Phish And Let Phish

In my work email this morning was the below email:

From: careerservices@ernerson.com
Sent: Wednesday, May 04, 2016 11:52 PM
To: Bogardus, Brian [INDAUTO/ASCONUM/USAK]
Subject: Account Owner Questionnaire

Emerson employee,

As of May 1, 2016, all account owners will be legally required to digitally sign and provide response to the employment history questionnaire. This questionnaire helps develop a more complete profile of our employees for reporting purposes.

Please confirm and update your questionnaire immediately via the link below.

Click Here

Sincerely,
Career Services Team

It has phishing scam written all over it. Because the Valve Store(TM) is part of the Emerson Corporation all our email addresses are @emerson.com, this email, if you look quickly, appears to come from the home office, but it doesn’t, it comes from er nerson.com. Career Services? Never heard of it. And if this sort of action was required of us we would have already had a couple of emails ahead of time informing us that this action would be coming up on a certain date.

The clincher was if you hover over the Click Here link in the email (go ahead, I copied it here) you will see the URL that you would be taken to and it was the word phishing right in the link, thus signifying it probably really wasn’t a phishing scam. To double check, I opened a browser and entered mediapro.com and I was taken to website that sells Privacy and Security Awareness Solutions.

It was a phishing test from corporate. Every couple months we get one of these things to test our awareness of this type of scam. From my informal survey around the engineering area we are definitely getting pretty good at not falling for them.

Later in the afternoon this email showed up in my inbox:

From: Help Desk, ASCO Numatics US
Sent: Thursday, May 05, 2016 2:57 PM
To: ASCO Numatics US DL
Subject: Phishing Attack Notification
Importance: High

‘Account Owner Questionnaire’

OVERVIEW: Reports have identified a malicious email circulating on the Emerson network. The attack appears to be related to an online questionnaire in an attempt to lure users into clicking on and opening a malicious hyperlink.

DATE EFFECTIVE: Immediately

IMPACT: All Emerson Employees and Contractors

DETAILS: The following malicious email is an example of what has been reported throughout the Emerson network. Please be aware these e-mails may vary slightly.

<Copy of Above Email>

Please report all suspicious e-mails to phishing@emerson.com. (Please note that the phishing e-mails quarantined by IronPort in your Outlook mailbox need not be reported; only the e-mails that gets through the spam filters.)

ACTION: Always use caution when opening an e-mail from an unknown or untrustworthy source. As an e-mail and web user, beware of any suspicious e-mails, e-mail attachments, or unknown Internet locations. Blah, blah, blah…

So this second email effectively kills the test.

I went up front and asked our new IT guy Matt why. He of course recognized the phish for what it was and he had a few people ask him it was real or not. And he had a couple people ask him if he was going to send the warning email like John Smith used to, but he couldn’t because he had emailed the Help Desk in Florham Park to ask if he should send out that boilerplate email, but was told no. So I asked him why did one finally come out. His answer was probably one of the Division IT Directors or maybe the VP of IT got tired of answering the “Is it real” question and ordered it sent.

I asked Matt do they ever get the results and he said no, but you can bet if enough people clicked on the link we’d hear about it in some form of company-wide email phishing recognition training.

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 06/25/15: 166

Modification or Maintenance

I say a little of both.

Neither Donna nor I were happy with the suddenly somewhat louder, uglier exhaust note, so I marinated on what to do for a couple of days. The shop had checked for leaks and there were none, so it was one (hopefully) of three things: muffler, catalytic converter or resonator. The easiest thing to check would be the muffler as it separate and held on by only two bolts and some rubber hangers. I sent an email to everyone in the MMC asking if anyone had a stock muffler for a 1999-2005 Miata laying around.

I got two replies. One person’s car was torn apart in the middle of a roll bar install and would gladly pull his to let me test with it. And Clunk, of the famed wrenching and auto advice duo Clunk and Thunk, had a used Borla muffler he would sell me for a mere $40 and even help me install it. The second sounded like a winner because if the muffler was in fact the issue and it sounded good, we were done. If the muffler fixed the noise and I didn’t like the exhaust note I could decline the sale and then pick up a used stock one somewhere or make the investment in a new Racing Beat.

