Meddling

It would’ve worked, too, if it weren’t for those meddling kids!

There are 608 posts filed in Meddling (this is page 1 of 61).

EncounterQuest 2024


I spent part of my weekend attending the second annual EncounterQuest 2024 in Rockingham, NC this weekend. It is a one-day festival focusing on Bigfoot/Sasquatch, Mothman, and other cryptids. This year it even had a UFO aspect, with the speaker addition of LCDR Alex Dietrich, one of the F/A-18 pilots who witnessed the “TicTac UFO” in November 2004. I don’t know what to make of Bigfoot but having seen Dietrich on TV, advocating for less stigma in reporting UFOs, I wanted to hear what she had to say.

The weekend began Friday afternoon with a plaster casting class (as mentioned in the last post), where participants learned how to properly pour plaster of Paris into any Bigfoot footprints they might find out in the woods. Of course, the plaster could be used to cast prints of other cool and interesting critters so one does not have to wait for the once-in-a-lifetime Bigfoot encounter to have fun with the plaster. We practiced by stepping into plastic bins filled with soil and sand, and then followed this with a layer of plaster, learning the importance of pouring slowly and very close to the print itself. The local journalists got some photos of me making my print, which was a nice surprise.

Just as the print-making was wrapping up a thunderstorm blew in. We moved ourselves and our still-setting prints under the porch roof. Dietrich, who cheerfully introduced herself as Alex, was interviewing participants as part of a new effort she’s involved in to talk to people who go to these types of events. I said hello and before I knew it I was recounting my UFO and ET stories into her microphone.
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PHOTOS: EncounterQuest holds Bigfoot track casting workshop at Rockingham’s Hinson Lake – The Richmond Observer

I had some fun playing with plaster of Paris this weekend at the EncounterQuest convention in Rockingham, NC. We were learning how to cast prints using the plaster so that – should ever come across Bigfoot tracks – we can properly capture them. I don’t know much about Bigfoot but I have always wanted to work more with plaster so why not?

ROCKINGHAM — Several attendees of EncounterQuest had the opportunity to learn how to cast footprints and meet the speakers on Friday evening prior to Saturday’s conference.

Jay Wolber, co-host of the “Cryptids of the Corn” podcast led the plaster casting workshop at the Hinson Lake Rotary Lodge. Wolber was joined by researcher Jake Dressel, of Dayton, Ohio, who was filling in for podcast partner Justin England.

While going over the casting procedure, Dr. Jeff Meldrum — professor of Anatomy and Anthropology at Idaho State University, who has a collection of more than 300 suspected sasquatch prints — noted that his book, “Sasquatch Field Guide,” has illustrated step-by-step instructions for casting.

Following the instructional portion of the workshop, the crowd moved outside to practice casting their own footprints in soil or sand.

Source: PHOTOS: EncounterQuest holds Bigfoot track casting workshop at Rockingham’s Hinson Lake – The Richmond Observer


Sylmar cash burglars slipped into vault, left little evidence – NBC Los Angeles

The chief of the Los Angeles Police Department said that the burglars, who stole tens of millions of dollars from an armored truck depot in Sylmar during an Easter Sunday break-in, accessed the interior of the building through the roof before they entered the vault.

“It’s unclear how they accessed the vault itself inside the building. There were no obvious signs of entry into the vault,” said LAPD Chief Dominic Choi, raising questions about whether the vault was unlocked or someone involved with the break-in knew how to open it.

Source: Sylmar cash burglars slipped into vault, left little evidence – NBC Los Angeles

Why The $30 Million Cash Heist Could Only Happen In LA | Los Angeles, CA Patch

A burglary crew that successfully carried out one of the largest cash heists in Los Angeles history on Easter continues to evade law enforcement as investigators search to recover $30 million.

And tracking down the loot might prove to be the real challenge, Scott Selby, co-author of “Flawless: Inside the Largest Diamond Heist in History” told Patch. Everything about the expertly executed heist uniquely ties into the nature of LA with its sprawling freeways and constant flow of cash.

In many ways, it was the perfect crime. The thieves entered the Gardaworld building in Sylmar without alerting security and left with $30 million in cash that is nearly untraceable. There are very few places in the country where that amount of unmarked, nonsequential currency is stored.

Source: Why The $30 Million Cash Heist Could Only Happen In LA | Los Angeles, CA Patch

Burglars steal $30 million on Easter in one of L.A.’s biggest heists – Los Angeles Times

In one of the largest cash heists in Los Angeles history, thieves made off with as much as $30 million in an Easter Sunday burglary at a San Fernando Valley money storage facility, an L.A. police official said.

