Greg's Corner

Updates from Greg Collier Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts

• 

  Greg Collier 10:53 am on January 25, 2017 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: bourbon, Pappy Van Winkle, pennsylvania ( 9 )   

  Man charged for selling bourbon online 

  

  If you’re not the imbibing type, you may never have heard of Pappy Van Winkle bourbon. It’s said to be the holy grail of bourbon and is said to be the most difficult bottle of the sipping whiskey to obtain, it’s also said to be one of the most expensive. So it should come as no surprise that when someone came in possession of a bottle of it that they would try to flip it for a profit.

  A Pennsylvania man attempted to sell a bottle of the much coveted whiskey online, but instead of seeing a bidding war for his bottle he was instead visited by agents of the Pennsylvania Bureau of Liquor Control Enforcement. As it turns out, according to Pennsylvania law, even reselling a bottle of bourbon requires a liquor license. The LCE bought the bottle from the man but it was unclear how much they paid for it. It may not matter how much they paid the man was charged with a misdemeanor and may need that money for court fees.

  So while this may not be Eliot Ness bringing down Al Capone, be careful of what you sell online as it may run afoul of state or local laws.

   

  Leave a ReplyCancel reply
• 

  Greg Collier 10:55 am on January 24, 2017 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Colorado ( 8 ), lift tickets ( 2 ), scam ( 22 ), skiing   

  Beware of fake ski lift tickets in Colorado 

  

  Authorities in Colorado are saying that they are seeing a rash of fake ski lift tickets being sold online. They’re allegedly being sold on a less than reputable classifieds site whose name we won’t mention but you can pretty much guess who it is.

  If you’ve ever been skiing, you know how expensive lift tickets can be, so if you can find yourself a deal you’d be remiss not to take it right? Well, it depends on where you get that deal. As far as these fake ski lift tickets go, the tickets are usually worthless by the time that you get them. The scam works pretty much the same way it does with sports tickets. Someone will purchase the tickets with a stolen credit card and will then turn around and try to sell to tickets at a discount. However, when the credit card is reported stolen those tickets then become null and void while the con artist has made off with your cash. One victim of this current scam found themselves out of $2,000 due to the scam. This is without mentioning that most lift tickets are non-transferable.

  Usually with these ticket scams the ‘seller’ has a story on why they have to get rid of the tickets as soon as possible. If you suspect a scam this is a good indicator. Another good indicator is the age-old adage that if the deal seems too good to be true it probably is. Skiing is definitely an expensive activity but it can be even more expensive if you try to score some tickets on the cheap.

   
• 

  Greg Collier 11:05 am on January 23, 2017 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Backpage ( 70 ), Human trafficking ( 100 )   

  Business as usual at Backpage as trafficking ads continue 

  

  As should have been expected, Backpage’s grandiose claims of government censorship causing them to shutter the adult section of their site was nothing more than a virtual sleight of hand. The adult ads appear to have allegedly migrated from the adult section to the personals section where Backpage can still collect money for them.

  This was first reported by Cleveland.com who were notified by Andrea Powell, an advocate from the organization FAIR Girls, whose purpose it is to rescue girls from human trafficking. More recently it was brought to light by Cook County, Illinois, Sheriff Tom Dart, who has been one of the most vocal opponents of Backpage. Sheriff Dart had the following to say…

  A couple days after Backpage made the switch, Dart said his officers set up a “date” with one of the women advertising on the site and confirmed she was charging for sex.

  “We went out and arrested a person off the site,” he said. “We answered one of their ads and it was no different.”

  While it is free to post ads in the personals section, there are upgrades you can purchase to keep the ads in better positioning and circulation. The Senate Subcommittee that investigated Backpage alleged that Backpage had moderators that would edit the ads for prostitution to make them seem less illegal. If they used their moderators for that purpose then potentially couldn’t they use them to keep the prostitution ads out of the personals?

  Let’s not forget what’s really at stake here. While Backpage is playing games with Congress, there are still women and children being forced into slavery by their traffickers on Backpage. Nothing has changed. Law enforcement and the government must not forget that these victims are still out there and must continue the fight, even if we have to remind them.

