partial_accumen

Don't forget this product for those really stubborn ones.

This text description is mine, not from the article. The article linked goes into much more detail.

This is an anti-scam/anti-fraud protection measure. This is apparently a method folks are getting their accounts cleaned out by thieves. They get your SSN, name, and account number from one of the many data breaches that happen today, they open an another account at another brokerage in your name, then transfer your funds out to the new brokerage they control. The system used to do this is called ACATS which is designed to easily let customers transfer funds from other accounts, but it is apparently easy to abuse.

Fidelity makes turning on the block crazy easy just by logging into your account and setting the "Money Transfer Lock" to "on". If you ever do want to use the ACATS to legitimately move your money to another broker, you just need to go back in here and set it to "off", complete your transfer, and turn it back "on" if you still have funds remaining.

Vanguard has this feature too, but its super sketchy to get it turned on. You have to call the vanguard agent, pass an OTP code, try to get them to understand what you're asking for as the agent I talked to did, get transferred around again a few times, do another OTP to a different department and finally they enable it. However they say it takes 5-7 days to take effect. Better than nothing I suppose.

Currently Schwab doesn't have a feature to block ACATS transfers at all in any capacity.

cross-posted from: https://ibbit.at/post/66094

It all started with a sarcastic comment right here on Hackaday.com: ” How many phones do you know that sport a 5 and 1/4 inch diskette drive?” — and [Paul Sanjay] took that personally, or at least thought “Challenge accepted” because he immediately hooked an old Commodore floppy drive to his somewhat-less-old smartphone.

The argument started over UNIX file directories, in a post about Redox OS on smartphones— which was a [Paul Sanja] hack as well. [Paul] had everything he needed to pick up the gauntlet, and evidently did so promptly. The drive is a classic Commodore 1541, which means you’ll want to watch the demo video at 2x speed or better. (If you thought loading times felt slow in the old days, they’re positively glacial by modern standards.) The old floppy drive is plugged into a Google Pixel 3 running Postmarket OS. Sure, you could do this on Android, but a fully open Linux system is obviously the hacker’s choice. As a bonus, it makes the whole endeavor almost trivial.

Between the seven-year-old phone and the forty-year-old disk drive is an Arduino Pro Micro, configured with the XUM1541 firmware by [OpenBCM] to act as a translator. On the phone, the VICE emulator pretends to be a C64, and successfully loads Impossible Mission from an original disk. Arguably, the phone doesn’t “sport” the disk drive–if anything, it’s the other way around, given the size difference–but we think [Paul Sanja] has proven the point regardless. Bravo, [Paul].

Thanks to [Joseph Eoff], who accidentally issued the challenge and submitted the tip. If you’ve vexed someone into hacking (or been so vexed yourself), don’t hesitate to drop us a line!

We wish more people would try hacking their way through disagreements. It really, really beats a flame war.

From Blog – Hackaday via this RSS feed

So wholesome!

Tom Smothers, half of the Smothers Brothers and the co-host of one of the most socially conscious and groundbreaking television shows in the history of the medium, has died at 86.

The National Comedy Center, on behalf of his family, said in a statement Wednesday that Smothers died Tuesday at home in Santa Rosa, California, following a cancer battle.

“I’m just devastated,” his brother and the duo’s other half, Dick Smothers, told The Associated Press in an interview Wednesday. “Every breath I’ve taken, my brother’s been around.”