Sleepless in Midland

Marriott breached -- AGAIN!

It was in late 2018 that Marriott suffered a major breach: Revealed: Marriott's 500 Million Hack Came After A String Of Security Breaches:

On Friday, hospitality giant Marriott revealed a massive hack led to the theft of personal data of a whopping 500 million customers of its Starwood hotels.

To some onlookers the breach, one of the biggest on record, was astonishing. To those who’ve been tracking Marriott and Starwood digital security, it wasn’t a huge surprise. Prior to the four-year-old breach being discovered, Marriott suffered at least one previously unreported hack, including an infection that hit the company’s own cyber-incident response team, Forbes has learned. And there’s evidence Russian cybercriminals have breached Starwood Web servers.

Now we are hearing about another breach: Marriott International Notifies Guests of Property System Incident:

At the end of February 2020, the company identified that an unexpected amount of guest information may have been accessed using the login credentials of two employees at a franchise property. The company believes that this activity started in mid-January 2020. ...

At this point, the company believes that the following information may have been involved for up to approximately 5.2 million guests, although not all of this information was present for every guest involved:
-contact details (e.g., name, mailing address, email address, and phone number)
-loyalty account information (e.g., account number and points balance, but not passwords)
-partnerships and affiliations (e.g., linked airline loyalty programs and numbers)
-preferences (e.g., stay/room preferences and language preference)

One doesn't have to be paranoid to suspect that anything that gets put on the internet is hackable.

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3:27 PM 3/31/2020

Building a bigger wall - Gov Abbott expands list of excluded visitors to those arriving through border with Louisiana

Texas Governor Abbott is still at it. Last week Executive Order No. GA-11 mandated quarantine for travelers arriving at airports in Texas from New York, New Jersey, Connecticut or New Orleans.

He closed the roadway loophole with a new executive order GA-12 which expands the uninvited list to include the following:

Every person who enters the State of Texas through roadways from Louisiana,or from any other state as may be proclaimed hereafter, shall be subject to mandatory self-quarantine for a period of 14 days from the time of entry into Texas or the duration of the person’s presence in Texas, whichever is shorter.

Furthermore, his Proclamation of 3/30/2020 expanded the previous air travel order to include people arriving from the following cities and states:

State of California;
State of Louisiana;
State of Washington;
City of Atlanta, Georgia;
City of Chicago, Illinois;
City of Detroit, Michigan; and
City of Miami, Florida.

Don't mess with Texas.

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2:32 PM 3/30/2020

Build a wall -- Texas Governor orders people flying in from New York, New Jersey, Connecticut or New Orleans subject to mandatory 14 day quarantine and face fine or jail time for violation

This is huge.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed Executive Order No. GA-11 relating to airport screening and self-quarantine during the COVID-19 disaster which subjects airport entries to possible quarantine.

The press release can be found here: Governor Abbott Issues Executive Order Mandating 14-Day Quarantine For Travelers Arriving From New York Tri-State Area, New Orleans. Excerpt:

Those entering Texas as their final destination from the designated areas will use a form from DPS to designate their quarantine location. DPS special agents will conduct unannounced visits to designated quarantine locations to verify compliance. Failure to comply with this order is considered a criminal offense that is punishable by up to a $1,000 fine, up to 180 days in jail, or both.

And get this:

Each person covered under this order to self quarantine shall be responsible for all associated costs, including transportation, lodging, food, and medical care.

Don't mess with Texas.

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1:17 PM 3/29/2020

Fox Friday 3-27-20

Fog lights on bright.

Grabbing a bone.

Two views of the fox with the distinctive tail twist.

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2:38 PM 3/26/2020

A tale of two cities' libraries

Midland and Odessa are about 20 miles apart in West Texas. They have a lot in common and a lot of differences, but they are both great cities, and they both have good libraries.

Tuesday when I drove to the downtown branch of the Midland County Library to turn in a book I was surprised to see a sign telling visitors they were closed indefinitely due to the Coronavirus scare. Even the drop box for returned books was locked. The death the other day of a local Coronavirus victim must have inflamed a fear of the customer in them.

But fortunately, the Ector County Library in Odessa is still open. So I checked out a couple of books by J. Todd Scott to wile away the social distancing time. Mr. Scott has written a handful of novels, three of which involve a law enforcement officer in a sparsely populated Texas county near the Big Bend. The only one I've read so far was "The Far Empty" which was a engaging and entertaining book.

