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Friday, September 26, 2003 |
Paul at Purportal.com Headlines notes that in all likelihood You have not won a free XBox. Like me, you may have recently received an e-mail message from giftstakes.com informing you that "you are now the lucky winner of a brand new Microsoft X-Box Gaming Console!" Boy, was I excited! I went to their website. Let's see, I enter my special "pass code number," then they want my shipping information, then they want my... DEBIT CARD? Unbelievable. They happen to mention the payment-processing service Authorize.net in their pitch. Here's what Authorize.net had to say in response to an inquiry by a friend:
The website www.giftstakes.com is in no way associated with
Authorize.Net. The organization or person operating this website is not
an Authorize.Net merchant and Authorize.Net is not processing any
types of transactions that are submitted via this website. The
purported drawing for a free X Box is an Internet scam designed to
steal debit card numbers with their associated PIN. This has been
reported to the appropriate law enforcement agency. Authorize.Net
strongly recommends NOT providing any confidential account information
on this website. If you have already provided your account information,
Authorize.Net recommends that you contact your bank, inform them of
the incident and cancel your account...
10:50:35 PM 
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Smart Mobs on Online Trust & Reputation Resources. One critical uncertainty that distinguishes a "peer-to-peer cornucopia of the commons" scenario a decade hence from a "control the consumer" scenario is whether online reputation systems will evolve to a more sophisticated form and diffuse to a larger population -- enabling forms of online-organized collective action to act as a counterforce to the centralization of media power. A bunch of papers from a conference on online trust and reputation indicate that the field of inquiry is alive.
(Thanks, Jim!)
1:17:12 PM
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Dave: I have to write a BloggerCon essay about the term "piracy." It'll go something like this. As long as the music industry labels all use of music on the Internet as piracy, and as long as pubs like the NY Times go along with this, the "problem" will never be solved. The music industry is insisting on a moral principle that they don't hold themselves to, that musicians should be paid for their work. They need to clean their house first, and that's going to mean disclaiming ownership of some of their supposed property, and deciding what they want to be paid for, and then asking for (and maybe receiving) help from the online community, in much the same way the US presidential candidates are. The music industry is going over our heads (by going to Washington), and under (by suing users), but the solution is here. First, give up trying to control the old music. We understand that there was no money in this anyway. Don't give up the copyrights, so if the music is used for commercial purposes, like in ad jingles or public radio pledge drives, you can charge your license fees. Then let the Internet have them to distribute and listen to for free, without fear of a lawsuit. Watch carefully to see what happens. We might not need to go to war anymore. Music is that powerful. Specifically exclude the new stuff, the stuff you're making money on, and provide proof that the artists are getting a share of the profits. Having done this, you may get some leaders on the Internet to agree to calling ripoffs of that stuff piracy. More in a bit, after some coffee.
11:47:38 AM
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We are all paparazzi now. In an age of increasing corporate and government surveillance, publicly accessible webcams give us a chance to do some watching of our own. [Salon.com]
6:00:22 AM
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