I’ve been noticing a proliferation of bluetooth cell phone headsets out on the streets lately, and not just on chauffeurs and cabbies. These devices seem to have passed the threshold from dorky early adopter to cutting edge hepster. It’s only a matter of months before all the soccer moms have them and then look for…
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The UN Employment Scam Unpacked
I’ve been getting lots of responses from people who have also received these fake emails from groups pretending affiliation with the United Nations. A nice person forwarded to me all of the documents and communications that she received when she applied for a job with the “US Committee for the UN.” She notes that after…
Gothamist debate on Laptops on the Subway
My lil post today about “Mac’in on the R Train” made it onto the Gothamist blog (one of my favs). Thanks, Jen! It set off a debate about whether or not its safe to use your laptop on the subway. Of the 24 comments, 16 thought it was a bad idea with only 4 indicating…
Mac’in on the R Train?
I snapped a picture of this woman using her 17" Powerbook on the subway this morning! The R train uptown, from City Hall to 28th Street, about 9am, in case you are interested. I guess that’s another sign that New York is becoming safer. I’ve blogged previously about electronics and personal safety in public spaces….
UN Spam: Just Another Phishing Scheme
I am pretty sure at this point that these fake UN emails advertising cushy job postings and free travel to UN conferences are just elaborate phishing schemes hidden in UN-ese double-speak. This suspicion was confirmed when "Ernest" commented in a previous post here about his experience in replying to the "Youth conference" email: i have…
UN Agency for Sustainable Growth Wants You! (More UN Spam)
Here’s the latest United Nations spam that I received from the "United Nations Agency for Sustainable Growth." The job descriptions are almost identical to the ones from the "U.S. Committee for the U.N". Weirder and weirder: The mission of the Agency for Sustainable growth (UNASG) is the creation of physically and socially sustainable cities. UNASG’s…
AOL hates my e-mail too
Free Press, the LA Times and others are reporting that AOL has been systematically blocking email that contain references to the dearAOL.com campaign, aimed at getting AOL to drop their pay-to-send email filtering system. AOL has been working on instituting a new email filtering system that would only allow unsolicited emails from senders who pay…
New York gov website ranks 1st for usability, 13th for citizens participation
A joint study by researchers at Rutgers-Newark and Sungkyunkwan University, Korea, of the official websites of the world’s major cities ranked Seoul, New York, Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Sydney as the top five municipalities in “digital governance.” They define "Digital governance" as "the degree to which a website – in this instance those of 100…
Village Voice on the Plight of Media Non-profits
The Village Voice is running a story called "For a Few Dollars More" on the struggles facing non-profits supporting independent media. The article blames a combination of forces for the decline of these independent media groups, including drying up of foundational support (particularly the MacArthur Foundation) and the growth of new electronic media. So young…
More strange UN spam: UNICEF INVITES YOU!!
I just got another email (see below) purporting to be from a United Nations source, this one supposedly from Carol Bellamy, “an executive director of UNICEF.” The email asks people to nominate themselves to attend a youth conference in The Netherlands and South Africa. No dates, no website, no details on the agenda or purpose….