Posted in Commentary with tags Hacked on October 18, 2022 by itnerd
Vinomofo, an Australian wine dealer, suffered a cyber attack after a third party accessed their database on a testing platform, according to the company Chief Executive. Vinomofo’s 500k customers are at risk of having names, DOBs, addresses, email addresses, phone number and genders leaked. Vinomofo has stated they do not hold identity or financial information of their customers and no passwords were accessed. Which is cold comfort to anyone who’s been affected by this.
Dr. Darren Williams, CEO and Founder, BlackFog had this comment:
“This attack is the latest in a string of occurrences aimed at Australian businesses. As we can see, small businesses are just as vulnerable to cyberattacks as larger enterprises. We are seeing a growing trend where threat actors are focusing on organizations with weak cybersecurity posture as they are easy prey. If Australian companies fail to invest in preventative cybersecurity measures, they will surely begin to see the country rising in the ranking of the most attacked countries. Although this particular attack has not yet revealed banking information, any leaked customer data will undoubtably have serious consequences. When it comes to preventing these types of cyberattacks and breaches, organizations must take a new approach, only by preventing data exfiltration can they really ensure their data and that of their customers is truly secure.”
The other Australian businesses who have been pwned lately include Optus and Medibank. Clearly the government in Australia needs to do more to force companies to have better defences against this sort of thing. I say that because clearly the status quo is not working.
This October for the third year, Nissan Canada is once again helping to make the road safer for drivers and pedestrians alike with the return of Glow Guards – reflective, self-adhesive stickers that can easily be attached to children’s clothing or Halloween costumes to help make them more visible to drivers. This season, Nissan is also partnering with Waze, the world’s largest community-based traffic and navigation app, to inform drivers of select trick-or-treating zones on Halloween. The goal will be to help deliver a safety message to users to remind them to drive carefully in these zones. When using the Waze app, a banner will pop up when you’re driving near a select trick-or-treat zone.
According to a 2022 survey conducted by Nissan Canada in partnership with the Canada Safety Council, approximately seven in ten drivers feel that safety feature technologies could help them avoid potential accidents. Some reassuring data and a reminder that these can help drivers be safer on the road, especially ahead of Halloween where families might do several stops for trick-or-treating. Nissan features that add to the Glow Guards and Waze programs to enjoy a safer time include:
Blind Spot Warning: This detects vehicles in the blind spot while driving and notifies the driver to their presence. With potentially a lot of traffic for Halloween, this feature can provide an additional warning.
Intelligent Emergency Braking with pedestrian detection: Considering car and pedestrian traffic expected on Halloween, this feature helps monitor the surrounding area in front of the car, helping to avoid or reduce damage caused by collisions.
Rear Automatic Braking: While drivers should always check surrounding, this feature helps the driver detect stationary objects when backing up and, if necessary, applies the brakes to help avoid a collision. It cannot prevent all collisions and may not provide warning or braking in all conditions. Drivers should always turn and check the surroundings before driving.[5]
Ahead of the Halloween night, Nissan Canada reminds drivers to be vigilant and aware when they’re behind the wheel.
Nissan first launched Glow Guards in 2019, successfully reaching hundreds of thousands of Canadians through traditional and digital media channels, exhausting Glow Guard supplies at Nissan dealerships across Canada. To help parents and guardians continue to encourage a safe Halloween experience for their trick-or-treaters, Nissan is thrilled to bring back Glow Guards with added features for 2022.
Glow Guards are now available for pick-up at Nissan dealerships across Canada. Families are invited to visit their local dealership to pick-up free Glow Guards until October 31, 2022.
Posted in Commentary with tags Telus on October 18, 2022 by itnerd
TELUS Business is celebrating Small Business Month this October with the launch of ShopWithOwners.ca, a new online platform to connect Canadians with their favourite local shops, including past #StandWithOwners winners.
This platform will help support business owners across the country with gaining exposure to customers looking for local finds and gifts during the holiday season. Canadians will be able to search by location, keywords and categories to discover exceptional small businesses they can easily support within their community. Visitors will be able to learn more about the owner, their business and be directed to their website and social media pages.
2022 #StandWithOwners technology refresh winner announced
This October also brings to a close the third #StandWithOwners program, which saw 30 local businesses across the country each receive over $25,000 in technology, funding and advertising. In addition to this prize package, BC based business Gabi & Jules, a local homemade pie and baked goods shop, was selected to receive an additional prize package that includes technology from TELUS and its partners Samsung and Cisco.
