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This is an old page from Rod Begbie's blog.

It only exists in an attempt to prevent linkrot. No new content will be added to this site, and links and images are liable to be broken. Check out begbie.com to find where I'm posting stuff these days.

Entries for week beginning March 5, 2006

March 11, 2006

Not to rain on everyone’s “Chase is Crap” parade, but…

Currently floating high on reddit/digg/etc: The Torn-Up Credit Card Application, in which a man tears up a pre-printed credit-card application, tapes it back together, enters his parents’ address and his cellphone number, sends it into Chase, and gets a credit card issued. OMFGZ, etc.

A terrifying example of what someone can do if you don’t shred your incoming mail?

Hardly.

First of all, unmentioned is the fact that the form requires the entry of a Social Security Number. That’s the primary key to the whole credit-worthiness system in the US. The author presumably used his own valid SSN.

Secondly, the address he used was that of his parents. Depending on the age of the author, he might have lived at that address at some point in his life. That’d be on his credit history. Certainly, there’s a high probability that his parents have the same surname as him, so a check of property records wouldn’t throw up any red flags.

Thirdly, he used his own cellphone as the contact number. Sadly, it’s not unfeasible that the credit agencies have access to the cell companies’ databases—All cell phone companies perform a credit-check as part of service activation these days. A quick cross-check would show a match of person to phone number. Perhaps even show length of service—A long-time held phone number is going to be less likely to be used in fraud than a sparkling new one.

So Chase gets a torn-up application, for a pre-filled application which contains a SSN, employer information, and a cellphone number which all match the applicant 100%, plus a mailing address that any fuzzy authentication would give a thumbs-up to. Just another person who’s had to move back in with his parents. No wonder they gave him his card.

Before you panic and run to Staples forthwith, might I suggest someone try this scientifically? Purchase a pay-as-you-go phone with cash. Fill in a pre-filled credit card form with that phone number, a fake SSN and the address of someone unrelated to you (preferably someone you don’t particularly like, since they may well get a knock on the door from the feds). Don’t even rip up the form—just send it in as new. Wanna take bets on whether the embossed plastic will be on their doorstep any time soon?

In the meantime, I’ll focus on avoiding giving my SSN, address, cellphone number and employment history to strangers.

Trixie Tracker: Baby Tracking Software

Data-mining your baby for a happier life. I know some engineers that this will appeal to!

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Lists of Bests

New out of the Robot Coop (sic). Fun way to check-off, compare or aspire to completing lists like Q Magazine’s “Top 100 Albums of All Time” (I own 45%) or the BBC’s “50 Things You Should Eat Before You Die” (76%)

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March 10, 2006

A toddler’s drawing of me

A toddler’s drawing of me

On the flight back from San Diego, a mother and her daughter sat next to me. I feared a 6-hour chunk of screaming wean, but the kid was surprisingly quiet, watching her Barney DVDs and reading her Curious George books.

This is a picture she drew of me. (Actually, the mother drew the head and body, and the girl added the glasses, beard and baseball cap) A pretty decent likeness!

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View from the 40th Floor

View from the 40th Floor

Shot from the bar at the top of the Hyatt. San Diego really has the most dull featureless skyline!

Zazzle.com - 'Architecture Help Dark T-Shirt' T-Shirt

Spotted at ETech. Made me chuckle.

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March 9, 2006

Marshmallow Shooter

The most fun you can have with PVC tubing and marshmallows. Esther “Deadeye” Dyson terrorised Makefest with this.

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Hobbes vs Rousseau on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

Best slide of ETech — From Clay Shirky’s talk on internet community behaviours.

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Picture This: A New Look For Office

MS unveil their new UI for Office. Curious to see how this works in real life, but the photos look like usability could go either way.

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Ning Atom API

Ning are sharing out all the user-generated data as Atom feeds, and will soon be supporting Atom Publishing to modify data. Hooray for non-roach-motels.

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Ning at Emerging Technology '06

Yoz’s talk has convinced me! Ning looks like it could be a really fun shared platform for swift hosted development.

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PgFoundry: Query By Example

“Query by Example” dataminingy plugin for PostgreSQL. The ETech demo wasn’t that compelling, but it looks like it could have potential for “agile” data-prodding.

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O'Reilly Radar > Entrepreneurial Proverbs

Marc Hedlund’s “Proverbs” for engineers who want to be entrepeneurs. Great stuff.

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How Game Mechanics Can Make Your App More Fun

Some ETech links. This was my favourite talk yesterday (and one I stumbled into by accident when another room was full). Using the fun things we see in games to make your (social) software more engaging.

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Three Roombas enter, One Roomba leaves

Three Roombas enter, One Roomba leaves

Hardcore Three-way Roomba-on-Roomba Action.

March 8, 2006

Roomba Rumble

Roomba Rumble

Two remote-control Roombas battle it out at Makefest.

Expert Texture » Blog Archive » Snark it up

“The snark tag allows the user to enclose snark text in tags to better identify the target of the snarkiness as well as the level, tone, and subtext.”

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March 7, 2006

Multi-Touch Interaction Research

The coolest demo so far at ETech. Whizzy touch-screen Minority Report style interactions.

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March 6, 2006

My main thought from day one of ETech…

My main thought from day one of ETech…

"Branded Lanyard" would be a great name for a rock band.

Mama’s Got A

At some point, I may well get around to writing a review of my Squeezebox (summary: Love the mutherfunker to pieces), but as I sit here in my hotel room in San Diego (vaguely contemplating sleep prior to the start of ETech), I must say how impressed I am with the Softsqueeze Java player.

SlimSqueeze screenshot

Thanks to its built-in SSH tunneling, I’m able to listen to my entire music collection on my server at home as if I were there. An excellent idea, and proof of the value of building an open infrastructure to support proprietary hardware.

Gentoo Linux 2006.0 Screenshots

Blimey. Gentoo’s gotten themselves one of them fancy high-falutin’ “installer” thingummies. There goes the neighbourhood!

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Google Video: From the Googleplex

Google share some videos of various talks given at the Googleplex. Some really interesting-looking stuff here.

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About This Site

This is an archive of groovmother.com, the old blog run by Rod Begbie — A Scottish geek who lives in San Francisco, CA.

I'm the co-founder of Sōsh, your handy-dandy guide for things to do in San Francisco this weekend.