It takes a govermental agency to be this security clueless!

Recently, I had to look up something on website ran by a local college. Of course, the site broke (the pages did not load within the session timeout), so I fired off an email to their listed support email.

Here is what I got back:

Auto-Reply

We have received your email enquiry. Please try one or more of the suggested solutions below. Web help is available Monday through Friday 8am - 4:00pm (not available weekends and holidays). If you reply to this email, please provide your full name, Soc. Sec. No., birthdate, and your current address.

Quick help



New Applicants: you will be able to login to the WebAdvisor one business day after you have submitted your application.

Step-by-step Web Registration Instructions:

http://(removed)/spring09/fullSchedule.pdf


Account Lock-out:

Wait 10 minutes and try again

Password and login help:

If necessary, please go to the WebAdvisor web page and select "What is my User ID?" from the Student Menu. Provide the required information to obtain your User ID.
Then select "What's my password" from the Student Menu.
Select "I don't remember my password" and provide the required information.
A new password will be emailed to you.

Password must be 6 to 9 characters in length and include both letters and numbers, no special characters

If you are still having problems, please contact the appropriate
Admissions & Records Office
(Contact Information removed here)

Thanks

Class assignment: List all security violations in this reply, discuss.

On Kafka and child porn

Interesting application of child porn laws:

In the Pennsylvania case, a school official seized the phone of one of the boys after he was caught using it during school hours in violation of a school rule, according to local police Capt. George Seranko. The official found the picture on the phone, and after some interrogation, discovered that two other girls had also e-mailed photos of themselves in the nude to friends. That's when the school called police, who obtained search warrants to seize the phones and examine them. Police showed the images to the local district attorney, who recommended they bring charges.

I've seen this happening so many times: An ambitious politician creates a law "for the good of the children" and before you know it people with pitchforks are setting libraries on fire.

Imagine this:
You are alone in your room. You look at yourself naked in the mirror. You take a picture of yourself, and you instantly are sex offender, branded for life. Any friends you send it too, instantly are too.

Or...

Two kids having consensual sex. Legally. The can invite kids of their own age to watch. Or even join in. When they watch through a window, they are legally OK. When they watch using a web cam, they all are instant sex offenders.


Or how about... you are surfing myspace and stumble across a profile page of a teen posting nude pictures of him/herself. Yes, that teen would be in violation of (amongst other things) the TOS. But still your browser dutifully downloads and stores the offending JPG. From then on, any computer forensics package run on your PC will provide the proof to convict you of possession of child porn.

Personally, I don't know what is scarier these days. The "evil hackers on the internet" or the "knights that protect us".

One group will try to to rip you off, and steal your money. The other can take away your home, freedom, custody of your kids.

As predicted: Google "Lively" dies!

The official Google blog confirms that "Lively" wont make it to 2009.


I can't really say I am surprised, as I predicted this months ago. Instead of trying to make a list "what did they do wrong?", just ask: "What did they do right?".

Darn! I got ripped off!

Yesterday night, a shy looking teenage girl rang my door.
According to her, she was collecting donations for a childrens's hospital, any donation that I could make would help her school out and would be well appreciated.

Somehow, the professionally amateurish "pitch" made me cave in. I donated $40 cash. She asked if I would like a receipt for tax purposes. I said "Yes".

Later, I took a closer look at the "tax receipt" she gave me.

Wait a minute!



That's right folks, the old saying "no good deed goes unpunished" still holds true.
Apparently, somehow, I was signed up for a "magazine subscription". Lord knows which one, as the girl never mentioned the word "magazine" to me.

The "receipt" itself showed very little detail, except for a "customer support" number, which I promptly called. Which did not work.

My next action was searching for that number on google, which turned out a multitude of complaints and "scam warnings".

Luckily, I donated in cash, not by cheque. I know perfectly well that the $40 is gone forever, my only concern is the sleazy company trying to imply that I somehow subscribed to their magazine, and this $40 was registered as $48 (see picture) "first installment" payment.

Then again... let them come! With no signature on file and my name spelled incorrectly on a barely readable scrap I suspect that they will have a hard time holding it up in court.

Side note: she promised to come by in a few days to drop off a "thank you" note. I doubt that she will, but if it happens I will post updates (and hopefully pictures) of our "animated" conversation.

Moral of the story:
Be very careful when somebody comes to your door. Always ask for documentation, and tell them you will get back to them. Most legit companies will be happy to comply.

Needless to say, I won't be donating anything to anybody any time soon any more.

Google "Lively" reviewed by a Second Lifer

After seeing the news of the beta release hit the net this morning, I just had to check out the new Lively service.

Installation consist of downloading an "Installer" program that downloads another installer, which then open a web page, which references an iframe which references an ActiveX-like object which actually launches the application.

Here's an example of what you get:



I'm the redneck pig.
Out of the dozen available avatars, that one was the least creepy.




The chat bar says: "Go ahead, say something!", so that's what I will do. Here are my impressions so far.

• It's slow. Slow, slow, slooooooooooow. Really. After 15 minutes of waiting, the "Room Materializing" meter was at about 60%


• Movement controls work backwards. Left, right, forward and backward are inverted. Or do random stuff


• Camera controls are so bizarre that you need a degree in advanced mathematics (and perfect motor control) to even look at something.


• There is no "building" areas. You can select from a couple dozens of pre-baked "rooms" and .. that's it.


• The general feel is overly "cartoonish".


• Head-to-body proportions range from "dangerously unhealthy looking" to "absurd". Would it be sexist of me to say that I'm freaked out by girls who's eyeballs are bigger than their boobs?


• You can "buy" stuff in the "catalog". Seems like the "e-commerce" part of the system got the most attention.


• For the life of me, I could not figure out how to get to my "inventory" of items that I bought.


• No user-generated content. Nada. Move along.


• The messed-up-skeleton-look of the the figure on the left is not a fashion statement. It's a "ruthed" avatar.


• The "animation" part works only in "couples". You click on a person to harass, then choose anything from "kiss", "propose" to "kick" or "bodyslam".


• No "teleporting". You log out one room and log in to another. No communication between rooms exist (that I could find)


• Did I mention it was slow? Even in an area with only a dozen of avatars and a handfull of "objects", the load times are nerve-wrecking! Yes, I understand that there is a traffic spike because of the launch. But I expected the Googleplex to be able to withstand way more that a few thousand teenagers trying to chat.

In short: For the time being, it seems like Linden Labs has little to fear from Lively.