Tag: Bullshit

Posted on

And the hits just keep on coming.

There was this lovely article yesterday on Breitbart. The original article is linked here. I’ve copied the article below.

I submit that this data breach is a direct result of Amazon Web Services negligence. This data wouldn’t have been exposed if they 1) Hadn’t de-platformed Parler. 2) Had provided reasonable notification and time to Parler to remove their data from AWS servers.

I won’t be surprised if the leaked user data ended up on one of The Lincoln Projects communistic hit lists.

Now, I as one of the class of individuals potentially affected by AWS and Twilio’s negligence DEMAND restitution.

I’d like to see a class action lawsuit against AWS and Twilio on the part of the verified members of Parler.

Parler said they verified members for security. Part of the Terms of Service, If I recall correctly, was that if you engaged in unlawful behavior as a verified user, that Parler could and would provide your information to appropriate law enforcement. I personally had no problem with that. It seemed reasonable and correct.

I do have a major problem with my data being scraped and distributed across the internet. It’s one thing to provide information as a law abiding citizen in exchange for access and posting privileges on a site. It’s quite another thing to have my data made public in an age of cancel culture and rabidly communistic behavior on the part of a specific party within our own government.

Parler Suffers Massive Data leak

Recent reports claim that 70 terabytes of user data from social media network Parler have been leaked online.

CyberNews reports that self-drscribed security researchers performed a massive data scrape of the social media network Parler before it was taken offline by Amazon Web Services. The data scrape captured user profile data, user information, and other private and administrative information.

A Twitter user going by @donk_enby announced the scrape, claiming that over a million video URLs had been collected. Twitter itself suffered a massive hack of prominent accounts in 2020.

I am now crawling URLs of all videos uploaded to Parler. Sequentially from latest to oldest. VIDXXX.txt files coming up, 50k chunks, there will be 1.1M URLs total: https://t.co/YUl8CtoeEA

This may include things from deleted/private posts.

— crash override (@donk_enby) January 10, 2021

The Twitter account claims that the posts are linked to accounts that posted them and some of the video and images contain location information. It’s also said to include data from Parler’s “Verified Citizens,” which are users of the network who have verified their identity by uploading photographs of government-issued IDs such as a driver’s license or passport.

The data scrape also appeared to include deleted posts which would mean that Parler kept user data after users attempted to delete it.

a sample of what’s in there pic.twitter.com/5o8CBRrmgc

— crash override (@donk_enby) January 9, 2021

Parler has previously claimed to have over 10 million users but was shut down after google and Apple removed the website’s smartphone apps from their app stores. A short time later, Amazon Web Services announced they would be removing the site’s hosting services, alleging that Parler failed to properly moderate its platform.

Some Reddit users allege that the user data scrape was made possible due to Twilio, an American cloud communications platform that provided Parelr with a phone number verification service and has since cut ties with the company.

In a press release announcing plans to cut ties with the platform, Twilio revealed which services Parler was using which allowed hackers to determine that it was possible to create users and verified accounts without actual verification.

Once the was discovered, they were allegedly able to get behind the login box API that is used for content delivery, allowing them to see which user shad moderator rights and in turn allowing them to reset passwords of existing users. As Twilio was no longer authenticating emails, hackers were able to access admin accounts easily.

Breitbart News has reached out to Parler for comment on this story.

Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan or contact via secure email at the address lucasnolan@protonmail.com

Posted on

Sometimes I ask Questions I’m not supposed to…

ADT security and I parted ways yesterday. Another divorce and another reduction in mothly expenses. They’ve been replaced by a Simplisafe system and thus far I’m far more impressed with the Simplisafe than I ever was with ADT.

The sensors are smaller, the control pad is smaller, the installation or removal of sensors is a snap, and doesn’t require arcane incantations like the ADT did. The price for monitoring is about 1/2 what ADT was charging.

There’s the rub.

When I called ADT to tell them, “You’re outta here,” suddenly they were interested in me. In the 10 years we’ve been ADT’s customer, we’ve had 4 service calls. 1 Installation, and 3 repair calls. The bill has been paid on time, and for many years they took the cash directly from the account and all was well.

