The DMZ

12:00 AM

hmmm lava sand cleanairgardening.com/lava-sand.html... need to see if they have this here, that'd be great for some of my pot plants

Scott Pack

We have gobs of clay up in here.

D3C4FF

Syn!

Scott Pack

RST

D3C4FF

@TildalWave Ugh, Bat guano. I've spent way to much time crawling around in it...

@ScottPack )**&YHJO()*U&YHJ!!!!!

:(

@Adnan Glad to hear your breasts turned out juicy and tender!

2

Scott Pack

The good thing about stocking up on bat guano is that it's the material component for Fireball.

D3C4FF

12:08 AM

@ScottPack Fireball?

Scott Pack

@D3C4FF Arcane magic, though some priests can get it too. You shoot out a pea sized red ball that, when it reaches the target square, explodes into a 20 foot sphere of fire.

D3C4FF

@ScottPack O_o wut?

Scott Pack

d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/f/fireball

D3C4FF

@ScottPack where do i get some of this magic bat shit?

@ScottPack All is now clear...

Scott Pack

In previous editions it produced a specific volume of firey goodness. Which made shooting it into a room smaller than 20 cubic feet awfully exciting.

TildalWave

12:11 AM

@D3C4FF I thought you were just complaining about it, now you want it? Dude, get your nitrogen facts straight! :P

Scott Pack

Strictly speaking, you need both bat guano and sulfur...

D3C4FF

@ScottPack I can produce my own sulfur (at least in gaseous form)

TildalWave

@ScottPack yup, for gunpowder ... and some stabilizer like charcoal

Scott Pack

@TildalWave Nah, fireball don't need no charcoal.

TildalWave

@D3C4FF that would be surprising, unless you eat a lot of dried fruits or drink a lot of cheap wine

@ScottPack dunno for that, tho I'd dare guessing you'd need some gasoline or kerosene for it?

Scott Pack

12:19 AM

@TildalWave No, the only material components are bat guano and sulfur. There are still verbal and somatic. It's also a 3rd level spell so you need to put some dedication into it.

@TildalWave Cauliflower or onion.

TildalWave

@ScottPack Yes? Well it does make sense, but I doubt there's useful quantities of it there... and, least I remember it wrong from high school, that would probably be in one of sulfur's many forms that's unsuitable for explosives (IIRC, it's the beta sulfur that's used for that)

Scott Pack

Oh, probably not enough levels to be proper useful. There are, however, high enough levels to be identifiable!

TildalWave

@ScottPack oh those cherishable elevator moments, guessing who had what for lunch? :))

Oleg Ostroumov

12:42 AM

books, vegetables... how come you have a life? Aren't you supposed to research security?

TildalWave

12:58 AM

@OlegOstroumov well half of the time when you see some new exploit, you'd be reading it and then saying to yourself Ah that little bugger, I wanted to play with this idea before, but was busy reading a good book and chewing my carrots. Oh well, I'll can still write about getting around it then, since I'm so good at avoiding doing f*ck all anyway.. ;)

Scott Pack

2:02 AM

@TildalWave One time the wife brought home a San Andreas Fault (avalanchepizza.net/menu). That thing has more garlic on it than you could imagine. Whole cloves, mind.

@TildalWave I ended up eating on that for lunch 3 days in a row. By the second day, even hours after eating, she could smell the garlic oozing from my pores.

TildalWave

@ScottPack Wild garlic (bear leek) is good stuff if you don't like the smell of garlic but would enjoy its taste if it was milder. It should grow in your areas also, usually close to creeks at the edges of forests. Dunno how well know it is there in your stretches of the woods though, and is best if someone that knows it well picks it, it's easily mistaken with lily of the valley leaves, which are toxic and can grow together with wild garlic. It goes on pizza too, especially with mozzarella cheese

Scott Pack

@TildalWave Oh, I don't mind garlic at all. That pizza just had a nearly uncountable number of cloves. I think I had at least 2-3 cloves per bites. It was...awesome.

It probably would grow pretty well here, then. Some of our friends have a garlic farm, might be worth asking about.

TildalWave

@ScottPack Oh I believe you, I just thought to give you an idea of how to enjoy garlic so others can still be able to enjoy your company too ;)

Scott Pack

That...was a bit much.

We had a parent teacher conference a few days after. Katie swore up and down that I smelled of alcohol. Sitting in a relatively closed room at 10am with your 4 year old's teachers (one of whom was pregnant) thinking you smelled of liquor? That was a bit discouraging.

