The Deceased on Facebook

Well folks, said to say that this will be the final blog of this semester and probably the last blog from Dangerous Digital Communications. Yes, I know you are devastated. My loyal fans have read my blog through the good times and the bad times. But, we aren't quite done yet. This week's topic: the deceased on Facebook.

I know that in Titus's blog he had wrote about the memorial privacy setting on Facebook. Having unfortunately some Facebook friends over the years pass away, I thought that this was a good tool for their pages. It is kind of sad to see the picture of your deceased friend in the corner of your home page with a block of text that says "reconnect with him/ her."

I was asked myself after the first person I had die on facebook, "What the heck is going to happen if facebook doesn't die in 50 years and it is just filled with dead people?" Well, as a couple years passed I lost a few more friends on facebook and noticed a trend. People would start making groups on facebook in honor of their lost friend. They would use this group to discuss memories of the deceased or even to communicate with them in a way. I would say this is a good tool to mourn over a lost loved one.

However, lately these groups have been run differently (at least with my facebook friends). The last friend I had pass away had a group made for her hours after her death. It was made by the classmates of her little sister. I don't know about you, but I think that this could have been made by a person closer to the deceased. I saw another group where the creator spelled the dead person's name wrong.

What do you think will happen? Do you think that Facebook will last long enough that we can look at a whole generation of people's memorial sites? What do you think of these groups? Are people making memorial groups just to say they made a group with a bunch of people?

I KNEW IT!!

Hate to say I told you so......No, not whatever Tiger Woods is in the news for. I haven't gotten around to caring about another sport star's personal problems yet.

I don't know when it was, but, a couple of months ago in the class discussion board (I think.) I remember saying that there would be a time where people would update their relationship status to "married" on Facebook during the wedding right at the alter. I thought that it would be a new tradition like the couple lighting the candle. Well, I was surprised when I was browsing through Reddit (which is turning out to be a great source for blog topics) and saw a link to a video. In this home video, you see a couple getting married. Right after the rings are exchanged the groom pulls out his cell phone and his new wife's cell phone. They start typing away and the minister announces that they are updating their Facebook statuses.

Now, this was just done for some laughs as the youtube video's description says "This was just done to be funny - we really don't Facebook THAT often :)." Apparently no one knew about this plan except the groom and the minister. What I find funny about this is that people will now do funny things at their weddings just to be Youtube stars. "What, Zack? Who does things at their wedding to get on Youtube?" Well, there's the wedding party that had the extravagant wedding entrance, numerous versions of the evolution of dance, and the people that did the Thriller.

I am more surprised at the people that will do things during the actual wedding. I think it is kind of tacky to do things during the wedding. I think that is a time where things should be serious. However, I am all for the choreographed dance numbers videotaped at the reception. What do you think? Do you think that updating Facebook statuses will become part of the ceremony in more weddings? What do you think of doing things at your wedding to make youtube videos?

Uganda's Anti-Gay Bill

I was browsing reddit.com today looking for anything interesting to blog about when something caught my eye. It was a link to an article about Uganda's anti-gay bill. Having a good friend and former roommate from Uganda I tend to click on anything about Uganda. In the past he has talked about plenty of politics of Uganda, the corrupt government, and blah blah blah. I am not interested in politics at all, but, since I had never heard of an anti-gay bill I was interested.

It turns out that there was a law proposed in Uganda that would impose life imprisonment on all homosexuals in the country. The law is on it's way through Uganda's parliament and is actually being supported by it's top leaders. Besides putting all gay people in jail, they would also imprison anyone who knows the existence of a gay or lesbian and fails to report them to the police within 24 hours. It also requires the death penalty for "aggravated homosexuality" which is a sex act between gays or lesbians in which one person has the HIV virus.

As of now it is only a bill, but, the reason controversy is growing is because Uganda's president Museveni is the chairman of the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in Trinidad which opens on Friday. If the issue is raised up on the summit it could divide Commonwealth leaders. "How the heck could that happen, Zack? This is the 21st century." Good question and right you are, this is the 21st century and countries like the USA, Canada, and Britain for the most part have liberal views on the subject. But, many African and Carribean countries are still socially conservative and still have laws on their books that criminalize homosexuality.

