On September 11, 2015 I visited Media Markt in Utrecht Hoog Catherijne, a well-known electronics shop in The Netherlands. Since summer 2014, the biggest independent Dutch phone retail company Phone House also operates (white labeled) from within Media Markt locations as a store-in-a-store concept. I had a few questions about my phone subscription so I talked to a Phone House employee. We were discussing the new Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge phone and I was thinking about buying one.
Somewhere in the conversation the service & sales guy asked me what I did for a living so I told him I earned my money as a freelancer by hacking (with authorization) into computer systems of businesses and writing security reports about it. He thought that was cool so we talked a few more minutes about this subject. I even told him I had noticed some months ago that one of his Media Markt colleagues had written a password on a post-it and attached it onto a computer monitor near a cash desk, in plain sight where any customer could see it :
As you can see, the password to unlock Media Markt computers was media321. A very strong one!
We both laughed about how irresponsible and naive that was.
The conversation continued about my desire for a new phone and about all associated kinds of subscriptions I could choose of. After about ten minutes I made up my mind and ordered a new phone and a new subscription. I’m still in shock about what happened next!
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