Tag: file sharing

5 Easy to Follow Tips to Enhance Your Mac’s Security

August 06, 2008 by Jason

PWN to OWN. This is the name of the contest that made most Mac users worldwide seriously think about reading a security book or two to learn about securing their Macs ASAP. During the aforementioned contest a Mac running OS X Leopard was the first to give in to the intrusion attempts. It may not have been the brightest day in Apple’s history but it surely was the one when every Mac owner out there gave a second thought to the “Macs are the most secure” theory.

So, if Macs aren’t as secure as we have previously thought (I did too and even bet on the Vista computer that it would be the first to be compromised), what can we do to defend ourselves against attacks? One way would be to fire up the old integrated Mac OS X firewall and configure it to accept only incoming connections from IP addresses we know.

Although this is a good thing to do, the integrated firewall doesn’t do as good of a job as Apple would want us to believe. If you are not a very experienced user you’ll probably end up just enabling the damn thing and what protection do you think you’ll get? I’ll tell you: not very much because the machine that got “owned” at the PWN to OWN contest had the default settings and it went down pretty fast. Read More»

How to set permissions on a shared folder in Windows XP

July 09, 2008 by Jason

By default, simple file sharing is enabled on a Microsoft Windows XP-based computer if the computer is not a member of a domain. With simple file sharing, you can share folders with everyone on your workgroup or network and make folders in your user profile private. However, if simple file sharing is enabled, you cannot prevent specific users and groups from accessing your shared folders. If you turn off simple file sharing, you can permit specific users and groups to access a shared folder. Those users must be logged on with the credentials of user accounts that you have granted access to your shared folder.

If simple file sharing is enabled, you see the simple file sharing user interface appears instead of the Security and Sharing tabs. By default, this new user interface is implemented in Windows XP Home Edition and in Microsoft Windows XP Professional if you are working in a workgroup. If you turn off simple file sharing, the classic Security and Sharing tabs appear, and you can specify which users and groups have access to shared folders on your computer. Read More»