 Secure Your Mac- 16 November 1999
Evan
Evan also runs his own web site, Evansite.
Many people buy the iMac as a family computer, which
means many different people share it. Sometimes, you'll want
to keep the people sharing your computer off certain areas
of it, so that's why people have developed security programs
for the Mac. So, today, I'll teach you all of the ways to
keep your computer safe. The largest problem with sharing a computer is
unauthorized access. That's why the people at TriVectus
created Super
Lock Pro 4.0. This little wonder of a program lets you
have multiple users for your computer -- without upgrading
to Mac OS 9. Each person who uses your computer has a unique
password and username. You can set limitations for each
user. For instance, you can stop selected users from signing
on to your computer at certain times of the day. Super Lock
4 also keeps a log of all users that log into your computer,
so you can find out who's been using it. But, of course,
this isn't a fool proof program. It is easily disabled by
holding the spacebar while starting up your computer. Another problem with sharing a computer is having files
on your computer that you don't want people gaining access
to. If you have files like this, PGP
(or pretty good privacy) is for you. This very strong
encryption program will allow you to protect your files with
a pass phrase. A pass phrase is like a password, but much
longer. One suggestion about PGP for people using it only as a
basic security measure: only use a password instead of a
pass phrase. This is because the password is case sensitive,
and it becomes easy to forget. I had to learn this the hard
way, by losing 150 megabytes of work. Lastly, one other problem helps people recover deleted
files. It is very easy to recover deleted files on the Mac
by using any program like Norton Unerase. But, there is a
program to permanently delete them. Burn
will let you permanently delete files so no one will be able
to recover them. These simple share ware programs won't stop mega-hackers,
but it probably will stop 10 year old kids from getting into
your files. With these programs your computer will be
semi-hackerproof.  Recent Editorials by Evan
Recent Editorials- Where's the G4/500?, Dan
Knight, Mac Musings, 1/21. "Remember how Steve Jobs announced the
Power Mac G4 on August 31, 1999?"
- The World Wide Web, Dan
Knight, Mac Musings, 1/20. It's grown to over one billion pages
with no end in sight.
- Macintosh 2000
revisited, Dan Knight, Low End Mac, 1/19. Eight years ago
Henry Bortman guessed what today's Mac would be. Today we're
evaluating his predictions.
- Mac shopping at CompUSA,
Eric DeStefano, Mac Metamorphosis, 1/18. "All I have to do is go
into the Macintosh section of a CompUSA and all the loser salesmen
will leave me alone."
- PC to Mac and back and back,
My First Mac, 1/18. "I still love and use my original Mac Plus --
I would never get rid of it for anything."
- Compubrick 160,
CustoMacs, 1/18. Would you believe a PowerBook 160 converted to
desktop use with plastic blocks?
- SAM, the Sixteenth
Anniversary Macintosh, Anne Onymus, The Rumor Mill, 1/18.
Cross a Color Classic with a G3 and what do you get?
- New @ Low End Mac:
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