Month: September 2017

Talking Like a Pirate

Posted onAuthorcahwyguy

Today is International Talk Like a Pirate Day, so let’s all talk like pirates: Arr, Hedge Fund Landlords. Arr, Student Loan Servicers. Arr, Developers.

 

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Gee, Six

Posted onAuthorcahwyguy

(to the tune of “The Saga Begins” “American Pie”)

About a week ago
At Verizon in the mall
My phone was starting to die…
And I thought me and my picks
Could talk Verizon into
A deal on an LG G6
But their response, it didn’t thrill me
They called mall-cops, and tried to shill me
I escaped from that fight
Called *611, and made it right
I checked again, redid the order
Picked it up at a Ranch called Porter
They behaved like they orter
That’s where I got this phone…

Oh my my Verizon Cellphone
You’ve the only brand I ever have owned
Northridge Mall sucks, but Porter Ranch pwned
And now I’ve got the latest smartphone
Now I’ve got the latest smartphone.

This has been an interesting week. Back in August, while we were on vacation, I had a problem with my 4+ year old, 1st generation, Moto X. Driving through Aspen to Colorado Springs, my phone had trouble finding signal after we got out of the canyon, even after multiple reboots, when my wife’s newer Droid Turbo was doing fine. I had been having significant battery life problems, and we noticed the sides of the phone were starting to crack — indicating potential battery expansion. Given my contract was long up (meaning, given our old plan, I was essentially making payments for nothing), the conclusion was: replace the phone.

Doing research during and after the trip, I settled on two primary candidates, as the Moto X4 (though just announced), wasn’t at Verizon yet: The Moto Z2 Play and the LG G6.  Both were running Android Nougat, and both had the right mix of features. Although I was leaning to Moto because I liked their Apps, the smaller size of the G6 (the G6 was 5.86 x 2.83″, and the Z2 was 6.15 x 3.00) combined with the larger battery (the G6 was 3300 mAh, the Z2 was 3000 mAh) led me to the G6. Both were in my price range: under $25 a month. That number derives from the fact I was paying $40 a month for line access, and with the new phone, I’d be paying $15 with a $25 credit towards the phone: thus my overall bill would not increase. I planned to get the new phone once our current billing cycle ended.

Checking online, of the two Verizon Wireless stores closest to our house, only the Northridge Mall had them in stock. So I went over there. I dazzled them with my data, and we sat down to discuss the G6. They said the price was $28/month. I said it was $20/month online. They said, “Well then buy it online.”. I got on my phone and attempted to do so. However, I got to a screen instructing me to scan a barcode, with no other options. I asked them for help — they had no clue. I asked for a supervisor — he was out. I asked if anyone else knew what this screen meant. They didn’t, and they refused to tell me if the order had actually gone through. I gave a loud “Harrumpf” of exasperation… and they told me to leave the store and that they were calling mall security to escort me out. That got me even more frustrated (and when that happens, I tend to trip). I tripped over a chair, went flying, and they kept insisting security was on their way. I finally got out of the store, sat outside, and tried to call customer service (with the mall cops standing over me watching). After 1/2 hour on hold with my phone about out of power, I called my wife. She came over, went in the store (because they wouldn’t let me in), confirmed the order was not placed, and we went home.

Once home, I called customer service and placed an order for the phone — at $20/month, no problem — through customer service. Receiving the request to pay the sales tax online, I went to their website to do so. However, the plan price confused me, so I called them back. We sorted things out and I entered the card, thinking the order was placed.

Checked the next day at work, and the order was still “pending, call the credit department”. Evidently, the card didn’t go through for some reason, and they couldn’t fix the order. They cancelled it (which took a day to show up in their system as cancelled), and we redid the order.

That evening, I received mail that the phone was ready for pickup (within 3 days, although the website said 7). I called the store that evening to make sure I had all I needed to transfer, and to talk to a representative. Nice as could be. Driving home the next day, I got a call the phone was ready. I went up there yesterday evening. Francisco Linares helped me, and was as nice as could be. He helped me start the initial transfer, told me what I needed to do when I got home, and we confirmed that my current plan was just fine and the monthly pricing would be as I thought it would be (I’ll need to check that on the next bill). I picked up an extra Micro-USB to USB-C dongle, and I was home in under 40 minutes, when I thought it would take 3 hours. Yet again, the Porter Ranch store demonstrated that they understand customer service: they did it right.