Ramp is something else similar that's on the opposite end of the spectrum. It's more onion than garlic, but has an insanely strong smell/flavor.

TildalWave

2:18 AM

@ScottPack hehe well I said it because I know exactly what you're talking about and I sometimes have this rush for garlic too, even in kitchen, doing all kinds of stuff with it, like béchamel sauces with it for veggies or tuna sauce for pasta

@ScottPack yup ramp is also one of those early spring greens that almost seem like nature provides for us to get rid of toxins we accumulated during winter ... and the best part of it is it's all laying there for free and anyone to pick, if you just bother to

Scott Pack

I seriously need to do more actual cooking.

I've actually been having a hankering to make a Hot Brown lately. It uses a mornay sauce.

TildalWave

@ScottPack damn just wiki-ed and that looks like a major coronary blockage LOL

Scott Pack

Look past the health aspects. It's amazaballs.

TildalWave

I got an idea looking at it tho... ricotta cheese with chives, sweet cherry tomatoes and grilled eggplant stripes. I might do it for brunch

Scott Pack

2:34 AM

You should totally Instagram that.

TildalWave

@ScottPack that's where missus comes in usually ;)

Scott Pack

So we've always been trying our hand at minor gardening, but we've been fairly stunted by the prevalence of deer in our yard.

We just put an offer down on a house, so assuming that gets accepted and everything goes through, I may be building us some raised beds in a nicely fenced area.

TildalWave

2:48 AM

@ScottPack we have a garden a bit away from the house on a rented slot, and just put empty beer cans on top of some sticks to move freely in the wind... deer and rabbits and similar don't like that sound for some reason

Was reading this How To Make Ricotta Cheese. I think I'm covered for today what I'll be spending my time on :)

Scott Pack

Our property is pretty well perfect for deer. We, and the neighbors, share a hedge that encloses our yards on 3 sides, we effectively back up against the woods.

In fall and through winter it's not uncommon for deer to sleep in our backyard between the swingsets.

Hell, a couple of months ago, I was standing on the front porch unlocking the door at lunch and this deer looked up at me, not 15 feet away, with a look that seemed to say, "What the fuck are you doing here?"

TildalWave

Scott Pack

I'm fair positive I've never seen anything quite that adorable before.

TildalWave

Talking of deers, this was shot by some friends of ours in Bucharest that run an animal shelter

Badger Girl

That is the cutest thing ever.

Scott Pack

2:57 AM

Those look like hungry kitties.

TildalWave

Yup we've also been running shelters in Romania, but at the seaside ... it's photos like this that make a huge difference in raising funds that in turn help save these animals, usually end up being adopted in some other countries. I guess people get all soft and feel the need to help then, but it also helps to get the message across the other way, because would be supporters or adopters see you're actually really doing something there (it's not unheard of, that some would be merely pretending)

5

A: How can photographers support non-profit charity organizations?

As a volunteer and a co-founder of an animal rescue team, I've done a lot of photography of cats and dogs that were in shelters we ran. Some of these photos were later put to good use in finding suitable permanent homes for our sheltered animals, and the initial impression would-be adopters get f...

Scott Pack

Give that fawn a few more months, or a year, to fatten up and you'll really be helping someone.

TildalWave

@ScottPack Well they don't really make for a particularly good pets, that's true. But when you're doing such things, people tend to notice and come to you with all kinds of problems to solve. I've been saving a seagull once because our neighbour there didn't know what to do with it after it broke its wings in a fight with his car it flew into.

Scott Pack

I assume seagull tastes like fish.

TildalWave

@ScottPack I honestly wouldn't know, but they would swallow anything I can tell you that much. It's a problem, because for example discarded plastic lighters look similar to squid that they'd eat.

TildalWave

4:10 AM

@AviD re that tag name, how about time-event or chronological-event? Or even life-changing-event?

Stack Exchange

4:26 AM

I may be the kind of person who wastes a year implementing a Turing-complete computer in Dwarf Fortress, but that makes you the kind of person who wastes ten more getting that computer to run Minecraft.

Terry Chia

@StackExchange Damn, that's funny.

Especially the caption.

TildalWave

5:16 AM

morning @Terry ;)

Terry Chia

@TildalWave Morning.

Dammit, this is funny. what-if.xkcd.com/36

TildalWave

5:37 AM

Blimey that NSA question hit 15k from what, a few k views just yesterday? And not much change in votes during this time. Someone put it on Facebook, or what?

this.josh

6:02 AM

The NSA is popular. Thats how people know bad things are happening.

If Google collects and analyzes phone numbers and who you talk to and for how long they just call it Google Voice (google.com/voice).

