Joe asks 'Is it me or what?'

Chrome browser: a cautionary tale

As my many readers know I don't often do techie posts but I felt this story deserved wider readership as a cautionary tale.

 

A friend of mine, let's call her Alice had a problem with her laptop and borrowed one from another friend, Bob. The laptop was running Windows 7 and Bob, who should have really known better as they were a professional IT guy, didn't bother to create a new profile for Alice but just handed over their password.

Alice was used to using Chrome as she used Gmail, Google Apps etc., and promptly installed it. They used the laptop for a few weeks until their new one arrived and often took advantage of Chrome's offer to save form data such as passwords. Again, probably a bad idea but she had a plan. When the time came to return the laptop she uninstalled Chrome and expected that her form data would disappear with it.

However, Bob now decided that he wanted Chrome and installed it, as he began to use it he noticed how many sites had saved passwords and discovered that all of Alice's data had been restored. This gave him access to email and many other sites although a few, such as banks, were protected by two-factor authentication (this is where you need to provide a second credential such as a password created on your mobile or from a dedicated device the bank has given you).

 

Nothing earth-shattering and all easily avoidable but just goes to show how you can be caught out even though you thought you were doing the right thing, in this case uninstalling a program.

 

Errors made along the way with my scale of insecurity out of ten, ten being very insecure:

• Not creating a new profile and giving someone your password (Bob 10)
• Not creating a new profile on a borrowed machine (Alice 8)
• Letting Chrome remember stuff on someone else's machine, rather than use a proper password manager such as LastPass (Alice 9)
• Not checking that data had been removed after the install (Alice 5)

 

Recommendations:

• Set up two-factor authentication for email (and other key sites), it's easy to use and well worth the thirty minutes it takes to set up and the slight inconvenience
• Do not hand out your account password, even to friends (and do have a password protecting your machine!)

Coincidence, I Don't Think So

Before we recently moved offices there was a Wetherspoon's pub nearby which I used to frequent a couple of times a week after work. I liked the idea of a pub that was no frills, good choice of inexpensive beer and no TV, but the original aim of the chain seems to have deteriorated into a place that caters to the How fast can I get drunk cheaply? brigade.

There were two of us and for our last round I went to the bar and ordered a dark rum and coke and a whisky and soda, no ice please, this was a busy night shortly before Christmas and I had had to wait over ten minutes to be served. The first attempt by the barman was a whisky and coke and I pointed out his error politely. He threw the drink away and started to fill a glass with ice, I told him we didn't want it. The third attempt had him reaching for the Bacardi, a white rum, and I pointed out that he'd now made three mistakes for a two drink order. he wasn't happy and spoke to the manager who asked me to explain the problem. I politely pointed out how three times the relatively simple order was wrong. The manager's attitude was typical of many places, if I didn't like it I could leave. so we did, and never returned.

Last week I visited another Wetherspoon's with my dad, we arrived just before 11:45 for lunch. The menu offered breakfast though and that sounded fine so after we had queued for some time we ordered two, or tried to. The lady on duty, the only person serving in a huge place, proudly informed us that it was too late as it was one minute past twelve, and wouldn't budge despite our protestations about when we had actually arrived. She tried to mollify us by saying the lunch special was a lovely steak and ale pie, so I ordered one, only to be told a minute later that it was off. So the lunch special was sold out before lunch had even started...

There was news of Wetherspoon's in the media lately, they are closing 33 pubs across the UK, eight of which are in London - coincidence, I don't think so.