SurvivalBlog presents another edition of The Survivalist’s Odds ‘n Sods— a collection of news bits and pieces that are relevant to the modern survivalist and prepper from “HJL”. The weakest link in any Digital Security is the human factor. Take a look at Wells Fargo’s self inflicted breach below.
Survival Realty
An amazing 160 acre retreat ranch with hydro power in the upper Clearwater River Valley has been dramatically reduced in price, to $1.5 million. JWR has visited and consulted at this ranch.
Facial Recognition
If walking through an airport and having your face recognized wasn’t creepy enough for you, Disney has a developed a neural network. This network is intended to be used during a movie. The goal is to find out how happy the participants are with the movie itself. It tracks this data in real-time. It also has the potential to allow Disney to actively alter a movie based upon audience response. In addition, Microsoft has apparently programmed an elevator to know whether it needs to open the doors for you or not. Thanks to DSV for the link.
Digital Security
No, hackers didn’t break into Wells Fargo and get your private information. They gave it away for free. Apparently, one employee is suing another. When Wells Fargo was subpoenaed they accidentally sent 1.4 gigabytes of files. This data contained spreadsheets with customers names, social Security numbers and banking details — including investment portfolios. There wasn’t a confidentiality agreement in place. The lawyer could have submitted these documents to the court, making them public knowledge.
o o o
Mike Williamson, SurvivalBlog’s Editor at Large, sent in this article explaining how the StingRay works. This is exactly the reason that the founders of our nation created the fourth amendment. They didn’t envision cell phones in their time, but the poking and prodding into your personal business without your permission or even a warrant is most definitely a violation of your privacy.
Safe Cracking Robot
Reader G.P. sent in this Wired article on a man who built a safe cracking robot. Apparently, his wife bought a SentrySafe at a garage sale, but it was locked. Since he liked puzzles and robots (and already owned an identical safe that allowed him to see the inner workings), he built a robot that cracked the code in 15 minutes. He exploited several vulnerabilities that allowed him to significantly reduce the number of combinations it had to try from one million to just over a thousand.
Medical Guide
Reader A.D. sent in this link to a PDF of the Who (World Health Organization) International Medical Guide for Ships. This guide fits right in with the standard prepping guides of When there is no Doctor and When there is no Dentist.
Politics
You have heard that Soros and his ilk spend billions in bringing chaos to the world in support of their liberal-progressive agendas, but have you ever wondered how that money actually got spent? Or perhaps you actually thought all those protesters that you see on TV were people were passionate about issues? Actually, they are most passionate about their paycheck. Hey, how else is an unemployable snowflake going to get their money to purchase that iPhone 8 when it comes out? Thanks to G.P. for the link.
I think it’s clear with the new homosexual Beauty and the Beast that Disney is FAR from the company it’s founder intended, and will hopefully soon be on the list of company’s going under.
As for Wells Fargo, they’re such huge crooks I’m shocked anyone still banks with them.
A heads up on your privacy that this Wells Fargo issue reminded me.
I had a tennant in one of my commercial properties that went bankrupt. They had left behind years of records which included employee and customer information which included SSN’s and credit card information.
When I called the attorneys for the company, they told me to throw it all in the garbage. When I explained the sensitivity of the information that was left behind I was informed that when Solyndra went bankrupt a new precedence was legally set that did not require the proper disposal of senstive information. (Hopefully someone can tell me that these attorneys were full of s***!)
Luckily, the former manager of the office took all the records to properly destroy them even though he was no longer their employee.
I’m not an attorney, but I think these people were incorrect. The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act is a Federal privacy law that applies to financial institutions such as banking, insurance and investing companies. This law requires financial institutions to have policies in place to ensure the confidentiality of all customer records. I don’t believe the bankruptcy superseded these privacy policies that, if anything, should have been enforced even more so in the company’s vulnerable state of affairs. I personally have to re-certify annually in these privacy rules and regulations and know how serious the Feds and States view these. The former manager did the right thing as did you.