What security is needed (on my pc)
Recently I have been unable to enter some competitions or unsubscribe from some messages for what I can only assume are security problems.
Ove the past weekend I have played a couple of simple little games online, the aim being, from my side, to win a prize. The aim from the website`s side is naturally to get me to at least enrol for their newsletter, and hopefully to buy an `improved package`. So the games are simple little question and answer affairs. The problem is that on completion when entering my details I get an error message saying I need to choose a service. Now I can see I have selected both services listed.
The website belongs to a highly respectable financial service with a good history (fin24) so I am sure the site has been tested. So why did it fail? I tried it both on Firefox (my browser of choice) and IE8 (I have to keep using this as many sites still fail on Firefox) and received the same error message. Following similar failures in the past with more descriptive messages I have to assume it is a security problem.
I had a similar problem on trying to unsubscribe from a message service - again a highly respectable organisation (New York Times). I signed in - it accepted my signon, but when I clicked on `unsubscribe` I was told `You are not authorised to perform this operation`.
So what is the problem: my only conclusion was that there is a security setting somewhere (maybe using Java script, or a particular setting for cookies or similar) that the site objected to. We are always told, exhorted, to run high security so what am I to do?
I run Norton Internet Security 2009 on it`s default settings. I run IE8 on `Medium - high` security with protected mode. I use the standard as I don`t know what XAML is or what it will do, or XPS, or active thingies, or scriptlets, etc.. I do not know what my settings are on Firefox as I use the default.
So the question is quite simple: what security do I need? Does using an accepted package like Norton mean I can lower my security level? Are there particular settings I should enable / disable.?
More than anything I wish these websites would realise some of us do try to be security conscious (as we are so often told to be) and would test their programmes in these environments. Or would at least tell us what settings to use to work on their sites.
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Ove the past weekend I have played a couple of simple little games online, the aim being, from my side, to win a prize. The aim from the website`s side is naturally to get me to at least enrol for their newsletter, and hopefully to buy an `improved package`. So the games are simple little question and answer affairs. The problem is that on completion when entering my details I get an error message saying I need to choose a service. Now I can see I have selected both services listed.
The website belongs to a highly respectable financial service with a good history (fin24) so I am sure the site has been tested. So why did it fail? I tried it both on Firefox (my browser of choice) and IE8 (I have to keep using this as many sites still fail on Firefox) and received the same error message. Following similar failures in the past with more descriptive messages I have to assume it is a security problem.
I had a similar problem on trying to unsubscribe from a message service - again a highly respectable organisation (New York Times). I signed in - it accepted my signon, but when I clicked on `unsubscribe` I was told `You are not authorised to perform this operation`.
So what is the problem: my only conclusion was that there is a security setting somewhere (maybe using Java script, or a particular setting for cookies or similar) that the site objected to. We are always told, exhorted, to run high security so what am I to do?
I run Norton Internet Security 2009 on it`s default settings. I run IE8 on `Medium - high` security with protected mode. I use the standard as I don`t know what XAML is or what it will do, or XPS, or active thingies, or scriptlets, etc.. I do not know what my settings are on Firefox as I use the default.
So the question is quite simple: what security do I need? Does using an accepted package like Norton mean I can lower my security level? Are there particular settings I should enable / disable.?
More than anything I wish these websites would realise some of us do try to be security conscious (as we are so often told to be) and would test their programmes in these environments. Or would at least tell us what settings to use to work on their sites.
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