With funds to make their dreams a reality, service innovations to help them save time, and technology solutions that help them thrive in a digital world, TELUS Business is committed to championing local entrepreneurship. TELUS Business has provided over $3M of support in annual grants, local advertising and mentorship to businesses through #StandWithOwners, and previously, the Small Business Challenge and TELUS Pitch.
Global visual technologies company Christie® is pleased to introduce its newest CE- and UL- certified commercial UVC-LED disinfection light fixture for occupied, indoor spaces. Christie CounterAct™ UR10 with UVC-LED and patented Care222® far-UVC – plus visible light, in a single unit, is recommended for commercial offices, government facilities, schools, transit hubs, retail shops, medical buildings — for enhanced and safe airborne and surface disinfection wherever people gather indoors, in public places.
CounterAct UR10 builds on the release of the CA20, Christie’s first far-UVC disinfection fixture, and the desire among global business and government leaders to increase confidence and improve wellbeing in our indoor spaces, such as meeting rooms, classrooms, and other places people gather. Combining filtered Care222® far-UVC light with upper room high-power mercury-free UVC-LED, CounterAct UR10 is an evolution in technology for treating both surfaces and air in occupied indoor spaces.
The new reality is that on average we’re seeing a pandemic arise every four years since the year 20001. This trend indicates the 2023 common cold, flu season and the next pandemic are right around the corner. This is why the U.S. government is committing, through the American Rescue Plan, a total of USD$472 billion2 for schools as well as state, local, and tribal governments which can be used to deploy systems such as CounterAct UR10 UVC disinfection light fixtures.
CounterAct UR10, which kills both airborne and surface pathogens, can be installed in rooms with ceiling heights between 9 and 22 feet (3-7.6m), includes remote control features with iOS and Android support, and can be integrated with building automation/management systems. Peckover explains, “UVC disinfection systems should be seamless and require no day-to-day user interaction while effectively inactivating pathogens in the occupied space.”
Posted in Products with tags Viofo on October 18, 2022 by itnerd
If you drive a car, you need a dash cam. I say that because I have first hand experience as to how valuable they are. In 2018 I was hit from behind on the Gardner Expressway in Toronto at highway speed. And the dash cam that I had installed at the time which did have front and rear recording not only captured the accident, but it also captured that the woman who hit me from behind was texting on her cell phone when she hit me. She denied this to the police but the video that I handed over to the police showed otherwise. Thus she was charged with dangerous driving and eventually pled guilty to careless driving in a plea deal. Thus when I needed to replace that dash cam as it was starting to become flaky, I wanted to upgrade my setup to something that produced even clearer video than what I had before. What I settled on was the Viofo A129 Plus Duo Dash Cam. Which comes with all of this:
In short, you get the front and rear cameras, all the cables, a lot of 3M tape to mount the cameras along with clips to route cables, a pry tool to help with the install, a USB to 12V plug to power the setup, and even a microSD card reader with an extra USB cable. The one thing that I will note about all the cables that come with this camera are Mini USB. While I would have liked to see USB-C everything rather than Mini USB everything, I get it. Mini USB is cheap and proven.
Setting this up does require some planning. Starting with mounting the cameras and figuring out where to run the cables so that they are out of sight. I’ll get to the camera part in a second. But In my case, I was able to run them between interior trim pieces and weatherstripping to get them out of sight. And what few cables that I did have to run in plain sight, I used black duct tape to cover them up on black trim pieces as duct tape solves all problems, or ran them in a way that was neat and tidy if they were on lighter colour trim pieces. The result was a pretty clean install that took about two hours.
Now about mounting the cameras. I did some test mounting of the front camera and found that to get the right angle to read license plates. I originally mounted that camera just slightly right of centre and just behind the drivers side mirror as that seemed to produce the best results, but as you will see in some of the test footage that I captured, there is a black silkscreen that is on the windshield of my SUV (presumably to cut down on glare) that obscured the top left side of the image. Thus I later moved the front camera to a slightly lower location to get better visibility. The back camera was a total non issue.
Let’s walk through the system now that I hooked everything up:
The front camera attaches to the windshield via 3M tape which isn’t going to come off easily. Though it does come with two strips of static film for a less semi-permanent solution if that’s your use case. Regardless, you should make sure that you have it in the right place before putting it on the windshield. Otherwise moving it will be a bit of a challenge as I discovered. It has a 2″ LCD screen that you can leave on, or have it turn off after a pre-determined amount of time. I chose the former. There are also buttons to control the camera’s functions. The camera is pretty small and will likely not attract any attention.
