Geek Stuff category archive

Phil Sheridan is writing about a football game. His words have wider application:

The technology (Twitter–ed.) at work here is the product of genius. Unfortunately, it can be used to expose complete idiocy.

I wonder about the “genius” part.

Twitter is the pet rock of communications technology.

Facebook is its Cabbage Patch Kid.

(All that guff about “Twitter Revolutions” says more about media’s masturbatory fascination with gadgets than it does about Real Life.)

El Reg takes a look at Facebook’s current security practices.

It’s conclusion: Somewhere between non-existent and lousy:

“I definitely feel that Facebook could be doing more to both better secure their users, and to ensure that privacy is treated as a higher priority,” Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos, told El Reg.

Facebook may talk a good game but a quick search (viewable only if logged into Facebook and safe providing you don’t click on the links) shows hundreds of victims have installed a rogue app that falsely promises the ability to “see who has viewed your profile”.

Facebook ought to have someone searching for such scams and stamping them out, something that isn’t happening as yet. “Often I see these scams spreading for days on end, with no obvious action taken by Facebook,” Cluley said.

Streaming at Funny or Die.

You can run, but you can’t hide.

Busted.

Two Florida girls are facing cyberstalking charges for allegedly creating a fake Facebook profile in the name of a fellow high school student and placing obscene photos on the page, including one showing their classmate’s head atop the body of a “nude prepubescent girl’s body,” according to investigators.

More at the link.

Crackdown on twits for hire in the UK:

In the first of its kind, the OFT (Office of Fair Trading–ed.) has brought a case against a PR firm that was discovered to be paying bloggers to write effusively about its clients. The watchdog has launched an investigation into Handpicked Media, which operates a commercial blogging network – insisting that it must clearly state when promotional comments have been paid for.

In a statement, the OFT said online advertising and marketing that did not disclose paid-for promotions were “deceptive” under fair trading rules. “This includes comments about services and products on blogs and microblogs such as Twitter,” it said.

Celebrity twitter endorsements are already big business in the US, where artists such as Snoop Dogg can earn a reported $3,000 (£1,900) for sending a tweet endorsing a product. But the US Federal Trade Commission insists that such endorsements must contain the words “ad” or “spon” to show the reference has been paid for. Such a requirement does not currently exist in the UK.

This tale of suspense, betrayal, and the Golden Turnip is weirdly fascinating in a train wreck kind of way.

Background:

BIG TWEET’s power on Twitter has become a threat to celebrities, advertising agencies, network television & Twitter’s main competitor FACEBOOK. Online followers are the new currency. And BIG TWEET has them all. A billion. Whatever he says is heard. By millions. And his unmatched Internet influence has now made him (and his main girl) the number one target of the corporate underworld and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. BIG TWEET and his girl are about to be DELETED! Ordered by an underground secret corporate society, a group of Mexican gangsters have been hired to kidnap BIG TWEET and his girl. Their mission is simple. They must delete them both.

(Warning: Some language that you are likely to hear at your local school bus stop and on the Daily Show.)

Friends go wild.

An Indiana woman last night allegedly stabbed her boyfriend with a kitchen knife after he would not allow her to view his Facebook page, according to cops.

Read more »

Thomas Jones, writing at the Guardian, discusses how Facebook creates and builds on “the illusion that you are among friends.”

It is worth a read, especially the bit on how immersing oneself in Facebook narrows horizons:

And what’s in it for us?

Zuckerberg’s answer to the second question would be that the more Facebook knows about you, the more it can tailor your “experience” of the web to suit you. On the Facebook blog last April, he wrote:

“If you’re logged into Facebook and go to Pandora [an internet radio station] for the first time, now it can immediately start playing songs from bands you’ve liked across the web. And as you’re playing music, it can show you friends who also like the same songs as you, and then you can click to see other music they like.”

It’s a nice enough idea, in its limited way, though it misses one of the great points of radio, which is to expose you to music that you and your friends don’t know already: there wouldn’t be a place for someone like John Peel in Zuckerberg’s universe.

