Geek Stuff category archive

Teenager mouthing off in frustration meets stupid zero tolerance policy.

Result: Maximum stupid.

Addendum, the Next Day:

The stupid has been slightly moderated.

A friend of mine used to say, “The lowest possible level of technology that accomplishes the goal is the proper level of technology.”

Case in point.

Judge is Facebook friends with defendant, who is a figure in local politics.

Judge dismisses charges DUI charges, questioning the credibility of the arresting officers.

Should the judge have recused himself?

Read more »

The Duqu computer infection was spread with the help of an infected Microsoft Word document, according to a report.

The research says the Trojan exploited a previously unknown vulnerability embedded in Word files, allowing Duqu to modify computers’ security protection.

The code is believed to have been designed to gather intelligence from industrial control-systems.

One of these days, Microsoft will get computer security.

Also, pigs, wings.

I have reached a point of distrusting Facebook so much that I will only visit it in a private tab in my browser.

If I didn’t use Facebook to pimp promote my blog, I would have deleted all my data (even though Facebook keeps deleted data, so what’s the point) and signed off long ago.

Facebook Agonistes: Another appearance in the agony column.

Via Science 2.0.

When does “delete” mean “keep”?

Apparently, in Facebook World:

Facebook’s international headquarters in Dublin, Ireland, are being audited by a government data protection agency and Facebook could face a fine of up to 100,000 euros ($138,720) if found to be in violation of the personal data laws of the United Kingdom, according to a report in The Guardian on Thursday.

The Irish office of the Data Protection Commissioner confirmed to the newspaper that it is investigating the world’s largest social network after numerous complaints were filed by a 24-year-old student, who discovered Facebook had been holding onto boatloads of personal information he had deleted from his Facebook account.

The investigation is not completed, but, given Facebook’s track record of acting in bad faith, I suspect that the findings will be worse than expected.

Microsoft, which is congenitally unable to innovate–everything they sell was created by someone else and either bought or copied and coopted by Redmond–except in “marketing,” has another strategy for ruling the world‘s pocketbooks.

Learn more here and share the link.

And I don’t mean “swipe” as in “bankster”:

Via El Reg.

And strong passwords won’t help with this. El Reg reports:

Home Depot, The Wall Street Journal, Photobucket, and hundreds of other websites share visitor’s names, usernames, or other personal information with advertisers or other third parties, often without disclosing the practice in privacy policies, academic researchers said.

Sixty-one percent of websites tested by researchers from Stanford Law School’s Center for Internet and Society leaked the personal information, sometimes to dozens of third-party partners. Home Depot, for example, disclosed the first names and email addresses of visitors who clicked on an ad to 13 companies. The Wall Street Journal divulged to seven of its partners the email address of users who enter the wrong password. And Photobucket handed over the usernames of those who use the site to share images with their friends.

Q. What is the major cause of computer security problems?

In the agony column.

What does “Ask Amy” get horribly wrong in her answer?

Twitter this week lost a key court ruling in a patent infringement case and will be forced to go to trial unless the two sides can settle beforehand.

(snip)

An expert hired by patent attorney and inventor Dinesh Agarwal says Twitter owes him between $11 million and $41 million in royalties. Ten years ago, Agarwal invented an online interactive system for following famous people but never developed it commercially. He alleges Twitter used his idea to develop a similar interactive program on its website last year.

As much as I disdain Twitter and its tittering twits, I must say this is absurd.

The plaintiff fits the absolute definition of a patent troll and illustrates why software patents (which are patents on ideas, as opposed to a copyright on code, since code is a real thing) are a bad idea.

No place to hide:

An Associated Press-MTV poll finds 3 in 10 teens and young adults have had people log on to their Facebook, Twitter, MySpace or other Internet accounts and either impersonate or spy on them. That’s nearly double the level seen in 2009.

The poll found solid majorities saying they knew who was behind it.

Arresting status updates:

A Montgomery County (Pennsylvania–ed.) man was charged Monday in an alleged extortion attempt involving a sex tape of his ex-girlfriend, police said.

The investigation into the video collection of Omari Listenbee, 33, of Glenside, began when a 37-year-old Exton woman filed a report with West Whiteland Township police.

The woman said Listenbee, her former boyfriend, had threatened to post sexually explicit videos of her on the Internet, including the Facebook accounts of all of her friends, unless she paid him $3,000, said West Whiteland Sgt. Martin Malloy.

Learn about the wonderful world of free and open source.

What: Monthly TWUUG Meeting.

Who: Everyone in TideWater/Hampton Roads with interest in any/all flavors of Unix/Linux. There are no dues or signup requirements. All are welcome.

Where: Lake Taylor Transitional Care Hospital in Norfolk Training Room. See directions below. (Wireless and wired internet connection available.)

When: 7:30 PM till whenever (usually 9:30ish) on Thursday, October 6.

Note: Meetings are normally on the first Thursday of each month.

Directions:
Lake Taylor Hospital
1309 Kempsville Road
Norfolk, Va. 23502 (Map)

Pre-Meeting Dinner at 6:00 PM (separate checks)
Uno Chicago Grill
Virginia Beach Blvd. & Military Highway (Janaf Shopping Center). (Map)

Demonstration here.

Breaking: When people are in a bad mood, their twits reflect it.

Drawing on messages posted by more than 2 million people in 84 countries, researchers discovered that the emotional tone of people’s messages follows a similar pattern not only through the day but also through the week and the changing seasons. The new analysis suggests our moods are driven in part by a shared underlying biological rhythm that transcends culture and environment.

The report, by sociologists at Cornell University in New York and appearing in the journal Science, is the first cross-cultural study of daily mood rhythms within the average person using such text analysis. Previous studies also have mined the mountains of data pouring into social-media sites, chat rooms, blogs and elsewhere on the Internet but looked at collective moods over time, in different time zones or during holidays.

In other news, sky blue, apple red.