Hackers, Credit Cards, and Commercials

I watched this episode of American Greed recently, and I thought it was worth sharing. Rather than insert the video, I'll just link to it.

A quick summary for those that'd rather read; a group of hackers would find open wifi hotspots provided by department stores, then sniff the traffic until they were able to pick up customer credit card info and/or the means to access the point of sales system to get card info. Then they'd write that credit card info onto a blank card(with a cheap card writer) and go 'cash out' the victim's account at an ATM. They were so successful that rather than writing the numbers to cards and cashing them out, it was more profitable for them to just sell the card numbers in bulk to mobsters and kingpins for $100-$200 each. They were getting millions of card numbers. Watch the video when you have time, it's fascinating.

Nothing too thought out for this Tuesday. I started rambling below, then decided to come back up here and warn you that it's midnight and I'm writing like a 5th grader the night before a paper is due. It's probably best if you just wait for a better post, where I show you the world on a magic carpet. Here I throw thoughts at the screen like a caveman.

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The next time you see a commercial for a laptop, a tablet, or a phone, ask yourself why the ad isn't describing the speed of the processor, the amount of RAM or storage space available, the inputs, or other component details during the sales pitch. These things determine how well the phone is going to function and how compatible it's going to be with the rest of your life, so why aren't specs mentioned? It would seem the focus of these ads shows that the main demographic doesn't know or care about jigglybytes.

So what are people really interested in?

The ads say you care about how it looks, how that guy looks with it, how this girl can take a picture with it, and how happy they are. Don't you want to look cool and be happy with your phone? That's really as far as ads go. A wider lens for your selfies, a better photo editor for your selfies. Forget that there's virtually no advantage this phone has over last year's model besides these small tweaks.

Consumerism is interesting. It creates all sorts of markets. Some markets benefit from educating you, while others benefit from doing the exact opposite in what can only be described as short-sighted exploitation.

Despite what seems like misinformation or a dumbing down of people, humans on average are becoming more intelligent every year by something like two IQ points. IQ tests are constantly adjusted for this grind upwards. 

It might seem gloomy, but the collective spirit is resilient and collective mind constantly growing and deepening.