There’s a load of really good data there, and we want to get it back up as soon as possible – unfortunately I (Garry) don’t really have the time to sit and troubleshoot this random issue properly – if any of our Members out there knows WordPress/bbPress, and can offer some of their time to help with our website stuff, please get in touch, any assistance to lighten the load will be greatly appreciated!

The same goes for any role within the Club – if you have some spare time and want to help out YOUR Club – please get in touch!

Every day, it seems the world is getting more security conscious – and that can only be a good thing!

So much of our lives are conducted online, and a lot of these rely on identifying you, as an individual, and proving that it’s you, and not someone else.

We hear stories regularly of people being “hacked” – but what exactly does this mean in terms of me and you – regular Joe.

We see “hackers” in TV & movies as a stereotypical basement dwelling, socially inept “geek”, sitting in a darkened room, surrounded by screens, furiously tapping away at the keyboard, when a few seconds later, they exclaim (often to no one) “I’m IN!”

In reality, though, most “hacks” we hear of are much simpler than that – someone has combined your username (or email address) with a password – and have simply logged in.

So, how does this happen?

Rather simply, actually. We humans are terrible at coming up with passwords. So, we tend to use something simple, like a favourite pet’s name, or the street name where you grew up.  Sometimes, the website requires something a little more complex, so we add a number to the end, we might captilise the first letter, we may add an exclaimation mark after it, but generally, most people probably use a small variety of the same root password.

Does this ring a bell with you as being something like your password?

There’s then (generally) two things that can happen here…

We’ve all seen the Facebook posts… “Your stripper name is your pet’s name and the street you grew up on” – as we’ve already seen above, these are common pieces of information which are used in passwords (or, make up your “personal information” which is used for “password recovery” purposes)

The next (and slightly more complex) is the following hypothetical scenario… A few years ago, a relative was ill, or had lost a loved one, and you decide to send her flowers. You decide to not use a large national company, but to support a local business in her village, so you place an order for a beautiful bouquet from Bob & Sue’s Flower Shop (this name is ficticious, and made up purely for the purposes of this example – if you run a business with this name, I’m sorry, it’s purely coincidental!) via their website. Your relative sends you her thanks for the lovely flowers, and you think nothing more of it.

But, Bob & Sue had their website made by a friend’s teenage daughter who was “just getting into computers, and wants to be a web designer when they grow up” – they put together the site, and, because it just works, it’s not really been touched.

Unfortunately, most software for websites (just like our own) eventually have some kind of security vulnerability discovered, which is reported to the developers of that product, who then fix the vulnerability, and provide an update. This happens regularly – our own site has security updates to its various components on a regular basis – but since Bob & Sue had their website created, it’s never been updated, and there’s a few known exploits available for their specific version.

This allows unsavoury people to use these exploits – and sometimes they’re after things like credit card details – but they’re more difficult to use directly – so, usually, they’re after something that’s equally as valid – usernames (or email addresses) and passwords.

But – the passwords aren’t (we hope!) just stored as plain text – there’s methods in place to do a one way hash of the password. What does this mean? If we apply a set of actions to an input provided by the user – do we get the same result. So, we store the result of performing those steps in the system as the your “password” – then when you want to log in again, we perform the same steps on your input, and compare it with what we stored earlier. If it’s a match, then you must have typed your password, so you’re let in.

For example, our website runs on a software called WordPress. WordPress has a defined set of steps it performs when creating this “hash” of your password. This is well known, and well documented. This, in itself, is not a problem. However, someone creates, using these steps, the result of every single combination of letters, numbers and characters – we have a “lookup” or “rainbow” table of “passwords”.

So – our nefarious ne’er-do-well in this story has access to this rainbow table, and they have the result of your password being hashed from Bob & Sue’s website. They don’t directly get your password, but by comparing the two, they can take a good guess at what your password for Bob & Sue’s site is.

Now, here comes the fun part – they now take this password, and your username/email address – and simply try this on various other sites. And there’ll be a very good opportunity they’ll be let in, because, many people reuse the same passwords!

