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Solarbotics Data Breach — Parallax Forums

Solarbotics Data Breach

ercoerco Posts: 20,250
in General Discussion
FYI, I just got an email notification. Don't worry, orders placed by FAX are not affected.

https://mailchi.mp/cc2b1cc7bbd2/parisflyer-1067053

Comments

  • Heater.Heater. Posts: 21,230
    From the message:
    ...which specifically indicates the credit card number, expiration, and CVD information was compromised.
    Why do web stores even need to save that information?

    Where is the advice to call your bank ASAP and cancel said credit cards?

  • GordonMcCombGordonMcComb Posts: 3,366
    The email doesn't say the information was by design saved by the site, just that there was malicious code on the server that collected the information entered by the customer. I read it as a collection at the time of the order. There are known exploits that work this way, and numerous websites have been hit by it. The code grabs the data transparently from the submitted form, and either stores it for later retrieval by the thieves, or emails right then and there.

    They should indeed suggest customers contact their bank, though I suspect they assume this is now simply common sense. I haven't ordered anything from them in years, so I'm not affected. I feel badly for them as it will surely cost them customers.

  • ercoerco Posts: 20,250
    Meanwhile, fax machine sales & stocks are skyrocketing. Just the fax, ma'am.

    Next-gen comms are rumored to include secure Morse code telegrams.

    Di-di-daaaah-dit Di-daaaah Daaaah-di-di-daaaah.

  • kwinnkwinn Posts: 8,697
    erco wrote: »
    Meanwhile, fax machine sales & stocks are skyrocketing. Just the fax, ma'am.

    Next-gen comms are rumored to include secure Morse code telegrams.

    Di-di-daaaah-dit Di-daaaah Daaaah-di-di-daaaah.
    No need for fax machines when there are multi function print/scan/fax units as well as fax modems for PC's.
  • ercoerco Posts: 20,250
    This data breach you can't trust this newfangled all-in one technology! Everyone needs to downgrade to this lovely hammertone 1948 Western Union Desk Fax. I have this exact model up in my attic from my 1970's ham radio experiments. Yes, seriously!

    desk%20fax.jpg

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  • GordonMcCombGordonMcComb Posts: 3,366
    These old faxes are actually pretty nice, if not slow. On the ham bands it was common in the 1960s to hear the scraggle tones of fax transmissions.

    My step father was more into teletype. He'd sometimes run that thing all night. Which was neither here nor there, except his radio room was right next to my bedroom.

    In the Pomona antique row there was a retired army or navy radioman who ran a used electronics shop. I got a beautiful portable 8-track from him, plus a bunch of 40s and 50s radios. Also once snagged a wire recorder (nice Webster with a magic eye record level meter), which worked for about five seconds before a cap opened up with a loud sizzle and release of smoke. He's long gone from there, but your fax is the type of thing he'd have.

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  • Cluso99Cluso99 Posts: 18,069
    I've heard so many modem tones from the 80's & 90's (when I designed modems) that I swear I could decode them ;)
    Alas, they were a bit more complicated than that.
  • ercoerco Posts: 20,250
    I won the county science fair in 11th grade using that fax machine with my "light beam communications" project. Among other experiments (fueled by Forest Mims) I sent a dollar bill over a light beam. I only had one fax machine, so in transmit mode, I scanned a dollar bill and recorded the audio output on a cassette tape recorder. Then for my demo, I played the recording back, sent the audio signal over a Forest Mims' IR transmitter/receiver, and printed it out on the fax machine in receive mode. I ran out of old-stock fax paper halfway through my project, so I made my own soaking white paper in tincture of iodide. A small project mushroomed into a huge one, and I learned a lot.
  • GordonMcCombGordonMcComb Posts: 3,366
    Excellent! Remind me to have you around as The Professor if we ever get stranded on a deserted island!
  • Buck RogersBuck Rogers Posts: 2,161
    I was watching one of the Adam-12 episodes I obtained via iTunes... As it happens something similar was used to send the information for one of the people they grabbed and then Reed asked how'd it work. The fink explained it naturally.

    As for TTY and its fun methods over the air, I confess I had an interest in that method a long time ago. Never got the unit, but it was fun listening to the people communicate that way.
  • GordonMcCombGordonMcComb Posts: 3,366
    edited 2018-06-09 21:08
    Both Adam-12 and Dragnet showed the rotary faxes a couple of times, typically in relation to FBI information "kickbacks" -- info returned by the FBI as requested by the police. My wife used a more modern version in the mid 1970s. This was at a well-to-do Los Angeles architectural firm that had many of the latest innovations at the time, including word processors that used an IBM Selectric for the printer, and cassette tape to store the data. The fax used the rotating drum, but sent or received pages in 30 seconds or so.

    I still get a hoot watching the late 60s Dragnets which are currently on Hulu. I used to not like Jack Webb too much ... he seemed the epitome of the authoritarian square. It was the hippie in me. But turns out he was pretty cool, with an absolutely astounding jazz music collection, and a generously liberal attitude toward the practices of jazz musicians. He was married to one, after all.
  • ercoerco Posts: 20,250
    I still say this 1970's Autopen is the coolest fax ever. From the movie "Juggernaut".

  • Buck RogersBuck Rogers Posts: 2,161
    Wasn't that about the cruise ship that was rigged to explode? And they needed to find someone to defuse those things? And that the fellow they found it seems taught the joker who built them things.

    I saw that in the theater ages ago, and again via Netflix. (Emergency as well that way.)
  • xanaduxanadu Posts: 3,347
    I keep getting tx error.
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  • ercoerco Posts: 20,250
    Cut the blue wire!
  • ercoerco Posts: 20,250
    edited 2018-06-10 17:12
    Buck Rogers wrote: »
    Wasn't that about the cruise ship that was rigged to explode? And they needed to find someone to defuse those things? And that the fellow they found it seems taught the joker who built them things.

    Yup, a good old flick with (pre-Sir) Anthony Hopkins billed as a mere co-star. You can see 12 clips at

  • GordonMcCombGordonMcComb Posts: 3,366
    That's a teleautograph, originally from the 1890s or so. (Autopens are similar, but have the signature stored for playback).

    They used one in Earth Vs the Flying Saucers. which came out in '55 or '56 -- "Look to the sun for a warning." In the mid-70s Universal Studios had one at their first floor reception in the famous "Black Tower." If you had an appointment with someone on the 10th floor, for example, you'd get a "handwritten" pass to go up. First and only "handwritten fax" I ever saw in person.
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