Thursday, February 06, 2014

Tales from Sochi

As those of you that care (and I don't) get prepped to watch the Olympics this week, some early stories are coming out.  First, from NBC.  The minute you fire up your cell phone, tablet, or laptop, you're hacked.
"As tourists and families of athletes arrive in Sochi, if they haven't been warned, and if they fire up their phones at baggage claim, it's probably too late to save the integrity of their electronics and everything inside them. Visitors to Russia can expect to be hacked. And as Richard Engel found out upon his arrival there, it's not a matter of if, but when," reports NBC's Brian Williams.
And there will be no privacy, even in your hotel room.
 Engel says, "The State Department warns that travelers should have no expectation of privacy. Even in their hotel rooms. And as we found out, you are especially exposed as soon as you try and communicate with anything."
And, the water is bad
. My hotel has no water. If restored, the front desk says, "do not use on your face because it contains something very dangerous."
I'm sure that "dangerous face water" will be a twitter tag before long.  No wonder the Russians drink vodka.  And, people walk into your hotel room in the middle of the night.

It sounds like these Olympics are going to be just lovely.

1 comment:

jon spencer said...

A good article about that water situation,
http://l2uj.blogspot.com/2014/02/letters-to-people-unlikely-to-resond.html

He should be on your blogroll.