Non-techish Hacks

I was bored and randomly searching for some interesting info, and I came across an article on no-tech hacking. It was a large article on shoulder surfing and dumpster diving. After reading this, I realized just how too easy it is to let someone get information from you, without even knowing it. It gave me a new outlook on social engineering. In the article, the author listed a few things I never even thought about. For instance, looking at someone's laptop at a internet cafe, you may notice, a bunch of stickers. This will explain a lot about a person and their desktop. For example, if you see 10 cat stickers, chances are they may have a password that has to do with a cat, be it their own cats name, or name of breed of cat, etc. Looking at their desktop is an easy grab of information. Most novice users don't change backgrounds for example, that right there will show the current operating system. You can also check their taskbar for running applications which will show you possible targets. There are tons of goodies sitting on their desktop most of the time, for ease of access. So all in all I would say this was a great article, and I'm glad I stumbled upon it.