Security expert Brian Krebs, who has made a specialty of exposing ATM scams over the years, has a doozy of a three-part series this week uncovering a widespread scheme in Mexico based on sophisticated Bluetooth technology and old-fashioned cash bribes.In part one, Krebs describes being tipped off by an employee of a Mexican ATM company, explains how the scam works – bribe-enabled physical access to the machines is key -- and embarks on a trip to Cancun to attempt to gauge the scope of the illegal operation first-hand.Part two reads like a detective novel as Krebs moves about Mexican tourist establishments checking for a telltale Bluetooth signal emanating from ATMs. He has no trouble finding them.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
I don’t know how I missed this story last week, but I did, and through that inattentiveness I may have inadvertently subjected some innocent alien being’s computer to a virus.How, you ask. I don’t know. And neither does genuine human security expert Graham Cluley, who read about the concerns of an Oxford University researcher and addresses them in this video (which is amusing though longer than it needs to be).To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Spoiler alert: We’re pretty sure we know what this is pictured above – entirely thanks to Reddit – and you will, too, if you don’t stop reading this.A user of the Reddit forum dedicated to networking, r/networking, asks: “We found an adapter and we aren’t sure what type of connection the male end is. Can any of you identify this for me?” Here are a couple more close-up views: Imgur
Imgur
It didn’t take long for a consensus to emerge: “My guess is (it’s) a PCMCIA Ethernet card adapter.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Starting in however many more minutes it takes me to post this and continuing until Tuesday, Sept. 8, I will be on vacation and therefore failing to blog. Unless I feel like it.No, I don’t fish.
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There was no tech talk in last night’s GOP presidential debate.I told you it would be a quick rundown.The San Francisco Chronicle uses a few more words:
The most significant reference to technology or Silicon Valley during Thursday’s televised Republican presidential debate came during a commercial for an upcoming movie about Apple founder Steve Jobs.In the main debate between the 10 leading candidates in the polls, the word “technology” wasn’t uttered once. Other than Florida Sen. Marco Rubio making a quick mention that he alone understands the “disruptive changes” caused by tech businesses like Amazon, there was scant discussion of the innovation economy.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The answer is yes, at least based on this headline the other day in The Wall Street Journal: Review: Epson Kills the Printer Ink Cartridge.However, reading the analysis underneath the headline reveals a much more complicated picture: Epson has a new printer line that can store so much ink that you can practically forget about the need to ever refill it again.From the review written by Wilson Rothman:
Epson, the maker of my nightmare printer, has finally put an end to the horror of ink cartridges, at least for people willing to throw cash at the problem up front. The five new EcoTank series printers look like normal models, only they have containers on their sides that hold gobs and gobs of ink. How much? Years’ worth. Enough that your children—or at least mine—could go on a two-hour coloring-page-printing bender and you wouldn’t even notice.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Yes, indeed, someone had an issue with this rack. That assessment and the picture come from a reader of the Reddit section devoted to networking.Here’s the full picture, followed by commentary from network professionals. Reddit/Juvey88 via Imgur
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“Every step of the way, we were like, ‘This can’t be possible.’ ”Yet this – opening a Brinks CompuSafe Galileo using its standard USB port, a keyboard and 100 lines of code – was most definitely possible for a pair of security researchers, Daniel Petro and Oscar Salazar, who work for the IT security consulting company Bishop Fox.From an IDG News Service story on our site:
They bought a Galileo CompuSafe on eBay. The most egregious problem they found is a fully functional USB port on the side of the safe. That allowed them to plug in a keyboard and a mouse, which worked.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Car owners – in other words, almost everyone – were buzzing in a bad way yesterday about a report in Wired that showed two security experts demonstrating the ability to remotely commandeer and control a Jeep that was traveling on a highway.It was harrowing just to read about this sophisticated hack, never mind imagining the reality of finding oneself in such a situation.Whether coincidental or not, lawmakers are responding with calls to hold the auto industry to task.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Yesterday’s grounding of the United Airlines fleet, which the company has blamed on a routing mishap of some kind, has prompted readers of Reddit’s section devoted to networking to share their worst workplace screw-ups and the consequences of same. There are almost 200 tales and comments, but there is one that stands out from the rest:
We were removing old trading workstations in the Chicago pits during a Globex/Dealing upgrade. We were told to just use snips to cut the towers free. I cut the wrong damn line. An entire wall of stations and displays went down including the big index board. Commodities quotes from NY went dead. Trading was halted at CME/CBOE for 3 f***ing hours. I single handedly caused the most expensive technical market glitch in Chicago exchange history up to that point. I halted an estimated $3b in trades.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
We are being granted a leap second tomorrow so the question arises: What am I – or any of us, for that matter -- to do with the extra time? Among the necessarily brief possibilities that have occurred to me so far:
Consider buying an Apple Watch.
Slice as seen on TV (above).