And then there’s the best one of all – you receive a phone call, or an email, with a threat that your account will be closed if you don’t confirm some information – with a link to a website that looks just like the one you think it is – but, it’s actually a fake site, and all they are looking for is for you to type in your email address and password (or, if it’s a phone call, saying they’re “from your IT department” – and you give it to them over the phone) – and now you’ve willingly given them your information!

These are some of the more common methods of “hacking” – but it’s very rarely the movie-esque “hacker in a basement”.

So – what can I do?

The first, and most important thing, is use a unique password for everything.

If you have a unique password, then the first couple of methods fall over (unless your “uniqueness” is changing one digit – they’ll probably try those simple variations).

Having a “strong” password is also useful – but what is a “strong” password. There’s a comic which explains this perfectly:

But this sounds complicated – I can’t remember all those passwords.

The good thing is that you don’t have to.

There are a variety of password managers out there which can help with this – they can store all your usernames and passwords in their vault, and some will even be able to auto-fill these into websites when you visit.

And, most of them are free.

All you need to do is remember one password – your “master password” – this should have never ever been used elsewhere, and is only used for this.

Make this password something like “correcthorsebatterystaple” (but obviously not that!)

Some examples of password managers include (but are not limited to)

• Bitwarden
• LastPass
• 1Password
• and many more

Also – writing them down on a piece of paper (or in a notebook) is also fine, especially in a home environment. If someone is in your house, in front of your computer, having your passwords on a piece of paper is one of the lesser things to be worrying about! (If you work for a big company, or government, and have work-related stuf written down, this is less ideal – you’ll have to check with your employer about this!)

I now have a good password, anything else I can do?

How very good of you to ask – yes, there is often more that you can do!

Multi-Factor Authentication or Two Factor Authentication (often abbreviated to MFA or 2FA) adds another step to the login process.

Who you are – your username/email address
What you know – your password
What you have – an extra piece of information

It’s this final part, the extra piece of information, that improves security further. Not only does someone have to know who you are, and have your password, they also need an extra piece of information.

This could be a code generated and shown to you on another device, a code generated and sent via text message or an email, or something like a fingerprint or retinal scan.

We’re concentrating on the first – a code generated on a device you own.

This uses an industry standard “TOTP” (Time-based One Time Passcode). These codes can be generated by a variety of applications, such as:

• Authy
• FreeOTP
• Google Authenticator
• Microsoft Authenticator

These apps all, at heart, do the same thing – create an OTP (One Time Passcodes), which you then enter, when requested, when you try to log in.

Now the main reason for this post!

We have now enabled the ability for you to further secure your account here on our site, requiring an OTP for your account. We haven’t required that it’s set up – but we do strongly recommend you do so, as well as, if necessary, changing your password to a strong, unique one, that isn’t used elsewhere.

To enable 2FA on your account, you can go to the Two-Factor Authentication section under My Account and follow the steps to set it up!

This doesn’t only apply to our site – but to every site you visit, if you remember these simple things!

• Create a unique, strong password
• Set up 2 factor authentication if it’s offered
• Don’t share personal details, such as via silly questions on Facebook
• Legitimate places won’t email or call you threatening you if you don’t complete a form or give them details

STOP WHAT YOU ARE DOING RIGHT NOW!

Many people fall into the trap of buying an unregistered car, spending months or years restoring or modifying it, then when they want to get it on the road, try to get it registered with the DVLA.

If your car has been “off the radar” for a long time, then the DVLA might not have up to date information about it, and they will want to verify that the car you’re trying to register is what you say it is.

It is often much easier to do this when the car is in the condition in which you’ve bought it, and not post-restoration/modification.

The Club can help with this, it is a service we offer via our Historian and DVLA contact, Auboné Braddon.

If you don’t get a current V5C when you purchase a car, the very first thing you should be doing is getting in touch with Auboné and getting it registered with the DVLA. It’s better to postpone the start of your restoration project work by a few weeks, than risk losing its original identify, ending up on a Q plate (and having to pay Vehicle Excise Duty for the rest of its life), or having a difficult back-and-forth with the DVLA when it’s sitting there all shiny and fresh, and you’re itching to get out and enjoy driving it!

