The Associated Press has revealed that it recently put a week-long media blackout on any and all Paris Hilton stories for a week. To see if anyone would notice. Apparently, not only did no one care, the only attention the move got was praise. I think AP should put it in place permanently. And extend it to Anna Nicole Smith and the small country of men claiming to have fathered her child, Lindsay Lohan, Britney Spears and whatever other Hollywood Fluffy McBimbo (or Himbo, in the case of useless male celebrities) happens to spend way too much time in the news lately. In fact...I'd pay for a news site that vowed not to cover the intimate details of the untalented yet inexplicably famous.
TES
Reading TMCnet's Beverly Maniago's article on the two MySpace hackers this morning made me angry. Not the article...the lack of jail time for these two bottom-feeders. The two young men, aged 19 and 20 (I erased the original description of the pair I typed), tried to extort money out of MySpace and threatened to distribute code that would allow users to track other users (potentially giving personal information to dangerous stalkers, criminals, child predators, rapists, etc.) The two were nabbed in a sting operation by the Secret Service. (Luckily, they were the stupid kind of criminals.)
They avoided jail time and ended up with community service and fines. I'm sorry...when the Secret Service had to get involved, post-conviction, these two should have received a trip to the hoosegow. They're not children and they weren't jaywalking. They were willing to cause a great deal of mayhem for money.
Beverly's article is here: http://news.tmcnet.com/news/2007/03/01/2379311.htm
TES
Think about it...MySpace and YouTube. Not "OurSpace" and "WeTube". Me, me, me.
A study that has been regularly conducted by San Diego State University has found that in 2006, college students are more narcissistic and self-involved than every before...two-thirds of them think they're wonderful and the world ought to revolve around them.
While the study shows media such as MySpace and YouTube to be a symptom, not a cause, of the problem, it is indicative that somewhere along the way, the "Free To Be You and Me" movement of the 60s and 70s that was meant to build self-esteem in children has over time morphed into an alarming overdose in self-esteem and a rise in a "F*ck You, I'm Special And You're Not" generation.
But think about the technologies...iPods mean we can pick the music we want to listen to and never have to be exposed to anything we don't...in the way listening to the radio or sharing a family stereo meant you had to put up with other people's musical choices for part of the time. The vast array of Internet news (and increasingly polarized network news) means we can listen to current affairs information skewed in the political direction of our choice without ever having to be bothered by views from the other side or uncomfortable realities we don't like. Web chat means we can communicate anonymously, never having to look at another person's expression if we say something hurtful. Internet message boards mean we can insult other's opinions without the uncomfortable social necessity of face-to-face interaction and social sensitivity, both of which rouse empathy. Wikipedia means we can reinforce our opinions with, let's face it...pseudo-research that was put onto the site by who-knows-who with who-knows-what credibility. Blogs mean we can post our hopes, desires and dreams on the Internet daily and pretend there are a lot of people out there who care (frankly, there aren't).
I suspect the phenomenon isn't limited to young people. I can see it in young, middle aged and older people nowadays...just observing the way they drive.
I won't pretend I have an answer to the issue. But it's worrying just the same.
TES
Are you addicted to e-mail? Do you hit F-5 once a minute? Do you get the shakes if you've been away from your BlackBerry for longer than 10 minutes? Have you ever found yourself checking e-mail at movies, family dinners, in the middle of the night or during sex?
If so, it may be time to embark on the 12 steps, and the first step, as always, is to admit you have a problem.
See CNN's article today: http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/internet/02/20/email.addiction.reut/index.html
TES
Consultant organization Mintel has conducted a study that indicates that close to 70 percent of consumers surveyed are either "very concerned" or "somewhat concerned" that their credit or debit card information will be stolen if they make purchases on the Internet (http://tinyurl.com/35fapm).
More than one third of respondents to Mintel's survey perceive the Internet as the medium most likely to result in ID theft. Twenty-eight percent who claim mail theft is most common and one fifth blame credit card receipts. In contrast with these perceptions, the 2006 Identity Fraud Survey Report released by the Council of Better Business Bureaus/Javelin revealed that more than 60 percent of fraud actually occurred at the hands of friends, family neighbors and through other means than Internet purchasing.
In other words, forget Amazon or eBay and take a good long look at your loser cousin Bob who was rifling through your garbage last week because he said he'd dropped a rare collector's beer cap in there.
TES
An article in the New York Times today discusses a recent study by MIT and Harvard that examines the efficacy of the technology called site-authentication images. (If you do online banking, you may be familiar with this technology. You are asked to choose an image, and create a phrase that goes along with the image, and you are advised not to proceed with your online transaction unless you see both the image and the phrase when you log in.)
As it turns out, there's actually nothing wrong with the technology itself, it's merely that users tend to disregard the directives. During the course of the study, 58 out of 60 users logged into their accounts anyway, though they did not see their picture and phrase. Only two declined to log in.
Chalk it up to more "stupid human tricks," I guess. Read the full article here: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/05/technology/05secure.html?_r=1&oref=slogin.
TES
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