Later that evening I ordered more USB-C stuff: a new power brick, a wireless charger, and cords and such.

I’m now the owner of a new LG G6, just waiting for the cases and cords to arrive. Comfortable in the hand and easy to use.

And that, friends, is the Saga of LG. Kudos and stars to the Verizon telephone personnel that helped, and to Francisco and the staff of Verizon Wireless in Porter Ranch for doing it right. Boos and 💩💩💩 to the staff of the Northridge Mall store, who care more about sales than customers. If you have a choice between the two, go to Porter Ranch.

Two final notes: People ask: Why Verizon? We’ve been with them since they were Airtouch Cellular, meaning about 20 years. We have 3 phone lines and 2 tablets, and in general they’ve been good. People ask: Why not an iPhone? I’m a big iPod Classic user, and I don’t want to pollute the iTunes ecosystem.

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The Story Behind…

Posted onAuthorcahwyguy

Over the last few weeks, I’ve accumulated a number of news stories that tell “the story behind the story”. I hope you find them as fascinating as I have:

  • The Story Behind… Damaged Voices. An interesting article from the Guardian explores why so many singing stars have been losing their voices. The answer, on the surface, is that they have damaged their vocal cords. The solution is microsurgery and vocal rest while things heal, and they hope that their voices return to normal. But is that the cause? According to the article: “The rise in vocal injuries is linked to a change in what we consider good singing. Across all genres, it has become normal to believe that louder is better. (One reason that Adele is such a big star is because her voice is so big.) As a result, singers are pushing their cords like never before, which leads to vocal breakdown.” Why didn’t this happen earlier? Artists were taught to sing differently. Two artists quoted in the article, Brilla and Paglin, have been saying this for years. “You cannot solve the problem by simply relieving the symptom,” Brilla said. “It’s a motor problem. The singer has to understand it’s the way you’re running your engine” – the techniques they’re using to sing. “If you don’t fix the engine, it’s going to happen again.”
  • The Story Behind… The Brooklyn Dodgers Moving to LA. Los Angeles celebrates some of its sports teams such as the Lakers and the Dodgers. But neither started in LA. An article from the NY Daily News explores the Dodgers move to Los Angeles. The person to blame: Robert Moses, who designed much of New York’s highways, who didn’t want the new ballpark proposed by the boys in blue.
  • The Story Behind… Jewish Codebreakers. Many folks — especially cryptographers — are familiar with the story of Alan Turing and Bletchley Park (told in the recent movie “The Imitation Game”). But Turning wasn’t alone, and much of the hard work at Bletchley breaking the code was performed by a cadre of Jewish cryptographers. Here is their story. It is written by a former director of GCHQ, who notes: “Their role in codebreaking and in our “signals intelligence” mission was out of all proportion to the size of the Jewish community in Britain at the time. In turn, Bletchley’s contribution to winning and shortening the course of the war and therefore bringing to an end the Holocaust in Europe is clear. Less well known is the role of some of these staff in establishing and building the new state of Israel. This is a fitting time in which to remember and to celebrate their story, and to remind ourselves of the enduring values and unbroken line which links these great individuals and our work today.”
  • The Story Behind… Civil War Statues. Most of us (OK, well a few folks) believe that the civil war statues in the news today were erected to commemorate the civil war, and were put up right after the war. That’s not as true as you think. The reality is that the civil war statues were mass-manufactured, often with generic soldiers, erected half a century after the war (in the first two decades of the 1900s) when organizations like the United Daughters of the Confederacy were looking to reframe and glorify the Confederate cause, and in many states, the descendants of slaves had been stripped of the right to vote, which impeded their ability to effectively voice opposition.
  • The Story Behind… Hurricane Reporters. This really interesting article is a collection of tips for reporters reporting from inside or near a hurricane. My favorite? “Don’t stand in standing water. Let the other idiots get electrocuted — we don’t need them anyway. You, we can’t replace because we’re in a hiring freeze. Also, if you die, we need to fill out a lot of messy paperwork.”
  • The Story Behind… Adult Survivors of Childhood Abuse. This is a really interesting article that explores common behaviors in those who have experienced emotional abuse as a child.

