Thanland

Wait, so the Easter Island heads have bodies?

The Poets

Still one of my favorite things I’ve ever written, I think, is the opening line to The Poets. Under the name The New Antiques a rag-tag band of bandmates played this tune one time publicly, as the first act at Troop-a-palooza. As you can see, our set was very sparsely attended.

The poets have all fallen on hard times

Off-beat mean streaks mean each finds bleak times for hard rhymes

My first Woolly Pocket

Spring sprung, and naturally1 it was time to get my plant on. My lovely sister and her boyfriend gave me a Woolly Pocket2 for Christmas. It’s fantastic.

I split a couple of my bromeliads, grabbed a chunk of purple and lavender phlox, added a couple more plants and it’s off to a good start.

From left to right, there’s a blue Lobella, a Billbergia zebrina originally from the Como Zoo3 , a Cleome mix, another Como-sourced Billbergia chlorosticta, and finally the purple and lavender creeping phlox.

Error level analysis on MegaMillions jokesters

I saw of couple of pranksters post photos of their “winning” MegaMillions lottery tickets this morning and decided to a little detective work.

Using Dr. Neal Krawetz’s FotoForensics.com I ran @MelissaStetten’s “winning” ticket through the error level analysis tool just for fun.

MegaMillions winning ticket Photoshopped error level analysis

Notice how the bottom row of numbers is a bit brighter compared to the other rows? Neat, huh?

While error level analysis is not an absolute guarantee of forgery or fraud, it is one of a set of tools that can be used. I’m no photo forensics expert, but that sure does look suspicious to me. (And I suppose it helps that we know it was a joke, too.)

Krawetz’s blog is a great source of information on the topic of photo forensics, and be sure to read his error level analysis tutorial to get a primer on how it all works. Also check out his great examples of busting purported UFO sightings and Victoria’s Secret models.

Update: As you might expect, Krawetz took his expertise to the ticket task with much more detail. Go read it.

Update: I passed along another forgery — this time from Reddit — and Krawetz has picked this one apart even more thoroughly with several different algorithms.

Spammy Text Messages are Scammy

There I was, at work, minding my own business — well, my employer’s business, technically — when that familiar bzzzzt of a new text message reverberated across the conference room table.

Some outfit called “IQQuiz Fun Facts” was enticing me to signup for their “fun facts”. I immediately replied with “Stop”, which is supposed to be the universal SMS command for “leave me alone”.

Spam text message from 90323

Instead, this sleazy outfit operating under the short code 90323 sent me a Fun Fact, and put a $9.99 monthly subscription on my monthly cell phone bill.

Txt spam just turned into a txt scam. Just great.

This type of fraud is known as cramming, and it’s not a new problem. What surprised me, and several other people who’ve now told me they found similar charges, is just how easy it is for these scammers to get their hooks into your account. In a video posted last year, Hamid Shojaee makes the case that the carriers, if not complicit, are at least guilty by association for allowing these scammers companies to attach charges to their own customer’s bills.

Getting my money back

I immediately called AT&T. I had them remove the $9.99 charge and block my number from signing up for any future subscriptions. In the course my chat with the AT&T representative, who was exceedingly nice, she discovered another $9.99 charge back in January, one I hadn’t noticed from some other scummy text message outfit. She graciously reversed that charge as well.

The lesson here is: check your mobile bill especially if it varies by more than a few pennies.

I called the 888 number listed on one of the text messages and was greeted with an automated “Thank you for calling mobile support” followed by three-fold menu options for ‘support’, ‘billing’ or to ‘talk to a representative’. I choose option 3, and after a brief wait, was connected to ‘Mark’, a polite-sounding man with an accent sitting in a very crowded room, presumably filled with lots of other ‘Mark’s and ‘Sarah’s and ‘John’s.

“For me to further check on our system we need your mobile number,” he said.

“Sorry,” I said. “I’ve already unsubscribed to your text messages and I don’t want to give you my number again. I don’t know how you got ahold of it in the first place — I don’t sign up for those text message things.”

“I’ll need your mobile number to determine how to help you with our services.”

“So there’s no way you can tell me how you ended up with my mobile number?”

“I’m sorry. To further check I’ll need to check your mobile number in our system.”

“Well. Have a good day then.”

At that was that. At least I got my $20 back.

If you’ve gotten one of these text messages and call your mobile provider to check for any rogue charges, be sure to tell them the short code — the five or six digit number the text came from — and let them know that you are absolutely not an idiot and wouldn’t even think about signing up for one of these “services” ever in a million and one years.

Update: Again with the charges!

3/30 — I looked at our AT&T account again today to see if we picked up any data or messaging charges while abroad and lo and behold… another scam subscription.

Here’s the latest offender, something called Pictavision from the Cellfish Media, which we are alleged to have picked up from the AT&T AppCenter. We both have iPhones. We don’t have AT&T AppCenter. Cellfish bills itself as a “mobile marketing and mobile publishing” company, and they’re known for such hits as NBA Fancam and surreptitiously attaching $3.99 subscriptions to your wireless bill.

Pictavision Cellfish Media scam subscription charges

Here’s where it starts to get a little (more) goofy. This scam was associated with my wife’s number, which we apparently didn’t check when I called AT&T the first time. This subscription goes back a while, further than AT&T’s online records will dig into.

The AT&T representative I spoke to this time was not as concerned about the subscription, or refunding my money, since it predated any recent scam text message activity.

