keychain

Apr 27 2009

How to post a story to MacMerc

Here are just a few strong suggestions on how to submit news to MacMerc.com and get the story published.

WE ARE A MAC SITE!!

The first three letters of MacMerc.com are M A C. This is not because we are Scottish, it is because we are Mac centered as far as or computing platform. The farthest we’ll delve outside of the Mac category is to cover iPod stories. If you are flogging some Windows-only software or non-Mac-compatible hardware, WE DON"T CARE!!!

Choose a punchy headline

We get a lot of our traffic from RSS readers and Mac news headline sites. If
the headline isn’t unique and intriguing, people will assume the story isn’t
either. Furthermore, if every Mac site is following the same story and posting
it with a similar headline to yours, why would anyone choose the story you wrote?
You’ve got to hook the reader.

Blah: WiebeTech introduces FireWire KeyChain

Better: Lose
up to 1GB of files along with your car keys!

Use correct and supported HTML tags

We don’t expect everyone to card carrying code monkeys before they can successfully
post to the site. We do expect you to make sure the story you post looks the
way you want it to when you post it. We shouldn’t have to clean up every story
that gets posted here, but to a large extent, we do. Please do us all a favor
and become familiar with the following HTML tags:

<br><br>

Authentic code monkeys might question this code, but trust me, it works just
fine. Anytime you want to create a paragraph break, punch in a pair of <br> tags instead of hitting “Return” twice. Make this code your friend.

<a href="http://www.macmerc.com">MacMerc</a>

Since every story must have a link, you may as well link properly. Replace
the “http://www.macmerc.com” with the URL you are linking to and replace
the “MacMerc” with the name of the page to which that URL belongs
and soon MacMerc readers will be flocking to your site.

Once you’ve plugged in these tags where they belong, don’t forget to change
the story format selector from “Plain Old Text” to “HTML Formatted”

Choose an appropriate topic heading

We have a large
and growing collection of topics (45 topics at the time that I write this).
Certainly at least one of them pertains to your story in a deep and meaningful
way…if not choose one that pertains to it in a loose and tenuous way, but
choose one. Try to stay away from using the Apple / Mac topic in a generic sense
— we’d like to reserve that topic for stories that are specifically about
Apple.

Use Story Text & Extended Text fields appropriately

On the Submit News page, you will notice that there is a large text submission
field marked “Story Text” and another marked “Extended Text”.
Admittedly, this interface could have been made to be more clear. The Story
Text field is for a short introductory paragraph to introduce your story on
the front page of the site. It’s your opportunity to hook the reader. The Extended
Text field is for the bulk of your story. Readers see this part when they click
the “Read more…” link. Submitting stories this way keeps from having
to scroll down screens and screens of text.

Make sure your story goes somewhere

Like I said while discussing HTML tags, every story should have a link. Okay
maybe if you submit an editorial you may not need a link, but it would probably
be a much stronger piece if you could include links to other stories and sites
that back up your claims. Include a link and include it properly.

View the preview

You cannot submit a story without previewing it first. You can’t! What you
evidently can do is ignore the preview. You can, but you shouldn’t.
If your story looks bad, if it’s poorly formatted, if the links are invalid
and you choose to submit it anyway, then we are likely to just delete it. Study
that preview. Look at it objectively. Ask yourself, “Would a MacMerc visitor
want to read this?” If the story is worth posting, it’s worth posting properly.

For bonus points…

Become a registered user of MacMerc

Avoid having your story credited to “Anonymous Coward” by registering
with MacMerc and logging in before you post.

Support your story

Once you have written your story with a snappy headline, entered in all your
text, checked your tags, corrected your spelling (sorry no spell check on the
site, you’ll have to do that on your own), chosen a topic heading, verified
your links and submitted your masterpiece (with “HTML Formatted” selected),
you may have to wait a little while for one of us here to receive and approve
it for posting. Once we do (and if you have done everything the way I have recommended,
there should be no reason why you shouldn’t get posted) the next step might
be to publicize your story by emailing its Headline, Story Text and Permanent
Link (the URL that the “Read more…” link uses) to other Mac news
sites like MacSurfer.

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Apr 27 2009

Secure Your Email

Brought to you by: James



Welcome to the new age of the internet! It’s the age of fake identities, hidden motives, and stolen/intercepted email. In this day and age, it’s actually difficult to be certain about the origins of a recently received email. “Did my friend really send that virus?” “Why is my boss asking for my social security number at 2:05AM?” Not only can email addresses be spoofed, but viruses can hijack our web-based mail systems and send emails from under our noses. How can you trust that the email you just received is genuine? Using a digital signature or certificate is one way, and encryption is another. Believe it or not, both are rather easy to configure for Mail.app (OS 10.3 or higher required), Mozilla and ThunderBird. The following options are all 100% free (unless you count the cost of OS X for Mail.app).

What is a Digital Signature?
A Digital Signature is a strong way of proving that the mail you have just sent or received is of genuine origin. You can easily configure a certificate to act as a Digital Signature, and this article will show you how to do just that.

What is Encryption?
Encryption scrambles your message so that only the person you have chosen to receive your email can read it. To do this, you must have each other’s certificates. And as far as Mail.app is concerned, as soon as you read a signed email, that user’s certificate is already stored in your keychain. For example, assuming that Rick has previously sent me a signed message and I have previously sent him a signed message, we can now communicate through encrypted email.

Mail.app Configuration (OS 10.3 or higher required)

Step 1: Sign up and request a free email certificate through Thawte using Safari (Select the “Netscape Communicator or Messenger” option when you start the X.509 certificate request form. Users who don’t use Safari or find trouble using it with Thawte’s site, skip to the “Safari Won’t Work With Thawte” section).

