Note To Criminals — Don't Call Tech Support 266
Billosaur writes "Darwin Awards, here he comes: Ars Technica has up a story about a would-be identity thief who did himself in by calling tech support about printer drivers. Timothy Short must have thought he'd hit the mother-lode when he stole a PC and a Digimarc printer from the Missouri Department of Revenue, perhaps with dreams of cranking out thousands of fake ids. Problem: he could not unlock the computer he stole and without the necessary drivers, he couldn't use the printer. Ever resourceful, Short called Digimarc tech support a couple of days later (twice), which brought him to the attention of a Secret Service agent, who recognized his voice from a recording of the calls. Short now faces a $250,000 fine and up to 10 years in prison."
Funny - But still in the gene pool (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Why ?? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:DAMN! (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Why ?? (Score:3, Informative)
Or "Why would the Department of Revenue use a laptop for sensitive information, making it easier to steal than a desktop?" since the type of computer equipment in the frame of usage is the subject, not the equipment itself with the modifier of sensitive information being on it.
A far better sentence would have been "Why would the Department of Revenue keep sensitive information on a laptop, where it is easier to steal, than on a desktop?"
Re:Waaaiiit a minute... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:It Takes More Than Just Technology... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:It Takes More Than Just Technology... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:In the realms of funny.... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:harsh (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Waaaiiit a minute... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:It Takes More Than Just Technology... (Score:3, Informative)
license = verb
licence = noun
Re:Ha. (Score:3, Informative)
For a time, I worked at the subcontractor who manufactured the printers for Digimarc for their Missouri program. We customized the driver and firmware such that each printer had an "unlock code" individually keyed to each printer - basically a one way (computer->printer) public/private key encryption. The computer would get the public key, encrypt a "hello there" type message, and the printer would decrypt it with the private key. If you fail to encrypt it, nothing happens. If you encrypt it with the wrong key, nothing happens. So, it was implicitly tied to that workstation. If you can't get into that workstation, you can't print. If you try to print it on another machine, it doesn't work, even if you have the driver.
Now, you can always get the private key from the workstation, but we counted on the solution provider to secure the workstation, which it looks like they did in this case.