 

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Hatred and Jews

Posted onAuthorcahwyguy

Two articles that have crossed my feeds of late both highlight the issue of hatred: one of hatred of Jews, the other of hatred by Jews. Both demonstrate significant failures of our society.

The first was brought to my attention by Rabbi Barry Lutz of our congregation. Titled “Reform is Not a Four-Letter Word“, it describes a problem that is growing in Israel these days: the divide between the “ultra-Orthodox” (note that I do not put all Orthodox in this category) and the more progressive movements within Judaism. I’m familiar with this divide, for it isn’t a new one. Back in the early 1990s I started a mailing list where we explicitly prohibited that device, as the RCO fights (as well called them) were taking over soc.culture.jewish (the Usenet group) with their invective and hatred. It seems this hasn’t gone away: some ultra-Orthodox are using “Reform” as an insult. As the author of the opinion piece writes:

Still, I’d probably not have gotten around to writing this piece had Deri’s remarks not been echoed – almost drowned out – by those of Shlomo Amar, Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem and past Sephardic Chief Rabbi, who proclaimed a few days later that “Reform Jews are worse than holocaust deniers.” You can catch his remarks, word for word, on the ultra-Orthodox Haredi website Kikar Shabbat as he responds to the latest appeal of progressive Jewish groups to the Supreme Court regarding the Kotel (Western Wall). “They don’t have Yom Kippur or Shabbat but they want to pray [at the Western Wall]. But no one should think that they want to pray, they want to desecrate the holy,” was Amar’s take on the matter. “Today there was a hearing on the Kotel on the petition of the cursed evil people who do every iniquity in the world against the Torah,” he added, including both Conservative Masorti Jews as well as the Women of the Wall (original and otherwise) as objects of his wrath as all were party to this litigation.

Did you catch that? Reform Jews are worse than holocaust deniers. Who needs Nazis in the streets when we have the ultra-Orthodox to hate us (without ever knowing what Reform really is, just like many of the Nazis know Judaism only from false stereotypes like the Protocols of the Elders of Zion). Hatred built on fake news and fake information is not new, folks; it has long been the domain of the ignorant, uninformed, and more importantly, those who do not want to be informed.

The current alt-Right and neo-Nazi — hell, Nazi — movements are bringing this all back to America. I met Shmuel Gonzalez when he recently gave a talk to the San Fernando Valley Historical Society on the community of Boyle Heights. This was an ethnically mixed community east of DTLA that — in the days of red-lining — brought together Jews and Latinos and Russians and Japanese and Blacks and all sorts of ethnicities into a loose coalition that worked for the rights of workers and the rights of people. Those Jewish Community Centers you see these days where nice economically advantaged families bring up their children outside of the horrid public schools were once Yiddishist centers fighting for workers and teaching English to immigrants. Shmuel, a very nice and gentle fellow, talks about this history all the time and preserves the Jewish heritage of those communities while celebrating both his hispanic and his Jewish background. Shmuel describes himself as follows in a recent post on his Barrio Boychik blog: “I am an activist historian and community organizer from Southern California; many of you might know me as the author of the Barrio Boychik blog, which is dedicated to presenting our local heritage of civil rights activism, with special focus on the historical and present inter-section of Jewish and Latino civil rights organizing. As a Mexican American of the Jewish faith, I also proudly serve the as teacher of Jewish education and leader in sacred Hebrew ritual, serving Southeast Los Angeles and North Orange County.”

Shmuel was recently at a counter-protest of the America First Rally – an anti-immigrant and anti-refugee rally organized by the so-called “alt-Right” – at Main Beach in Laguna Beach, California on Sunday, August 20, 2017. As he writes on his blog:

On this day I was in attendance to stand with local friends and business people as they stand against hate. Among them my good friend and a father figure to me, Irv Weiser; whose family came to this country as refugees following the holocaust. I came to stand shoulder to shoulder with him as he protested against this nationalist hate rhetoric. There were just a few dozen anti-immigrant/refugee protesters that day, a mixed race group of far right extremists that noticeably even had neo-Nazis and white supremacists participating in the event; while there were several hundred counter-protesters in attendance. After the right-wing protesters group dwindled they started making incursions into the counter-protest, to get in people’s’ face and to agitate the crowd; they caused some minor scuffles and were shooed back by the police. While documenting the event on video, I followed the right-wing group back. By this time the right-wing protesters on the other end were encircled and engaging a crowd. I engaged the right-wing protesters in their rhetoric angering them several times with just verbal rebuttals, while also taking video of the protest.

