Wednesday, October 3, 2018

No Doubt Slicker Than That





Hacking is something that happens to other people.  We read about breaches involving millions of people at this company or that.  And China, for example, has eight-hundred-million people on line, so what does it matter?  Bank of America reached out to me, to my U.S. number and via email.  And when I called them they notified me that a merchant, they wouldn’t say who, from whom I’d bought something over the summer, had been hacked.  Bank card information had been compromised.  They believed mine had been effected. 

This would mean that they would suspend service on my existing bank card, (my one and only source of cash) and they would be sending me a new one.  Would the U.S. address on file, be O.K.?  No.  I’ll be needing you to send it over here to China, thank you, very much.  And there is, they informed me a suspicious charge on your account.  Did you recently purchase anything with Ticket Master?    No.  I confirmed.  I had not. 



Later after the call, I went on line and had a look at my statement.  Sure enough, someone had purchased four Taylor Swift tickets from Ticket Master, at around one-hundred dollars each.  My first thought was that it ought to be fairly easy to identify that particular hacker:  Have the cops go to section C, row thirteen, seats five, six, seven and eight.  That dad there, with the baseball cap, with his three daughters, that’s your man.  He purchased these tickets with my money!



Ahh, but hackers with hoodies are no doubt slicker than that if they can facilitate a breech of millions at a major retailer. (Had it been Target?  Starbucks?  Maybe they hacked Metro North?) Someone probably sold the credentials to someone else, who then bought tickets in small batches and provided them to yet again another person who there at the show or somewhere in the fabled dark web sold them off.  Still, I’d like to confront the people sitting there in the seats someone used my money to secure.  But then I would leave quickly, as I wouldn't care to take in the show.   



Tuesday 8/21/18


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