Worst of all is unbeknownst to the user, Windows can also install patches and collect data covertly without notifying the user as seen in the 2006, 2008-09 incident where Windows was under the scrutiny of the public eye for the installation of a patch (Windows systems were vulnerable for 17 years before it came to light). Now we can take action to protect ourselves from those potential threats.

Here are some practical preventative procedures to secure your Windows Operating System (OS).
If you feel something is unfathomable or outside your comfort zone, simply skip the procedure because you’d know your system more than I do here in Australia. For security reasons, making a recovery disc is necessary to save yourself from unnecessary trouble. Ultimately, it’s your best judgment in the matter.

System Hardening

Security Tool
The Windows Worm Door Cleaner is a non-install free application that closes and prevents access to the most commonly targetted ports which are open by default on Windows systems. These are 135 (RPC), 137-139 (file-sharing), 445 (Server Message Block: SMB) and the Windows Messenger service port (SPAM). It’s no surprise why it was removed from later Windows releases (post XP*).

This program was hosted on the firewallleaktester website, but now is provided on other security webportals.

Download
Here is the download link and the checksum verification code:-
http://hotfile.com/dl/45142301/d866a84/wwdc.exe.html (51KBs)
Company: gkweb
File Version: 1.4.1.0
MD5checksum: 999f6e5c8d5c81f48afbdab7f8777323 wwdc.exe

Implementation
Simply execute the program (right-click -> Run as Administrator), close all the ports, and restart your computer.

For Windows Vista or higher, if there is a pop-up that informs you the value for the Windows Messenger Service in the Windows Registry cannot be found, click OK to proceed. The reason is because it is not installed (see above*).

To undo any changes, run the program again and click Open Ports to re-enable these services.

Verification
To verify that the vulnerable Windows ports are now closed, open a Command Prompt window (cmd.exe or conhost.exe for Windows 7) and type:

netstat -aonbv, or

if you are not operating with Administrator privileges:

netstat -aon

This will list all the “listening” ports on your computer.

This will effectively close port 135, stopping one more port that an intruder might use to compromise your system.

Download
Here is the download link and checksum verification code:-

http://hotfile.com/dl/45143403/27ef5d0/DCOMbob.exe.html (29KBs)
Company: Gibson Research Corp.
File Version: 2.0.1.0
MD5checksum: bd10d5383d9f1851cca46d4a5f5f4c03 DCOMbob.exe

Security Tool
Panda Security has released a program called the Panda USB Vaccine and its purpose is to set an autorun.inf file that cannot be overwritten easily through convention means. The safest option is to format your USB before using the program and be certain that any malware or data that may have been contained in your $Recycler or areas on the drive are cleared.

Then install the Panda USB Vaccine to vaccinate your computer. The current version supports File Allocation Table (FAT) 16/32 drives, but not full support for New Technology Files Systems (NTFS). However, as with all the applications above, you can undo any changes made by re-running the program and selecting “remove vaccination”.

Download
http://hotfile.com/dl/45316700/1109413/USBVaccineSetup.exe.html (828KBs)
Company: Panda Security
File Version: 1.0.1.4
MD5checksum: 58cc5b530fc552c8e31870f90db425ed USBVaccineSetup.exe

Simply open a Command Prompt window and enter the entries below where [X:\>] refers to your drive letter:-

X:\>netsh>rpc
X:\>netsh rpc>filter
X:\>netsh rpc filter>add rule layer=um actiontype=block
X:\>netsh rpc filter>add condition field=if_uuid matchtype=equal data=4b324fc8-1670-01d3-1278-5a47bf6ee188
X:\>netsh rpc filter>add filter

Verification
X:\>netsh rpc filter>show filter

Basically “actiontype=block” is a rule that will block an entry on the condition (in the case that) the entry equals that data block.

Adding the filter enforces the rule.
You can remove the filter with the remove parameter.

Using the Group Policy Objects (GPO) to enforce security policies is a very powerful tool – in fact, it can even stop any executable file from running such as shortcuts or extensions like vbs, msc, bat, com etc…

Simply execute gpedit.msc via the run command (windows button + R, or start menu)

or find it in your %systemroot%\system32 folder, or for x64, \windows\syswow64 folder

e.g. C:\Windows\System32\gpedit.msc | C:\Windows\Syswow64\

When the Microsoft Management Console (MMC) opens, navigate to Software Restriction Policy:-

Local Computer Policy > Windows Settings > Security Settings > Software Restriction Policy

Right-click on the folder and ‘Add Security Policy’

Double-click on the folder ‘Additional Rules’ in the menu bar select Action (Alt right-key, down-key),
click on New Path Rule

Under Path: type in C:\Windows\System32\Wat or C:\Windows\syswow64\Wat

(replace C:\ with the system partition drive, or simply replace it with %systemroot%\)

The Security level should be set to Disallowed (default value to prevent execution)

Restart your computer and the WAT service will no longer be running.

