Security consultant might just be a guard

Seeking and loathing

On one of the dating app haunts that I sometimes ply, I came upon an elaborate profile in general terms, but something stood out that I decided not to ignore.

The young man had stated that he was a security consultant with a major bank. Now, having seen thousands of profiles, some angry, some demure, many empty and quite a few demonstrative of angst, insecurities, inadequacies and dare I say prejudices, I have been tempted to write a guide to useful dating profiles.

Then again, it is not like I have been entirely successful in my quest for companionship through dating apps or websites. However, what you do see on my profile in the main will be what you get. I rarely mince words and sometimes my old-fashioned self, requiring correctness, politeness, comportment and much else gets in the way of simple engagement.

Can we talk for a minute?

Yet, I thought to engage this young fellow to illustrate a looming risk in telling strangers on dating sites such unnecessary detail as to whether you own your homes, have a car, have the greatest job on earth and other puffery that is of no particular relevance than a possible endangerment.

I started with ‘Let me humour you …’, to have a high profile job at your age must be commended, however, in putting it out there, you create a vulnerability profile around yourself that can be exploited by nefarious people or organisations. Whilst they might not come for you, they can go for close contacts around you besides the possibility of you being a Trojan horse into your banking organisation.

Just over an hour after I sent the message, I got the response, “Try and social engineer me, just try.” The young fellow had missed the point. And so I responded.

Missing the point entirely

Social engineering is passé and that is mostly for low hanging fruit. As a security consultant, you have access and knowledge that ordinary users will not have. You have a nickname you have used on this site that will probably be the same on others.

Your picture appears here and simple Internet tools can be used to match your picture possibly to an identity on Facebook or LinkedIn and after that, they only have to build a vulnerability profile that they can exploit without you knowing that you are being stalked online.

In closing, I said, “We technical people have to be careful that either our of carelessness or hubris, we expose our organisations to more harm than we are willing to admit our acts of wilful stupidity cause.”

Unlearning arrogance

I was blocked. Blocked probably because he thought I was attacking him or he felt that he was too good to be taking advice on issues where he is supposed to be the expert.

A simple example of the silliness of putting such a risk intensive role online in forums like a dating site is for someone to go around saying they are secret agents. Others would either go for the agent or go for people around that agent to gain access acquaintances to whom some connection can compromise the resolve of the agent.

Then again, there is a know-it-all syndrome that I have observed amongst certain young people who have created an incapacity to learn or be advised, they are single-mindedly impervious to any instruction and rapidly chart a course to perdition.

Probably maybe

An alternative response would have been to acknowledge that there was a point being made borne of other experiences and that could be used to improve oneself. It is a question of attitude.

Suffice it say that the said nickname appeared on other sites, but for the fact that one, I have nothing to prove and two, I am not malevolent. It would have been an interesting exercise to create the profile I told him of and send it to him, but honestly, it would have been a waste of time in any case.

When I relayed the tale to a friend, he suggested the fellow might have been in security as a security guard. Not once did I contemn him, but his reaction belies that great possibility, he has keys to doors and not keys to data.

Switzerland: A misunderstanding of racist proportions - Great for tourism

I know what I want

When I bought my home about 12 years ago, one of the things I went shopping for was a bed, a good sturdy bed that will stand the test of use and time that I sought advice from my estate agent where best to go.

It was on the other side of town, in Amsterdam, so I mounted my bicycle and was outside the shop in about 25 minutes. The shop owner walked up to me and asked what I wanted and I told him, I was somewhat immediately profiled and he thought what I needed was the ordinary box spring variety, I allowed him his spiel before I specifically told him what I really wanted, it was deeper in the store.

I strode in and immediately saw what I was looking for, wooden, carved, polished and really sturdy to the touch, the feel and the hold apart from it being quite heavy – I pointed at it and immediately he said it was too expensive – maybe it was, but that was what I wanted.

Means-profiling

He remonstrated until I snapped back at him, “Who told you I can't pay for it? That is the bed I want and let’s be done with it.” With that came grudging respect, an offer to deliver the bed at any time of my convenience into the late evening and the service I should have had from the moment I showed up as a customer – Courtesy, respect, friendliness and helpfulness.

What had happened to me was I was ‘means-profiled’ by reason of some subjective quality, probably race, in the mind of the shop owner, he had thought – “I have seen many shoppers come here and this chap cannot afford the best goods I have in my store, I will not waste my time with him window shopping, I’ll just show him what belongs to the affordable profile of his type.”