At the last minute, Thunk volunteered a stock muffler, plus a whole mid-pipe (the piece with the cat & resonator) off a ’99 that he had inherited from a fellow racer. He said he’d give it the Clunk to bring over and if that was the way I went we could haggle over cost later.

I had doused the nuts holding the muffler to the mid-pipe flange with Liquid Wrench Friday night and then for good measure squirted some more on Saturday morning. I got the back of the car up on jack stands and with a bit of percussive persuasion I got the nuts off. About then Rudy arrived and brought out his foot and half long 1/2″ breaker bar and a can of silicone spray to get off those pesky rubber hangers. Ten minutes later we had mounted John’s stock muffler on the two exhaust side hangers and the flange. Started it up and revved the engine a few times. It sounded like, surprise, a stock muffler. This confirmed it must be something broken with the Racing Beat.

Because we missed the sportier sound of our previous Miata, one of the first modifications we did to the Emperor was adding the Racing Beat muffler. So knowing that both of us would be unsatisfied with the stock sound, I said to Rudy, “While we have it here, let’s go ahead and mount the Borla.” Even though they had recently been stretched and coated in silicone, those 2 rubber mounts were still a hassle to get lose. Got the Borla on there and revved it a few times – much more sports car-ish. I liked it, but I needed to get my co-driver to actually hear it too. We dropped the car off the jack stands and I collected Donna from the living room for a short test drive.

Overall it is a little louder than the Racing Beat at neighborhood throttle and when you stomp on the go pedal hard it is a little more than a little louder than the RB, but it is quieter and less ugly sounding than the Racing Beat had become. Donna pronounced that she could live with it. I paid Rudy for the muffler and both Donna and I are happier that we didn’t have to drop 10 times that cost on a new muffler.

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 06/25/15: 165

61,000 Pieces of Flappy Strips of Cloth

When we got home from work tonight I was feeling energetic, so I decided to go outside and wash the Purple Whale. I took one look at the car and thought, man that’s a lot of metal and decided to wash the Miata.

After dinner and the evening news we opted to do our weekly grocery shopping tonight instead of Saturday or Sunday morning. On the way to the store we made a quick stop at Lulu’s to run the Sonata through the automatic car wash. Normally we just do the “Molly Wash” which is basically a wash and a tire shine for $10, but not tonight. All I had in my wallet was a twenty and we wondered if the automatic check-in machine would give change. The answer to that question would go unanswered because as we pulled in there was an advert for the Manager’s Special for twenty bucks so we decided to shoot the moon.

The top of the line wash is $18 and there are like 4 different add-ons that range from $2 to $4 each, the Manager’s Special tossed everything in for a mere $2 more. We got Bug Shielded, Simonized, Buffed and more than I can remember. What I did remember was something called Lava Wash where the Sonata was coated in three times as much soap as usual and instead of it being plain white, the suds were a mixed combination of red, orange and yellow colored.

After shopping I filled up the Purple Whales tank and when I looked to read the mileage from the last fill-up I notice the total mileage showed 61,117. Hmmm, missed the transition from 60999 to 6100 which probably happened some time last week. Shame on me.

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 06/25/15: 164

Another Miata T-Shirt

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Yesterday’s thrice weekly Blipshift t-shirt was another one that was Miata related. And when I saw it, I asked Donna, “Seeing as I’m not getting a new Miata1, can I get a new Miata shirt?” I said, “Don’t worry, I really don’t like it that much.”2

My ChoiceI play on the whole internet meme of Miata always being the answer to any automotive question. I felt they missed the mark slightly and they might have sold a few more shirts to us Miata owners if they had not checked the all of the above and left the selection circles empty. That way we could use a Marks-A-Lot to check the box that corresponds to the generation of Miata we own. And if we owned more than one Miata and they happened to be of different generations we might have bought more than one shirt.

1. Now that the Emperor is mostly fixed (pending a successful road trip of some sort this weekend.
2. I ended up buying one anyway when I noticed that the long sleeve shirts were on gray heather instead of the flat gray shown.