2

Terry Chia

@this.josh It says a lot about the Americans if they prefer a spy agency that fails at spying. I mean.. it's like they want incompetent people in charge you know? ;)

this.josh

Oh they do, but only when it comes to themselves, obviously they need smarter spys for the real bad guys.

Of course the problem comes from thinking that large agencies are monolithic...

TildalWave

@this.josh to me the most surprising is that this is still surprising to people, or the fact that they didn't want warrants to collect information (they can do that like it or not), but to be able to later use it in any proceeding

this.josh

6:19 AM

The American's lack imagination. The agencies only use covert programs to keep their budgets down.

TildalWave

and people seem to still fail to realize how such data is used, mostly because they have problems understanding how many of different data layers are processed simultaneously and to what effect

AviD

@TildalWave "life-event" perhaps, but I doubt that would help much for searchability.

this.josh

Its because it is not centrally coordinated that people don't find it threatning

AviD

@RoryAlsop any ideas? we're talking about some form of tag for like death, and other similar types of events...

TildalWave

feed all this data to a few highly specialized AI and observe interesting conclusions coming out of it

Terry Chia

6:21 AM

@AviD @RoryA is probably old friends with death.

TildalWave

I've been doing such stuff for a 2M population govt 10 years ago, and Americans still think it's not possible today LOL

AviD

@TerryChia I think he's in his band...

this.josh

I like the Netflix challenge de-anonymization paper as a nice parable about unintended data consequences.

TildalWave

frankly, it wouldn't hit me as too surprising NSA has access to quantum computers that can crack any RSA faster than you can say I want biscuits

Terry Chia

@TildalWave I think Dan Brown did quite a bit of accurate research on the capabilities of NSA.

4

this.josh

6:24 AM

Why buy quantum when you can rent? dwavesys.com/en/dw_homepage.html

Quantum is already here. The question is not when, but how much

TildalWave

@TerryChia look at it this way, in any other industry, we get to first hear of stuff that top secret government organisations have been using for at least 20 years already... this is not a secret btw and it's been well researched, and can be verified by looking at pretty much anything that we use and checking their history and where original research was sponsored from, or suddenly disappeared for a few decades then reappeared all of a sudden to become a hit.

so why wouldn't that be the same for IT industry?

it's true for textile industry, manufacturing facilities, materials research, navigation, aeronautics, space industry,... you name it. They probably even sit on a recipe for yogurt that we'll all be eating in 10-20 years time to extend our lives 2-fold, or something as crazy as that (might not be yogurt mind you LOL)

this.josh

Grant code 'MDA904' - National Security Agency wikileaks.org/wiki/On_the_take_and_loving_it

TildalWave

@this.josh these surfer boys invented waterboarding?

this.josh

Yes. Covert CIA-funded torture research, same page

TildalWave

@AviD how do questions like this NSA one reflect on new member registration numbers?

this.josh

6:39 AM

However my all time favorite is google.com/hostednews/afp/article/…

TildalWave

@this.josh yup and they simply love corrupt governments around the world... the more corrupt, the faster new mcdonalds are suddenly appearing there to support their eating habits (seen it first hand in Bucharest). If they can buy it, they'll be loving it.

this.josh

The dirty secret is that most people are greedy and selfish and will tolerate quite a bit if they are suitably accommodated.

AviD

@TildalWave I'll take a look later, but usually questions like this pull in a lot of new users, several day peak on views, then settle back down to a bit higher than it was before. so a small percent actually stick around.

@TildalWave I love yogurt. Yogurt's my favorite. Give me yogurt.

►

TildalWave

@AviD was just reading how to make it. I knew already a bit but this article chefinyou.com/2013/06/raw-milk-yogurt gave me great ideas that I need to try out

AviD

@this.josh That's a secret? Worst.Kept.Secret.Evar.

this.josh

6:50 AM

@AviD People find it convenient to 'forget'.

AviD

hehe, best line ever in that clip: "Why won't you give me food? You're scottish, fry something!"

TildalWave

morality is one of the cheapest commodities... can't afford to buy? then start selling your own and profit with it.

@AviD oh that's where I remember it from

hey @tylerl thanks for those last few comments, they were helpful ;)

tylerl

@TildalWave did I say something?

TildalWave

@tylerl in the Q&A ... suggestion for shell sources, remember?

tylerl

oh, right.

@TildalWave I'd also like to reiterate that I'd recommend caution dealing with code that you know comes from malicious individuals.

