Dave Schumaker

Update: And yet here are some more cases! Perhaps I'll just make this a running list. Anyway, in the latest news: 180,000 people had their personal data stolen from Polo Ralph Lauren and GM Mastercards.

Also added info on data theft from DSW Shoe Warehouse in March that I didn't originally notice. 100,000 people affected in that incident.

People Affected So Far In 2005: 1,297,000

--Original Post - April 10, 2005

Lately, I feel as if I've been reading a steadily increasing amount of news reports that talk about identity theft and stolen private information. I decided to do a little research and track every single story of 2005 that I could find that related to these things. It's appalling! So far, I've found 6 stories on stolen information that total nearly 537,000 people in 2005 alone! It's disgusting.

Date: 04-18-2005 Name of Organization: Ameritrade Location: Maryland How: Lost backup tape with shipping agency People Affected: 200,000 Link: http://money.cnn.com/2005/04/19/technology/ameritrade/

Date: 04-14-2005 Name of Organization: Polo Raplh Lauren - Mastercards Location: How: "Security Breach" - Hackers People Affected: 180,000 Link: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/n/a/2005/04/14/financial/f064639D31.DTL

Date: 04-08-2005 Name of Organization: San Jose Medical Group Location: San Jose, CA How: Stolen Laptop People Affected: 185,000 Link: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2005/04/08/financial/f115753D39.DTL

Date: 03-29-2005 Name of Organization: UC Berkeley Location: Berkeley, CA How: Stolen Laptop People Affected: 98,000 Link: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/03/29/BAG3MBVSFH1.DTL

Date: 03-26-2005 Name of Organization: Northwestern University Location: Chicago, IL How: "Security Breach" - Hackers People Affected: 21,000 Link: http://www.chicagotribune.com/technology/ chi-0503260274mar26,1,5138021.story?coll=chi-technology-hed&ctrack=1&cset=true

Date: 03-22-2005 Name of Organization: Cal State University, Chico Location: Chico, CA How: "Security Breach" - Hackers People Affected: 59,000 Link: http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=technologyNews&storyID=7964776

Date: 03-10-2005 Name of Organization: LexisNexis Location: Florida How: "Security Breach" - Hackers People Affected: 310,000 Link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A19982-2005Mar9.htmlhttp://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20050412/tc_nm/media_lexisnexis_dc_2

Date: 03-08-2005 Name of Organization: DSW Shoe Warehouse, Retail Ventures Inc. Location: Ohio How: "Information stolen" - Not sure how People Affected: 100,000 Link: http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1009_22-5608311.htmlhttp://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/business/11394185.htm

Date: 02-23-2005 Name of Organization: ChoicePoint Inc. Location: Georgia How: "Security Breach" People Affected: 144,000 Link: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/02/23/BUGBHBFD411.DTL

I really should update the design of my website to less dreary colors. It's kind of depressing... almost as if this page is in constant mourning or something. I'll file that plan away when I have some more free time.

Anyway, as is becoming a Tuesday tradition, I missed my Petrology class again! Oh yes. What was the excuse this time? More faulty alarm clocks? Earthquakes? Fires? Famine? Power outages or a herd of angry buffalo? Nope. I woke up at 7 AM, thought to myself, "Hmm, I think I'm going to take the day off!" Yawned and went back to sleep. Wonderful! Probably not the smartest idea in the world however. Ugh.

Random things: After having some second thoughts about the internship in Southern California this summer, I'm coming to the conclusion that I don't want to do it. Evidentially, I'll be digging holes in the Mojave Desert all summer, for the amazing sum of just over $7.00/hr. I suppose I should take what I can get, but I'd much rather be doing an actual research internship with something that is going to apply towards my life.

We'll see what happens with the internship in Colorado though. The decision was supposed to be made by April 1st. It's now... April 13th. I wrote an email a few days ago asking for any information and I received an automated response saying, "Thanks for the message! I am gone from March 31st to April 18th! I'll reply to your email when I return." Lame!

If the Colorado internship doesn't pan out, it looks like I will spend this summer up in the Bay Area. That's fine, I'll end up doing Chemistry II in summer school. Of course it's going to cost me nearly $800 to register for that damn class and no other community colleges are offering it! Ugh!

Anyway, if I complete that, it means next semester will be quite relaxing! (Well, relaxing if you don't count the Physics III part of it). That's really the only major class I'll need to take next semester. Maybe I can do some cool electives to take up units. Or, since my health coverage apparently ends in January anyway, it might not matter if I'm a full time student. Having that as my only class would be AMAZING.

