Four times I've read this sentence from a press release and it makes no more sense the fourth time than the first: "If caught in the rain with a choice of a mobile phone or an umbrella, nearly 37 percent of Americans would choose their mobile phone." Read more
What Matthew Weigman and his cohorts did went so far beyond "pranks" -- or even hacking -- as to leave little room to question the sentence he received yesterday.
From an IDG News Service story on our site: Read more
There's nothing quite like awakening on a Sunday morning to the triple play of fail: no phone, no TV and no Internet service. Think the kids were happy? Think their Mom was happy? ... Think Dad was happy?
Of course, we've been through this before ... and before ... and before ... but that wasn't going to replace anyone's favorite shows or my Red Sox game. Read more
An item here last week about the Web site Corrupted-Files.com had one reader reaching deep into the memory bank for similar tale that also deserves sharing.
Corrupted-Files, if you missed it the first time, sells unreadable Word, Excel and PowerPoint files to students and others who in turn submit them to professors, bosses or clients in the hope that the files won't be opened -- and "the problem" discovered -- until they have had a chance to actually finish that term paper or work project.
Writes Bob McNally of Worcester, Mass.: Read more
What is it about technology that makes it not only addictive but so addictive as to be "like crack?" The question occurred while I was editing a story in which an industry analyst said: "Virtualization is like crack and people go crazy with it - for a while."
Recognizing hyperbole when I see it, I presumed that he meant virtualization is like virtual crack, but point taken -- again. This time, though, I felt compelled to do some research to see exactly how many different technologies are like crack. Turns out there are so many that the search itself became like ... well, let's just say it was hard to stop cold turkey. Examples:
"Programming is like crack," it says here, although you haven't hit bottom until you're hopped up on object-oriented programming. That stuff's "really like crack for these people."
"Blogging is like crack for academics." Read more
Twitter in recent days has received much attention for the role it has played in keeping the world informed about what's going on in Iran. Events of that magnitude are rare, of course, so it is the everyday drumbeat of life -- and in some cases death -- that make up the bulk of Twitter discourse. Read more
That didn't take long.
Officials in the city of Bozeman, Montana have beat a hasty retreat on demanding that job applicants cough up all their online usernames and passwords. The surrender comes after citizens -- and the Internet community -- basically told them what they could do with their ridiculously intrusive background-check policy.
From a city press release: Read more
Readers with neck problems are advised to skip this post because it is sure to have your head shaking.
Officials who run the city of Bozeman, Montana -- perhaps setting a new standard for privacy invasion in the name of public safety -- are insisting that job applicants cough up their usernames and passwords for any social networking sites or online forums in which they participate. Reason: background checks.
From a report on Montana's News Station:
The requirement is included on a waiver statement applicants must sign, giving the City permission to conduct an investigation into the person's "background, references, character, past employment, education, credit history, criminal or police records." Read more
At the very bottom of last week's item bemoaning the coronation of "Web 2.0" as the 1 millionth "word or phrase" in the English language, I posed this question and comment: "What, no 'tweet'? Shocking."
After all, as cloyingly ubiquitous as Web 2.0 has become, it's a lexicon wannabee when pitted alongside the verb formulation of "to Twitter": namely, tweet.
What gives? Read more
What could be more frustrating than a corrupted Word file? How about not having one handy when your term paper or work project is due ... but alarmingly incomplete?
If you're not getting the connection off hand, check out Corrupted-Files.com, a Web site dedicated to the dubious notion that anything worth achieving in life is worth cheating to accomplish. For a mere $3.95 credit-card payment (careful there, kids) the anonymous proprietor promises deadline deadbeats a thoroughly corrupted Word, Excel or Powerpoint file with the following instructions:
Step 1: After purchasing a file, rename the file e.g. Mike_Final-Paper. Read more
You have to hand it to the tabloid headline writers at the New York Post: They know nothing if not how to turn the tiniest spark into a five-alarm conflagration.