TildalWave

6:59 AM

@tylerl sure, I put on my surgical gloves, no worries ;)

tylerl

lol

Terry Chia

@tylerl Why use caution? YOLO and all. :)

AviD

@TerryChia YOYOLOLO

@TerryChia collegehumor.com/video/6786228/new-yolo-slang-words

Terry Chia

@AviD heh, saw that one already.

Looking at our migrate stats, it amuses me that SU is basically our dumping ground for crappy questions.

Rory Alsop

7:16 AM

@AviD - Scots can and will fry anything. It's not like we are a race susceptible to heart attacks or anything.

AviD

@RoryAlsop hehe, exactly!

then of course, there's this ode to fat Americans everywhere

Rory Alsop

@terry I'm kinda hoping not to be friends with death for some time yet.

AviD

@RoryAlsop you can make death your bitch.

Adnan

10:19 AM

I meant unique and non-predictable IV per each encrypted record. This will produce different ciphertext for each of your empty plaintexts and solve your problem of relaying the information of which field is empty and which not even if you used encryption (but same key + IV) on all records. IV does not necessarily have to be a secret, as long as it's unique and non-predictable (i.e. random, at least to the would-be attacker) ;) — TildalWave 39 mins ago

@TildalWave How does that relate to the question?

AviD

10:53 AM

Snowbears!

Terry Chia

@AviD Must be @ThomasPornin enjoying his holiday.

AviD

@TerryChia so thats why we havent heard from him lately. He's stuck on the skilift.

TildalWave

11:10 AM

You realize how much new information that's relevant to your question I've just dug out of you in these comments? Changing both the nature of the question and of a possible answer? CBC mode, per field random IV. And why go the long way around of asking a theoretical question? I now wonder, is there's any more, or can start answering? — TildalWave 2 mins ago

How could it?

Tho I still fail to see how it doesn't. I know... odd. But you see, he says he has a random IV on each field. What I said is he should have a unique and non-predictable (yup, random will do) IV per record. That's a lot of differences there.

Adnan

@TildalWave I think I'll disagree with you. IMO, the question was obviously asking about known-plaintext. He's not worried about distinguishing which field is empty and which field isn't (for that, your comment about IV makes sense, but he's not asking about that).

TildalWave

@Adnan how would you know which ciphertext is encrypted from an empty value, if IV changes for each of them?

Adnan

@TildalWave You can't (or at least, you shouldn't be able to). That's exactly why it obvious that the question is about known-plaintext attacks

If you notice something in the question

> but one of the fields only contains data in a minority of cases

TildalWave

@Adnan and it wasn't obvious to me until he actually said that in the 2nd comment. There were all kinds of possible questions there before all information about it was disclosed and actual question asked.

Adnan

meaning that the majority of the rows have that field as empty.

he's worried that if the attacker has this information (that field is empty with a very high probability) then he's compromising his schema by means of known-plaintext attacks.

@TildalWave It's alright. We all have tens of different opinions. What you see is different from what I see, I mean it's normal. So I guess you could be right

There might some other question here or there.

TildalWave

11:24 AM

@Adnan look I don't doubt that you know just as much about it if not more than me... but I actually had another comment there that I deleted later, because I noticed he is one of those 90% done never finished type of men... read again his question, then add all his comments to it, then open that first link to Wiki and tell me to which question (of many, ever changing in time) it failed to provide a good answer in the first two paragraphs... you'll see what I mean

TildalWave

11:34 AM

@Adnan ...or dunno, maybe I'm just not conveying my thoughts properly today... but I doubt he'll ever dig crypto if he's prone to cutting corners so much. You really don't want one that's lazy doing it, I've seen it many times and it never ended up well.

Terry Chia

@AviD Or maybe the NSA got to him.

Adnan

@TildalWave Oh come on! Dave is a great guy! :D

TildalWave

@Adnan please, take my crystals out, I feel like singing daisies

TildalWave

12:02 PM

"On the other hand, if I encrypt the empty field, most of the time I am giving a potential attacker a known plaintext." Not, if you care to read the difference in what I said before, and what you said how you're currently doing it. You understand the difference between a field and a record, I presume? And the difference between random and unique? How would the attacker know which record is empty (and with it a known plaintext) for that field in question, if it's using unique IV per each record (not field!)? And let's assume I still don't get it, did @Adnan fail to get it too? — TildalWave 18 mins ago

Adnan

@TildalWave Yaaay :D I guess I failed as well.

@TildalWave Wanna go for a beer?