The rear camera is also attached via 3M tape. So my advice for the front camera applies here as well. One thing to note is that both cameras have the ability to tilt so you can get the exact view that you want. This camera is also small and won’t attract any attention.
Both cameras are powered from this 12V to USB adapter which happens to have a second USB port so that you can charge a phone if you need to. It has a green glow around it when it’s getting power.
Now let’s talk about specs:
Front camera: Maximum resolution of 1440P 60fps (though it defaults to 1440P 30fps) from a Sony 5MP Sensor
Rear camera: Maximum resolution of 1080P 30fps from a Sony STARVIS IMX291 image sensor
Both cameras have a 140° field of vision
Both cameras are capable of high dynamic range video recordings
You can connect the camera to the Viofo app for iOS and Android as the camera has built in WiFi
The camera supports up to a 256 GB microSD card for storage which is NOT included. I used this 128 GB SD card that the company recommends.
The camera has GPS so that you can show your speed, co-ordinates or both in the video (It defaults to speed).
Built in “super capacitor” that allows the parking mode functions to work by storing a small amount of power like a battery. There’s a hard wiring kit that you can get if you want to stretch that out as it wires the camera to the electrical system of the car.
The camera has 3 parking modes:
Auto Event Detection will automatically start recording once any event is detected. As in someone hitting you in a parking lot for example. This is how I have it set up.
Time Lapse continuously records a video at low frames like 1/2/3/5/10/15 fps.
Low Bitrate keeps recording continuously in mini file size, reduce a little video quality will help to save card space and can record longer time in parking mode.
The camera can be updated via firmware updates from Viofo
That is a pretty good suite of features. But how does it perform? Here’s a bunch of test footage that you can review. I’ll start with this clip from highway 401 just east of Toronto where the camera captured two idiots in high performance cars racing each other. I used iMovie to edit the rear and front videos together to illustrate the situation that my wife and I found ourselves in. I also deleted the audio as there was some language that was not suitable for all audiences:
If you slow the video down, it is possible to find frames where you can see the plate numbers of these two douchebags. Though I will note that it’s more difficult to do this at the edges of the field of view. But fortunately for me, I didn’t have to go through that exercise as a few kilometres down the road, the Ontario Provincial Police pulled over the grey Mercedes Benz in this video. And I am guessing that he will be charged with Stunt Driving which has a mandatory license suspension, mandatory roadside car seizure, and up to a $10,000 fine that comes with the charge.
Sucks to be him.
The one thing that you will notice from the front video is that there is a fair amount of glare and reflection. To address that, I got the polarizing lens from Viofo which works like a pair of polarizing sunglasses. Here’s the net result. And I included the audio this time so that you can hear how well the camera captures the audio:
While it wasn’t a super sunny day like the first example, there was a whole lot less glare. I can get a polarizing lens for the rear camera as well, but I am going to see what the quality of the video is like over a longer term before I make the call on that. You’ll also note that when I drove by the scene of an accident which was on the left hand side of the video, I said “wow” and you could clearly hear every bump and all the road noise. Finally, you can see the speed that I was doing at the bottom of the video. I did some testing and it matched my speedometer perfectly.
I did another test to see what the colours that the camera could capture as I had high dynamic range turned on.
The quality of the colours is great as far as I am concerned.
Finally, I did a night test to see what the front and rear cameras saw. I stitched together the front and rear camera to give you this video:
While there was a reflection from my head unit, the quality is good and you can clearly see everything. The rear camera also has no issues except for the fact that the glass is dirty.
If you ever get into an accident, you can hit the button with the triangle and exclamation mark to lock the video that is currently being recorded from being erased. It also will auto lock the currently recording video if the G-Sensor that the camera has detect an impact. I point this out because the camera is designed to erase the oldest recordings that are not locked to ensure that it is always able to record. That’s the main reason why I went with a 128 GB microSD card as that will allow me to have enough space in the event that I record something interesting without knowing it at the time, and I need to go back and (hopefully) find it.
The camera has the ability to connect to it via WiFi using their app so that you can download video, do live monitoring, and set options. And you can leave WiFi on or turn it on and off as needed. I am using the latter use case as I set up the camera and haven’t touched it since. Not to mention that it’s way easier for me to pop out a microSD card to get footage off of it than to do it over WiFi. Especially since Viofo gives you an microSD card reader in the box, which in my case is sitting in the glove box of my car should I need it. And it also helps that I keep a spare microSD card in the car should the need arise to hand over some footage and I don’t have a computer handy to copy the footage onto.
