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FBI Raids Apartment of Suspected Palin E-Mail Hacker

by Terrence O'Brien, posted Sep 22nd 2008 at 12:10PMBreaking News

FBI Raids Apartment of Suspected Palin E-Mail Hacker
The wily, if careless, hacker who weaseled his way into Governor Palin's private Yahoo! e-mail account may now be in the cross-hairs of the FBI. According to witnesses on the scene, the apartment of David Kernell, a student at the University of Tennessee who is suspected of the hack, was raided by the FBI after the agency obtained a search warrant.

The agents broke up a party to search the residence and issued subpoenas to Kernell's three roommates. According to some witnesses, Kernell fled the scene, but details surrounding the events are a bit murky.

The hacker, who broke into Palin's e-mail in-box, left a posting late last week on a forum at 4chan explaining how he used publicly available information to change the password for the account. Bloggers and forum members were able to quickly associate the handle used on the posting, rubico, with an e-mail address, rubico10@yahoo.com, which was then connected to Kernell. Authorities were also able to identify the IP address used to break into the account as belonging to Pavlov Media, the ISP that provides access at Kernell's apartment complex.

Kernell has not been charged with any crimes as of yet, but a grand jury hearing is set to begin this week. If convicted, he is expected to serve little if any jail time and be charged with a misdemeanor, though felony charges are possible. [From: Wired]

White House E-Mails Missing

by Terrence O'Brien, posted Aug 24th 2008 at 4:27PM

White House Dragging its Feet on E-Mail RecoveryRemember all those e-mails that went missing at the White House? The Bush administration is hoping you don't. According to an internal memo leaked to the Associate Press (AP) the government is pushing forward with its recovery "effort" the only way it knows how -- completely half-assed.

According to the memo, the White House is missing as much as 225 days worth of e-mail that just so happen to date from the time of the Valerie Plame leak and the Abu Ghraib scandal. The White House is theoretically taking bids from contractors to recover the e-mails, but has no expectation of the work being completed before April of 2009, after the current administration has left office.

According to contractors questioned by the AP, the memo doesn't appear to be a legitimate request for help in the recovery process. The memo says anywhere from 25-225 days of e-mails may be missing. The large discrepancy makes it hard to estimate the man power and time needed to tackle the project. Steve Schooner, co-director of the Government Procurement program at George Washington University said, "Generally, when the scope of the work is expected to fluctuate by a factor of nearly ten, I can only take you so seriously." [From: AOL News]

Yahoo! Now Offering YMail.com and RocketMail.com Addresses

by Terrence O'Brien, posted Jun 19th 2008 at 1:04PM

Yahoo! Now Offering @YMail and @RocketMail E-Mail AddressesYahoo! Mail has been around a long time. As a consequence, getting yourself an e-mail address that isn't a non-sequitur followed by 17 digits (we hear that H0r53D1aper374689@Yahoo.com is still available!) is darn near impossible.

So to better serve its customers, Yahoo! is opening up two new domains for registering e-mails: @YMail.com and @RocketMail.com. Rocket Mail was actually snapped up by Yahoo! back in 1997 as the basis for Yahoo!'s free e-mail offering, but registration of new Rocket Mail addresses has been closed ever since.

You probably still wont be able to get JoeSmith@RocketMail.com or YMail.com, but you just might be able to squeeze a Smith in there somewhere. [Source: USA Today]

E-Mail, Text Messages, IMs Cost The US $650 Billion in 2006

by Terrence O'Brien, posted Dec 27th 2007 at 12:50PM

Multitasking
For a society so obsessed with productivity, we're pretty bad at actually being productive. Sure, services such as Google and Wikipedia have been described as being time hogs, but apparently the real killer is multitasking.

2008 is being dubbed the "year of information overload" by Basex Inc., a research firm. The human brain is not hardwired for paying attention to several things at once or for handling constant interruptions. The pressure put on us by technology to respond immediately to E-mails, text messages, and IMs cost the US economy around $650 Billion in 2006, according to Basex.

The solution is to ignore those expectations of instant gratification, according to Johnathan Spira, the lead researcher at Basex. Resist the urge to immediately follow up on every E-mail, phone call or IM, and learn to walk that fine line between getting things done and pestering your co-workers when hitting that reply all button.

From AOL Money & Finance

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Facebook to Drop "is" From Status Updates

by Terrence O'Brien, posted Nov 21st 2007 at 1:02PM

Facebook Status Updates to Drop 'is'
Facebook's status updates are fun and interesting, but the inclusion of the word 'is' rubs some people the wrong way. Trying to form proper English sentences with the phrase "so-and-so is" is limiting and sometimes difficult. Regardless, some have simply chosen to ignore it, leading to clunkers like "Devika is what me worry" that make us shudder...

Others have taken a more proactive approach, forming a very popular group on Facebook whose sole purpose is to convince the developers to pull the offending "is." Facebook has heard your calls and is banishing "is" from the status updates. The code is in place and application developers (like Twitter) can already choose to remove "is" from the status update, and will be removing it completely for all users in the near future. This means you'll be able to use the verb of your choice when drafting your status update.



Other updates coming down the pipe to please the Facebook faithful include e-mail opt-outs for applications. Not everyone wants to get an e-mail every time some jack ass "bites" you with the Vampire application, so banish this acceptable form of what is essentially spam from your in-box by simply unchecking a box.

All of this said, some of us might actually miss that "is" from our status updates. Constrictions in terms of word count or word choice force us to come up with innovative solutions when writing. That "is" led to some pretty amusing and clever updates, but using our own verbs will probably achieve the same outcome.

