Archive for September, 2017

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Whole Foods Pwned….. Credit Card Data Swiped

Posted in Commentary with tags on September 29, 2017 by itnerd

The pwnage continues with Amazon owned Whole Foods getting pwned by hackers. Apparently the hackers managed to swipe credit card data. Here’s the really bad news…. They had no clue until someone else told them about the pwnage:

Whole Foods Market recently received information regarding unauthorized access of payment card information used at certain venues such as taprooms and full table-service restaurants located within some stores. These venues use a different point of sale system than the company’s primary store checkout systems, and payment cards used at the primary store checkout systems were not affected. When Whole Foods Market learned of this, the company launched an investigation, obtained the help of a leading cyber security forensics firm, contacted law enforcement, and is taking appropriate measures to address the issue.

Let me translate above because I’ve been to a Whole Foods store once when my wife dragged me there. Taprooms are a pub by another name which sounds really fancy so that you can spend some cash. So if you’ve eaten at one of these places, you better keep an eye on your credit and debit cards. If you shopped in their stores to buy expensive hoity toity food, you should be fine. Apparently, even though they’re owned by Amazon, there systems aren’t connected so those on Amazon need not worry.

I’d love to understand why it seems that Whole Foods was asleep at the switch to such a degree that someone not working for Whole Foods had to tell them about it. Perhaps someone on Capitol Hill would care to organize a public flogging hearing to find out?

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Mr. Smith Goes To Washington To Get Grilled Over Equifax Pwnage

Posted in Commentary with tags on September 29, 2017 by itnerd

Ex-CEO of Equifax Richard Smith is going to Washington next week to participate in the public flogging known as congressional hearings. I am sure that 143 million Americans, 400 thousand Brits and 100 thousand Canadians really want to hear about how he absolutely screwed up to this degree before he “retired”. Examples of this #EpicFail include hiring a CSO with no IT experience or not applying a patch for Apache Srtuts for months, or having a publicly accessible database with username of admin and the password of (you guessed it) admin. I could go on but you get the idea.

In any case, if you want to hear what he has to say, here’s the schedule of where he’s going in Washington next week:

I fully expect this to be a public flogging given the scale of the pwnage that took place. Thus this will be very interesting to watch on TV. Set your PVR and get the popcorn ready.

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One Reason For Mac Users To Upgrade To High Sierra: Security At The Firmware Level

Posted in Commentary with tags on September 29, 2017 by itnerd

A research paper from Duo Security is recommending that if you want to keep your Mac safe from certain types of pwnage, you should always be up to date with your OS. That’s because according to new research Pre-boot software on Macs is often outdated, leaving Apple fans at a greater risk of being pwned. For example, users would be vulnerable to exploits such as Thunderstrike and attacks originally developed by the NSA and exposed in the WikiLeaks Vault 7 data dumps as they rely on out-of-date firmware. This of course ignores the other security fixes that come with OS upgrades such as the recently released High Sierra.

Now how does High Sierra fix this? It automatically checks and updates the firmware if required when it installs. Not only that, it also checks said firmware on a regular basis to make sure that it hasn’t been pwned by a hacker. Further info on this can be found in a related blog post where Duo Security said that users should not only upgrade to High Sierra, but users should also check if they are running the latest version of firmon their Macs, and it has released a tool to help them to do that.

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Review: SanDisk Ultra Flair 32GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive

Posted in Products with tags on September 29, 2017 by itnerd

I walk around with a flash drive on my keychain at all times. The reason being that if I need to back up something in an emergency, or build a bootable USB flash drive in an emergency, I have the means to do it. To ensure that I had space for both possibilities, I decided to get a physically small flash drive with a lot of space. As in 32GB of space. So one trip to Amazon and I ordered the SanDisk Ultra Flair 32GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive which happened to be on special:

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As you can see, the drive is tiny. You hardly know it’s there as it doesn’t take up a lot of real estate. But it is quick. Since it’s a USB 3.0 drive, it’s capable of 150MB/s, Now I can’t confirm that I am getting those speeds, but it is insanely quick. Anything that I’ve done with it since I got it takes way less time than any other USB drive I have used lately.