To undo the changes, simply remove the GPO Path Rule
Alternatively, you can delete the Registry entry that enforces the GPO rule.
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Microsoft\Policies\Safer\*

To remove some restrictions to allow you to easily navigate your system you need to remove the extension or set the appropriate permission in each case as shown below.

However, thanks to the versatility and powerful computer languages being able to execute functions in different environments, users like us are more vulnerable to “tricks” such as spoofing, phishing attempts (fake e-mail requesting user information), even VoiP Vishing (Voice over IP) and DNS cache poisoning (classic), malformed iFrames, Man-in-the-middle attacks – the list goes on.

The rising trend in malicious activity comes in the form of “drive-by” downloads. If you or I just visit a website like CNN or ABC, our computer could be compromised. We can protect ourselves by redirecting the malicious sites to your local host (127.0.0.1).

What this means is, your computer doesn’t try to find the address on the Internet, it tries to find it on your computer. These private addresses are inaccessible from the Internet because it’s like trying to find a museum on your residence. Hence, it will not “resolve” itself, and you won’t be caught in harms way.

Security Tool
A number of people have posted “blacklists” on sites such as MVPS, hosts-file, malwaredomainlist and so on. Using an application known as Hostsman will help you optimise your use of the Windows hosts file to prevent access to known malicious sites.

Troubleshooting
If you suddenly experience slow browsing and the DNS Client service is still running, open a command prompt window and type:
ipconfig /flushdns
net stop dnsclient
Alternatively, in Administrative Tools > services.msc (right-click > Run as Administrator)
Disable the DNS Client service
Restart

Exceptions
You can also add an “exclusion” to access a site. One of the limitations of using the hosts file is that the address specified must be static. As an example, malicious sites must be defined – “baddykkp.info”, “baddykkpx.info” and the list goes on. Since malicious users will just change the name anyway, we need to find a work around.

Download
http://hotfile.com/dl/45320798/0b55c5d/hm_3.2.73_installer.zip.html (1.89MBs)
Company: Abelha Digital
File Version: 3.2.73 (stable release)
MD5checksum: de2e19040d44b78180c0c9f40cb06a0b hm_3.2.73_installer.zip

Limitations and Development
Over time, things have developed to a point where people believe that blacklists just don’t cut it. Just like a firewall that stealths all ports by default, there should be a “whitelist”, a list of trusted sites that we can access instead of “blacklisted sites” that number in the billions. I have avoided this feature because I’m not very paranoid and don’t want to be oppressed by “parental controls”.

Instead, we can use PACs (Proxy Auto-Config). It tells your browser what to avoid by using wildcards. Wildcards means that everything before and/or after this entry is Disallowed. For example, *.pokemon.* tells the browser not to go to any site with pokemon in its domain name, so www.ieatpokemonforbreakfast.biz would not resolve.

These can be found at the website below:
http://securemecca.com/pac.html

Troubleshooting
When your browser reports that a page could not resolve, open the file “proxy_en.txt”,
Ctrl + F to find a keyword (usually in the URL address), and remove it.
Save, exit your browser, and try again. Alternatively, use the Reload feature.

I only know that the Mozilla browser supports this reload feature, so please inform me of any other browsers that support the PAC reload function.

Future Expectations
Despite our best efforts, there is always the fear that human error will undo all these safeguards. Here, the ingenious laboratory mad scientists are developing the Blade Defender which is a robust system with a 100% success rate of preventing drive-by downloads by testing and stopping 0-day attempts at compromising systems. However, it is still under development so it has not been officially released. I’m looking forward to seeing this protecting us in the future.
www.blade-defender.org

It is likely that virtualisation in hardware form will become more prominent for the end-user. In the mean time, you can run programs in a Sandbox and any changes made will not affect your system – unfortunately, misconfiguration and “undiscovered” features may present unforeseen consequences.

Therefore, I recommend that you backup your system, have a Live recovery disk (preferably Linux), a system image backup (plenty of open-source software to be found at sourceforge.net), and if you feel up to it, complete drive encryption, TPM and the works.

