Every time I get a stomach virus and recover, I feel like I just won the lottery (that's what two days of sleep will do). Getting sick reminds us that nothing is permanent, which may be why I avoid it like the plague. Anyway, it's good to be alive. Even if I did have shovel the $*#?*! driveway today!

Caught a stomach bug or something yesterday. Somehow barfing your brains out seems appropriate today.

@WildEyedBoyFromFreecloud In my case, it's useful for letting the business world know that I published something. It's also useful for directly contacting a lot of executives who might otherwise be behind a gatekeeper.

I love that I've been on Mastodon more than 2 years now as my one and only social media platform (apart from LinkedIn, sorta), and I can say with some confidence that most of the accounts I'm interacting with are not bots, but instead are real live human beings with fascinating lives and interests. Thanks again everyone, and may we continue to enjoy this remarkable achievement for a long time to come.

@Teop_Versant fake news or no, addiction is addiction, and people will naturally consider VPNs as a solid workaround. Question is, will they uninstall what they installed that didn't work?

@Rob_T_Firefly some others have commented that some of the big carriers/cdns are helping block US users from VPNing around it.

@stevenixon Thanks. I really detest using anything on Forbes as a source, mainly because they offer so much paid content from so many crooks that you really can't tell what's actual journalism there anymore. Also the advalanche. Not to besmirch the author of that story, which I haven't and probably won't read.

@GossiTheDog @evacide That's very interesting. Makes sense. Also makes one wonder...

@stevenixon If you've found writeups on this, I'd love to see them. I'm guessing people will still try.

Human nature being what it is, it seems extremely likely that sometime today we will see millions of U.S.-based TikTok users installing some shady or "free" VPN software just to get around the ban.

So even though we banned TikTok, ostensibly for security reasons, we end up creating an even bigger security problem when millions of people install some app that can read and modify all traffic.

@evacide I predict this ban has the immediate effect of tens of millions of people suddenly installing some shady "free" VPN software on their mobile devices.

@0xabad1dea Good advice. I would still rather read black text on white background than anything else.

@nixCraft This is yet another space in the news industry that desperately needs quantifying. C'mon grad students! We need a bot that reports every day how many AI-generated stories run on the websites of major news outlets.

@paul_aman The image in this post is an ad posted on the phishing group's telelgram channel, not the phishing lure as it appears to targets.

Residents across the United States are being inundated with text messages purporting to come from toll road operators like E-ZPass, warning that recipients face fines if a delinquent toll fee remains unpaid. Researchers say the surge in SMS spam coincides with new features added to a popular commercial phishing kit sold in China that makes it simple to set up convincing lures spoofing toll road operators in multiple U.S. states.

"The ultimate goal of these kits, he said, is to phish enough information from victims that their payment cards can be added to mobile wallets and used to buy goods at physical stores, online, or to launder money through shell companies."

https://krebsonsecurity.com/2025/01/chinese-innovations-spawn-wave-of-toll-phishing-via-sms/

@n1xnx Tolerated. They know about them, because they're making bank. More on that in a bit, but it's fascinating how they're turning this data into cash.

@neil for better or worse, we still have a full feed: https://krebsonsecurity.com/feed/

@titon MasterCard's response. Not sure what else I expected them to say, but probably more precise to say there was a risk that's not there anymore, and there's no sign anyone exploited it until now.

"We have looked into the matter and there was not a risk to our systems. This typo has now been corrected."

Would you believe I get shit all the time from my journalist colleagues who think it's quaint or cute (or pathetic?) that I still write about Microsoft Patch Tuesday every month? It's really the only column that is regular, and I've been doing it as long as I can remember (all the way back to my early Security Fix days at The Washington Post). I guess that just makes me really old (get off my lawn!)

I still do it I think for the simple fact that this stuff is important, and its easy to not give any fscks about until stuff goes sideways. And let's be honest: People need reminding about it because nobody wants to do it.

Yeah, sure there's probably some nostalgia embedded here somewhere. But if you're a Windoze (ab)user (you know who you are) you kinda need to be paying attention every once in a while.

@ksaj @beyondmachines1 I came here to say this about the similarities to black fax attacks, which usually resulted in killing lots of trees and depleting your toner cartridge.