dbgrandi

iTunes store incentives

I've been buying more and more music from iTunes lately. Surprisingly, I have been buying a lot more albums lately. I used to mostly buy singles. I would like to go back now and get the whole album for some of the songs I already bought a single off of. What I think apple should do is deduct the price of the first song I got from the price of the album. That provides a financial incentive for me to purchase the whole album after getting hooked on a single song. Or perhaps you found out about the tv shows and other video that they now offer on the store. Let's say that you buy the first episode of Lost and like it. You like it so much that you figure you'll be interested enough to watch the rest of the season and purchase it. That would be an easier upsell because tv shows in a series like that are related, so people could actually get hooked after watching the first show or two.

Top 5 Most Influential Live Music Performances

I got stressed at work today, so I took a little time out to put together my very own top 5 list. I have a whiteboard next to my desk, and I wrote this down. It was actually a good deal of fun and relaxed my mind enough to get back to work.

Top 5 Most Influential Live Music Performances (in no particular order)

• 1 - Jimmy Hendrix, Star Spangled Banner
• 2 - Dire Straits, Brothers in Arms @ Nelson Mandella Birthday Concert in South Africa
• 3 - Bruce Springsteen's 6 hour performance at No Nukes concert
• 4 - Grateful Dead, 1974-1977 (can't pick just one)
• 5 - Tied
  • Joe Driscoll, Old Main Inn
  • Eli from Marshall Street and Downtown SYR, every single day

Talk amongst yourselves.

From the Interweb

Dateline: Canada — A routine test of airport security turned into a Marx Brothers routine after security officers mistakenly sent a passenger home with a suitcase full of TNT. The TNT was supposed to be planted in the bags of a Montreal security agent. Instead, it somehow ended up stuffed into the luggage of an unsuspecting overseas passenger who arrived at Pierre Elliot Trudeau International Airport last Friday. The unnamed passenger went to a friend’s house where he found the explosives concealed in a jam jar and placed inside his suitcase. The man immediately called Quebec provincial police. The TNT, which officials say had no detonator attached, was meant as part of a weekly test for bomb-sniffing dogs at the airport. Ironically, the dogs failed to detect the explosives. The passenger and his baggage were able to pass though airport security unchecked. “Our investigation is going to reveal exactly what happened,” airport security spokesman Pierre Goupil told TV network TVA.

Original Source at Alibi.com

Penetration Testing Using Social Engineering

All names, places, titles, and work related information have been changed for the sake of security and privacy. The following article is NOT a textbook for stealing/shoplifting. The following article IS a resource for all security personnel to use as a means of training and defense against social engineering.

I decided to work a short day today so I only had time to make my attempts on two stores. I met the District Loss Prevention Supervisor (Charles) at 7a.m. in Middleville and asked him a few questions before I got started. He told me that he and a few of his plain clothed security guys had done this in the past and one of them held the record in the district for getting out the door without getting stopped with a $400 DVD player. I assumed that it must have been a while since that happened if the price was that high. What I said to him next really peaked his interest.

Isreal: “Man, I’m about to walk out that door with $4000 worth of merchandise and I’ll stop and talk to a cashier on the way out.”

His eyes almost fell out of his head, but the look quickly turned to one of disbelief.

Charles: “OK Isreal, lets try and be a bit more serious about this. I REALLY want to know if my people are doing their jobs.”

After trying to get him to place a friendly wager on my prediction, and failing, I headed for the doors. I was wearing a black collared polo shirt and khaki pants. I didn’t want to look completely like a bum, but at the same time, thought a shirt and tie would be too much of an advantage for me. I was in the center of middle-class America and wanted to blend in.

I decided I would start off by taking a quick walk around the store just to get a feel for the place, and to see how many employees were on the salesfloor. It seemed like everywhere I turned, a different employee was asking me if I needed any help so I figured I had better make my move quick and get out the door since the plan I had in mind required me to do so.

I walked into the back “employees only” area of the store behind a group (3) of people who looked like they were just arriving to work. I followed one of the girls as she was taking off her jacket so I could take a look at the coat rack. I was hoping to find an employee’s work vest hanging around and I wasn’t disappointed. I know that most overnighters could care less about taking them home to wash and there were plenty to choose from. I quickly checked through them for a name badge, but wasn’t quite as lucky as I was hoping to be so I took the cleanest one I could find and headed for the warehouse.

As I walked down the back hallway, I took quick glances in every room looking for an emply one. I didn’t find any so I asked an employee where the breakroom was and headed in that direction. I was trying to find some paperwork that I could carry into the warehouse to use as ‘official company documents’. I hit the jackpot when I opened the breakroom door when I noticed that the store had a seperate room for smokers as well, so I decided that I had worked hard enough so far and I deserved a break. After a refreshing dose of a nicotine inhaler I was back on the job. A quick survey of the non-smoking break room turned up a printout of employees who were scheduled to work that day. I knew that Charles wouldn’t be happy to know that it was left lying around for anyone to pick up so it was going to serve a dual purpose.

