Tux Machines

Programming Leftovers

Posted by Roy Schestowitz on Apr 12, 2023

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Recognising patterns and embracing the stream

=> ↺ Recognising patterns and embracing the stream

I was happy to be able to recognise a pattern in a tiny submission I made this evening to a repo of different language based implementations of a simple LED number display from Blag, an old friend of mine from the SAP world.

LLMs and Phishing

=> ↺ LLMs and Phishing

So why were scammers still sending such obviously dubious emails? In 2012, researcher Cormac Herley offered an answer: It weeded out all but the most gullible. A smart scammer doesn’t want to waste their time with people who reply and then realize it’s a scam when asked to wire money. By using an obvious scam email, the scammer can focus on the most potentially profitable people. It takes time and effort to engage in the back-and-forth communications that nudge marks, step by step, from interlocutor to trusted acquaintance to pauper.

Long-running financial scams are now known as pig butchering, growing the potential mark up until their ultimate and sudden demise. Such scams, which require gaining trust and infiltrating a target’s personal finances, take weeks or even months of personal time and repeated interactions. It’s a high stakes and low probability game that the scammer is playing.

Displaying My Washing Machine's Remaining Time With curl, jq, and pizauth

=> ↺ Displaying My Washing Machine's Remaining Time With curl, jq, and pizauth

To get started, I first had to register my washing machine to my email address with Miele's app. It's not the smoothest experience: I had to give it a couple of tries before it worked, but at least it's a one-off task.

With my washing machine registered to my email address, I then needed to set up OAuth2 so that I can use the API from my computer. First, I needed an OAuth2 client ID and client secret [1]. Miele allows anyone to generate their own client ID and client secret by registering ourselves as a developer with Miele which means giving them a random "app name" and the same email address used to register the device in the app. I then had to register that app as one I'm allowing to use on my Miele account.

=> gemini.tuxmachines.org