The following was first published in the March/April 2021 ‘Anglebox’

Purchasing and Registering a car from abroad

When purchasing an imported car, make sure you have the correct import paperwork and also the vehicles paperwork from the country it came from. When checking through this paperwork, look out for wording on the cars log book that says ‘Built Up’. This wording can often appear on South African imports and if dealt with in the wrong way can lead the DVLA to believe the car is a Kit Car. This with the combination of no chassis number or an updatable one will immediately give the car a ‘Q’ plate. This is why you need a visible and understandable chassis number. What we mean by this is one that can be dated to the year and approximate month of production. The DVLA need this to give the car an age related registration number. Without an understandable and datable chassis number you will end up with a ‘Q’ plate. This plate means you will have to pay full road fund licence for ever. This ‘Q’ plate is also not removable and means you can’t put an age related number on the car or any other sort of private plate. There is one other thing that is very important to do as well but also applies to Barn Finds, which is the next topic.

Registering a ‘Barn Find’

It is always very exciting to find a car that has been tucked away for many years, but sometimes not so easy to get registered. When viewing a car, it is easy to check whether a car is on the DVLA system by just going to the DVLA site as if you were going to tax it, and if it is on the system, the registration number will come up with all the vehicle details. If it doesn’t, then we have to assume the car was never transferred from the old style buff hand written log book to a computerised one. If the buff log book is with the car then it is quite straight forward, with the help of an Owners Club rep that is recognised by the DVLA, to get the car registered on the DVLA system with the current registration number. This number will not be transferable but will be the original number. If there is no paperwork with the car then it is still possible to register it with the DVLA but on an age related number. This can only be done with a clear and datable chassis number, as with imported vehicles. If it doesn’t have a readable and datable chassis number, then it will end up once again on a ‘Q’ plate.

Registering Imported and British Cars

It is important to do all the registering of the car with the DVLA before you do anything else to the car. Even if you don’t plan on restoring the car for a while. The DVLA want to see the car as you found it and not as it was restored. The reason for this is that the car is more likely to match what is written on any existing paperwork and chassis numbers etc are more likely to be found in their original state. This is certainly the case for cars that are going to be modified. Say for instance, if an Anglia is a 997 and in it’s original Maroon colour which matches what it says on the old buff log book or on any other historic paperwork, it is a lot easier to process than if the car now has a 2ltr engine and is bright yellow. Basically nothing will match apart from a chassis number This always looks a bit dubious to the DVLA.

Luckily everyone reading this is an Owners Club member, and I am recognised as the DVLA rep for the club by the DVLA. This means I can inspect any vehicle and sign off the appropriate forms and help research archive material for members to get a car registered. I also have original documentation which is recognised by the DVLA as supporting evidence. This is also a free service to Club Members with only travel costs involved if needed.

Hopefully you now know what to do – and that is to speak to me and get it registered now!

Happy Motoring

Auboné Braddon – Club Historian

To get articles like this delivered direct to your door with each ‘Anglebox’ magazine, why not join the Ford Anglia 105E Owners Club? 

]]> https://105eoc.com/no-joining-fee/ Thu, 12 Nov 2020 11:48:37 +0000 https://105eoc.com/?p=76738

That’s right, we’ve scrapped the £5 joining fee!

Check out the Membership page for more info!

We will now be posting abroad again, but with a reduced selection of postage choices available for you to choose from. Based upon services that are available at any given time, we may use an alternative but reasonably equivalent delivery service if the selected service is unavailable for any reason, and we will continue to monitor the situation.

With the extra time some of us have due to social distancing, now is a great time to get done those little jobs you keep putting off! Why not check out our recently added spares and see if there’s something new you’ve not seen before!

Your patience and continued support is appreciated.

The details for the next AGM will remain as is, as far as the venue is concerned, and the committee will be making a decision on a new date once the current crisis is over. We ask that all members check with area reps before attending any other shows as many have already been cancelled.

We’d like to say a big thank you to Maureen Shores-Young, Jason Tyler & all who have helped with organising the AGM & Spring Rally Road run for this year, we know how much work is involved with organising this, all your hard work will be used at the next AGM & Spring Rally.

– The Committee