Blogger Just North of Seattle
I wrote yesterday that I am pursuing the Google Technical Support Fundamentals certificate. Well, I’ve finished that one. It is one of 5 elements in the Google IT Support Professional certification, so I’m solidly on my way. 20% done!
It’s a fun certificate, and I enjoyed diving back into the subject. There’s so much more to learn, though, so I’m pumped to jump into the next one.
Ah, OS/2! In the early 90s, I worked on a project for a Seattle stock brokerage, where we were digitizing key records. And, to be clearer, scanning them. This project’s systems needed OS/2, and it was my first introduction to this operating system.
It wasn’t well known at the point, but I was aware of it’s existence. I was intrigued and interested in exploring it. As I think back, my main takeaway: the system was quite stable. I spent very little time dealing with issues, blue screens, or other bugs. It seemed, in retrospect, to be a solid OS.
I have no recollection of using it anywhere else, even though I spent the 90s working myriad projects with many Seattle area companies. Odd, looking back. Odd.
YouTube’s algorithm served this video up today: “The Fall of OS/2”.
It provides lots of insights into how the product failed. And, the story doesn’t paint IBM of the 90s in a good light. It seems the main factors are marketing and leadership incompetence, exacerbated by some petty internal politics. These seem to have been larger factors that Microsoft’s efforts.
I haven’t thought about OS/2 in years. After watching this video, I lament its loss. What would the modern OS environment look like if we’d had a viable non-Microsoft OS on x86 systems? Sadly, we’ll never know.
Over the past few days, I’ve been receiving multiple emails from Microsoft’s Account Team with single-use codes. At first, I assumed that my son or wife was trying to access the account. And the folks at Microsoft added the text “If you didn’t request this code, you can safely ignore this email. Someone else might have typed your email address by mistake.” But I started to get concerned as the number of these messages increased and no one said “hey dad, I can’t get in the Office”. Finally, I decided it was time to figure out what was going on.
So, I first logged into my Microsoft account (account.microsoft.com) and went to the security panel. From there I opened “View My Activity”.
What I saw alarmed me. There multiple attempts to log in from places like Vietnam and Guyana.
Now, I was pretty confident in my account’s security. I update my password regularly and use a strong password. And when I looked at the “session activity” it states that “incorrect password entered”. Which seems pretty solid. I’m pretty sure that an old password has been leaked from a data breach and is in some list available on the dark web.
But I think it’s not adequate. Exploring further, I realize that I had not yet enabled two-factor authentication, nor connected it to my authentication app. So, I fixed that promptly. I firmly believe everyone really should do these steps for all their account. Do you know where to do that? I thought I’d help out by adding the steps.
One enables that from the Advanced security panel.
I encourage all of you to make sure your security settings are using the most up-to-date protocols:
Also, I opted to sign out of EVERY app. Yeah, it’s a bit of a pain, but I don’t want to have my information compromised. I like that I can do that from the control panel.
Anyway, we really can’t be too safe on today’s internet, can’t we?
Have you seen a spike in Microsoft Single Use Code emails that are not from you? Let me know in the comments.
I’ve used LastPass for several years now. Even through a couple of data breaches. But this latest saga, especially with the, *ahem*, lack of transparency in their communications eroded my trust in the app. After looking over several options (if you’re looking, check out PCMag’s list of Best Password Managers), I opted for NordPass.
With all that, yesterday, this video came into my YouTube feed:
It’s a rather snarky rendition of how LastPass failed in their security controls. Anyway, it reminded me of my frustrations with them. I was willing to turn a blind eye to many of their issues due, well, laziness. Porting to a new provider was going to be a pain the…you know. However, a friend of mine’s information was released in this hack, and it was brutal. This was the tipping point for me, watching the impact of this for a friend’s business.
This finally motivated me to shift to Nordpass. It turned out that the transition was nowhere near as hard as I imagined. So, so far, I find the tool works fine and have no problem recommending them. It’s only based on a few weeks of experience, though. I’ll keep exploring it further.
Anyway, I hope you have great weekend plans.
From Wired Magazine: “There’s No Such Thing as Family Secrets in the Age of 23andMe”
This looks at the fascinating intersection of biological tech with democratized data, laden with so many “unintended consequences” in the DNA market (is it right to call this a “market”?).
I believe there was no way to guess these issues would come up when humanity first developed medical insemination. DNA databases and the commodification of DNA data: I doubt we could’ve guessed this coming about 10 years ago, much less in the 1970s.
Many, many questions, so few answers. The way forward seems murky. I guess it always is.
Humanity’s child
Born of electrons’ motion
Will flowers be loved?
Discussing Artificial Intelligence with a friend I wonder if AI will be our contribution to the universe. If Fermi’s Paradox will be overcome by humanity in spite of our drive towards insanity.
I wonder…
In my Human Relations class we’re discussing corporate surveillance. In one of my responses I brought up my concern about how companies, tracking their employees, are then responsible for securing that data. In response, one of my classmates shared this video with me that’s quite relevant. As he described it, it’s a 20-minute Socratic exploration into data security and social surveillance. Some very interesting discourse, for me at least. Powerful questions to ask as technology’s ability to track our every move grows daily.
Gads! Yet another robocall on my office line. This one was about our “vehicle warranty expiring”. Massively annoying.
I, interested as I am in things marketing, I had to wonder what kind of ROI these provide. How many people bite on these schemes? How much money is made?
I expect that the investment for most of these comes in the acquisition of the spoofing software and the list of phone numbers to use for the fake caller-id. Either time, or a few bucks on some dark-web server. So, like spam email, a very low follow through rate is fine. The software probably sends out hundreds of calls a day (thousands?), so one or two folks responding and closing does, in the end, pay off. This calculus doesn’t include jail time, fines, etc for law violations. If these folks are offshore, they might be lacking.
My main thought: if you’re a legitimate business, I urge you to use caution with these bots. Confirming doctors appointments, is, I think, fine use of these technologies. For cold calling clients: no…dear god, don’t do it! Invest the time and resources to do this right. Research your contacts, know who you’re calling, and how you will make their life better.
What do you think? Let me know.
I’ve had a Surface for several months now. Only recently have I explored this thing in greater depth.
Just discovered the hand writing input option. which I’m using right now. It’s pretty good, in my opinion.There are some things it’s taking me a bit to get used to. One: the way it processes when I get to the end of entry line. Sometimes it takes a few seconds to catch up. On the other side, every so often it will start to process my entry mid-word. Things often get weird. Every so often it will let me keep adding letters. Other times it just stops and gets funky. Probably my learning curve.
Have you spent any time on one of these? What did you think? I actually rather like it. We’ll see. I plan to explore it more.