Month: May 2007

That Sucking Sound? Your Credit Card Data

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Good piece by my WSJ colleage Joe Pereira on the TJX debacle, the biggest known theft of credit-card numbers. It all came down to lax Wi-Fi security on the part of the retail chain’s stores. A good read: clipped from online.wsj.com The $17.4-billion retailer’s wireless network had less security than many people have on their … Read more

Twitters: Poetry or Drivel? Part II

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Nick Carr’s interesting take on Twitters: does their brevity make them meaningful or just another channel of crap? Three quick points: + Twitters, like blogs, run the gamut from poetry to drivel + One person’s drivel is another person’s poetry: It usually depends on whether you know them or not + This has more to … Read more

The Source of the Malware Scourge

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Despite appearances, the U.S. is still the most popular place for the bad guys to place their malware code. StopBadware.org has listed those Internet Service Providers that wittingly or unwittingly host “badware” — an umbrella term for any kind of software that insidiously installs itself on your computer. What’s interesting is that while there is … Read more

Queuing: Cultural or Economic?

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Fascinating discussion on Freakonomics blog about lining up and how it varies from culture to culture. I must confess, after 20 years in Asia I’m still British and somewhat obsessed by queuing, and get very upset when it’s not followed. One commenter explains it thus: clipped from www.freakonomics.com There is a simple explanation for this. … Read more