Posts Tagged news
Twitter 1, Iranian censors 0: Why it’s still working
By Bob Sullivan, The Red Tape Chronicles
Why does Twitter work inside Iran even after other Internet services have been disrupted? The key feature enabling it to evade government censorship, some observers say, is something that might otherwise be considered Twitter’s Achilles’ heel.
Unlike Facebook, and most other social networking sites, Twitter users don’t need to visit Twitter.com to use the service. In the business world, that’s a terrible idea. Twitter has no way to promise potential advertisers that its enormous audience will ever see ads placed on the site.
Instead, Twitter has a completely open architecture that allows users to both send and receive messages on a variety of platforms — cell phones, Blackberries and, of course, other Web sites. This openness is proving to be particularly effective at avoiding government interference.
“You can connect to Twitter without going through Twitter’s front door,” said Jonathan Zittrain, a Harvard law school professor who runs Herdict.org, which tracks censorship efforts worldwide. “These services run interference between you and Twitter.”
Posted by Tom Polanski in Twitter on June 18th, 2009
West African phishing scam hits my Facebook inbox
By Tom Polanski, EVP, eBrand Media and eBrand Interactive
Over the past few months eBrand Media has consistently sounded an alarm about Facebook, and the cornucopia of information that people share so freely, and unnecessarily, on Facebook. I discovered the e-mail below in my Facebook inbox. It’s far superior to other phishing e-mail in that it’s targeted directly at me, by name, includes the specific name of a supposed relative in the body of the e-mail, and strives to convey a Kings English dialect. It was sent by a “James Desouza” which I’m sure is an alias. Please note the Yahoo! e-mail address. It’s reasonable to expect that attorneys would have a domain name for their law firm, and an e-mail address from that domain.
A search of Facebook delivers 57 results for the name, “James Desouza”. None have pictures.
“Dear Tom Polanski,
I am Barrister James Desouza, a solicitor at law. I am the personal attorney to Eng. J .B.Polanski, a national of your country, who used to work with Shell Development Company in Lome Togo. Here in after shall be referred to as my client. On the 21st of April 2005, my client, his wife and their only daughter were involved in a car accident along Sagbama express road. All occupants of the vehicle unfortunately lost their lives.
Since then I have made several enquiries to your embassy here to locate any of my clients extended relatives, this has also proved unsuccessful. After these several unsuccessful attempts, I decided to track his last name over the Internet, to locate any member of his family hence I contacted you. I have contacted you to assist in recovering the fund valued at US$20.5 Million, left behind by my client before it gets confiscated or declared unserviceable by the Bank where this huge amount were deposited.
Posted by Tom Polanski in Facebook on April 30th, 2009
Best Buy Matches Lowest Online Price. Trouble for Competing E-tailers?
By Tom Polanski
I underwent an extremely unusual purchasing process with a Best Buy located in Portland, Oregon. It could mean trouble for online electronics retailers.
I’ve been in the market for a replacement plasma display for the family room and since I’ve been a member of AVS Forum for over 5 years I decided to start my research there. Once I targeted the television I wanted I began to contact the forum sponsors regarding pricing and availability. For the sake of clarity, forum sponsors are companies, usually Mom and Pop stores located across the country, that place ads within AVS Forum. The assumption is that the publisher, AVS Forum, only allows reputable companies to place ads within their site and that these companies will give forum members the best prices and service. It’s a great relationship for AVS Forum, online electronics retailers and forum members.
In fact, I was given great prices by authorized dealers and would have been comfortable buying from any of them. I liked them all. I settled on a company in Seattle to make my purchase from. However I began to have second thoughts when I came across a thread regarding problems this new generation display was occasionally exhibiting. A great, award winning display but, again, there are reports of problems every now and then. It’s to be expected with a sophisticated piece of technology but worrisome, nonetheless.
Posted by Tom Polanski in Gadgets & Gear, Seeing Into the Future, Trend Tracker on June 16th, 2008