15 foolish high-tech stories

Celebrating April Fool's Day with stories on space, murder, fire, iPhones and text-messages

In a year plagued by foolish Wall Street executives, financial shenanigans and just plain craziness, there have been a ton of foolish happenings.  What we have here are 15 of the most interesting foolish follies that should at least make you wonder about the sanity of the world.

1. A fool and his security blanket are soon parted

 According to a story in PC World, the Antiphishing Working Group said that so far this year the number of fake security programs skyrocketed from average of around 2,500 per month to 9,287 in December. The group's latest report, covering the second half of 2008, says that while rogue AV has been around for years, it wasn't until the middle of last year that crooks starting turning the fake apps into a serious money-making machine.  In fact, this week Google's search rankings are stuffed with links to fake security software that purports to remove Conficker, the widespread worm that's currently the Internet's number one security threat, but doesn't.

The Washington Post's Security Fix recently showed that dirty affiliates who help spread the junk apps can earn more than $330,000 a month in commissions. Maybe crime doesn't pay, but it seems that crimeware just might.

2. Economic stimulus stimulates scamming fools

You knew some chuckleheads somewhere would hop on the economic stimulus plan with a way to scam it online.  Indeed the Federal Trade Commission in March said the problem has quickly become serious.

The FTC said it was seeing significant upticks, though it didn't offer specific amounts,  in Web site scams and e-mail phishing frauds looking to drain money from consumers' credit accounts and download malicious software or spyware that can be used to make them a victim of identity theft, according to Eileen Harrington, acting director, of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection.  

"Web sites may advertise that they can help you get money from the stimulus fund.  Many use deceptive names or images of President Obama and Vice President Biden to suggest they are legitimate.  They're not," Harrington said.

Harrington said the agency has enlisted the help of Google, and Facebook to help eliminate the ads for deceptive Web sites. Harrington said the FTC was working with other ad services to combat the problem but declined to name them.

3. No iPhones, iPods in Mr. and Mrs. Bill Gates' house, no siree

No iPhones? No iPods?  No way! Cool little interview in Vogue this month with Melinda Gates that examines what it must be like to grow up Microsoft.  "There are very few things that are on the banned list in our household," Gates says in the article, which was also highlighted in the Geeksugar blog. "But iPods and iPhones are two things we don't get for our kids."

The Vogue piece says such restrictions are "harsh, perhaps, but understandable. After all, it's hard to walk around tethered to merchandise made by your father's most famous competitor." Indeed.

But the iPhone definitely calls Melinda: "Every now and then I look at my friends and say, ‘Ooh, I wouldn't mind having that iPhone.'"

4. I fart on my iPhone?

Is there a more foolish story going on this year than the battle between two companies over a bodily-function noise maiking application? In this case iFart is now brawling with Pull My Finger for iPhone fart sounding dominance and copyright issues. Basically is a squabble over the phrase "pull my finger."

So while you can make gas noise on an iPhone you cannot get those adorable munchkins from South Park on the device - Apple says they are too profane.

5. Verizon stomps on foolish "Velveteen Rabbit" robocalls

Perhaps they were just trying to hide behind the cute tale of a cuddly rabbit come to life, but Verizon Wireless wound up filing a lawsuit to stop a telemarketing group from bombarding its customers with robocalls touting the upcoming film, "The Velveteen Rabbit."

The lawsuit states that over 10 days in early February, nearly 500,000 calls were made to Verizon Wireless customers and employees from the telephone number 917-210-4609. When customers answered these calls to their wireless phones they heard either a prerecorded voice message or an individual reading a script promoting the anticipated release of the film, Verizon said.

Many of these calls came in rapid succession, indicating the use of an autodialer to place the calls. For example, between 4 p.m. and 5 p.m. on Feb. 13, nearly 11,000 calls with the same caller ID were made, an average of one call every 0.32 seconds, and nearly 10,000 calls were made from a number with the same caller ID between 7 p.m. and 8 p.m. on Feb. 6, an average of one call every 0.36 seconds, Verizon stated.

The lawsuit, filed in US District Court in Trenton, alleges Feature Films for Families, Inc., illegally used an autodialer to call Verizon Wireless customers on behalf of a company called Family 1 Films, based in Los Angeles.