   
• 

  Greg Collier 12:03 pm on January 20, 2017 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: advertising ( 11 ), apps ( 15 ), Meitu   

  Be careful what permissions your apps want on your phone 

  

  I’m sure when most of us download the latest fad app to our smart phones we just bypass the permissions screen and grant the app whatever permissions it might need to work properly. A new app is now causing concern for asking for too much permission.

  Meitu is an app that can take a photo of you, or anything else you want, and allows you to change the subject into an Anime inspired character. The problem is that Meitu is supposedly asking for way more permission than it needs. If you download the app from the Google Play store it will ask for such permissions as your location and your phone number. On the iPhone it also checks to see who your mobile carrier is.

  So why would a harmless app ask for such detailed information? According to CNET it’s so that the app’s creators can sell your information to advertisers. Meitu isn’t the only culprit here though. Many apps ask for almost total access to your phone in order to harvest your information to be sold to the highest bidder which can lead to even more obtrusive advertising than mobile devices already have to contend with.

  So the next time that screen pops up asking for your permission, maybe we should all check to make sure what permissions the app is asking for and if it’s too many maybe forego that app.

   
• 

  Greg Collier 10:37 am on January 19, 2017 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Apple ( 35 ), fruitfly, ios ( 3 ), malware ( 28 ), osx   

  Apple users have two new threats to deal with 

  

  If you’re a fan of the Apple ecosystem because ‘they don’t get viruses’ you may want to rethink that reasoning. While still not receiving as many threats as Windows machines Apple devices are still vulnerable to glitches and attacks. Two of those issues recently made the news.

  The first, and less damaging of the two threats, is a glitch in iOS that can cause you’re iPhone to crash. If someone sends you a text with the white flag emoji, the number zero, and the rainbow emoji, it will crash your iPhone if it is running iOS 10. You don’t even have to read the text before it freezes your phone. Luckily, this glitch does not cause any lasting damage and your iPhone should restart.

  The second problem is a piece of malware called Fruitfly that is targeting Mac computers. If your Mac is infected a bad actor can take control of your webcam and can take screenshots of whatever you’re working on. This malware seems to be only targeting a specific industry and may not have spread into consumer machines just yet. However, Apple has issued an update to OSX to fix the exploit.

  No matter whether you use Mac or Windows, iOS or Android, you still have to be concerned about your device’s security.

   
• 

  Greg Collier 10:24 am on January 18, 2017 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Gmail ( 3 ), phishing ( 92 ), security ( 46 )   

  New phishing attack targets GMail 

  

  For those of you who may not know, phishing is a type of scheme where an entity casts a wide net to a number of users in order to obtain the personal information of a few random victims. It’s like fishing but with a ‘ph’ because the internet likes to misspell things.

  A new phishing attack has appeared throughout a number of GMail accounts. If you use Google’s free webmail service the phishing email appears to be from someone on your contact list. That probably means that their account has probably been compromised. The fake email will have an attachment included in the email and when you click the attachment a new tab or window will pop up asking you to reenter your GMail login info. However, the new tab or window does not take you to GMail but rather takes you to a webpage designed to look like GMail, but in actuality is a fake page waiting to steal your login info as soon as you enter it.

  Some of the tips to avoid phishing attacks include not clicking on random attachments from strangers and in some cases from your friends. If it’s an unsolicited attachment there’s a pretty good chance it could be part of a phishing attack. Also, when logging in to your account check the URL, or web address, in your browser’s address bar. If it doesn’t belong to the service you’re logging into you could be compromising your info.

   
• 

  Greg Collier 12:20 pm on January 17, 2017 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: hacking ( 32 ), passwords ( 5 ), secuirty ( 4 )   

  The world’s worst passwords of 2016 

  

  The worst passwords of 2016 have been released and once again there are no surprises. Keeper Security studied the passwords of 10 million online accounts that were hacked and released the 25 most commonly used passwords in these hacked accounts.

  123456 remains as the most commonly used password while the top ten is littered with a few variations on that such as 1234567890 along with variations of ‘qwerty’. However it appears that some progress is being made among people who use bad passwords as the word ‘password’ has fallen to 8th on the list. In past years it was either first or second on the list.