TildalWave

@Adnan yes please

I'm buying

Adnan

@TildalWave Yeah, sure! You pay 1 euro for 10 beers in Slovenia, but when you come to Finland I'd have to pay 12 euros for 2 beers. Not fair!

TildalWave

@Adnan damn, my pans are soiled!

Terry Chia

@TildalWave Wash them.

Stack Exchange

12:12 PM

Stack Exchange Security Blog: QoTW #47: Lessons learned and misconceptions regarding encryption and cryptology

roryalsop on June 10, 2013

This one is a slightly different Question of the Week. Makerofthings7 asked a list-type question, which generally doesn’t fit on the Stack Exchange network, however this question generated a lot of interest and some excellent answers containing a lot of useful information, so it is probably worthwhile posting an excerpt of that content here. If you are a budding cryptographer, or a developer asked to implement a crypto function, read these guidelines first!

D.W., one of our resident high-rep cryptographers provided a number of the highest scoring answers. …

TildalWave

@TerryChia it's beer (a lot of it) talk for plans are foiled :P but why am I explaining this? you go get your own beer, we'll be on the same level then and can start talking about the serious stuff like football / women / cars / who gets the next order, you know - the pint of life.

Terry Chia

@TildalWave heh

0

Q: What are the security implications of using TOTP for single factor authentication?

(Note: I am not actually planning to do this. This question is strictly theoretical.) TOTP is commonly used as the second factor in Two Factor Authentication. It is an open standard with available implementations in multiple programming languages and platforms. There is an easy to use client app...

Boom, a question for you guys.

Terry Chia

12:37 PM

WTF: iPad + fake USB keyboard used to bypass lockscreen, because there is no time delay if you use a USB keyboard for entering the passcode?

Tweeted by i0n1c on June 10, 2013 at 12:34 PM

Ouch.....

Simon

12:59 PM

God, it sucks when your modem is all set up but you still have to wait for them add its MAC address to their white list. Slowpoke ISP.

TildalWave

@TerryChia you got an answer, is there more to add?

Terry Chia

@TildalWave Dunno, would like to see someone go more in-depth though. I mean, the seed is basically a replacement for the hashed password. The problem is that the seed is stored in the client app, but I have a gut feeling it's more secure there and harder to get a hold off than having weak passwords or passwords written down somewhere.

TildalWave

I wanted to answer that technically you're proposing using what you have instead of what you know, but it's already covered in that answer really short and elegant.

i.e. I like the answer there

Terry Chia

@TildalWave That's fair enough. :) I'll just leave the question there for a few days in case anyone else wants to weigh in. Like I said, it's just a theoretical thing I thought about randomly.

TildalWave

@TerryChia yes I dig that and sure, let it simmer maybe you get a nice poem by the bear or something else worth reading :)

Ladadadada

1:16 PM

smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=3005#comic

Xander

1:32 PM

@Ladadadada Ha. Politicians - The truly elite social engineers.

4

Terry Chia

1:45 PM

Why does the #NSA collect all your bits? Because they never metadata they didn't like.

Tweeted by SecurityHumor on June 7, 2013 at 8:07 PM

This is funny.

Adnan

2:05 PM

@TerryChia So it's possible to automate, right?

Terry Chia

@Adnan Dunno, no more tweets from Stefan about it. I'm guessing he meant one of those HID though.

Terry Chia

2:55 PM

Just bought my PyCharm license. Yay!

Xander

@ScottPack In your face! security.stackexchange.com/review/first-posts/stats

Adnan

@TerryChia How much was it?

Scott Pack

@Xander Mother fuckers.

Terry Chia

@Adnan Just 30 USD. I got the academic license.

Xander

@ScottPack :-P

Scott Pack

2:59 PM

I've also been slipping in the vote stats

Terry Chia

@Xander Damn! They don't seem to show up in my queue...

Adnan

@TerryChia Sweet!

Scott Pack

@TerryChia They only show up in the queue if they're in the queue when you look.

@TerryChia Things like close and reopens stick around for a while, others not so much.

@Xander Looks like it's time to fix my voting position.

Terry Chia

@ScottPack Well, time to obsessively refresh my reviews page 24/7....

Adnan

@TerryChia Write us a script that would constantly check the review queue and ping us on the chat.

Terry Chia

3:03 PM

@Adnan That sounds like work. I know @ScottPack likes to work.

Scott Pack

You know me. I'm all about the development.

/me goes back to filling out deployment documentation

Terry Chia

@ScottPack Make sure it's written in python.

Scott Pack

Pashaw. All my webapps are written in COBOL generating LISP.

