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  Geebo 10:09 am on January 23, 2018 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Cambodia, Facebook ( 182 ), Hun Sen, Kem Sokha   

  Facebook is helping crush dissent in yet another country 

  

  In yet another story that’s becoming all too common, Facebook has once again been accused of being used by an oppressive government to silence the opposition. Previously, we’ve discussed how Facebook was used in Myanmar to help persecute the Rohingya minority in that country, and how the Philippine government was using Facebook to try to silence an opposition news outlet. Now, Buzzfeed News has an extensive article about how the Prime Minister of Cambodia, Hun Sen, is using Facebook to jail any opposition and dissenters.

  In a nutshell, a pro-government media outlet in Cambodia has used a disinformation campaign on Facebook to not only try to discredit the opposition leader, Kem Sokha, but it also led to Kem being arrested for treason and the opposition party being dissolved. The Cambodian government hasn’t been exactly shy about how they use Facebook either. An aide to Hun Sen is even quoted in the Buzzfeed article stating they have a good relationship with Facebook and how helpful they’ve been with closing accounts that criticize the government.

  Not surprisingly, this comes at a time when Facebook has admitted that it can’t guarantee it’s good for democracy. How much more will it take before Facebook realizes it’s created a monster of power that is out of its own control and who could possibly stop it at this point?

   

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  Geebo 10:27 am on January 22, 2018 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Amazon ( 112 ), Amazon Go ( 8 ), retail ( 49 ), Seattle ( 8 )   

  Amazon to unveil new cashier-less store today 

  

  For a little more than a year, Amazon has been developing their highly touted store without cashiers known as Amazon Go. Later today, Amazon will finally unveil Amazon Go to the public in Seattle. The original concept of the store was to have a store that would be fully automated, however, it seems the reality of situation means there will in fact be human employees in the store.

  According to Tech Crunch there will be several human employees in the store such as someone checking for IDs in the beer and wine section, and a person standing by for any assistance needed with the app used for shopping at the store. There are also stockers and chefs who prepare sandwiches and meal kits.

  While the videos of the store seem to give the appearance of a slick and seamless shopping experience, one has to wonder if that will be the reality of the situation. Often times in tech, what tested perfect in the lab can often fail in the real world. For example, one of the problems Amazon Go had in its testing phase is the store would come to a halt if there were too many people in the store. Plus in real life there are always situations that arise that no one can account for until they happen. It will be interesting to see how Amazon Go will handle such a situation.

  So will Amazon Go be the future of brick and mortar retailing, or will it be just another retailing fad that refuses to take hold? Today, just may hold some of those answers.

   
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  Geebo 10:10 am on January 19, 2018 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Amazon ( 112 ), retail ( 49 ), Whole Foods ( 7 )   

  Whole Foods has less foods in more stores lately 

  

  Lately, more customers of the now Amazon-owned Whole Foods have been complaining about the lack of stock and empty shelves in many of their stores across the country. It leaves the customers wondering if it’s because of the winter weather or has Amazon finally interfered with their favorite store so much that Amazon has screwed up the supply chain. As it turns out, it’s been the fault of Whole Foods themselves for some time now.

  According to an expose by Business Insider, Whole Foods started using a new ordering technique called Order to Shelf, or OTS for short. This technique, ordered by the Whole Foods home office in Austin, Texas, for all its stores, is supposed to reduce waste which many say it has. Instead of storing additional stock in the back, now if a store is running low. they’re supposed to get it direct from the supplier, bypassing the store room.

  However, the problem as evidenced by the Business Insider story is that Whole Foods now have little to stock their shelves. While OTS may be reducing waste, it is also turning away customers. Empty shelves make stores look like they’re about to go out of business making the store look less reputable. While Amazon may have been seen as the Whole Foods bogeyman before, maybe now Amazon will be their savior.

  Is Whole Foods reducing employees to tears? | Greg's Corner is discussing. Toggle Comments

   
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  Geebo 10:37 am on January 18, 2018 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: censorship ( 4 ), Facebook ( 182 ), Philippines, Rappler, Rodrigo Duterte   

  Is Facebook complicit in helping oppressive regimes silence their critics? 

  

  If you’re not familiar with Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte, he is a controversial figure to say the least. During his campaign for the Presidency, Duterte was refereed to by American media as the Donald Trump of the Philippines for his boisterous ways and outspoken manner, however, Duterte has long since surpassed President Trump in terms of controversy.