Also, I spoke with Nate tonight and we came up with the idea of an interesting road trip. My summer school ends roughly July 8th. Him and Christina will be at their summer house in Montana until roughly July 17th. I've been eager to go on a road trip too. He proposed that I could drive out to Montana after school to spend the week with them and then we all drive back down to Southern California in my car (since they will be initialy flying into Montana).

However, I could extend my drive to visit them by a few days. I'm thinking of something like going northwards... to Crater Lake and then Mount St. Helens. All the way up to Seattle, and then cut across eastward to go to Montana. Maybe 4 or 5 days of driving when I factor in the places I want to stop. That would give me maybe 3 to 4 days in Montana as well. That would be an AWESOME summer road trip. This is definitely something I want to think about. How amazing that could be.

In other news, Meghan and I went on an 8-mile hike at Point Reyes Seashore on Saturday. That is such a beautiful place and I definitely want to go back. Plus, Meghan is awesome company as well! Afterwards, we were both famished, so we went to Zachary's Pizza in Berkeley (to quote many different people, "The Best Pizza In The World.") We invited my sister along as well. My sister told me afterwards that "she is one of the only girls you've ever met that I've liked." That's definitely a compliment!

Also, all of us are going to go rock climbing next week! I'm pretty excited. That was so fun the last time we did it and it will be awesome to bring my sister (and hopefully David) along too. Meghan also mentioned something about climbing Mt. Shasta this summer. Sounds like I have quite a summer lined up already.

Lastly, Dan is flying up this weekend. That will be awesome and it's quite cool that my friends and family like San Francisco so much.

Anyway, time for bed...

Well my "academic weather forecast" for the next week or so calls for calm weather. All my pertinent assignments are turned in, presentations given and field trips carried out. I have a small quiz tomorrow evening in volcanology, but I'm not too worried about that (though I should be, the last test was a bear! Still managed to pull off a "B" though).

So to celebrate, I missed my petrology class today. Oh yes! What actually happened is that my alarm clock is a rancid piece of trash. For some odd reason, the snooze button doesn't work anymore. However, I'm not going to let a wimpy little thing like the snooze button stop me from snoozing for another 15 minutes! So I've taken to just manually resetting the alarm clock forward 15 minutes and going back to sleep. That is dedication for you.

However, today I evidentially set my CLOCK forward 15 minutes and not my alarm clock. Unaware I did that, I went back to sleep (where I had some horrible dream about my teeth falling out). When I finally woke up, I thought "that was a REFRESHING 15 minutes of sleep! Wait... something must be wrong." I look at the clock to see that it is now 10:05! (In actuality, it's 9:50). Regardless, my class started at 8AM. So much for going to that.

Field TripThis past weekend, our Quaternary Geology class had a field trip to Pyramid Lake, located in western Nevada. It probably ranks as one of the best geology trips that I have ever been on. A large class (especially for an upper division class in our program: 21 people), but everyone was just completely awesome.

In terms of stuff to see and work to do, it wasn't bad at all. And all of it was definitely interesting, as we looked at deposits relating to an ancient lake called Lake Lahontan. Check out the photo gallery from the trip.

Also, I filmed an interesting video of us throwing a lighter into the fire. Oh yes. Probably not the smartest thing to do at 1 in the morning. Regardless, check out some looney college students. The video is a 7mb AVI file. Blowing Up Lighters

Until next time.

Spring Break is almost officially over. It's definitely been nice to basically laze around for the past few days and be completely unproductive. That said, I still have two papers to work on that are due Wednesday, neither of which I have really started yet. Looks like that is what I'll be dedicating today and tomorrow for!

Anyway, I flew home to my parent's house for a few days in Southern California on Saturday and had the distinct pleasure of missing my plane! Totally my fault, since I misjudged the amount of time it'd take to BART across the bay. The person behind the counter told me I'd be put on a standby waiting list, but that all the flights for the rest of the evening were sold out! Luckily, the next plane had space (perhaps those people ran late as well?) and I was able to fly home an hour later.

I got to hang out with the gang every night I was down, so that was awesome to see them again. Of course this is the only time I'll be able to go home this whole semester, so it's kind of depressing that I didn't get to spend more time there. It was definitely an awesome time of year. The orange groves are blossoming (at least what's left of them before they're torn down to make way for houses), tons of monarch butterflies are doing their migration as well, which was awesome to see. Just a bunch of awesome sights and smells.

