Google is planning to launch an experiment that we hope will make Internet access better and faster for everyone.

Google plans to test ultra-high speed broadband networks in one or more trial locations across the country. Their networks will deliver Internet speeds more than 100 times faster than what most Americans have access to today, over 1 gigabit per second, fiber-to-the-home connections.  They’ll offer service at a competitive price to at least 50,000 and potentially up to 500,000 people.

From now until March 26, Google is asking interested municipalities to provide information about their communities through a Request for information (RFI), which will be used to determine where Google will build their network.

The City of Round Rock feels it would be a great location for Google to test its new service, and we are looking for your help in providing some documentation to give to Google. How can I help?

1) Take our survey (powered by Google spreadsheets)

The best way you can help is by taking our Google Fiber for Communties survey.
This brief survey will help Google understand how motivated our community is to participate in the test and will also give them some basic information about the current lay-of-the-land in Round Rock with regard to highspeed Internet access.

2) Comment on the City of Round Rock Facebook page

3) Send a support email to roundrocktexasdotgov@gmail.com

When: Wednesday, March 10, 2010, 6:00-8:30 p. m. Refreshments will be served.

Location: ACC’s Eastview Campus, 3401 Webberville Road, Austin, TX., Building 8000, in the Multipurpose Room 8500.

On Wednesday, March 10th, multiple agencies within ACC (Center for Public Policy and Political Studies (CPPPS); Center for Student Political Studies (CSPS) club; Division of Social and Behavioral Sciences; and the Department of Economics) are hosting an economic forum focusing on what the government is doing, or could be doing, to stimulate job creation. Four key issues to be addressed are:

· Taxes
· Immigration
· Minimum wage
· Infrastructure

The goal of this highly interactive discussion/debate between ACC students and economic experts is for students to receive an enhanced understanding of the complexities involved in creating jobs and what students can do to be prepared for 21st century careers.

Professor Emeritus LBJ School of Public Affairs and former U.S. Secretary of Labor, Dr. Ray Marshall, will be the keynote speaker.

ACC students, faculty, and staff are invited to attend. Students, check with your professors as many are giving extra credit for attending this event.

If you need a sign language interpreter or other accommodations, please contact John Aintablian at aint@austincc.edu at least 48 hours in advance.

For questions, please contact Carla Jackson at cjackso3@austincc.edu or 512-223-7049.

On Feb. 22, 2010, CreditCards.com will host a live, interactive online video town hall discussion of credit card reform during which consumers can directly ask questions of White House economic adviser Austan Goolsbee. As a credit card publisher, CreditCards.com thought you might like to join in to better understand the Act.

American consumers are invited to participate by submitting questions, responding to real-time polls and viewing live streaming video from the White House.

* What: Credit CARD Act online video town hall with Austan Goolsbee, of the president’s Council of Economic Advisers.
* When: Feb. 22, 2010, the day the law goes into effect at 2PM Eastern time
* Where: www.creditcards.com/askthewhitehouse

The News
The Credit CARD Act of 2009 is the most sweeping credit card reform in history and offers consumers new protection from unfair or deceptive credit card practices.

CreditCards.com is pleased to host a live, interactive CARD Act town hall meeting. In the meeting, Goolsbee will describe the impact of the reform and field questions submitted by consumers.

The town hall event will be Monday, Feb. 22, 2010 at 2PM Eastern, and can be found at www.creditcards.com/askthewhitehouse

Answering questions from the White House will be Austan Goolsbee, a member of the president’s Council of Economic Advisers.

Consumers are encouraged to join the conversation by submitting questions, offering opinions and responding to real-time poll questions. Consumers may submit their questions in advance on the same page, or by posing questions on the social networking site Twitter using the hashtag #cardlaw.

For more information on what is and is not covered in the Credit CARD Act, consumers are invited to review CreditCards.com Guide to the Credit CARD Act of 2009 at www.creditcards.com/reform

About CreditCards.com
CreditCards.com is the leading online credit card marketplace connecting consumers with multiple credit card issuers. CreditCards.com, (http://www.creditcards.com), enables consumers to search for, compare and apply for credit cards and offers credit card advice, news, statistics and tools. In 2009, more than 12 million consumers used CreditCards.com to make smart choices about credit cards. CreditCards.com was recently named a “Best Site for Managing Your Credit” by MSN Money.

This is strange. Looks like Amazon was hacked to sell a colon cleanser!

Tonight I get an email saying “Get a Blu-ray Player with Purchase of Qualifying Samsung HDTVs” which actually sounded like a good deal, coming from Amazon. I recently got a free printer with the purchase of a Samsung LCD, so I clicked this ad because I’m thinking about buying a larger LCD to watch movies.

