Just one reason I walked away..
One of today’s delightful headlines.. Rather ordinary, sadly.
* Unsecured server exposes 4 billion records, 1.2 billion people
“Two security researchers have uncovered four billion records on 1.2 billion people on an unsecured Elasticsearch server impacting what is estimated to be hundreds of millions of people.” Read more..
Yes. That’s “billion”. 1,200,000,000
By the time the masses wake up, it’s always far, far too late.
Copyright 2007-2019 © “Tech Paul” (Paul Eckstrom). All Rights Reserved.
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All we really have, in the end, are our stories.
Make yours great ones. Ones to be proud of.
An app that records your life so you always have a witness + FF
Two items for you today, Folks.
*An app that passively records your life so you always have a witness
“Alibi is an Android app that records the last hour of your life. So if you’re in a protest, police altercation, or even a dangerous personal situation, you can always have evidence. ” Read more..
[note: currently Android only.]
Today’s Fun Video: (Not quite my usual Rock&Roll)
Love her voice…
Today’s quote: “Don’t assume, ask. Be kind. Tell the truth. Don’t say anything you can’t stand behind fully. Have integrity. Tell people how you feel.” ~ Warsan Shire
Copyright 2007-2015 © “Tech Paul” (Paul Eckstrom). All Rights Reserved.
>> Folks, don’t miss an article! To get Tech – for Everyone articles delivered to your e-mail Inbox, click here, or to subscribe in your RSS reader, click here. <<
All we really have, in the end, are our stories.
Make yours great ones. Ones to be proud of.
$1 Million Reward Offered
As so often happens when the Powers that establish Law and Order fail to protect us, folks take matters into their own hands. It’s only natural, I think.
One doesn’t really need to study, or be particularly tech savvy to know that there really isn’t enough being done to prevent cybercrime.
And, I think we understand that there are aspects to this *new* “shadow economy” that make it very difficult, if not impossible, for the Powers That Be to be effective, should they even try to do something about cybercrime.
The other day, when a person called me (at Aplus Computer Aid) for my help “to make these porno popups go away”, and I had to tell them that they had been tricked into installing a rogue antivirus.. and explained all the implications.. they were somewhat stunned, and muttered, “I’d like to find the guy who did this to me..”
His was a typical reaction.
(For more on rogues, and to see an instructional video, please see my article, Scare Tactics.)
Almost everyday, someone asks me, “what is being done about this?”, and I tell them the truth; basically, nothing.
How would you find the guy? And when/if you did track him down, in the Ukraine, or China, or Bangladesh, or Peru.. how would you prosecute him?
I am pleased to report that cybercrime is being taken more seriously by the Powers, and the laws are changing. International cooperation is starting to happen. But that didn’t stop an estimated $105 Billion dollar loss last year.
BILLION.
$105.
(Hey, that’s what insurance is for.. right?)
But let’s get back to today’s title, shall we? I just read that recently a company had received a blackmail threat:
“St. Louis-based Express Scripts disclosed last week it received an anonymous letter that included the names, Social Security numbers, birth dates and, in some cases, prescription information of 75 members. The writer or writers threatened to release millions more of similar records if the business failed to pay an unspecified sum of money.”
Cyber-extortion.
After following proper procedures (such as notifying law enforcement), and looking at all their options, a new — and I hope effective — strategy was decided upon. This company has decided to offer a $1 million reward for information leading to the conviction of these extortionists.
They’ve posted a bounty.
History has shown that where’s there’s a bounty, there’s going to be bounty hunters.. and so I hope that this is just the first such offer of reward. Somebody needs to go after these guys, before they make the Internet so unsafe it’s unusable (and at the present rate, that’ll be next year).
Copyright 2007-8 © Tech Paul. All rights reserved. post to jaanix
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• About Tech Paul
I am a Retired computer & network technician. I used to think the machines were pretty cool. Now I don’t.
They’re anything but.
I regularly posted how-to’s and tricks & tips and general computing advice here starting in 2007. (Use the Search tool to find answers. But be aware, many are rather dated.) Sometimes I answered (your) specific questions in an article if I believed the answer was generally helpful to “everyone”. All the writing you see was my own, typos and all. There always is/was an implied “IMHO” in what you see here.
Note: You are responsible for using this blog and its content. I am in no way liable for any losses caused by user error, viruses and/or other malware, hardware or software failure, or any other conceivable reason.
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