Frank and Ernest by Thaves for February 18, 2024

A familiar lament of our digital era.

A tiresome process guaranteed to open your device to ads for almost every product or service ever invented, with political ads thrown in for fun.

Search YouTube for “Peanut needs WiFi”

All that effort in securing his devices is increasing his localized entropy. That’s my theory and I’m stuck with it. :/

Many people need to be protected from themselves.

“Take that, hackers!”

Oh, they will.

It’s kind of funny when you’re using two factor authentication for an app you’re opening on your phone and the code is sent there.

A hacker called me and said that he had all my passwords. I said, “thank goodness, hold on while I get a pencil so I can write them down” (yeah, I know, old joke)

We don’t answer the phone for numbers we don’t recognize. But some years ago and just for fun, I began an online search of phone numbers that rang but left no message. Most were the usual, no record of this number. But once in a while a hunt that lets me find something interesting.

It listed name and address for 3 people. No business name on the phone, left no message, and never called back. Not the way most businesses operate.

Google found a residence, not a listed business, in a small neighborhood. There were 4 land lines and nearly a dozen cell numbers. Suggested they were either operating an unregistered home business or they were trying ‘supplement’ their income by other than legal means.

And, as usual at the start of the year, Thu and Friday, before 10 am, we received a half dozen calls from numbers which, when I answered as a test, gave that funny little ‘bloop’ sound, which told me they were robo calls. The sharks never stop swimming.

And now numerous companies have all the info advertisers and clone makers are looking for.

And software companies keep “Improvising” their stuff until you can’t use it anymore…!

Some people program there butt for the facial recognition software

Kenny Log-in safely? Let’s hope.

So true

The problem is you’re securing the wrong end, you need secure the internet end.

One can secure devices and accounts without quite going to that level but it does take more effort than using birthdays, pet names, etc. as passwords. Plus you need to change paswords more than once a decade. I’m not bragging but none of my personal devices nor accounts have ever been hacked. While a Network Admin, with over 700 computers and many servers, only 3 workstations were ever hacked and that was because someone clicked on a link in an e-mail (in a personal, not a work e-mail, which would have been blocked). Just for fun, I traced one attack back to its origins in one of the eastern European nations.

yet the hackers have their ways. Screw your password (that’s mine).