As busy as this week has been, the inbox was rather boring. I was still able to get some interesting items to pass along, but it was a struggle (aside from Minnesota hockey hair, which is always one of my favorites at this time of year). Scroll on down for more on that topic as well as burner numbers, interview cheaters, pie (pi) and more.
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Employee Revenge
It seems that one of our corporate neighbors here in lovely Beachwood, OH recently won in court when a former employee was found guilty on numerous federal charges including sabotage. The employee of an unidentified company (other than the fact that has an international presence and HQ is in Beachwood) set up a system so that if his account was ever deleted in active directory (meaning that he was no longer with the company), the system would lock out other users. When he was fired in 2019 and his account removed, his scheme went into action.
AI Interview Cheaters
Not sure where to start with this one… Big Tech companies are laying off thousands of coders because AI can do the job. But they’re still interviewing for these roles and don’t appreciate the applicants cheating by using AI. And the cheaters don’t like Big Tech because the interview questions are too tough… yet they still want to work for Big Tech. Regardless, a Columbia University student (as if they don’t have enough other problems at the moment) is now in trouble for developing an AI solution to cheat on job interviews. I think the solution (as some suggest in the article) is to have in-person interviews. Or, as one of our peers is known for doing, hire three people for one role, knowing that only one will survive the first week. Then see who knows how to do the job and who cheated to get the job.
Hockey Hair
If you’ve ever watched the movie Miracle, you know that Minnesota and Massachusetts don’t see eye to eye when it comes to hockey and who’s better. But when it comes to hockey hair, nobody does it like the high schools in MN (nine minute video, but well worth it). To read more about the Minnesota state hockey championships and the hair tradition, click here and here.
Utility Threats
Interested in how Chinese hackers were able to gain access to a Massachusetts power company’s network and spent 300 days in the system doing who knows what? It’s all right here. And I had to laugh at the comment (the same comment made whenever a network is breached) about no personal data being compromised. They always have to cover their butts on that one. I think the important piece here is that their network was compromised and it could’ve easily cut power to all the users. That’s worse than a data breach if you ask me.
There’s also the usual warning about patching your systems, having a proper firewall in place (a router provider by your intern provider doesn’t cut it), and adding managed detection and response (MDR) on top of all of that.
Pi Day
Nancy was kind enough to remind that today is Pi Day, and if you want to celebrate with a pizza, you can do the pickle variety, pizza charcuterie, or plenty of other selections at local and national outlets. If it’s math you want, there’s plenty to learn about 3.14159 (that’s as much as I remember) and the “holiday” that was first celebrated in 1988.
Burner Numbers
Sick of spam texts and calls on your cell phone? Most people have heard the term “burner phone”, but did you know you could get a burner number? I had no clue, but evidently you can add a second number to your cell phone that you then provide to places that require q phone number, but one that you don’t want to give your primary number for.
That’s all for this weekend. Hoping for some more interesting news next week. Feel free to click that button below and submit anything that you feel might be worthy of me sharing with my readers. I had one submission last week in response to my mention of Unreasonable Hospitality- a reader raving about the amazing service and experience she had with Harden Auto Body in South Euclid. And I had another reader note that Nancy hasn’t given me any good nuggets of late (hint, hint). Always good to hear from you, so keep the submissions coming in!
Have a great weekend.
Abbey