I feel like I should be sending out some kind of chain email, telling you to pass this on to everyone you care about because it’s true. But it is.

Over the weekend, someone pretty close to me received a phone call very early in the morning, claiming to be “Visa” and reporting that his Visa debit card had been deactivated due to fraud and that he needed to provide some information to reactivate it. In the blur of being woken early with a phone call and the confusion about potential fraud, he provided his card number, expiration date and PIN to the automated system.

Clearly this type of thing can happen to anyone, especially when the call comes during the early morning hours, before you might be thinking there are criminals out to get your credit card information. Just remember, your bank will never ask you for your PIN number -they will verify your identity using other information.

Since that early morning, successful phishing attempt, he made a second call to his bank and had the card canceled. Because of the quick action, no misuse of the card number or PIN had occurred.

Also, when in doubt about a call not initiated by you regarding your credit cards, inform the caller that you will call back and ask which department you should be contacting. Then hang up and call the customer service number on the back of your card.

This has been a public service announcement. Stay safe and keep an eye on your wallet.

There has been a lot in the news lately regarding the security of copier hard drives. I have to admit I haven’t been thinking much about what make the inner workings of copiers and multi-function office machines tick until now. Because of this, we turned to our copy machine vendor to find out the options for the machines we have in the office.

Of course, whenever security is at stake there is a chance to make a little cash with the resolution. Our copier vendor is no exception. I’m not sure if these options have been around for a while or are recent additions, but if you have copiers or the popular network attached copier/printer/scanners, you may want to see if your vendor has similar offerings. These are for Ricoh brand machines and for our leasing plan, these options come with a monthly fee.

DataOverwriteSecurity System (DOSS) Option – To provide enhanced security for our MFPs and printers, Ricoh offers the DataOverwriteSecurity System (DOSS) for its MFP and printer products. DOSS verwrites the sector of the hard drive used for data processing after the completion of each job. During the overwrite process, the data is destroyed to prevent recovery. Additionally, DOSS also offers the option of overwriting the entire hard drive up to nine times. This feature may be used at the end of the lease or if the MFP or printer is moved to another department, and may be added before or after the initial sale.

Hard Drive Encryption Option – The Hard Drive Encryption Option meets international standard “AES 256 CBC” and provides security for information that needs to be stored on the MFP or printer and reused again. Examples of information that may need to be stored for reuse include administrator and user passwords and address books. The Hard Drive Encryption Option differs from DOSS in that the information encrypted is not destroyed, but locked up so only authorized users may access the information.

DOSS destroys data so it cannot be reused. The Hard Drive Encryption Option and DOSS may be used in conjunction and will not interfere with MFP or printer operation. In addtion, Ricoh offers a wide range of network security features such as user authentication, network communication encryption and the ability to close unused network ports.

Go forth and copy.

ImageRight has a nifty feature where you can “link” pages from a document in one file to another file. When annotations are made on those linked pages in either file, they show in both locations. You can link pages from one file to multiple files and the annotations will remain synced on all of the linked copies.

It’s important to know that “all linked copies are equal”, there is no master version of the a page once a linked copy is created. If File A has a link to File B and File C, annotations on any version will be synced to all other copies. If you delete the page from File A, the linked version in File B and File C will still continue to share annotation updates between them. However what happens when the original document was incorrect and needs to be swapped out? Or how do you figure out which other files are referencing a document?

Turns out, there isn’t an easy answer. In my particular scenario, it was discovered that File A (the original document) was determined to be inaccurate and needed to be replaced with updated pages. If those pages were deleted outright, there would be no way to determine which other files were linked or how to notify users of those files of the error.

My suggestion is to put an annotation on what was the source document stating that it had been superseded by a new version and where the updated version could be located. That annotation would sync to the other linked copies, wherever they may be. Finally, the pages could be replaced in the original file. The link with the original location would be gone, but whenever someone came across the notation on the older version in another file, they could reference the new file and re-link fresh copies if desired.

I’ve requested that ImageRight add the ability to determine which pages or documents are linked, so maybe we’ll see that as an enhancement in a future version.

Every IT Professional loves a toolkit – you know that special DVD or flash drive with your favorite go-to applications for solving problems. Here’s a little something to add to the mix: DaRT, the Diagnostics and Recovery Toolset, which comes as part of the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack.

Designed to help reduce the time spent repairing damaged Windows system, it includes 14 different tools, a veritable Swiss Army knife for Windows. Use DaRT to help with tasks like:

• Recover an unbootable PC, even when it won’t boot in Safe mode
• Access deleted files
• Reset passwords
• Detect and remove malware when the PC is offline
• Wipe hard drives
• Access files from a unbootable OS
• Uninstall hotfixes

DaRT will run on top the Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE) and the DaRT tools and the WinRE tools run side by side so you can use them both together to recover systems. You can also create customized DaRT boot disks that only include a subset of tools for different uses. Overall, DaRT may help reduce the amount of time you need to spend repairing and reimaging systems for end users – getting people back to their regular duties sooner and improving the TCO on your desktops.

To learn more, check out this overview of DaRT on Microsoft Technet. DaRT is part of MDOP, which is available to Software Assurance and volume licensing customers.

I just checked back at the She’s Geeky website for the conference I attended at the end of January and noticed that a good selection of the session notes have been posted. The Privacy and Identity Online session was great and there were several others that seemed like they would have been fun to participate in. I’ll keep checking back, but really I’m just looking forward to the next event that’s close enough for me to attend!

Just a quick reminder that the She’s Geeky conference is happening later this week in Mountain View, Friday through Sunday. There’s still time to register, so maybe I’ll see you there.

Also, if you have a little bit of wiggle room in your training budget for the first half of 2010, you might want to check out this local one-day conference, Windows Intelligence, hosted by QuickStart Intelligence on April 26th. Several MVPs will be presenting, including myself and Ed Horley.

More details to come!

The National Museum of Computing in Bletchley Park is pushing aside the mothballs and reassembling a computer they’ve had in storage since 1973. Check out the Harwell WITCH story on Wired.com’s Gagdet Lab.

If you are looking for something more modern, take a look at the story behind the new Wired.com office kegerator, dubbed the Beer Robot. The exterior design was done by my husband – I’m not ashamed to flaunt his design skills.