On My Mind: Why Laws Have To Change

Just over six months ago, if someone was pretending to be your partner and engaged in sex with you, it wouldn't have been rape; unless you were married. How can something like this be in the state of California, just a progressive state right? Well, it was due to a 1870's law that stated that it would only be rape if a man impersonated a woman's husband. Luckily, Gov. Jerry Brown signed a new law into effect back in September to fix that loophole in our penal code. Unfortunately, it didn't change soon enough to address situations that should have been rape, and were considered by many as rape. Law is law, right?

Heartbleed, part two: Do I change my password?

So here's an update on the Heartbleed issue. Mashable.com has compiled a list of websites effected and uneffected with various company responses. Check it out and find out if you need to change your passwords.

Broken Defense: Heartbleed

So your private internet information is most likely at risk. Last week, a group of Finnish security experts discovered a hole in the encryption method that is most widely used on the internet. How widely you may ask...your banks, yahoo, google, facebook, and amazon accounts just to name a few. 

The problem lies with OpenSSL 1.0.1, which contains a vulnerability that could disclose sensitive private information to an attacker.  You can find more information at Heartbleed.com on the specifics.

What can you do to protect yourself, well, that's a great question. Since this is a software issue, as consumers we get to wait until an update has been made. Once that happens, assume that your information has been compromised, and change all sensitive information (for example, passwords).
Now I could get into the technical stuff, but you can read the full story at the link above. The important thing for you is that you need to go and change ALL your passwords to ALL your accounts. Wait, before you stop reading and go do this, you need to make sure that the problem was fixed before you make changes, or you could just be potentially just giving your new password to whoever has access to this info before. You can find a list of vendors that have been affected, and if the problem has been solved here, so see what you may need to change.