As you can imagine, human rights groups are going nuts over this bill. The person who proposed the bill described homosexuality as a "creeping evil." What do you think about all of this? Can you believe this? What do you think it would be like if it passed? How would they enforce it? Does this sound a little Hitler-ish to you?

"No Russian"

Last week Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 came out. My roommates being big gamers jumped right on it. The first day it was released they had it and started playing the game. Since they only usually play multiplayer they did not notice something very interesting.

It happened one afternoon when I was in my room. One of my roommates came into the room and told my other roommate that there was this level in the campaign mode that he needed to see. I was interested so I went to see it. What I saw was pretty disturbing.

In the level titled 'No Russian' (warning: link is really gorey) you are undercover as a Russian terrorist. You need to keep Russian terrorist Makarov's trust. The level starts off in an elevator with Makarov, you, and two other guys holding guns. Then, the door opens up. The next scene brings up images of Columbine. You are in an airport terminal in Russia watching people in line, then, it happens. Your 'partners' raise their guns and unload. The innocent people in line get mowed down: men, women, and children. If you shoot at your 'partners' they realize you are a spy and kill you. The least you can do is stand back and watch them kill all these people or you can join in and help the Russians kill with no consequences. Not only that, but, when you continue playing the SWAT team buses start coming and they have automatic weapons. If you want to win you need to kill dozens of SWAT team members.

Now, I know what some of you are thinking, "Oh, he is one of those violence in video games freaks." Trust me when I say I'm not. I have killed my share of people in the Grand Theft Auto series. But, somehow, this is different. In the GTA series you are a gangmember or a criminal. Does that make shooting people right? No, but you are expecting it. You shoot people, take their money, and their bodies dissappear. In the COD MW2 you are expecting to be a soldier, a hero. What also makes it shocking is how great the graphics are. In this level, when the Russians mow down the people, their bodies seem to pile up. The injured crawl away in pools of blood. People are screaming and bleeding in corners. I think this level crossed the line in video games.

You can imagine that this level has raised some controversy. In Russia, by the advice of local counsel, the 'No Russian' scene has been pulled. It has also been talked about on Fox News.

Besides this level it really is a great game from what I have played. The graphics are amazing and the gameplay is exciting. It has broke gaming records and entertainment records and will continue to sell out.

Although it is an exciting game it brings up the question, "What will be the next big controversy in video games?" Will games keep crossing the line? What are your thoughts?

Everyone's Got a Little Captain in 'Em...............and a fine

There was an interesting touchdown celebration in the Dallas vs. Philadelphia game on Sunday Night Football. After his 11 yard touchdown reception, Eagles tight end Brent Celek ran to the back of the endzone, centered himself in front of the TV cameras, and did a pretty recognizable motion.

To anyone who has watched TV in the past five years they would recognize that motion as the Captain Morgan pose from Captain Morgan commercials.

One would most likely think that Celek was just trying to be funny (or a raging alcoholic). But, as it turns out, this was a marketing plan by Captain Morgan rum. They were ready to launch a campaign where they would donate $10,000 to the Gridiron Greats Assistance Fund every time that the Captain Morgan pose was seen on screen. The Gridiron Greats Assistance Fund is a not-for-profit organization which raises funds for retired football players. (Wait, wait, wait. They are raising money for retired football players? A simple google search told me that the lowest paid players get paid $225,000. My parents are teachers....the NFL players will survive.) This donation would have been bumped up to $25,000 in playoff games and $100,000 in the Superbowl.

After the game the NFL put an end to the Captain Morgan pose. NFL spokesman Greg Aiello said to Yahoo! Sports that "A company can't pay a player to somehow promote their product on the field." I guess because they are NFL players, a donation to something they might be a part of someday could be considered 'paying them.' Celek spoke through an Eagle's spokesman and denied knowledge of the Captain Morgan campaign, however, an account executive handling the promotion said that he was indeed involved. (whoops!)