Adnan

@TerryChia But you know, Zirak's Bot already has most of the stuff. I think you only need a couple of Ajax calls.

@Terry github.com/Zirak/SO-ChatBot

Terry Chia

@ScottPack Who do you think you are?!?! @RoryAlsop?!?!

Xander

3:06 PM

@ScottPack Bring it on!

Ben Brocka

Thought some here would find this amusing and/or horrifying:

Nothing To Hide

@_nothingtohide, Oceania

These upstanding citizens have nothing to hide & neither should you.

895 tweets, 939 followers, following 4 users

Xander

3:28 PM

@BenBrocka I find it to be fairly typical of the mainstream thought process, or lack thereof.

Ben Brocka

@Xander Still terrifying to see all in one place

Scott Pack

I like how the background is a field of sheep.

Ben Brocka

Wonder if these people post their credit card numbers and passwords on Facebook too

Xander

@BenBrocka Yup. It's not reassuring, for sure.

Debit Card

@NeedADebitCard

Please quit posting pictures of your debit cards, people.

203 tweets, 12.3k followers, following 0 users

@ScottPack LOL..I hadn't even noticed that. How fitting.

Iszi

@BenBrocka I'd love to see what those people would say if PRISM was ever actually breached, and the available personal data leaked publicly.

Xander

3:36 PM

@Iszi There would be 5 minutes of fuss, and then it would go away. People don't care until they're personally and persistently affected. For instance, people who have their identity data stolen don't tend to care until it's used...Then they really care.

ManishEarth

@Xander Wow, that's pretty stupid

Isn't there a PIN or something though?

Xander

@ManishEarth Stupid is average.

Scott Pack

@ManishEarth Not if you use it as a credit card. Only if you use it as a debit.

Iszi

@ScottPack Then you've gotta have the verification code on the back, though.

Scott Pack

@Iszi Only if they ask for it.

@Iszi And some cards have it on the front.

Iszi

3:39 PM

@ScottPack Any reputable sales front will. Of course, that requires an assumption.

Xander

@ScottPack @Iszi Yup, bought something yesterday that didn't. An SSL cert, in fact.

ManishEarth

@ScottPack Huh? What's the difference? <--- I'm still young, not had either yet. ATM cards are good enough for me.

Scott Pack

@Iszi The verification code isn't required by the processor. The merchants generally get a discount on the processing fees if they require the CVV code.

@ManishEarth Almost all debit cards can be processed as either a debit or as a credit. Both of which will be billed directly to the account tied to that card.

@ManishEarth I'm not sure what the back-end difference is, but running as a debit requires a PIN, but credit does not.

ManishEarth

@ScottPack Ah, I see

Iszi

@ScottPack Though, strictly speaking, ATM Card != Debit Card.

However, if it's just an ATM Card then it can't be used for payment anyway.

Scott Pack

3:41 PM

@Iszi Hence the "Almost all" phrase.

ManishEarth

Ah, when you said "use as debit" you meant using it at an ATM

Scott Pack

It used to be the case that you had an ATM card separate from your debit card.

ManishEarth

My ATM card isn't a debit card. That's why I got confused :P

Scott Pack

@ManishEarth That's pretty rare in the US these days.

ManishEarth

So when you mentioned debit cards being used as credit/debit, I imagined two separate machines for swiping credit and debit cards

@ScottPack Ah

Scott Pack

3:43 PM

Here you generally have one card that is a combined ATM and Debit. If you use it for purchases (separate from an ATM) you are given the option of having the merchant process it as a credit card or as a debit card.

ManishEarth

OK

So there's some unknown backend difference in that. Transaction fees maybe?

Xander

@ScottPack @ManishEarth When you use it as debit, it gets processed through an EFTPOS network (STAR, Pulse, etc.) and when you use it as credit, it gets processed through the credit card network (VISA, MasterCard, etc.)

ManishEarth

Because afaict debit cards always debit. You're never borrowing money with a debit card.

Scott Pack

@ManishEarth Same terminal. In most cases if you swipe a credit card it goes through normally. If you swipe a debit it'll say something like, "Enter PIN or press Cancel to use as credit."

Xander

@ManishEarth Yes, fees are very different between the networks.

Scott Pack

3:45 PM

@ManishEarth And, similarly, if you run a debit card as credit you're not borrowing money, it still goes against your bank account.

Iszi

@ScottPack "goes through normally..." or prompts you for that super-secret PIN known as your ZIP code.

Scott Pack

@Iszi That's true. More places are doing that, but for me it's a minority. I see it as gas pumps more than I do stores.

