The Cocoon Blog
The Internet as it should be: private, secure and virus free

Cocoon just got better!  Though Cocoon has always protected you from unauthorized downloaded files that may contain viruses or malware, Cocoon will now be actively scanning for viruses on all downloads and will block any infected files.

With the added security of an enterprise-grade virus scanning solution that utilizes high-performance multi-threaded scanning to detect online viruses, malware, Trojans and other threats, Cocoon anti-virus scanning adds an extra layer of protection to complement a safe-browsing experience for all our users.

In a nutshell: Cocoon acts as a virtual firewall to keep the bad guys and their malicious bag of Internet threats away from your computer. With an additional layer of anti-virus protection; Cocoon will alert you and stop harmful or malicious files from downloading to your computer.

Traditional anti-virus solutions deal with the problem after it has reached your computer. The Cocoon solution is to stop the problem before it reaches your computer.

Cocoon currently supports Firefox versions 3.6.3 – 5.0.1, under Windows 7, XP and Vista, Mac OS X.4 or newer, and most modern Linux systems.

What people are saying:

CNET: “Cocoon looks like a serious contender for one of the best add-ons of the year.”

ExtremeTech: “Cocoon is a brilliant idea — and like most sparks of brilliance, it’s also simple.”

You can share this link with your friends so that they can browse the Internet privately and virus free too!
https://getcocoon.com/signup

If you have further questions you can contact our support team and also visit us on Twitter and Facebook!

You may have read recently that the state of Florida made 63 million dollars in 2010 selling drivers’ names, addresses, dates of birth and what cars they own to employers, insurance companies and such personal data collection firms as LexisNexis. [Source]

According to George Jenkins of I’ve Been Mugged, the companies that purchase Florida drivers’ information include some familiar names: Acxiom Information Securities Service, Inc., Choice Point, E-Funds, Explore Information Services, LexisNexis, Line Barge, Goggan, Blair, & Simpson, Inc., SC Services,ShadowSoft, TLO LLC, and West Services Inc.

Who are the permitted users? Could it be a company such as L2C inc., (owned by Atlanta entrepreneur Mike Mondelli) that has access to more than a billion records detailing consumers’ personal finances?

The information collected by his company, L2C, comes from thousands of everyday transactions that many people do not realize are being tracked, such as auto warranties, cell-phone bills, and magazine subscriptions. It includes purchases of prepaid cards and visits to payday lenders and rent-to-own furniture stores. It knows whether checks have cleared and scours public records for mentions of names.  [Source]

TransUnion is the primary marketing partner for L2C and Equifax is partnered with LexisNexis. In ”fourth bureau” companies there are no standards set for types of data or how it should be used and no registry of whom these companies are. Does this make you wonder where the regulation is and how your data is being used by “fourth bureau” companies? If you live in a state that sells driver license data, should you have the right to opt-out?

Recently, a friend of mine took a vacation in Mexico. While out on a day trip she was stopped by an unscrupulous cop who demanded a bribe. The payout was all the cash that she had in her wallet. Had she planned ahead, she would have secured some hidden cash in her trunk, placed minimal cash in her wallet and placed a small emergency stash in her glove box. If she had done her research she would have known that cops in Mexico are underpaid and tourists are an easy source of income.

Having little or no Internet knowledge can greatly impede Internet security concerns and expose users to viruses, malware, botnets, rootkits, and a host of other vulnerabilities. It can also expose users to cybercriminals and the less savory sections of the Internet.

Social networking sites are rife with rogue apps that often prey on user profiles to spread their wares via permissions granted by the user. With a little education anyone can stay on top of the bad stuff and have a better Internet experience overall.

Internet 101

Always keep your computer, anti-virus, software, anti-malware and browsers updated. Use the Secunia PSI security tool to detect vulnerable and outdated programs.

Use strong passwords and never use the same password at every site. Do not become dependent on using just one security suite as the total answer for all of your Internet security needs. Any single defense can be flawed. Instead, you should rely upon a combination of security products and strategies (a layered approach) to effectively manage Internet security.

As an example: You would use a Internet Security Suite to take care of your antivirus needs, an anti-malware product installed such as Malwarebytes, Secunia PSI to check for vulnerabilities, a link scanner like McAfee SiteAdvisor and Cocoon or TOR to anonymize and protect your web browsing sessions.

 “Layered security is about multiple types of security measures, each protecting against a different vector for attack.” — Chad Perrin, TechRepublic

 More resources to add to your Internet safety toolkit:

The Edublogger: A complete guide to web, Facebook, Twitter, and Google Plus privacy and security!