NFL players have gotten in trouble for advertising products in the past. Celek got off easy. In 2007, Bears linebacker Brian Urlacher got fined $100,000 just for wearing a Vitamin Water hat to media day before SuperBowl XLI. Celek probably got off with a warning because the profits were going to a charity for NFL alumni.

I don't know what to think of this type of 'guerilla marketing.' I think it would be sort of neat if they let every on-field promotion go. However, I think that might make the players a little self centered, but, what if every on-field promotion had to go to a charity. I mean, if every player did a certain celebration to benefit a charity( a real charity, perhaps, instead of the rich people assistance fund) I think that would be just fine. If these companies want to dish out all of this money to a good cause what would be the problem? What do you think of this type of marketing?

Could This Be The End??

I won't quite agree with his band's title of their song "This is the End," but, I am a little frightened. I read a Tweet today from the drummer of Relient K, Ethan Luck, who had posted a link with the text "Well, that's just great..." Being as I only go on Twitter to kill time because I have run out of resources to creep on Facebook, I naturally clicked the link. What I found was slightly horrifying.

"What was it" you ask? Did I get a link telling me about the end of the world? Did God's gift to football (according to the media) Brett Favre get into an accident? Is U2 coming out with another album?!! No. Worse.

The link brought me to an article from boingboing.net. Apparently, the internet chapter of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, a SECRET copyright treaty who Obama's administration has kept under wraps for 'national security' reasons has been leaked.

What does this all mean? Well, basically, it spoke of four things:

1) ISPs will have to constantly police copyright on user-contributed material. This means that sites like Flickr, YouTube, and Blogger will be impossible to run because there is no way they could afford to hire enough lawyers to determine whether every piece of content put online is infringing on copyright. (Oh no, Zack. This means we can't read your super awesome blog.)

2) ISPs will have to cut off internet access to those accused of copyright infringement without access to a trial or counsel or they could be held accountable. This means that basically your whole household could be cut off from the internet if your little 13 year-old sister decided to illegally uploaded some copyrighted material of the Jonas Brothers to YouTube. What happens if both of the parents work online and don't forget about use of internet banking and whatnot.

3) The whole world must adopt US-style "notice and takedown" rules. This means that anything that someone flags of breaking copyright rules will be taken down without evidence or trial. As you can imagine, people could take advantage of this as easy censorship. (I am already thinking about all the terrible band's music videos I would consider flagging.)

4) Mandatory prohibitions on breaking DRM. The example from boingboing that they used was "e.g., to make a work available to disabled people; for archival presentation; because you own copyrighted work that is locked up in DRM."

Now, not having too much information on the subject I wouldn't say this is law yet. I would assume this is merely what they are thinking of. Personally, I think these rules would put too much responsibility on ISPs. I also think that some of these copyright rules are dumb. It is the internet, stuff is going to get stolen. What do you think? Does the idea of them cracking down on these rules make you shiver in your computer chair or would you have no problem with them?

-Thou Shall Not Tweet-

"Don't tweet" seems to be the message that all high-profile sports players are seeming to get from incidents with other players tweeting.

Just yesterday, I heard about running back Larry Johnson of the Kansas City Chiefs getting in trouble for using 'gay slurs' on Twitter. Apparently, while replying to a tweet from a follower he used the F-word that rhymes with "bag." This was after questioning head coach Todd Haley's experience on Twitter. Jarrett Barrios, president of the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, called on the Chiefs to take disciplinary action against the running back and seize the chance to educate on the dangers of homophobia in sports. Johnson has not been suspended but banned from all team activities indefinitely until the matter is resolved. He has apologized.

This isn't the first sports player to get heat from tweeting. The entire Texas Tech football team was banned from tweeting by their coach when linebacker Marlon Williams tweeted about their coach being late for a meeting the day after a big loss to #12 Houston. Team captain Brandon Carter (you need to see his picture) also got in trouble for breaking team rules and tweeting near the end of September about how he thought their season was going bad.

The Miami Heat have a similar rule about Twitter. They are banned from using Twitter at the arena, practice, or gametime.

Another player who got in trouble for using Twitter was New York Jet's receiver David Clowney. He sat out a game for tweeting about his playing time, or lack thereof. It wasn't even an overly negative Tweet. It said, "1 play in the 1st Half, 4 plays in the 2nd half ... A bit disappointed about my playing time but very happy and satisfied about the win."

