Too much info ?

[czechsonofagun]

The only reason you are safe is because nobody is really interested in you. If some professional or even well educated amateur goes after you, you will not stand a chance.
And movies where the peon beats the government agency are only Hollywood and scary like he11 - Enemy of the state for instance.

 

[300UGUY]

We own some land about 9 miles from town. There are three houses across the highway from it(well, two now. The crack house got torn down). Anyhow, about 20 years ago the older couple that lives across the street, the husband went to the grocery store in town in the early evening, just around dusk. When he came home, as he was walking from the garage to his house, two guys came up, whacked him on the head, knocked him down and ripped his pants off his body trying to rip the wallet out of his back pocket. It can happen to anyone, anywhere.

Another time, at my work, one of my co-workers left for work. She was in her 50s, purse on her arm. I was watching her from the third floor window walk down the alley towards our parking lot. She crossed the path of two guys at the alley intersection. As soon as she got around the corner, I saw those two guy turn around and run in her direction. Nothing I could do as I was on the 3rd floor and a half a block away. I ran out to the lot. By the time I got there, they were gone and she was crying. She said she walked up to her passenger door, opened it, stuck her purse in, closed the door, walked around the truck, opened the drivers door and saw the passenger door open. She looked around and her purse was gone. She never saw them. She was just lucky they took the opportunity to steal her purse. Who knows what would have happened if she had kept her purse and gotten in the SUV she was driving. Fortunately, she had her house keys and car keys in her hand.

Just goes to show you that it can happen anywhere, anytime. Criminals are mostly opportunists.

My dad got robbed in a freight elevator, leaving work one Thursday night, payday at the factory in Detroit. There were 11 guys in the elevator, when it reached the ground floor, the doors opened up, there were 3 guys with guns. All these guys had cashed their checks, it was later found to be set up by a fellow employee. From 11 guys ( 35 years ago ) the robbers got about 3K. Better than the usual party store gig, and probably less dangerous. Thankfully, no shots fired, nobody got hurt. I don't think they ever caught the robbers. It was all over very quickly.

 

[jimmyj]

So often dishonest behaviour is related to somebody who knows about you. I don't worry so much about the net but IronHorse is smart to be introspective about it.

Like czechsonofagun says, I think if somebody wanted to target a body there are so many easy ways to do so.

We keep 4 dogs at the place, 2 are VERY big and barky when strangers come around. Part of my job involves security and the key I think is to make yourself a less convenient target than somebody else. Why would a crook rob my place or steal my I.D. if it's a pain and hard to do vs another target.

Random acts do happen for sure, but it's like crime shootings where we live. Here, unless you are involved with crime or criminals, you stand almost no statistical chance of ever getting shot.

Note to moderators, I am not going to get into any politics, just an example of how to not be a target by not having a high risk profile.

 

[Eagleview]

Here's one chap who hacked into our military defense computers , far enough to be a world threat . He was at first wanting to find info on ufos , he was not the only one on line doing the same thing at the same time . If you think your home systems are safe , forget it . YouTube - UFOs-NASA (http://freegary.org.uk/)

Whether you think what he was looking for is silly or not , this did happen and he is now facing 60 years in jail .

 

[jdbower]

It depends on how you look at it. If someone wants to break into MY computer can they? Of course and there's nothing I can do to stop them short of disconnecting from all networks and building a bomb shelter. But my computer doesn't have any information that is both important and unique to anyone but me. There are much easier ways of getting SSNs and credit card numbers than getting through even the most basic of firewalls. It's like your house, if I want in I'll just drive my tractor through your front door. Luckily it's a lot easier for me to find one of my own neighbors who looks like they're on vacation and left a door unlocked. With plenty of low hanging fruit you're relatively safe unless you have been specifically targeted - luckily I'm not important or interesting enough to be a target

 

[dmccarty]

... YouTube - UFOs-NASA (http://freegary.org.uk/)

If you shave his hair I think he would look like some of the alien "pictures" I have seen. Maybe he is just trying to phone home.

I'm sure someone with enough time on their hands on computer power could hack into our home network. And that would get them what? Not much.

If someone really wants to get information to steal ids they just need to go to the court house. At least in NC its a problem.

In the grand scheme of things, hacking most peoples computers, the worst thing that will happen is identity theft. That is bad. Very bad. But I would be alive not dead. I worry more about things that will kill me, or worse. Preventing hacking to a point that makes the chance of a successful attack close to zero is pretty easy to do. People can prepare for it.

The eight point buck that jumped in front of my wifeys car was not something we could stop. Wifey braked and did not get hurt but the car suffered $900 of damage and the deer died. Two months later an old lady in a hurry made a left turn across traffic that she could not see. Not much I could do but slam on the brakes and change the line we were taking to change the dynamics of what was about to happen. I could not stop what was about to happen. I could only slightly change the outcome. I did what I could do but just a slight timing difference, mere seconds, could have turned a bad crash with injuries into one with fatalities.

Not really much I can do about car accidents. I see people doing crazy stupid things every day. I do worry about car accidents. I can plan for a thug trying to break into the house. I can and have done things to minimize crimes against my family. Its still possible but we have done what can and should be done. If someone steals the tractor I have insurance.

I can't really do squat to prevent an old lady in a hurry from driving through an intersection when she can't see on coming traffic. Having someone hack my home system and stealing my identity would stink big time. But its better than my kids or wifey being killed or crippled by a stupid driver.

I can't really protect against other people's being stupid. THAT worries me.

Later,
Dan