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My Lunchtime Hobby: Collecting Badges
Posted August 1st, 2007 by rybolov
I’m not Lord Nikon, but I play him at lunchtime. A guy can always pretend, can’t he?
You see, here in “occupied” Northern Virginia, we all work for either the Government, contractors, IT companies, or any combination thereof. Everywhere you go, you have a badge. Most badges have at least two things: the company name and the employee’s name. Looking at my “25 pieces of flair”, I see that you can even get my middle initial and where I work.
If all this sounds exactly like seed material for your password seed files, well then it just might be. Not really what I would call earth-shattering ‘leet skillz, but it might be enough to get a foothold if you’re targeting one company in particular–find the nearest lunch spot and look for the right logo, check the web for @targetcompany.com email addresses, note the smtp headers to see what kind of a user naming convention they use, and mung your collected names list into the right format.
Then get hacking! That’s an exercise left to the reader, just follow the golden rule and “never hack from home.”
Anyway, my little lunchtime distraction is to notice how many organizations I can see standing in line, talking on the phone, or enjoying their lowfat Atkins-friendly salad. I guess you could say it’s the CISO’s version of buzzword bingo.
But then again, I’ve always been a little bit touched, so this shouldn’t be a big surprise. =)
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3 Comments »
August 1st, 2007 at 7:52 pm
Low fat Atkins-friendly salad? Atkins friendly, low fat, salad? A salad that is low in fat, and high in proteins? Or just a salad that is low in fat, low in proteins, and low in nutrition?
I’m lost. Waaaa! I want my mummy!
I love tags at your usual security conference. The huge piece of cardboard in a plastic sleeve hung around ones neck that says the name and the organisation (and sometimes even the position) – it is amazing how many security people go off to have lunch, discuss with their peers their internal affairs, what hotel they’re staying, … all that blissfully unaware of their surrounding.
And we still get angry at Joe Average for innocently divulging sensitive information to someone he perceives to be a figure of authority.
August 1st, 2007 at 8:44 pm
Yeah, you take what you would have on a sandwich and put it into a salad because “bread is carbohydrates and therefore evil”
August 2nd, 2007 at 12:26 am
Ugh, thanks for explanation rybolov. Luckily I read this after lunch.
I’ll stick to my:
Carbs is good.
Protein is good.
Caffeine is good.
Sugar is good.
Taurine is good.
Just don’t exaggerate.