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Fixing Macs door to door

matduggan.com

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Re: Fixing Macs door to door

#181

Post by hyperdimension »

NoZebra120vClip wrote: post #176
christoph wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Back in the VCD/SVCD/DVD/PS1/PS2 days, piracy was absolutely heavily interwoven with organised criminal gangs. I couldn’t comment on the current state, but I’d be surprised if there was enough money in media piracy for organised crime to even glance at it, given the vast and easy profits now available in narcotics and fraud. “HK silvers” were industrially pressed and printed CDs and DVDS you could buy in any market s…

Well, I had personal contact with several large-scale pirates, and AFAIK, they were not involved with organized crime, they were merely well-placed to do high volume transactions. My first job I had a peer, a low-level contracting employee. We worked in the NOC of a regional ISP. Therefore our backbone was a powerful T1-T3 in the early 90s, and we had comparatively massive storage capacity. This fellow was basically…

I'm curious--when you say "a prolific pornographer," do you mean watcher or, uh, performer? Reading it I think the latter but it sounds like you mean the former.

Re: Fixing Macs door to door

#182

Post by lozf »

thelittleone wrote: post #132
smith7018 wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also did this in the 2000s and while it was fun to peer into their lives, the amount of porn I was forced to see on elderly people's machines was... not great. Especially during those rare occurrences where they wanted to watch what I was doing to "learn how to use the computer." Just awkward all around.

Found same on laptop of an insurance company CFO. Had to ignore it.

Yup, C-level execs changing file extensions from .avi to .xls etc. lol.

Re: Fixing Macs door to door

#183

Post by skeaker »

supriyo-biswas wrote: post #69
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…

> That job put me in contact with a criminal gang who went on to supply with me dozens of GBs of stolen hard drives that I used to create what was probably the largest warez FTP Statements like this seem to agree with the anti-piracy groups' narrative about piracy being closely related to organized crime, a claim that initially seemed questionable to me.

This was in the 90s before torrenting was widespread. Decentralizing filesharing means criminal groups aren't needed and can't easily make a profit off of it.

Re: Fixing Macs door to door

#184

Post by qingcharles »

refulgentis wrote: post #175
wlesieutre wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Early 2000’s we’re talking phones like the Nokia 6600 https://www.cnet.com/reviews/nokia-6600-review/ > You can also capture the moment on video with the handset's video recorder, which renders brief (10-second), fuzzy images and lo-fi audio. The 6600 stores clips as QCIF files in resolutions of either 176x144 or 128x96, and you can play them using the phone's onboard RealOne player. We got an undeniable kick out of…

That's why serial exaggerators are corrosive to a community. Yeah, did phones with a video camera exist? Yup. You would have had to be there, know the 8-step fermi estimate chain for the likelihood for a multitude of reasons. (ex. these were slow, terrible beasts extremely difficult to use, they'd very rarely be a heat of the moment option, and if you were preparing, there were a multitude of 100x quality options tha…

Are you OK? You keep saying video, why? There were video clips, but mostly photos. This was the UK where these types of phones were very commonplace -- your experience might be from a USA perspective where flip phones were still the rage? :)

Re: Fixing Macs door to door

#185

Post by tptacek »

rmason wrote: post #173
Nextgrid wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Keep in mind that cameras don't mean anything in today's world because law enforcement doesn't care about any crime short of a murder. Maybe cameras still have a chilling effect on law-abiding people but criminals have since wisened up to it.

I cannot speak to other areas but in Detroit cameras have made a huge difference. In Gilbert's case he wants the area around his buildings safe. Detroit police are understaffed but Gilbert's cops augment the force and work closely with them. It matters to them if someone gets mugged or assaulted and they have the manpower to keep up. I've left bars at 2 am and walked to my car feeling very safe. I cannot say that abo…

It's also possible that Detroit's rankings on carjackings are an artifact of other cities being at the epicenter of the Kia phenomenon. Certainly that's been a major factor in Chicago carjackings.

Re: Fixing Macs door to door

#186

Post by qingcharles »

thelittleone wrote: post #132
smith7018 wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also did this in the 2000s and while it was fun to peer into their lives, the amount of porn I was forced to see on elderly people's machines was... not great. Especially during those rare occurrences where they wanted to watch what I was doing to "learn how to use the computer." Just awkward all around.

