Payphone or Scamware?
As seen in the wild in Venice, Italy: an actual, functioning payphone, apparently with SMS texting capabilities. The screen says Temporaneamente accetta solo carte di credito which translates into English…
Security Through Stupidity
What problems can you identify? You've announced to the world that: Legacy PIN codes are either 4- or 5-digits long; now they are all 6-digits long; All PIN codes end…
Blatant DMCA Violations
When enacted in 1998, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act was necessary for the United States to comply with treaties for the protection of copyrighted works in the digital age. Though…
Bitbucket Using SSH Keys
The announcement that GitHub would train its AI on your code unless you opted out prompted two actions on my part: Immediately change my Github settings to opt-out. Identify a…
Security Through Stupidity
Nostalgia and happenstance had me visit my former high school in Miles, Iowa to watch a girls' high school basketball game. Much had changed since I last visited 10+ years…
CVE by License Plate
Unlikely the car itself represents a real CVE but my curiosity got the best of me: what are 905 CVEs? Let's query and find out! There are 26 distinct CVEs…
Computers IRL #10
The Athletic, the online sports section for the New York Times, posted a long article about John Harbaugh's first thirty days as the coach of the New York Giants. The…
Computers IRL #8
A major nuisance of modern browsers is videos auto-playing, often unmuted, catching you off-guard. Auto-play is potentially a security issue if a bad actor learned how to embed malware or…
The Importance of Computer Security
In The Cuckoo's Egg, Cliff Stoll recounts the true story of how a $0.75 billing discrepancy ultimately uncovered a German spy ring selling US military secrets to the KGB. Stoll's…
You Can’t Fix Stupid
Most organizations - most competent organizations - require employees to complete a litany of wide-ranging, cover-your-ass training: ethics, sexual harassment, workplace violence, non-discrimination, safety training, blah blah blah. Most require…