The spam email looks very professional, at a glance there’s no way to tell it’s not really from Amazon. I get these Amazon “recommended deals” emails all the time. Who doesn’t? So either Amazon has lost its mind (spamming a colon cleanser) or an unguarded redirect script on Amazon’s website was taken over by a hacker/spammer.

The Hack

Take a look at this URL, it looks legit, right?

http://www.amazon.com/gp/r.html?R=1P82UR23M2GSX&C=3BV421ZYZED2C&H=IF98WICIG7CHUGSKWGRWS7CT2MEA&T=C&U=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Fgp%2Ffeature.html%2Fref%3Dhi_img_1%2F%3Fie%3DUTF8%26docId%3D1000476101

R.html appears to have the vulnerability. Probably Amazon uses r.html for some useful purpose and never thought it would be used by a spammer to redirect us to a weight loss landing page. Is your redirect script next? Protect your scripts!

Oops!

The Amazon URL redirects me to “http://www.www.com/daily-health-news/” which tells me I can “Lose 47lbs In The Next 10 Days (Without Exercise or Dieting?)” But this spammer made a mistake, this site runs Google Adsense and Doubleclick.net ads! I assume Google will kill this spammer’s Adsense account.

The Hacker

Granted, we don’t know for sure Alex Royf is responsible for this spam, but I would like to hear a better explanation. The domain is registered to Alex Royf of “Diagonal Axis Limited” and his site “diagonalaxis.com” is a blank page.

If you have more details, please leave a comment.

Last time I had a Bank of America account was over 7 years ago. So I assume this is a phishing attack. It got through Media Temple’s spam filters (Cloudmark + SpamAssassin) and through my webmail spam filter.

Why is this an effective attack? Because banks send out very similar emails. For example, I closed a Chase account last year (after the WaMu takeover) and I received several online banking emails from Chase months after my account was closed.

So if you receive an email like this and you don’t have an account with the bank, understandably you’re assuming it’s a phishing attack. But perhaps worse, there’s also the possibility the bank made an error (database/software incompetence, rogue employee, etc.) and because you have no account you can’t complain. Or, maybe your identity was stolen and the hacker used your actual email address, but doesn’t know your email password, didn’t bother to change it, etc.

Here’s a clue this is a phishing attack: “This is most likely an attempt to gain unauthorized access to your account and/or personal information.” Notice the words “most likely”. Why would a bank jump to that conclusion? Most likely you forgot your password–they don’t want to frighten you unless they’re selling insurance. In other words, read these bank emails carefully.

—

Dear customer

We regret to inform you that your Bank of America Online Account
has been temporarily suspended.
Your account has been suspended after too many failed login
attempts have been made. This is most likely an attempt to gain
unauthorized access to your account and/or personal information.

To resolve this problem we have attached a form to this email.
Please download the form, open it and follow the instructions on
your screen.

Bank of America, Member FDIC
©2010 Bank of America Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

Got this email too? No, it’s not your lucky day. Even if there was a parcel waiting for you, I hope you wouldn’t take it.

—

Dear Valued Customer,

You have a parcel worth $300,000.00 with FedEx courier Company.
You are to
provide the information below for confirmation:

your Full Names,
Contact Address
Phone Numbers

Send details to Mr.Donald Blake by email:
fedexcourierdelivery@ankara.tc
or call:+2348076128878. You will be required to make available
the sum of
$75 also for Security Fee.

Robert G Roe
FedEx Courier Service
Note: you are to send the information to
fedexcourierdelivery@ankara.tc
for proper attention.

Many people searching for Leigh Anne Tuohy photos here lately. I’m assuming there’s a shortage of photos of her because she doesn’t want people questioning her motives, accusing her of seeking media attention. But what do I know? I don’t know her, haven’t seen the movie yet either. I found this on YouTube today:

Behind every dollar spent in digital, there is a senior executive who recognizes the power and potential of interactive advertising. The IAB Annual Leadership Meeting is your opportunity to hear directly from the marketing champions pioneering aggressive shifts to digital. What are they planning today, tomorrow and throughout 2010? What can you learn from them?

Learn more at www.iab.net/alm.

When: February 21-23, 2010

Venue:
La Costa Resort and Spa
2100 Costa Del Mar Road
Carlsbad, CA 92009
1-800-854-5000

How far can biometric scans go before we violate a higher law? Do invasive scans rob our respect for human dignity?

What is abundantly clear is that this bungled terrorist will test Obama’s assertion that “we need not sacrifice our security for our values, nor sacrifice our values for our security.”

(republished at Internet Evolution)

Just checked Speedtest.net, says I’m getting 9.27 Mbps downloading from San Antonio. I have the “Home” device and it’s the ethernet version, not USB. I doubt the little mobile USB antenna would work at all, because the bigger modem couldn’t connect anywhere in the apartment, except for a very particular location under the window, against the wall. I’m on the 3rd floor of an apartment near IKEA on I-35.