Andy Borowitz prescribes a fix for persons who iGadgets no longer get them up:

Mr. Jobs, however, did offer a temporary fix to iPhone users whose alarms do not work: “For the time being, tape your iPhone to a working alarm clock.”

Follow the link for the full report.

Show your support. Join our group.

This type of crusading has become so common online that a word has been coined for it – slacktivism. It’s not a term of endearment. Definition: Activism, often done on a computer, that requires a slacker’s amount of effort and is of questionable effectiveness.

Why raise money doing a breast cancer walk when you can easily update your Facebook status with the color of your bra? (That Facebook meme happened in January.) Maybe you wanted to encourage Iran’s prodemocracy demonstrators last year. To show your support, all you had to do was tint your Twitter avatar green or add to it a virtual green ribbon.

It’s not that low-impact activism is new. For years we’ve sat in traffic and read a bumper crop of bumper stickers proclaiming drivers’ concern for the rain forest, support for a political candidate, or pride in little Eddie or Emma making the school honor roll. Walk down the street and you’ll see people making statements with T-shirts and rubber wristbands.

Or try standing outside the polling place handing out lit for candidate.

Full Disclosure:

I’ve done some of the group-joining, usually to publicize the cause via my profile; in return, I’ve learned stuff, but the causes I support tend to send out informative updates.

I put the brakes on joining causes over a year ago.

I’ve never done the profile picture thing, though some folks probably wish I would.

Change the picture, that is.

I’ve also handed out literature for my candidate.

Thompson:

More Thompson.

Oh My Gov! reviews twelve ways in which students have used Facebook to get into–and cause–trouble.

Arch Linux in Virtual Box on Debian Lenny:

More about Arch at Geekazine.

Frankly, I think this is creepy:

Facebook announced a plan to use face-recognition technology in photo sharing. The semi-automated tagging service, which will roll out gradually to Facebook members in the United States starting this week could be a great convenience but it also raises some interesting questions.

There are some reassuring aspects to the announcement. To begin with, the company has said that it will keep its existing privacy options around photos and tagging, which include your ability to block tagging or limit who can tag you as well as the ability to remove tags from images after they are posted. Facebook also notifies you whenever you’re tagged in an image.

The company also announced that it will allow users to opt out of having their name suggested to friends during the photo tagging process. If you disable “Suggest photos of me to friends,” your name will “no longer be suggested in photo tags, though friends can still tag you manually,” according to the Facebook blog.

With the new system, face-recognition software will analyze your photos as you upload them and attempt to identify who is in the picture. It’s not trying to compare the pictures you upload with a database of everyone in the world, everyone on Facebook or even every one of your friends. Instead, according to a representative, it’s looking at the people you interact with most frequently.

I do not tag pictures on Facebook. In fact, most of the few pictures I post are of scenery. not persons.

One reason is that I seldom take pictures of persons when I am with them; I’m too busy enjoying (I hope) their company. The other, and more important one, is that I wonder about the wisdom of uploading someone’s picture without permission. I wonder even more about naming them, even if they use Facebook, unless they are already public figures doing things in public.

My limited use of Facebook leads me to believe that most Facebook frequenters do not mess with the default privacy settings, and the default so far has tended towards treating all your “Facebook friends” as if they were your long lost brothers and sisters with no secrets from anyone.

Follow the link for more information on how “feature” is expected to work.

No incoming twits about RLS and couples who use separate bathtubs:

Executives at pharmaceutical companies are all tied in knots about what they can and can’t say through social media sites like Twitter, Facebook and other popular Web forums where patients and doctors congregate.

They worry that one wrong move will land them in the penalty box with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, their federal regulator.

A recent survey from audit and consulting firm Deloitte found that 35 percent of companies surveyed had no interest in social media, a striking number given that the general public seems enamored with such 21st century pleasures as Tweeting on Twitter and Friending on Facebook. Many firms see the new media as a gold mine for customer engagement.

But more than half of firms surveyed by Deloitte said confusion about what regulators believe is appropriate communication over social networks gives them heartburn about participating.

Twitter goes a-courtin’.

Sick of commercials?

Go to Shoutcast, plug “Christmas” into the search field, and take your pick.

My netbook is jacked into the stereo and there are speakers all over the condo.