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I almost got hacked by a 'job interview'

blog.daviddodda.com

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Re: I almost got hacked by a 'job interview'

#281

Post by Wowfunhappy »

andai wrote: post #261
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #233

This article is so interesting, but I can’t shake the feeling it was written by AI. The writing style has that feel for me. Maybe that shouldn’t bother me? Like, maybe the author would never have had time to write this otherwise, and I would never have learned about his experience. But I can't help wishing he'd just written about it himself. Maybe that's unreasonable--I shouldn't expect people to do extra work for fr…

I think it only really has that feel if you use GPT. I mean, all AIs produce output that sounds kinda like it was written by an AI. But I think GPT is the most notorious on that front. It's like ten times worse. So really the feeling I get when I run into "obviously AI" writing isn't even, "I wish they had written this manually", but "dang, they couldn't even be bothered to use Claude!" (I think the actual solution i…

Fwiw I use Claude pretty much exclusively and I thought this resembled Claude output.

Re: I almost got hacked by a 'job interview'

#282

Post by lillesvin »

zbendefy wrote: post #278

My takeaway is that sandboxing should be more readily available, and integrated into the OS. I used sandboxie a while ago for stuff like this, but afaik windows has some sandbox built into it since a few years which I didnt think about until now.

Yeah, Windows Sandbox is available on Win 10/11 Pro and Enterprise and it's actually pretty neat. I used to use it in a previous job where I was forced to run Windows.

However, I think OP might be using WSL and I'm not sure that's available in Sandbox.

Re: I almost got hacked by a 'job interview'

#283

Post by tempestn »

DavidDodda wrote: post #173
ishouldbework wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, uh, this part "Here's the kicker: the URL died exactly 24 hours later. These guys weren't messing around - they had their infrastructure set up to burn evidence fast." was completely made up by the AI or did you provide the "exactly 24 hours later" information out of band in some chat with the AI?

no, that was me. i did not setup a watch script or anything to see how long the link was up for. but when I first tried it, it was active, and when I tried it the next day around the same time, it was gone.

FYI in case you decide to write without the AI more, "setup" and "checkout" are nouns. If you're using them as verbs, they are two words, "set up" and "check out". You can remember which is which based on whether it would make sense to put another word between them, ie. "set it up" or "check something out", vs "the setup of the document" or "a fresh checkout of this branch".

Re: I almost got hacked by a 'job interview'

#284

Post by jchw »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #233

This article is so interesting, but I can’t shake the feeling it was written by AI. The writing style has that feel for me. Maybe that shouldn’t bother me? Like, maybe the author would never have had time to write this otherwise, and I would never have learned about his experience. But I can't help wishing he'd just written about it himself. Maybe that's unreasonable--I shouldn't expect people to do extra work for fr…

No, you're right. Writing is very expressive; you can certainly get that feeling from observing how different people write, and stylometry gives objective evidence of this. If you mostly let AI write for you, you get a very specific style of writing that clearly is something the reinforcement learning is optimizing for. It's not that language models are incapable of writing anything else, but they're just tuned for writing milquetoast, neutral text full of annoying hooks and clichés. For something like fixing grammar errors or improving writing I see no reason to not consider AI aside from whatever ethical concerns one has, but it still needs to feel like your own writing. IMO you don't even really need to have great English or ridiculous linguistic skills to write good blog posts, so it's a bit sad to see people leaning so hard on AI. Writing takes time, I understand; I mean, my blog hardly has anything on it, but... It's worth the damn time.

P.S.: I'm sure many people are falsely accused of using AI writing because they really do write similarly to AI, either coincidentally or not. While I'm sure it's incredibly disheartening, I think in case of writing it's not even necessarily about the use of AI. The style of writing just doesn't feel very tasteful, the fact that it might've been mostly spat out by a computer without disclosure is just the icing on the cake. I hate to be too brutal, but these observations are really not meant to be a personal attack. Sometimes you just gotta be brutally honest. (And I'm speaking rather generally, as I don't actually feel like this article is that bad, though I can't lie and say it doesn't feel like it has some of those clichés.)

