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  Geebo 11:30 am on December 22, 2017 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: craigslist ( 129 ), prank ( 2 ), theft ( 6 ), vandalism ( 3 )   

  Craigslist ‘prank’ ads lead to vandalism and theft 

  

  One of the many things wrong with craigslist is that due to their lack of moderation, anyone can post basically an ad saying anything and there will be people who believe it. For example in Roseburg, Oregon, someone posted a craigslist ad stating that local non-profits would be offering free trash drop off. Some of these non-profit organizations included the local Salvation Army chapter and a cancer support center. Luckily the non-profits were made aware of the ads before their properties were strewn with garbage, however, the ad was up for four hours before it was even indicated that it was waiting to be removed.

  Sadly, some of these ‘pranks’ are used as forms of revenge against neighbors. In Kansas City, a disabled woman has lost most of her property and possessions due to a craigslist ad. The victim in this case is a woman whose daughter has spina bifida. To try to make ends meet the woman repairs furniture at home, but the clutter has led some neighbors to complain. One day while the woman and her daughter were at the hospital, someone posted an ad that said ‘Free Stuff’ that listed the woman’s address and pictures of her possessions. When they returned from the hospital, just about everything had been cleared off the property including her daughter’s wheelchair ramp. What little income they had has now disappeared.

  And these are just the most recent examples. In the past such ads have been used to not only harass neighbors, but some have been used to facilitate some of the most brutal of assaults. When a website like that can be weaponized like this on a regular basis, how can they not do any self-policing? To not moderate their ads just seems reckless and lazy. It’s almost as if craigslist doesn’t care about the safety of not its users but its victims.

   

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  Geebo 10:32 am on December 21, 2017 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: age discrimination, employment ( 43 ), Facebook ( 182 ), Online ads ( 3 )   

  Is Facebook serving job ads that discriminate by age? 

  

  It appears that Facebook is once again in hot water for the way it serves its ads. If you’ve been following the Facebook ad saga, first there was the fact that the social media giant accepted foreign currency for ads allegedly trying to influence the 2016 US Presidential election. Then there were allegations that Facebook was serving housing ads that discriminated by race. Now, through a joint investigation by the New York Times and Pro Publica, Facebook is allegedly serving employment ads that are discriminating by age.

  Communications giant Verizon is the one being singled out the most by supposedly targeting their employment ads to people in the 25 to 36 age range. However, reports say that companies such as Amazon, Goldman Sachs, Target and Facebook itself have used such tactics when it comes to hiring ages. There may be legal investigations forthcoming as the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 prohibits discriminating against people who are over 40 when it comes to employment.

  Facebook says that it’s not their fault. They say this practice is protected by the Communications Decency Act of 1997. This is the same act that Backpage hides behind to continue making money off of obvious ads for prostitution and human trafficking. Facebook’s problem with this argument is that they’re the ones who are offering this specific age targeting options for ads. The sad truth is that Facebook will continue to flaunt their unchecked power until a rival platform comes along that users would be willing to jump to and that probably won’t happen any time soon.

   
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  Geebo 10:00 am on December 20, 2017 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: bots, Christmas shopping ( 24 ), scalpers ( 3 )   

  The Grinch-bots that are stealing Christmas 

  

  By now you should have all your Christmas shopping done since it’s only five days away. However there are many of us who’ve either been too busy or who have just procrastinated to the point of panic. Well, if you’re planning on getting that hard to get gift that children are clambering for this Christmas you’re probably out of luck.

  Even in the days before the internet,when a must have toy hit the market, like Tickle-Me-Elmo or Cabbage Patch Kids, would hit the store shelves, certain entrepreneurial spirits would buy as many of the items as they could then resell them at an extreme markup. Today is no different as scalpers now use bots, or automated scripts, to try to snatch up as many of the season’s hottest items this year from online marketplaces, leaving you to scrape second-hand sites paying exponential prices as to not disappoint someone this Christmas.

  To make matters worse if you are able to get your hands on one of the must have gifts this year and bought it second-hand, you may be introducing a security flaw into someone’s life. If the item you purchased requires internet connectivity, it may contain malware that can be used for several nefarious purposes.

  If you find yourself in the lurch this holiday season, just go with gift cards. It may seem impersonal, but in the long run your loved ones can buy whatever they want with them and they can save you a lot of headaches in the process.

   
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  Geebo 9:58 am on December 19, 2017 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: craigslist ( 129 ), real estate ( 139 ), rental scam ( 91 ), Santa Barbara, scam ( 22 )   

  Craigslist used in multi-million dollar real estate scam 

  

  Real estate scams are nothing new for craigslist. They’ve been going on for almost as long as the website has been around. As we’ve detailed in the past, the way these scams normally work is someone posts an ad for a property for rent at a price often deemed too good to be true. The scammer then usually offers some excuse as to why they can’t show the home and asks for some kind of deposit or application fee. Then it turns out that they don’t even own the property. However, a couple from California were recently indicted in federal court for exploiting people for millions of dollars using a new twist on the old scam.