Personally, I know these people are in the public eye, but, aren't they still people? Why are they getting in trouble for tweeting what they are feeling? I think that there should be some freedom of speech allowed. I realize that what you tweet about reflects on your organization, but, it is on a social network. Everyone may not agree with what they tweet,but, it is not like they are saying this in an interview or on the team's website. Personally, I say give them some freedom of speech if I have to listen to everything that "common people" have to say.

What do you think? Do you think these rules make sense? How do you feel about what they said? Do they deserve freedom of speech?

Real World Van Wilder?

This is the link to the article. I have a cowboy hat.

DDC Cribs- NDSU Edition

Welcome to the first and last edition of DDC Cribs. In this blog you will read about the fame and fortune of being the NDSU President.

North Dakota State University president Joseph Chapman announced Wednesday that he is resigning. Chapman has been president for a decade and student enrollment has grown every year he has been in office. Research expenditures for the university have grown from less than $50 million when he started to over $100 million in the past several years. Under his guidance NDSU athletics have jumped up to Division I NCAA athletic program.

Now I know some of you are asking "Wow, that sounds like a good track record. Why did he resign?" I will tell you why. Somewhere in his reign President Chapman started throwing money around. He got his latest heat for the cost of his "crib." Originally the estimate for building his house was $900,000. You know as well as I that you cannot get a decent house in Fargo for $900,000 (sarcasm). So, the price of the project grew and grew and ended up being over TWO MILLION DOLLARS which had to be paid by the Development Foundation which is made up of donations. Two million minus $900,000 equals $1,100,000 over budget... yikes.

This isn't the only problem Chapman has had with money. Apparently there have been cost overruns in some recent NDSU building projects. Also, when Barack Obama was inaugurated, Chapman, being the good American that he is, made a trip with his family to go see it for over $22,000. UND sent their President to the inauguration for $2,167. That is less than 10% of the cost of Chapman's little trip. Oh, and it turns out the first lady Gayle Chapman (not the one in Prince's band) was drawing a $50,000 salary from the Development Foundation.

With all the controversy over these things the heat was turned up on Chapman and he decided to resign. He said "It just wasn't fun." However, I'm sure throwing around thousands upon thousands of dollars was, in fact, fun.

So what do you think? Think he should have resigned? Think he likes the bling a little too much? Think I have an obvious bias against the 1-4 Bison which stems back from the heated rivalry for The Nickel?

It's Getting Hotmail In Here, So Change Up All Your Passwords

Okay, first off, let me apologize for the lameness of my title. My writers have the week off. It was a poor attempt of a parody of an outdated Nelly Song.

I read this week in the Tech & Gadgets Blog on MSN that Hotmail as well as Yahoo, Gmail, and AOL have all been targeted by phishing attacks over the weekend. The phishing attack harvested at least 10, 000 passwords from Hotmail and numerous other passwords from the other email sites.

I have had a Hotmail account since fifth grade. It was the first tool I used to communicate over the internet with my friends. I know that many people have had a Hotmail account for a long time. One of the practices that Microsoft recommends is for users to change their passwords every 90 days. However I did NOT know that. I have had the same password for my Hotmail account for about five years. This is one tip I urge you to follow after reading this blog.

Along with this advice here is a summary of the five tips from PC World that will help you avoid becoming a victim of phishing attacks:

1) Be skeptical. Don't give out personal information including your user name, password, or account numbers via email. Don't reply to suspicious emails and if you aren't positive that a message is legitimate assume it is not.

2) Contact directly. Whenever you do get an email from a "trusted" source that wants you to give them information or click on a link you should contact them directly. Go see them in person or contact them on the telephone.

3) Analyze statements. Check your bank statements for suspicious activity. Internet banking is a good tool here so you can check if you have suspicious charges or withdrawals. If anything turns up contact your financial institution.

4) Use current web browsers. The newest web browsers such as Internet Explorer 8 and Firefox 3.5 have built-in phishing protection. They can find malicious sites and warn you in advance.