Iszi

@ScottPack Mostly gas pumps here, too. Now and then it shows up somewhere odd.

Scott Pack

Ugh. This Tenable Appliance backup is taking much longer than I thought it would.

ManishEarth

@Xander ohhh, the network. Makes sense

@ScottPack oic.

Scott Pack

3:47 PM

@Iszi I've seen some department stores that ask for the zip, but yeah, it's quite random.

ManishEarth

I really should start doing more grownup stuff. Like spending money.

Scott Pack

@ManishEarth I wouldn't recommend it. Being a grown up sucks.

5

ManishEarth

Ha!

Ben Brocka

@Iszi Hey they didn't have anything to hide so it's totally fine if their information is public amirite

We're posting checks today, wonder if the NSA knows...

Iszi

@BenBrocka Precisely. I just want to see that theory tested.

Know what I really love? How most of the service providers involved in PRISM switched to HTTPS not too long ago. "Yeah, we use HTTPS so your traffic to us is protected... except from the government, 'cause we're totally okay with them seeing all of your stuff."

Xander

3:51 PM

@ManishEarth Hang onto that money. If you're going to be a grown-up, you're going to need it for bills. And retirement savings. And taxes.

ManishEarth

Good point

Scott Pack

@Xander Especially taxes.

And down payments.

Xander

@ScottPack Troof.

Iszi

And women.

Xander

@Iszi And kids. Maybe kids next to taxes.

ManishEarth

3:52 PM

@Xander One hitch: I don't have any money. Unlike the US, where you basically earn your keep once in college, in India the norm is that parents support you for a little more time.

Scott Pack

Yeah. Kids are expensive.

I can't wait for this one to get into public school.

ManishEarth

So I don't earn, and I don't spend (except on food)

Scott Pack

@ManishEarth Kids earn their keep once they hit college? When did that happen?!?

Ben Brocka

@Iszi Also many of these "nothing to hide" people seem upset that this was leaked. If the government is doing nothing wrong...doesn't it have nothing to hide?

Scott Pack

@ManishEarth There's actually a growing epidemic where kids are still living with their parents into their late 20s, or longer.

Xander

3:53 PM

@BenBrocka Ha ha.

ManishEarth

@ScottPack Well, much more than here. Kids actually work for pocket money in the US. And then do part time jobs/etc in college.

Terry Chia

@ManishEarth So do you fight with your parents over seat warmers for your new BMW?

ManishEarth

Over here it's illegal to work till you're 18 (child labor laws)

Though I grew up in the States, so I've done some work at my dad's company and earned moolah.

Scott Pack

@ManishEarth My experience in college is that at most half the kids have a job, and most of those are 20 hour week gigs for the University that is part of their financial aid package.

ManishEarth

@TerryChia lol no

Terry Chia

3:55 PM

TBBT reference in case anyone didn't get that. ;)

ManishEarth

@ScottPack Oh right that too. College in the US is expensive. Not so much here.

@TerryChia I did, fortunately :P

Scott Pack

@ManishEarth It can be, yeah. My undergrad was cheap, and I got half tuition since my father was faculty.

ManishEarth

ah

Terry Chia

If anyone is a fan of NPH, I find this pretty cool.

►

Scott Pack

@ManishEarth It looks like my alma is charging $3749/semester for full time enrollment for Kentucky residents (slightly more than double that if you're not a resident).

ManishEarth

3:58 PM

That's not that bad.

I think Boston U is 50k per something. Where something is year or 4yr program

Scott Pack

BU?

ManishEarth

^ fixed

Scott Pack

Ah, yeah. Private schools are scary expensive

Wow, I just looked at the housing rates. You could just about double your price by living on campus.

ManishEarth

Wow

In my institute it's Rs 40k/sem, with <10k of that being hostel fees

($1~Rs 50)

@ScottPack Why does housing cost so much?

Or are they spacious rooms?

Scott Pack

@ManishEarth No clue, and not at all. By spec the rooms (for the dorms I lived in) are 13'x11' double occupancy. Each floor had one, or two, bathrooms depending on size.

ManishEarth

4:05 PM

@ScottPack Smaller than my room. But about the same size as the other rooms here.

Scott Pack

@ManishEarth I got really lucky and managed to get a room to myself for two years. I put down that I was a smoker who didn't want to live with another smoker.

ManishEarth

@ScottPack Ha!

Didn't they raise an eyebrow on that?

Scott Pack

meh

Iszi

Is anyone else mildly bothered by this? Comcast turns home modems into public Wi-Fi hotspots

There's unverified claims that Brighthouse does this also.