Here’s where I start to get a little angry with AT&T

The section that holds the information about these phone charges is several levels deep in their online account management, and even then it’s only listed as the un-itemized line item “Mobile Purchases & Downloads Charges”. This is followed by this addendum…

(See the Mobile Purchases & Downloads Charges section of the bill for a list of individual charges.)

… with no link.

By the way, the best place to check all of these subscriptions out is at http://att.com/db, although I’ve since lost the place on the AT&T website where I originally found that link.1

The representative then directed me to call the 800 number listed on the subscription line item. Wary of ringing up another dingy call center, I declined that offer, asking if anything could be done on AT&T’s end. She said no, not beyond making sure there was indeed a subscription block on the second number. Then as we were finishing up our conversation, and the representative again told me that I needed to contact that 800 number to cancel the subscription, I stumbled upon another small bit of text: Dial 611 from your mobile phone or call 1-800-331-0500…

AT&T’s own customer service number is listed as the contact point on that subscription. Sigh.

The bottom line

In a perfect world, AT&T would be more interested in keeping customers happy than scraping a few extra dollars off of unwitting customers. I certainly take responsibility for not knowing about that subscription, especially since it’s more than a year old. However, the carrier doesn’t make it very obvious where these subscriptions are while viewing your wireless bill online, something they practically beg you do you exclusively by “going paperless”.

The practice is by no means a new one, and its a small pittance for the company to pay to keep a customer service rep around to issue the odd refund.

That said, the right things for AT&T to do, along with every other carrier, are to:

  1. Immediately suspend any company’s short code if they engage in cramming. And, while you’re at it, stop cramming your own products down your own customer’s bills. Ten days ago, Verizon agreed to end third-party charges for its landline customers, a $2 billion industry, according to Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.).

During the past five years, phone companies billed more than $10 billion in third-party charges, and a large percentage appeared to be unauthorized, the committee found.

  1. Make third-party subscriptions very visible and very descriptive on your account statement.

  2. Act as the customer’s advocate. Imagine if someone called you out of the blue and said, “Hey, we’ve found a way for you to cut your phone bill by $5. There’s a subscription on your account that you haven’t been using and we wanted to make sure you knew about it.” Instant goodwill.

Bottom line, check your phone bill, report the text messages as spam, double check that your number is on the National Do Not Call Registry, and if you discover one of these charges, don’t hesitate to call your carrier and ask for your money back.

Link List #2012-002: “Big Data”

The Information Age is just getting started. Welcome to Big Data.

A massive project at the Obama campaign is mining data to target potential voters in very detailed ways, linking “once completely separate repositories of information so that every fact gathered about a voter is available to every arm of the campaign.” The campaign also has a text analysis project to help determine voters’ hopes and fears.

Minority Report much? Santa Cruz, Calif. is among a number of cities using data to reduce crime, an approach called predictive policing.

Dutch airline KLM has begun testing a program that allows passengers to upload details from the Facebook or LinkedIn profiles, and then use that data to choose more compatible seat mates. (via NextDraft)

And finally, Target can tell when you’re pregnant based on a massive analysis of purchase data. Why? Pregnancies — along with some other major life events — are among the few times that one’s shopping habits become a little more flexible.

Hardball!

When I was but a wee lad, my dad had a Macintosh Plus. My first memory of computing was playing a “clicking” game, which, in fact, was the tutorial that came with the Mac to teach its new owners how to use a mouse.1 It was great fun, or seemed like it when you’re three or four years old and that’s about all you can remember, that there was a mouse clicking program.

My second computing memory is playing Hardball!

Hardball! by Accolade

Gosh I loved this game.2 Even after I’d moved along to more complicated fare like Hellcats Over the Pacific3 or SimCity4 , I’d still pull out that Mac Plus — tucked away in the garage’s cold storage, comfortably resting in the plush carrying case, because it deserved it, you know — and dig out the Hardball! disk, hope that the 800K floppy drive wasn’t going to act up, and play in the big leagues for an afternoon.

The Champs! The All-Stars! 5 Moose Lorenzen! The flag jerkily waving in the wind just beyond the scoreboard.

Hardball! was developed by Bob Whitehead and published by Accolade in 1985 on a remarkable number of platforms,6 but the Mac only saw the first two versions.

The original Hardball! was greyscale pixel art at its finest. The texture of the brick fall faded from left to right, the sun shining brighter on the coach hanging out in the dugout and I tried to deduce the location of the pitch quick enough, following the catcher’s disembodied hand.

It was 330’ to the foul poles and 400’ to straight-away center. Man, could Moose hit the ball hard. If the ball leapt of Moose’s bat and only had time for three frames of animation before the game switched to the field view, you knew it was certainly a home run.

Being the geeky kid I was, I remember setting out some printer paper and building my own imaginary, professional baseball league, myself as commissioner-manager of the Lake Vermilion Walleyes, probably. I played my team’s games live, Hardball! as the proxy, while the rest of the league was determined by opposing rolls of dice. I’m pretty sure I took home the pennant that season. I distinctly remember one game, I was down two runs in the bottom of the ninth, two men on, two outs — a classic scenario, to be sure — except this time the pitcher was at the plate. All seemed lost, at least until the pitcher connected on fastball and hit a dinger that would’ve made Moose blush. Crack! Outta here! Game over. The fat lady has sung.

I ran out of the garage office and screamed a few laps around house in excitement.

I might have to see if that Mac Plus is still tucked away in the attic7 the next time I visit home.

She’s faking it

You’ve outdone yourself this time, health.com listicle writer.