Phone numbers and 911 hangups

Someone in my office misdialed 911 this morning, causing the Morrisville PD to needlessly dispatch an officer. As far as I know it’s the first time this has happened at my work. The officer who responded almost certainly had better things to be doing than chasing down someone who fat-fingered a telephone number. That was one officer who wasn’t available for other, more serious calls. That’s one incoming call to 911 that tied up an emergency line and a dispatcher needlessly.

Dialing mistakes have always happened, of course, but the Triangle area has gotten hit particularly hard since the new “overlay” area code (984? I had to look it up) was introduced. The emergency call centers in Raleigh, Cary, Durham, and Orange County have taken tens of thousands of misdialed 911 calls since this change took place this year.
Continue reading →

Mark Zuckerberg’s Letter To Shareholders

I started today feeling very down on Facebook. This feeling changed when I found this letter from Mark Zuckerberg to shareholders, basically saying that Facebook doesn’t exist simply to chase money. Crazy as it sounds, I believe him. I think Zuckerberg’s still very much still a hacker, in spite of Facebook’s popularity.

It’s given me hope that Zuck’s not a bad guy and there might be hope for Facebook yet. That said, if Zuck thinks he controls Facebook he’d better pay attention to the Hacked by Mitt Romney stuff.

It’s Becoming Clear That No One Actually Read Facebook’s IPO Prospectus Or Mark Zuckerberg’s Letter To Shareholders

As Facebook’s stock continues to collapse, the volume of whining is increasing.

Four months ago, you will recall, Facebook was viewed as “the next Google.” Now, with no major change in the fundamentals, it’s viewed as an over-hyped disaster. Meanwhile, there is ever-louder grumbling that 26-year-old Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is in over his head and should be relieved of command.

As I listen to all this whining, I have a simple question:

Didn’t anyone even read Facebook’s IPO prospectus?

The answer, I can only assume, is “no.”

via It's Becoming Clear That No One Actually Read Facebook's IPO Prospectus Or Mark Zuckerberg's Letter To Shareholders – Business Insider.

Dangerous Minds | FACEBOOK: I WANT MY FRIENDS BACK

Dangerous Minds takes a closer look at Facebook’s throttling of posts. On average, posts are only seen by 15% of a user or page’s audience and posters must pay to have the post reach more of one’s audience. What used to work just a few short months ago is now purposefully broken, so Facebook can extort you into paying for the fans you already attracted.

But it wasn’t just the so-called “fan pages,” individual Facebook users were also starting to notice that they weren’t seeing much in their newsfeeds anymore from the various entities they “liked”—or even updates from their closest friends and family members. Something was amiss, but unless you had a larger “data set” to look at—or a formerly thriving online business that was now getting creamed—it probably wasn’t something that you noticed or paid that much attention to.

It’s the biggest danger of putting all of your digital eggs into one basket: Facebook’s walled garden may be one of the prettiest out there but it’s still walled. Your presence on Facebook is subject to the whim of the company’s latest profit scheme. We’re all social media serfs and Zuckerberg (or, more accurately, Wall Street) is king.

via Dangerous Minds | FACEBOOK: I WANT MY FRIENDS BACK.

Facebook stock soars but is it built on fraud?


Facebook’s stock soared today on news that its mobile advertising efforts are paying off. The stock is up 22% over its price yesterday. As VentureBeat says:

After investors jumped on Facebook stock in after-hours trading yesterday, following the company’s mobile-focused earnings report, it’s not a huge surprise to see the stock make another huge leap this morning.

Facebook’s stock is up 22 percent from yesterday, trading at $23.80, as of the time of this post. The stock reached a high of $24 this morning, and it was up almost 28 percent in pre-market trading. Facebook’s stock is still well below the $38 it opened at, but the rise is still a good sign for investors.

via Facebook stock on the rise: Up 22% after solid mobile earnings | VentureBeat.

What does Mitt Romney have to do with this rise in Facebook’s stock?
Continue reading →

Obama-stare puts a spell on Romney – CNN.com

I found this humorous op-ed by Dean Obeidallah to be a pretty accurate synopsis of Obama and Romney’s foreign policy debate Monday night.

The Obama-stare is more than just a laser-like game face — apparently it causes people to agree with him on issue after issue. Obama-stare is more akin to Obi-Wan Kenobi’s use of the Jedi mind trick, or vampires on “True Blood” glamouring someone into saying exactly what they want to hear. Romney agreed with Obama so often I thought Mitt was going to endorse him.

How else can anyone explain why Romney — who is highly critical of Obama’s foreign policy when he is out on the campaign trail — would agree with the president on issue after issue when placed in the same room? Romney appeared as if he wasn’t vying for commander in chief as much as for “agree-er in chief.”

via Obama-stare puts a spell on Romney – CNN.com.

Mali: no rhythm or reason as militants declare war on music

Here’s an update on the deteriorating situation in Mali from the Guardian’s Andy Morgan. Islamic militants have declared “war” on music in northern Mali.

The pickup halted in Kidal, the far-flung Malian desert town that is home to members of the Grammy award-winning band Tinariwen. Seven AK47-toting militiamen got out and marched to the family home of a local musician. He wasn’t home, but the message delivered to his sister was chilling: “If you speak to him, tell him that if he ever shows his face in this town again, we’ll cut off all the fingers he uses to play his guitar with.”

via Mali: no rhythm or reason as militants declare war on music | World news | guardian.co.uk.

Anti-science abounds

Bashing science has become popular with politicians lately. Yesterday I read Scientific American’s story bemoaning the beating that science has taken from some American politicians, many of whom have staked “anti-science” stances:

Yet despite its history and today’s unprecedented riches from science, the U.S. has begun to slip off of its science foundation. Indeed, in this election cycle, some 236 years after Jefferson penned the Declaration of Independence, several major party contenders for political office took positions that can only be described as “antiscience”: against evolution, human-induced climate change, vaccines, stem cell research, and more. A former Republican governor even warned that his own political party was in danger of becoming “the antiscience party.”

Americans are not the only ones science-bashing. Yesterday, an Italian court convicted seismic scientists of manslaughter for failing to predict an earthquake:
Continue reading →

Clickjacking the cause of Romney Facebook likes?


I decided to delve a bit into the hacking underworld yesterday, wanting to learn more about how Facebook users could be signed up for pages they didn’t like. It turns out that a Google search for “facebook clickjacking” returns a lot of results.

I downloaded one clickjacking kit from a site called zarabyte.com and took a look. It includes this line in a file called like.js:

var thehairs = “< iframe id='theiframe' scrolling='no' frameBorder='0' allowTransparency='true' src='http://www.facebook.com/widgets/like.php?href=" + encodeURIComponent(fan_page_url) + "&layout=standard&show_faces=true&width=53&action=like&colorscheme=light&height=80' style='position:absolute;width:53px;height:23px;overflow:hidden;border:0;opacity:" + opacity +";filter:alpha(opacity=" + opacity * 100+ ");' >< /iframe >“;

Basically, it sneaks in an iframe on the page and kicks off the like.php script to “like” the desired page. There doesn’t appear to be anything magic about what this does. If the user is logged into Facebook (in another browser window, for instance), this script should register a like. Futhermore, that like should be logged in the Activity Log as any other like would be.

Based on this behavior, I’m pretty confident that these mysterious Romney Facebook likes aren’t being generated through clickjacking.