Global POV: At the Intersection of Technology and Culture

TJX handslapped, I get a speeding ticket

by David Holtzman

I got a speeding ticket last month. I was going 40 something in a 25 mph zone. Never mind the fact that the speed limit abruptly dropped when you turned a corner and small-town cop was waiting right there, pulling everyone over and handing them a ticket--I was wrong and I paid them a hundred something bucks and admitted I was guilty by paying the fine by mail.

How come several big companies were hand-slapped by the FTC yesterday for exposing millions of consumer data records and did not have to pay a single penny in fines? TJX, the parent company of Marshalls and TJ Maxx exposed between 45,000,000 and 100,000,000 consumer credit cards because of improper, even unethical handling of credit card information. If they got hit with something nominal in the way of fines, say, $1 per credit card, they would have had to pay...well, do the math. As a matter of fact, they didn't even have to admit that they did wrong. They were made to agree to some token security fixes, but got less punishment than I did for speeding.

How many cases of identity theft will occur out of those 100 million identity breaches? Say, 1 in a 100? That still means 1 million hard luck cases because of a greedy company not treating their customers' personal information with the respect that's deserved. With an average loss of about $5000 per identity theft, that means TJX cost our country at least $5 billion in damages (assuming that the 1% identity theft percentage holds up--actually history would indicate that it would be much higher).

So why didn't the FTC penalize them? Well, they can't. Congress has never given the FTC the right to financially penalize companies for data breaches. There's something that political candidates could debate. As if they would.

Posted on March 28, 2008

South Park driving onto freeway

by David Holtzman

It's interesting to watch as media and production companies continue to experiment with business models to figure out how to best maximize usage of the Internet.

The latest is South Park. Parker and Stone, the creators, have opened up a beta site with every episode of South Park available for streaming viewing (and I think, eventually download). They even have last night's episode, for instance (a tribute to the movie Heavy Metal).

The streaming videos have ads that can't be skipped, which is annoying to me, but probably okay for many people. I sort of think that this is the future--some kind of YouTube-like service, where the producer can embed ads.

I'm a big fan of the show and of course, it's roots were digital...an Internet viral video featuring Santa Claus and Jesus fighting.

and hey, it's free.

PS. They have a make-your-own avatar function. Here's mine:

Posted on March 27, 2008

Who cares about privacy?

by David Holtzman

I published "Privacy Lost" over a year ago. In that time, I've been interviewed a lot, done a lot of radio and several college lectures and talks. The book never hit the wider audience that I'd intended. Some of that was because of incredibly bad sales support from the publisher (the book was miscategorized as an almanac), but ultimately, I think that it found its audience, such as it is.

Many people simply do not care about privacy, or put another way, don't feel that it's something to worry about. Here's some observations from my experience:

1. Politicians don't care at all
   
2. The right wing cares more than the left wing
   
3. Religous people, especially evangelicals, seem to care a lot
   
4. There is definitely a generational issue--Baby boomers care, Gen X is ambiguous, Gen Y doesn't even buy into the idea that its a problem
   

I'm thinking about writing a book about the generational differences and how the different age groups relate to privacy, security and intellectual property. I would appreciate anyone's feedback.

Posted on March 25, 2008

Three monkeys for president

by David Holtzman

What is experience when it comes to political leadership? This question is shaping up to be a key one for the 2008 Presidential election. Senator Clinton claims that she is far more experienced than Senator Obama, because she served as First Lady for eight years. Her White House schedule was just made public this week and it's not clear that her background is as straightforward as she claims. Much of what she did was social, other than her botched attempt to reform the Health Care system.

Obama doesn't have that much experience. But he's not really claiming that he has.

McCain has a lot of experience. If that was truly the qualifying criteria, then he'd be the man. He might be genuinely crazy, however and that's a little scary.

So how important is experience in a Presidential campaign? George Bush Jr was woefully unqualified to be President. Other than a stint as governor of Texas (which is like being the head inmate in the asylum that gets control of the tv remote during recreation time), his leadership background was primarily running a baseball team.