We all suffer it

I am sure many of us have been ‘means-profiled’, belittled, patronised and basically disrespected on the premise of some subjective and prejudicial perception of another and in those circumstances have had to endure a looming humiliation from people who honestly think they are doing us some good or as a shop attendant said to Oprah Winfrey in Zurich recently, “I don’t want to hurt your feelings.”

In the narration Oprah Winfrey gave and one should not have to introduce her, she was in Switzerland to attend TinaTurner’s wedding when she decided to go shopping without an entourage or posse. [The Oprah Interview with CBS ET – The story has since been edited after I first read it.]

A clear perception

She walked into one of the Trois Pomme luxury shops in Zurich on Bahnhofstrasse, probably with the name Prada Donna and a conversation ensued where she wanted a particular bag and the shop attendant refused thrice to obtain the bag for her with a clear statement that it was too expensive.

It is not that the attendant, did not want to serve Oprah, but the attendant concentrated on showing Oprah bags she did not want, as Oprah pressed thrice to have a look at the $40,000 bag before she left the shop having been pitied, sympathised with, belittled and patronised, with a lovely statement from the attendant, “Oh, I don’t want to hurt your feelings.”

In fact, Oprah delivered that line with a mock-Swiss accent, highlighting occasions of subtle racism that she has encountered as a self-made billionaire, successful and powerful global media figure who just happens to be African-American.

No, she didn’t say that

As the backlash began to grow against the store, then, Zurich and possibly might even engulf Switzerland and create a seething animosity to any encounter with the Swiss from here on, the shop owner, Trudie Goetz, so lacking in nuance and perception of the grave situation that had been triggered, first apologised for the “misunderstanding” and then palmed it off with, "We don't have any facial recognition here.”

You have to ask, what can be so misunderstood with a simple request as, “Please can I see that bag?”? Especially, when that request was made thrice, giving time to exercise the utmost patience and avoid the need to flare up like a diva that you are probably in your rights to do, if you needed to.

The one about facial recognition is beneath contempt, it is lower than a rotten snake’s belly. Why should a shop have to have face recognition to determine whether a stranger is of means or a pauper to decide what service they should get?

Strike off Switzerland?

No, but the smarter heads in charge of tourism for Zurich and Switzerland are in crisis and damage-limitation overdrive because the last thing any city that thrives on the rich and tourism needs is this kind of publicity – not in a million years, the cost will be unquantifiable.

The worst part of this is, if such rotten treatment can be meted out to a global personality like Oprah Winfrey, we the lesser personalities who are striving to be popular in the smallest sphere of influence with might have numbering on just the fingers of one hand, have no chance.

Now, I have been to Switzerland twice before, to Zurich and Geneva – these are supposed to be global cities of renown, I had a wonderful time, I met good and friendly people, I loved the place, I love the lakes, but if this kind of attitude lurks in the underbelly of some of the people one might encounter, it is easy to keep Switzerland off one’s itinerary without much effort.

Social Engineering: Crooks preying on our parents

A menacing problem

I think this is becoming an emergency in Nigeria and it requires we begin to focus on the menace of unconscionable, unscrupulous and merciless confidence tricksters preying on the vulnerable sectors of our society.

Last year, somebody called my mother informing her of my being in trouble abroad and convincingly persuaded her to part with some money. Having tricked her the first time, they applied more pressure at which time she chatted to my siblings who were able to break her out of the spell she had fallen under and stop the criminal activity.

Using my blog, I tried to create a storm and though we never apprehended the nasty piece of work, the bank at least got involved enough for about 3 weeks trying to get hold of the person who for the pressure and bad publicity that had gone out regarding his identity was forced to go to ground.

My mother’s situation was not an exception, the fact is our once strong, able parents are now older and less agile in terms of things in their daily lives, there are people out there ready to create situations of distress, panic, anxiety or fear and by doing so getting our now vulnerable and sometimes lonely parents to part with their life’s savings.

Abductions and hypnoses

I heard today of another case where a fine and wonderful lady in her 70s had gone to withdraw some cash from a bank and as she left the bank, she was accosted by persons who abducted her and took her to some place she can no more recollect.