There may be articles in the future if I am permitted to post again after this mammoth article, but hopefully it has helped you to understand more of what is happening in your computing environment. Never download screensavers, and if you like playing with toys and testing things out (I know I do!), try using a Virtualualised Environment to work out all your experiments. VMWare (free or commercial), VirtualBox (free and open-source) and others can solve many problems with having only one or two PCs.

I have done my best to avoid all the technical jargon, but if you feel that there are any steps that need clarifying or too parsimonious, please post a comment below and I will help however I can.

Final notes
All Operating Systems have their advantages and limitations, so it would be a mistake to assume any one OS is more secure than another. It is a human creation and will be imperfect if another human were to introduce “bugs” and “tweaks” during development; the notorious patch; the seemingly innocent sister; the lithesome fingers that work the dvorak/qwerty keys; and the infamous beta. If you must use beta software, please try to avoid using it on your work PC. It might bring out unprecented consequences and make your system more vulnerable.

If you would like to setup a system that rollbacks any changes made have a look at Shadow Defender, Returnil (I experienced some BSODs so I avoided this one – beta, later editions possible fixed issues) and others.

I have decided against suggesting Harden-It as a security tool, but feel free to try it. For post-XP systems, you need to run and set Compatibility Mode as Windows XP (SP2). It basically adds Windows Registry Entries to secure your network. I believe it works on servers also. Use SSL1.0, 3.0, TLS 1.1, 1.2, etc… but not SSL v2.0 since there has been talk of vulnerabilities concerning that protocol.

Just a reminder, installing plenty of security software won’t protect you more. It’s like stacking yourself with ironclad armor, then a copper-stove onto your head. You’ll be blinded, tired from the heavy CPU load, a bit queasy from loss of RAM, and potentially fatal… flatulence? Try to limit real-time scanners to one, support open-source since it helps developers make free and transparent software, and don’t go overboard because we’re all liable for our own actions.

I’d like to thank everyone here at setupswarm and the inspiring, hard-working individuals that made the security tools discussed above. Any comments from people not suffering from a… consideration defecit, are duly welcome.

• avi
• divx
• xvid

The problem with all these file formats is that they usually aint supported by your dvd player and because of that you are going to have to convert the file so your DVD player will be able to play the file. To convert the file you can get lots of different software, but most of them are paid or hard to work with. Others have verry limited options, and are only able to convert file formats like .mov or .flv. I have been searching the web for a few hours and found the following piece of software:

ConvertXtoDVD (official download link)

Now ConvertXtoDVD is not a free application, but you can get a serial real easy here: link to serials This is a great piece of software that allows you to create a menu for your dvd, it sets up chapters for you, automatically inserts the subtitles (you do need them to be in the same folder as your movie file) and has lots of other features.

Key features are:

• Video formats supported: avi, divx, xvid, mov, mkv, flv , mpeg1, mpeg2, mpeg-, nsv, dvr-ms, ts, ifo, vob, asf, wmv, realmedia, rm, rmvb, ogm, existing files from digital camcorders, TV/Sat, capture cards, etc. No external codecs needed like avi codec download More formats…
• Create DVD menus with different templates available, possibility to add background video, image or audio, have chapter and audio/subtitle menus
• Conversion advisor wizard, control of the conversion speed vs. quality
• Fast and quality encoder, typically less than 1 hour for converting 1 movie, and supports Multi-Core processors!
• Included burning engine with burn speed control choice of SAO or packet writing methods, supports all DVD formats
• Custom and or automatic chapter creation with markers and preview window
• Advanced file merging possibilities
• Audio formats supported internal and external: AC3, DTS, PCM, OGG, MP3, WMA and more… Select audio output format.
• Subtitles files supported internal and external: SRT, .SUB/IDX, .SSA, opensubtitles, dvbsub with color and font selection, and supports tags like italic, bold, turn on/off with DVD player remote control
• Video output for video standard (NTSC, PAL), TV Screen (Widescreen 16:9, Fullscreen 4:3) and DVD Resolution (Full D1, Broadcast D1, Half D1, SIF), or choose automatic for all choices listed above. Also convert video from NTSC to PAL or PAL to NTSC
• Video post processing settings like video resize-pad/cropping and de-interlacing options
• Works with 32 and 64bits edition of Windows XP, Vista, 7

Another big advantage is the converting time, convertation software takes MUCH longer than ConvertXtoDVD, certainly on my old and crappy laptop, it takes about 1.5-2 hours to convert (other software took me 6-8 hours for a single dvd sometimes). But alright, download ConvertXtoDVD and here’s a simple guide for your first movie burning project.