Because this lives in my pocket, I have to be sure that any USB key will survive that environment as a lot of them won’t. The SanDisk Ultra Flair drive has been in my pocket for just over a week and there isn’t even a scratch on it. And it still works perfectly. It also has the ability to be password protected using SanDisk SecureAccess 3.0 which works with Windows and Mac. I’m not leveraging that feature as I have nothing critical on that drive. But it is an option for those who do.

The 32GB drive retails for $50 USD and comes with a 5 year warranty. But I got it from Amazon for $18 CDN which means it pays to shop around. It’s also available in capacities all the way up to 128GB. Consider it if you need a durable flash drive that doesn’t take up a whole lot of real estate.

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#PSA: Stop iOS Apps From Asking You To Do A Review In iOS 11

Posted in Tips with tags on September 28, 2017 by itnerd

Something that has annoyed me for a very long time is apps prompting me to review them. Sure I can click the option to not ask me again every time the prompt appears. But that becomes tiresome after a while. But you can stop apps from asking you for reviews in iOS 11 by doing the following:

  1. Go to Settings
  2. Go to iTunes & App Store and look for this option

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The In-App Ratings & Reviews was turned on in my case. I turned it off and I stopped getting prompted for reviews. At least thus far. Give it a try and see if it works for you. If it does, please leave a comment and let me know.

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Bell Canada Wants To Block Access To Pirate Websites…… WTF?

Posted in Commentary with tags on September 28, 2017 by itnerd

If you’re into “acquiring” content via torrent sites and you’re Canadian, you are likely not going to like what I am about to write. In what has to be considered to be an over the top move, Bell Canada is floating the idea of blocking any or all access to websites that are related to piracy:

Canada is a safe haven for internet pirates, Bell Canada says. The telecom giant wants the federal government to fight back by blocking Canadians’ access to piracy websites and stiffening the penalties for violations.

“People are actually leaving the regulated [TV] system, not just because they want to watch Netflix but because they want to watch free content,” Rob Malcolmson, Bell’s senior VP of regulatory affairs, told federal politicians last week. He was speaking at a government hearing in Ottawa on NAFTA negotiations.

According to Malcolmson, this is how the website-blocking plan would work: an independent agency, such as Canada’s broadcast regulator (the CRTC), would create a blacklist of sites that allow people to download or stream pirated content like movies and TV shows.

Internet service providers, like Bell, would then be required to prevent their customers from accessing the sites.

“So you would mandate all [internet providers] across the country to essentially block access to a blacklist of egregious piracy sites,” said Malcolmson. Canadians made 1.88 billion visits to piracy sites last year, according to Bell.

Hmm….. The government and private companies putting together a list of sites they consider “pirates” and blocking them from your view. There certainly no potential for abuse here. None whatsoever. Also, Bell Canada owns the rights to some the content that is being pirated. Thus I am sure that this factors into this proposal, even though they likely won’t admit it.

The fact this that this is an insane over-reach if it were to be adopted. Hopefully Canadian politicians have the common sense to smack Bell Canada into reality as they are way offside here.

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Twitter Testing 280 Character Limit

Posted in Commentary with tags on September 27, 2017 by itnerd

Twitter today announced that it is going to “try out” a longer character limit. If successful, it will double the current 140-character limit to 280 characters. This will be rolled out to “only available to a small group” of users at a time and they won’t roll it out to everyone until they are sure it works. Those who get to test this feature will be selected at random/

To be honest, I can’t decide if this is a good thing or a bad thing. I guess we’ll have to see when a critical mass of users gets this new feature.

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Concur Finds That Business Travellers Like Uber In Quebec

Posted in Commentary with tags , on September 27, 2017 by itnerd

With the news that Uber is potentially leaving Quebec because of a disagreement between them and the provincial government over rules for ride sharing companies, Concur took a look at their data and found that Uber had a huge amount of growth with business travellers to the province earlier this year.