The lawsuit alleges violations of the Federal Telephone Consumer Protection Act, which makes it illegal to use an autodialer to make calls to wireless phones, as well as state fraud and privacy laws. Verizon Wireless has also filed a motion seeking a preliminary injunction to stop the defendants from making these calls.

6. Satellites collide, create major flying junk pile

It was perhaps inevitable that satellites would collide in space.  Indeed that happened in February when an Iridium satellite smacked into an inactive Russian Cosmos-2251 military satellite. The crash happened almost 500 miles above Siberia, reports said.

"The collision of these two space apparatuses happened by chance and these two apparatuses have been destroyed," Major-General Alexander Yakushin, first deputy commander of Russia's Space Forces, told Reuters. "The fragments pose no danger whatsoever to Russian space objects," he said. When asked if the debris posed a danger to other nations' space craft, he said: "As for foreign ones, it is not for me say as it is not in my competency."

According to NASA's Orbital Debris Office, the number and magnitude of space debris has grown significantly in the past 20 years.  For example, it notes that two years after the Chinese zapped their Fengyun-1C meteorological satellite the resultant debris cloud remains pervasive throughout low Earth orbit (LEO), accounting for more than 25% of all cataloged objects. A total of 2,378 fragments greater than 5 cm in diameter have been officially cataloged by the U.S. Space Surveillance Network from the one-metric-ton vehicle, and more than 400 additional pieces of debris are being tracked but have not yet been cataloged. The estimated population of debris larger than 1 cm is greater than 150,000.

7. Space flight fare wars blast off

The space flight fare wars are on.  The major groups that will soon offer suborbital space flight have lopped off 50% or more to attract flyers.

Of course such fare wars are unlikely to start a stampede into space as we're still talking on average about $200,000. But RocketShip Tours and XCOR Aerospace recently said the cost of their suborbital space flight, which will begin operation in 2010 will be $95,000. This includes a five-night stay at a luxury resort, complete training, medical evaluation and screening, cancellation insurance and, of course, the flight itself, the company said. Reportedly about 20 customers have already signed up to take the flight.

Virgin Galactic, founded by the well-known entrepreneur, Richard Branson, is currently offering a similar experience for $200,000. Other space flight groups such as Space Adventures can charge $3 to $5 million for space flights.  Space Adventures sets up flights to the International Space Station and has or will host a variety of high-profile flyers such as ex-Microsoft developer Charles Simonyi, computer game entrepreneur Richard Garriott and tech industry icon Esther Dyson.

Participants in the Rocketship Tours program will travel to the edge of space in a suborbital space vehicle known as the XCOR Lynx that is powered by environmentally friendly liquid propelled rocket engines, the company said. XCOR Aerospace aircraft are being used for the fledgling Rocket Racing League. Those aircraft are liquid oxygen rocket-powered jets based on the four-seat canard propeller-based experimental Velocity aircraft.  The Lynx looks like a small private aircraft and takes off and lands like one.  It flies to about a height of 38 miles.

8. Identity theft leads to murder

Identity theft is getting truly nasty.  In this case a woman who had apparently been breaking into corporate accounts and stealing identities as well as dollars was killed by three men who wanted her laptop and likely the cash stream the identity thefts were generating.

According to a couple of stories out of Long Beach, Calif., a woman, Ginie Samayoa, allegedly was using her laptop to access a number of unidentified corporate computer systems and stealing credit card numbers.  Police say she apparently wasn't taking tons of cash, or at least not enough that anyone had caught on.

According to the Contra Costa Times: "Investigators know she tapped into corporate accounts with balances of $100,000. Using the numbers, she made purchases of about $2,000 so she did not draw any attention. The companies likely paid the bills, not realizing they were being ripped off, police said."

Exactly how she ended up with the three men charged with her murder is unclear but on Jan. 30 one of them shot her and took her laptop.  She died the next day.

Police have since recovered her computer and arrested the men. According to the Contra Costa story, computer experts at a Los Angeles Police Department laboratory checked Samayoa's files and to see what the men were after, and what she was up to.

"She's been doing it for a while. A couple of years," police said. "These guys wanted that computer."

California was in the Federal Trade Commission's Top 10 worst states for identity theft this year. In fact that report found for the ninth year in a row identity theft - particularly in Arizona and California -- was the number one consumer complaint filed with the FTC in 2008. 

