Sunday, December 21
Identity Theft is the growth industry of the year, or at least the one the media likes to write about. (Remind me again of the website which tracks negative/scary vs positive media stories again please.) Just like I wonder about McAfee secretly releasing some of the viruses, I wonder if Fellowes might be behind some of these ID thefts. I'm sure it is still true that the old registers which still print your full credit card number are dramatically more risky than the net, yet most of the press seems to focus on the web. I guess it's a better story.
Related. The other day I called a doctor's office to make an appointment. The young girl who answered the phone asked for my name, and then said "Do you still live at [such-and-such address]"? I said no. She said "are you the Paul English with birthdate [MM/DD/YY]? Is your social security number [NNN-NN-NNNN]?"
I am not making this up.
She then asked me what my social security number was; which of course gave me pause. It sure is annoying that the high and mighty medical world gets to ask you for this info...
¶3:03 PM; diggSaturday, December 20
Who is blogging? I'm excited about the "blog" (web log) phenomenon, as the growth of online "diaries" gives hope that information could really become available to you based on your interests and its quality, as opposed to the politics of the big business who jams their view down your information intake. (The other day I forced myself to listen to Fox News for almost half an hour before I couldn't stand it any longer.) Like any early media, the quality of blogs is often lame, but that is changing with more content and better filtering and find RSS tools. Ben Hyde just pointed out to me a wonderful statistics page from livejournal to get some demographics of their >1 million bloggers. Guess which age group has the most to say? :) cf
¶10:44 AM;
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Friday, December 19
Court Rejects Music Industry Strategy. The pendulum swings back. This one was predictable; no kidding that the recording industry does not have the right to subpoena ISP records. Anyway, this is a moot point. I guarantee that untraceable mp3/dvd/etc file sharing will come. And it will also be impossible to make rip-proof music or videos. (cf).
¶9:00 PM;
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