We all have a digital footprint – a permanent record of where we have been and what we have done on the interwebs.

It is a good idea to regularly do a health check of that digital footprint. [Source]

StaySafeOnline.org as in STOP. THINK. CONNECT.

Own your online presence: When available, set the privacy and security settings on websites to your comfort level for information sharing. It’s ok to limit who you share information with.

Protect all devices that connect to the Internet: Along with computers, smart phones, gaming systems, and other web-enabled devices also need protection from viruses and malware. [Source]

From the Washington State Office of the Attorney General for adults, seniors and teens.

Adults: Look for the site’s privacy policy.  These should answer your questions about how they treat personal information, how your information will be used, whether third parties will have access to your information, assurances about the accuracy of the information on their Web site, their level of security, and so on.  If you can’t easily find the site’s privacy policy GO ELSEWHERE.

Seniors: In the online world, unless you know for sure with whom you are dealing, you must assume that you could have landed on a ‘look-a-like’ site trying to scam you.

Teens:  Every piece of information you post, and every action you take online has commercial value to someone. [Source]

Learn about Parry Aftab’s new approach to cybersafety – Internet Safety 1-2-3.

Take the quiz from the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children - Know the Rules®…Internet Safety Quiz for Adults and stop by Facebook and let us know how you did!

Brought to you via the Friendly Cocoon Team!

When using a service or product from a company that deals with Internet security and privacy it is important that the resource be credible, competent and trustworthy. Terms of Service (TOS) and the site Privacy Policy should be easy to read and transparent. There should be no guess work in a privacy policy and that is why we take great pride in providing a very short and succinct Privacy Policy.

The core business model of Virtual World Computing (VWC) is built on ensuring the highest levels of privacy and security and protection. The company’s flagship product -  Cocoon   provides consumers with a better way to browse with greater privacy protection, computer security and browsing convenience. Cocoon puts the user in control of the Internet experience by ensuring that their computer and personal information are protected from malicious attacks, unwanted spam or phishing, cookie tracking and many other invasions of privacy. [Source]

The people behind Cocoon

Jeff Bermant, Founder & CEO: Jeff had the simple yet powerful idea of protecting his privacy and his computer by accessing the Internet through a browser running on a remote PC. The seed of that idea grew into Virtual World Computing and the Cocoon™ service. Jeff is an entrepreneur by nature.

Brian J. Fox, Founder & CTO: Brian was employee #1 of the Free Software Foundation GNU, and wrote the BASH shell that runs on virtually every Mac and Linux machine out there.

Marvin Minsky, Advisory Board: Professor of Media Arts and Sciences and Professor of EECS, MIT. A pioneer of artificial intelligence (AI) and one of the most important cognitive scientists of the century. Marvin pioneered advances in mathematics, computational linguistics, optics, robotics and telepresence. He built SNARC, (Stochastic Neural Analog Reinforcement Calculator), the first neural network simulator, and founded MIT’s AI Lab.

We believe the key problem with both security and privacy online is the accessibility current browsers allow to your computer. Wether it’s cookies or executable code you should have control over what has access to your hard drive. The traditional anti-virus solution of dealing with viruses after after they’ve reached your computer is wrong. We want to stop them from ever getting at your data. So, the core concept behind Cocoon is to keep the Net at arms distance from your hard drive and your computer.

Our business is to protect your privacy and security – if we don’t do that we don’t have a business – so we take Internet security and privacy seriously.

Yesterday was a very busy day for Cocoon! Our service was announced as free over at the download blog on CNET and received a great review. Seth Rosenblatt from CNET wrote : “There aren’t many security-focused browser add-ons that funnel the entire Internet through a proxy before allowing it to reach you”

Traffic was pretty heavy on the Cocoon servers and our development and support teams were hard at work throughout the day. Blake and T.J. were monitoring and responding to all of your support requests and glued to their monitors!

We were also featured at Sys-Con Media and we like the way Sys-Con explained Cocoon services!

…the software is easily installed and runs in Firefox 3.6 or later, instantly ensuring that every web session doesn’t expose users to unwanted threats from the far reaches of the Internet. When signed in, every user’s web session links to a secure server where all Internet activities take place. Personal data and browsing history is encrypted, keeping it completely private and the user controls if the data is stored, or not. Cocoon acts as a virtual firewall to prevent the Internet from directly touching your machine. This added layer of security helps to eliminate worry by:

• Protecting personal information and activity by preventing cookie tracking,including Facebook cookie blocking.
• Giving consumers the option to make choices themselves, defaulting to opt-in, not opt-out.
• Limiting hacks, preventing malware and proxy browsing to secure digital borders and limit PC vulnerabilities.
• Creating ad hoc email addresses when you need them to keep your email private and prevent both spam and phishing scams.
• Empowering greater exploration on the Internet with no data stored on your computer and the option to remotely store history and bookmarks, and the ability to access it from any computer.
• Ensuring that the consumer’s right to privacy is never abridged by encrypting and securely storing data and striping identity information. [Source]

David Washburn, VP of Cocoon Marketing: “You can now be totally safe on open WiFi networks, you will no longer be tracked by every website you go to, AND you don’t have to worry about getting viruses online no matter where you browse.” 