He continued:

As I was still documenting this event on video with the camera running, I went in for a close-up shot as we argued, and one of them quickly approached and hit my hand, sending my camera flying. At that point I was immediately arrested by five officers in riot gear from the Laguna Beach Police department. I was arrested, instead of these nationalist extremists who wanted to assault me. And that was just the begin of a long ordeal. I would be arrested, taken to central jail – where I would be subjected to racist and anti-semitic treatment by the jailer.

His blog provides all the details of this, and he has a court date this coming Monday. Why they arrested a counter-protestor, and not the perpetrators of hate is beyond me.

The reason I bring up Shmuel’s story (in addition to bringing it the attention it deserves) is to highlight the hate aspect of it. Both stories — the one from Israel, and the one from Orange County — deal with hatred of Jews. One is from the ultra-Orthodox (many of the same folks who, in America, are still supporters of Trump). One from the alt-Right — again, a supporter of Trump. Further, as I write this, a bipartisan group in Congress has sent a resolution to Trump condemning such behavior . Why did Congress send it? According to the Washington Post: “Trump was roundly criticized by lawmakers of both parties last month after he blamed “both sides” for the Aug. 12 violence that resulted in the death of counterprotester Heather Heyer, as well as his suggestion that some “very fine people” were among the white-nationalist marchers.” Of course, the White House is saying he will sign it but the reason why is unclear: political expediency, or because he really believes in it. I guess we’ll find out in the after-the-fact tweets.

Whether the behavior is from our fellow Jews or from the alt-Right/neo-Nazi groups: we must fight hatred in any form. Further, as in the early days of Boyle Heights, we must remember that our cause is tied up with the immigrant — be they be from South of the Border, Eastern Europe, Central Asia, the Middle East, or Africa. Hatred of minorities in any form eventually turns to us Jews, and we have to stop it before it starts. Both of these stories are lessons and poignant reminders of where things can go.

 

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Who Is To Blame for High Housing Prices

Posted onAuthorcahwyguy

Many people complain about the high cost of housing, especially here in Southern California. There was a very interesting opinion piece on the subject over the weekend here in LA. The article starts as follows:

Out of curiosity, I looked up the value of a two-story tract house I bought in a middle-class San Jose neighborhood back in 1983, for about $130,000. The home — which I sold for about $140,000 in 1985 — would now haul in an estimated $1 million or more, based on recent sales in the same neighborhood. That’s roughly eight times more than I paid for it. But in the 34 years since then, California’s median household income has increased by roughly three times, not eight.

Now, for those of us who have purchased more recently — say in the mid-2000s — there’s not as much of an increase. Houses in the San Fernando Valley, where I live, were on the order of $600-$800K back at the top of the market (if not higher). They dropped some, but have come back to those prices. Orange County? As the OC Register notes, new homes in the Pacifica San Juan neighborhood of San Juan Capistrano “includes two-story townhomes ranging from from 1,836 to 2,068 square feet in space; three or four bedrooms; three bathrooms and two-car garages. Prices start “from the low $700,000s.””  Mind you, these are townhomes, not even detached housing. How can Millennials purchase housing?

Not having been a renter, I can’t speak to how the rents have changed. But my sister-in-law recently started a discussion on this based on that Register article where she noted salaries are up (for some) on the order of 6%. Comments on her post (which was restricted to friends, which is why I’m not citing names or linking to the post) noted that “you can’t even rent very well for $60k a year. That’s about $1600 a month. Barely a two bedroom apartment in a nice area…” Another person commented “As a renter in CA my ass feels sore and raw. Rents for higher and higher and we where told it’s based on the housing prices in the area. The housing market crashed and rents didn’t come down and we where told it was because more people had to rent because they lost their homes. ” My daughter, however, rents, and she could tell you how expensive it is to rent in places like Los Angeles (she ended up having a roommate in the West Adams area) or up in Berkeley — especially compared to what she can rent in Madison WI.

Why is this happening?

The article explains it as follows:

How to fix all this can’t be covered in one little corner of the newspaper. The short answer, though, is to build more housing. But bureaucracy, land scarcity and construction costs, limited funding for affordable housing and well-intended environmental restrictions all stand in the way of new projects. And so do people up and down the state who are OK with new housing unless it happens to be in their neighborhood.

