Don’t Name your Phone your Name

At the airport, scanning Bluetooth signals in a passenger waiting area.

The results:

Purple * – See the person’s name clearly displayed? The type of device/computer they’re using?
Green * -And that long number? That’s a MAC address

MAC address – a device’s unique number, a digital signature. Every device has one. Not related to Apple/Mac computers.

These people are unnecessarily broadcasting a lot of personal information.

If someone shouted, “Hi Rahul!”,

a gentleman within a 30-feet radius would react.

Someone with bad intentions could do a lot with that.

Practice ‘Security through Obscurity‘, and name your phone something boring.

The name of my phone is —

And always remember, one of the most dangerous places to go online is using airport WiFi.

Even the best guys in the world don’t.

SOLUTION – tether your laptop to your phone using a USB cable

 

 

Back Home in Canada

Don’t you love when this happens?

I go into “travel mode”: silent and spacey.  I won’t have much memory of today.

Airports are a pretty secure place, you can let your guard down and wander around glued out.  My thinking is no one’s going to do anything super stupid in a closed system.

This has bewildered me for a decade.  

Here’s the horizon of Washington DC, and the arrow is pointing at… an Egyptian obelisk?!

Placed in the the heart of it all? Painstakingly shipped from Egypt and resurrected?

Not just here though, there’s a similar set-up in Paris, New York City, London, and my favourite… the centre of the Vatican. Figure that one out.

Nice to be back in Canada, nice to have Internet on my phone again.

Big week ahead.  Not going to tell you too much (you know how jinxy I am), but send good luck.  Thursday we’re going to test drive the new Ford Escape, I have to retrieve my bike from where I stored it in December and totally forgot about that till last week, and lots more.

TTYT, here’s to a great start to your week!

 

 

Now I’m Home in Toronto

Goodbye warm weather, hello ending to my ‘Avoiding Winter Tour 2012‘.

Last flight.

Since leaving Toronto January 1, I boarded 25 planes.

 

Proud of this.

I have internet on my phone again!  It’s been 4 months since I could say that.

I was using the thing below.  Which means I had to manage two devices, and the connection was not very reliable.

Every blog post had to be kicked online, no dramatics.

First meal back on Canadian soil.

Girl catchup, very important.

It’s ironic that it snowed a bit today… my first day back is Toronto’s first day of snow since February.

I picked up a Ford Fiesta today, I’m mobile again!!

The studio is done, it’s stuck in a garage in North Toronto.  I’m going to have to jump it and take the back roads to the crushers.  I suppose that will make a good video.  Good for you, sad for me.

Pumped to be back, can’t wait to catch up when I see you.

Have a great Tuesday night!