jam them in, and be careful with the stabilisers.

Replacing keys Razer Cynosa V2

Step 6: Be a menace

Take 12 pictures of your sparkly keyboard and post all of them online. Go one step further by writing an article about it and post that too. Record yourself typing and listen to it. In fact, listen to it when you go to bed and let it lull you into a peaceful slumber.

And that’s it. You have a clean keyboard.

P.S: None of these methods are Razer approved so just remember that you’re doing everything at your own risk :)

So you’re in the market for a new laptop. You just want a machine that gets the job done and don’t want to stick around looking into these random letter-number combinations that manufacturers seem to love throwing around. You’re not sure how much computing power you need and don’t want to break the bank to get an overpowered machine you’re never going to fully take advantage of. I keep seeing people spend way too much money on machines with the latest processors and massive memory just to do web browsing and watch Netflix. It is an unnecessary waste of both money and resources. So your local computer lady here is to ask you, what do you need your computer for? Most people fall into one of the three following categories:

1. Category A: You use your computer to do web browsing and the occasional (very little) office work. Or maybe most of your work just happens in a browser. The most taxing program you run on your computer is probably MS Office.
2. Category B: Most people who use their computers for more than four hours a day fall into this category. You probably use a lot of applications at once and open several browser tabs at once to get the data you need for that presentation you’re switching in and out of while simultaneously playing some music because it helps you concentrate. I believe most college students also fall into this category.
3. Category C: These are the power users. They need the beefiest processor there is to withstand the sheer load of data they throw at their poor devices for processing. Media and IT professionals, as well as the gamer guy next door raging into his headset while playing GTA V at max settings, find their place in Category C.

This guide is really for Category A and B users. You need to pass through those two to become a Category C user and usually, by then you’re well aware of what you need and what you don’t. Unless you’re a baby gamer about to spend your yearly savings on the best and fastest computer, in which case you need to calm down because those things are fat and unless you want to be lugging 4kg of computer back and forth between college, you better reconsider until you can afford two computers.

Now onto what you’re here for. Deciphering manufacturer jargon (they’re at it for a reason but that doesn’t make it easier for us does it?). Once you’ve figured out which category you fall into, you’re ready to read the rest of this article.

Processor

The heart of a computer, the processor determines how well your computer is going to run under the workload you throw at it. Every other part in a laptop is easily swappable or upgradeable, but not the processor. For desktop users, the processor is upgradeable, but it's going to be expensive. Unless you have money to spend, your best bet is to get a processor that works for you right from the beginning.

There are two main processor manufacturers, Intel and AMD. There’s a raging debate among computer enthusiasts about which is better. However, I won’t be getting into that, simply because it is irrelevant to someone who doesn’t intend to spend hours poring over CPU specs.

AMD

Most AMD processors use this naming convention:

Ryzen <model> <generation><specification>

The model names are usually 3, 5, 7, or 9(there are exceptions), and the generations are numbered in the thousands. The specification is a capital letter that indicates how the processor manages power. Examples: Ryzen 7 5950X, Ryzen 3 2300X, Ryzen 5 2400G etc.

Intel

Most Intel processors use this naming convention:

Core i<model> <generation><specification>

Intel processors models can be Core i3, i5, i7 or i9. The generation is a number in the thousands, and the specification is a capital letter that indicates power and graphics configurations. Examples: Core i5 7287U, Core i3 8700B, Core i9 7960X etc.

Intel also has the Pentium lineup but I would give them a wide berth if I can help it. They are slower than the Core i3 processors and aren’t practical on a daily use device.

The above explanation is very simplified and does not include some of the higher-spec CPUs which have much stranger names.

Here’s what I like to do when I compare.

I decide on which generation to look at. The latest generation is usually always pricey, so a good way to get deals is to look into the previous generation of processors. The tech is only a year old and unless you need cutting edge performance you’ll be fine with the previous generation.

Decide on the CPU model. This depends on how you intend to use the device. Unless it’s a newer generation it is best to avoid Ryzen 3 or a Core i3.

