Consumerist

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Visualizing The Devolution Of Privacy On Facebook

By Ben Popken 5.11.10

This chart shows how the default privacy settings on Facebook have gotten less, well, private, from 2005-2010. Created by Matt McKeon based off an EFF timeline, it helps visualize how Facebook has grown increasingly permissive with your data as it has grown in size, power, and revenue. What might tomorrow bring? Perhaps in the future Facebook will create placeholder profiles for people who haven’t signed up yet, using data gleaned from Zabasearch and LexisNexis. Check out Matt’s site for an interactive version.

The Evolution of Privacy on Facebook [mattmckeon via NPR]

security

Facebook Board Member's Profile Hacked

By Ben Popken 5.10.10

Maybe now that one of their board members’ profile got hacked, Facebook will start caring more about your privacy. Nah. [More]

homicide

CVS Employee Strangles Shoplifter

By cwalters 5.10.10

A CVS employee in Chicago chased a 35-year-old shoplifter out of his store and held him in a chokehold for “several minutes” on Saturday morning until police came. The thief–who had stolen tubes of toothpaste–was taken to a hospital and initially described as in “fair-to-serious” condition, but then declared dead about 45 minutes later, reports the Chicago Sun-Times. The death is being ruled an accidental homicide, and the police aren’t going to press charges against the employee. [More]

security

Just For The Record, Your Friend Wasn't Mugged In London

By Ben Popken 5.6.10

You get a desperate email from a friend or acquaintance. It’s urgent. They say they were overseas and got mugged, getting robbed of their cellphone and all their cash and credit cards. Now they’re stranded and need your help. Could you please wire over $900 immediately? [More]

newborns

Things You Don't Need To Buy For A New Baby

By cwalters 5.5.10

Cameron Huddleston, an editor at Kiplinger and a mom, has some advice on how to make the most of your new baby budget. The money you save on things like play mats, changing tables, and fancy first-year clothes can be used to pay for less pleasant but more important safety-net things, like life and disability insurance, health insurance, and a will. [More]

security

Top 10 Reasons To Quit Facebook

By Ben Popken 5.4.10

F**** Facebook! More and more, fed up with ever-disintegrating privacy policies, are saying just that, even going so far as to kill their Facebook accounts. Gizmodo has “Top Ten Reasons You Should Quit Facebook,” among them, one-sided terms of service, a “war on privacy,” the sharing of private data with applications, but perhaps best of fall, “Facebook is not technically competent enough to be trusted”: [More]

consumers union

Facebook's Privacy Settings Are Actually "Evil Interfaces"

By Ben Popken 5.4.10

Facebook is in a quandary: they want to sell their users’ data for cash, but they don’t want to look like doucheshnozzles. What’s a social network to do? Design a byzantine apparatus for opting out of the privacy-invasions that confuses and discourages the user from using it effectively, while still appearing to be user-friendly and functional. That way they can have their cake and eat it and sell it too. In other words, it’s an “evil interface,” and Facebook’s privacy settings are full of them, argues the Electronic Frontier Foundation: [More]

mail

USPS Thinks Everyone Lives With Dan

By cwalters 5.3.10

Dan can’t get his postal carrier to understand the concept of people moving away–if you’ve ever lived in Dan’s apartment, you’ve always lived in his apartment. [More]

money

10 Coolest Secret Safes

By Ben Popken 4.28.10

Safes are handy for safekeeping stuff you don’t want other people to get, like money. The only problem is most look so “safey.” Given enough time, any of them can be broken open. The best solution is if the robbers can never find it in the first place. No, that fake-bottomed can of Campbell’s Soup in your closet isn’t going to fool anyone. To this end, Budgets Are $exy has rounded up “The 10 Awesomest Safes I’ve Ever Seen.” They have a surge protector safe, bread safe, and dirty underwear safe, but my favorite is the iceberg lettuce safe. [More]

mental illness

Delta Passenger Fights Satan, Sprays Others With Water

By cwalters 4.26.10

A Delta flight from L.A. to Florida had to make an emergency landing in Albuquerque, NM on Friday, after a first class passenger sprayed people with a water bottle from the beverage cart, threatened to “bring down” the plane, and shouted, “Get behind me Satan,” apparently referring to a flight attendant. [More]

blippy

Blippy Revealing Users' Credit Card Numbers To Internet

By Ben Popken 4.23.10

UPDATE: Blippy is taking this seriously. [More]

currency

$100 Bill Redesigned, Now Has Hidden Images

By cwalters 4.21.10

Today the Treasury Department will reveal a redesigned $100 bill. The new design brings the bill in line with the smaller denominations that are already in circulation, and it adds a fancy new anti-counterfeiting measure called Motion that uses special threads to “create an optical illusion of images sliding in directions perpendicular to the light that catches them.” [More]

online

Delete Your Facebook Account Forever

By Ben Popken 4.20.10

Whether you’re trying to get a job and worried about snoopy new bosses, sick of maintaining a virtual profile constantly bombarded with increasingly useless updates and pings from people that you decreasingly actually know, fed up with Facebook’s attitude towards their users, disgusted with your addiction to it, or just want you, your personal details and habits, and photos, out, deleting your Facebook profile can be done in a few easy steps: [More]

credit cards

Kid Racks Up $1,400 In Farmville After Stealing Mom's Credit Card

By Ben Popken 4.8.10

A 12-year-old kid is probably getting his crops slashed and burned by his mum after he racked up $1,400 in Farmville purchases, draining his own savings and running up charges on her credit card. [More]

good enough

UPS Guy Outwits Thieves With Clever Hiding Place

By cwalters 3.23.10

Sometimes a reader writes in to complain about how the UPS guy left a package in full view of anyone passing by. Not Nick, who was at work yesterday when he saw that UPS had delivered his shipment from from Amazon. Usually the delivery guy hides packages in Nick’s bushes, but this time the notice said, “FD MAT.” Nick writes, “That worried me a bit, as this is a pricey piece of electronic equipment. But my worry was misplaced; the clever UPS man hid this package extremely well.” [More]

laptops

Reduce Your Chances Of Laptop Theft By Turning Off Wi-Fi

By cwalters 3.3.10

A security company says that one easy way to find recently closed laptops hidden in cars or bags is to search for Wi-Fi radios, because some laptops can take half an hour or more before going into sleep mode. You need a specialized scanner to do sniff out Wi-Fi radios, but NetworkWorld.com says you can get one for about $50. The security company, Credant Technologies, says a group of lottery scammers in Jamaica were using stolen laptops that they found in this way. The solution: disable your Wi-Fi before you close the lid on your laptop. [More]

computers

Don't Press The F1 Key

By Ben Popken 3.3.10

Windows: pressing the F1 key might make your computer go boom. A security exploit deployed by certain malicious websites hides in the Windows help files and could get launched if you press the F1 button. It will only happen, if the following is true: [More]

security

"Chuck Norris" Virus Commands Your Router For His Botnet

By Ben Popken 2.23.10

Is there a “Chuck Norris” virus hiding inside your router and subjugating it for his secret botnet army? [Prague Daily Monitor] [More]

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