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Waitress offers to air drop recommended sites to see. Do you accept?

I visited the Czech Republic in October. One night, I went to a Mexican restaurant recommended by the Honest Guide YouTube channel. I sat on the far side of a room in the restaurant. When the college-age waitress walked in the room, she gave a little wave from across the room and was very pleasant. I asked her for recommendations. She provided them, along with good service. At the end of my meal as she brought the check, she asked me if I lived in Prague or if I was visiting. I said I was visiting. She offered to air drop her personal list of places that she likes to visit and hang out, including restaurants and bars. I said okay and accepted the air dropped file. I got back to the hotel and noticed a fair amount of Cyrillic letters and started thinking about the Russian mafia taking over my phone, so I erased the file. The Russian mob to my knowledge never took over my phone.

Paranoid or not paranoid? Would you have accepted an air dropped file from a waitress who is essentially a stranger but with whom you seemed to have a good diner-waitress interaction?

Posted by
18273 posts

Personally, I don't accept or open any file I'm not 100% sure is safe.

You can run a Malware Program to see if anything has been placed on your phone.

What was the extension of the file she sent?

Posted by
6165 posts

Paranoid. Good paranoid. Not a chance. Even if her intentions were friendly, she may not know the file was tainted by the Russian mafia.

Posted by
24811 posts

Since it was a Mexican restaurant and in Prague (as opposed to a Czech restaurant in Mexico City), I think the odds of it having been the russian mob are nil to none. Much more likely Serbian mob working out of the Republika Srpska. If the young lady was taller than average then it would be a certainty.

Of course I am so behind on such things as air drops I was envisioning this https://archetype-air-force-times-prod.web.arc-cdn.net/resizer/v2/ZHITRJIE3ZGB5GXQTPT47QXGHA.jpg?auth=3568b9afb40e19cb7e70f83c442f867ad9cc8c5e174df2b6c54bf4f7151ded88&width=879&height=628 low over your hotel with a young Serbian woman pushing a wooden crate out the door. That didn’t happen, did it? Because if so, then I am back thinking russian ….

And no, dont accept file transfers from young ladies in restaurants.

Posted by
1141 posts

Definitely delete those type of files. Even though the waitress may have been friendly and well intentioned you really don’t know.

Posted by
10943 posts

I've undoubtedly been watching too many Cold war era spy movies, but to me this sounds too much like a honeypot situation.

A young local girl and a male stranger in a foreign country.

No I wouldn't have accepted it, air dropped (whatever that is), e-mailed or any other electronic way.

Now if she'd written the list on the back of my serviette, maybe so.

Posted by
24811 posts

isn31c once she starts writing notes on your serviette ... well, it hopeless. Before you know it you are photographing secret Czech submarine bases for her.

Posted by
4467 posts

It was just an Apple Note that had a list of restaurants, bars, parks, sights. No links or anything like that. She just seemed like a friendly waitress who chatted while I camped out at the restaurant for a while eating dinner while working on my laptop (working on my trip report). What appeared to be her boyfriend came in and ate at the restaurant’s bar while I was there. Certainly there was no romantic intrigue or writing on backs of napkins 🙂. Like I said, when I got back to the hotel and saw the Cyrillic words, I thought, „Holy cow! That was stupid,“ and deleted the note.

Outside of a curious habit of playing the Russian national anthem every day at 2 am, my phone seems to be fine.

Posted by
4467 posts

Me E --

I've flown in the Spirit of Freedom, the C-54 in the photo you linked!

Posted by
24811 posts

I envy you. Closest I ever came was the Honduras airlines SAHSA not too many decades ago was using repainted C47s to reach the islands off the coast. It was an "interesting" trip. I heard one of them became a destination for scuba divers. But if you are into that sort of thing there is a club here in Budapest that owns a LISUNOV Li-2 which is the WWII Soviet knock off of the DC3 and they have a POLIKARPOV PO 2 which was a Soviet biplane that was produced from 1927 until 1957. Yup, the commie air force was using biplanes in WWII and into the 1950's. You can buy a ride on either. I rode the PO2 and it was a real thrill. Ill do it agian some day. Loved it.

Posted by
24811 posts

Dave, yoiu might have to get rid of that phone before re-entering the U.S. And that gentleman at the bar wasnt the boy friend. That was George Smiley keeping an eye on the situation.

Posted by
869 posts

My AirDrop settings are “contacts only". While I believe you can't and shouldn't be able to get a virus or malware directly from an airdrop, you can get inappropriate content. I believe iPhone sandboxes content and stops you from running EXEs, etc.

(I may be out of date-- but in any case, I wouldn't take an air drop in Cleveland from a stranger much less in the Czech Republic. In Cleveland, a stealth Pittsburgh steeler fan could drop objectionable stuff on the steelers!)

Happy travels!

Posted by
1949 posts

Yes, I would. I accepted similar from a 1/2-day guide in Vietnam. (We're now Facebook friends, too.) And the places in Hanoi that we tried, based on her recommendations, had really good food and were places we would never had tried without the recommendations, because they looked very unprepossessing.

I also had a stranger on a Vatican tour airdrop some photos to me (at my request). I saw him being a scofflaw and taking photos in the Sistine Chapel, so I asked him to share them with me.

And I'm still here to tell the tale. ;)

Posted by
869 posts

But BB, what if they air dropped say an Edmonton Oiler picture? [Shudders]

Ho ho ho! Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and all that jazz!

Posted by
1949 posts

Haha. I'm originally from Edmonton, so no prob.

Merry Christmas to you, too.

Posted by
1949 posts

BB, are you here? Hmmmmmm or is your name really Oleg Gordievsky!?!?

@Mr Ê, sssssshhhhhhh. I'd tell you, but then I'd have to kill you. ;)

Posted by
815 posts

I would accept files with a .txt extention. Nothing else. And I would open them with an editor that can read/display all characters to make sure.

Unfortunately very few people nowadays use files of that type. Too "old". Boring, etc.

Posted by
4279 posts

I am not sure if we need to care less about Russian cyber attacks but more Chinese and US American?

Posted by
11136 posts

Gordievsky, may God rest his soul for the courage he displayed.