Category A users will do just fine with one of the newer Core i3/Ryzen 3.

Category B people most likely need at least a Core i5/Ryzen 5. Some of the Category B people such as media students might even need a Core i7/Ryzen 7, depending on whether they intend to do heavy processing.

All the people in Category C need at least a Core i5/Ryzen 5 and ideally Core i7/Ryzen 7. Unless you fall fair and square in Category C, you probably do not need anything above Core i7/Ryzen 7.

Once you do this, you probably have a decent list of computers to go with. At this point, you can start striking computers off your list much easier using the other criteria on this list. The processors are usually the hardest bit to decipher for people unfamiliar with manufacturer lingo.

RAM

RAM(Random Access Memory) is the next most important part of your computer that decides its performance. If you have a powerful processor but not enough RAM, the computer will slow down. A RAM stores data that is currently in use by the PC. The more the number of applications you want to run simultaneously, the more RAM you need.

RAM usually comes in configurations of 4GB, 8GB, 16GB and so on. You do see other numbers every so often, but these are the most widely used. There are three different kinds of RAM on the market right now; DDR3, DDR4 and DDR5. Avoid DDR3, it is outdated, and DDR5 is ridiculously expensive. The sweet spot is DDR4, so I’m doing this comparison using DDR4.

Ideally, you shouldn’t use a computer with anything less than 8GB of RAM. Category A users can make do with 4GB of RAM if they intend to buy a Chromebook. If you are a Windows user, you should not go for anything less than 8GB.

Category B users should aim for at least 8GB or higher. Category C users should have a minimum of 16 GB.

Upgrading RAM is pretty affordable, so if a laptop matches all other specifications you need, you can get something with slightly less RAM and upgrade it yourself, or get it done at a service centre. Just make sure the computer’s specification page clearly states that the RAM is upgradable.

Storage

There are two kinds of hard drives in use currently. HDDs and SSDs. HDDs are cheaper, so you typically get a lot more storage for cheaper than SSDs, the tradeoff is speed. Laptops with HDDs run a little slower than their SSD equipped counterparts. I’d say that, unless you’re in a pinch or don’t need terabytes and terabytes of storage, SSDs are a better choice. SSDs are newer technology, and, make for a much better experience with your computer. The speed difference is especially noticeable during bootup. Computers that use SSD storage are typically ready to go much faster.

Another option is to use a computer with both an SSD and HDD. This solution is used when you need both a lot of speed and a lot of storage. It is cost-effective to use a HDD with larger storage capacity for the bulk of your data and an SSD with smaller storage capacity to store only your operating system files and program files.

If you’re someone who mostly uses the cloud or external drives for storage, a computer with 512GB of SSD storage will do.

If you want to store a lot of data locally, and are willing to trade some speed for cheap storage, a 1TB or 2TB HDD might be a better fit.

If you are unwilling to trade on neither speed nor storage and have money to spend, a hybrid approach might be more appealing. A 256GB SSD to store system files and a 1TB or 2TB HDD for storing other data.

The reason I didn’t use the previously mentioned categories for storage is because the amount of storage you need doesn’t necessarily depend on how much work you throw at your computer at a time.

Graphics

Computers need graphics processing to be able to display things on the screen. There are two kinds of graphics processing that are being used, integrated and discrete.

Integrated graphics means that your GPU(Graphics Processing Unit) is integrated into your processor. It is more than enough for someone who doesn’t intend to play demanding games or work with media on their devices. Category A people seldom need more than an integrated GPU.

Discrete graphics means that your computer comes with a GPU separate from the CPU. Whether or not you need a discrete GPU depends on the kind of work you do. Sometimes even Category C users do not need a discrete GPU.

If you want to play a lot of visually demanding, high-performance games, or do video editing or image rendering on your device then it is best to look into something with a discrete GPU.

