If you think that a blind hacker is amazing, you haven’t seen the half of it:
Matthew Weigman, 19… known in the telephone party-line scene as “Li’l Hacker,” is widely considered one of the best phone hackers alive. Relying on an ironclad memory and detailed knowledge of the phone system, the teenager is known for using social engineering to manipulate phone company workers and others into divulging confidential information, and into entering commands into computers and telephone switching equipment on his behalf.
“I’ve been interested in phones since I’ve been about 8,” Weigman said in a 2007 interview with Wired.com. “I talked to technicians when they came down here to do things on my phone.”
In his plea deal with prosecutors, Weigman, who was born blind, admitted to a long criminal resume (.pdf). Among other things, he confessed to conspiring with other telephone hooligans who made hundreds of false calls to police that sent armed SWAT teams bursting into the homes of their party-line enemies.
Weigman also admitted eavesdropping on customer service calls to Sprint, by dialing into a phone line used by Sprint supervisors to monitor their employees. Weigman parked on the spy line to overhear customers giving out their credit card numbers, which he memorized and passed to accomplices. Weigman and his friends used the numbers to purchase computers and other electronics.
By the way, social engineering exploits the weakest part of a computer system: human beings.
Facebook has been doing some screwy things lately. This is one of them.
One thing I personally hate about Facebook is how the ads co-opt my friends’ pictures and use them to try to sell me stupid stuff. Dan received one of those types of ads yesterday, only the combination of text and photo selection was a little… um, let’s say “open minded.” …
“Hey Dan!” The ad said. “Hot singles are waiting for you!” And on the left hand side was a picture of my wife! Apparently, this particular ad grabbed a picture of one of my friends to display with the ad and unfortunately, just happened to grab my wife’s picture.
Apparently there is also a FB quiz scam where you click on one of those links that tells you to find out if your IQ is higher than your friends, and it takes you to a site where it asks for your cell phone number, and then some spammer bombards your phone with text message spam.
One reason I never take these quizzes: I generally already know whether I’m smarter than the people they show me or not
Here’s an interesting story about team dynamics and how we align our work role to our familial role in childhood.
I read Sylvia Lafair’s book Don’t Bring It to Work while I was on vacation. She was a family counselor for years and then was brought into corporate America to help resolve team conflicts. Her premise is that we play similar roles at work that we played as a child in our family dynamic. There were several revelations in the book for me but one key nugget that will stick with me. I’d always wrestled with why I worked so hard and pushed myself. She described classic over-achiever behavior that described me to a “T”. Typically busy and distracted by much to do, Lafair states that this behavior comes from being raised in an environment that’s economically or emotionally starved. Since that revelation, I’ve been much easier on myself, resting and letting myself enjoy life as I know it.
Makes perfect sense. After all, the first team we recognize and have experience with is our family, unless you were some kind of 18-month-old T-ball prodigy.
I had some trouble uploading this, which is why they’re so late. Since most of class was taken up with introductions, the quiz, and Microsoft Office, there isn’t too much here.
In some ways, Steve Jobs hearkened back to the ’80s and ’90s, when corporations were run by celebrity CEOs like Lee Iacocca and Steve Jobs. However, it stands to reason that when your CEO is a household name and something happens to his health, there is bound to be an impact in the markets. It seems that Apple is learning that lesson and trying to adapt to the challenge. While it’s nice to have a public face to your company, you’re also subject to the public’s fickle tastes.
Not sure why I’m focusing so much on Twitter lately… honestly, I think that Facebook is a bit more of a useful platform. Anyway, some interesting points in this post here, especially the advent of real-time search engines. An interesting idea, but why do you need real time updates to your Google searches? After you’ve found your link, how often do you go back? And what kind of a drag is that going to create on performance? Enquiring minds want to know…
#3 and #4 on the list are way more interesting to me. Enlisting product champions on Twitter to tweetvertise for you with RTs and links with the promise of winning something is brilliant marketing strategy. I have to admit it, I’m hooked.
My Google reader got choked up this past week through lack of use, so there’s more than an abundance of stuff that I would be better off quoting and simply passing along:
If you’re in a meeting with smart people and they start discussing a term or concept you don’t understand, what do you do? … It’s very important that you don’t just sit there and nod your head sagely. I think there are two constructive paths. The first is to ask. “Wait, I was with you until a second ago. What does that mean?” You’ll be amazed at how smart and engaging this makes you seem if you say it at the right time. The second approach is to write it down and not go to bed that night until you know the topic better than the person who brought it up. How else, precisely, are you going to become one of the smart people?
Psst… hey, want some malware? Don’t search for word unscramblers, lyrics, myspace, free music downloads, michael phelps, game cheats, printable fill-in puzzles, free ringtones, solitaire, screen savers, free games, work from home, Olympics, videos, celebrities, music, or news.
That’s what McAfee says. And, now that I’ve mentioned all those in the same post, and you’re reading this, there’s a high probability that people are firing off Conficker at you and I as we speak.
Scariest quote of the article: “[Malware] went from a hacker in a basement, to organized cybercrime to now, literally, terrorism and other forms of organized geopolitical attacks.”
I know I sound all “the sky is falling”, but I see a greater need to protect our national IS infrastructure than worrying about fighting wars with bombs and bullets. The anonymity and speed at which these attacks could occur would bring us down immediately, and the reliance that we have on this technology supports the need to protect it well.