Perhaps we'd be better off with a young president who reinvents the office. That's points for Obama. The Clinton people will argue that you need an experienced hand at the helm who knows who to get bills passed and can better control their agenda with Congress. Clinton didn't do that well at that endeavor before, but perhaps she'd be better now with her Senatorial experience under her belt.

Of course, Clinton detractors will say that Hillary has essentially been running on Bill's coattails her entire political career.

So what kind of experience do we want in our next leader? IMHO, things haven't been working so far. I go for someone new and for that reason I like Obama. I really wish one of the three of them had some credibility towards strengthening the economy and I'm afraid that none of them do.

Posted on March 21, 2008

New sex--New York, New Jersey

by David Holtzman

In the last few weeks, we've had to deal with the not-so-shocking revelations that Eliot Spitzer, the crusading governor of New York, spent more last year on prostitutes than I did on college tuition for my kids. Then after Spitzer resigns, the new governor Paterson admits to multiple affairs (after he was sworn in, of course). Plus we have former New Jersey Governor McGreevey's divorce trial in which his chauffeur has now testified that he had a menage-a-trois with the governor and his wife for years.

The big question is has this always been going on and the media just didn't report it or is this a recent trend? Or I guess it could be that computers and electronics being what they are these days, maybe it's just easier to catch someone? Politicians are getting savvy on the idea that anything can be ferreted out, which is maybe why Paterson just admitted it.

Posted on March 19, 2008

Client 9 from Outer Space

by David Holtzman

The news this week is heavily slanted towards the resignation of New York governor Eliot Spitzer, who was caught in a hookergate. Spitzer is an easy target, since his years of billing himself as a self-righteous prosecuting crusader virtually guarantee that when he crashes, he does so in the big, explosive way of the caught-out hypocrite.

Mr. Spitzer was caught dallying with a 22 year old hooker whom he imported from New York to DC to canoodle with him in the Mayfair Hotel, scene of much political canoodling. He was caught because his bank, HSBC, filed a suspicious activity report to the Treasury Department related to wire transfers that the former governor made to shell companies acting as bookers for the hookers. Once the government became interested in the unusual transactions, the FBI used wiretaps and surveillance of "Client 9" (as he was known) including monitoring his electronic transmissions such as text messaging to figure out what Spitzer was "up" to. They quickly discovered the he had been paying the escort service thousands of dollars through wire transfers to fund his ho-habit.

Wouldn't you think that of all people, Eliot Spitzer would have known better about the kind of trail that electronic fund transfers can leave? After a decade of electronically-fueled political scandals, not least of which being the infamous Clinton-Lewinsky embarrassment, he should known not to leave the record.

For future reference, if anyone famous out there is reading this and planning on screwing around:

1. Use a pay-as-you-go cellphone from 7-11
   
2. Transfer money via credit card through reputable companies (or use cash or better yet Paypal)
   
3. Stay at an Embassy Suites or something. The Mayflower is so used to wiretapping , they probably have a special suite devoted to the FBI
   

I wonder if anyone, any more, will be able to get away with anything; given a sufficient level of scrutiny.

Posted on March 14, 2008

wi-fi-fo-fum

by David Holtzman

I have just returned from a sailboat trip to the Caribbean. I traveled with my usual kitbag of gadgetry and for once it was more-or-less useful.

I bought an iPod Touch a few months ago and have been dragging it everywhere and trying to tap into free wifi networks and surprisingly enough, there are lots of them, even when you're in a sailboat, hugging the coast. I was able to find free wifi about half the time (when I was close to land). In many cases, I was able to tap wifi from cruise ships and even large chartered catamarans.

I see the writing on the wall now...a worldwide mesh of completely free wifi. Hallelujah.

Posted on March 12, 2008

Stay tuned...

by David Holtzman

Will be back online Monday, March 11th

Posted on March 05, 2008