Fooling with hackers is generally a very bad idea, but the scammers responsible for an apparent ATM grift in Las Vegas may not have been aware of that particular rule of thumb. The ATM scam happened during the Black Hat and Defcon security conferences last week, during which time the Las Vegas Strip was heavily populated with hackers well-versed in the many methods cyberthieves employ to rip off victims. The hackers who noticed the suspicious-looking ATMs called in the authorities, and both the Las Vegas Police Department and the Secret Service are now reportedly involved.
I find it interesting that a technical writer of a technical website would fail, (not once, but twice) to correctly use everyday acronyms. Since ATM stands for Automated Teller Machine, the usage of "machine" after it is redundant. Likewise, the "N" in PIN does, in fact, stand for the word "Number".
We have to stop doing this or else, much like the looming corruption that texting and chatting will do to the English language, basic acronyms will go the way of the Dodo as well. Only to be replaced by the utterly corrupt "LOL". Which, by its very nature, is an oxymoron.
Loading ...
Scammers Try to Hack Hackers With Crooked Cash Machine
Posted by: Richard Adhikari August 3, 2009 12:16 PMFooling with hackers is generally a very bad idea, but the scammers responsible for an apparent ATM grift in Las Vegas may not have been aware of that particular rule of thumb. The ATM scam happened during the Black Hat and Defcon security conferences last week, during which time the Las Vegas Strip was heavily populated with hackers well-versed in the many methods cyberthieves employ to rip off victims. The hackers who noticed the suspicious-looking ATMs called in the authorities, and both the Las Vegas Police Department and the Secret Service are now reportedly involved.
We have to stop doing this or else, much like the looming corruption that texting and chatting will do to the English language, basic acronyms will go the way of the Dodo as well. Only to be replaced by the utterly corrupt "LOL". Which, by its very nature, is an oxymoron.
Does anyone concur?