Dose of Paranoia - 01-Dec-24
It gets worse before it gets worse...
Well, I hope everyone in the US had a great Thanksgiving! Welcome to December, which here in NYC-land has decided to debut with an abrupt reminder that we are in Winter.
InfoSec Stuff
Am I a security dinosaur? This recent paper hit home for me… a study using science seems to indicate that security awareness training and those fake phishing emails we all know and love just don’t work. As my ex Liquidnet colleagues know, awareness and phishing simulation was really key to the security program I ran for 16 years, and I still get emails from them (4+ years after I left) telling me that they avoided one scam or another due to things they learned from LN’s program. However, things change and I know that a lot of people are getting tired of the same old security messages, training, and exercises. We think we need to repeat the messages because the bad guys are winning with the same old strategies, sometimes in new packages. I get it - most security training is boring and getting constantly reminded of things YOU need to do to be secure is annoying… isn’t that the job of the security team? Thought provoking - and I hope more behavioral sciencey people do research on what works and what doesn’t here…
Universal translator on… Apparently, Microsoft Teams will soon get the Star Trekky ability to do real time translation of spoken language in the speaker’s voice. If it works well, this sounds like another double sword AI tool - a real boon for legit users as well as scammers and fraudsters, who will be able to operate in their native tongues, making their jobs much easier. Reality becomes more malleable every day - which makes a 1984 interview with a KGB defector spookily prescient.
Please, please, please stop using paper checks to pay for things… and if you do, don’t send them through the mail. Cases of mail theft both by run of the mill criminals and USPS insiders show just how much criminals looove paper checks as they are easy prey for all sorts of scams. I just find it incredible that checks are still a thing in 21st century America.
Here’s a great use of AI from the folks at O2 in the UK… an AI voice enabled chatbot designed to waste scammers’ time. In a parallel universe where the government actually cared about this stuff, I can see a centralized registry for scam call numbers which would redirect fraudsters to a bot like this. Not this time. Or for the next 4 years at least. Definitely not. OK, one last one. Oh, FFS. OK, now we are entering “should be parody” territory. This reminds me of our great Presidents - George Washington and his sale of cherry pies, how FDR sold solid gold crutches, and that “Tricky Dick” kiddie tape recorder play set. Very presidential. So proud to be an American.
The good news (if this quite questionable news story is to be believed) is that the robots may be getting closer to taking over.
Useful Stuff
Came across this last week - more calculators than you can shake a stick at. Does anyone still shake sticks at things? There must be an app for that by now. Oh, wait - I guess social media would qualify.
Fun Stuff
P-Mail… I just love vintage tech - especially when it survives into the current day… and it is hard to think of a tech more vintage than carrier pigeons. And the French Army is still using them. Of course they are - they have to keep up with the Chinese. Vive le pigeon!
Well, I know what is on top of my Christmas List.
Boulevard of (millionaire Marxist) dreams… Wilshire Boulevard in LA is one of America’s iconic streets - and the guy it is named for was “born rich, got richer, and then went bust, ending his business career in stock fraud and medical quackery.” And he was that most curious of American things - a millionaire Marxist and self described revolutionary. You can’t make this stuff up.
I have a feeling this case is going to last at least 4 years…. by the way, this one came from the excellent Court Watch Substack, which posts links to interesting court cases which provide a behind the scenes look at things like how the Felon in Chief’s company wants its insurer to pay for its legal defense against wage theft charges by its workers. Yeah… friend of the worker.
Speaking of people who actually work for a living, I wish I had seen this sooner - surprisingly enough, Amazon is not too keen on screening this documentary on their digital platform, but it is available to stream through Tuesday and I plan on giving it a watch later today.
Book of the Week
This week, I’m reading The Measure by Nikki Erlick - one day, everyone 22 years old and up gets a mysterious box containing a string whose length corresponds to their lifespan. Of course, the world responds with reflection and reason. Naaaaah… just kidding - things go pretty much the way that you’d expect. A dark fable for our times - thought provoking and well written.