The burglary occurred Sunday night at a facility in Sylmar where cash from businesses across the region is handled and stored, said L.A. Police Department Cmdr. Elaine Morales.

The thieves were able to breach the building as well as the safe where the money was stored, Morales said. Law enforcement sources said the burglary was among the largest in city history when it comes to cash, and the total also surpassed any armored-car heist in the city.

Source: Burglars steal $30 million on Easter in one of L.A.’s biggest heists – Los Angeles Times

Who is paying to coddle the racists?

Facebook’s algorithms seem to have pegged me as a conservative, which I find amusing but also useful. I get to view ads that have absolutely no relevance to me yet prove to be an insightful look at what kind of red meat right-wing organizations are feeding their gullible followers. Yesterday I saw a provocative Facebook ad that was made to rile up the fearful. The group “Color Us United” is holding a talk next week entitled “How Wake County Is Turning Into Woke County.”

This got me looking into the organization, Color Us United. Color Us United appears to be a Morrisville-based non-profit run by Kenneth Xu, a 24-year-old who it seems makes a living stirring up racial animosity under the guise of condemning it. He’s been profiled in a few of North Carolina right-wing blogs as well as Hill.TV, and his narrative seems to be that racists should not be called out on their racism.
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Practicing my OSINT skills

Yesterday, a story went viral of a North Carolina man and woman who fought off an attack by a rabid bobcat. This story made news all over the world (it was a slow news Friday, I suppose) but I became annoyed that none of the stories mentioned who the victims were. I thought this might make a good opportunity to use my Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) skills to try to identify them based on what was known so far. And what do you know, I managed to do it!

Since I hadn’t seen that the couple had granted any interviews anywhere, I figured they were not interested in publicity and I opted not to mention their names publicly. I now see that Wilmington station WECT has interviewed them so I can reveal my work. The folks involved are good people and I don’t want my post to be used to harass them so I will focus on my techniques rather than their identity.

So, at the start of this journey all I had was the video. You see them leaving their house in the morning and getting attacked by the bobcat as they attempt to get into their car. The man pulls the animal off of his wife and flings it into the yard before they escape. It’s quite wild.


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Samsung Galaxy spying defeated?

As I’ve written before, I kept noticing ads pop up on Facebook and Twitter which seemed suspiciously as if they were triggered by conversations held around my phone. I got so fed up with this this summer that I briefly listed my Samsung Galaxy phone on Craigslist. And yet, something pulled me back. A friend pointed out that certain apps – even system ones – could be removed from the phone without actually rooting it. I have always been impressed with the Galaxy’s hardware; it was Samsung’s bloatware that drew my suspicion. Samsung’s locked my phone down so tightly that rooting it is out of the question. Perhaps this other method might work?

After carefully examining apps in Android’s app permissions page, paying particular attention to system apps (which usually are firmly entrenched and can’t be removed), my eyes focused on one quite innoculous one that called itself SmartThings.

I already tweeted my discovery of two separate SmartThings apps, each with wildly different permissions, but a search of the phone’s packages never turned up any of the more entrenched, system version of SmartThings.

After more Googling, I found the name of the offender, a mysterious package called com.samsung.android.beaconmanager.
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Who are Pat and Alex and why are they texting people about their homes?

Earlier this week, two separate neighbors received a curious text. A person calling themselves Pat expressed interest in buying their homes.

One from 919-373-6758 read:

“Hey there, so sorry if I have the wrong number. I am Pat and would love to contact [homeowner]. Regarding a property in [homeowner address], in order to determine if there is interest in selling. Do I have the right number?”

the other from 919-769-6879, read:

“Hey there, This is Pat, I am trying to reach out [homeowner – sic]. Regarding a property in [homeowner address], to see if selling it would be an option. You wouldn’t know the owner or would you?”

Both were sent at the same time of day, 9:33 AM, but on two separate days. They were from two different phone numbers as well. Another neighbor received a similar text on Nov 20th, I’m told. (Coincidentally, I’ve been getting and ignoring scammy calls at home from 919-769-68xx numbers for several weeks now).

Being the curious sort, I did a few Google searches for this text and came across a number of similar texts, only from different alleged people. A search of the venerable 800notes.com shows only one other similar text, this one from “Alex” from the number 832-934-9960:

“Hello, apologies if this is not a good number. This is Alex, I am looking for [homeowner]. Regarding a property in [homeowner address], in order to see if selling it would be an option. You don’t know the owner or do you?”