The other two, which I picked up Wednesday at the Odessa library, are "High White Sun," and "This Side of Night." I can't wait to get into them.

A love of West Texas probably helps a reader enjoy Mr. Scott's books. But there is at least one other author who writes similar crime novels set in other locales. One is Tom Bouman who writes novels about a law enforcement officer in rural Pennsylvania. The only one I've read so far is "Dry Bones in the Valley," which is quite good.

In any event, if you find yourself stuck in isolation waiting for the "all clear" those two authors can keep you entertained.

P.S. The Ector County Library takes a novel approach to the situation. They ask the customer to call their request into the library, and they will have the book(s) ready for the customer to minimize his/her time at the library. Smart idea.

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3:57 PM 3/25/2020

Cybercriminals try to extort money by threatening to infect family with Coronavirus

Paul Ducklin at Naked Security reported that their security team received a phishing attempt which threatened to infect the target's family with Coronavirus.

Apparently, as proof of the culprit's supposed knowledge of those dirty little secrets they divulge a password they copied from some public exposure of purloined passwords.

Anyway, it's a scam. But one has to wonder whether anyone in the target audience actually paid the ransom.

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12:57 PM 3/21/2020

Out of toilet paper? Dig into the rag bag

Most of us have bag of rags -- worn or torn garments that are unwearable but still have some value. Using them for butt wipes wasn't the idea, but in a toilet paper pinch those rags could be a workable alternative.

Remember cloth diapers? In the history of human development, disposable diapers are a new phenomenon. Before they came onto the market in the 1960s new mothers used cloth diapers. Washing them could have been a hassle, but with the modern washing machine and old fashioned bleach, it became a tolerable chore for the young mother of the day.

Flash forward to the Toilet Paper Panic of 2020 and that rag bag might have some real value. Just make sure the washing machine works.

Trivia: the first water proof diaper was invented by Marion Donovan in 1949 but it was over a decade later that Pampers became a child rearing necessity.

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2:28 PM 3/20/2020

Fox Friday 3-20-20

Same fox, same spot, different days.

Something in that direction sure had his attention. Maybe we need a second camera to capture the other side.

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1:27 PM 3/19/2020

The toilet paper panic of 2020 will rank right up there with the tulip mania of the 1600s

The run on toilet paper is the most unlikely phenomenon to come about due to the Corona virus threat. Why in the world would people raid the store shelves of the stuff?

This ranks right up there with the tulip mania described in the interesting book, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, whereby gullible people were bidding up the price of tulips simply because others wanted them.

Here's the funny part. There is no shortage of toilet paper nation wide. But the product just isn't in the stores. According to CBS, America has plenty of toilet paper. Stocking empty store shelves is the hard part. Transportation pipeline is where the choke point developed. They just can't get it from factory to store fast enough to satisfy the demand. And boy! Is there demand!

And those people slow to the game will wipe out the store shelves as soon as they are restocked. It could continue until every last person in the country has more than he/she has space to store it.

You can't reason with a panic.

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1:21 PM 3/18/2020

Short on toilet paper? Wipe your butt with newspaper.

We talked about the Spontaneous Hording Syndrome the other day. Seems the one thing people want almost as much as canned goods and bottled water is toilet paper. The store shelves are wiped clean of wiping paper.

I was about to carry out a stack of old newspapers when it hit -- a toilet paper alternative. Yeah, they aren't Charmin soft, but they would get the job done. There may be some old timers around who remember using pages out of a catalog for the job at hand.

Meanwhile, a curious item appeared in a recent edition of the Thrifty Nickel -- the free newspaper with nothing but advertisements.

Seems that someone was stealing Thrifty Nickels. They've even offered a reward for he culprit. Hmm. Why do you suppose someone would want a whole stack of those things?

I'm guessing they're for butt wipes.

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4:07 PM 3/17/2020

A stock market crash must make Democrats absolutely giddy

Secretly or not so secretly, Democrats must be hoping for a prolonged stock market slump.

Before the recent crash, some prognosticator said the best number to watch for election prediction was the Dow Jones Industrial average. If the DJIA was below 22000 at the time of the election, the Democrats would have a very good chance of winning.

By that measure, Democrats must be overjoyed about that possibility.

It's a shame that political power has such a draw that those out of power would tolerate misfortune of others if that's what it took.