So let’s explore that last sentence a bit: “And so do people up and down the state who are OK with new housing unless it happens to be in their neighborhood.”

Building new housing (let’s assume non-rental, stand-alone, single family residences) increases the housing stock, and has a little dilution effect on overall housing prices. Large developments have a greater effect, but as we saw in places like Porter Ranch that have added loads of single-family houses, the demand is such that prices don’t drop all that much. Maybe we’ll see a big drop with the new Newhall Ranch development. Building multi-family developments — think condo developments with higher density — creates even more affordable homes, but still there isn’t a significant drop in housing.

Rentals can make housing more affordable, especially if you dump a lot of rentals in the rental market. This, after all, is how New York City (especially Manhattan) works: almost everyone there is a long term rentals with large housing corporations (the only one that can afford the buildings) taking the rental income and making the rich even richer. There is extremely high density and low car ownership, owing to the density of transit. Los Angeles doesn’t have that transit density, but that doesn’t stop builders from trying to increase density. It is unclear whether that will work, especially with parking and transportation issues. Most likely, people will end up paying one way or the other.

So what is doing us in with respect to housing. My supposition? Human nature. To put it another way: People are not willing to take a loss in value for their house even if it makes other houses in your neighborhood more affordable. People are not willing to have more housing constructed in their neighborhood if it lowers values solely due to the increase in supply. No one wants to see their property values drop. Your house is your main financial asset. You can’t afford to take the loss. Let it happen in another neighborhood. And thus, the NIMBY is born, with the net result that home purchase prices stay sky-high. The impact, of course, of this is that less folks buy (and thus can use the mortgage deduction), and more folks — if housing is available — rent. This increases the demand for the rental units, which (as the supply doesn’t increase as fast), increases the rent.

So, why not build more rental housing? Because those same folks that don’t want more low-density single family housing in their neighborhood don’t want high-density housing. Think what that will do to the traffic! We won’t be able to get anywhere! And if we make housing more affordable, all that riff-raff will move to our neighborhood, lowering values even further. Oh, and don’t get me started on what adding low income housing does to our housing values!

In the end, it is people who are protecting the values of their single family homes that keep the market high. Banks and other financial institutions are complicit in this: making it easier to take out riskier loans with lower down payments to make more expensive houses affordable, and then selling off those loans so they don’t keep the risk in the community (that’s part of what caused the housing crisis). Remember: What they can’t make in interest rate income they can make by having a smaller percentage of a larger base amount, with a longer loan. So what if they homeowner loses the loan? They can forclose and sell it to someone else making even more money the second or third or fourth time around.

The high housing prices also mean that those who can afford to buy and built multi-unit housing are those at the upper end of the financial spectrum. If these multi-unit complexes are built as condos, you have the same problems as above: housing prices that keep raising (which also keeps raising the prices of the detached non-condo houses). If they are built as rentals, the landlords want to keep the prices up — and thus they fight any low income units. But eventually there will be higher density, which will give us — you guessed it — Manhattan.

And that, folks, is why housing is so expensive. You have no one but yourself and human nature to blame.

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Changes to California Highways (The Website): June – September 2017

Posted onAuthorcahwyguy

We’re up to the closing three-day weekend of the summer, and that means it is time to start on a website update. It’s been a busy summer and a hot summer, with an almost 4,900 road trip from Los Angeles CA to Madison WI and back, out through the middle (Colorado, Nebraska) and back through St. Louis and the “mother road”. Work has continued on California Highways, especially thanks to some tax modifications that provided a much needed infrastructure boost to the state. As for that promised Infrastructure bill from the Feds, it remains just that, a promise.