9. Last call: Anheuser-Busch IT fool  tossed into prison for computer theft

An ex-IT consultant for Anheuser-Busch got 18 months in prison and was ordered to pay $377,000 in restitution for swiping nearly $400,000 worth of the beer giant's computer gear.

According to court documents, between July 2006 and January 31, 2008, Jack Walter Barrett worked on site as an information technology consultant at the Anheuser-Busch Companies in St. Louis.  Barrett had access to the brewery's technology infrastructure as part of his work there and began to steal expensive computer hardware from Anheuser-Busch, which he took home, the Department of Justice said. 

Barrett had pleaded guilty last October that he sold the stolen merchandise on eBay where he claimed to be its rightful owner, at deeply discounted prices.  Barrett shipped the equipment to buyers across the country in Maryland, New Jersey, California and Oklahoma, the DOJ stated.  

United States Attorney Catherine Hanaway said: "This case involved a stunning breach of trust by a corporate consultant, and a complex distribution web for the stolen equipment."

The Anheuser theft is reminiscent of  a story from last year where a system administrator with the US Naval Research Laboratory plead guilty to taking over 19,000 pieces of computer equipment valued at $120,000. 

10. Swatter fools provoke, endanger public, law officers

It has been a year since the FBI brought the problem to the public's attention but it continues to plague: there has and continues to be a significant increase in the illegal activity know as "swatting" where criminals and pranksters call in a fake 911 in hopes of drawing a response from law enforcement -usually a Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) team.

Swatters often tell tales of hostages about to be executed or bombs about to go off. The community is placed in danger as responders rush to the scene, taking them away from real emergencies. And the officers are placed in danger as unsuspecting residents may try to defend themselves, according to the FBI.

And according to an Associated Press report today, budget-strapped 911 centers are essentially defenseless without an overhaul of their computer systems.

In the AP story, Gary Allen, editor of Dispatch Monthly said dispatchers are "totally at the mercy of the people who call" and the fact they don't have technology to identify which incoming calls are from Internet-based sources. Allen said upgrading the communications centers' computers to flash an Internet caller's IP address could be helpful in thwarting fraudulent calls. He told the AP an even simpler fix, tweaking the computers to identify calls from Internet telephone services and flash the name of the service provider to dispatchers, can cost under $5,000, but is usually still too costly for many communications centers.

11. VA to pay $20M to settle foolish data theft case

The Department of Veterans Affairs has agreed to pay $20 million to military personnel to settle one of the government's most high profile and embarrassing data theft cases. 

The VA data theft in 2006, involved the theft of a laptop from an employee's home that contained the unencrypted personal records of 26.5 million military veterans and their spouses.  The breach led to several new laws concerning how the government and public companies are to treat such breaches.  The laptop was ultimately recovered and the VA maintains that no personal data was ever compromised.

The invasion of privacy class action settlement says veterans who show harm from the data theft will be able to receive payments ranging from $75 to $1,500. If any of the $20 million is left over after making payments, it would be donated to veterans' charities.

While the VA case generated a lot of animosity and some changes, when it comes to securing private information the U.S. government still has a long way to go.  A Government Accountability Office report last year found that only 2 of 24 agencies it examined had implemented all of the security requirements mandated by the Office of Management and Budget last year to protect personal information.

More recently the GAO singled out the IRS saying that while the agency has made some progress in protecting and securing its data, the IRS continues to jeopardize the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of financial and sensitive taxpayer information.

12. Can Feds sell used cars?

The government is trying to stimulate a lot of things -- the economy, Wall St., the mortgage industry, and now it wants to motivate you to get rid of your clunker of a car for the good of the country (and the moribund car industry).

A "Cash for Clunkers" measure introduced recently by U.S. Senators Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Susan Collins (R-Maine), and Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) would set up a  national voucher program to encourage drivers to voluntarily trade in their older, less fuel efficient car, truck or SUV for a car that gets better gas mileage.

Car owners could get only one voucher in any three-year period. Dealers and scrap recycling companies could get payments of $50 per vehicle. And the overall program could cost as much as $2 billion a year.

Should the bill pass, the "Cash for Clunkers" program would reimburse drivers with a credit of $2,500 to $4,500 for drivers who turn in fuel-inefficient vehicles to be scrapped and purchase a more fuel efficient vehicle.

