This week’s edition of WIG is filled with news link goodness such as Google’s work on strengthening encryption for its services, Mozilla’s progress on silent updates, AT&T’s thwarting of a hacking attack on mobile accounts, a giveaway contest for LastPass Pro subscriptions, and more.

Weekly News Links

Photo by Asian Angel.

• Google future-proofs your e-mail, documents from spies
  Google is strengthening the encryption on Gmail and other services so that messages stored today can’t easily be decrypted later by faster computers using brute force methods.
• What to make of Facebook’s oversharing?
  Facebook’s penchant for sharing everything you read via its Open Graph news apps caused quite a weekend stir.
• Mozilla Progresses On Silent Updates
  Mozilla is making progress on adding a silent update mechanism to Firefox, with plans to integrate the new service in Firefox 10 early next year.
• 5 tech tips for safe travels
  As the holiday season approaches and people embark on their trips abroad, it is no longer enough to simply be mindful of having one’s wallet safely hidden away or keeping one’s luggage close by. With cybercrimes on the rise, it is also vital to safeguard one’s personal digital data.
• Microsoft reportedly signs NDA to look at Yahoo’s books
  Microsoft has decided to sign a non-disclosure agreement with Yahoo as it ponders a bid for the struggling Internet giant, according to the New York Times.
• HP CEO: ‘Googles, Facebooks calling us’ due to HDD shortage
  After Hewlett-Packard reported earnings this past Monday, CEO Meg Whitman said that the Googles and Facebooks of the world are coming to HP to get servers because of the dearth of hard disk drives.
• Paragon programming language identifies security vulnerabilities
  Niklas Broberg from Sweden’s University of Gothenburg has developed a programming language which can be used to identify security vulnerabilities in the information flow of applications as they are being developed.
• Carrier IQ apologizes, drops threat to security researcher
  Carrier IQ, a maker of software to monitor smartphone performance, has withdrawn a legal attack against Trevor Eckhart and apologized after the Electronic Frontier Foundation came to the security researcher’s defense.
• Police procedures leaked for getting into Facebook, other accounts
  Confidential guidelines telling police how to access Facebook, Microsoft, Blizzard, and AOL user accounts have appeared online this week.
• U.S. executes another round of Web site takedowns
  As Cyber Monday draws near and debate continues about the Stop Online Piracy Act, the U.S. government has again seized a bevy of domain names it says belong to Web sites that deal in counterfeit goods.
• Alleged water utility hack causes confusion
  The Industrial Control Systems Cyber Emergency Response Team (ICS-CERT) has given the all-clear: the Illinois water utility flaw which destroyed a pump was apparently not caused by an intrusion after all. However, there are reasons to doubt this reassuring assessment.
• AT&T thwarts hacking attempt on mobile accounts
  AT&T said this past Monday that it successfully thwarted what appeared to be an attempt by someone to steal mobile customer data.
• German spyware exploits iTunes vulnerability
  According to a report in Spiegel Online, “remote monitoring software” developed in Germany is designed to exploit a vulnerability in iTunes in order to infect target computers.
• iTunes security vulnerability had been present for over three years
  Apple had been aware of a vulnerability in the iTunes update system, fixed in version 10.5.1 released in mid-November 2011, for more than three years.
• Apache patch patches poorly
  According to a report from security specialist Prutha Parikh, a security vulnerability in the Apache web server that was patched in early October can still be exploited by remote attackers to access internal servers.

Random TinyHacker Links

• Free LastPass PRO Subscriptions
  You can win one of the 7 subscriptions available at 7 Tutorials. Giveaway runs through December 4th, so hurry on over and enter!
• Everything You Wanted to Know About Safe Mode in Windows
  The complete guide to the ever helpful Windows safe mode.
• Advanced Power Plan Configuration in Windows
  Have you ever wondered what each of the items included in a power plan mean? This tutorial explains all of them in detail, so that you can tweak any power plan to your liking.
• Learn About Google Translation Tools
  A comprehensive guide to the various translation and language tools offered by Google.
• Norton security for 2012 – Is it good?
  If you are curious to learn how effective are the latest security products from Symantec, you need to look no further than this review.

Super User Questions

• Why does the mouse always move to the bottom left?
• What are hiberfil.sys and pagefile.sys files, and can I safely delete them?
• What do the numbers 240 and 360 mean when downloading video? How can I tell which video is more compressed?
• xBox 360 emulator for PC
• Why does my PC successfully boot only when unplugged for more than a few minutes?

How-To Geek Weekly Article Recap

• How to See What Web Sites Your Computer is Secretly Connecting To
• 30 Great Photoshop Tips and Tricks to Help Your Computer Graphic Skills
• HTG Explains: When Do You Need to Update Your Drivers?
• Ask HTG: Using the Malicious Software Removal Tool, Scheduling Computer Startups, and Diagnosing an Overheating Laptop
• How To Block Web Sites at the Router Level for Network Wide Filtering
• How to Boot a VMware Virtual Machine from a USB Drive
• How to Create and Use Templates in Outlook 2010
• How to Create a Vacation Away Message for (Almost) Any Email Account
• Friday Fun: The Rise of Atlantis

Geeky Goodness from the ETC Side

• Improve Your Google Search Skills [Infographic]
• A Long Day for Tech Support [Funny Comic]
• Life Satisfaction for Nerds versus Most People [Humorous Graph]
• The Internet – Then and Now (1996 versus 2011) [Infographic]
• Forget Black Friday: Today is Update Your Parents’ Browser Day
• Star Trek Galactic Star Chart [Wallpaper]
• The Many Moods of Batman [Comic]
• DIY Grid-It Clone Organizes Your Tech Gear in Style
• Increase Security by Enabling Two-Factor Authentication on Your Google Account
• Windows to a Nighttime City [Wallpaper]

One Year Ago on How-To Geek

Get your favorite Windows systems under control and tuned up using these great articles from one year ago.

• How To Fix the 10 Biggest Windows Annoyances
• Help Troubleshoot the Blue Screen of Death by Preventing Automatic Reboot
• The How-To Geek Guide to Using Check Disk in Windows 7 or Vista
• How to Recover Specific Files from a Windows System Image
• Manually Restore System Files from Your Windows Installation Media

How-To Geek Comics Weekly Roundup

• A Different Type of Hacker
• Call IT, the Campfire is Down
• Having Trouble Interfacing
• Can You Enhance the Image?
• That was not a Can of Compressed Air was it?