This Sunday my dad, my younger brother, and I went to our first NFL game. The Buffalo Bills were playing the Kansas City Chiefs at their home in Orchard Park, NY. We left early Sunday morning so we could get set-up and participate in the tailgate party before the game. It's hard to describe what a tailgate party is... you can get a pretty good idea if you browse through enough pictures over at flickr, but basically it's a big party with lots of barbecuing out of the back of your vehicle, and footballs being thrown around everywhere, and lots of extreme fans. But really, people bring whole campers out and really make a day of it. The closest thing I'd seen before to it was when I participated in paintball tournaments: Tailgating looks and acts a lot like the players area at a paintball tournament.
Once the food was consumed we headed off to our seats, which were really good. One thing that's unexpected about the NFL is just how small the field is. Maybe it's just the design of the stadium but it feels like a larger Hockey rink rather than a small Soccer field. We had seats in SECTION 337 ROW 6 and if you click on the seating chart provided you can see the view of the field. Big props to the Bills website for this feature.
Continue reading... | Posted 11:57 PM to Personal
This is really just an update to my previous Visa Theft post, but I thought I would use he chance to make a point. It will always be easier for some kid to punk your card than to hack in to a secure database and steal it. But I get to the ending before even starting at the beginning; here is the response I got from my Bank this morning:
Upon reviewing these charges, we determined that all of these purchases were done manually, meaning without a Visa card present. As you have confirmed that you did not perform these transactions, we must conclude that a third party has gained access to your Visa number and is using the information fraudulently. As a result, we will need to block your current Visa card number in order to secure your account and a new one will be issued to you.
The important part is "a third party has gained access to your Visa number". Now how did a third party get my Number? Simple, I unwittingly gave it to them. You give your Visa to a third party every time you use it. All it really takes is some snot-nosed kid with a grade 9 education who knows how to run a scam to jot down your number and viola: Credit Card fraud. This is why I don't worry about using my card to make transactions over the internet. It's so much more likely to happen the old fashioned way. The good news is grabbing just the faceplate off a Visa really doesn't offer a lot of options on how to abuse it. Without the SSID or even basic address information - frankly I'm surprised there even was a way to still use it.
Continue reading... | Posted 07:11 AM to Personal - (6) Comments