Updates were made to the following highways, based on my reading of the papers (which are posted to the roadgeeking category at the “Observations Along The Road” and to the California Highways Facebook group) as well as any backed up email changes. I also reviewed the the AAroads forum. This resulted in changes on the following routes, with credit as indicated [my research(1), contributions of information or leads (via direct mail) from Mike Ballard(2), Bill Deaver(3), Andy Field(4), Gonealookin/AARoads(5), Ron Langum(6), NE2/AARoads(7), Alex Nitzman(8), Max Rockatansky/AARoads(9), Joe Rouse(10), Sparker/AARoads(11); Michelle Sandoval(12), Richard Severeid(13): Route 1(1), Route 4(6), I-5(1), Former US 6(2), I-8(1), I-10(1), Route 12(13), I-15(1), Route 16(1), Route 25(1), Route 27(1), Route 29(1), Route 32(9), Route 36(1), LRN 36(7,9,11), Route 37(1), US 40(9), Route 41(9,11), Route 43(9), Route 49(1,9,7,11), US 50(1,5,9), Route 57(1), Route 58(1,10), Route 62(1), Route 63(7,9,11), Route 65(9), Former US 66(1), Route 70(9), Route 75(1), Route 76(1), I-80(1,9), Route 87(1), Route 88(9,11), Route 89(1), Route 91(1), Route 94(1), LRN 94(11), Route 99(1,13), US 101(1,4), Route 104(9,11), Route 108(1), Route 120(9), LRN 120(9), Route 121(1), Route 124(9,11), Route 132(1), Route 134(1), LRN 135(9), Route 136(9), Route 138(1), Route 140(9), Route 145(9), Route 146(9), Route 152(1), Route 155(11), Route 158(9), Route 163(1), Route 172(9,11,7), Route 174(1), Route 178(1,9), Route 180(9), Route 201(9), Route 203(9), Route 204(1), Route 211(11), Route 237(1), Route 269(9), Route 270(9), US 395(1), I-405(1), US 466(3), Route 480(1), I-505(8), I-580(1), I-605(1), I-680(1), I-710(1), Monterey County Route G13(9), Monterey County Route G14(9), Tulare County Route J37(9); FAQ(12). Note: Almost all of the SB 1 projects discussed here are resurfacing or repair of infrastructure, not new construction or widening. Thus, they are below the level of detail that I normally capture in these pages.

Noted the passing of Matthew Salek’s Highways of Colorado (and updated the regional pages appropriately). If I had lights, I’d dim them in it’s memory as another major roadsite disappears.

Updated the highway types page to clarify the difference between being a scenic highway in the legislative code and being an actual state scenic highway. The Q2-2017 Mile Marker explained the difference: “Many highway corridors are eligible for Scenic Highway status, but receiving an official designation requires the local government to apply to Caltrans for approval and adopt a Corridor Protection Program. The local governing body must develop and implement measures that strictly limit development and control outdoor advertising along the scenic corridor. ”

Sometimes an innocent question can lead one down an interesting path. Such is the case with the question I received from David Walker, who asked “Who or what named the ditches on I-10?”. This led me to UglyBridges.com and the National Bridge Inventory. This resulted in an addition to the FAQ, and a list of ditch names for I-10. I thought I might add them for some other desert routes, but the interface doesn’t make that easy. Another query that didn’t lead to an easy update to the site was a reporter from the OC Register, Kurt Snibbe, who wanted to do a piece explaining California’s road signs. It didn’t quite fit into a particular road’s page, and didn’t quite fit onto a specific numbering page, so it was shoehorned into the page on signing standards and the FAQ. Read More …

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Something I Thought I Would Never Do

Posted onAuthorcahwyguy

I guess there’s a time for everything, for I’m about to do something I never thought I would do publicly, on my blog. Recommend a porn site I recently visited; a site that was truly spectacular and astounded and excited me.

I learned about this site while reading my regular RSS feeds: one of the sites I read pointed to a podcast about the site and its founder.  From there, it was easy to follow the link to the site itself, and to the site’s Facebook Page. Last night, I spend a fair amount of time perusing both sites, and I even brought my wife over to join me in the activity. She was equally engaged with the sites.

Here’s the amazing thing: these porn sites are SFW. And yes, I’m talking about human adult porn, not food porn or horse porn or pet porn or any of the odd picture porn you see on the net.

Of course, I should make clear I’m talking about Porn for Jews. And before you bring in your stereotypes or tropes, don’t bother. This doesn’t play on those stereotypes. It is, however, intellectual porn — and porn that you will only get if you have a deep enough immersion in Jewish religion and culture. If you have that, you will find it hilarious.

Who knows? It might even turn you on. As for me, it’s time to polish the Yod.

(No, that’s not a Boston reference. That’s Yahd. Yod refers to the pointer one uses to read from the Torah. Erin made us one many years ago, and we need to regularly clean it. Get your minds out of the gutter.)