I had more things in mind but this is enough for most people who just want to grab and go. I will write more on this topic about other things that often get overlooked when buying a laptop, but are important when it comes to how comfortable your device feels during daily use. Also, you may have noticed how I do not go into Apple Silicon and MacBooks. That’s because I consider Apple devices to be not very pocket friendly. If you are someone trying to get a cheap laptop that works well, Apple shouldn’t be your go-to.

1. Check app permissions on android

A lot of apps have access to a lot of functions on your smartphone that they don’t need. Your calculator does not need access to the camera or location. Review all the permissions granted to installed apps, and revoke any unnecessary permissions. Use your phone’s permission manager to get this done easily. If you see any app requesting access to a suspicious number of things, remove it unless it’s something you absolutely need.

In particular, remove location access for the camera app. If enabled, depending on your phone’s hardware, the coordinates of the location where you clicked a picture will get saved to the image’s metadata. This metadata accompanies your image anywhere you share it, making you traceable.

In general, it is good practice to remove location access to almost every app except navigation and some payment apps that do not work without location access enabled, and keep it turned off whenever you don’t need it actively working. Your phone’s emergency location functions work even without it being turned on so don’t worry about that.

2. Get a webcam cover

This is straightforward. Some computers even come with it built-in. It is widely known that computers(particularly ones running Windows) are the easiest to compromise. Stories of unfortunate footage ending up in the hands of miscreants are rampant all over the internet. Unfortunately, in most cases, you have no one to sue if your webcam footage ends up on a random site on the internet because it was compromised when grandma downloaded something from a sketchy site. You are responsible for your data.

Webcam covers are easy to find on basically any online retail service such as Amazon. Just go on there and search for webcam cover and you’ll get them in sets for pretty cheap. Buy and slap them on every built-in laptop camera in the house. Or just stick some tape on the webcam if you don’t need it at all.

3. Use separate credentials for work and personal use

This is something I don’t see mentioned a lot. But it is so important. At work, your contact details are shared everywhere. Everyone you interact with needs your email or phone number. DO NOT give every random person who walks into your office your personal phone number and email, especially if it’s the ones associated with your financial details.

Make a separate email and get a new phone number. Give them to the people who need to contact you at work or for publicising. Compartmentalise your data. Even if one compartment gets compromised, the others stay intact. In this case, ideally, the credentials that you’ve created to be shared with people ensure that your sensitive info stays protected.

4. Do not give out contact info unless absolutely necessary

This builds on the previous point of keeping your information to yourself. Everyone wants your contact info. They don’t need it. The supermarket you get your milk at does not need your phone number. When they ask you for your phone number, tell them to bill without it and they’ll do it. They usually just want your number to send promotional messages. It’s unnecessary and sometimes even annoying because it leads to a lot of spam in your messages inbox.

Ideally, you should avoid giving contact info to businesses. The best-case scenario is if they just want your number for sending promo, which is just plain annoying. Worst case scenario, they sell your data to other entities who can then use it however they want, which is a whole lot scarier.

5. You are your biggest security vulnerability

No matter how much damage control you do, no matter how secure your computer is, one small mistake can easily leak all your information like blood flowing freely from a wound. In every system, humans are the weakest link. We can be manipulated and cheated, making us the very first targets if our information is ever coveted.

This is called social engineering. A crafty way that cyber attackers use human weaknesses to gain access to private information. The easiest example would be banking fraud. The people behind scams like these aren’t usually very skilled hackers. They just know how to manipulate a vulnerable individual into giving them the information they need. Very often they will create a fake situation of panic, calling a customer pretending to be their bank. They’ll tell them something serious has happened, maybe a lot of money is missing, or that the customer is under suspicion of tax fraud. This takes the victim’s focus away from account security and taps into something more important to the shortsighted mind, self-preservation. The victim now just wants to prove their innocence. The panic makes it much easier to get them to divulge sensitive information.

This was just a simple example of social engineering. It can be used in much more destructive ways. It has the power to bring entire corporations and governments to their knees. The reason isn’t that their network security wasn’t strong enough, it was just that maybe someone, somewhere in the system got a little too chatty with their curious new coworker who just moved to the city from another country.

