7Apr10 Make QR Codes in a Jiffy with Goo.gl
Google's official URL-shortening service, Goo.gl, just added a very cool trick to its shortening arsenal: Quick QR code creation with a simple URL tweak. We recently highlighted how to make your personal QR code, but for those of you who don't recall, a QR ("quick response") code is a square barcode that makes getting URLs, location coordinates, any text or contact information onto a phone fast. With a barcode scanner app installed, you just point your phone's camera at the code to read its contents. Gina detailed how to create QR codes using code generators like this or this, but if you're already using Goo.gl to shorten your URLs, simply add .qr to the end of a shortened Goo.gl URL and it'll instantly generate a QR code for you. Once you've got your shortened Goo.gl URL—like http://goo.gl/3p8r, which points to Lifehacker's home page—just append .qr like so: http://goo.gl/3p8r.qr ...and you've got your personal QR code. Not bad.
Posted by Adam Pash in Contributors
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2Feb10 Another Great Reminder Not to Use the Same Password Everywhere
Earlier today, several Twitter users received emails from Twitter prompting them to change their passwords because of suspicious activity that appeared to have resulted from phishing. Turns out it was something different from a traditional phishing scam altogether, and it involved BitTorrent. From the Twitter Status blog:
It appears that for a number of years, a person has been creating torrent sites that require a login and password as well as creating forums set up for torrent site usage and then selling these purportedly well-crafted sites and forums to other people innocently looking to start a download site of their very own. However, these sites came with a little extra - security exploits and backdoors throughout the system. This person then waited for the forums and sites to get popular and then used those exploits to get access to the username, email address, and password of every person who had signed up. Additional exploits to gain admin root on forums that weren't created by this person also appear to have been utilized; in some instances, the exploit involved redirecting attempts to access the forums to another site that would request log-in information. This information was then used to attempt to gain access to third party sites like Twitter.
Yet again a good reminder to choose strong (and different) passwords for each site—and if you have a hard time remembering all of them, stick to a secure password management solution.
Posted by Adam Pash in Contributors
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