Elderly Amish Man Caught on Film With Prostitute, Blackmailed
When a 75-year-old Amish widower slept with a prostitute, he -- we feel certain -- felt pretty bad about it the next morning. As if that guilt weren't enough for the old man, the prostitute and her boyfriend demanded $67,000 from him, claiming that they had filmed the scene with wall-mounted cameras and would upload the recording to the Internet. The pair was later arrested and, we can only imagine, the Amish man abhorred technology more than ever.
Bank Robber Gets Away With the Help of Craiglist
In October, a bank robber -- wearing a safety vest, blue shirt, face mask and goggles -- eluded police with the help of Craiglist. Just outside the bank, while the robbery was in progress, stood a group of men who were responding to a Craiglist day labor opportunity. As the advertisement required, they were all wearing safety vests, blue shirts, face masks and goggles.
Nude New Zealander Arrested After Responding to Fake Sexy Text Message
Late in 2007, a Wellington, New Zealand man received a racy text message from two anonymous "ladies," giving him only an address and a request that he show up naked. Well, he indeed showed up naked... at the home of one appalled, unsuspecting New Zealander. Both the nude Romeo and the sadistic texter were arrested, though neither were prosecuted.
Fake Craiglist Ad Costs Man Most of What He Owns
Last Spring, a post appeared on an Oregon Craigslist board stating that the owner of a specific house was leaving all of his worldly possessions (still in said house) to whoever wanted them. When homeowner Robert Salisbury rushed home -- on a tip from a woman suspicious about the offer of a free horse -- he found his house being ransacked by 30 strangers. We suggest he take that horse and collect some vengeance Clint Eastwood-style.
17-Year-Old Jailed for Stealing Virtual 'Furniture'
When a 17-year-old Dutch boy hacked into several accounts on the Second Life-style site 'Habbo' in 2007, the the law got involved. The boy was discovered to have stolen $5,800 worth of virtual furniture and knick-knacks. Apparently, crime -- whether actual or virtual -- does not pay.
Phishers Going After Your Phones in New 'Vishing' Trend
Over the past year, sneaky spammers have begun to forsake the worn-out territory of e-mail in favor of cell phones' fertile frontier. The result? "Vishing." Get it? Voice mail phishing. It might be more ominous if it didn't sound like a James Bond villain saying, "Wishing."
Burglars Break Into Restaurant, Steal HDTV, Leave Money / Food Behind
Around Halloween of last year, a truckload of thieves drove into -- that's right, into -- a Pennsylvania Mexican restaurant, where they -- apparently uninterested in the cash register -- stole a mid-grade 47-inch HDTV and fled the scene. We've all heard about how this generation is lacking in ambition, but this generation's thieves, too?
If you were having trouble receiving e-mail on your BlackBerry this past weekend, you weren't alone. On Friday, users began reporting that messages were being received very late or not at all. For some, the problem had resolved itself by late Friday night, though for many the slowdown persisted through much of the weekend. BlackBerry maker Research in Motion, or RIM, has blamed the outage on a software glitch and has not said how many of its North American customers were affected.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Richard Finkelstein said 4:16PM on 9-10-2007
When my Blackberry's e-mail went down I went to my ATT store to see what the problem was. Once the nature of the problem became clear I contacted RIM to learn where users might be able to get status info as their website had no mention of service interruptions. Their only response was that since I received my Blackberry service through ATT, this was ATT's problems and that RIM wouldn't deal with me. CLEARLY this IS a RIM problem and I am quite disappointed with their "F-off" response to what a reasonable person would consider to be an appropriate inquiry.
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Roy Agostino said 5:03PM on 9-10-2007
Companies like RIM have spent billions of dollars on software from big vendors to fix slow or failing applications but these monitoring tools only go so far. Unfortunately, CEOs or CFOs aren't aware of the problem until the service - such as Blackberry - goes down or underperforms. Organizations need to be able to ensure the predictable operation of mission critical applications to ensure that business systems operate at their fullest potential—essentially allowing a service outage or slowdown to be resolved before customers are impacted. Without this, companies like RIM will continue to face the scrutiny of unhappy customers in the face of ongoing service outages.
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