How terrible would it be to just create new accounts?
“Subject: Urgent Warning”
21–30 of 184 posts
Re: “Subject: Urgent Warning”
#22Maybe advise her that she have a lawyer explain it to her or one of her friends look at it and explain it to her.... ie delegate.
Re: “Subject: Urgent Warning”
#23Definitely agree with one of the comments on the blog - the domain (haxx.se) really doesn't help the author's case here when trying to explain to a layperson.
Also, from http://daniel.haxx.se/blog/about/
>I’m Daniel Stenberg, a network hacker working for Mozilla.
Sigh. Why does everyone have to be a hacking rockstar ninja? What's wrong with not using a word that has negative connotations to the rest of the world, and just calling yourself a developer/engineer?
Re: “Subject: Urgent Warning”
#24Ah, this sort of thing is as old as the moon.
We run an eCommerce platform, have a variety of clients using it, they have a number of customers. At least once a week we get an accusation either from a client or an end-user of some outlandish nefarious behaviour, usually due to some complete lack of understanding of the nature of technology.
Way back when, we responded, tried to help, tried to explain, but it tends to be the case that if someone has made their mind up, they've made their mind up, and anything you say can and will be used against you - confirmation bias is a harsh mistress.
The best response is usually no response, I'm afraid to say. It's a drain on your time, they won't be any the wiser unless you're prepared to sink serious time into educating a stranger, and more often than not responding results in escalation, and people doing stupid things like involving lawyers and law enforcement.
Case in point: About six years ago, we had an older guy phone us up frothing about how we'd hacked his wife's computer and she'd accidentally bought something from one of our clients. We explained that it would be hard to accidentally enter your address and credit card details, and that if they didn't want the order they should contact the merchant, not the web developer (they clicked our "ecommerce by" link in the footer of the client site - we don't do that any more!). We thought that was that. A week later we got a stern phone call from an ombudsman who wanted to know why we were ignoring the distance selling rules and taking advantage of old people... and they didn't understand that we weren't a merchant, didn't place an order on their behalf, either - so months of time were wasted, and we narrowly avoided ending up in court over a non-issue.
Anyway. When you have a conversation with an idiot, nobody watching can tell which one of you is the idiot.
Re: “Subject: Urgent Warning”
#25Definitely agree with one of the comments on the blog - the domain (haxx.se) really doesn't help the author's case here when trying to explain to a layperson.
Also, from http://daniel.haxx.se/blog/about/ >I’m Daniel Stenberg, a network hacker working for Mozilla. Sigh. Why does everyone have to be a hacking rockstar ninja? What's wrong with not using a word that has negative connotations to the rest of the world, and just calling yourself a developer/engineer?
You realise this is the man that created CURL, right? If anyone is allowed to call himself a hacker, it's Daniel.
Re: “Subject: Urgent Warning”
#26Definitely agree with one of the comments on the blog - the domain (haxx.se) really doesn't help the author's case here when trying to explain to a layperson.
Also, from http://daniel.haxx.se/blog/about/ >I’m Daniel Stenberg, a network hacker working for Mozilla. Sigh. Why does everyone have to be a hacking rockstar ninja? What's wrong with not using a word that has negative connotations to the rest of the world, and just calling yourself a developer/engineer?
What's wrong with using whatever words you want on your personal site to describe yourself and the work you do?
Who cares that some ignoramus directs her anger at him? Do you also think "hackers" or software devs shouldn't have long hair or listen to rock music?
Re: “Subject: Urgent Warning”
#27About nine years ago now, I worked for a small security startup that managed to make its way up to PCI certification for scanning websites before keeling over dead. It died the "just one more feature before we can release" death, so you've never heard of it. You've probably never even heard of the company that bought it/put it out of its misery. I'm pretty sure the customer base never exceeded the low single digits. Its most impressive moment was when it made the local TV for just... being a startup, basically. (I'm in the Midwest. Startups aren't and weren't that rare, but few of them even tried to get on local TV. At least at the time it wasn't hard to get into the human interest slot, presumably because it was a nice change of pace for the TV station.)
Yet the founders had a collection of letters from people, actual hand-written letters, asking for help with their hacked computers, asking how to hack, at least one probably-paranoid-schizophrenic one about... errr... hacking and the government and chips in brains and all that sort of thing and whether or not this company could help protect them against the hacker aliens (I don't recall the exact details but this is not an exaggeration of the flavor, alas).
There's an amazing amount of this sort of thing going on. At scale the only thing you can really do is ignore them; engagement doesn't go well for anybody, even the sender just ends up more frustrated and angry than when they started if you try so it's not even good for them. On an isolated basis you might get lucky, but don't count on it.
Edit: Kinda commenting on the thread above anchored on madaxe_again's comment, let me emphasize that I'm not saying ignore it because you can't be arsed, or because replying is beneath you, or because elitism... I'm saying that ignoring it works out best even for the sender, which is why you should do it. That it happens to be the easiest course of action for you as well is just one of those rare times when the easy action also happens to be right.
Re: “Subject: Urgent Warning”
#28This reminds me of the case when some state or local agency got the default CentOS / Apache page and they contacted them as if they were hackers.
EDIT (thanks mariuolo): http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/03/24/tuttle_centos/
Re: “Subject: Urgent Warning”
#29Lest Stenberg get tangled up too much in the email-sender's unfortunately troubles, he should likely refer the emailer to Instagram and Spotify's customer support.
As an aside, hopefully someone can recommend to the emailer as well to use a different service to host high-quality versions of her photography so that potential clients can evaluate critical clarity in her technique. I'm not sure I'd want to rely on Instagram as the sole example of my work, but, maybe she's targeting a different clientele that I'm imagining.
As an aside (#2), who hacks Spotify accounts?
Re: “Subject: Urgent Warning”
#30Ah, this sort of thing is as old as the moon. We run an eCommerce platform, have a variety of clients using it, they have a number of customers. At least once a week we get an accusation either from a client or an end-user of some outlandish nefarious behaviour, usually due to some complete lack of understanding of the nature of technology. Way back when, we responded, tried to help, tried to explain, but it tends to…
"When you have a conversation with an idiot, nobody watching can tell which one of you is the idiot".
They are not idiots, they are average people, tech is complex, I wonder if people who have to be told or explain things to represent a market to attend?
Imagine, something were you call a number ask for something to be bought; later someone go picking up the money, you perform the purchase and you later deliver.
No credit cards, no complex thing to go over.