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Comment Chip and Sig was designed to target one thing (Score 1) 186

by alphad0g (#56183481) Attached to: Visa Claims Chip Cards Reduced Fraud By 70%

Chip and signature in the USA was designed to combat card skimming and cloning of mag stripes - it can't stop other kinds of fraud. Yes, it can help prevent fraud of stored data as chip data is different then mag stripe data - but the root of the fraud is cloned mag stripe data - often from skimmers.

If no terminals accept mag stripe, then cloned cards won't work. Someone can still copy the data off the front and back of card visually, and they can still clone the mag stripe. But then the fraud is reduced to Card not present (that won't change with internet and phone orders) and mag strip fraud will go away if all terminals require chip.

Chip and PIN is used to combat card theft, but that is only a tiny part of fraud. The credit card companies are going after what makes the most sense. And in the USA most people have multiple cards, so they have to figure out how to give all those cards PINs - not an easy problem to solve.

Comment Maybe you just pissed someone off, or they are pra (Score 0) 565

by alphad0g (#54859655) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Someone Else Is Using My Email Address

In the old days, we would put a friends phone number and or address in the cardboard box for free cruise or gym membership. Today if some guy spams a forum with dumb questions and makes his email public, he gets signed up for tinder and grindr. So maybe someone or somewhere that has your email os trolling you.

Or you just have a simple name like jones, and it is a fast way for someone to make up an email address to sign up for things.

Comment Why? Denial and/or conformity (Score 1) 757

by alphad0g (#54344111) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: What Is the 'Special Appeal' of Apple Products?

When it comes to the Apple products as a whole there is a misconception that they are better. More stable is what i hear a lot. It simply isn't true. Relatives with iPhones are seeing them just shut off as of late. 5s and 6s in my family - I assume related to the recent file system changes. Requires holding home and power for 20 seconds to get it to boot. Brother took his to apple store and they reinstalled the OS... no word yet if it fixed it.

My wife can crash a mac sure as she can crash a windows machine. I have an MBA - bought it for weight. Battery life is excellent, but Finder is a wreck. And yes, it gives me the spinning beach ball of death too.

So there is a misconception that Macs "just work", but in reality they have problems too. This is the denial syndrome... my Mac can't be like windows.

But if we focus deeper - phones and ipads are the same no matter how they are customized. User's can't change icons. they can't create widgets. There are limited ways to send an SMS or open the settings page. The lack of choice makes it easy to use. The same is true for the Mac, although it is more customizable. Compare to an Android phone - no icons on the launcher screen, widgets galore, alternate launchers. Choices are endless. And it can be confusing.

I have Moto phones - I can't always tell a Samsung user how to do something. But if my mom has an iPhone issue, I can open up my iPad and walk her through problem solving.

I prefer Windows and Android. Apple products do work, but you have to be willing to limit your choices, and don't have unrealistic expectations. they have bugs too.

I think apple users prefer to overlook the issues (denial) and they like the sameness of it all (conformity)

Comment Unionization worked in the past, kill it now. (Score 0, Troll) 594

Sorry, this guy should quit and find another job.
Assembling a car is unskilled labor. Unionization just drives the cost of production up. If the work is to hard, then quit.

Is framing a house, pouring/finishing concrete or laying brick/tile ergonomic? People do it every day in bad weather.

Unions served a purpose when workers were exploited. There was a large pool of unskilled workers, and if one got hurt, you just got another one because the job required little skill. But the unions also artificially inflated wages for many of these jobs. OSHA and many local and federal laws now exist to protect workers that didn't exist many years ago.

All this guy is doing is highlighting why a company will eventually get rid of his job an use a robot to do the same repetitive task.

Comment It is a standard question, here is why. If you don (Score 1) 435

by alphad0g (#53759233) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Should You Tell Future Employers Your Salary History?

This came about in response to the huge IT growth around 2000 before the bubble burst on the dot com world. People were getting offers for huge salary increases because there was a skills shortage. HR groups added this as a way to stop the madness. They use your salary history to validate career progression to some extent, but they also use it as a way to guage a reasonable offer - say a 10% increase over your current may be considered the company rule.

Most large companies do this. If they offer you a job, they may even ask for W2 to compare to what you put on application.