• 1. The printout would guarantee that Charles would chew out the stores management for letting something like that get out of their site.

• 2. It would function as the ‘official document’ that I would need to complete my objective.

I folded up my paperwork and headed for the store’s warehouse. I entered the warehouse like I owned the place and walked around until I found the bins that held the backstock for the Electronics Department. I took a quick count of the computers and got the attention of one of the stockmen. His name-badge said James.

Isreal: “James, you got an empty cart anywhere back here? I’ve gotta take 5 computers over to the store in Vernstown.” I patted the ‘official’ paperwork in my vest pocket so he could see.

James: “I don’t have any empty carts right now, but I’ll grab an empty pallet and a jack.”

James walked off to get what I needed and I started taking computers down from the bins. When he returned, he helped me set them on the pallet and asked me if I needed any help putting them in my truck. I thought about it for a second but decided that I didn’t want to get this specific kid in trouble and told him that I could handle it myself and I’d bring the pallet and jack back in a few minutes.

On my way to the front door, I had to take the long way around so I could avoid electronics. As I was walking past the Jewelry Department I noticed an employee heading straight for me. When he headed me off, I read his name badge: Fred ‘Assistant Manager’. I stopped the pallet and waited to see what he was going to say.

Fred: “Hey um, (he was looking for my name badge)…”

I looked at my vest and put on a surprised look as I started looking for my lost badge. “I’m Isreal, I must have left my badge in Vernstown”

Fred: “Vernstown? What are you doing here?” He looked at the pallet I was pulling. “Are we TR‘ing those to your store?”

I patted the paperwork in my pocket again “Yeah, the ladies in the back got me the paperwork. I’m gonna load these up and head out”

He glanced at my folded up paperwork “Good, you need me to help you with that?” I could tell that he wasn’t sincere. No manager likes to do manual labor.

Isreal: “Nah, I got it. Thanks anyway.” I started to move with the pallet again so he could have an excuse to walk away… He used it.

On my way out, I saw Charles talking to the ladies at the Customer Service desk. He didn’t see me so I kept moving. I stopped long enough to say something about the “crappy weather” to a kid standing by a register and took the pallet and my merchandise out the front doors. I waited outside for about 30 seconds before I realized that Charles never did see me leave so I took out my cell phone and called the store.

Happy Girl: “Hi, thank you for calling Flop-Mart this is Happy Girl how may I direct your call?”

Isreal: “Charles XXXXXX please”

((“Do a little dance, make a little love, get down tonight… get down tonight”)) I like that song. Sometimes I wish I could stay on hold longer just to hear a song I haven’t heard in a while, but this time I wasn’t on hold very long. Charles answered and I told him that I was outside. He laughed and said he’d be right out. His laugh sounded more like a victory cheer and I was really going to enjoy raining on his parade. I hopped up, sat on one of the computers, and waited to see his expression.

I don’t think I have ever seen a person’s face turn red as quickly as his did. He was OBVIOUSLY angry so I decided it wouldn’t be a good idea to gloat about my victory and I settled for telling him exactly how I did it. As I did, I wrote down the prices of the computers and gave him my total take.

$698 x 3 = $2094
$749 x 2 = $1498

Grand Total $3592

CRAP!! I didn’t reach my $4000 guarantee. Oh well, it was close enough for me, and it was MORE than enough for Charles. I followed him back inside with my loot and he yelled at a passing person to take it to the warehouse. I took off the vest, set it on the pallet and followed Charles to the manager’s office.

I would love to tell you about the ass chewing he gave the store’s management team, but he made me leave the room after I told them what I had done. ‘Assistant Manager’ Fred looked like he was going to puke when I got to his part of the story. I went to the smokers break room and waited for 45 minutes until Charles came and told me we were heading to Vernstown.

Originaly posted on lineman.net

The second installment can be found here

Paying for Windows

Recently I've had a rash of people who have asked me to help them with their Windows machines. Most of them have had problems related to the Online Activation process that is built into Windows nowadays. Well, I suppose most of these people would not have a problem if they actually went out and bought a copy of Windows, instead of trying to use a borrowed copy or a pirated copy of the Enterprise Edition (no activation required.)

This got me thinking to how, especially in the home computer world, people might be getting a skewed view of Windows because most of them don't actually pay for it properly. If they had to fork over the $200 for an original copy of WindowsXP Home Edition or $499 for a new copy of Office Professional might make people actually think a little before shelling out the cash.

