Dose of Paranoia - 2025-02-08
It gets worse before it gets worse
Welcome to what seems like Day 3,574 of the new Golden Age of America. Scams and fraud are in the air - in the time between when I parked my car and got home (1 block), I received a scam job offer text AND had a guy pull his car over and try to sell me a (fake? stolen?) gold ring. No foolin.
For those of you in the NYC metro area… be careful later today into tomorrow as we have some snow/sleet/ice on the way with some more in just a few days.
For those of you with one of them new fangled mobile phones… if you haven’t updated your software recently, now would be a good time to do so as both Apple and Google have recently issued security patches…
Infosec/Scam Stuff
As I write this edition of the Dose, I just got back from donating some blood. Yes, there were the usual pesky questions from the staff - “Whose blood is this? Why are you bringing it in buckets?” But that’s not the point - the blood supply is really important and the New York Blood Center was recently the victim of a ransomware attack, which cannot be good for keeping the red stuff flowing Go make a donation at NYBC or the Red Cross - it is an easy way to help people in need. And you get free Cheez-Its.
Very coup, Much Illegal - I don’t want this to turn into a political newsletter, but the ongoing unprecedented takeover of the US Government by Nazi fan-boy Elon Musk and his DOGE minions really does have significant information security outcomes that will affect every American. There are some courageous insiders who are doing their best to highlight the threat and slow down this unfolding disaster. If you think that Elon Musk having his hands on the controls of the USG is a good thing (and you have not recently had a head injury or happen to be another billionaire oligarch), please think again.
More DeepSeek - It seems like the Chinese AI model is not so hot at protecting itself from well known AI prompt injections which can get it to answer some anti social questions. It also appears that the iOS app is sending sensitive data back to its data centers in unencrypted form, making it that much less secure. We may be seeing the hosted version getting banned from US government devices (which I think is a good thing - other countries are doing this as well). There is even a bill in the Senate to ban DeepSeek altogether which I think is a bit stupid - we should adapt the tech and de-commie it, not ban it.
Hacks of yore - Apparently, this is the first article to appear in the New York Times about a data breach… on June 22, 1984, they ran a story about a password which provided access to a TRW computer file containing credit data on 90 million people being posted to a computer bulletin board (as in one you had to access with a dial up modem). Of course, if you want a really old scam, there is always this papyrus which documents a 1900 year old court case “centered on two people — Gadalias and Saulos — who forged documents related to selling and freeing slaves to get around paying Roman taxes.”
Fun Stuff
Pass the Excedrin, Comrade - Grain of salt alert here, as this came from the Russians, but they claim that someone sent some of their drone operators “explosive laden first person view goggles.” This is a real shame - the really bad migraine inducing goggles were intercepted before they reached their targets. Oh well, better luck next time, guys. Freedom for Ukraine!
Vive La France! - We can learn a lesson from France - while I personally feel that people who listen to music/take calls on their mobile phones in public deserve this, the French are at least trying…
Real life spy story - If you are into real life spy stories (especially back from the Cold War), the recent declassification of documents from the UK’s “Cambridge Spies” scandal has provided some fascinating reading. It also shows that how little has changed in the world of espionage - in spite of the high tech gadgets spies have today, it is the human element that has the biggest potential for trouble.
Future Stuff
So, here is a prediction… remember that story about the asteroid that has a slight chance of hitting the Earth in 2032? It seems like the odds of an impact have skyrocketed (to 2.3%). My prediction is that at some point (probably when a major distraction from yet another bad idea is needed) the Felon in Chief and his Nazi co-President are going to announce that SpaceX will (for a hefty fee from the government of course) launch a mission to deflect said asteroid and “save the planet,” thus making them even bigger heroes amongst the stupid and aiding their autogolpe. If they don’t take advantage of this, someone needs to revoke their “venal corrupt oligarch” merit badges.