What do you think? Will you miss the "is" in Facebook status updates?

From Read/Write Web and Venture Beat


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FCC Warns of Fake Do Not Call Registry E-Mail

by Terrence O'Brien, posted Oct 16th 2007 at 1:50PM

FCC Warns of Fake Do Not Call Registry E-Mail
You've probably seen it -- it's an e-mail going around that claims all cell phone numbers are about to be released to telemarketers. According to the e-mail, the only way to avoid getting cold calls about switching your long distance carrier on your mobile is to register your phone number with the federal government's Do Not Call Registry.

The FCC has been quick to point out, however, that this is simply not true. In fact, it is illegal for most telemarketers to call any mobile phone, so registering your cell with the Do Not Call Registry is simply unnecessary. (The law stipulates that companies can't use auto-dialers to call cell phones, pagers, or any other service where the recipient would have to pay for the call.) Since most telemarketers use auto-dialers, they are generally unable to pester you on your mobile with out facing legal consequences.

The FCC has no idea where the e-mails are originating from, or why anyone would want to send such a scam, especially since nothing bad happens -- no opportunity for financial gain, no harvesting of phone numbers -- if you do actually register your mobile number on the site. It's a pointless scam! And yet, we guess the FCC is saving all of us from the extra stress we might get from worrying about missing the mobile Do Not Call registry deadline.

From USA Today

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How to Get the Most Accurate Commuter Info

by Terrence O'Brien, posted Oct 9th 2007 at 9:32AM


Staying on top of the latest delays and service changes related to your daily commute is almost impossible, but not being in the know can often have serious negative consequences on your schedule. Many local transportation systems send out their own alerts, but they tend to be overly general, often late, and usually only sent out under the most extreme of circumstances.

That's where Joshua Crandall got the idea for his start up, Clever Commute. Clever Commute connects commuters, primarily from the New York and Chicago metropolitan areas, in a network for exchanging messages, advice, and alerts -- primarily using their BlackBerrys.

Users can sign up for alerts for trains on New Jersey Transit, PATCH, Long Island Railroad, and Metro North railroad, as well as some commuter buses, and ferries, including the Staten Island Ferry. The service has also recently opened up to riders of the El trains in Chicago. It works like this: If there's a delay, you'll get messages from other users who are already on whatever train line you're subscribed to. Likewise, you can upload messages to be sent to other subscribers on the same route.

And it's not just for delays: If you leave, say, your iPod on the train, you can send a message to the group and hope that someone honest found it.

Currently the service operates mainly with e-mails, though you can also subscribe to a personal RSS feed of alerts. The service could really grow if it decided to open up to the non-BlackBerry crowd and embraced a text message based Twitter-like system, but we'll just have to see how the young service evolves.

From The New York Times

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Don't Just Call Your Friends, Spam Them!

by Terrence O'Brien, posted Sep 25th 2007 at 4:23PM


Mobile, instant, always-on access to everyone you know is the new obnoxious forefront in communications technology. A new start-up calling itself Trumpia, has decided to take the obsession with constant communication to its absurd illogical extreme.

Sign up with Trumpia, then betray your own sense of decency by inputting all of your friends' contact info ... and we mean all of it. Input, e-mail, cell phone and instant messenger information. Then you can "blast" all of your friends at once, hitting them on every communication device possible short of a ham radio.

That way, no one can possibly claim that they didn't get your message -- unless they were lost for a few days in the Himalayas. In fact, the only way your (soon-to-be former) friends can stop you from "blasting" them, is to sign up for the service themselves and block you.

If you think the whole thing sounds kind of shady and caustic, you're not alone.

From TechCrunch

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Majority of Americans Can't Spot an E-Mail Scam

by Terrence O'Brien, posted Aug 15th 2007 at 2:33PM

Majority of Americans Unaware of Online Threats

If you received an e-mail today from a deposed Nigerian prince offering you millions of dollars in exchange for just a few thousand up front, would you immediately recognize this as one of the oldest e-mail scams in the book? (So old, in fact, that it led 'Dateline' and Chris Hanson to franchise 'To Catch a Predator' into 'To Catch a Con Man.')

If you didn't catch the scam, you're not alone. A recent study of 2,482 American adults found that 58 percent of us are totally unaware of scams such as this one. What's more, a surprising 17 percent of adults admitted to falling victim to an online scam in the last year. Of those victims, 81 percent admitted it was their own fault by opening unsolicited e-mail or sending personal information to companies that they believed were legitimate.

Microsoft seems to think that the lack of actual physical visibility is part of what makes us so susceptible to online threats. A man with a gun is visible, while a guy trying to steal your credit card info via a fake e-mail from eBay is not. Microsoft does offer some good tips for slightly safer computing, like keeping your anti-virus software and firewall up to date.

Fortunately for you, Switched.com has put together this list of the top five e-mail scams to help you flag a scheme as junk mail before you and your bank account fall victim to it.

From Ars Technica

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Meet Sandy, Your New Assistant

by Terrence O'Brien, posted Jun 14th 2007 at 2:33PM

Sandy is an automated e-mail assistant getting ready to launch. Using her help is as simple as cc'ing Sandy on an e-mail. Through the magic of computer programming we're not going to bother worrying about, Sandy can read your e-mails and convert them into to-do lists, address book entries and calendar appointments. She'll even collect any links people send your way.

Sandy is currently in a beta testing period open only to 200 people, so she's not quite ready to make your life any easier yet. Keep on eye on Sandy's blog to find out when she launches, and in the meantime, good luck getting the image of a pompadour-ed John Travolta singing 'Sandy' our of your head.

From The Red Ferret Journal

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