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Caught With Your Pants Down

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I’ve been reading a lot today about the Equifax compromise, where, you, the person whose data Equifax collected, were caught with your pants down because — although you buckled the belt as you should — the manufacturer forgot to secure the buckle to belt. When you bent over to pick up that hot dog that landed on the floor — whoops, your privates, and those of 143 Million other Equifax individuals about which Equifax had data (about 44%) were put out there for all the world to see, to point at, and to laugh.

Don’t you feel embarrassed? Don’t you feel like you should lock yourself up in a dark room and hide forever?

You don’t need to. Equifax has provided a complicated checking procedure and registration approach that, ultimately, puts you in a queue for a paid year of credit monitoring, while you give up your rights to arbitration and class actions suits¹. Doesn’t that make you feel better? Oh, and that credit monitoring. I think you still need to give a credit card, so they can start billing you after the free year is over.² Still feel better? Remember, this is monitoring — it doesn’t stop anything and lets you know after the information is used. Of course, you can have confidence in Equifax that they will protect you after the breech, given how they have handled it. [ETA: Oh, and Equifax was sending people to a fake phishing site.]

¹: [Update: They later clarified this wasn’t the case, although initial language made it appear to be the case. Translation: Sloppy response to the situation; poor contingency planning.]
²: [Update: They since removed the requirement for a credit card; it was there when this article was written]

Of course, there are security folks proposing other solutions. Some suggest the easy solution of just giving everyone new, more secure, social security numbers. Alternatively, we could start using our RealID Drivers License, and have one national identity number.

More sane folks are recommending a two pronged approach that doesn’t requiring using Equifax’s protection: the most common approach is suggesting a fraud alert on your records, and paying to have a freeze to prevent new accounts. All good ideas.

As for me, I’m going to wait and see. With 143 Million pieces of data, their odds of picking me are, well, 1 in 143 million. That’s pretty small.  Plus the information has been out there for months — and with information like this, you have to use it quickly or it loses its value. Have we seen an uptick in identity theft? I haven’t heard of anything. I strongly suspect that this was a nation state, just like the OPM breach, and only select data will be used, for sophisticated spear phishing attacks. After all, why do they need to do the fraud when they can get you to unlock the door? Further, this isn’t the only attack: you’ve likely already had your information released (see this site).

Oh, and before you get scared about using the Internet, think about this: You don’t have to be an Internet user to have your information in the Equifax data. You just have to have had credit as some point in your life. The fault was with Equifax, the company you trusted to protect your data. Oh, that’s right. You didn’t choose Equifax. The fault was with Equifax, the company other companies trusted to give them accurate credit data. Equifax didn’t care about you or your credit. And neither did that little minx, Wendy*.

It is not in Equifax’s business model to protect your data: well, they’ll protect it only until they can sell it to the highest bidder. Remember the adage: If you get the service for free, you’re not the customer, you’re the product. [Translation: Equifax and other credit reporters make money by selling your data. Until their customers — the financial organizations that buy their data — demand accurate information, nothing will change. They won’t demand as long as it doesn’t cost them. They don’t pay the cost of the identity theft — you do.]

Feel better now? If not, wait I bit. I’ll be posting something this evening that will make you feel much better, even if your pants are down.

P.S.: Speaking about phishing, my favorite theatre about spam is having performances on 9/10 and 9/17. Go see it. It had Gene Spafford rolling in the aisles.

*[Paraphrasing my favorite Alton Brown quote, long since removed from his website:]

Here’s what it comes down to kids. Equifax doesn’t give a damn about you. Neither does that little minx Rachel from Card Services or any of the other icons of finance. And you know what, they’re not supposed to. They’re businesses doing what businesses do. They don’t love you. They are not going to laugh with you on your birthdays, or hold you when you’re sick and sad. They won’t be with you when you graduate, when your children are born or when you die. You will be with you and your family and friends will be with you. And, if you’re any kind of human being, you will be there for them. And you know what, you and your family and friends are supposed to watch out for you too. That’s right folks, protecting someone else’s information is an act of caring. We will always be protected best by those that care, be it ourselves or the aforementioned friends and family.

We are having our information exposed and exploited and exploited again because we have handed a basic, fundamental and intimate function of life over to corporations. We choose to value our information so little that we entrust it to strangers. We hand our lives over to big companies and then drag them to court when the deal goes bad. This is insanity.

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