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All of you knew that it could only get worse:
Kaspersky malware probers have uncovered a new 'operating system-like' platform that [they claim] was developed and used by the National Security Agency (NSA) in its Equation spying arsenal. The EquationDrug or Equestre platform is used to deploy [an estimated] 116 plug-in modules to target computers that can siphon data and spy on victims. So far, only 30 modules have been identified.
"It's important to note that EquationDrug is not just a trojan, but a full espionage platform, which includes a framework for conducting cyber-espionage activities by deploying specific modules on the machines of selected victims," Kaspersky researchers say in a report.
The article goes on to explain that Kaspersky further believes that the software is part of the "NSA's campaign to infect hard disk firmware". There is considerably more detail in the article.
I think I am going to get my old manual typewriter out of the garage, get a new ribbon, use U.S. Mail instead of e-mail, and buy more ink for my fountain pens.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 16 2015, @02:39PM
Where your neighbors will regularly get your mail and you get theirs. Same address for 15 years and USPS still won't compare the number on the house to the number on the mail. Absolutely not trusted and not dependable to deliver mail.
(Score: 2) by CoolHand on Monday March 16 2015, @03:29PM
We got my ex-wife's mail the other day (to my address). I've been divorced for over fifteen years, and live over an hour away from her (and the town where she has always lived). Obviously some billing company deduced she must live at my house from some document where I was guarantor on our kid's medical bills or something, but one would think that USPS could use it's vast database for good and actually throw a red flag on that sort of thing.
Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job-Douglas Adams
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 16 2015, @04:17PM
That's just the USPS doing their job and delivering mail to their destinations. However (and I'm not the original commenter) I've had all sorts of situations where I get my neighbor's mail and they get my mail. Happens quite often. The USPS is incompetent though, perhaps to their credit, it usually happens when a relief delivery person who's new is relieving the regular worker for whatever reason. and there were many instances where I sensed the regular USPS delivery person snooped in our mail as well (ie: opened confidential envelopes to see what's inside).
but if they lose an important package, and it has happened to me more than once, don't expect them to compensate you for their mistakes or to even make a modest effort to recover your lost goods if you call them about it. I think their biggest problem is not the fact that they make mistakes, we all make mistakes, it's how poorly they handle those mistakes. They have an attitude, they don't make any effort to correct their mistakes or compensate you at all for them (they could offer you some free stamps or something), they act like they don't really care, etc... If this were a private business, with their poor customer service, they would have been out of business a very long time ago.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 16 2015, @05:19PM
Let me get this straight.
You got mail addressed to a name other than yours, but delivered to the correct address on the envelope and you think the USPS should have delivered it to the "correct" address in another town based just on the name on the envelope?
WTF the man? The chance of that ever working correctly, much less reliably, is about nil.
If you want mail addressed to her at your house to be sent to her at her house, then explicitly file a change of address form with the USPS. For the first year they will forward it and after that they will just shitcan it. They will also tell all of their commercial rate shippers about the change of address.
(Score: 2) by CoolHand on Monday March 16 2015, @07:00PM
But there is no change of address. She has never lived there. I know, historically, this is not something USPS has done (verifying legitimate recipients at their addresses). However, I'm just saying that it would be a nice "feature" to have an "authorized recipients" list, so I could stop getting junk mail delivered to my house from non-legitimate recipients. It just seems to me to be a simple way for USPS to increase their service level to help retain users in a digital world. I can easily reject non-legitimate email, so why not non-legitimate snail-mail?
Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job-Douglas Adams
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 16 2015, @08:08PM
> But there is no change of address.
You want the USPS to keep track of who lives where?
Because junk mail addressed to the wrong recipient is such a huge problem.
You have soooo not thought this through.
> I can easily reject non-legitimate email, so why not non-legitimate snail-mail?
Because you can look INSIDE the mail and decide to reject it based on the content, not on the recipient.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 16 2015, @06:57PM
Same address for 15 years and USPS still won't compare the number on the house to the number on the mail.
Time for "Inverse Hanlon's Razor"! Have you ever considered that such a gross level of incompetence cannot but be by design? If all the mail carriers that have ever been on your route have done the same thing, not only design, but conspiracy! And I don't know if you can see this, but the one common factor here is, you! Are you rude to mailpersons? Are you rude to government employees in general? Are you opposed to public employee unions? Do you live in Wisconson and is your name "Scott Walker"? Do you bark and/or bite?
If the answer to any of these questions is "yes", we may have identified the problem: it's you.
(Score: 2) by mendax on Monday March 16 2015, @07:20PM
Oh, I don't know about that. I write real letters to several correspondents every week, more or less. I've had very little trouble with my letters getting there or them getting to me. Because some of my correspondents are prisoners (I encourage everyone to write prisoners, BTW), I've had more trouble with prison authorities in getting my letters delivered than I've had with the U.S. mail. Having said that, the last letter I lost from a correspondent was due to my own disorganization. I cleaned my office and found an unopened letter that fell on the floor and got covered up with other crap.
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
(Score: 1) by darnkitten on Tuesday March 17 2015, @03:49PM
Fedex and UPS are no better--at some point in the past 15 years, they switched my entire block from "Ruby Street" to "Ruby Road" in their database ("Ruby Road" is in the next town). We've tried everything from filing change-of-address forms (including with USPS) to physically going in to outlets, stores or drop points and attempting to correct them there. No one seems to have the ability to change the addresses back.
It plays "merrie hell" with computer packing for deliveries--after a while the drivers just learn to hold out the block's worth of packages, (until they switch drivers or routes)--they aren't allowed to submit address corrections, though they have the direct knowledge.
Not only that, the wrong addresses get into the commercial databases and my bank and others occasionally "correct" the address I've given them to match the incorrect one in the database-- my record shows that I've moved from "Ruby Street" to "Ruby Road" and back several times in the past decade while living in a single house.