Who Impulse Buys Perfume Late at Night?

All photos were taken Friday evening, all within 3 blocks of one another on Yonge Street.

I could have kept going, there’s more of them.

.

I understand perfume has a big profit margin, but to always be open so late? And there’s so many of them… like, what happens?

“Ohhh man soooo smashed, lets go hit the next club wait hang on, quick Drakkar Noir stop”.

The only thing that makes sense to me is: front.

Best place to hide is out in the open.

 

You’ll Never Win a Contest Via Text Message

Last night I received a text, I had won a contest from Apple.  3 hours later, I won again.

This is called a “phishing attack”: an attempt to acquire personal information by pretending to be a trusted source.

How you know it’s a scam: you’re not going to the Apple Canada website, you’re going to a .biz website:

The s0fre.biz is the root of the URL, always look at the root.

For example, in the URL: http://Apple.ca.KeriBlog.com/win – KeriBlog.com would be the root.

Don’t let curiosity get the best of you, don’t click the link. There’s nothing funny waiting there, do you really need confirmation this is a scam, all it will likely lead you to is a website that looks like it’s 1997, see:

That’s as far as I’ll go, I wouldn’t visit that site and advise you not to either. Malware and viruses can be hidden in websites, just visiting the site could initiate an attack.

(Wait till I finish building my lab though, we’re going to send @SmashCanJimmy clicking on everything we can find. I put in some good work last week, it’s getting there).

Lastly, delete the texts so you don’t accidentally click the link.

 

 

Only Use Luggage Locks That Have a Red Diamond

The red diamond signifies it’s a Travel Sentry lock that is security-friendly.  This means the TSA (Transportation Security Administration) has a master key to open and re-lock your bag after inspection.  That’s the key – re-lock.

All bags are screened, but sometimes a bag requires a physical search.  You would unlikely be present for this search, so your lock would be cut off.  Now your luggage has un-secured zippers, and you could be that guy whose belongings are strewn across the tarmac.

You do lock your luggage, right?  Not just to prevent it from opening in transit, but for the bad baggage handlers, smugglers, bell hops, you get it.

You’d lock your front door, no?

 

 

This is Black Hat Security Conference 2012

The Black Hat Briefings – the world’s largest computer security conference.  In its 15th year, it’s held each year in Vegas at the end of July.

Me and my press badge.  Proud.

Same as when I attended last year – it’s bad manners to wave your camera about. This conference attracts all kinds.

There’s a little trick:

embedding text in a photo still gets your message out,

but without it being crawled and picked up by the bots.

There are briefings and trainings. Not much point to me attending the latter, I’d be so lost, the biggest brains give these. The briefings are very interesting though, here’s my report on Apple’s first ever talk, where not enough went over my head.

I listened to cyberpunk author Neil Stephenson interviewed by Brian Krebs, who is awesome. If you ever are stuck for security help check his site.

Neil’s book ‘Reamde’ is a neat premise: a virus is unleashed through a popular online game that encrypts the player’s hard drive, and holds it for ransom.

See the yellow * above? I joined the taxi line, oh wait it’s Neil, hi great talk! Know we know he has duct tape on his old-school phone, which he keeps in a pocket I’m not sure is the most secure place.

It’s okay to take photos here, this is the other half of Black Hat – the vendor area.

All the top security merchants selling their wares.

I did the same thing I did last year: started in the far corner and walked up and down every aisle, every booth. This stuff isn’t for us though, it’s for enterprises and large corporations.

Thanks for a great time Black Hat, see ya next year!