Meanwhile, the market had a sizable rebound last Friday. We'll see if it lasts.

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3:17 PM 3/15/2020

A massive viral outbreak strikes the U.S. -- Spontaneous Hoarder Syndrome

There's a highly contagious condition spreading like wildfire. Store shelves are laid bare from rapidly spreading Spontaneous Hoarder Syndrome.

Crowds like the one at the Midland, Texas, Sam's Club Saturday morning were reminiscent of coastline city stores when hurricanes circulate off shore. People are stocking up, that's for sure.

This outbreak results from anticipation of a hermit like existence due to a quarantine for the duration of the Coronavirus scare.

Never mind that the closest reported case of Coronavirus is 300 miles away. The hoarding syndrome is contagious. And more people have caught it than will catch likely catch Covid-19.

Meanwhile, there were 51 cases of Covid-19 reported in Texas as of Noon Central, 3/14/20. Source: COVID-19 (new coronavirus).

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2:35 PM 3/14/2020

Fox Friday 3-13-20 Cats and foxes coexisting, sort of

That mean gray cat circles a timid fox.

The fox backed down.

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2:56 PM 3/12/2020

Is 14 day quarantine realistic after Covid-19 exposure?

A big part of the Coronavirus panic is likely caused by the fear of being subjected to 14 days of quarantine while symptom free. But it's entirely possible that 14 days is too long.

According to a study recently released about the average incubation time, the mean was 5–7 days while the median was 5.1 days. The report can be found at New Study on COVID-19 Estimates 5.1 Days for Incubation Period. Quote:

The analysis suggests that about 97.5 percent of people who develop symptoms of SARS-CoV-2 infection will do so within 11.5 days of exposure. The researchers estimated that for every 10,000 individuals quarantined for 14 days, only about 101 would develop symptoms after being released from quarantine. ...

The new estimate of 5.1 days for the median incubation period of SARS-CoV-2 is similar to estimates from the earliest studies of this new virus, which were based on fewer cases. This incubation period for SARS-CoV-2 is in the same range as SARS-CoV, a different human-infecting coronavirus that caused a major outbreak centered in southern China and Hong Kong from 2002–04. For MERS-CoV, a coronavirus that has caused hundreds of cases in the Middle East, with a relatively high fatality rate, the estimated mean incubation period is 5–7 days.

Via Study Finds.

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1:55 PM 3/11/2020

Adolf Tolkachev -- the billion dollar spy

My summer reading list last year included a number of books about cold war spies. While I may have written at this blog about some of those books, this one got neglected.

It's fact based story of Adolf Tolkachev, "The Billion Dollar Spy," by David Hoffman. Tolkachev was a Soviet scientist who undertook the dangerous task of supplying the CIA with secrets about Soviet research and accomplishments in weapon development.

Beginning in the late 1970s, he sneaked documents out of his top secret working area, took them home, photographed them, and got them back in place during his lunch time. It was a very risky project. And he eluded capture for a number of years.

But a traitor in the CIA named Edward Lee Howard ratted him out. Tolkachev was apprehended by the KGB and ultimately executed, presumably after they had extracted all the information they could out of him. A portrait of Tolkachev photographing documents hangs in CIA headquarters.

The billion dollars in the book title refers to the estimated amount of money he saved the U.S. from research made unnecessary by the materials he was able to share.

Related:
Author's website: David E. Hoffman;
Book Review | The Billion Dollar Spy;
The Billion Dollar Spy.

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3:04 PM 3/8/2020

Spring forward -- sigh -- why are we still doing this?

There is probably near universal support for an abolition of the twice yearly government mandated time change. It's a shame there are never enough representatives in favor of locking in a time. In Texas someone is always attempting to get the law changed. But like clockwork, those efforts wind down in committee.

In any event, the federal government would have to approve even if Texas lawmakers succeeded.

Maybe we need Sanctuary Time Zones whereby a state would set its time free of federal government rule.

Meanwhile, we all have to suffer this human caused jet lag just so we can somehow benefit from a dubious benefit of going back and forth an hour twice a year.

Related:
Here’s Why Health Experts Want to Stop Daylight-Saving Time;
LockTheClock - Stop Changing Clocks for Daylight Saving Time;
Changing clocks is bad for your health, but which time to choose?;
Florida voted to stop resetting clocks, so why are we doing it March 8?.

