FBI Warning for real

Colbyt said:

For those of you who do; the FBI has issues a warning to NOT use public charging station for phones, laptops or tablets. Hackers have now found a way to introduce malware and viruses via the charging cables.

I have to wonder if they will go after electric cars next.

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I just heard about this on the radio. They're calling it "juice jacking."

When the boy and I were doing a ton of traveling to conventions and events, we started carrying battery packs and cables.

That habit still persists even if only headed out for a day.

When I mentioned it to wife she admitted to using the ones in the hotel. Those might be safe but we have a lots of wall warts.

I haven't ever trusted those things, but that's just me. This kind of thing went around in the late '90s - mid 2000's as well so I just got in the habit of carrying my wall charger, finding a plug and sitting on the floor in the airport. So far, so good.

And yet they've never come up with one substantiated instance of damage caused by juice jacking. I don't tend to trust public Wi-Fi connections either but then I'm the guy who doesn't want to use the QR code for the restaurant menu because they don't tell where it's sending me. But until I hear verified reports of people who've lost data or got their bank accounts swiped because of this, it sounds like a lot of scaremongering to me.

Just further confirmation that this is (to keep it relevant to cooking) a nothingburger:

The NYT article cited a warning from the LA DA's office. The DA's post was taken down in December 2021, a couple weeks after @zackwhittaker reported DA officials had no cases and could point to no cases of it happening.

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Dan Goodin (@[email protected])

It might be nothing, but it's still a good lesson on what could happen. Tech changes quickly, and it seems techy criminals adapt at the same pace.

I've never personally encountered a credit card skimmer at fuel pumps, nor do I know anyone IRL who has, but I still take precautions because I know it can and does happen.

But, when the MIL calls all frantic because one of her friends sent her a chain email with this information, and she's worried sick about something she never does in the first place, I will tell her to take it with a massive grain of salt. 😁

Chain emails are like spammers and scammers--totally useless waste of time and resources.

Like the phone calls I keep getting--"your credit card has been charged so please press 1 if this is incorrect" OR "your income tax refund is waiting to be claimed so press 1 to claim it".

LeonardoDaBenz said:

Chain emails are like spammers and scammers--totally useless waste of time and resources.

Like the phone calls I keep getting--"your credit card has been charged so please press 1 if this is incorrect" OR "your income tax refund is waiting to be claimed so press 1 to claim it".

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my MIL is 85 years old and on her own since my FIL passed away. The ladies of her generation live and die by their copied and pasted email warnings. It's a hobby for them...pretty sure of it.

Steve-o said:

And yet they've never come up with one substantiated instance of damage caused by juice jacking. I don't tend to trust public Wi-Fi connections either but then I'm the guy who doesn't want to use the QR code for the restaurant menu because they don't tell where it's sending me. But until I hear verified reports of people who've lost data or got their bank accounts swiped because of this, it sounds like a lot of scaremongering to me.

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Agreed, but an ounce of prevention and all of that. With my luck I'd be the one who gets hit with the first juice jacking attack.

My parents are still kind of stuck in the 80s. I took them to a seafood place once and they were doing the QR code menu thing. Neither of my parents had an app for QR codes. The waitress girl was rather rude about it. She did eventually get them a print menu but she treated them like they were retarded.

KitchenWench said:

Agreed, but an ounce of prevention and all of that. With my luck I'd be the one who gets hit with the first juice jacking attack.

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Yeah, but if they haven't found a documentable case in the years this apocryphal tale has existed... By all means, do what you want/need to do. I certainly don't plan to use public charging stations more than I do now. But I don't think it's right to make this a huge clickbaity next-big-public-hazard thing out of something that over years has manifested nothing. It's almost like all this activity will go away for lack of support and will surface again in another few years. jmo.

Shane R said:

My parents are still kind of stuck in the 80s. I took them to a seafood place once and they were doing the QR code menu thing. Neither of my parents had an app for QR codes. The waitress girl was rather rude about it. She did eventually get them a print menu but she treated them like they were retarded.

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Thread drift for a minute.

Who in the heck is training these people nowadays? I was at a dinner once with a group of fully blind people, and one of the waitresses came to me and asked if it was okay for them to have knives!

PickyPrincess said:

one of the waitresses came to me and asked if it was okay for them to have knives!

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Why the ^%*$ didn't she ask them? They may be blind but they still have brains.

I got that a lot when my mom had a bad accident that required two spinal surgeries. Bring her someplace in a wheelchair and they never started talking to her. "What's her date of birth?" I know it, of course, but I said, "She's right here. Why don't you ask her?"

Sorry. Pet peeve here, too.

PickyPrincess said:

Thread drift for a minute.

Who in the heck is training these people nowadays? I was at a dinner once with a group of fully blind people, and one of the waitresses came to me and asked if it was okay for them to have knives!

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I not sure if it is a lack of training or that this is the result of none left behind.

A while back I was in a grocery store and tried to use a paper store coupon. I was asked for a bar code and I said WTF here is the coupon. Short exchange and I said loudly that I don't have a smartphone and told the cashier to quit mumbling. Didn't buy any groceries in that store that day or since. I've been to two other of their stores in the area and here on the PA system propaganda about their coupons and the fact that they don't need smartphones. Checked their coupon website and if you dig through it you don't just give them your coupon PIN. I'm not giving anybody my PIN to anything. Besides they seldom have anything on coupons that I want.

Seems a lot of stuff is getting messed up these days--like forgetting customer service means "to benefit the customer" NOT "to benefit staff".

Local stores in my area seem to have had their "touch" screens (instead of slide and/or insert card and enter code) altered to REQUIRE a slide/insert/CODE EVERY TIME.

Why bother having tap if it's disabled?????? 🤬 🤬 🤬

I've been the reason wait staff and cashiers lost their job because of their poor attitudes. I won't put up with it and if they were doing it to me, how many other people did they treat that way?

PickyPrincess said:

Who in the heck is training these people nowadays? I was at a dinner once with a group of fully blind people, and one of the waitresses came to me and asked if it was okay for them to have knives!

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Part of that is lack of training, part of it is they've never been exposed to the blind community. While I was in my 3rd year of studying ASL I saw a cashier at a gas station yelling at a deaf woman who was signing to him. I stepped in, translated and told him he didn't need to yell because she couldn't hear him and it wouldn't make anything better.