5) Report attacks. If you think you are being a victim of phishing, report it. Report the suspicious emails to your ISP and to the Federal Trade Commission.

Some of these are common sense. Others I hadn't thought of. I had never thought of reporting suspicious activity to my ISP or the FTC. I don't really pay attention to phishing protection either. What about you? When's the last time you changed your password? Do you follow these steps? Have you recieved any suspicious emails?

Man Vs. Beast?

Hello readers, despite this hilarious picture of an old lady and her humongous dog, this week we are talking about a fairly serious matter: The difference in sentencing between NFL players Michael Vick and Donte' Stallworth. (By watching those videos you can tell they are both tremendous athletes.)

Today I read a headline that said that today Nike denied a new contract with Philadelphia Eagles Quarterback Michael Vick. However, on Wednesday, a spokesperson of Vick's said that he was re-signing a contract with Nike.

This made me think back to the whole Michael Vick incident. As many of you probably know in April 2007 Vick was caught being involved in an illegal dog fighting ring that had been going on for five years. In August of 2007 he pleaded guilty to felony charges. Since then, he missed two seasons of football (much to Falcon's fans dismay), spent 18 months in prison, a few months of house arrest, filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy, and has been the arch-enemy of PETA. Now, I am OKAY with that. I am a dog lover but I am definately NOT affiliated in any way with PETA. I just thought the punishment fits the crime.

However, with our next contestant on "Who is Rich and a Moron?", I don't think the punishment fit the crime. On March 14, 2009 Donte' Stallworth was out drinking at a Miami bar the night after receiving a 4.5 million dollar bonus from the Cleveland Browns. Coming out of the bar the next morning he decided to get behind the wheel of his Bentley and drive. Around 7 a.m. he struck and killed Mario Reyes, 59. After pleading guilty, Stallworth financially settled with the family, was sent to prison for 30 days, put on two years house arrest, and suspended for ONE season with reinstatement after this year's Super Bowl. Now, like Vick, he has a group that is unfond of him- MADD.

I am not even going to state my opinion further on this matter. I want to hear from you. Do you think this is fair? Thirty days of real jail for killing a person compared to 18 months for killing dogs? Should Vick have a smaller sentence? Should Stallworth have a larger sentence? Maybe they should have equal sentences?

'Zines of the Future

Sports Illustrated, Time, and Cosmopolitan are all top-selling magazines. As we all should know, print media such as magazines and newspapers are dying off because of what you are doing now- reading free media from the internet( let it be known that I didn't think of that saying myself, I stole it from this guy's blog). With this, questions arise on what will happen to these failing magazines so I took the initiative of exploring the world wide web to see how I could answer that question.

I was logging into my MySpace page when I saw an advertisement to read Revolver Magazine's free digital issue (warning: digital issue contains profanity). As I was digitally "flipping" through the magazine I found it very interesting. It is laid out just as if you were reading a magazine. At first I was weary at how the text was small, but, after clicking on the page it zoomed in and it was easy to read. Although I am not a fan of death metal bands like Dying Fetus and Suicide Silence that Revolver is known for covering, I thought it was a good idea for them to make digital magazines. I imagine they would be cheaper to produce, save paper, and it is right on your computer. What I think would be negatives are the jobs lost for the people involved in printing and not owning a physical copy. There is something about buying digital print that doesn't seem worthwhile. You can't hold it or cut out pictures.

Another idea I found about the future of magazines came in a different form. As you can see in this video, last year Esquire came out with a prototype of a magazine using e-ink. This made it possible to make small amounts of animation to make the pictures move. This turned out to be kind of a flop because people didn't seem to care about the animation and price increased. However, if they ever succeed to make it wirelessly receive the new information, I think that could be a good idea.

The final idea I found came in the form of Mine Magazine. As a ten week experiment this summer, Mine Magazine consisted of a selection of five sets of articles from eight major publications sent to you in one convenient magazine (physical or digital). This is a good idea because you only got what you wanted. However, once again, you can find all the information on the internet.

So do you think these are good ideas? Would you buy these? What do you think the future of magazines is coming to?