  49-year-old Michael Davenport and 51-year-old Cynthia Rawlinson of Santa Barbara, California have been indicted in federal court for running a real estate scam that allegedly bilked thousands of people out of close to $27 million. How the scam is said to have worked is that the pair, doing business under several company names such as MDSQ Productions, LLC, Housing Standard, LLC, Anchor House Financial, American Standard, American Standard Online, and Your American Standard, would post ads on craigslist about properties for sale and rent at bargain prices. Once someone would inquire about the property they would be told that they would have to purchase the company’s list of properties. The problem with the list was that many of the properties were not owned by any of the companies and some were even said to be non-existent. This scam is said to have gone on for seven years before any charges were finally brought against the alleged scammers.

  This really should come as no surprise as when one thinks of committing real estate scams the first place they probably think of pulling it off is craigslist. Due to the fact that craigslist never seems to review their ads for potential fraud, nor doesn’t appear to do anything else to dissuade fraudulent ads, it makes craigslist the perfect breeding ground for scams large and small.

   
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  Geebo 11:30 am on December 18, 2017 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: retail ( 49 ), Sears ( 2 )   

  Sears: The Ghost of Christmas Past 

  

  There once was a time, in the days before publicly available internet, that this was a magic time of year. The once powerful retail outlet Sears would release their massive Christmas catalog known as the Wishbook. At the time, this was every kid’s favorite time of the year as the Wishbook allowed the kids of America to see all the new hot toys for that year’s Christmas.

  Fast forward to today and Sears is mostly an afterthought when it comes to holiday shopping. These days most of us will either take to Amazon to avoid the crowds, or will brave the crowds of Walmart to try to get a reasonable deal. So what happened to Sears? For the most part, the internet happened to Sears.

  Every year, we hear about how Sears is on the verge of bankruptcy but have survived another year somehow. This year they made deals with Amazon to sell their Craftsman and Diehard brand of products. However, in the online space, Sears barely has a presence. This was a company that was founded on the premise of easy mail order so you would think that it would have easily pivoted to the online marketplace. Instead, it doubled down on its brick and mortar stores and cancelled its catalogs back in 1993. That was one hundred years after the founding of Sears & Roebuck. Now in yet another attempt to survive, Sears is closing many of their Kmart stores, which they purchased back in 2004, again placing their faith in brick and mortar.

  Sears had the potential to modernize their business and could have been Amazon before Amazon. Instead, they’ll soon be a reminder that no business lasts forever no matter how successful they may have been in the past.

   
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  Geebo 10:06 am on December 15, 2017 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: FCC ( 30 ), net neutrality ( 32 )   

  Net Neutrality is dead. Now what? 

  

  As I’m sure we’re all aware, yesterday the FCC voted to repeal Net Neutrality regulations that were put in place by the Obama administration to treat the internet as a utility ensuring equal internet access for all. So what happens now? The internet hasn’t collapsed overnight, but it definitely has the potential to as internet service providers could potentially start charging consumers for fast lane plans to sites like Netflix and Facebook. So is the end really nigh? Not quite.

  A number of state Attorneys General, led by New York AG Eric Schneiderman, are planning to sue the FCC to reverse the Net Neutrality repeal on the grounds that an investigation into the claims of fraudulent comments in support of Net Neutrality that were submitted to the FCC never happened. The FCC will probably also be sued by consumer watchdog groups and Congressional Democrats will be trying to pass legislation to restore Net Neutrality.

  Unfortunately the courts and Congress are notoriously slow and heavily bureaucratic, so what can the average consumer do? Well, beside waiting around and hoping ISPs don’t start taking advantage of us, you can become active. You can educate your friends and family as to what Net Neutrality is and why it’s important. The most important thing we can do at this point is to vote for politicians who would support the restoration of Net Neutrality. Here’s a list of Congress members who were in support of Net Neutrality. If one of them represents you, you may want to consider voting them out of office when the time comes. In the meantime you can write your representatives in Congress that you support a free and open internet that is available to all and let them know that support for Net Neutrality will not go away any time soon.

   
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  Geebo 10:30 am on December 14, 2017 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: crowd funding ( 2 ), honesty, Patreon   

  Patreon’s admission of error is refreshing 

  

  For those of you who may not know, Patreon is a crowd-funding platform that many content creators use so they can be funded by their fans. It’s used by everyone from bloggers, to YouTubers, to musicians and artists. Creators are able to ask for pledges by month or per episode, depending on the type of content they create. Patreon takes a small percentage of the pledges as their fee. Recently, Patreon announced a new payment procedure where patrons would be charged a processing fee of 2.9% along with $0.35 per pledge.

