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Fixing Macs door to door

matduggan.com

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Re: Fixing Macs door to door

#81

Post by carlosjobim »

rfrey wrote: post #26

>I was offended that this 15 year old thought she could buy me, in large part because she was correct. I took the $500 and told the mom the tracking software was all set up. She nodded and told me she would check that it was working and "call me back if it wasn't". I knew she was never going to check, so that part didn't spook me. I just hoped the kid didn't get kidnapped or something I'm not sure why he didn't take…

> I'm not sure why he didn't take the $500 and set up the software on the little punk's phone.

Because you shouldn't spy on people?

Re: Fixing Macs door to door

#82

Post by pcthrowaway »

JieJie wrote: post #2

My favorite bit, "Threats quickly lost their power when you realized nobody at any point had asked your name or any information about yourself. It's hard to threaten an anonymous person."

Mine was

> As smartphones became more of a thing, the number of "please spy on my teen" requests exploded. These varied from installing basically spyware on their kids laptops to attempting to install early MDM software on the kids iPhones. I was always uncomfortable with these jobs, in large part because the teens were extremely mean to me. One girl waited until her mom left the room to casually turn to me and say "I will pay you $500 to lie to my mom and say you set this up".

> I was offended that this 15 year old thought she could buy me, in large part because she was correct. I took the $500 and told the mom the tracking software was all set up. She nodded and told me she would check that it was working and "call me back if it wasn't". I knew she was never going to check, so that part didn't spook me. I just hoped the kid didn't get kidnapped or something and I would end up on the evening news. But I was also a little short that month for rent so what can you do.

Re: Fixing Macs door to door

#83

Post by Cacti »

wwweston wrote: post #44
rfrey wrote: post #26

>I was offended that this 15 year old thought she could buy me, in large part because she was correct. I took the $500 and told the mom the tracking software was all set up. She nodded and told me she would check that it was working and "call me back if it wasn't". I knew she was never going to check, so that part didn't spook me. I just hoped the kid didn't get kidnapped or something I'm not sure why he didn't take…

How does a teenager have access to $500 they haven’t spent and can spend without their parents knowing (especially the kind of parents who’d want tracking on their kids phones)?

Giving your kid $50 is hard. Giving your kid $500 after you just gave them $50 is easy.

Re: Fixing Macs door to door

#84

Post by Cacti »

luciapiton wrote: post #9

Interesting read. It reminded me of "Do Things That Don't Scale" https://paulgraham.com/ds.html I just didn't get the part where he says teens are mean to him, but the only example is where a teen made his job easier... > I was always uncomfortable with these jobs, in large part because the teens were extremely mean to me. One girl waited until her mom left the room to casually turn to me and say "I will pay you $500…

the kid called him cheap and/or poor in the straight-forward way you talk about someone’s hair color.

Re: Fixing Macs door to door

#87

Post by dreamcompiler »

KennyBlanken wrote: post #65
qingcharles wrote: post #48

I did this in the mid 90s. It was really fun to see inside a lot of rich people's houses, the sort that have libraries so big they need those ladders with wheels on to scoot around. I was hit on by several bored housewives, including one that answered the door in her open robe. One American woman had brought her inkjet from the USA and I hooked it up to a decent convertor, but it wasn't one that converted the frequen…

Just a PSA (not trying to harp on parent commenter, just taking their comment as an opportunity to soapbox) but never, ever, every go into a room or building that is getting smokey from something burning. It's how you N+1 the casualty/death count in a fire. Unlike the heroes in films and movies, you don't have Plot Armor. It is incredibly common that people think they can just go back in holding their breath or stay…

Firefighter here. I will walk into a burning building if I'm wearing bunker gear, breathing from a working SCBA, carrying a Halligan or axe so I can chop my way back out if I have to, and my buddy is with me carrying a hose squirting water. Lots of water. Said hose must be attached to a BRT (big red truck) on the other end so that when I can't see shit and my air alarm starts beeping we can crawl along by feeling said hose and follow it back out to safety.

Most important, I must have a reasonable suspicion that there are lives inside that might be savable.

Without all that, screw it. That building gets to burn.

Re: Fixing Macs door to door

#88

Post by kuon »

I did that for about 10 years from 2000 to 2010. The part about "being part of the furniture" is really on point. It is incredible how little they think of you. This has a side effect, they thrust you. Ebanking logins, emails, personal conversation, photos... You get it all. I was always very discrete and never did anything "bad", but there were moments when I was treated like a nuisance where I really wanted to. There is also a few times when you find out that the husband or wife is cheating, that is always very difficult to handle especially when the other one is here with you saying how great their partner is.

Re: Fixing Macs door to door

#89

Post by selimthegrim »

wwweston wrote: post #44
rfrey wrote: post #26

>I was offended that this 15 year old thought she could buy me, in large part because she was correct. I took the $500 and told the mom the tracking software was all set up. She nodded and told me she would check that it was working and "call me back if it wasn't". I knew she was never going to check, so that part didn't spook me. I just hoped the kid didn't get kidnapped or something I'm not sure why he didn't take…

How does a teenager have access to $500 they haven’t spent and can spend without their parents knowing (especially the kind of parents who’d want tracking on their kids phones)?

I have seen teenagers in New Orleans partying with American Express platinum cards in their name.

Re: Fixing Macs door to door

#90

Post by jacamera »

ghaff wrote: post #66
Our_Benefactors wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Expensive (even for the wealthy, a lot of the time), not guaranteed to work, inviting more ire if it doesn’t work.

Yeah. Not photos at the time but I’ve lost inadequately backed up hard drives at a time when online backups and external drives weren’t really a thing. Annoying but not something I was going to spend thousands of dollars to try to get recovered.

Same, personally. But I also did on-site tech support in the same era and would always give customers the option if they had a drive I couldn't recover. Honestly seems negligent to me not to. On several occasions they opted to spend the ~$1,000 to recover their family photos, business documents, or other important files and were always extremely happy when it worked. These were not exceptionally wealthy people either.
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