Pro Tip: You should instantly update the camera to version 1.8 of their firmware before you install it. It makes the camera perfectly usable as it came out of the box with version 1.5 which was made the camera borderline unusable as the camera did all sorts of weird things when buttons were pressed.
Gripes? The main one that I have is the fact that it takes up to 15 seconds to power up after you start up your car. So if you want to make sure you capture everything, you have to sit there until the camera is live. That’s a tad bit annoying. Another annoyance is that you have to monkey with the time zone to make sure that you have accurate time as this camera does not take daylight saving time into account. I have seen competing cameras do that without issue. Thus that’s a bit of a #fail as well.
So, what did this set up cost me? Here’s the list and all the pricing is from Amazon and is in Canadian dollars:
Viofo A129 Plus Duo Dash Cam: $229.95
Viofo Circular Polarizing Lens: $29.90
Sandisk 128GB High Endurance microSD Card: $23.49
The Viofo A129 Plus Duo Dash Cam is a great camera for someone who wants front and rear recording capabilities. The quality is good in the conditions that I tested it in, which gives me confidence in being able to recommend it to you as I believe that everybody who drives a car should have a dash cam to protect themselves. Just plan out your install and you should be good to go.
Social network and entertainment accounts are increasingly finding a home in dark web marketplaces. Currently, the majority of darknet markets sell stolen identities.
Social media profiles were by far the most abundantly available, and prices for hijacked accounts can start as low as $6.
Of course, you’ll have to enter the dark web to purchase these illicit things. The dark web is a network-encrypted environment that requires special software to access. Furthermore, most marketplaces require an invitation to enter. Cybercriminals use this method to shield themselves from unwanted attention.
Data presented by Atlas VPN was extracted from the dark web by Whizcase, between January 2022 and September 2022.
The cheapest hacked accounts were from Reddit, TikTok, and Pinterest, which cost $6, $8, and $9, respectively.
LinkedIn was found to be the most costly hijacked social profile, selling for roughly $45 per account. This is hardly unexpected, given that the website caters to a professional clientele.
Purchasing hacked accounts for all the most popular social media platforms would cost around $127. Costs will vary slightly depending on the marketplace.
Most vendors sell credentials in bulk, and it’s not uncommon to see an offer to purchase hundreds of thousands of accounts for a relatively small price.
Illegal social media engagement services
Many hackers utilize hacked accounts to create “advanced bot farms” for social media engagement manipulation rather than selling their “treasure.”
The advantage of this method over putting up direct bot accounts is that the stolen accounts previously belonged to genuine individuals, making the manipulation operations considerably more difficult for social networks to identify.
According to analysis, purchasing social media engagement is relatively inexpensive. For about $25, one could purchase 1,000 Twitter retweets from what appear to be authentic accounts.
Australian Wine Dealer Pwned In Cyber Attack
Posted in Commentary with tags Hacked on October 18, 2022 by itnerdVinomofo, an Australian wine dealer, suffered a cyber attack after a third party accessed their database on a testing platform, according to the company Chief Executive. Vinomofo’s 500k customers are at risk of having names, DOBs, addresses, email addresses, phone number and genders leaked. Vinomofo has stated they do not hold identity or financial information of their customers and no passwords were accessed. Which is cold comfort to anyone who’s been affected by this.
Dr. Darren Williams, CEO and Founder, BlackFog had this comment:
“This attack is the latest in a string of occurrences aimed at Australian businesses. As we can see, small businesses are just as vulnerable to cyberattacks as larger enterprises. We are seeing a growing trend where threat actors are focusing on organizations with weak cybersecurity posture as they are easy prey. If Australian companies fail to invest in preventative cybersecurity measures, they will surely begin to see the country rising in the ranking of the most attacked countries. Although this particular attack has not yet revealed banking information, any leaked customer data will undoubtably have serious consequences. When it comes to preventing these types of cyberattacks and breaches, organizations must take a new approach, only by preventing data exfiltration can they really ensure their data and that of their customers is truly secure.”
The other Australian businesses who have been pwned lately include Optus and Medibank. Clearly the government in Australia needs to do more to force companies to have better defences against this sort of thing. I say that because clearly the status quo is not working.
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