It is very possible she was hypnotised because she gave them the money she had withdrawn and then she was dropped off at home where the next day under some sort of influence she returned to the bank to withdraw 5 times what she withdrew before and handed it over to the gang.

At the end of the second day, she apparently came to and informed her daughter of what had happened but swore her daughter to secrecy about informing other siblings. Meanwhile the gang was trying again to get her to withdraw more money for them and thankfully to no avail.

Tackling the issue

At first one has to be thankful that she came to no physical harm but the mental anguish and scars of such an encounter will no doubt be more lasting. She is not as chatty as she used to be and she rarely leave her home; this is a lady who has travelled the world has been fiercely independent apart from the fact that she had been widowed for over 3 decades.

I do not think the case of my mother and that of this amazing lady are unique, I have the feeling it is happening a lot but the victims are not talking or telling anyone for the embarrassment, the shame or the realisation that they are a lot more vulnerable than they are ready to let on.

Banks must profile

Banks are usually the centres of this corrupt enterprise because that is where the money is with people being cajoled, blackmail, shaken-down or rustled. They need to be aware that people are targeting their customers usually gaining information about accounts or other pertinent details that will not draw suspicion to criminal activity preying on the vulnerability of the elderly.

Besides, I think banks have a greater duty of care and concern towards these vulnerable sections of society and it is important that they adopt measures that are sympathetic and cognisant of withdrawal patterns of these people – such as alerts to successive withdrawals of large sums of money, facilitation of wired transfers rather than the handling of large sums of cash and advising that senior citizens for their good be better accompanied to and from the banks.

They need to create better profiles of their customers of a certain age, install triggers to alert to unusual activity and have better levels of customer care and challenge/response scenarios to help their customers safeguard their wealth especially when things are somewhat out of the person’s control.

Any other ideas you might have towards helping our parents evade these crooks will be welcome and please post them as comments.

Thank you.

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My contribution to the war on terror - suspicion

Getting on a first class coach

Suddenly, I have found that I am being subconsciously programmed into the mindset of the war on terror as subjective analysis and profiling upset my peace of mind as I travel from place to place.

On my return from Brussels, I had the unfortunate situation of not travelling light which meant I could not move between coaches that easily.

Unlike the German or French trains, the platforms for Belgian trains in the Netherlands or Belgium are not signposted to signify what part of the train has the first class carriages which are usually at one end, so one has to stand in the centre and then run either way as the train arrives to the right end.

I got on, reclined my seat and dozed off as I usually do when I get on any moving vehicle where I am not the driver.

Passengers from hell and beyond

When we got to Antwerp a group of people got on, probably eight in number all adult from middle-aged to probably pension age.

The older men had dulcet sounding tones to their conversation, the middle-aged ones were like claxons at full blast and the women were like banshees shrieking at a ghoulish congregation of fearsome festivities in a cemetery at some utterly forsaken place.

I prayed they had second class tickets, hoping the ticket conductor would move them on, but no, they had paid to be in company and be completely inconsiderate of other passengers.

Then one of their number started playing with phone tones at peak volume, at which point, I should have gotten up and shouted some abuse at them, but someone else beat me to it, it only helped the situation a little.

Crude profiling praying for action

Then all this disturbance was done in a foreign language I could not understand, it was probably Turkish or Turkic and then I suddenly had a kindred feeling with those who had two Asians thrown off a plane travelling from Malaga to Manchester and I just could not be objective about it.

If only we could get the conductor to throw these people off at the next minor train stop for not conforming to accepted first class passenger conduct and speaking a foreign language to the inconvenience of us all.

Unusual behaviour feeding suspicion

Then when going to church yesterday, some four Moroccans got on the metro and rather than sit down considering the carriage was half-empty they were walking up and down the length of the coach without any order to whatever they were doing.

That really made many of us uncomfortable, could they be planning something like a mugging on the train or some dastardly terrorist act?

Once again, I felt like calling the police to see into what they were up to and get them off the train.

What is acceptable anyway?

Why can’t people just board public transport with the modicum of decency to behave in a generally unsuspicious and civil manner?

My fear is that I am slowly getting assimilated into a mindset that suspects everything and gets weary of people if they look or act differently, the problem is I can easily fall into the category of someone who looks different, and in desperate situations would I also get betrayed on needless suspicion and by atrocious bigotry?

This war on terror does make everyone vulnerable in these uncertain and interesting times.