40 Million

So, they sat outside your favorite store and using an their laptop and the stores unsecured wireless network they stole your debit and credit card info. Maybe they got mine, not sure. We should all find out in the next couple of days. Then they sold that info to others on the internet, then those peeps shopped till they dropped.

I have a problem with this and you might be surprised what my problem is. My problem is not the creeps that sat out in the parking lots around the country and stole this information. My problem is not the people that bought and used this information. Well, actually I do have a problem with them, but my biggest problem, the ones I will be the maddest at are the retail outlets. Most of these seem to be pretty large retail outlets TJX Companies which include Marshalls, TJMaxx, Barnes and Nobel among others. It seems to me that an organization as large as TJX would have thought long and hard before implementing wireless at all, it looks like someone did not think enough if they actually implemented an UNSECURED wireless network. Who is in charge there? Did no one in their IT department think, hey this might not be a good idea? I would have - while I have a wireless network at home (secured of course) I would NEVER suggest one for my place of work. I see them all around me at work, in fact there is one unsecured that I jump on to to check wireless connectivity in new laptops.

If they have not already done so, TJX needs to fire anyone that did not raise a question about unsecured wireless in their stores. While I really regret saying that, I regret more the millions of people whose lives are going to be messed up for a long time to come.

And on a funny (not ha, ha) note about this story, when I went out to find an article on this story, I went to the CNN site and the story headline is Justice, Hackers steal 40 million credit card numbers!!! Then right next to it is an add for L.L. Bean - shop on line right now. Yeah! Don't think so.

What can we do about this? Not sure myself. But I might be going to the bank on Friday afternoon for some cash for my weekend and leave those credit cards in the wallet.