"Fear grips Google," the Post blared on Saturday. Read more
Here's a story in the Boston Globe this morning that offers the dubious proposition that struggling companies that have had to jettison lots of workers are making it up to surviving employees by tossing barbecues and offering other cheap eats.
Allow me to summarize: "We've fired half of your co-workers, doubled your workload and cut your pay: Here, have a hot dog."
Now I like free food as much as the next guy, but let's not get carried away with the power of potato salad.
Boo! I've always hated the term Web 2.0 and wished it would go away. That's not happening, obviously, now that the august Global Language Monitor has decreed this very morning that it is now and forever the 1 millionth English word. Cloud computing was a runner-up.
Read more
T-Mobile says hackers who claim to have penetrated its network and stolen a treasure-trove of customer data do have a genuine company network document in their possession but that there is no evidence to suggest that personally identifiable information has been put at risk.
Read more
T-mobile customers are awakening this morning to reports that hacker/extortionists have victimized the cellular carrier through a massive network breach resulting in the theft of untold amounts of corporate and customer data, which they're threatening to sell to the highest bidder.
T-Mobile says it is investigating.
(Tuesday update: T-Mobile says fear not.)
There is also speculation among observers online that the incident, which became public Saturday, could be a hoax.
Read more
Most Internet users read Web site terms of service agreements about as often than they peruse car owner's manuals, which is to say only when it smells like something is burning.
Yet ToS changes happen all the time, those changes are often important, and, they can cause a stink, as Facebook and its faithful learned recently when the company proposed alterations to its terms that were perceived as Facebook helping itself to the pictures and writings of members. Much complaining and backpedaling ensued before order was restored.
In an effort that may actually accelerate such flare-ups in the future, the Electronic Frontier Foundation today announced that it has begun tracking ToS changes and making those findings available on a special Web site.
Read more
Forbes has a follow-up today to the Washington Post's earlier revelation that the Justice Department is investigating alleged collusion -- "gentlemen's agreements" -- between high-tech companies that has been designed to suppress wages by limiting the poaching of top workers.
Read more
Apple is thriving and U.S. taxpayers now own General Motors because the former can count its laptop offerings on one hand while the latter seemingly has more car lines than buyers, says Michael Davies, a senior lecturer at MIT's Sloan School of Management.
It's not a novel theory -- for example, Booz Allen Hamilton put a slightly different spin on it several years back -- but it must be music to a bean-counter's ears these days. From an MIT press release trumpeting Davies' research:
Read more
What's the oldest data-loss incident on record involving social security numbers?
How about health-care industry records?
Well, there's no way to know for certain, but the Open Security Foundation's DataLossDB has just concluded a six-week contest that invited amateur sleuths to submit the oldest such loss incidents they could find. The results were announced this morning on the organization's blog.
Contest rules required that the incidents involve personally identifiable information, so there was particular interest in long-ago losses of Social Security numbers. Contest winner, Corey Chandler -- who provided answers to both of the questions above -- dug back into a New York Times article from 1953 (fee required) to learn of an episode that was apparently an inside job:
Officials of Local 338, International Longshoremen's Association, A.F.L., one of seven locals being investigated by Kings County District Attorney Miles F. McDonald's rackets bureau, reported to police yesterday that books and records had been stolen from their office. ...
Two day books, containing receipts of dues from the 700 members of the local; a ledger listing the membership and the payment of dues by name; a dues book showing daily collection, and 700 index cards bearing the names, addresses and Social Security numbers of the members.
The good news is that the authorities apparently believed the "alleged burglary" to be more likely a case of evidence tampering than a prelude to identity theft.
Read more
This largely unthinkable notion is to be announced today by Boston-Power, which is best known for providing batteries for HP laptops. Dependent upon funding availability, the manufacturing facility in Auburn would employ 600.
From this morning's (still publishing) Boston Globe:
Read more
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