Submission + - Alberta Man Turns Table on Laptop Thief (nationalpost.com)

Submitted by jbwiebe
jbwiebe writes: Cochrane’s Stu Gale couldn’t believe his eyes when a notification popped up on his computer telling him someone had logged on to his recently stolen laptop.

The B.C.-based 51-year-old computer security and automation expert couldn’t let the opportunity to try to find out something about the apparent thief pass him by, so he attempted to remotely log on to the pilfered laptop.

Submission + - The backlash against self-driving cars officially begins (cnn.com)

Submitted by Paul Fernhout
Paul Fernhout writes: "An organization that advocates for professional drivers has urged New York to ban self-driving cars from the state's roads for 50 years. The Upstate Transportation Association fears that self-driving cars will eliminate thousands of jobs and damage the local economy."

Submission + - NASA Mission Asteroid for Metals Worth Ten Thousand Quadrillion Dollars

Submitted by randomErr
randomErr writes: NASA wants to uncover the mystery behind the asteroid “16 Psyche.” that may contain a priceless treasure trove of minerals. “We’ve been to all the different planets, we’ve been to other asteroids. But we’ve never visited a body that has been made of entirely metal,” said Carol Polanskey, project scientist for the Psyche mission. Now NASA, led by researchers at Arizona State University, plans to send an unmanned spacecraft to orbit 16 Psyche – an asteroid roughly the size of Massachusetts, made of iron and other precious metals. The mission’s leader estimates that the iron alone on today’s market would be worth $10,000 quadrillion.

Submission + - Trump assembles band of H-1B supporters to advise him (computerworld.com)

Submitted by dcblogs
dcblogs writes: In his campaign for president, Donald Trump tapped into the viral anger over the use of H-1B visa to displace U.S. workers. The outsourcing of high-skill jobs is a "tremendous threat," he said. Disney workers who trained visa-holding replacements spoke at some of his rallies. But soon after the election, President-elect Trump assembled a 16-member team of CEO-level executives to advise him on job creation, including many from firms that send jobs overseas and have advocated for an H-1B cap increase. Trump's appointments included one of the pioneers of offshore outsourcing to India: Jack Welch, the former chairman and CEO of General Electric. Also on this committee is Bob Iger, the chairman and CEO of Disney, whose offshoring of Disney IT workers was a topic at a Republican presidential candidate debate. The chairman of the "President's Strategic and Policy Forum" is Stephen Schwarzman, the chairman and CEO of Blackstone, a private equity firm that is betting on the success of IT offshore outsourcing. Blackstone last year acquired a majority stake in Mphasis, an India-based IT services firm that is categorized by the U.S. as H-1B dependent, meaning 15% or more of its workers are on a visa. Following Trump's appointments, the Partnership for New York City, a business group, issued a report detailing five "federal priorities." One priority includes immigration reform to increase the H-1B cap and allowing U.S. companies "to hire skilled workers based on labor market demands, not fixed and arbitrary quotas." The Partnership for New York noted in this report that six of its members were members of Trump's economic advisory committee.

Submission + - FTC Dismantles Two Huge Robocall Organizations

Submitted by Trailrunner7
Trailrunner7 writes: Continuing its campaign against phone fraud operations, the FTC has dismantled two major robocall organizations that the commission alleges were making hundreds of millions of calls over the course of several years to consumers who were on the Do Not Call registry.

The FTC filed complaints against two separate groups of defendants, the leaders of which have both been involved in previous legal actions for robocalling operations. The defendants each controlled several different corporate entities that were involved in selling home security systems, extended auto warranties, and other products through repeated automated phone calls. Many of the calls were to numbers on the DNC list, a violation of the telemarketing regulations.

The two main defendants in the complaints are Justin Ramsey and Aaron Michael Jones, and in separate actions, they and many of their co-defendants have agreed to court-ordered bans on robocall activities and financial settlements. The FTC alleges that Ramsey directed an operation that made millions of robocalls a month.

Submission + - Squirrel 'Threat' to Critical Infrastructure

Submitted by randomErr
randomErr writes: The real threat to global critical infrastructure is not enemy states or organisations but squirrels. Cris Thomas has been tracking power cuts caused by animals since 2013. His Cyber Squirrel 1 project was set up to counteract what he called the "ludicrousness of cyber-war claims by people at high levels in government and industry", he told the audience at the Shmoocon security conference in Washington. Squirrels topped the list with 879 "attacks", followed by birds with 434 attacks and then snakes at 83 attacks.

