Dose of Paranoia - 23-Nov-2024
It gets worse before it gets worse
As the holidays approach, most people think about turkey dinners, menorahs, Christmas trees and latkes. I think about the fact that holiday scams are lurking around every corner. Bah Humbug. And it ain’t even Thanksgiving…
InfoSec Stuff
Time to update your iPhones, iPads, Macs and other Apple devices… after a number of security vulnerabilities dropped this past week. For iOS devices, Settings/General/Software Update will do the trick. For Macs, Apple Menu/Settings/General/Software Update will get you there.
Apparently, fraudsters and scammers are after your leftover flexible spending account funds… they know you need to “use ‘em or lose ‘em” and will send you emails or ads which may:
Offer “deals” on FSA eligible purchases
Impersonate health care providers
Phish your FSA login credentials so they can skip the middleman and just drain your funds directly
As always, read those FSA related emails carefully - criminals really depend on you being in a hurry and worried about loss in order to get you to take action without thinking.
Scammers also take advantage of holiday travel woes… When your flight or hotel reservation gets borked, make sure that the 800 number you call to resolve it is the real one. Scammers buy ads that show up in search results that have 800 numbers of their call centers, where operators are standing by to steal your credit cards, personal info and miles or charge you exorbitant and nonexistent “reservation change fees.” It can be stressful when you are standing in the airport wondering what to do next - and those quick Google searches for “<insert airline here> reservations” can sometimes lead you to trouble - use the airline app or official website to get that phone number. Better yet - put airline/rental car/hotel numbers into your contacts BEFORE you travel.
Tech Stuff
The Terminator’s little helpers… Apparently, all you Pokemon Go players out there have been unwittingly doing unpaid gig work for Skynet’s, um I mean, Niantic’s efforts to build a “large geospatial model” which will allow AIs to navigate the world. So in other words, thanks for helping our future robot overlords in their efforts to round up the humans…. thanks a lot, folks.
Pleasant dreams… And if you want to know reason #346 why unregulated tech poses a risk to US (and other nations’) security, read this Wired piece on how anyone, including hostile/malicious actors can buy location data that can be used to identify people with access to sensitive locations (like, say nuclear command and control facilities) for later targeting. We’re about to enter a new era where the people in charge are going to be predominantly ignorant, greedy and compromised to the hilt and thus ill equipped or incentivized to deal with problems like this. The FTC is working on the issue when it comes to military personnel, but there are a lot of other people out there (women seeking health care, opponents of autocratic governments, etc.) who are at risk from this.
Book of the Week
Gray Matters - A Biography of a Brain Surgeon by Theodore Schwartz - InfoSec ain’t brain surgery, but brain surgery is. A really interesting and entertaining look at what it takes to be a brain surgeon, what brain surgeons actually do, and some of the moral (and potentially political) implications about what we are learning about how that piece of gefilte fish in our heads makes us us. Listen to this and then decide how you feel about say, a hypothetical South African Bond Villain type, having access to (and power to control) these capabilities.
On a related note, the Times had an interesting story about ChatGPT besting doctors at diagnosing patients illness from their case reports. Not sure if this is part of the general “AI is good at everything” hype or if we are seeing a true (and really significant) advance.
Money Stuff
A money saving tip for those of you who have not yet “cut the cable” - this past week I booted Verizon out of my life and replaced their $260/mo cable/Internet service with a $150/mo combo of 1G internet (Optimum), YouTube TV, and a Max subscription. I’m know I am way late to this trend, but it sure feels good to reduce yet another bloated overpriced subscription eating away at the monthly budget with very little value. I ditched Verizon’s mobile phone service a few months ago and saved $60/mo with no perceivable change in service quality. Verizon simply does not seem to be worth the premium they charge for anything - and they are a horror to deal with when problems occur. Moral of the story - its worth spending some time looking at your cable and mobile service to see if you are really getting the best deal.
If you think your home and auto insurance costs seem to have skyrocketed, you are probably right… You have a right to see the “risk report” that insurers use to determine your premiums and it is a good idea to check it annually to make sure that it is correct (no spurious claims, no wrong property info, etc.) as wrong info can drive up your bills. You can request this report annually, for free online.
And if you haven’t looked at your credit report this year, now is a good time to get your free annual copy, since bad information here can make your life miserable in many, many ways. Just don’t sign up for any paid services pushed on you by the credit reporting agencies - they are scams. Just get the free report and make sure there isn’t anything on it that you don’t recognize. Also consider freezing your credit report to make it harder for bad guys to use it to for nefarious porpoises. I have done this for years and it is an easy, free and effective antifraud measure.
Fun Stuff
You too can be a fruit detective! And this story is proof that there are (potentially very disturbing) stock pictures for just about any two random words in the English language.
Here, kitty, kitty… or maybe not… Now, I know (some) people love the “community cats” who slink around our streets and yards, but this story shows the limits of “trap/neuter/release.”
Bears seem to be on everyone’s naughty list - last week, I told you about the bear suited fraudsters - but this week, Japan is focused on another bear related question: are attacking bears left handed?? We need to know.