I suspect the modem picks up some kind of resonation from a beam in the wall that holds the windows, and the signal bounces off the exterior walls of other apartments in the complex. I tried sitting the modem in the window but that gave me a weaker signal (2 out of 5 lights) for some reason the modem gets a stronger signal on the wall, under the window. And not flat against the wall either, but at a slight angle off the wall I get a boost from 3 to 4 lights. Trial and error.

Clear sales rep (set up at Best Buy) said the USB device would not work with Linux, because he tried it on his own Linux laptop. He said a driver is in development, maybe, but so far no word from the developer. Regardless, the ethernet version of the modem works well, no problems with Fedora 11. You plug it in and that’s about it–just works. I have a Thinkpad SL400. When you connect I think it asks for a username and wants to verify your email.

I can ssh files, dictionary port works, stream music, stream movies. The signal is consistent, happy so far. Maybe worth mentioning: there are at least a dozen other wifi devices “visible” from my NetworkManager applet, so I don’t think there is a “bad neighbor” effect.

Turns out I don’t need to buy a router. I set up an ad-hoc wireless network in Fedora (use the “Create New Wireless Network” wizard) now my girlfriend can connect to the Internet from her HP latop, she is using Vista.

If you read my previous post, you know I recently deactivated my Facebook account.  Not deleted.  “Deactivated.”  Big difference!  Of course I want it deleted, permanently.  How will this play out?  How long can Facebook ignore the outrage? Hold back a “deactivation” exodus, etc.

This just came my way via Techmeme:

Facebook and Seppukoo get lawyered up | Technology | Los Angeles Times

I just tried to share a link to this article on Facebook. Got a message that my post is blocked because it “contains content that has been reported as abusive by Facebook users.”

Not only is Facebook blocking this deactivation app, Facebook is blocking a Los Angeles Times article about this “Seppukoo” app.

If you haven’t deactivated your Facebook account yet, let me ask you: Why use a social network that blocks reputable news proliferation and access? A social network that won’t delete your account?

Why is a deactivation tool a good idea? Because Facebook offers no automated way to leave all of your groups, delete all personal emails, tell all friends you switched back to email, delete all profile pictures, remove all photo tags using your name, etc.

I hope Seppukoo is successful. Sites like Facebook should not have access to our personal profiles (along with communications, interests, friends, etc.) indefinitely without some kind of opt-out option. If Facebook wants to play identity extortion games likes a credit bureau, we should regulate Facebook like a credit bureau.

It turns out Facebook won’t delete your account. They only “deactivate” your account, which means they keep all your account information in their databases. In other words, Facebook holds your information hostage. If you know how to delete all of your information from Facebook’s servers *permanently* let us know how you did it. Here’s a quote from Facebook’s deactivation form, almost sounds like a threat:

Note: Even after you deactivate, your friends can still invite you to events, tag you in photos, or ask you to join groups. If you opt out, you will NOT receive these email invitations and notifications from your friends.

As of right now my account is only “deactivated,” which means I need to keep my email address registered indefinitely, the one I used to sign up for Facebook. Because Facebook will probably try to win me back–like Myspace has since I deleted my account there too. If I don’t keep that domain registered it will expire, and a new owner could request my Facebook password with a catchall and take over my account. Unlikely but entirely possible. The new owner could simply click “I forgot my password.”

So not only does Facebook hold your data hostage, they threaten your reputation by inviting an account-takeover, which means I get stuck with extra hosting charges, renewing the domain for eternity, just to keep my account secure in Facebook limbo.

Update: Even after deactivation, after opting out of all email communications from Facebook, they just sent me this:

Hi PJ,
You have deactivated your Facebook account. You can reactivate your account at any time by logging into Facebook using your old login email and password. You will be able to use the site like you used to.
Thanks,
The Facebook Team

Get schooled in a laid-back look. Front pockets. Front chest, sleeve and rear graphics with bling heart detail. Imported cotton/polyester.

Her favorite colors are orange and blue. So naturally she likes the Gators. Hmm, too bad they don’t show the front graphics.

Thomas & Associates, Inc. is pleased to announce the recent placements at Phillips de Pury & Company auction house in New York of Shlomi Rabi, Photography Specialist, and Carol Ehlers, Photography Consultant.

Shlomi Rabi was a highly visible member of Chicago

I’m now an Amazon Associate. So if you buy this awesome feed bag you’re helping SipsnBlips feed its writers.

Faculty member Cutler is retiring after 29 years of service to UF

GAINESVILLE, Fla.

Tips for Success on the Google Content Network | Thumoney