Risks Notes.

Default passwords and gasoline thefts
Via: http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/25.36.html#subj7

An article in today's *Arkansas Democrat-Gazette* tells of 1500 gallons of gasoline stolen from a station.  It seems the gasoline pumps are shipped with a default key-code and the station owners are failing to change the codes.  "Thieves can sometimes purchase a key and the factory default codes on the Internet.  If the station owner has not changed the default code, then the thief can manually enter the codes to put the machine in stand-alone mode and steal gasoline."  Tells how after the particular station had closed for the night someone had reprogrammed it and the police discovered long lines of cars waiting there to fill their tanks for free. All but two got away. 

I find myself looking forward to the Risk Digest every week now. It makes me look at the world in a different and more critical way. I also really enjoyed the ATM story this week. Security and Privacy are big issues that are going to get more important in the coming years. Ann Cavoukian gave a great talk this week at waterloo about these issues and that Privacy and Security are not the same thing, and you don't have to give up one to have the other.  

Tangentally Related: "Wall Street's Collapse May Be Computer Science's Gain"