I flew back up here on Tuesday and have been fairly lazy since then. We decided to hold a birthday-for-roommate/end-of-spring-break party at the place last night which was a wild success. David and Michelle came, as well as some of our friends from Southern California who were visiting. I'll have to post some pictures later.

This past week hasn't completely been a loss though! I applied for this internship yesterday, however it's going to be quite competitive since there is only one spot open.

Anyway, time to start writing papers!

One more midterm to go! Got to school at 9am this morning... just got home! Oh yes. 15 hours today. Ugh. Might as well go to bed... last exam in roughly 7 and a half hours.

(Also, since a few people were curious... here is the banned page, as was described in an earlier post.)

So I'm leaving school today and walking up the platform to catch a train home. A little old lady is in front of me running up the platform. I notice that her backpack is open, so I jog up and catch her to inform her about this. As she pulls it off her back to close it, she drops a sweater and folder. Then she exclaims "OH MAN!!! I HAVE TO GET TO WORK!!!!" all while she's trying to close her backpack (and having a bit of trouble). And then she starts wailing! "OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!! OHHHH NO. OHHHHHHHHH!" Then she picks up her stuff, gets on the train and continues to wail. And wail. And wail for the entire ride home!

Oh man! I'm sorry to have brought bad news to her life. :( Good grief, just by the mere act of me talking to people, I can make them cry. That makes me feel great. :-P

I encounter the craziest people on these trains. Last year, another little old lady sat next to me on the ride to school and proceeded to tell me her life story... despite me having headphones on! And then she mentioned her boyfriend Jason. Then she would ask me "Oh! Did I tell you about my boyfriend Jason?? He is great!" Then a few moments later, "You know my boyfriend Jason? He's great!" And then she proceeded to ask me again if she told me about her boyfriend!

So cook some popcorn and pull up a chair, and I'll tell you about how I discovered a roommate's obsession with downloading PORN!

Beware, this post contains massive quantities of computer sleuthing/nerdiness and might be boring to your average reader...

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I have the worst wireless router in the world. A Linksys WRT55AG. Basically if it's subjected to heavy loads, it completely dies. So if you decide to download any sort of bandwidth intensive file for more than 10 minutes, you can guarantee the router will soon die. The only way to revive it is to completely reset it by unplugging it, waiting a few seconds and plugging it back in. Then you're good for another 10 minutes or so.

Anyway, this hasn't happened in quite awhile (since I haven't been downloading music, CDs, DVDs or games). Fast forward to now. We have a relatively new roommate and since he moved in about a month ago, the internet has died. CONSTANTLY. It's been particularly frustrating when I have research and stuff to do. Evidentially the new roommate has also picked up on how to reset our router too, and whenever the internet mysteriously dies, he himself heads downstairs to reset the router.

So finally, after it dying on multiple occasions tonight, I got quite frustrated and decided to track down what the hell this new cause of router dying is. I suspect that it's the roommate that's responsible, but I had no way to tell and wanted to find out some more before I decided to talk to him about it. After noticing the router was being completely unresponsive, I pulled out my laptop and physically hooked it into the router (which sometimes works when the wireless connection dies. It's weird).

I remember the roommate telling me that he uses a Powerbook... so after thinking about it, that lead me to believe that the only program on Mac that is capable of constantly downloading large amounts of data was Acquisition (which I first heard of from from some friends who have a Mac and I was asking them awhile ago about what they would use to download songs and things). So I did some searching on the internet and found out that Acquisition basically needs ports 6000-7000 open on a router/firewall in order to function properly. Interesting, I'll file that away for future reference. If I couldn't find anything else or any other fix, I'll try blocking those ports and seeing if that is the problem.

Anyway, I wanted to see if there was a way I could check stuff via the router in regards to ports used, bandwidth used, connection times... or anything like that. After searching through the router's horrible interface, I finally found something entitled "Logging Options". It was disabled, so I enabled it. Then I reset the router, came back to my computer and started hitting up some websites.

Loaded up the router screen, brought up the logging option and checked the access logs. Sure enough, it listed the ip of my computer and the ips of websites I was connectiong to, AS WELL AS port numbers! beautiful. It also listed incoming connections too and their port numbers! (i.e. when you download a file).

