Set up the smartd.conf file to do the example short-test daily and long-test weekly, and email you when something is fishy. It's a trivial amount of effort, resulting in a significant amount of peace of mind. (In many cases, you'll have some amount of warning before your drive kicks the bucket and it's too late)

I don't think the quote is right. The technique used to gain access is not to guess the password, but to guess the answers to the password recovery questions. The password itself can be strong, but when you've got a site that provides recovery questions like "Where were you born?", what are we to do? The clever approach would be to have an answer scheme that isn't guessable via public knowledge, but also something you can remember if you need to use it. There's a difference between "fucking dumb" and not being aware of weaknesses in web service authentication schemes.

It works quite well in 512MB in a VM. Try it on a hypervisor that can do dynamic memory some time (Hyper-V and ESX can). Set it to 512MB minimum and a plenty high max.

So what you're saying is that it does not work with 512MB?

One has to wonder if the Sophos targeting was spite-driven in any way. Back in 2010, Sophos kind of trashed Tavis for disclosing a vul in Windows: http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2010/06/15/tavis-ormandy-pleased-website-exploits-microsoft-zeroday/

As soon as Oracle stops enabling a web browser plug-in with the Java installer, then your point may be valid. But as things currently are, they better damn care about vulnerabilities that affect applets! (which is the whole point of the OP)

1) Why are you using the Adobe Reader web browser plug-in? Downloading and opening PDFs is much safer.

2) Why are you using a version of Adobe Reader that has known security vulnerabilities? If Reader doesn't do what you want, there are alternatives.

Keeping software up to date is important for staying safe. But perhaps this is not a concern for you.

Yes, IE9-64 is affected by the vulnerability. Whether exploits in the wild will succeed against it is another question...

Maybe my eyes need to be checked, but it looks brown to me.

CVE-2012-4681 is a vulnerability that affects Java 7. Apple has only ever provided Java 6 with OS X, and with recent OS X versions, it's not even included by default. So it's pretty silly to make a sensational story that calls out Apple for not addressing CVE-2012-4681 in their update to Java, since they're not even affected by it.

For more details, see: http://www.kb.cert.org/vuls/id/636312

Possibly. In this case, however, it failed due to not having video drivers. It appears to require an Intel GPU. (or nVidia with some trickery)

Thanks. That's good to know. But it surely eliminates the majority of people who may wish to try it out.

Apparently Qubes can't be installed in VMware Fusion. This occurs with both the default boot mode and the "failsafe" VESA mode. I supposed that does indeed make it the most secure operating system possible.

Ear buds never stay in my ears. These are hooks, so they stay put. They stay comfortable in my ears even after extended listening. They isolate noise well, and they have a great sound. For the price, they can't be beat!

http://www.usa.philips.com/c/headphones/shs8100_28/prd/

"One of the richest people in the world gets married."

FTFY