Hey Zack, I'm Happy For You And I'mma Let You Finish But I Think That A Blog About How Information Spreads Through Social Media Would Be The Best Blog

(Title Continued) Of All Time

...Okay Kanye, I will do precisely that.

By now I'm sure you are sick to death of the Kanye West VMA story (trust me, I am). But, let me write the last piece of information on the internet that you read on the subject.

On Sunday I was sitting in my dorm not watching the VMAs when all of a sudden my homepage of Facebook explodes with status updates that read "OMG Kanye" and "Kanye is a jerk." This got me interested. I commented on a friend's status asking him what happened. Moments later he gave me the scoop on what had happened.

On Sunday at the VMAs while Taylor Swift was making an acceptance speech for her first ever award for best female music video, (for those out of the loop- this was the first VMA ever given out to a country artist- kind of a big deal) Kanye West (who has a history of whining at awards shows) got on stage, took the microphone, told everyone who he thought should have won, gave Taylor back the mic, and got offstage. This left Taylor Swift shocked and almost in tears with a performance to give in five minutes.

After my friend explained this to me I needed to see what happened with my own eyes. Did I turn on the TV hoping they would replay it? NOPE. I jumped right over to YouTube and typed in " Taylor Swift Kanye West 2009 VMAs." Sure enough, ten minutes after the incident, there was a video of the incident. Sadly, due to copyright laws, I only got to watch the video a small number of times before it was taken off, but, I did get to see it.

This is what amazes me about social media and technology in general. Within twenty minutes of the incident, I had heard about it, watched the video three or four times, read numerous tweets on the subject, and chatted about it with friends. The next morning I even saw the video of Kanye on Jay Leno's show online.

Imagine, 25 years ago when people were outraged by Madonna's "Like A Virgin" performance at the VMAs, you only got to watch it once IF you had MTV unless you or a friend "taped" it on their VCR.

So there you have it; One of the beauties of social media- getting all your celebrity gossip in a time-efficient manner. Oh, and if you haven't had enough making fun of Kanye yet I recommend you go to http://www.immaletyoufinish.com/ - you won't regret it.

APPS!

APPS! No, not delicious apps from applebees, I am talking applications for an iPhone- specifically, social networking apps. Now, I know that my North Dakota readers are saying, "But, Zack, there's no iPhones in North Dakota." Well, I am sure they will be here soon enough. So here are a few top apps to get when we can get one:

Facebook- Not too much to explain here, it is Facebook for your phone. Some of you probably have it on your Blackberries or other smart phones. It is basically Facebook without all the bells and whistles like Farmtown and stupid quizzes. You can comment, post, poke, add friends, and look at pictures.

MySpace Mobile- Since Facebook had an app, of course MySpace has one. It is a watered down MySpace just like the Facebook app.

Twitterific- I know this is getting redundant but Twitterfic is pretty much just like Twitter, read tweets and tweet.

Twittelator- This is very similar to Twitterific, however, what is special is that it can notify your friends if you need help and can show them a map of your location. You can also post photos.

Mobile Flickr- This is a very good application according to rotorblog.com. The application is very similar to the website. You can take snapshots and upload them straight to the website. You can also share photos, look at contact's photos, add favorites, tags, view photostreams, and do everything else you can do on regular Flickr.

Eventful- This app lets you find out what acts are at your favorite venues. It also lets you send friends this information and find out what your friends are doing.

SnapMyLife- This app lets you share photos and view photos. It also has location and mapping features.

These are just a few social networking apps for iPhones. One of the most interesting apps I saw while looking for apps was Zintin. It was recently shut down, but, what it consisted of was using GPS to discover new friends or find out which friends are around you. From there you can share photos with people.

These are a few social networking apps for iPhone. Here you can find a few others. It is amazing all the things that you can do with phones these days. They are slowly becoming mobile computers. Do you think there will be a time where we don't really use laptops, just our fancy phones? How many years until the Digital Communications class learns about adding apps to social network? Have you used any of these apps on your phone?

Phishing From A Dock In London

'Ello Guvna! (I got it out of my system).