  The problem with the new payment procedures is that the majority of Patreon pledges were made up of $1 pledges. A number of people make multiple $1 pledges to several different creators. So if someone pledges ten $1 pledges to ten separate creators, the patron would be charged $3.50 extra altogether for their pledges. This caused many $1 patrons to withdraw their pledges causing content creators to lose a lot of money. Many content creators complained about the new payment structure and Patreon listened. Patreon CEO Jack Conte, reversed the previous decision in a blog post titled “We Messed Up”.

  While content creators may still be out of money and Patreon’s reputation may still be damaged, it’s refreshing to a tech company listen to its uses and admit they made a mistake. While companies like Facebook and Backpage are appearing before Congress using legalese to try to avoid any admission of wrongdoing, Patreon stepped up and said they were wrong and are trying to move on to repair their relationship with their users. If only more platforms were this honest with their users.

   
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  Geebo 9:56 am on December 13, 2017 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Chamath Palihapitiya, Facebook ( 182 ), social media ( 88 )   

  Facebook denies it’s ‘ripping society apart’ 

  

  Former Facebook executive Chamath Palihapitiya recently addressed a Stanford Graduate School of Business last month that social media is destroying how society works. This got reported by many media outlets as Mr. Palihapitiya said ‘Facebook is ripping society apart’ due to his former connection with Facebook. However, his point was more nuanced than that.

  But that’s not the story here. The story is that Facebook actually took time to descend from their ivory tower to address the masses about this latest round of negative press.

  Chamath has not been at Facebook for over [six] years. When Chamath was at Facebook we were focused on building new social media experiences and growing Facebook around the world. Facebook was a very different company back then, and as we have grown, we have realized how our responsibilities have grown too. We take our role very seriously and we are working hard to improve. We’ve done a lot of work and research with outside experts and academics to understand the effects of our service on well-being, and we’re using it to inform our product development. We are also making significant investments more in people, technology and processes, and — as Mark Zuckerberg said on the last earnings call — we are willing to reduce our profitability to make sure the right investments are made.
  (Source)

  Facebook has definitely grown exponentially since Mr. Palihapitiya was at Facebook, but it’s highly debatable that they’ve realized their responsibilities have grown too. If anything, Facebook has grown out of its own control. From the dissemination of flagrant falsehoods to accusations that their ads can be tailored to focus on or void certain ethnic groups, Facebook appears to have become the faceless corporation of dystopian fiction that only cares about the bottom line. Instead of growing uncontrollably like an amorphous blob that increases in size as it consumes, maybe they should dial things back until the company is in control again instead of being at the whim of bad actors.

   
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  Geebo 10:00 am on December 12, 2017 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: bitcoin ( 35 ), cryptocurrency ( 61 ), wallets   

  Beware of fake cryptocurrency wallet apps 

  

  Cryptocurrenices like Bitcoin have been in the news a lot lately. From its volatile increase in value, to people becoming Bitcoin billionaires, to millions being lost in hacks and theft, to people mortgaging their homes in order to buy into Bitcoin have been hogging the headlines for the past few weeks. With cryptocurrency popularity at an all time high, it should come as no surprise that some people are looking to make money off of the cryptocurrency craze in some not so legitimate ways.

  Much like real currency, or analog currency if you will, cryptocurrency needs a place where it can be stored safely and securely. These exchanges or clients are often referred to as wallets.

  Recently, some people have been listing phony wallet apps on the various app stores that appear to be connected to certain cryptocurrencies, but are not official apps. These apps could compromise your personal information including the private keys to your wallet which could result in the loss of your cryptocurrency.

  If you’re looking for a crpytocurrency wallet app don’t go to the app store first. Instead go to the official website of the cryptocurrency exchange of your choice. There, they should have a link to their official app where you then can download it. This goes for many banking and financial apps as well. Don’t trust the app stores to provide the official apps when so many knock off apps exist.

   
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  Geebo 10:34 am on December 11, 2017 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Facebook ( 182 ), guns ( 14 )   

  Gun trade alive and well on Facebook 

  

  Did you know that you used to be able to buy guns on Facebook? Not from licensed gun dealers but from individual gun owners who could sell their guns to other users without conducting a background check. That was until early 2016 when under pressure from parents groups when Facebook placed an outright ban on their platform of any kind of gun sale.

  However, if you fast forward to today, the trading and selling of guns is still taking place on Facebook. According to the Columbia Missourian, the trading of firearms continues mostly unabated on the social network. Now this isn’t an argument about the 2nd Amendment. This is an argument about Facebook not being able to enforce its own policies.

  Facebook is a private entity and can ban whatever it wants on its network. However, to say your banning something and actually being able to enforce it are two different matters. This is yet another example of how Facebook’s reach has grown beyond their ability to control it. Even the gun traders admit that sometimes a gun will fall into the wrong hands. Without any kind of real enforcement on Facebook’s part, any kind of ban they declare is one in name only.