David Harley

Check Chain Mail and Hoaxes

I was overjoyed to hear from Doctor Xand on Morning Live today, on how I can improve my lifestyle so that I can count on my knees. On the whole, though, I think I’ll carry on counting on my fingers.* But what is this thing about people on TV who ... Read More

Over a decade ago, I was more than a little amused at a 419 message of the “I’ve been hired to assassinate you” sub-category to which my  friend and colleague Urban Schrott, then at ESET Ireland, drew my attention, so I wrote it up in a couple of articles, one ... Read More

This article is a much-expanded revisit to an article, no longer available, originally posted to a security research blog. The Wikipedia entry for ‘error message’ [1] includes a number of infamously confusing error messages, though it doesn’t include my all-time favourite: Keyboard not found! Press any key to continue Or: ... Read More

I’ve never been a regular resident of the ivory halls of academia, but Mich Kabay recently made me aware of an article about legitimate scientific journals driven to distraction by being flooded with commentary apparently reflecting a surge in the use of artificial intelligence rather than legitimate research and analysis ... Read More

Yesterday’s useful advice from a TV commentator on matters of IT security can be boiled down to this: if someone sends you a one-time passcode and tells you not to share it with anyone, then it’s a good idea not to share it with anyone. This sounds pretty obvious, but ... Read More

[You’ll probably see advertisements inserted by WordPress into this article. I don’t choose them or approve them – in fact, I don’t normally see them – but they’re the price I pay for not being able to afford (at present) to pay for all my blogs.] In January 2024, Snopes ... Read More

[Disclaimer: you’ll probably see ads under and possibly incorporated into articles on this blog. I don’t choose them and I don’t approve them: that’s the price I pay for not being able to afford to pay for all my blogs…] I’m amused to see that Amazon has excised the word ... Read More

I have spent a not-very-happy time this morning, besieged by Facebook group posts passed off as porn videos and trying to get rid of them. In fact, it’s unlikely that they’re either porn or videos: they’re bot postings of malicious links that are probably intended to steal credentials. It’s not ... Read More

[An extract from the forthcoming book ‘Facebook: Sins & Insensitivities’] The Tech Transparency Project claims to be ‘Holding Big Tech Accountable’ and tracks issues with Facebook, X, Google, Apple, Amazon et al. On 30th January 2024 it published a report – Meta Approves Harmful Teen Ads with Images from its ... Read More

I have, at best, an uneasy relationship with Facebook. To paraphrase something that I’m writing at the moment (more about that shortly): I first subscribed to Facebook because I was working in IT security research and needed to find out more about it, so I signed up to see how ... Read More