Burning your dvd

So when you downloaded ConvertXtoDVD you’r ready to go i would advice you to take the time to look into a nice menu, select the one you prefer and customize it, you can add sounds, titles, text, and backgrounds… so its worth looking into, but thats for another article i guess!

The actual burning proces is simple:

1. Download the movie if you didnt do that jet
2. Download a subtitle for the movie in the language of your choice (optional), a good subtitle source is: link
3. Insert the files in your project
4. Set up the dvd menu (titlescreen)
5. Start converting
6. Burn the project to a dvd (if you inserted a dvd during or before the proces it burns on that automatically)

If you have any specific questions about the titlescreen or the burning proces or whatever, lemme know by posting a comment of posting in the forum thread and I will get back to you as soon as possible and place a update here.

Printing a dvd cover / layar

Now that you burned your dvd you dont want it to just lay around, you need a nice casing with a dvd cover and layer! Again, after searching the web i found a nice piece of equipment fit for the job and best of all its free.

UndercoverXP (official download link)

“UndercoverXP is a small program to easily print CD and DVD covers. It supports JPEG, GIF, PNG and BMP formats and can automatically scale front covers, back covers, front + inside, inlays, DVD Boxes, Digital Pictures and CD/DVD labels to the correct sizes. Other formats can be easily added via a graphical format editor. UnderCoverXP is written in C++ using Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 and doesn’t need a .NET framework or any other external libraries.”

Download that and i will explain to you how to burn a nice dvd layer, and a dvd cover. Getting these files can be done at several websites, the following list will provide you with just about any cover / layar you need:

1. Podnapisi
2. CDcovers
3. Freecovers
4. Mega-Search

Printing a dvd layer

When you’re going to burn a dvd layer you will need to get yourself some dvd layer sheets, these are usually a4 format printable sticker papers, with 2 precut dvd size stickers on them. You can get these at the bigger paper stores / webshops and you should just google for it. When you got the right paper follow these steps:

1. Open UndercoverXP.
2. Click the left or right white area and open the layar you downloaded before.
3. Select “DVD Layers” in the dropdownlist above the image.
4. Print your image, but before doing this you should select high quality and the correct paper type. (if you have those options on your printer)

Printing 2 layers at a time:

1. Follow the step 1-3 above to select the left or right image.
2. Follow the step 1-3 above again, but now select the other image.
3. Select the checkbox between the 2 dropdownlists to check “Print on a single page”.
4. Print your image, but before doing this you should select high quality and the correct paper type. (if you have those options on your printer)

Well thats that and you should have a perfect dvd layer now!

Update: Its possible that you need to change the format a bit so the print will cover the dvd size sticker, i recommend testing by printing a grey page so you dont waste your ink. You can change the format in “options –> format editor…”

Printing a dvd cover

Before starting to burn your dvd cover’s i

can recommend you to buy Glossy paper. Simply because you will get the best results than. Epsilon is a good brand for paper, it aint expencif and you can get it at allot of webshops. Burning the cover is easy:

1. Open UndercoverXP.
2. Click the left or right white area and open the cover you downloaded before.
3. Select “DVD Box” in the dropdownlist above the image.
4. If you’r image appears turned (read: horizontal) you should flip it 90 degrees you can do this by clicking “Options” in the menubar and than “Rotate” and than to do the job select “rotate left image clockwise” or “rotate right image clockwise” depending on your images location, It should show vertical now.
5. Print your image, but before doing this you should select high quality and the correct paper type. (if you have those options on your printer)

Final words

I hope this article helped you (i know for sure it would have saved me allot of time) and leave a comment if you have additional information or suggestions!

I am not the oldest player in the world, and no I didn’t play pong on my TV, I started playing games when having a cable Internet connection was the sweetest things in the world. Coincidentally this is also when I lost most of my remaining innocence.. I remember going to a friends house, Morgan, who had the Starcraft. I was instantly hooked. Problem was he used a mac so I couldn’t take the game with me. A couple of months later another friend Mathew finally gave me a burned copy with nocd-hack. Life was good.. using the badass AOL connection I started playing online. I don’t remember if I had a legit serial but I could get on battlenet. Thus I came into contact with the first Tower Defense maps. If anyone knows TD games before this time let me know!

Couple years later I started playing with Tower Defense with other friends, such as Terror and Demon. Starcraft tower defense maps are some of the purest TD games I know. Countless maps and versions have suffered defeat at our hands. Some maps like HGMA (Hydra-Ghost-Marine-Archon) were labeled by us as hack maps, or otherwise unfair. Seemingly unbeatable, after hours of gameplay the final wave was so strong it was just impossible to beat. Since everyone updated their SC:BW we cant seem to find a working HGMA defense map. If anyone has a map that works with the latest version let us known!