Found same on laptop of an insurance company CFO. Had to ignore it.

One of the directors backed up his laptop by copying all his data to a network folder that we primarily used for development. Was looking for a specific image and found whole folder of photos of my boss (director's very, very attractive wife) naked. I had to tell him before anyone else found them. He just grinned, asked if I'd seen them, and then deleted them.

Re: Fixing Macs door to door

#187

Post by rmason »

tptacek wrote: post #185
rmason wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I cannot speak to other areas but in Detroit cameras have made a huge difference. In Gilbert's case he wants the area around his buildings safe. Detroit police are understaffed but Gilbert's cops augment the force and work closely with them. It matters to them if someone gets mugged or assaulted and they have the manpower to keep up. I've left bars at 2 am and walked to my car feeling very safe. I cannot say that abo…

It's also possible that Detroit's rankings on carjackings are an artifact of other cities being at the epicenter of the Kia phenomenon. Certainly that's been a major factor in Chicago carjackings.

I thought Kia's were stolen off driveways when the people were asleep? Detroit I believe invented modern day car jacking. Someone comes up to you as you're filling your car at the pump, sticks a gun in your face, asks for your keys and drives off.

Or someone bumps into you at a light or stop sign. You get out to inspect the damage and exchange insurance cards and again they pull a gun and take your car while their accomplice speeds off in the attack car.

Last I checked St. Louis was the current king of car jacking although Detroit is still sadly is in the top ten.

Re: Fixing Macs door to door

#188

Post by NoZebra120vClip »

hyperdimension wrote: post #181
NoZebra120vClip wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I had personal contact with several large-scale pirates, and AFAIK, they were not involved with organized crime, they were merely well-placed to do high volume transactions. My first job I had a peer, a low-level contracting employee. We worked in the NOC of a regional ISP. Therefore our backbone was a powerful T1-T3 in the early 90s, and we had comparatively massive storage capacity. This fellow was basically…

I'm curious--when you say "a prolific pornographer," do you mean watcher or, uh, performer? Reading it I think the latter but it sounds like you mean the former.

Oh yeah, sorry, as far as I could tell, he was a collector and trader, not a performer, but who knows, really?

Re: Fixing Macs door to door

#189

Post by tptacek »

rmason wrote: post #187
tptacek wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also possible that Detroit's rankings on carjackings are an artifact of other cities being at the epicenter of the Kia phenomenon. Certainly that's been a major factor in Chicago carjackings.

I thought Kia's were stolen off driveways when the people were asleep? Detroit I believe invented modern day car jacking. Someone comes up to you as you're filling your car at the pump, sticks a gun in your face, asks for your keys and drives off. Or someone bumps into you at a light or stop sign. You get out to inspect the damage and exchange insurance cards and again they pull a gun and take your car while their ac…

The epicenter of the Kia thing is Milwaukee (I think that's where it started?). The thing about Kias is that they're burner cars. It's not that people are carjacking Kias, it's that they're using burner Kias to carjack other cars.

I think we're going to learn in the next couple years that the Kia thing was a much, much bigger problem than we appreciate even now. I think it's a very big deal.

Re: Fixing Macs door to door

#190

Post by wkat4242 »

jamiek88 wrote: post #160
wkat4242 wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uhm if you're fixing PCs as I did you don't end up working for meth-toothed people :P Maybe not the most attractive people no, but regular middle-class people at the very least. Especially when you were fixing macs which were even more premium priced here in Europe back then than they are now. I fixed all sorts of stuff but I would not have marginalised clients. I guess it's also why I didn't get such offers :P I did…

> he said that in the US everyone would be eager to do some work for money on the side and here he's always having issues getting IT help Well that’s just bollocks. Perhaps young teenagers are typically okay with earning a bit or forced by their parents to help but it certainly is not the cultural norm that grown ass salaried professionals jump at the chance to earn $50 sorting their neighbors WiFi out. He just thoug…

Thanks, it's kinda the impression I had already, that he was making this up.

And yes the "sinsya" thing was exactly what I'm worried about. With money come commitments.

Not sure why you're being downvoted because I really appreciate your insight.

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