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I got an FBI record at age 11 from dabbling in cryptography (2015)
251–260 of 373 posts
Re: I got an FBI record at age 11 from dabbling in cryptography (2015)
#252This story contains a link to another of his stories (also published in Communications of the ACM, February 1989). Old as it is, it seems quite relevant in our current race-obsessed culture: https://web.stanford.edu/~learnest/les/mongrel.htm
The systems he described were pretty crazy, confusing race (physical characteristics) and ethnicity (culture). On the other hand, you get that everywhere. I don't even know how to describe my ethnicity. "Generic English-speaking" is my best attempt.
Re: I got an FBI record at age 11 from dabbling in cryptography (2015)
#253This was a great read! I also love the fact, that this is an old-skool serve via the user's home (~learnest). So much nicer than "You have 2 more Medium articles free this month".
Re: I got an FBI record at age 11 from dabbling in cryptography (2015)
#254Earlier quoted context omitted.
I had sysadmin rights on my school’s Windows servers after some very simple social engineering (for a 10 year old). The real irony was that I was called to the principal’s office on multiple occasions because I seemed to be able to fix things on the network that the local “admin” (e.g. music teacher) couldn’t. Fun times indeed. It completely ruined my respect for authority figures. Which in retrospect has been the mo…
Public network shares, cain&abel, learning about NTLM downgrading and well, these were the days when Wifi was "new" and wireless B and G was considered wow, 54mbps. Back then, everything really felt like magic. Old netsend trick, pre windows xp SP2. There were enough stories at this time online that I knew it was best to say nothing. Did nothing bad, just explored, learned quite a few things and well was surprised ho…
Netsend made me feel like a true spooky wizard. It bums me out to see how much of our computing has moved north-south.
Re: I got an FBI record at age 11 from dabbling in cryptography (2015)
#255Earlier quoted context omitted.
Costco still has issues of resolving discounts on a return. I won't state the bug explicitly but I had a conversation with them about how they refunded me a significant amount I never paid on a large purchase and showed them the delta via receipts. Local management was appreciative but didn't seem to have an idea of how to proceed to make things right. Ultimately they said my account would be flagged as owing the dif…
"I tried to do the right thing but ultimately it ends up being their responsibility to handle it when the customer is standing right in front of them showing their loss of revenue." I bought some lions mane mushrooms from a grocery store, which cost $10-12 per lbs. The cashier rang them up as "regular" (button) mushrooms at $2 per lbs. I pointed out the mistake and she tried to correct it but chose the button mushroo…
I was in dire need of an Cat 5 cable a few years ago and went to Walmart to get one. Until this point I had always made my own cables, so when I saw the price ($40ish) I was floored. Unfortunately, I had to buy it anyway. As I was checking out I had that cable and a small bag of beef jerky. The cashier wasn’t paying attention and didn’t engage with me at all. She scanned the beef jerky and moved the cable across the scanner, but it didn’t register. She told me it would be ~$3.50. I considered telling her that missed the cable but given the fact I was mad about the cable costing so much I didn’t say anything. I always wondered if I would feel bad about doing that, but several years later I still don’t.
Re: I got an FBI record at age 11 from dabbling in cryptography (2015)
#256Be sure to read the follow-up ( https://web.stanford.edu/~learnest/cyclops/bash1.htm ) about the challenges the author faced in trying to help move forward a reasonably safe standard for bicycle helmets.
If bicycle helmets were essential for causal-speed, safe path, everyday bicycling, the Dutch would use them. Interesting fact: in the US, riders without helmets receive more average buffer space from road vehicles than those with. If you're downhill mountain biking, wear a proper helmet. If you're racing in Manhattan, wear an equally suitable helmet. If you're leisurely riding on a wide, empty side road in a resident…
I'm sorry, but what you're saying has nothing to do with what I linked to. The linked article is about the development of helmet safety standards and their use in bicycle racing.
Please read the linked article, you may find it interesting.
Re: I got an FBI record at age 11 from dabbling in cryptography (2015)
#257Earlier quoted context omitted.
This reminds of a Costco bug I discovered, it appears that they fixed it lol. So, Costco runs AS/400 in stores, and their online store is in .Net MVC. I worked with both technologies and often have to communicate with AS/400 devs and they are close to their retirement so little fucks are given. Plus, working with DB2 is annoying in general, the .NET data provider from IBM is expensive and sucks. Now onto the bug, whe…
I met someone many years ago who bragged that they did this with sales tax. They purchased expensive items at Costco in Oregon, paying 0% sales tax, and then returned those items in Washington and received a full refund plus 10% sales tax. This was the first time I met a person who appeared normal but lacked social mores against fraud.
Don't they need to show up the purchase recipt/bill? Wouldn't the store's location be identified on that?
Re: I got an FBI record at age 11 from dabbling in cryptography (2015)
#258Earlier quoted context omitted.
Public network shares, cain&abel, learning about NTLM downgrading and well, these were the days when Wifi was "new" and wireless B and G was considered wow, 54mbps. Back then, everything really felt like magic. Old netsend trick, pre windows xp SP2. There were enough stories at this time online that I knew it was best to say nothing. Did nothing bad, just explored, learned quite a few things and well was surprised ho…
Netsend made me feel like a true spooky wizard. It bums me out to see how much of our computing has moved north-south.
[deleted]
Re: I got an FBI record at age 11 from dabbling in cryptography (2015)
#259Earlier quoted context omitted.
One other funny detail is that most of the Stasi file was handwritten notes in pencil. The vast majority of it was crap. It seems that a lot of her associates were obligated to report on her to the Stasi, but either couldn't or didn't want to give any details that would be harmful to anyone. Much of it was along the lines of "[fellow student] says [subject] was disinclined to denounce rent-control as a counter-revolu…
The Stasi was, especially in the end, exponentional invasive. Meaning they approached allmost anyone in any slightly important position and put pressure on them, to work with them to report on their collegues. (In the end, there were 90 000 of them, with a population of only 16 million). "you help us (and socialism) and we help your career - or you decline and good luck with your career, or the carrer of your partner…
For an amazing movie (not documentary) about the Stasi, watch "The Lives of Others". It is chilling because you see this institution and how it effects people through the eyes of one of the people responsible for doing the spying.
Re: I got an FBI record at age 11 from dabbling in cryptography (2015)
#260Earlier quoted context omitted.
You may know him but I did not, so I erred on the safe side and added the "if there is any truth to it" as it's a much safer default to assume that everything I read on the Internet is possibly made up.
I don’t think assuming stories as untruthful is using good faith. I think this line of thinking heavily contributes to this post-truth society we live in; if everything online is a lie that leaves the individual to create their own truth from the lies leading to this idea of post-truth. Obviously there is more nuance than this because websites need views for ad revenue and people like lying online for imaginary inter…
I personally think it is the other way around. If people didn't blindly take any story someone they have never met before says as truth, because of "faith" in humanity or whatever, then there would be far less reason for people to be untruthful all the time.
This is a general comment that is in no way related to this particular case, of course.