And there you have it. All 10 reasons. I loved writing them, they took some time but I loved the process of going through each tip.

I’ll be writing more tech and cybersecurity-related content in the future so stay tuned for that :)

We often pay a lot of attention to how secure our credit card PINs and bank passwords are, but forget about regular, everyday things we do that might put our security at risk. A chain is only as strong as the weakest link. This means that to keep confidential information safe, you need to make sure the rest of your credentials are also safe. This post is my attempt to help you cultivate better everyday security practices.

1. Strong, unique passwords across different services

This one gets repeated a lot, and for good reason. One breached password can cause a world of damage depending on which one it is. Ideally, each of your passwords should be unique, long and strong and include a mix of uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers and special characters. This is hard to remember so the best way to do it is using a password manager such as Bitwarden.

Avoid using the login with Facebook/Google option on sites, especially if those accounts are really important to you, such as on LinkedIn or Twitter. This is because, if the Facebook or Google account you’re using for the login is compromised, it will automatically compromise the sites you’re using those accounts for login as well. Using this option might seem more convenient, but it really is not a good practice, not to mention it ties all your activity back to one account making you very easy to trace across the internet.

2. Router Password

It is a common belief that hackers can only access your data from the server i.e by breaching the server of a site you’re visiting, or if you simply give your information to a sketchy website. It is assumed that the bad actor always attacks at the destination. This assumption is made because attacking the destination server is the easiest way the hacker can access the data from a large number of people the fastest.

However, if you have weak router passwords, you are the weakest link in the chain. Weak router passwords make it easy for hackers to monitor just about anything on your network because even with encryption, the password becomes very guessable. Computers that are connected to the network, domains each of these computers are connecting to, their operating systems, data stored in each of the computers, all of this becomes available to a hacker with scary ease.

There are three things you can do to strengthen your router’s security:

• Change the administrator password to your router. By default, it is usually set to something generic like ‘admin’ or ‘system’ or just blank. Changing this will lock access to your router’s settings such as changing the names of wireless networks or their passwords to third parties. You can find instructions to change this in your router’s user manual.
• Use strong passwords for the networks themselves. Avoid using something like a family member’s name or what they’re set up with by default (it’s usually something horribly insecure like 123456789)
• This last one is for people willing to tweak around the settings a little bit. Set your wifi password encryption to AES. It is 256-bit encryption. The same standard is used in password managers and military communications. If your password itself is strong, it will take an extremely determined hacker to crack it.

Doing this will ensure that no sketchy person sitting out in your apartment parking lot can monitor you and your family’s internet activity, or even worse, watch YouTube on the wifi that you are paying for.

3. Do not save passwords on browsers

You’ve probably seen your browser offer to save your passwords when you log in on websites. Don’t take it up on the offer. They aren’t stored with the level of security with which a password manager saves them. Saving passwords on browsers is not safe, not to mention they aren’t synced unless you’re logged into the browser. My solution here is once again to just use something like Bitwarden to manage your passwords.

4. Use a strong antivirus software

This one is especially for the Windows users out there, but also everyone else. Invest in a strong antivirus software like Kaspersky or Bitdefender. Malware can be a huge pain, and antivirus software keeps them in check and also keep smaller vulnerabilities patched up, without you having to do much work other than installing the antivirus itself.

As for my fellow Linux users, it can be easy to fall into the misunderstanding that Linux is impenetrable. This is not the case. Linux has much less malware written for it because it doesn’t have a large enough, vulnerable user base that would make writing malware specifically for it worthwhile. However, some issues affect Linux systems as well and using tools such as Rootkit Hunter or ChkrootKit can address a lot of them.

5. Download software only from trusted sources

While downloading software always make sure of the following two things, in this order:

1. The software you are downloading is from a verified developer. Never download applications from unknown sources or applications whose origin is unknown.
2. If the software itself is verifiable and trustworthy, make sure you download it directly from the developer’s website or a verified package repository(for Linux users).

