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observations

Dear Useless Parcel Service AKA UPS

2017.5.5
observations
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Update 2017.5.6: Yesterday, a resident of a different address came to my door with my package. Turns out the UPS driver had delivered it to the wrong address. So I change what’s below to: “UPS: Teach your drivers to read addresses and deliver to the address on the package.”

Mahalo, fellow honest package recipient!

Don’t just leave packages “at front door or on the porch.” Especially when someone is visibly home AND the door is open. Ring the doorbell and actually hand the package to your customer. Don’t just silently drop the package at the front door and race back to your delivery truck as if the customer was going to bite you.

All you’re doing is actively participating in an industry thriving all across the United States: STEALING PACKAGES LEFT UNATTENDED BY DELIVERY DRIVERS AT FRONT DOORS.

Stupid UPS. YOU just enabled thieves to steal my package.

Hollywood IT, the real world, and wiping disk drives

2017.3.21
computers, observations, thoughts
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NOTE: This is not the “IT” mentioned in the previous post. THAT is still coming. IT IS COMING IT IS COMING!

Hollywood IT

Hollywood IT is what you see in movies. What Hollywood scriptwriters and directors think is Information Technology. The only connection between Hollywood IT and real IT is they both use the word “computer”.

Here’s some Hollywood IT: Any password for a hypersecure system can be guessed in only 2 tries. Even though such systems don’t allow their users to use easily-guessed passwords like the user’s first name, somehow the user’s password is their first name. Failing that, all you need to do is type OVERRIDE and you’re in.

But here’s an example that pertains to the real world.

When we saw the most recent Bourne movie, a whistleblower stole a flash drive of super-secret information from the CIA. It held 3D animations, video, full documentation, plans, scans of all project reports, etc, all about the project that produced Bourne and the other assassins. Maybe a gigabyte total?

Once plugged into a computer, a virus on the drive notified the CIA that someone was reading the flash drive. Worse: Sharing the files with someone else. This Must Be Stopped or we’ll be un-CYAed, bringing about The End of the Free World.

In the movie, the CIA’s computer whiz hacker remotely finds a hackable smartphone near the laptop, somehow uses that to hack the laptop, and starts erasing the flash drive. (Why didn’t they just use the laptop’s wifi connection that the virus used to report in the first place? Eludes me.)

A few minutes later, it was done. I presume to full government disk wiping standards. Not just sequentially translated through 256 random languages on Google Translate into unreadable gibberish.

(Technical note: Encryption via Google Translate cannot be cracked. But you may find the output in the instruction manual for that cheap MP3 player you picked up at a garage sale.)

A real world situation

When I see something that still works, my first few reactions are: “It still works. Someone else could use it.” (Actually, that’s my second reaction. My first reaction is: “How can I still use it?” I’m that sort of person. I HATE throwing away things that still work. Or could be fixed. Explains the junk I’ve collected.)

So when I recently replaced a 1TB hard drive with a 2TB drive, I found it very difficult to apply the Sacred Hammer of Divine Data Destruction to it. That would be sacrilegious.

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Dear Firefox for Android

2015.12.16
mobile, observations
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Do not delete my settings & bookmarks when I say “No” to logging into your NSA-inspired attempt to share my settings & bookmarks with you. This is the second or third time you have done this.

Just because everything else Android/iOS/Windows 10 is spyware doesn’t mean you need to be, too.

Observations on how to sabotage your church or any other organization you might be in

2014.9.23
church, observations
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  1. Allow members to bully other members. Especially allow church leaders to bully other members.
  2. If your bullying victim fights back, blame everything on them. And make sure to tell everyone else how they viciously attacked you for no reason whatever.
  3. Never grow out of high school. Remember, forming cliques and gossiping about those outside your “IN” group is the perfectly normal way to act.
  4. If you don’t like someone else in church, make sure you let them know every chance you get. Lie about them to others; better still, broadcast your lies to their professional contacts. Ignore them when you’re in the same room or group. After all, your anger, jealousy, sacred state of victimhood or whatever other negative emotions you have are your feelings and you’re entitled to take them out on anyone you like. Especially if it’s an issue that happened decades before, involving no one in the church or organization, in a different state.
  5. If you yourself ever do anything wrong, always blame it on someone else. See item 2.

Observation about credit/debit card security

2014.9.23
observations
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My debit card was one of those harvested courtesy of Home Depot.

So far, our compromised card count includes:

  • My current debit card (courtesy of Home Depot)
  • Mine and my wife’s debit cards (courtesy of Target)
  • A MasterCard and a debit card (courtesy of T.J. Maxx).

Notice what’s common about the list?

THEY ALL OCCURRED AT BRICK-AND-MORTAR STORES.

We use other cards at many online retailers. Never once has one of those cards been compromised.

So, sorry, B&M retailers: Don’t go whining FUD about how “insecure shopping online is.” Shopping at your stores is what’s insecure.

YOU need to prove your security before I resume shopping with you.