If Microsoft could tighten up their software registration system so that it was harder for people to pirate Windows and Office, and people actually had to pay for a license, they might be much more inclined to take a look at what free software has to offer. Right now, there are a lot of people who still see the choice as using Linux/OpenOffice (free as in speech) or pirate Windows/Office (free as in beer, if you pirate it.) Lets face it, OpenOffice is still a distant second place to Office, which makes the choice easy for those of us without morals.

The sad part of this is that people always hold the "you get what you pay for" argument against open source software. Try paying for a Windows license and then see how you feel when programs bomb out. This time you might actually get pissed off, instead of just saying that it is normal.

Lastly, I wonder if this is an argument that Microsoft already understands. Maybe this is why they don't buckle down on registration. Knowing that the ease of being able to pirate your software is all that keeps the open source folks from winning market share might work for now... but it can't hold them off forever.

Earthquake in Virginia

I was just on IRC and somebody said they just felt an earthquake. Not sure if this really happened yet, but somebody posted this link two minutes after it was first mentioned. If you'll notice the time of this post, it should be about 10 minutes after the earthquake happened. The Internet rocks.

Trackbacks

...and SimpleComments. A good combination. This is a test of that for my friend James.

Phone blogging

The maker of Kottke.org has an intersting site that publishes a blog over an 800 number: experience 0sil8. press nothing to continue.

24/7 McGriddle

Headed out to Darwin's tonight to see Joe Driscoll play. Upon the advice of a friend, Doug and I went out to some truckstop out by Liverpool and found a McDonalds that is open 24 hours a day.

Now, I've never had a McGriddle before, but my buddy John was right on when he recommended them. I have to admit that (especially when nothing else is open) I am a big fan of the McGriddle now.

Who's on the Wi-Fi at CMU?

A cool little web app at Carnegie Mellon University, that shows who is currently on the wireless network and which access point they are using.

cmuSKY also has some other interesting maps and statistics about their wireless Internet setup.

Update:
Oops, this was already on boingboing.net.

Student parking tickets and graduation

Anybody who lives near a Universtity can attest to the overpopulation of students with cars. As such, these cars tend to end up parking on (a) the wrong side of the street, (b) across sidewalks, and © on people’s lawns. All of these things will get you a parking ticket in Syracuse and the police are not reserved in handing them out.

If you don’t live in a town where parking alternates from one side of the street to the other on a daily basis I will explain it to you. The wintertime in Syracuse tends to bring with it a good amount of snowfall. In an attempt to keep the streets relatively snow free, the city says that most streets allow parking on only one side of the street at a time. The twist is that that side switches every day. This is supposed to help the snowplows get a full sweep over each street every two days or so. I think it actually does help, but the system is a real pain in the ass. It gets especially annoying during the summer, when there isn’t any real good reason to alternate the parking, seeing as how we don’t get much snow that time of year.

Back to my point. With the local authorities giving out hoardes of tickets to students, you would think that the city would make a good amount of cash from the student neighborhoods that could be used to put more police patrols out on the streets. It is my belief that a good deal of these parking tickets go unpaid because there are a lot of students who graduate and then leave New York to go back to thier home state (or somewhere warmer, at the very least.) Since they have no vested interest in keeping a clean record of parking tickets in a state they don’t care much for, they don’t bother paying the tickets. I know that if I ever got a parking ticket while I was in a nother state I probably wouldn’t bother to pay it.

What to do about this?

I had the thought in my head that the University could make students pay outstanding parking tickets in order to recieve thier diploma’s when they graduate, but I am starting to reconsider that plan. It is certainly an interesting idea, and I’m sure that the city would love the University for it.

dfc thinks that this amounts to treating students unfairly under the law and it punishes students for a flawed parking ticket system. I can’t agree on the part about treating students differently under the law; the University is a private organization and they have every right to institute a “good citizen standing” as part of the graduation requirements if they want to. You can’t graduate if you owe the library boatloads of money, so why does the University let the city get balked on this one. This, of course, brings up the question of what would a state college do in this situation?

As for the system being flawed, I will agree with that. At least the parking ticket situation isn’t as bad in Syracuse as it is in other places, Boston for example. I can’t really comment much on this issue, although I will say that I wonder how cost effective it would be to have our city police spend more time enforcing delinquent parking tickets instead of stoping robberies.

Interestingly enough, I found this (about halfway down the page, “A Post-Graduate Course in Government Finance”) tidbit about the city of Boston trying to do exactly what I just wrote about.

Quote from the story:

Boston parking enforcement officers wrote $6.5 million in tickets that weren’t paid in 2002.

I would love to see the numbers for the City of Syracuse.