Why not prepaid utilities?

Just thinking out loud again...why don't utility companies (or grocery stores for that matter) offer pre-paid cards? It'd be nice to give someone a gift of $$ off of their electric bill or next weeks food supplies. In fact, considering that many companies have debts in business, they could offset the interest they pay on these business loans with pre-paid customers. Let's say Dominion Electric Co. has a loan out for $10M at 8% interest, and instead, offer their customers 5% off on pre-paid electricity? Among those people who are capable, who wouldn't invest in next month's electricity if they could get 5% on their money?

Just a Thought: Do you really need it NOW?

The computing environment has enabled us to do business faster than ever before possible in human history. However, keeping pace with the business process speed improvements is the speed at which crooks can steal our identities, our information and our money.

I was reading a news article and I had a brief thought that perhaps the answer to some types of cyber-crime might be to slow down, rather than speed up. Like most thoughts I have, this one requires a good deal of fleshing out, but the seed of the idea is that crooks are looking to break in to an enclosure, remove a resource, and leave as quickly as possible. If a crook has to hang around and expose himself to discovery, he's likely to move on to a quicker target with less risk.

What if we slow down our processing at high-risk processing centers, exposing money movement to larger time windows, requiring customers to hang around (and be subject to random audit) before their transactions are processed? What are some good ways to implement delays and exposure to scrutiny into our data systems? What kind of cost benefit analysis can be done for lost productivity vs. increased security? Just a thought.

Of Found Lotto Tickets and Roadside Motels

On our recent vacation to Fort Lauderdale, I did some swimming and scanning of the ocean floor for interesting objects. Besides the seaweed, coral rocks, palm-tree leaves and broken shells, I found another object lying on top of the sand and beneath the surf. It was a Florida Lotto ticket, sitting open and displaying its message of hope. Gently, I scooped my hand under the ticket so as not to rip it and lifted it out of the ocean. I walked it back to the beach and laid it out to dry on my skimboard (which I didn't get to use...there's not much surf at Ft. Lauderdale). The drawing date on the ticket was the 16th of Aug, and it was only the 15th. Whoever had lost the ticket was probably looking for it now. Unfortunately for them, they hadn't signed the ticket when they bough it. As Daffy Duck would say: "Mine! Mine! It's all MINE!"

So, here I sit on the 17th of Aug, in a Ramada Motel in South Carolina, heading back up the eastern seaboard. With a single matching number on the lotto ticket, it's much less of a story now. The free breakfast was no big shakes, either, though better than a punch in the nose. The lobby of this particular Ramada was, like that Lotto ticket, so full of promise yesterday. I walked into their beautiful lobby with two descending curved staircases and gorgeously appointed furnishings. There is a huge chandelier dropped between them, leading to a marble counter and large reception area. A promise of a free hot breakfast made the deal complete. However, just like the Lotto ticket, that promise collapsed when we finally saw where we'd be staying. The lobby building is built to hide the motel from the road, perhaps purposefully so. The room door had remnants of spray paint. The door lock, while operational, wasn't trustworthy. It's a good thing there was a second one ;) Also like the Lotto ticket, it wasn't the worst I'd ever had. The room was clean and everything apparently works.

Dissapointment isn't necessarily something you can complain about.

Dunkin' WTH Donuts

Since when is a dozen 12? A baker's dozen has been 13 since ye olden times when bakers could be beheaded for providing less than 12 baked products when ordering a dozen. (They included an extra just to make sure!) This safety gap has become an expected part of ordering a dozen donuts, cruellers, rolls, or what have you. Today I went to Dunkin' Donuts because I forgot my CAC card at home, and it is office culture to bring in the donuts when you make a boneheaded move such as this. Imagine my surprise when they pulled out the box and it fit 12 donuts, not 13!

Just as an added commentary on this whole fiasco, the box had a banner on it: 0g Trans Fats! Wowee! Perhaps donuts can be healthy treats?

Body of Secrets

I've finished my non-fiction book for the year, Body of Secrets. That makes two of my New Years Resolutions complete. One fiction book, one non-fiction book. I've bought a third book for the year, John Adams: Party of One, which I'll be starting today. When I have time I need to get started on my short story.

10-4 Good Buddy

Well, I splurged on myself today and bought my first scanner, a hand-held RadioShack PRO-97. It's an analog scanner (triple trunking) and picks up plenty of signals (but not standard FM 86-108 - my only complaint - this would have been a simple inclusion).

The battery life is pretty good (it takes 4 AA's, but I've been using it about 12 hours almost non-stop), the signal strength is good, the squelch is analog/by-feel.

In just a day, I've learned how to search for signals and save the channels I find. A little harder was comprehending how to program the trunking system here (there's two Motorola systems, one digital, one analog...I kept trying to program in the digital system and didn't understand why all I got was squeals). Now that I know I need a digital trunking scanner, I know what I want for Christmas, a BearCat BCD396T, RadioShack Pro-96 or GRE PSR-500 (digital trunking scanners).

I got the cable and downloaded successfully with some software I found on the NET (Win97) -

Can anyone recommend a FREE software that does this? I went ahead and bought Win97 already, but it'd be nice to have a backup.

Any suggestions, etc, from you hams on the list? So far, this has been better than watching TV ;)

People I Know

The world sometimes surprises us by the people we know. Sometimes we're simply surprised at what the people we know are up to. I recently found out that someone I work alongside has a blog. And not only that, he's also into languages, just like someone else I know with a blog. Granted, he's into ancient languages for biblical research, but all the same....

I'm about a third of the way through my non-fiction book for the year, Body of Secrets by James Bamford. Perhaps when I finish the book I'll decrypt the lead-in text for the chapters as an exercise.

IM Update - Trillian

If you use Trillian as your IM consolidation tool (connect to Yahoo IM, ICQ, AIM and MSN Messenger) - you'll want to update due to a recently found security hole. The current, patched version is 3.10.0, 18 May 2008. Even though the 'Check for Update' in Trillian doesn't say you need an update, if your Help/About doesn't have the 18 May 2008 date on it, you'll want to manually update your software from Trillian's website.
If you don't use Trillian for IM, it's worth investigating. If you use basic IM clients (not the voice and webcam sharing capabilities, which Trillian doesn't replicate) and have friends on more than one network, it will help you organize your friends, and allow you to run just one IM client. Additionally, it offers encryption compatible with several services and allows connectivity to IRC as well.

Crypto Thoughts

I was thinking about cryptography the other day (ok, I know I'm weird, shut up) - and I was imagining a good analogy for public key cryptography. I want to write it down before I forget it. Let's say that you created a lockbox (creating a public/private key pair) with two openings. The first opening allows you to easily remove the contents of the lockbox, perhaps a lid to the box. This is locked and you keep the key to yourself (your private key). The second opening is shaped in such a way that you can deposit documents, but documents can not be retrieved without considerable effort. The shape/size and limits of the second opening represent the complexity of the algorithm you've chosen. Perhaps that opening is S shaped, and accepts at most 1 sheet of paper at a time (thus you would have a hard time obtaining the contents of the lockbox through that hole). This opening is locked shut with a second lock, but copies of these keys are made and given to anyone asking for one. By using this second key, people who want to make a deposit know that the key is for YOUR lockbox, and they use the key to open it, verifying that you will be the recipient. They fold their message into that S-shape and stick it through the hole, unable to retrieve it. You come along and open the box with your key and easily remove the now unfolded sheet of paper.

I'll have to analyze the analogy sometime when I have the time to see how it holds up and can be worked to make it a more interesting story (and see if it leads to any insights).

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