The Blog

06
Jun

Linkedin Accounts Hacked: See If You’re Affected

By Steven|Product|1 Comment

Linkedin has 155M members in which rumor has it that 6.5M accounts have been compromised. If you’re a curious fellow and want to know if you were one of the 6.5M accounts, this is a quick post on how to figure it out. With the help of my buddy Josh, I found out that my account was compromised and the hackers already have my password. Here’s a quick way to find out if your Linkedin account has been affected. Below are the instructions for those that are on a Mac OS:

Download the compromised list of accounts file combo_not.txt.gz here (it’s a large file) and save it into a directory. This is the file that you’ll compare your password and see if your password is part of this list.

Fire up a terminal (usually built in with the Mac operating system).

In the terminal, navigate to the directory where you downloaded the combo_not.txt.gz file

In the command line, type in:

zgrep `echo -n password | shasum | cut -c6-40` combo_not.txt.gz

(Replace “password” with your own password, case-sensitive, of course.)

If the output shows a numeric and/or alphanumeric string, your account has been one of the 6.5M that has been compromised. You should go change your Linkedin password immediately.

If there is no output, your account is not part of the hacked accounts. You may consider changing your password anyway.

(Came across a funny tweet by Hunter Walk: “Password leaks must be the new growth hacker strategy to juice 7-day-actives :-P ” Heh.)

Update: I really don’t recommend this normally as it’s a bad habit to develop in telling people to type their passwords in to a third-party website, but if you’re a Windows user want a simple solution, you go to leakedin.org to see if your password was compromised. The people who made leakedin.org seem trustworthy and it’s a simple way for Windows users.

30
Apr

Forced App Usage for Web Functions

By Steven|Product|Be the first to comment!

Earlier today, I saw @cdixon’s tweet:

Increasingly, links on Facebook require you install an app to read an article, watch a video etc.

It reminded me of a rant I wrote in my Facebook six month’s ago regarding why I don’t want to use the Washington Post Social Reader app:

It’s partly psychological. It’s human nature: forced to do something, you rebel. Given the choice to do the same thing, you welcome it. Sharing is a strong, expressive action. It signifies recommendation, support, and intent. It’s personal.
The Social Reader does nothing that changes my behavior (I’ll read articles anywhere) but it’s slyly taking my social graph/network for their own desire (get more exposure or clicks to their page) without true consent from me. That’s taking advantage of me. I don’t like that.
So the cost (abusing my social graph) is far too high for me to want to read an article from them. ‘I’ll find other means.’

I still feel this way.

05
Dec

Product Analyst at Monitise (Foster City, CA)

By Steven|Jobs, Mobile, Startups|Be the first to comment!

Come work with me and explore the world of mobile banking, mobile payments, and making accessing your money easier! You get to work in a dynamic and small team in Foster City along side Visa, Inc. Exciting projects with the backing of the market leader in payment networks! The job description is below. If you have any questions, ping me or @stevenloi!

—
Monitise, Inc

Your Role:
You’ll be helping the product team at Monitise, Inc in developing the next set of product features that will make an impact for our partner, Visa, Inc. You love working in teams with great engineers, designers, and other product team members. Teams may be remote, but that’s not a barrier to great products. You’re scrappy, very detailed oriented, works great under pressure, and care about delivering results. A positive attitude is an absolute must to conquer the opportunities ahead and have meaningful impact to the products you help build.

Why is this important to us and how will it contribute to our success?
We are looking for a young person with a passion for contributing to great products that will help us reach our lofty goals. Our global platform is the choice of many high profile financial institutions across the world. It’s also the reason we have a huge opportunity to build upon our game changing technology for advancing the way we all interact with money. We think we’re in the right position to help Visa bring immense value to millions of mobile users, reduce the cost of money movement, and discover new ways to move money while also making a profit along the way.

Job Responsibilities:

  • Design how new mobile services work (native applications, mobile websites, and traditional websites)
  • Work with internal and external customers to understand their needs and facilitate the translation of those needs into specific, actionable, functional and non-functional requirements
  • Write solution overview documentation in response to those requirements
  • Produce product design specification documents, including wireframes and use cases
  • Work with engineering and test teams during the product development lifecycle


    • Job Skills:

  • At least 1 year experience in product management, product design, or business analysis developing Internet technologies
  • BA/BS in technical or related field (Technical experience is not required but you should understand the technical implications of product decisions)
  • Strong analytical, organizational, and communication skills (verbal & written), attention to detail a must
  • Demonstrated experience in contributing to a successful project or product in the past
  • Familiar with HTML, CSS, and Photoshop
  • Enthusiastic, performance-driven self starter and team player – results oriented and desire to win
  • Excited for mobile finance and how mobile technologies can be the enabler to change how we manage and transact money
  • Bonus points for experience in mobile, finance, social, and/or local technologies


    • What now?
    To apply, send me your resume (steven.loi [at] monitisegroup [dot] com) and a quick note about why you’re excited about helping build mobile finance products at Monitise.

    03
    Jul

    Rise Above Status Quo. Three Rules to Follow.

    By Steven|Motivation|Be the first to comment!

    Take RisksThrough my extracurricular activities and work experiences, I make it big effort to abide by three rules.

    Take risks – I learned early about wanting and needing take risks. Many times, taking risks resulted in failure. But, from each experience, I always ask myself: why did the risk fail, what I should have done to better the result, and also recognize the circumstances leading up to the failure so I would know how to avoid it next time. More than anything, through these exercises, I learn to take smarter risks – evaluating the cost/benefit of each decision I make. Sounds pretty logical, right? The upside in risk taking? Risks presented new opportunities that I otherwise wouldn’t have ever experienced. You learn something new, you meet someone willing to help you, you discover opportunities, and/or you learn that you’re more capable than what you originally thought. The list goes on. Without risk, you truly don’t know your limits. Without limits, you don’t know what you can accomplish.

    Ask questions, be curious, stay hungry – I’m still working on this. I’ve never had the problem to be curious and be passionate about my work. But, sometimes, I’m reluctant to ask questions if I feel they are too elementary and I may come off as incompetent. The more I give in effort, the more I realise how willing those are willing to teach and answer my questions.

    Build your toolbox – I feel we sometimes lose sight of this necessary rule. that you can control (luck aside) is the ability to constantly add to your personal toolbox. Challenge the status quo is extremely tough when we’re taught to be stay within status quo. But, taking risks begets taking more risks. And if you are true to the two other lessons, risks and experience, in turn, will lead to success.

    We have all the tools, resources, and freedom to become more than status quo. Sometimes, we just need to remind ourselves of it.

    Performance Optimization WordPress Plugins by W3 EDGE