Man is charged $4,300 for four burgers. Basically the cashier entered entered the numbers twice. He used a debit card so even though he got the money back it was locked up for a few days. Yet another reason to avoid the things - a hit like that against a credit limit for a few days probably doesn't stop important things from going through like it does with a bank account. Reminds me of this.
So Cingular has been bragging about their fewest dropped calls on commercials lately. They say "based on nationwide experience among national carriers." The interesting thing is their press release web site lists a smaller area. They have some others, but more generally and also for smaller areas. They just say two companies without saying which. Apparently someone actually tried to get more info from them. Looks like Global Wireless Solutions and Telephia. It seems both companies do call testing with test calls, and note that while call quality and attempts are tested, only dropped calls are mentioned in the ads and press release. The GWS guy also didn't give details but didn't have issues with Cingular's claims. Even if they aren't hiding anything, not releasing their sources seems really suspicious (especially since they did before - why would their contracts with the survey company suddenly not allow releasing it?).
What's also interesting is that just over two weeks ago J.D. Power and Associates released a report with detailed information on the major nationwide and regional carriers, with ranking figures (at the bottom) and descriptions of why (in the middle). This isn't just based on test data either, but on interviewing customers. Guess where Cingular falls on that one? You can get detailed info. T-mobile also is bragging, but they're willing to cite their sources.
There is some good news for those Orange customers in MN though (guessing as usual Blue customers won't get access to the upgrades). Hopefully it'll get VZW to react.
I was walking in from lunch yesterday and saw this license plate. Not quite like the one I saw a couple months ago while driving to work which had 5 years stretched halfway across the "10,000 lakes", but it still makes me wonder. This one had others under the 06 too - apparently this year they must not have trusted them to stick or something.
Interesting video titled Computer Networks: The Heralds of Resource Sharing, from the early days of ARPANet. One cool part is how they built a reliable network by shifting the communication and routing to separate IMPs that could be homogeneous and reliable rather than the differing hosts of unknown reliability. The purposes were "to provide information about resources" and "provide services that will aid their collaboration". About 22 minutes in they discuss checks and banking, and the need to go completely electronic but how people would resist. This was recorded in 1972. I bet they never realized it'd take until the system was almost collapsed by inability to move the paper around in 2001 before the benefits would override the concerns of people. They also discuss books on demand, which still aren't here (at least not on any real scale). The call that the social aspects will hold back the technology was definitely right.
There's a remote code execution vulnerability in Macromedia Flash client. The vulnerability also includes Shockwave due to the embedded flash support. Unfortunately this seems to be preinstalled almost everywhere and considered safe usually, so it's a rather big one. Download links to new versions are on that page. As a side note I recommend Flashblock both to minimize general annoyance and to help minimize the impact of things like this (it turns it into a click-to-exploit rather than load-page-to-exploit). You can check your version of Flash Player (should be at least 8.0.24) and Shockwave Player (should be at least 10.1.1 (10.1r(\d+) on the check is 10.1.0.x\1)) on Macromedia's site.
Why shredders are a good idea, preferably crosscut. Of course 888-5-OPT-OUT or here is pretty effective too.
3-year-old picks up loaded gun. Mom takes it away, pulls the clip, and puts it back. Kid picks up gun again, and shoots her in the knee, as the chamber was still loaded. Can't feel too sorry for her there.
While Europe has been using chip & pin for a while, debit cards are just recently starting to catch on in the US. Something that's always bugged me about them (and smart cards without keypads), is that you're entering the secret that's supposed to keep your info secure into a system with unknown security. Whether it be an inadvertent keylogger or as in the case of the recent financial stuff the system storing them someplace it shuoldn't, once it's entered you have no control over it other than to trust the remote end. You have to trust the entire chain to keep your data secure. Schneier has some good info on the recent rash of theft from accounts using ATMs. The part that sucks for consumers on this is that debit cards have no federal consumer protections the way credit cards do. This kind of thing is why the future is definitely going to need to be smart card with keypad or something similar. It's also an example of why biometrics are really bad - if compromised this way, the PIN can be changed. You can't change your biometrics. On the semi-positive side, maybe this will get people to realize typing passwords (including PINs) on random computers is a bad idea.
You've probably heard about the upcoming changes to the TiVo price plan. Basically it's changing next week to buy upfront and pay $13/mo, or pay $20/mo and get the hardware free. Both cases are a year minimum. Of course if you hit the right deal, you can currently get a TiVo box for free after rebates, and only pay the $13/mo (again a year minimum). So if you're on the fence, now is probably the time to get it. I say the $155 for a year seems worth it. If you are thinking of going lifetime that goes away next week too, which is a even bigger incentive. So here's a free-after-rebate TiVo deal (expires tomorrow).
As described by Penn & Teller at least. In case you don't know about their show, it's definitely not clean, but it is a decent (in terms of the information it covers at least) high-level overview about the big problems with it in a way that the general public would understand. The video.
Copyright ©2000-2008 Jeremy Mooney (jeremy-at-qux-dot-net)