Then I noticed the price going up. I didn’t think much of it. I figured inflation, and cost of doing business. Then the monthly price went up sharply and around the same time due to various human errors on our part we had a couple of false alarms. Both of which we canceled with the appropriate codes and countersigns. But the police still showed up 3 -4 hours later, after we’d been assured by ADT dispatch that they’d cancel the police call.

The police told us that ADT almost never contacted them to cancel a call and that they (the police) hated ADT for that and other reasons.

While speaking to the ADT Customer Service person I mentioned the rise in fees and falsehoods that ADT dispatch had engaged in. I also mentioned that the system was exactly as it was when it had been installed and that didn’t make sense to me.

You’d have thought that when the last technician was out here to replace the cellular communication module he’d have mentioned that there were newer improved systems that we could upgrade to. Those systems being more capable, efficient and lower cost to maintain and work with.

Suddenly, the Customer Service person said we could reduce your monthly fee to about 1/2 of what they’d been charging me. I told the person, “thank you.” but it’s too late. Then she got a bit miffed.

Whatever! Within an hour of that phone call I’d disabled the system, and removed all the sensors. Now, I’m patching the holes in the wall from the 10 x 8 control pad.

While I was scraping off all the leftover glue from the entry sensors, it occurred to me that if ADT could offer me 1/2 price reduction, that the price they were charging could always have been at the lower rate.

Then I remembered that Cox Cable had played the same game. They raised the rate per month gradually until I called them and told ’em I wanted to cancel service. Suddenly the price could be magically reduced by a substantial amount.

This indicates that these companies at least are charging much more for their services than they are actually worth.

Which leads me to the question:

Why not charge a fair price for your service in the first place?

I know that it’s a money making process to increase the rates yearly, regardless of actual need. I wonder if corporations would find it more profitable in the long run to just be honest.

If they’re going to raise rates, explain to their customers that costs have increased by X and that rates will be increased by Y to facilitate continued good service and provide for expansion to increase service levels. Most customers, myself included would understand that.

But customers like me tend to get very annoyed when we reach our breaking point, and during our cancellation call, suddenly find that, for who knows how many years, we’ve been ripped off.

The ADT Divorce is final. I save 1/2 on the monthly security bill with Simplisafe and have a smarter more adaptable system too.

I’m just working on simplifying my world and reducing the costs too. If you’ve had services in place for a long time. Maybe it’s time to call ’em up and see if they’re ripping you off.

I’ll grant you, you shouldn’t have to do it, but rattle their cages and see if discounts fall out.

Have a great day.

Posted on

What? We Still don’t know who won the election?

I’ve been busy training a dog. I haven’t been paying attention to pundits, wags, news, or opinions. It’s been all I can do to keep up with the buzzsaw named Jesse.

That’s not a complaint, the distraction has been healthy and much better for my general health and well being than reading the news feeds. I’ve been outside, walking and hiking a lot and the noise and conflict of the outside world has dropped completely off my radar.

I haven’t noticed that I’m losing any of the Covid weight yet but My heart rate is much lower as is my blood pressure. Yeah, Cardio activity will do that for you in real short order.

The buzzsaw is sleeping peacefully on the deck. We had a 2 mile adventure walk bright and early this morning. He was funny, pulling moderately on the way down the mountain and criss crossing all across the path.

His mood changed considerably when we turned around to begin the long trek back up to the house. Yeah Pup, going down is always easy, the bitch is the climb. By the time we got back to the house he was walking right beside me. He’s learning albeit sometimes slowly.

As tired as I am from the sudden change in my activity level, I’m happy and enjoying the various challenges.

While he’s sleeping, I’m checking email, catching up on the job search, and scanning the news.

Ugh! I shouldn’t have bothered. The stupidity and insanity has reached the level where it actually hurts my head to process it.

Some media outlets are claiming that Biden won. But that’s not certified and apparently won’t be for a while.