If they'd give us the choice, I'd just as soon use a cable modem that doesn't have Wi-Fi built in. I have my own Wi-Fi router behind it, anyway.

Ooh! New niche market! Faraday cages for cable modems!

Terry Chia

@Iszi IF the thing is appropriately secured I can't say I would be bothered if something like this happens to me.

Iszi

4:14 PM

@TerryChia Do you really trust your ISP's little black box?

Terry Chia

@Iszi Trust as in trust that they are competent enough to do it right or trust as it "stop spying on my data bitches!"?

Xander

@Iszi Another reason to use your own equipment.

Terry Chia

Can't say I'm that fussed either way. I know I should be using a VPN for anything I need to keep secret anyway. Plus my ISP provides a simple modem, I have to use my own router.

Iszi

@TerryChia Harder to get that around here, these days. Especially with the super-high-speed packages, the ISP really wants you to use their equipment and insists it be Wi-Fi capable.

@TerryChia I trust neither. Especially after I've had an ISP back-door my (their) router while I was on the phone with them, despite my expressed disapproval.

Terry Chia

@Iszi It's actually the opposite for me. Up till a few months ago I had to use my ISP provided router. Now they are insisting we get our own routers.

Ben Brocka

4:36 PM

Its not as if the NSA were mass downloading articles from JSTOR.

Tweeted by ShammaBoyarin on June 10, 2013 at 12:54 AM

AviD

4:53 PM

the ISP's here all do the same stupid crap. required equipment, backdoors, resetting configs, etc. And we have to overpay for that pleasure.

@Iszi the main infrastructure provider here (not the ISPs themselves) also implemented that wifi hotspot scheme. They limit use to only those who've signed up their own routers to it, so if you ignore security and abuse it actually is a very cute idea.

Adnan

@BenBrocka This is actually sad.

1

Q: Somebody bumped into me, next day my storage unit was burglarized

While I was walking in the street, somebody carrying a laptop bag bumped into me, and the next day I found out that my storage unit was burglarized and some important items were stolen. My storage unit door uses a magnetic-stripe card without a PIN, and I have several important items there. The ...

physical

Off-topic/NC?

Xander

@Adnan I'd say it's as on-topic as any of the physical security questions / ATM questions.

Adnan

@Xander Oh, well it kind of makes sense. I think you're right.

Antony Vennard

8:49 PM

@AviD firewall between you and them. Only way!

TildalWave

14

Q: Somebody bumped into me, next day my storage unit was burglarized

While I was walking in the street, somebody carrying a laptop bag bumped into me, and the next day I found out that my storage unit was burglarized and some important items were stolen. My storage unit door uses a magnetic-stripe card without a PIN, and I have several important items there. The ...

physical

Antony Vennard

i.e. put untrusted device on the outside of your firewall...!

TildalWave

Can we please protect this question? ^^

AviD

@AntonyVennard right... but then what connects the firewall to the ISP? This is modem equipment we're talking about...

oh yeah, and voip boxes, too.

@TildalWave is it being noobswamped?

Scott Pack

O HAI GIZE

Antony Vennard

8:50 PM

@AviD your network with the right routes -> firewall -> modem. Simples!

TildalWave

@AviD well it's been answered several times and more than sufficiently so... and there's already one answer I'd rather flag to be converted to a comment

AviD

@TildalWave oh, oh yeah it is. Protected.

TildalWave

@AviD cheers

AviD

@AntonyVennard right, basically use their devices for modem only. Exactly.

they push their modem as a router, had to fight to get it modem-only (cheaper that way...)

still pisses me off.

Antony Vennard

@AviD Yep. I do that here. We have a BT HomeHub thing. Firstly, it screws up DNS by adding search domains to the DHCP responses. Secondly, its got all kinds of remote access your cat (or whatever) attached to it.

AviD

8:52 PM

especially anytime there is a problem, first thing we do is spend 20 minutes while he tries to connect to my router, all the while I'm explaining to him that he can't, and anyway I dont want him to.

kind of the current version of "first reboot".

then he goes and checks their systems, and oh yeah we fudged up.

Antony Vennard

Actually, if I'm honest, I'd like to run my HomeHub over with a tank. Unfortunately I don't arrange the internet where I live. Yet. Currently.

AviD

oh, and dont get me started on the voip box.

Antony Vennard

@AviD Yeah. Sometimes supplied kit just sucks. Oh did I say sometimes? Sorry, almost always.

Xander

@AviD Re: the death tag...My vote would be for something along the line of estate-planning or succession-planning

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