If possible, try to verify the SHA256 checksum for the copy of the software that you have downloaded and make sure it matches what is given on the official website. This is highly recommended because this means it is extremely unlikely that your copy of the software has been tampered with.

I hope you found this list useful. I had initially compiled a list of 10 ways but this post ended up being too long, so I will be covering 5 more in the next one. This is a continuation of my previous post, and probably just one of many posts on this topic.

If you like my content, go ahead and subscribe to my mailing list :)

There are several applications and browser extensions that help with online security. These combined with some good security practices can make a significant difference to the amount of privacy you have on the internet. This post will cover some of my favourite applications and extensions for online security, and I’ll cover some security best practices in the next post.

1. uBlock Origin:

This one seems obvious, right? Use an adblocker. It reduces the amount of clutter on the screen and keeps things clean. However, uBlock is a browser extension that does more than just that. It can be configured to block all 3rd party scripts. This means that if you visit a website, you will not see content from domains other than the website itself. Now, this sometimes creates issues. It can break sites that require 3rd party scripts to function. This problem is addressed in the extension itself. It has options to allow content from specific trusted domains and saves them. If you want to shift computers or browsers, just download a copy of the backup from the extension and upload it wherever you want it synced.

2. Bitwarden:

Bitwarden is an open-source password manager. Password managers are an absolute necessity if you have several online accounts. Email accounts, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, Amazon…the list goes on and on. If you work with social media, chances are you have multiple accounts on major social networks, which increases the need for a strong password manager.

Bitwarden is widely recommended by a lot of people in the infosec industry. It is both convenient and robust, and uses AES 256-bit encryption, widely regarded as unbreakable by current computers. It has browser extensions on Chrome, Firefox and Chromium-based browsers like Microsoft Edge and Brave, and has dedicated applications on Windows, macOS, Linux and Android. The Bitwarden vault can be configured to lock itself after a certain timeout duration and requires a master password to unlock it. As long as your master password is very strong and not simply guessable, your passwords are unlikely to be breached.

3. TOR Browser:

TOR stands for The Onion Router. The Tor Browser is an open-source browser that uses the TOR protocol to transfer data across the internet. Standard browsers send your web request to your ISP, and then to the destination server. This leaves your IP address vulnerable.

TOR takes a different approach. It encrypts your data with three layers of military-grade encryption and sends it through three different TOR nodes maintained by volunteers all around the globe. Each node has access only to the decryption key for one layer and the address of the next node. Only the final node has access to the address of the destination server, but it no longer has the information about the origin of the request, which is your computer. This method has been compared to peeling off the layers of an onion, earning TOR its name.

You might be wondering if all these nodes slow down TOR. You would be right in that case. TOR is much slower than a standard browser. It definitely shouldn’t be your go-to for HD video streaming. TOR is used mostly when you want privacy. For instance when you’re an author writing a crime thriller and want to know about the best ways to kill someone. You really don’t want to look like a deranged murderer to someone who goes through your ISP's logs. Or if you’re an activist in a country that heavily restricts internet usage, TOR might be a lifesaver. Or maybe you just want to visit some sites that you wouldn’t want to be traced back to you, TOR might be your solution.

TOR is not unhackable. It’s just that the encryption is so strong that it takes a lot of resources to trace a bad actor on TOR. But if you make an enemy out of a government or large organisation, it will take a lot more than just TOR to keep yourself safe.

4. HTTPS Everywhere:

This is one of my personal favourites. The main reason is its simplicity of usage. It’s a browser extension, that forces a website to use the HTTPS protocol instead of HTTP, which is less secure because the data is transferred unencrypted, allowing cybercriminals easy access to your data while it is transferred across the web. It prevents accidental access to unencrypted websites. The extension is available on Chrome, Firefox and Chromium-based browsers.

And that concludes my list of favourites. There are a few others that deserve mentions. I might write another post about those soon. If you think there are any extensions that deserve a mention, leave a comment :)