Put your rods in the trunk you won’t need them to learn about this kind of Phishing. Phishing means “To request confidential information over the Internet under false pretenses in order to fraudulently obtain credit card numbers, passwords, or other personal data” and it is one of the biggest dangers of social networks like Facebook. It can leave you missing a big chunk of money.

The case of one woman from St. Louis, and what is one of the most infamous schemes in the world of Facebook, took place when she got a message from a trusted friend that she and her husband were stuck in London after being robbed and had no way to get home. They asked her to wire them money and she got scammed out of $4,000. This phishing scam has been named 'The London Scam.'

What happened in the situation with the woman from St. Louis is usually the basic scenario. Hackers hack into one of your friends' Facebook pages, next, they look at your information, friends, relatives, and whatnot. They use this information to seem believable that they are actually one of your friends. They then message you that they are being detained or that they just got robbed and are stuck in London and need money. Being the loving, warm-hearted friend that you are you sympathize with them and immediately go to Western Union and send them a bunch of money. GOTCHYA! Now the hackers, posed as your friend can go buy a fancy new iPod Touch (Gee, thanks loving warm-hearted sucker).

Now, if you are like me you are saying, "Gee golly, blogger, but I'm not stupid. I would never fall for that. I know all about the world wide web." Think again. Beny Rubinstein is a little bit of a computer security whiz too. He has 20 years of IT experience and he has a degree in computer engineering. Do you have that? Well, to put it bluntly, he fell for it. His computer tech buddy sent him a disturbing message about getting robbed and being stuck in the good old U.K. What do you know, Beny sent that money and as soon as he knew it he was out $1100.

This goes to show you that maybe you aren't quite the smarty pants you think you are. Anyone can get caught in a Phishing or other kind of scam on Facebook or any social medium. Here you can find some tips (on Facebook what do you know?) about how to not fall for phishing scams on Facebook. Basically, it tells you to contact an individual who is asking for money outside of the social network to verify that it's a real person and don't click on suspicious links. I am going to give you one piece of advice- KNOW WHEN YOU'RE FRIENDS ARE IN LONDON! Sheesh, that's a big trip to not know your friend is on, and you call yourself a friend.

What do you think? Have you heard of this scam? Do you know anyone who has been phished? Have you ever gotten a suspicious link? I have.

Girl Abducted, Found 18 Years Later

One of the most unthinkable things happened in the news today. A 29 year-old woman was reunited with her mother and stepfather 18 years after the abduction. Jaycee Dugard was abducted in 1991 (the same year Nirvana came out with "Smells Like Teen Spirit") while she was waiting for a bus in South Lake Tahoe, CA. Until today (August 27,2009), she had been living, closed off from the world, in a secret shed in the backyard of her abductors. The most bizarre thing to me, however, is that she isn't the only who has been living in the shed. Who was her roommate for the past decade and a half? If you guessed her abductors you are wrong. She was found to have two children with her male abductor. The two children, both girls, are aged 11 and 15 meaning Jaycee had them when she was 14! Now I know what you are asking, "Who would do such a thing?" Her abductors were Phillip and Nancy Garrido of Antioch, CA. They were caught when Phillip was stopped by campus police at the University of California, Berkeley. He then spilled the beans in a meeting with his parole officer that he had kidnapped Jaycee and that the two children were his.

Phillip was paroled from a Nevada state prison from a 1988 for sexual assault. I think that punishments for these sexual assaults should be much steeper. If this man can hold a girl hostage for 18 years while on parole I think there is something wrong.

Phillip Garrido has been booked on charges of kidnapping, conspiracy, and related offenses. His wife has been charged of kidnapping and conspiracy and they have been held on bail of one million dollars according to cnn.com. Do you think this is enough of a punishment? These people took the childhood away from this girl and stole a family's daughter. Noone can have memories of this girl growing up. Lucky for her, she got out of this ordeal with her life unlike many of the cases similar to this. However, now there are now two young girls that will most likely have many problems in life because they only know the inside of a shed. In the darkness of this situation, maybe it will give one other family with a missing person hope that they will be found.

What do you think of this situation? How do you think these horrible abductors should be punished? What do you think the lives of the two young girls will end up like?