[screenshot HGMA]

Lo and behold the next generation of tower defense maps. Warcraft III was the next script-able game with Tower Defense maps. This is currently my favorite platform for playing TD maps. There are countless variations of maps all with unique twists. Some are hard, most impossible. You can find some of the Tower defense battle reports [here]. The fun thing about Warcraft III maps is that there are a vast amount of units and heroes which can make the game extra fun, games like Bayus TD make maximal use of this.

About the same time as Warcraft III, flash games became increasingly popular. Soon enough flash games started serving the somewhat niche market of Tower Defense. Resulting mostly in shit games, with notable exceptions of-course. Some of these flash games play better then triggered maps. Its a different experience with a lower learning curve. Some of the notable flash TD maps:

• Desktop towerdefense
• Bloons Tower Defense
• Ultima Defense – Personal favorite, go UO!

Looking forward we can expect a new series of tower defense games to arise with the release of starcraft 2. SC2 will also come with a map editor and various scripting function so lets pray for some decent maps. Other then that the future of TowerDefense gaming looks pretty boring.. i have not found a “wow” effect flash game as of yet and there have been various attempts to have games centered around tower defense. Most notably GardenDefense. Originally a flash game it was transformed to an executable and sold for something like 35 dollahs which is quite a lot in my opinion.

I hope you enjoyed reading this, leave a comment and have a look at the following sections of the website which might also interest you:

• WC3 TFT with TD maps (full)

I will be making these articles because i am really interested in earning your money online because it is easy and there are some ways that take a few minutes of your time weekly, and still give you cash multiple times a day. The first and second article I will be focussing on dutch websites, that is websites with dutch as their language, so that could be Belgium websites aswell… but i guess i wont add those because those are so scammy that its scary. I mean seriously, they will try to get you to send them money to answer questions and read emails instead of paying you… like wtf?

Anyway, this is my first article and i will be focussing on GPT websites. GPT stands for Get Paid To, and you really have to pick out the right ones because allot of these websites are hardcore scams, and when you think your earning cash, you aint and the people behind the website are earning ALLOT of money. Another think i ran into was the fact that allot of the scammy websites have the same owner, and looking up the whois information and searching for this name on google with most certainly bring up allot of information when the site owner can not be trusted. So thats my first advice right there.

So thats about the scams, just look out, look for reviews about the site you’r joining and try to cash out as soon as possible. When you can cash out at 5 euro’s dont wait untill you have 50 before cashing out, because if you dont get your money id better be 5 than 50 euro’s right?

GPT websites basicly pay you to click links, visit other websites or read e-mails you recieve true them. Marketeers think this is a interesting marketing technique but its not, people open the mail, click the link and boom earn between 3 and 5 cents for reading that e-mail. And how much time does that cost you? I think 30 seconds (opening the e-mail, clicking the link, deleting the e-mail). Well if I start calculating that is between 3 and 5 cents per 30 seconds, aka 6 to 10 cents per minute, so 3.60 to 6 euro’s an hour. That is if your slow and if you have a slow connection because i figure you can open an e-mail and click a link faster than 30 seconds.

I have been using allot of GPT sites the past 2 years, altough i stopped using them about half a year ago because I thought I didnt earn enough to make it worth my time. Altough, i did recieve atleast 40 euro’s in those 1.5 years which i think is a nice ammount for 2-3 minutes of time a day.

The sites that i started to use were:

• ZinnGeld
• EuroClix
• Jiggy
• Surfrace
• MoneyMiljonair

In the end i was only using MoneyMiljonair, the reason for this was that you build up credit pretty fast there, and I trusted them the most. They payed out a total of 25 euro’s to me, 2 times 12,5 euro’s. So that was nice.

The other websites are certainly trustable, but i didnt bother using them because they dont give you allot of credit per e-mail you read, and their mainly focussed on crediting you when buying products true their website.

Anyway, if you ask me, this is the worst way to earn money online… but hey, it works and i earned atleast 40 euro’s doing it. And seriously… who works all the time when at work? And if anyone can give me an example of someone that died using 2-3 minutes a day opening and clicking on link in e-mails which earns you cash. Seriously… one example and i will give you a cookie!

So, thats it for now, I will write another money earning guide soon. This will be about filling in serveys online. Wich have earned me aprox 40 euro’s in the past 6 months for one or two serveys a week, which you can fill in with false answers (oh yeah… i like that)!