So I waited a few moments and refreshed the log. Sure enough, there were a ton of new fresh entries. Interestingly enough, there were a TON of incoming connections from all sorts of random IP addresses on the internet (and these IP addresses corresponded with personal computers, not websites), which means someone was using a file sharing program. And now the kicker. All the incoming ports were 6338, 6334, 6332, etc. INTERESTING.

Finally, I ran an whois lookup on a random website that this computer that was downloading all the stuff connected to... it came back "Apple Computer, Inc." DING! Busted. Using Acquisition!

It's kind of funny, I can potentially render Acquisition useless by disabling these ports and he'll never know why it suddenly stopped working! At least our damn internet connection will work....

Anyway, I have a hunch he has been download porn and have no way to prove it. (I mean seriously, what can you be constantly downloading that requires all that bandwidth? A friend says his roommate in the dorms at school got their connection cut for 3 weeks because he downloaded 8GB of porn in 1 day!!) Anyway, I remember he came downstairs to reset the router one day, wearing nothing but his boxers. He was like "Oh... I'm about to go to bed and err.. take a nap." Fair enough, but he sure was somewhat nervous about it. Of course why do you need to reset the router if you're going to take a nap! (Sure, there are valid reasons...)

So he was upstairs in his room earlier this evening, and I decided to try one more little test. Out of the random log of jibberish being returned, I selected an IP address with port 80 (HTML website) and did a "whois" search on it: http://www.whois.sc/64.246.168.94

Whatever, no big deal. But you can do a reverse lookup if you're a member of that whois website to see what websites are stored at that IP location. So I decided to be slightly nosey. This is absolutely hilarious:

"14 domains found on 64.246.168.94 Showing all 14.

Website www. Blackbroswhiteh*** .com 11 more domains found..."

Haha. So our internet is constantly dying so someone can download mass quantities of porn! I don't condone or condemn it. Hey, you can do whatever you want, but when it's bringing down the internet connection for our whole house and interfering with how everyone else uses it, then come on man! Wait until everyone's asleep at least... ;)

I really should just block the thing. Of course he's moving out in a few days, so it ultimately doesn't matter. Hah, crazy though!

A project that I've been wanting to get off the ground for quite awhile is coming to fruition! A site strictly dedicated to geology news! Check it out. :)

I've written about this before, but it's really sad that two people who were awesome friends at one point in history probably won't ever speak to each other again. It's even worse when the friendship ended for rather dubiously weak reasons.

Anyway, for some odd reason, I had an urge to try to start our friendship over again. Perhaps it's because she's been on my mind lately. Or how random things associated with her seem to keep coincidentially popping up. Or her best friend sending me an email that said she "missed having me around."

After exchanging a few emails dealing with random science stuff, I asked her if she'd like to get together for lunch one day, just to talk, when I'm home for spring break. The response I received flat out rejected that idea, or even the idea of friendship. So much for trying to be mature and extend an olive branch. That makes one feel like crap. The tone of this email (as well as the initial email that set things in motion a year ago, or rather, killed them) and its negative message make it seem as if I did something to wrong her. Why is there so much animosity there? For no apparent reason too.

Regardless, the email this evening stated that "I am being direct and honest when I say that I have moved on in life." Moved on from what exactly? Not to mention a recent email reply that said, "I've been thinking about you lately." It just seems rather curious to claim to have moved on and want nothing to do with someone when still interested about the events going on in their life (i.e., consistently checking their webpage roughly once a week... according to site access logs). Because "moving on" somehow involves knowing what's going on in my life. Whatever.

So however petty it may seem, I've decided to ban that IP address from this website. I think it's better for both of us. Though I have no illusions that the ban is fairly easy to circumvent if one is dedicated enough, but it is peace of mind for me. And it helps her to actually move on. Of course it probably makes me look like a petty asshole, but I no longer care what her opinion of me is anymore. What's the point?

After thinking about it for quite awhile tonight, I feel better though. I basically got the (final) answer I needed, and I guess I can move on myself, rather than still clinging to some false hope of trying to be on friendly terms again. It also solidifies my feelings and opinion of her, in an unfortunately negative way. Perhaps that makes it easier to forget someone. Perhaps that explains the animosity of her previous letters.

It looks like I did well in the student research competition. I just found out today that I won in my category (Mathematical and Physical Sciences) and will be going to the statewide competition in Sacramento at the end of April! Yeah!!