According to the senators the program could save between 40,000 to 80,000 barrels per day of motor fuel by the end of the fourth year.

13. CVS fools spanked over customer privacy failures, pays $2.25M to settle HIPAA violations

The largest pharmacy chain in the U.S., CVS Caremark, has settled Federal Trade Commission charges it failed "to take reasonable and appropriate security measures to protect the sensitive financial and medical information of its customers and employees," in violation of federal law. In a separate but related agreement, the company's pharmacy chain also has agreed to pay $2.25 million to resolve Department of Health and Human Services allegations that it violated the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).

According to the FTC, the settlement requires CVS, which more than 6,300 retail outlets and online and mail-order pharmacy businesses, to establish, implement, and maintain a comprehensive information security program designed to protect the security, confidentiality, and integrity of the personal information it collects from consumers and employees. It also requires the company to obtain, every two years for the next 20 years, an audit from a qualified, independent, third-party professional to ensure that its security program meets the standards of the order.

The HIPPA settlement requires CVS pharmacies to set policies and procedures for disposing of protected health information, implement a training program for handling and disposing of such patient information, conduct internal monitoring, and engage an outside independent assessor to evaluate compliance for three years. CVS also will pay HHS $2.25 million to settle the matter.

The FTC opened an investigation into CVS after numerous reports from around the country said CVS pharmacies were throwing trash into open dumpsters that contained pill bottles with patient names, addresses, prescribing physicians' names, medication and dosages; medication instruction sheets with personal information; computer order information from the pharmacies, including consumers' personal information; employment applications, including social security numbers; payroll information; and credit card and insurance card information, including, in some cases, account numbers and driver's license numbers. At the same time, HHS opened its investigation into the pharmacies' disposal of health information protected by HIPAA, the FTC  said.

14. Tweeting with 'Star Trek' actor sparks kitchen fire

It was only a matter of time before this Twitter madness leapt from merely hypnotizing the masses and bastardizing the language to causing real-world mayhem for those caught in its seductive clutches.

Here's what happened according to Network World's Buzzblog: Curt Monash, a technology analyst and Network World blogger, was twit-chatting at 1:30 a.m. with actor LeVar Burton -- Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge on "Star Trek: The Next Generation" and Kunta Kinte on "Roots." For the fiery details we turn now to my Q&A with Monash, which Twitter users should note approvingly consists of questions and answers stretching no more than 140 characters, putting aside the windier blog excerpt. (Update: Burton responds in first comment below ... and, yes, it's really him.)

Buzzblog: Please describe the sequence of events, beginning of course with telling us your Twitter platform of choice.

Monash: I still Twitter from the Web interface. Tweetdeck's data corruption is intolerable.

From a "The Monash Report" blog post: On the whole, I'm not apt to be particularly celebrity-struck.... I thought it was cool to be Twittering back and forth with LeVar Burton, of Roots and Star Trek fame, especially when he sent a direct message that read, in its entirety, "Exactly!!! Well said." But unfortunately, that wasn't the most interesting part.

While I was tweeting away in the middle of the night, I heard a shout from (my wife Linda Barlow). It turned out that we had a fire on our 49-year-old electric stove. A burner had failed to turn off, a plastic cutting board had fallen onto it, and flames had started.

 The fire left a small part of our house destroyed, a large part uninhabitable, and the rest uncomfortable. The insurance company happily feels obligated to set things to rights.

15. Girl's 22,795 text messages in a month celebrate foolishness

This story about Breanne Fite of Upland, Indiana is quickly becoming a cliché ... and not a flattering one in terms of what it says about our society. According to a Buzzblog story, twelve-year-old Breanne, you see, is one of those texting prodigies -- a Mozart who's all thumbs -- that our always-on culture has not only come to produce but to celebrate.

From The (Muncie) Star Press: Her father's last Verizon Wireless bill showed that her previous 30-day texting tabulation hit a whopping 22,795 messages.

"All I could say was, 'Thank God I get free text messaging,' " said Michael Fite, noting the bill broke down his daughter's communications as 301 picture texts, 743 text messages out, and 21,751 text messages in.

"It's one text message every 113 seconds," he noted.

What particularly struck Buzzblog about the story was not the details of the girl's texting prowess, but rather the casual acceptance and encouragement of her habit.

Layer 8 in a box

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