Category: Technology

SPAM Text Message – Public Service Announcement

Actual SMS text (iMessage) received by me

I wasn’t aware that the USPS used an iPhone with a phone number from the Philippines to notify residents of Cleveland, Ohio that they had a package waiting at customs.

H I

Also, the domain used as the link to check is know to 13 scanners as PHISHING and 1 as SUSPICIOUS ON virustotal.com: https://www.virustotal.com/gui/domain/trackwhqy.top

Don’t worry, my site is completely safe: https://www.virustotal.com/gui/domain/jasonlamb.me

Overall, be careful out there. A bunch of bad guys are always out there looking for unsuspecting victims to fall for their carefully constructed social engineered hack attempts.

I always encourage my coworkers, family, friends, and everyone I talk to, to make themselves a hard target. Be alert. Don’t click too fast. Set unique and complex passwords for EACH and EVERY account. Use a password manager.

“Attacks always get better; they never get worse.”

-Bruce Schneier

Question/Answer

How has technology changed your job?

Technology is my job. I literally wouldn’t have a career as an IT Manager if it weren’t for technology. I love what I do and it still challenges me daily. I have been able to experience may facets of the IT space in my 22 years. The first part was in the Army. Yes, my job was to setup phone and internet for other units and maintain that connection, but I also started web development and video editing on the side. I learned Photoshop and graphic manipulation. All these things, I taught myself. Instead of doing college courses in my spare time, I was creating images, videos, and web pages.

After the Army I was fortunate to jump right into corporate IT and take what I knew and truly expand my skills and knowledge through some certs, a little college, but mostly experience.

I’ve been asked many times how to start my career in IT. My answer is always, be willing to start from the bottom and work your way up. You may have all the book knowledge but thinking outside the box and customer service skills can’t be taught, they are learned from experience.

Technology is always changing and most people don’t see the little things. I believe the next big thing could be the NPU (Neural Processing Unit) which almost all computer manufacturers are including in their computers now. This will enable computers to offload some AI math skills to a new unit and free up the CPU/GPU for other things.

Historically doubling of size has always been huge. Usually an exponent of 2. Think RAM and HDD/SDD space. Think even flash drives. You used to think a 8mb flash drive was awesome. My 120gb Maxtor external USB 2 HDD was $111 at the PX in Germany. That was my first hard drive. It was almost $1/gb! ($92.5/gb) Now I’m adding 4tb (4000gb) extra m.2 SSD to laptops for $225. That’s 5.6 CENTS/gb ($0.05625/gb). Also that first Maxtor drive was 40mb/s and the m.2 is 5000mb/s transfer rate.

That’s how technology has changed my job.

Fake Recall Notice

I just got a news brief notification on my phone. It read, “about 2.2 million vehicles” and “nearly all Tesla EV models”… I wonder if they know of other Tesla models that are not EV?

https://www.foxbusiness.com/fox-news-auto/tesla-recalls-2-million-vehicles-us-warning-lights-issue – Elon Musk, chief executive officer of Tesla Inc., during a fireside discussion on artificial intelligence risks with Rishi Sunak, UK prime minister, not pictured, in London, UK, on Thursday, Nov. 2, 2023. (Tolga Akmen/EPA/Bloomberg via Getty Images / Getty Images)

CLICK BAIT, Thanks Fox Business and really any news publication that just released this story.

If a car or any electronic has the ability to push ‘OTA’ (Over-The-Air) updates via Wi-Fi or Cellular, then is it really considered a ‘recall’? They may have been forced to do it by the NTSB but a recall implies action on the end user to do something.

When I got a recall on my baby car seat, I was contacted by the manufacturer, I sent them a picture, my address, and a quick form and was sent a new base with the issue resolved. Arguably, a new component cost the company much more money then some code edits. I am not saying a Software Developer’s time is not valuable. I am saying it cost a company far more money to manufacture and ship a piece of hardware versus the time to code some software and push it out to all impacted users.

As my friend pointed out, if a software update was considered a recall then my iPhone and Microsoft Windows computer gets ‘RECALLED’ at least once a month…

https://www.foxbusiness.com/fox-news-auto/tesla-recalls-2-million-vehicles-us-warning-lights-issue