  After taking office, President Duerete declared a war on drugs in the Philippines and has allegedly used it as an excuse to order the police executions of thousands of so-called offenders. No arrests, no trials, only death. He has been harshly criticized not only on the world stage for alleged human rights abuses but by some media outlets in the Philippines as well. Considering the Philippines has a history of journalists being assassinated, this is a pretty big deal.

  One of these outlets is known as Rappler and they have been critical of President Duterte’s treatment of the people being executed by police. Instead of using any kind of violent force against them, Duterte’s administration is accused of allegedly using a campaign of misinformation against Rappler which led to government taking away Rappler’s license.

  And where was this misinformation campaign waged? On Facebook of course. Considering Facebook has an office in Manila and has partnered with the Duterte administration on a high-speed internet project this really should come as no shock.

  Sadly, this is just another example of how much power Facebook wields in the geopolitical stage. Facebook has the potential to literally topple regimes or silence the opposition to such oppressors with just a few clicks of a mouse or swipe of a touchscreen. Should one company hold this much power on such a global scale?

   
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  Geebo 10:09 am on January 17, 2018 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: check scam ( 85 ), Nebraska ( 4 ), OfferUp ( 23 )   

  The phony check scam revisited 

  

  A man from Grand Island, Nebraska, has found himself out of over $500 after falling for one of the oldest scams that has been taking place on sites like craigslist almost since the beginning. The victim was trying to sell a piece of furniture on OfferUp and received a cashier’s check for $2000 more than the asking price. That should have been the first red flag indicating that this may have been a scam.

  The buyer asked the man to deposit the check and wire the difference back to them. The man followed the instructions and thought he was in the clear. However, days after he deposited the check, it came back as fraudulent. His bank is now holding him responsible for the $2000 he withdrew from the bank on a phony check. Sadly, this is an all too common occurrence.

  Stories like this show that there needs to be constant reminders of this scam and its ilk. If a buyer sends you a cashier check, be suspicious, and if it’s over the agreed upon amount it’s definitely a scam. Also, wiring money to anyone that you don’t know personally is always a recipe for disaster as the scammers could be somewhere where apprehension and prosecution is almost impossible.

   
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  Geebo 10:28 am on January 16, 2018 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Colorado ( 8 ), craigslist ( 129 ), lift tickets ( 2 ), scam ( 22 )   

  Fake lift ticket scams hitting the slopes 

  

  With winter weather hitting the country hard recently, a number of people are using it as an opportunity to hit the ski slopes in many of the nation’s ski resorts. Unfortunately, scammers are also using this opportunity to defraud those looking for a fun time in the snow. In Colorado, there have been reports of phony lift tickets being sold on craigslist.

  This particular lift ticket scam works the same way many phony ticket scams do. The scammer purchases the tickets using a stolen credit card hoping they get the tickets before the fraudulent charges are caught. They then advertise the tickets for a deep discount. However, when the buyer reaches the slopes, the phony charges have been caught by then and the tickets are rendered null and void leaving many skiers and snowboarders stranded at the bottom of the hill.

  It’s not just ski resorts that deal with this problem either. Many vacation hotspots such as theme parks have encountered this scam as well.

  When buying any kind of vacation ticket, stick to purchasing the tickets from authorized vendors or the destination itself. If a price online seems too good or comes with some kind of story attached, it is more than likely too good to be true.

   
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  Geebo 10:19 am on January 15, 2018 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Citizens Against Sex Trafficking, Human trafficking ( 100 ), Minnesota ( 8 ), twin cities   

  Twin Cities suburbs fight against human trafficking 

  

  Last week, we discussed how January is Human Trafficking Awareness month and how the problem is not just confined to big cities and urban areas. At that time we talked about how the issue was affecting Idaho Falls, Idaho. Not exactly a monolithic metropolis. Now another location in Middle America is taking the fight to the plague of human trafficking and it’s in suburban, Minnesota.

  A group called Citizens Against Sex Trafficking, or CAST for short, is working in cooperation with the police of Washington County, Minnesota, which contains communities considered the suburbs of the St. Paul-Minneapolis area. Once again, a citizens group is showing that human trafficking is happening everywhere in our country, including small towns and suburbs.

  CAST is already showing results with the rescuing of a 13-year-old girl. And where is CAST finding these victims? Backpage of course. An investigator with Washington County police said that she has reviewed close to a 100,000 ads for trafficking in their county alone last year. This is after Backpage supposedly closed down their adult section, although in reality the trafficking ads just moved to the personals section where paying to have the ads promoted still exists. In essence Backpage, is still making money from ads where woman and children are being trafficked against their will, and as we’ve pointed out, this is happening everywhere probably including where you live.

  Until we as a nation start to recognize human trafficking as an ‘everywhere’ problem, Backpage and the traffickers that keep them in business will continue to make what is essentially blood money.

