Busted Open

It is late depending on your relative benchmark of time...

04:18 here.

I am thinking about Infosec, IT security etc...

Today, I carried out an audit on someones computer system.

This was for an unrelated business, I was suprised at how easily I was able to gain the password for their stock and POS system, I also downloaded some P+L information and had a quick look at the index.dat file that recorded their dodgey porn surfing on a retail POS machine.

Anyone with half of my skill/experience/curiosity can circumvent most systems, I was shocked.

I enjoyed it, but I was shocked.

No... I just enjoyed it.

Thumbs Up

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The recent past

There has been a large gap in my posts of recent, mainly due to work, I have just finished an 82 hour week, this superceeded a 59 hour week and that another 82 hour week. I have been busy.

I had a massive trip that I planned for the end of April, and in so far as planning goes, it looked sweet on the outset, and then, reality came a knocking at my door...

My problems began on the morning of departure, I had a long conference call that restricted the time I had to get to the airport, as I had to go to town first, opposite directions you see.

I decided to dial in from home, and the call took a bit longer than I'd hoped, also, I broke my EFTPOS card during the call, fortunately I had loaded my AMEX with funds the day before, Wednesday. Normally these go in on the Friday. Normally...

And so did it begin...

I arrived just in time at the airport to have a durrie and jump on the plane.

Wellington greeted me with a cooler temperature than I am used to in Auckland.

I caught a cab to my Hotel and checked in, all good, the room was small but had all of the bells and whistles that one needs for one night. There was a complimentary drink on arrival and I chose a Macs Gold beer.

Unfortunately, I broke the tab off it and couldn't drink it, I felt like moses.

I decided to use the wine corkscrew to pry it open and gain access, only to bend the corkscrew around 90 degrees. But I did make a hole with which to pour out frothy beer in to a glass.

It was good.

The room next door had a couple in, the wife was talking about her mother and the guy was taking a shit. Yes, the walls were thin.

As time passed, I got ready and cruised to town.

The steakhouse place was awesome, the meat was good, the mushroom sauce was lovely.

Paying for it with an AMEX that didn't work, wasn't.

Fortunately, Neil, from www.neilmayo.blogspot.com, came to the rescue, you can see his lotus on his site.

We had some drinks in bars, ate sorbet, and drank bourbon.

The nest day, when trying to pay my Hotel bill the AMEX did not work, AMEX told me it is because of ANZAC day. Which was on Wednesday, the day I originally transferred funds.

FUCK.

If you are nice, you can get out of paying bills.

I managed that.

The next step was to go to the airport, fortunately the lovely people at the hotel gave me a lift.

AMEX said to call back later on and see if the funds were cleared.

Six hours later, I began to stress. You see, I had booked a car to drive back.

AMEX had not cleared the funds.

"How do I get home?" I thought.

Fortunately, Neil sent me a text to see what was happening, I relayed the story.

He offered his services once again and I managed to get a car, however, I had to fax some documentation to him, and guess what... the rental car company fax broke.

I kid you not.

Eventually, we got this sorted.

I finally had an ugly ass V6 to drive home in. ETA, 8 hours.

After seeing Neil and passing 80GB of non-copyrighted material. I began my journey to Auckland. Fortunately I had my Sony MP3 player to keep me company...

At 2am I rocked in to Auckland. Feeling absolutely...Fucked.

I checked my AMEX account and the money was all good, too fucking late, but all good.

All in all, an adventure. And a lesson.

It was good to catch up with Neil and Viktro, and as a result I have followed a computer forensics lead, that has yielded some initial and positive results.

Thank God/Allah/Buddha/Krishna/Deities in general for friends...