Submission + - Buggy Domain Validation Forces GoDaddy to Revoke Certs (threatpost.com)

Submitted by msm1267
msm1267 writes: GoDaddy has revoked, and begun the process of re-issuing, new SSL certificates for more than 6,000 customers after a bug was discovered in the registrar’s domain validation process.

The bug was introduced July 29 and impacted fewer than two percent of the certificates GoDaddy issued from that date through yesterday, said vice president and general manager of security products Wayne Thayer.

“GoDaddy inadvertently introduced the bug during a routine code change intended to improve our certificate issuance process,” Thayer said in a statement. “The bug caused the domain validation process to fail in certain circumstances.”

GoDaddy said it was not aware of any compromises related to the bug.

Submission + - Microsoft Anti-Porn Workers Sue Over PTSD (thedailybeast.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: When former Microsoft employees complained of the horrific pornography and murder films they had to watch for their jobs, the software giant told them to just take more smoke breaks, a new lawsuit alleges. Members of Microsoft’s Online Safety Team had “God-like” status, former employees Henry Soto and Greg Blauert allege in a lawsuit filed on Dec. 30. They “could literally view any customer’s communications at any time.” Specifically, they were asked to screen Microsoft users’ communications for child pornography and evidence of other crimes. But Big Brother didn’t offer a good health care plan, the Microsoft employees allege. After years of being made to watch the “most twisted” videos on the internet, employees said they suffered severe psychological distress, while the company allegedly refused to provide a specially trained therapist or to pay for therapy. The two former employees and their families are suing for damages from what they describe as permanent psychological injuries, for which they were denied worker’s compensation. “Microsoft applies industry-leading, cutting-edge technology to help detect and classify illegal images of child abuse and exploitation that are shared by users on Microsoft Services,” a Microsoft spokesperson wrote in an email. “Once verified by a specially trained employee, the company removes the image, reports it to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and bans the users who shared the images from our services. We have put in place robust wellness programs to ensure the employees who handle this material have the resources and support they need.” But the former employees allege neglect at Microsoft’s hands.

Submission + - Second Ukraine Power Outage Linked to Russian Hackers (securityledger.com)

Submitted by chicksdaddy
chicksdaddy writes: A December power outage in the city of Kiev in December has been linked to hacking activity by groups believed to be working on behalf of the government of Russia, according to published reports. (https://securityledger.com/2017/01/second-ukraine-power-outage-linked-to-russian-hackers/)

Russian hacking crews were behind a brief power outage at the Pivnichna remote power transmission facility last month, using software based attacks to shut down the remote terminal units (RTUs) that control circuit breakers, causing a power outage for about an hour. Hacking crews appear to be using the Ukraine as a test bed to hone skills that could be used against other adversaries, according to Marina Krotofil, a security researcher for Honeywell Industrial Cyber Security Labs, the website Dark Reading reported on Tuesday.

Speaking at the S4 Conference in Miami on Tuesday (http://www.cvent.com/events/s4x17), Krotofil said that the outage at Pivnichna was part of a month-long campaign by Russian hacking groups that included attacks on railways and other critical infrastructure. While not intended to cripple the country, the attacks were designed to sow confusion and chaos, she said.

Research was conducted by Information Systems Security Partners (ISSP) (https://www.issp.ua/contact.php?l=en), a Ukraine firm. Speaking to the conference via a pre-recorded video, Oleksii Yasynskyi, head of research at the company, said that the attacks were the work of more than one cyber criminal group that worked in concert with each other. Attacks against Ukraine critical infrastructure and other interests began over the summer, ISSP said, with spear phishing attacks directed at a Ukraine bank.

Submission + - Hamas 'Honey Trap' Dupes Israeli Soldiers (securityweek.com)

Submitted by wiredmikey
wiredmikey writes: The smartphones of dozens of Israeli soldiers were hacked by Hamas militants pretending to be attractive young women online, an Israeli military official said Wednesday. Using fake profiles on Facebook with alluring photos, Hamas members contacted the soldiers via groups on the social network, luring them into long chats, the official told journalists on condition of anonymity.

Dozens of the predominantly lower-ranked soldiers were convinced enough by the honey trap to download fake applications which enabled Hamas to take control of their phones, according to the official.

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