Category: Personal Security

Watch your back

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Burying the survivors

A flight leaves Heathrow at 13:00 on route to Paris, on the way it experiences fatal engine failure and crashes in the Channel. The flight carries 120 passengers 20 in first class.

How many survivors will be buried on the French side and how many in the English side?

 Question the question

It’s interesting to observe how people communicate differently on personal matters depending on the device and method.  There are so many factors that impact the sender’s mental state and tone of the message (personal or work device, signed or unsigned, the speed of transport (instant or slow), public or perceived private.

Formal and personal – hard copy letter.  Shows the sender put in some thought and invested some resources (print, paper, envelope, postage and time costs) before sending and serves as hardcore historical evidence.

Formal and less personal –

email unsigned from a personal mobile device

email unsigned from work or business device

Email digitally signed on mobile device

Email from workstation

Email from laptop

Email from browsers

Many end-users actually see this as cold and heartless as “no one” emails about personal stuff anymore.

Informal and very personal

Instant messaging

WhatsApp

iMessage

VOIP phone calls

The method of choice for a vast amount of people. The user tends to speak from the heart whether angry, sad or happy.  Data is sent with no regard of security levels and assumptive privacy.

Consequences can be catastrophic or a euphoric high.

  • I Love you by email = Low euphoria
  • I Love you by Instant messaging = High euphoria
  • I Love you by letter = High euphoria

Choose your method wisely

 

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Trophy grinding

My first gym session of the year felt great last night and is the perfect antidote to my PS4 Withdrawal. Grinding my way every night through FallOut4 will have to wait for now.

One pretty bad side effect is my tendency to trigger real-world arguments to feed my Amygdala.  There is nothing better than a “good” argument to say the things you normally keep to yourself.  Of course, for me, arguments have an even worst side effect of sparking MG symptoms of sleepiness and chronic fatigue.

Leaving my PS4 in another country is pretty much the only way I could whine myself off my trophy hunting addiction.

So, the extra 20+ hours I week I’ll gain from no gameplay will be spent on watching Twitch, research study, Movies and exercise.  Most of all I need to work on my Cryptocurrency portfolio.  After the last quarters rise in Coin values, the average business person is acutely aware of the potential and looking for stables ways to make a big buck.

I came across a new breed of company a few weeks ago.  Hash Power Service provider meets Network marketing is an interesting blend that makes it easy for anyone to buy-in but it seems these hybrid business models for Cryptocurrency try to paint too much of a pretty picture for the consumer.  In the meantime,  the Meltdown vulnerability makes it clear that hardware Wallets are probably the way to go in the long-term.

30 mins cardio yesterday…no meds

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Not down wid OPP

My professional life involves constant deep dives into Other Peoples’ Problems (OPP)….taking on the same ethos in my private life is truly a different matter.

Today, getting intimate with peoples’ digital life is way too risky and a very Thankless endeavour.  Taking on any private system admin task means exposing yourself as a technician to unwarranted criticism and abuse; get it a wrong and you’re a snooping idiot IT guy, get it right and nothing is said.

Not my Problem

It’s a constant catch 22 scenario especially when you can see friends and family making familiar tactical and operation errors i.e. never ever backing up their data, never encrypting their data and never changing their passwords.

Here are 10 things that people don’t change often.

Change bank account or card
Change email address
Change passwords
Change phone device
Erase or reset phone device
Change phone number
Change social media accounts
Change inner friend circles
Change ISP or Geolocations
Change public IP address

Tactical Reconnaissance: Basics for profiling, tracking or snooping.

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Beefing up privacy and controls

The mandatory system update 5.0 for PS4 rolled out a number of new features included better user control over child accounts. It seems much easier to monitor your child’s gaming activity now.

In the meantime, Uber announce “more information about how you can control what we collect and how we use your data, including location information .”

These are all common sense issues that are now only being implemented because of mass dissatisfaction from user groups, a bit like 2-factor authentication being deployed after a breach.

It’s about time

the meantime, I added two new titles to my Games Library. The award-winning Metal Gear Solid V and a horror set named Amnesia: Collection, which contains both The Dark Descent and A Machine for Pigs. Both titles are free to PlayStation Plus subscribers and make the membership fee actually financially viable for the year.

METAL GEAR SOLID V: THE PHANTOM PAIN

I have followed many multiplayer sessions of Metal Gear Solid over the past 24 months but actually playing it was epic and jaw-dropping. Amnesia had a weird notice at the being of the game.

“Do not play this game to Win”

Amnesia Collection – Scary Stuff

What the bleep bleep?

Anyhow, the two titles will get moderate attention from me after the Star Wars Beta session this weekend.

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What da bleep, bleep…

It used to be pretty easy to manage your Apps from iTunes but now the giant vendor has stealthily taken that option away, which sucks for iPhone 4 or multiple device users.  Now you are forced to manage all Apps from the device itself.

Having to re-think mobile device management…Again.

The new App store looks and feels fantastic but it’s just a cold reminder that end users control nothing. 

At any point, your daily habits and behaviour can be manipulated with an Operating system update forcing you to act in a “crafted” way.  In the meantime, your walking, talking, driving, sleeping habit data is carefully harvested by your mobile device for later use.

How do you like dem Apples?