Coocoon has come a long way and we want to thank all of you for helping to spread the word. Cocoon also prevents automatic drive-by-downloads, prevents you from being tricked into manually downloading malware and protects against web-based attacks because it blocks malware before it makes it to your computer.  You still see the whole Web with crystal clarity, but you aren’t connected directly to it. Malware can’t get to your computer, ever. And that’s the way we like it!

Brought to you via the Friendly Cocoon Team!

Please stop by and visit us on Twitter and Facebook!

Yesterday was a whirlwind day for Cocoon. Our plug-in was announced as a free service at CNET and sys-con.com also released an article about Cocoon Internet FREE services.  We have been busy! David, from the Cocoon team recently commented over at CNET:

The security environment on the Internet today begs for relief. We’ve offered our service to provide an actual solution that prevents viruses, protects your privacy, enhances your personal security and shields your personal identity. We felt the moral obligation to ensure the everyone has access to the most advanced and secure technology solution, that helps give you peace of mind from the threats on the Internet today.

Internet threats are huge today. Every time you turn your head it appears that somebody is getting hacked or compromised in some way. Cocoon is offering an added layer of security and privacy to your Internet browsing experience in the form of a Firefox plug-in.

Cocoon acts as a virtual firewall to prevent the Internet from directly touching your machine. This added layer of security helps to eliminate worry by:

• Protecting personal information and activity by preventing cookie tracking,including Facebook cookie blocking.
• Giving consumers the option to make choices themselves, defaulting to opt-in, not opt-out.
• Limiting hacks, preventing malware and proxy browsing to secure digital borders and limit PC vulnerabilities.
• Creating ad hoc email addresses when you need them to keep your email private and prevent both spam and phishing scams.
• Empowering greater exploration on the Internet with no data stored on your computer and the option to remotely store history and bookmarks, and the ability to access it from any computer.
• Ensuring that the consumer’s right to privacy is never abridged by encrypting and securely storing data and striping identity information. [Source]

Check us out at www.GetCocoon.com
and if you have questions you can email us at support@GetCocoon.com.

Brought to you via the Friendly Cocoon Team!

Please stop by and visit us on Twitter and Facebook!

Cocoon was created out of the belief that everyone should have access to the Web, have a right to online privacy, and that the act of browsing the Web should not expose their computer to malicious code.

With these as our guiding principles and the increase in hacking and malware that has occurred over the past months we knew we had to make Cocoon a free service that everyone could use. We are now proud to announce that Cocoon, as it is now, and with a few important improvements soon to come, will remain a free service.

So what are the important improvements? In the next week, in addition to malware blocking, Cocoon will introduce active virus scanning of everything you download.

We believe the key problem with both security and privacy online is the accessibility current browsers allow to your computer. Wether it’s cookies or executable code you should have control over what has access to your hard drive. The traditional anti-virus solution of dealing with viruses after after they’ve reached your computer is wrong. We want to stop them from ever getting at your data. So, the core concept behind Cocoon is to keep the Net at arms distance from your hard drive and your computer.

Please help us keep the web secure, private and virus-free, by telling your friends about Cocoon!

Check out our new (free!) web-service that’s doing some very cool stuff.

You can now be totally safe on open WiFi networks, you will
no longer be tracked by every website you go to, AND you don’t have to worry
about getting viruses online no matter where you browse.

You get unlimited email addresses for anything you have to sign up for.
That means that you can put an end to spam just by throwing away your inbox.

It’s gotten some great reviews:

Lifehacker: “Cocoon wraps up all those privacy features
into one simple add-on”

CNET: “Cocoon looks like a serious contender for one
of the best add-ons of the year”

Check it out at www.GetCocoon.com
and if you have questions you can email us at support@GetCocoon.com.

Get Cocoon and pass it on to your friends and family. You can do this by clicking on Cocoon in the the toolbar and this will bring you to the Cocoon homepage.

Next, you click on tell friends and Cocoon will send you an email that you can forward to your friends.

Thanks! – The Cocoon Team!