There is a whole generation that had phones as kids, They were constantly bombarded with prompts to install this or that app. For the most part the apps are "safe" as in the person never actually encountered what they would consider to be a negative result.

People under 30 pretty much install anything. They don't even think about it. Even IT educated ones do it.

In today's age you a strong armed into installing apps for McDonalds, that delivery service, to rent a bike in the city, to get on the train, to look at a menu for a restaurant. Even when you show up in person the staff at the shop or what ever direct you to use the app. They will even help you install it.

Apps also lean heavily into subscription services. When my sister had an accountant go through her expenses they found tons service changes that were adding up to hundreds ever month. The most disturbing part was there was more than 1 that didn't even exist anymore. But the service charges were still coming out of the account.

It becomes so much easier to just install the app than it is to resist the pressure.

So I'm not at all surprised that thousands of people got scammed like this. I'm in Aus, now the federal and state gov's pretty much want you to use the app for everything.

Now personally I resist, I avoid the apps as a rule, I only use the companies website. And if that doesn't work I simply don't do business with them. I also avoid buying any product that requires and app for it. ( Note if that gizmo you wanted so bad requires an app it's likely it's stop working in 3-5 years. )

I do feel sorry for those that were scammed. Should they have used better judgement? Absolutely.

Some general rules.
- If you must download and install something from a random person. Use a VM.
- Try the company website before install the app.
- Don't install that app that is a membership pass, rewards program, discount pass, to see a menu or catalogue etc.
- DON'T do financials on the same device that you install random apps on. PERIOD. See bullet 1.

Spent decades in North Dakota and Alaska.
Yes, 0C was still T-Shirt and Shorts weather until I got over 45 or so.
Went back to college, saw a dude still in shorts and tshirt at ~-20F, which is getting close to -20C.

I've now spent ~4 years in Florida, have worn pants like once.

I fully migrated over to linux 20 years ago. I ran chrome until recently. I added pi-hole + a caching proxy to speed up my garbage internet speeds at the time. I was on a very bad ADSL service.

Now that I'm on fiber and have upgraded to a recent AMD based machine I find Brave really fast. Accidentally I launch chrome on occasion. I find chrome more sluggish with noticable hickups when loading. I have to assume this is ads or some marketing garbage that slips past pi-hole.

What's got me stuck mostly on Brave is the ad blocking. The tracking garbage that is now injected into chrome ( has been for years ) is getting so much worse.

And the sites that don't like simply aren't used anymore. I've actually blocked several news sites in pi-hole simply because of all the garbage they try to send into the browser. Not to mention news sites that host effectively mallware in it's add slots.

Check for a nearby airport rental return. The rental agencies require a fill up within x distance or they charge even more.

I had a few friends get completely hosed by the infamous app update.

I was always suspicious of the platform. Since it just didn't bother with any sort of interop.

When they sorta bricked all installs in one move I did laugh. That was the ultimate in bad releases. Clearly no one bothered to even review the Test Plan let alone the results.

I will never sign up to anything that smells of vendor lock in. Oracle, Salesforce, Microsoft, Are the kings of this.

a doozie to debug

I find a ton of issues with locking down/securing platforms at the Enterprise level.

1. Surface area, There is just way to much tech debt out there. Business rarely go back and pay this down. The costs are enormous. All of this tech debt needs to be secured at an ever increasing cost.
2. Almost non-existent secrets management. I will forever find important secrets embedded in config / git / orchestration etc.
3. Logs rarely secured and properly setup so that sensitive info doesn't leak out. Developers forever turning on debug and not telling anyone.
4. Low levels of network segmentation. This allows attackers to laterally move about the network with almost no controls to stop them.
5. Supply chain attacks increasing everyday. With little put in place to monitor and threat analysis of these external dependency.
6. AI coming in and eroding the checks and balances of reviewing changes. With AI I'm also seeing a loss of pre-prod environments. I'm even seeing straight to prod be the pattern of the day.
7. Exec teams having zero clue what AI is actually doing. I see a lot of people thinking AI systems are bullet proof.

Overall a loss of IP is the most concerning at the moment.

What a lot of people forget is that AI is creating a larger surface area. It's unlikely that all of the work put into legacy software is being replicated in AI software builds. This means that there are likely more opportunities in financial software for "hacking".

Of course as this article points out. With AI it is far easier and quicker to "hack" So it's bad on both ends.

Retirement funds which hold enormous amounts of funds are likely early targets.

Secure your accounts with 2FA as quickly as possible.

Ancient Rome made amazing aqueducts. One day they had built all the ones they really needed and with no new projects for a new generation to learn from, they quickly just forgot how to make aqueducts.

"Big Tech" is now entering this phase. In a generation all innovation will be gone.

900$ for a base model with 256GB SSD is pathetic.

Then make it retroactive. Donate the proceeds to the victims of this program who had to train their replacements.

Not in 2003 it wasn't

Her name is Pamela Jones, she was a paralegal. She's done real interviews in the past. She was/is real!

With executive pay at all time highs and the gap between executive and workers larger than ever, I would agree. This is a failure in the system where boards of directors are not holding executives accountable. The system can't hold for long.

Well. It would be a bit like the roadster launch into space. Experimental rocket, so great if it works, not bad if it does not.
That said, intercepting an orbiting satellite safely is a hard task.