  Super Bowl stings catch those who would buy children | Greg's Corner is discussing. Toggle Comments

   
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  Geebo 10:03 am on January 12, 2018 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Gawker ( 8 ), journalism ( 8 ), Peter Thiel ( 13 )   

  Is Peter Thiel trying to erase his critics from the internet? 

  

  It’s been reported recently that billionaire and Silicon Valley bigwwig Peter Thiel may have out in a bid to buy the remaining assets of the now defunct news and gossip blog Gawker. Thiel is infamous for admittedly funding the lawsuit by former pro wrestler Hulk Hogan that bankrupted Gawker media. Most of Gawker Media’s assets were sold to television network Univision, however, the Gawker website itself was left behind as part of a bankruptcy estate.

  So why is this news? Well, the Gawker archives are still online, that includes many stories critical of Peter Thiel and the story that started Thiel’s apparent vendetta against Gawker where Gawker outed him as being gay. One of Gawker’s former reporters alleges that if Thiel purchases Gawker he could potentially delete the archives and use copyright law to force any copies of them offline. While you may debate the merits or lack thereof of Gawker itself, this would be a dark day for journalism as it shows that information can be controlled if you have enough money.

  However, if Thiel chose to pursue this path it could have the opposite effect. Thiel is risking what’s been dubbed the Streisand Effect. The Streisand Effect is a term coined by the internet after celebrity Barbara Streisand who tried to have photos of her home suppressed from publication. What followed was a flood of Streisand’s home being posted online. If Thiel were to try to erase articles that were critical of him they would almost surely reappear in other places on the web. Not just that, but the web can be so ephemeral that once one story was removed, ten anonymous replacements would take its place.

  Victory for Journalism: Peter Thiel agrees not to buy Gawker | Greg's Corner is discussing. Toggle Comments

   
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  Geebo 10:00 am on January 11, 2018 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: iPhone ( 16 ), phone scam ( 50 )   

  Don’t buy a locked iPhone 

  

  Previously, we’ve discussed the inherent problems with buying an iPhone through a less than reputable site like craigslist. Whether it’s an old scam like wiring the money to a seller, or a new one like the cloned knock off iPhone, there is a minefield of traps you need to avoid when buying one of Apple’s most coveted products used.

  Recently, a man on Falls Church, Virginia, bought a used iPhone 8 off of craigslist and the phone seemed to pass all the tests in being a legitimate working iPhone. That was until he tried to activate the phone and found that the phone was blocked, or a more accurate term may be blacklisted. The phone was purchased through a payment plan with the phone’s carrier rather than being bought outright. The previous owner failed to make payments and when that happens the phone is immediately blacklisted and can not be activated ever.

  One of the things you can do to protect yourself is to try to activate the phone while the seller is there with you. Another is to check the IMEI or ESN numbers, a form of cell phone identification, with a number of websites that can check to see if the phone is blacklisted or not. Also, try using a more reputable site than craigslist. And as always, meet the seller at a police station. Not only does this go a long way in keeping you physically safe, but someone with a blocked phone may not be so willing to sell the phone where they can be recorded.

   
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  Geebo 10:06 am on January 10, 2018 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Alphabet, Congress ( 4 ), Extremists ( 2 ), Facebook ( 182 ), Google ( 33 ), Twitter ( 13 )   

  Facebook, Twitter, and Google to be called before Congress again 

  

  Not too long ago, tech giants Facebook, Twitter, and Alphabet, the parent company of Google, were called to testify before Congress about their alleged roles in foreign meddling of the 2016 Presidential Election. Now those same companies are being asked to return to Washington to testify about their part in the dissemination of extremist propaganda. If you’ll recall, the tech companies did not do themselves any favors in their testimony over the Russian backed ads from the election.

  At that time, we asked if the CEOs of each respective company were afraid to appear before Congress themselves. It may appear that the answer to that question is yes, they are scared. Once again, instead of Larry Page, Jack Dorsey and Mark Zuckerberg testifying before congress about their platforms we’ll instead have the heads of each company’s public policy department. Even though they have the records of the disastrous performance of their companies’ last representatives, I doubt this new crop of underlings will fare any better.

  This also comes on the heels of Mark Zuckerberg himself stating that Facebook is ‘broken’ in his pledge to fix the platform. If he’s aware of the problems that have befallen his ubiquitous network then why is he uncomfortable to appear before Congress to make these same promises? As the saying goes, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Thee companies indeed have absolute power over most of our daily lives. To not be completely transparent shows that they probably have many things to hide.