The Glade 4.0

So twice in the past two weeks I've been robbed. Or rather, I discovered I had been robbed.

The first instance - while serving on a Jury, at some point my debit card was stolen. Jackass ran around San Antonio making a ton of purchases. Put my account deep into the negative. Very frustrating. My bank was cool about it, they returned the fees and overdraft stuff, and the cops are on it.

The second instance - This one actually pisses me off more than the person who physically stole my card. Two years ago I used Priceline dot com to make an airline ticket purchase. At some point in the transaction, a company in bed with Priceline decided that I had opted for an 11.99 recurring charge to a company called Great Fun. So for the last two years, they have been leeching 11.99 out of my bank account every month.

I'm not as good as I should be about going over every transaction, but I will be now. I will also be spending a good deal of energy on getting this story out about Priceline.com. Don't do business with them. If you have done business with them in the past, please look over your records and see if you got screwed by Great Fun as well.

At least the first person had the decency to be a straight up thief. Priceline and Great Fun are pretending to be legitimate businesses. For some reason, that pisses me off more.

Oh, Operator Nick Jones, op number 35154 - I am going to be your daily headache until my money gets returned.

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It feels like all the people who want limited government really just want government limited to Republicans.
---The Daily Show

I feel you. I did a late night run in June and bought my little brother ihop. The waitress stole my card info. I got the money back and the waitress got fired.

As for the recurring fee thing, exact same scam got me when I bought something from allposters.com. I called them and they immediately took all the charges off. They wont usually put a fight because so few people actually catch them. They make all their money on them.

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"It's real, grew up in trife life, the times of white lines
The hype vice, murderous nighttimes and knife fights invite crimes" - Nasir Jones

I am all about **** staying out of my ****.

I got a brand new Visa card from my bank. I never applied for it so I never activated, it just sat around in my drawer for 2 years. Suddenly I get a call that someone in Italy charged $2000 on the card to, of all places, post-it.com which has since been taken down but sold literally post-it notes and nothing else.

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It's a little-known fact that there's a huge black market in Post-It notes in Italy.

Seriously, sorry to hear that, on all counts. That's just scummy.

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This cold and dark tormented hell
Is all I`ll ever know
So when you get to heaven
May the devil be the judge

Online banking is cool, even cooler if you can get it on your phone. Know it. Love it. Check it often.

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

I have been checking my account weekly for years and daily since I installed the bank's app on my iPhone. I check right after reading my morning jobs report.

I've had my accounts (banking accounts, credit cards, etc) accessed and cash withdrawn in some way from folks that shouldn't have, and I've had my SSN on stolen laptops several times.

I've never lost a dime, and the theft was never reported to me, I reported it to them. I close all accounts that get compromised, nothing I can do about my SSN, but I get e-mail alerts when anyone does anything with my financial identity.

Welcome to the internet, abandon all hope...

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In time, this too shall pass.

Oh that blows. I dont blame you for being pissed. I'm not great about watching either but when I pay my monthly bill I take a quick look see.

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“Strong people are harder to kill than weak people, and more useful in general”. - Mark Rippetoe

Yeah thats why I don't like the government. I never signed up for their outrageous user fees and yearly charges.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

I am leery of that because it just doesn't sound very safe. Is there someone here who can speak to the security of mobile phones and their data transmission methods?

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Your mobile phone app is just as secure as your phone, and whatever passwords you have between whoever steals it and the bank account (in other words, not all that safe).

You have to weigh the risk against the convenience of being able to use your phone to check more frequently.

I can check my bank balance by making a call, or using a browser on a personal PC just about as easily, so I haven't installed my banks app (yet).

Is mobile phone data encrypted and if so at what level?

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Quick search gave this:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-10164244-83.html



More at the link.

It really doesn't matter - I worked for a bank a couple of years ago, and the information (amount and type) that's transmitted over the internet would amaze you. Oh, it's not clear text... mostly... but still. I also worked for several Fortune 100 companies that would transmit financial data using password protected zip files created by winzip.

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In time, this too shall pass.

The last office job I had - the job where I swore off the cube for all time - was a company that made money by handling online bill payments for customers and businesses.

I'll never forget it. It was the weekend before Christmas, and the only people in the office were me and the owner. I was handling service calls. I got a call from a customer who needed something done with their account that I didn't have the authorization to do. So, I shot a message to the boss, who said "send me the information, I will handle it".

So I did. I sent him the screen capture of the data, thinking nothing of it.

I come back in that Monday, and work all day. I have *hell* of a day. I handle the single worst customer on the planet - a guy that the other people absolutely loathed. He was extremely hard to understand, he was combative, and he lied. But, I took care of him. By the end of the call, he was on board. Go me.

However, at the end of the day, I was brought into an office with my manager, and fired. He was extremely evasive as to the reason why, but I finally managed to drag out of him that I had been fired for sending personal information over the internet.

I said "you mean in*tra*net, right?"

He said no.

I said "so wait, all this time we have been doing business with people's personal information - credit card numbers, checking account information, names and Social Security numbers - you guys don't have us on an intranet behind a firewall?"

"no"

"Why didn't you ever tell me this?"

"You need to pack your things."


My theory is that the boss called my manager into the office and asked why I had emailed when I should have known better. My manager, who never mentioned that whole "no firewall/intranet" thing tossed me under the bus, and I out of a job.

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It feels like all the people who want limited government really just want government limited to Republicans.
---The Daily Show

Short answer: Yes, it's encrypted.

The 'level' varies with the technology. Older, slower protocols are very vulnerable. Newer, faster connection generally support better encryption. Of course it varies from technology to technology, so it really can't be easily pinned down.

Wanna have some fun? Stop into your favorite mobile phone store, or call up customer service, and ask them about security, and encryption.... Better yet, ask the peeps in the mall kiosks (the ones not run by the major carriers). Ask what their accountability is if your data is compromised.... fun stuff...

Because phones are growing more powerful and capable, they will become bigger targets for hacker types, and more vulnerabilities will be exposed (there are plenty!).

Lots of interesting stuff happening at Black Hat this year...

http://www.infoworld.com/t/hacking/defc ... 2?page=0,0

That is my concern. It's like Mac, everyone thought it was super safe but the market share just wasn't there to support a hacker community... well it is now.

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