Back Home Again

The Emperor is back in the garage again tonight. The original theory of a timing issue because of the previous shop needing to get under the timing belt covers to change the Crank Position Sensor didn’t pan out. Turns out that sensor sits outside the cover so there would be no reason for them to be inside the cover.

Yesterday evening’s new theory was the fact that I was a quart low on oil so that the VVT was not working all the way and that would have caused the CEL, the slight hesitation and possibly the louder exhaust sounds. When they suggested this to me I tried, maybe not to successfully, to hide the incredulous expression on my face. Their plan for today was to test drive it before adding oil and then afterwards to see if that had any effect. I said, “Go for it.” I mean, what the heck, can’t hurt.

I didn’t get any phone calls today from the folks at AW, so on the way home today we stopped in. They had gotten busy and didn’t have a chance to get to my problem, so when I showed up Holley said let’s try it. He added a quart and off we went with him driving. They had cleared the CEL and I have to admit I felt no hesitation and maybe the exhaust note was a bit less. At the halfway point, we swapped places, and I drove it back to the shop. No light, no bogged down feeling, but still just a little louder than this old fogey would like at wide open throttle. Holley said, “Let me run a full bead all the way around that resonator and you can take the car home. The exit prescription was to change the oil and if the CEL comes back on, bring it back.

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 06/25/15: 163

Women Are So Much Better At Estate Planning

Dan was a single guy living at home with his widowed father and working in the family business. When he found out he was going to inherit a fortune when his sickly father died, he decided he needed a wife with which to share his fortune.

One evening at an investment meeting he spotted the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. Her natural beauty took his breath away. “I may look like just an ordinary man,” he said to her, “but in just a few years, my father will die, and I’ll inherit 20 million dollars.” Impressed, the woman obtained his business card.

Three days later, she became his stepmother.

This Has Now Become Commonplace

The Emperor is spending the night at an auto repair shop.

We got the Miata back on Friday evening and Saturday we drove to Augusta in it. Within the first couple of miles we both knew something just wasn’t right. There was zero rear diff noise, but under heavy throttle the exhaust sounded crazy loud and slightly under powered. Donna mentioned the noise right off and while my butt dyno felt a little power lag, I couldn’t be sure.

We made two trips to Augusta over the weekend and when I kept the throttle levels at neighborhood driving levels the car felt fine. But putting your foot in it, as they say, resulted in increased exhaust volume. A quick search on Miata.net on the issued resulted in several hundred not on point hits.

Monday we drove the Miata to work, but about a half mile from home the Check Engine Light came on. It was running fine and felt fine, but I pulled a U-turn and came home to get in the Sonata.

My first thought was I needed to find out exactly which things they changed at Wayne’s, so I could let the folks know at my new favorite shop know. This turned out to be harder than you would think it would be, but not surprising considering my actual repair experience there.1

At a round cubicle discussion with co-workers discussing my continued Miata woes someone posits that maybe the new shop had to remove some part of the exhaust system to replace the differential and poked a hole in a pipe or cracked a gasket or something. So I called the Automotive Workbench and spoke to Holley and he said that they didn’t have to touch any exhaut components to do the swap, but please bring the car in and we’ll run the code.

After work Donna followed me over to the AW and Holley and I went for a test drive. The first thing he said to me once I buried my foot was, “A lot of people pay good money to get that sound.” I told him, “If I was 20 years-old, I wouldn’t be complaining. But the sound level is almost twice as loud as what it normally is.” When we got back to the shop he took it out back to put it on a lift to check for leaks and run the code.

With Holley’s code reading of Crank Position Sensor Issue, my description of symptoms and some spitballing with Brian the owner we have a possible problem (timing belt off a notch, possibly when Wayne’s installed the new sensor) and a plan of attack for them tomorrow, pull the valve cover to see if that is it and also re-weld around the pre-silencer on the mid-pipe that Steve at Panic had spot welded on a while back.

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 06/25/15: 162

Motoring Challenge Points 2, Approx Miles Driven 60
Totals So Far: 56 points & 970 miles

1. Finally at 4:30PM I got the email with the correct info.