[d] enclosed in brackets chaotic perfectionist for hire

Who should I use for OpenID?

I'm not even completely sure that I'm going to use it, but I want to check it out. I know there are a bunch of providers for it, but who do I choose? Technically I already have one from my Flickr account, but is that what I want to use?

For anyone thinking, "Just RTFM." - I am. I've been on the OpenID site, and I've listened to the Security NOW! Netcasts about it as well.

While reading up on this, I signed up for MyVidoop. It looks like it's pretty well covered, and was listed on the OpenID list of providers. I wonder what Steve Gibson thinks of it...

Do you use OpenID? If so, who with?

How do you have your home network set up? Is it secure enough?

I'm not selling anything, I'm just curious. What do people do to secure their networks at home? Do they even do anything?

For my day-to-day job, I manage two networks - mostly the stuff within those networks, and not the connections themselves. I know about the details of how networks function, and how to secure them, but want to look toward the next step.

There are quite a few ways to do it, and I think most people these days have a router connected to their Cable/DSL modem. If it's just the family computer connected straight out, that's a huge issue (assuming it's a Windows-based family). The router is probably enough, but then when the kids start using it...

Suggestions?

Not specifically for kids, but keeping people safe inside a home LAN, preferably cheap or free (software-wise). There's definitely the Astaro Security Gateway to look at, thanks to Leo Laporte and Steve Gibson. It'll go on a beige-box and takes care of a bunch of things from firewall and AV to Spam and content control. There's the *nix route, but I'm not sure I want to take on that much (although it would be a good learning experience).

Whoa.

This thing is pretty solid looking. The Ironkey is a sweet piece of security hardware and software. It encrypts all the data on it, and if someone tries to crack it, POOF! The data is gone on the 10th wrong password.

Even physical cracking won't work - it's filled with epoxy. It also needs the crypto chip to read from the memory chips... oh, and it's shielded, so even a scanning electron microscope won't get into it.

I haven't had a chance to play with one yet, but it's available through ThinkGeek.

The holidays are coming, right?