As it turns out, business travelers to Quebec are going to miss Uber when it goes. Concur, which represents 57 per cent of the global business travel and expense management industry, found that businesses travellers have been increasing their use of Uber in Quebec in the first half of the year, demonstrating that consumer habits are bleeding into corporate travel preferences.

Concur compared Uber usage among business travellers from Q1 2017 to Q2 2017, finding:

  • Uber transactions among business travelers in Quebec are up 37.4 per cent quarter over quarter.
  • Users expensing Uber in Quebec are up 45.7 per cent.
  • Spend on Uber in Quebec is up 42.9 per cent.
  • Companies with employees expensing Uber rides in Quebec are up 33.1 per cent.

Will this sort of data help get the two sides in this dispute closer together? We’ll have to see. October 14th is the date that Uber plans to exit the province if they can’t come to an agreement.

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Life Is Good Is Celebrating The Power Of Optimism At A New Leslieville Pop-up.

Posted in Commentary with tags on September 27, 2017 by itnerd

Starting, Wednesday, September 27, and going on until Saturday, October 7, using some high-tech happiness people can see the power of their positive thoughts in action at a new Leslieville pop-up.

The pop-up features the Power of Optimism Machine – an EEG machine that shows the power of positive thinking by engaging users to physically fill up a glass of water by harnessing their positive thoughts.

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The Power of Optimism Machine is the creation of Toronto-based creative agency, The Garden and was developed by Toronto-based creative digital production studio, ThinkingBox. The machine uses Emotiv’s open library of commands to create the signal that is sent to a tap that integrates with an arduino microcontroller and computer through bluetooth. This signal then passes through the computer and Arduino, through to the on/off switch of the tap.

Here’s how the the Power of Optimism Machine works:

  1. You put on the EEG headset. EEG (electroencephalography) technology records electrical activity and patterns in the brain.
  2. Users will observe optimistic stimuli on a screen, which will trigger specific brain patterns associated with positive thinking.
  3. Proprietary software will recognize these positive brain patterns through an algorithm.
  4. Once positive brain waves are detected, the glass will automatically fill up halfway with water.

The power of positivity is practically palpable. Researchers have found that having an optimistic outlook is associated with better psychological and physical health. Optimists typically possess better coping strategies than pessimists and are more likely to engage in lifestyles that protect against disease and illness. And a 75-year Harvard study found that people in happy relationships tend to live longer.

The pop-up is being put on by Life is Good, a lifestyle brand dedicated to spreading the power of optimism and helping kids in need. Life is Good donates at least 10% of its annual net profits to the Life is Good Kids Foundation to positively impact over 1 million kids every year facing poverty, violence, and illness. This pop up will specifically benefit the Toronto Kiwanis Boys & Girls Clubs.

Address: VandenBerg House, at 1400 Queen Street East in Leslieville

Pop-up hours: 

11am – 8pm Monday to Friday

9am – 6pm Saturday & Sunday

 

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OpenTable Unveils New Features Optimized for iOS 11

Posted in Commentary with tags on September 27, 2017 by itnerd

OpenTable today announced new features optimized for iOS 11, giving diners across the globe new ways to discover and share restaurants using the latest OpenTable apps for iPhone and iPad.

The new Invite Guests feature lets OpenTable’s iPhone and iPad app users send dining invitations and share restaurant reservation details directly within an iMessage conversation. By simply tapping the “Add Guests” button on the reservation confirmation screen, diners can invite friends, colleagues or loved ones to join their reservation.

With the new Drag and Drop feature on iPad, diners can now seamlessly drag and drop restaurants from anywhere in the OpenTable app into iMessage conversations. They can also drag and drop upcoming reservations into iCal Apple Maps, and other apps on iPad.

To experience the new features, diners can download the OpenTable apps on the App Store or by visiting https://www.opentable.com/m/mobile-apps/.

 

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