Re: I almost got hacked by a 'job interview'

#285

Post by c0nsumer »

cddotdotslash wrote: post #252
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #233

This article is so interesting, but I can’t shake the feeling it was written by AI. The writing style has that feel for me. Maybe that shouldn’t bother me? Like, maybe the author would never have had time to write this otherwise, and I would never have learned about his experience. But I can't help wishing he'd just written about it himself. Maybe that's unreasonable--I shouldn't expect people to do extra work for fr…

It’s incredibly annoying to read. So many super short sentences with the “not just X. Also Y” format. Little hooks like “The attack vector?” “Not fancy security tools. Not expensive antivirus software. Just asking my coding assistant…” I actually feel like AI articles are becoming easier to spot. Maybe we’re all just collectively noticing the patterns.

I'm regularly asked by coworkers why I don't run my writing through AI tools to clean it up and instead spend a time iterating over it, re-reading, perhaps with a basic spell checker and maybe grammar check.

That's because, from what I've seen to date, it'd take away my voice. And my voice -- the style in which I write -- is my value. It's the same as with art... Yes, AI tools can produce passable art, but it feels soulless and generic and bland. It lacks a voice.

Re: I almost got hacked by a 'job interview'

#286

Post by goodpoint »

oofbey wrote: post #222
ep103 wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are you guys spinning up vms, specifically windows vms, so quickly? I used to use virtual box back in the day, but that was a pain and required a manual windows OS install. I'm a few years out of the loop, and would love a quick point in the right direction : )

A docker container isn’t as bulletproof as a VM but it would certainly block this kind of attack. They’re super fast and easy to spin up.

It would not block many other attacks.

Re: I almost got hacked by a 'job interview'

#288

Post by Fokamul »

1. If you're opening URLs in your browser in your OS? You will get hacked eventually. It only depends on how valuable target you are, to be targeted with Chrome/Firefox 0day.

2. If it's Russian name -> always think BS or malware, easy as that.

3. Linkedin was and still is the best tool for phishing/spear-phishing, malware spreading. Mind-boggling it is still used, even by IT pros.

Re: I almost got hacked by a 'job interview'

#289

Post by mapt »

Terr_ wrote: post #153
mapt wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of the Year 1 Facebook accounts with more than a decade of activity that have been inexplicably banned and deleted in 2025 salute you.

My 10+ year old only Reddit account where everything was retroactively removed but "this was in error, appeal granted" also salutes. I worry about Kafkaesque black-mirror trust/reputation issues in the coming decades.

Some of the bureaucratic battles that a functional government would be fighting right now include establishing manual identity management as an essential state function, NSA red teams to enable defensive improvements to widely used software and networks, widespread antitrust action if not progressive corporate taxes to limit the extent of a single vulnerability, postal banking, automatic tax filing, and a whole host of different data protection & privacy acts.

A breach like Equifax should have cost their shareholders 100% of their shares, if not triggering prosecutions.

We are not doing any of this because we are being led by elderly narcissists who loathe us and rely on corporate power, in both parties, and that fact was felt at a gut level, and enabled fascism to seep right in to the leadership vacuum.

Re: I almost got hacked by a 'job interview'

#290

Post by lillesvin »

Hard_Space wrote: post #132

> I ran the payload through VirusTotal - check out the behavior analysis yourself. Spoiler alert: it's nasty. The VirusTotal behavior analysis linked to says 'No security vendors flagged this file as malicious'

Yeah, I'm having trouble spotting the "nasty". I'm not saying it's not there, but if someone more knowledgeable about malicious Javascript/Node could explain a bit that would be much appreciated.

Pretty convenient that the source was taken down before the blog was posted and it doesn't seem like we can get a hold of it.

Edit: MalwareBazaar doesn't seem to have a sample either.

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