Step 2: Once everything has been approved, select to fetch your new certificate. If you were using Safari under OS 10.3 or higher, the certificate has been automatically added to your keychain.

Step 3: Now, open Mail.app and compose an email using the email address that you created the certificate for. You will notice some new options (seen below). The lock icon (encryption) only shows if you also have the certificate for the individual to whom you are sending the email (as stated above, you automatically receive the other party’s certificate when you receive a signed email from them).

sigbar Secure Your Email

Step 4: Make sure that you have selected to sign the email (a check mark appears in the signature icon). If you also wish to encrypt the email, select the encryption icon and a closed lock should appear.

Step 5: Now, send your email. You will notice that all signed and/or encrypted email received through Mail.app displays an additional security field in the header, denoting the additional security features (seen below).

sig Secure Your Email

Note: If you have multiple email accounts, you will need a separate certificate for each account. If you have multiple computers, you will also need a separate certificate for each account on each computer.

Mozilla Configuration

Note: At some point, Mozilla will ask you to create a master password (if you have not already done so). This is to protect the certificate manager and the certificates contained within it. The icons used to sign/encrypt messages in Mozilla are similar to those used in Thunderbird.

Step 1: Sign up and request a free email certificate through Thawte using Mozilla (Select the “Netscape Communicator or Messenger” option when you start the X.509 certificate request form).

Step 2: Once everything has been approved, select to fetch your new certificate. The certificate will be automatically added to your certificate manager under the security preferences.

Step 3: Once you have opened Mozilla’s mail client, open the account settings for the email address which you created the certificate for. Under the security settings, select your new certificate.

Step 4: Choose to write an email using the account which now has the certificate selected. You will now notice that you can sign and/or encrypt the email using the menu under the lock icon.

Step 5: You will notice that singed messages in Mozilla display a pen icon.

Note: If you have multiple email accounts, you will need a separate certificate for each account. If you have multiple computers, you will also need a separate certificate for each account on each computer.

Thunderbird Configuration

Note: This is a little tricky. You will need to have Mozilla installed as well in order to do this. It is possible to use FireFox, but it has not been tested. Camino will not work. At some point, Thunderbird will ask you to create a master password (if you have not already done so). This is to protect the certificate manager and the certificates contained within it.

Step 1: Follow steps 1 and 2 of the “Mozilla Configuration”.

Step 2: Select the certificate which has just been automatically added to the certificate manager, located under the security preferences. Select the “Backup” button and save the file to your desktop.

Step 3: Open Thunderbird, and select the certificate manager under the advanced preferences. Select “Import” and select the backup file that has just been saved to your desktop. Congratulations, your certificate is finally in Thunderbird and you may now trash that certificate backup on your desktop.

Step 4: Open the account settings for the email address which you created the certificate for. Under the security settings, select your new certificate.

Step 5: Choose to write an email using the account which now has the certificate selected. You will now notice that you can sign and/or encrypt the email using the menu under the lock icon.

tsmime Secure Your Email

Note: If you have not installed enigmail, then the lock icon will be labeled as “Security”, not “S/MIME”.

Step 6: You will notice that singed messages in Thunderbird display a pen icon.

tsign Secure Your Email

Note: If you have multiple email accounts, you will need a separate certificate for each account. If you have multiple computers, you will also need a separate certificate for each account on each computer.

Safari Won’t Work With Thawte

Step 1: Follow steps 1 and 2 of the “Thunderbird Configuration”.

Step 2: Open Keychain Access and drag the file into the area which lists all of your keychain entries.

Step 3: Follow steps 3-5 of the “Mail.app Configuration”.

Note: If you have multiple email accounts, you will need a separate certificate for each account. If you have multiple computers, you will also need a separate certificate for each account on each computer.

Alternative Encryption and Signing With Mail.app and GPG

Step 1: Access the MacGPG site.

Step 2: Install GNU Privacy Guard for GPG functionality and GPGKeys to create your GPG key. You may also install GPGPreferences for further control of your GPG installation, GPGFileTool for easily accessible file encrypt/decrypt functions, and GPGDropThing for drag-and-drop file encrypt/decrypt.

Step 3: Download and install GPGMail.

Step 4: You will now notice a new field when you compose an email, which will allow you to select which key you wish to encrypt and/or sign your email (seen below).

pgpbar Secure Your Email

Note: Make sure to send your key to a keyserver using GPGKeys so that others can send encrypted messages to you. I recommend using ldap://keyserver.pgp.com (you can set this using GPGPreferences), you can find my keys there as well.

Alternative Encryption and Signing With Thunderbird/Mozilla and GPG

Step 1: Follow Steps 1 and 2 from “Alternative Encryption and Signing With Mail.app and GPG”.

Step 2: Download the correct enigmail and enigmime modules for your operating system version and application version.

Step 3: Carefully follow the given installation instructions.

Step 4: You will now notice a new decrypt button in your inbox for decrypting messages encrypted using GPG or PGP.

tdecrypt Secure Your Email

Step 5: You will also notice a new PGP button to encrypt or digitally sign your messages using GPG.

tgpg Secure Your Email

Note: Make sure to send your key to a keyserver using GPGKeys so that others can send encrypted messages to you. I recommend using ldap://keyserver.pgp.com (you can set this using GPGPreferences), you can find my keys there as well.

Congratulations, you are now one step ahead of evil in the battle to secure your email. Use this knowledge wisely.

thunderbird large Secure Your Email

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