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1:48 PM 3/7/2020

Elizabeth Warren has her sights set on the VP slot

So Liz Warren dropped out of the race. If there's one thing we've learned about her, it's that she really knows how to game the system.

And her history tells us she has a game plan. Odds favor the plan of becoming Joe Biden's vice presidential pick.

As of the time of this writing, she has not thrown her weight to either Joe or Bernie. So we can presume that neither has offered her the slot on his ticket.

How long will Joe Biden hold off giving Warren what she wants? Could it be that he has already offered the spot to someone else?

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8:13 AM 3/7/2020

I question the timing of this NYT piece on Bernie Sanders' usefulness to the Soviet Union

Why now? The timing of this article about Sanders is curious. Titled, As Bernie Sanders Pushed for Closer Ties, Soviet Union Spotted Opportunity.

I've been wondering for a while now whether Bernie Sanders had a KGB code name like the British friend to the Soviets, Michael Foote -- KGB code named Agent Boot.

Sanders probably didn't reveal any secrets, but like Agent Boot, he could pass along information that would help the Soviets -- information that was in the public domain or that might not have been made public but which the Soviets might find useful.

As mayor of Burlington, Vt., Sanders sought and got "sister city" status with Yaroslavl, Russia. From the article:

“One of the most useful channels, in practice, for actively carrying out information-propaganda efforts has proved to be sister-city contact,” a Soviet Foreign Ministry document provided to Yaroslavl officials said.

It certainly doesn't makes Sanders look like a flag waving American -- it makes him look more like a Soviet useful idiot.

But why is the New York Times telling its readers this now? Joe Biden had a big day on Super Tuesday, and Sanders was left licking his wounds. To publish this piece about Sanders now hints that the New York Times is casting its lot to Joe Biden.

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3:22 PM 3/6/2020

Fox Friday 3-6-20

The bandit.

Notice the lines leading to his eyes.

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3:51 PM 3/5/2020

Free WiFi sources collect info, store it in cloud, sometimes carelessly

If you're one of those people suspicious of free WiFi services, here's an example of why you are right to be suspicious.

There's a slogan in use these days: If it's free, you are the product.

This article by the excellent Paul Ducklin titled, Why ‘free’ Wi-Fi isn’t really free tells an interesting tale. He refers us to an article with more detail: Free Wifi User Data Exposed in Multiple UK Train Stations. Here's a self explanatory excerpt:

On February 14th I discovered a non-password protected database that contained a massive amount of records totaling 146 million. Upon further review I was able to see connections to what appeared to be free wifi details in major UK train stations. I could see a large amount of records that contained email addresses, age ranges, what was the reason for their travel, device data, and other internal logs. There were references to a company called C3UK inside the database and multiple domains that contained some form of the name C3.

He notified the owner of the cloud service as well as the WiFi provider, and the sloppiness was corrected in short order. But the experience highlights the fact that those services will not always operate in a manner that "the product" -- you and me -- would appreciate.

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2:07 PM 3/4/2020

Mardi Gras -- a big clean up job after it's over

My only visit to Mardi Gras happened long ago during the last century. This item titled Local photographer captures cleanup of French Quarter in the hours after Mardi Gras Day brought back a couple of memories.

The first memory was a circumstance that should have been frightening, but for the alcohol. After a nighttime parade the crowd was ready to move, and it did. However, any individual within the crowd had no control over which way he/she went. The crowd was packed to tightly that it moved as a single unit. And if you were in it, you went with it whether you wanted to or not.

One sight stood out. One guy in the crowd had somehow worked his way up. Not forward, but up. His head was two or three feet above the crowd, and the crowd was just moving him along. He seemed quite content, but he was actually quite helpless. After seeing that, it was easy to believe any news item about someone being trampled by a crowd. As noted, it should have been scary but for the sedating effect of alcohol.

Speaking of alcohol, Boones Farm wine was a popular drink among parade goers at the time, probably because it was cheap. The alcohol vendors were ready for Mardi Gras, and they sold plenty of it.

The second memory coming to mind was a stroll around the parade area the next morning before the cleaning crews arrived. Empty Boones Farm bottles were everywhere! Glass bottles filled the gutters as far as the eye could see. It was almost as if New Orleans had flooded, not with water, but with empty bottles. It was an amazing sight.

Anyway, happy Mardi Gras!

The "I voted" sticker looks a little bit different this year

Yo vote'!

 

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2:22 PM 2/29/2020