Obviously these are connected. How many people are getting them? How come there isn’t more information about them online? How is it that both my friends got the texts on separate days but at 9:33 AM on those days? And what’s the ultimate goal here? Is this just some bot that is out there, doing data cleanup to match phone numbers with names and addresses?

I’ll keep you posted as I learn more about this supposed scam.

Update 10 Jan:

I found another Internet hit, this thread on the City-Data website. This one’s from someone in Minnesota and dates from November 2018:

Over the past several months, I have been getting texts asking if I want to sell my house in Maricopa County. Each one has a different phone #. each message has a different message. My wife has gotten a couple as well (again, a different phone # and message each time).

Today, I got this one which is pretty typical:
Exact words:
“Hi (and my actual 1st name)! My name is Alex, I’m a local home buyer reaching out to see if you’re interested in an offer for your home on (my actual address)? Thx

I refuse to text back. But a couple of times, I called with my Google Phone # (same phone but with a hidden #) and got a vmail message asking to leave my name and address. I left out the address but gave my google, non-traceable #) and said that I wanted to sell my property”. No response….

I googled the number that came in on the text just today which is 480-531-6397. Another time from 623-295-0692 (he was “looking to buy a house in our neighborhood”). There are other phone #’s. I’m not alone with the 623 extension https://800notes.com/Phone.aspx/1-623-295-0692

Does anybody know what their scam might be? People who have called or texted back haven’t gotten a call back. Something smells fishy.

The most recent entry (again, November 2018) on that 800notes page adds a new name to the mystery, a “Tim.”

Got a text message. Says his name is Tim with Home Buyers. Wanted to see if I wanted to sell my house.
Scam?

The user “superstition480” on the City-Data thread says the outfit is “1 800 Fair Offer”:

The main company doing this, is called “1 800 Fair Offer”. They illegally robocall consumers trying to buy their houses FAR below market value. The company is owned by an arrogant guy named Sean Terry. This goof actually has videos posted on YouTube to teach his followers how to illegally robocall for more leads. I am in the process of filing a complaint with the Arizona State Attorney General’s office, and am also considering a class action suit against this company for their illegal robocalling.

I’m going to see what I can find out about “1 800 Fair Offer” and if there have been any complaints against them for illegal robocalling/texting.

Teen Vogue story on Facebook prompts sponsored content fears, vanishes – Business Insider

This is some sneaky shit on Facebook’s part.

After pondering it for a day, I think its audience wasn’t Teen Vogue but actually Congress. Not that anyone in Congress reads Teen Vogue, but Facebook COO Sheryl Sanberg was all too happy to crow about this puff piece. I think Facebook was trying desperately to show Congress its serious about policing itself when in actuality it only cares about money.

I feel bad for Teen Vogue as the teen magazine has been running really good stories explaining cybersecurity. Of course, they also run stories telling teens about the joys of anal sex, so it’s a wash I guess. At any rate,any credibility Teen Vogue may have had is gone now. Hope the money was worth it.

Here’s the original story, captured by The Internet Archive’s magnificent Wayback Machine.

(Also, that’s the least clickbait-y headline EVER. Obviously it wasn’t meant for teens.)

An uncritical story in Teen Vogue about Facebook’s efforts to secure its social network ahead of the 2020 election caused bewilderment over contradictory messages about whether it was paid for by Facebook — before it just disappeared completely.

On Wednesday, Teen Vogue published “How Facebook Is Helping Ensure the Integrity of the 2020 Election.” It’s a 2,000-plus-word story comprising a series of interviews with various senior Facebook employees about how the Silicon Valley tech giant is working to avoid nefarious political activity in the US’s coming presidential election.

The positive tone of the piece, and lack of byline indicating who wrote it, led some on Twitter to speculate that it was a piece of sponsored content — that is, an article paid for and overseen by Facebook to promote itself.

This suspicion was seemingly confirmed when, some time after publishing, Teen Vogue appended a note to the top of the story, reading: “Editor’s note: This is sponsored editorial content.”

The note raised questions about editorial ethics — why wasn’t this disclosed from the start? — but the saga didn’t end there. Facebook instead denied that it was sponsored content, saying it was just a regular article, and the note disappeared from the top of the story again.

Source: Teen Vogue story on Facebook prompts sponsored content fears, vanishes – Business Insider