Twitter says that Jan 20th they’re going to transition the POTUS twitter feed to Joe whether or not Trump has conceded. Twitter makes no mention of what they’re going to do if Trump has no need to concede. Based on their past behavior, I’m sure they’ll just censor the hell out of the POTUS feed.

An entire company appears to be going underground to avoid answering questions in the Pennsylvania house. Dominion, who makes voting machines and voting software has been called to account for apparent irregularities in the Pennsylvania election. Their behavior begs the question, “What do they have to hide?”

Recounts are ongoing, as is litigation filed by President Trump over claims of election tampering and this is all reminiscent of the Bush / Gore election.

I personally am disgusted and dismayed that our election may have been tampered with and there appears to be ample evidence that it was. Yet the same people who screamed, “Russian Collusion” for four solid years are now saying, “everything is fine there’s nothing to see here.”

At this point, I want an entirely new election. I want it in person, I want for ID to be required, and I don’t give a shit that some people think asking for ID is racist or will disenfranchise some people. Don’t care! You’re required to have ID for virtually everything, voting is no less important.

I am pissed off, not about who, or who is not, the President. I am pissed off that the results of the election are even remotely questionable.

That being said Obama saying that everything was above board, tells me the election was rigged & completely off the rails. What I’ve learned about all the corruption going on in his administration tells me that everything out of his mouth is a lie. Obama can kiss my ass, then go straight to hell!

BLM and ANTIFA are becoming more violent and yet law enforcement does nothing to curb their terrorism. After years of racism accusations and this new systemic racism bullshit.

I’m not going to worry about being called a racist anymore. I’m white, I can’t change that, and being accused of being a racist by virtue of my skin color is in fact racist.

So screw it! I’ve now got carte blanc to be as white and racist as I freakin want to be, or not depending on their actions and my mood.

BLM/ANTIFA I have zero patience left for you. When the, however many millions of pissed off people there are in the United States, start Rittenhousing your stupid asses, I’ll not shed one fucking tear.

Since it appears most of the BLM crowd are white, privileged, spoiled, self important assholes, Dropping them in the streets with hunting rifles shouldn’t be much of a racial problem. Same goes for ANTIFA.

I will turn on the TV and make popcorn when hunting season on these assholes opens.

I may even have a drinking game, one shot of fine bourbon for every headshot shown on the news. These jackasses aren’t using their brains for anything, so it’ll be no loss when their brains get spattered in the gutters.

Harsh? Yeah, maybe.

This isn’t about fearing change, these feelings are about watching my country being flushed down the toilet. BLM and ANTIFA are just the foot soldiers. The real puppet masters are still behind the curtain. I seriously want to see them all brought into the light, tried, then hung in front of the Washington Monument.

Just so we’re clear. Tried, found guilty, and summarily hung.

That includes the news media that has skewed so far left, The journalists who have not reported the news but have been spouting propaganda for decades, and the masters of big tech that have actively engaged in censorship and silencing decent people who would otherwise have engaged in healthy civil discourse.

I’m about to the point that I’d go all in, supporting a McCarthy style inquisition.

“Are you now or have you ever been a scumbag?”

Then there’s the COVID kings. COVID is 99% survivable. There was a recent study out of Finland or Denmark that actually appears to prove that facemasks are fucking useless. Twitter censored references to the report saying that there was conflicting information from experts. Uh, the people doing the study are experts… At least one major news outlet did run the story NBC or The New York Post. So that’s at least some progress.

Gavin (Dumbass) Newsom is trying to get his paws into family gatherings for the holidays, but has found out that Law Enforcement at least in Southern California is largely going to ignore his edict. OOOOpppps, Now what are you going to do Newsom? Mobilize the National Guard to make house to house searches? I’m with the LEO folks… Fuck you and fuck off Newsom!

There’s a line from Star Wars that’s appropriate. “The more you tighten your grip, the more planets slip through your fingers.”

What happens when Newsom or Garcetti are ignored completely? What happens when Biden followed by Harris (We ALL know that’s the game plan,) are ignored? Would we have a government anymore?

I’m going back to training the dog. Burn it all down you jackasses I’ve got better things to do.