Work on that novel.
Say leap second one time fast.
Hold my breath.
Drink responsibly.
Make sweet, sweet love.
Or, care about what Antonin Scalia thinks.
As you might expect, I’m open to suggestions.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
So what do we have here?First of all, I cannot vouch for the authenticity of this photograph. I received it via the Twitter account for YouHadOneJob, @_youhadonejob. There are several other versions floating around. It could be a fake.
But let’s assume it’s real. What could account for the decision of the projector installer?Perhaps it could be that the projector needed to be installed a precise distance from the screen and therefore no other variable, such as proximity to the blades of a ceiling fan, could alter that requirement. In other words, the projector installer simply had no choice.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
One of the quirkier and more popular sections on Reddit is called r/MildlyInteresting, which features stuff that is … go ahead and guess. Posted there last night was the above photo, which I found to be … go ahead and guess.It turns out that using old floppy disks as drink coasters is not a new idea. You can find plenty – both authentic and reproductions – online.However, one Redditor had a reasonable quibble with the one in the picture:To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, newly announced Democratic candidate for president, has always seemed a grumpy sort when being interviewed on television. And that makes his campaign site’s 404 page video all the funnier.
Just scoot down to the bottom of the page. Priceless.
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Generally speaking, I’m pretty good at skipping past ads in my Twitter stream, but this one grabbed my attention with a clickbait headline that proved harder to resist than a perfectly grilled slab of beef.“Would you believe this steak was cooked by an iPhone?”Not for a nanosecond, of course, despite the multitude of stories connecting fire and iPhones over the years.But I couldn’t escape the attendant curiosity: What in the name of Steve Jobs might allow a marketing professional – no, make that even a marketing professional -- to suggest such a preposterous feat might be possible.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
There are more John Chens on Twitter than a patient person can count, yet when Blackberry CEO John Chen started tweeting just a week ago he had somehow managed to secure the coveted and unique-among-Chens Twitter handle of @JohnChen.How?As anyone who has ever signed up for an email or social media account knows, you can never get your own name plain and simple unless you’re an earliest of early adopters or you have a highly uncommon name. You Browns, Smiths, Johnsons -- and Chens -- know this better than most.Twitter has been around for nine years now and if you enter the name John Chen into its people search you can scroll page after page of John Chens for as long as you’re willing to scroll. Their Twitter handles, however, are all @JohnChenPlusANumber or @JohnMiddleInitialChen or some other variation involving underscores or a nickname.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
In a move designed to bolster its content offerings – particularly in video delivered to mobile devices – Verizon is shelling out some $4.4 billion for AOL.From a Verizon statement released with the hour:
Verizon’s acquisition further drives its LTE wireless video and OTT (over-the-top video) strategy. The agreement will also support and connect to Verizon’s IoT (Internet of Things) platforms, creating a growth platform from wireless to IoT for consumers and businesses.AOL is a leader in the digital content and advertising platforms space, and the combination of Verizon and AOL creates a scaled, mobile-first platform offering directly targeted at what eMarketer estimates is a nearly $600 billion global advertising industry. AOL’s key assets include its subscription business; its premium portfolio of global content brands, including The Huffington Post, TechCrunch, Engadget, MAKERS and AOL.com, as well as its millennial-focused OTT, Emmy-nominated original video content; and its programmatic advertising platforms.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Edgar Antillon, owner of a Colorado barbecue joint called Rubbin’ Buttz, had a dumb idea that he says started as a “joke:” Let’s declare June 11 “White Appreciation Day,” complete with a 10% discount for white customers. A scribbled sign was posted on the door.And then, since not everyone finds racism funny, some took it out on the Rubbin’ Buttz website.
It’s difficult to tell from a small sample size whether Antillon is as racist as his “joke” would indicate or merely a dunderhead without an ounce of common sense. Despite a wave of criticism, the eatery’s Facebook page indicates that he’s sticking to his guns, so the answer may be both.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
A Virginia woman writes to Christopher Elliott, an author, journalist and consumer advocate who gets results:
Help! Verizon lost the cable boxes and remotes I returned to it via UPS after I moved out of my apartment. Now it’s trying to stick me with a $2,000 bill, even though UPS tracking showed it had been delivered, and even though the Verizon representative I spoke to agreed and updated my account to show that they had received the equipment.Here’s the problem: I discarded the UPS tracking information after speaking with the Verizon rep in early December, never dreaming that it would come back to haunt me on my January bill.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Most of you are familiar with the term, but for those who are not, Wikipedia describes the Streisand effect thusly: “… the phenomenon whereby an attempt to hide, remove, or censor a piece of information has the unintended consequence of publicizing the information more widely, usually facilitated by the Internet.”Want examples? There was this one I wrote about involving Circuit City and Mad Magazine. And another about a San Francisco TV station that got bamboozled after a plane crash.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Paul McNamara