Tag: Technology

Thursday I was sitting in a Starbucks next to an insurance guy.

That isn’t a big deal. What is a big deal is this; He kept leaving his machine to walk outside. And  leaving the computer up & unlocked talking to a VPN connection (I think) to the home office.

When I first sat down the machine was unattended for at least 20 minutes and I could see the guys corporate email.

If I happened to be a hacker it wouldn’t have taken me too long with his machine and I’d have been able to download tons of private client data.

He was looking at Client profiles on a web page that has a ton of personal data plainly visible.

I mean DUDE at least lock your screen!

Heck if I’m running my machine on battery, the screen dims and computer locks within 4 minutes of inactivity.

I’m really surprised at the carelessness of this guy and several other people in the room.

And don’t even get me started on the unsecured WiFi signals my computer is seeing.

I swear! All it would have taken is 3 – 5 seconds with a flash drive and this guys computer, and several others in the room would have been sending me all their account information, and all their corporate data too.

I always try to teach my clients about security and how to make it at least more difficult for bad guys to get at their data.

For example, I was using my phone hotspot instead the Starbucks WiFi. I was connected to the ONE authorized connection my phone will allow. Why should I expose my email passwords and logins to a network that I’m not familiar with?

I suppose I’m a little strange. But I can’t see making it EASY for a bad guy to screw me!

Perhaps I should start teaching Operational Security to corporate clients.

This one almost got me.

I used to have a toll road account.

I closed the account a while back, in part because I wasn’t using it, but mostly because the toll road people kept screwing up my account.

It’s because the toll road people habitually screwed up their accounting that I almost got screwed by this phishing email.

I was tired when the email came in, since it wasn’t unusual for the toll road people to bill me 6 or 9 months late for some bullshit infraction; I opened this mail.

The toll road people would always claim they’d tried to contact me, which was a flat out lie. The only contact I’d get is a threat via US mail saying unless I corrected XYZ from 6-9 months ago they were going to drag me into court.

I thought it would be ironic that now they’d send me an email after the account had been closed for quite some time.  So I clicked on the display invoice link.

Thankfully I clicked on it using my iPad. The blank page caused me to pause, at which point I noticed that the URL indicated a .fr ( French) domain. I realized I’d almost been suckered.  After a few seconds I got this nice message saying that my OS wasn’t compatible.

Weird! A polite virus or malware, who’d have thought?

In any case I thought it worthy of mentioning to the world to be on the lookout.

Then it occurred to me that my susceptibility to this phishing email was predicated on a legitimate service and their poor customer satisfaction, or their incompetence.  

This suggests that any company who is renown for poor service and unhappy customers could easily be used as a trojan horse.

I think the lesson here may be:

1) Make sure that we only accept paper mail communications from our utilities, services, and banks.

OR

2) We hold these entities to a high standard of customer support and never them get away with being sloppy in their dealings with us. Which means that we beat the stuffing out of these companies when they make mistakes.

An interesting point, I’ve found in my highly unscientific sampling, that I can’t remove email addresses from some of my accounts.

This is one of those things that most people don’t think about.

If you live in a house, you always have a mailbox, Right?

Well, actually you’d be WRONG if you made that assumption.

There are places in this country where the USPS regulations prohibit a postman making deliveries to your home. Usually these places are located in mountainous regions where the angle of the roads, (also known as the grade) are too steep. The Postal Service, in those situations puts a post office nearby and directs all residents to rent a P.O. Box where their mail will be delivered.

This is done to prevent placing postal workers in a hazardous situation. For example when the roads are covered with ice and attempting to drive a heavy truck up a steep incline would more probably result in an accident.

So, when you ask for a mailing address and I give you my LEGAL mailing address that works for my DMV records, and my Passport and mortgage payments, and bank statements and utility bills, don’t you DARE tell me that I’ve entered into a web form, or given you verbally, an invalid address.

Corporate America, If that address is good enough for the Federal and State governments… its good enough for your paltry needs!

I say this primarily to high technology companies who sell software or services and simply want to make sure that they can put me on their junkmail lists.  Of course certain cell phone providers also fall into this same trap. They claim they’re trying to set up E-911 services and I can see that.

What I can’t abide is when their computers tell them that there is no such physical address and they won’t accept a P.O. Box either.

When I tell you I live at:

6969 Blow Me Circle

Fucking, IN 96969

Then your computer says that address doesn’t exist we’re at an impasse, my address and house exist, they can be found on a map.

Just because your computer says otherwise is nothing more than bad programming. The way around this of course, is to give a company the physical address of the Post Office itself. However in the E-911 situation that means the Fire or police departments will be directed to the Post Office 8 miles away if I dial 911.

If UPS and FedEx can find my address it’s obviously listed in a database SOMEWHERE! 

More and more I see a narrowing of thought and view, that is reflected in programming. I’m not sure why this is, but it’s getting old.

Unless people start reclaiming the right, dare I say it? Their God given right to think for themselves. I envision a day when people will have their faces buried so deep in their screens that they can be confined to cities and suburbs simply by having their GPS present an ancient message.

Here be Dragons