  Some of you may be even using these passwords and are thinking to yourself that you’ve never been hacked. It’s probably only a matter of time before you will. Considering 10 million of these accounts with these bad passwords were hacked, there are probably even millions more that haven’t even been reported.

  Seriously, with all our lives being so entrenched in the digital world these days, it’s worth not only your time but your sanity to start using some more secure passwords. You can check this previous post to see how you can do that.

   
• 

  Greg Collier 10:59 am on January 16, 2017 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: copyright, I have a dream, Martin Luther King Jr.   

  The ‘I have a dream’ speech can cost you money 

  

  Today we celebrate and honor the man who was probably the greatest civil rights leader this country has seen in Martin Luther King Jr. Dr. King was most famous for giving his ‘I Have A Dream’ speech during the civil rights march on Washington in 1963. While the speech is known by many today, did you know that the speech has been copyrighted?

  Dr. King had the speech copyrighted a month after giving it because some companies had been selling unauthorized copies. Since Dr. King’s tragic assassination the rights to the speech has fallen to this family who have refused to release it to the public domain. What this means is that if you wanted to use the speech in a movie or another work you would have to obtain the rights from the King family. However, using it in an educational setting is considered fair use. Because of this it’s difficult to find a complete version of the speech online, but The King Center sells a DVD of the speech for $20.

  Some people may view this as a money grab by not allowing the speech into public domain, however there is a drawback to allowing into the public domain. Whenever everybody can use a famous speech or work, someone will inevitable use it for the wrong reasons. Could you imagine if some advertiser used Dr. King’s speech in some kind of commercial?

  While the speech in its essence belongs to all of us, it should be protected as much as possible from those who would betray its meaning by perverting it for unrelated profit.

   
• 

  Greg Collier 11:04 am on January 13, 2017 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Netflix ( 15 ), phishing ( 92 ), scam ( 22 )   

  Beware of fake emails pretending to be from Netflix 

  

  Internet security experts are saying that there is a new scam happening that purportedly targets Netflix users. In what’s known as a phishing attack, people are receiving emails claiming to be from Netflix saying that they need your personal info to be updated. Of course, the info they’re asking for are your credit card information and your social security number.

  How the scam works is that you receive and email that looks like it came from Netflix telling you that your payment information is outdated and provides a link to update your info. If you click that link it takes you to a site that may look like Netflix but isn’t and if you enter your personal information there it will more than likely be stolen.

  The best way to combat these kinds of attacks is to never click the links provided in the emails. Instead, always go to the website that is supposedly requesting the information, in this case that would be Netflix.com. Even if you receive a legitimate email asking you to update your information, always go to directly to that website in your browser rather than clicking the link in the email whether it’s your bank, utility company or what have you. This way you can be fairly certain that your information isn’t being intercepted by a third-party.

   
• 

  Greg Collier 11:14 am on January 12, 2017 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: free press ( 2 ), lawsuit ( 48 ), Shiva Ayyadurai, Techdirt   

  Is Techdirt about to meet the same fate as Gawker? 

  

  As followers of industry news may remember news blog Gawker and its parent company Gawker Media were sued into bankruptcy. Pro wrestler Hulk Hogan sued them for posting his now infamous tape of his indiscretions with his best friend’s wife. Then it turned out that the lawsuit was bankrolled by venture capitalist Peter Thiel who had a personal grudge against Gawker. Now tech news blog Techdirt may be meeting a similar fate.

  Techdirt is currently being sued by Shiva Ayyadurai. Mr. Ayyadurai claims to be the inventor of email stating that he invented it while working at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey at the age of 14. He has even trademarked the phrase ‘The Inventor of Email’ and his website is inventorofemail.com. Techdirt has maintained that Mr. Ayyadurai is hardly the inventor of email and has posted stories to that effect.

  The reason that this lawsuit smacks of the Gawker suit is because Mr. Ayyadurai has employed the same law firm used by Peter Thiel and Hulk Hogan against Gawker. Unlike Gawker, Techdirt does not have the financial backing that Gawker did and even if Techdirt is found to be not guilty of libel, the financial aspect of the lawsuit could potentially bankrupt the news site.

  This is just another chapter in the recent history of those with deep pockets trying to silent the media who have opposing viewpoints against them. While Peter Thiel was not the first he sure seemed to make it more acceptable to do so.