So all parents cherish a child’s first…first steps, first words, first day of kindergarten, first scam. Wait…first what?! Yes, a six year old child scammed Amazon. Six year old vs Amazon: cute or warning sign?
So let me explain. For her sixth birthday, her mom let little Caitlyn order a Barbie doll from her mother’s account. She did. But this was when mommy was watching. However, she asked her mom could she look and track the Barbie’s package. This is when Caitlyn found the ‘add the cart’ button. Not only did she find it, but she used it. And she used it a lot.
Because the next day, one box didn’t arrive at their Utah house. Several of them did. In fact, imagine the shock on mom’s face when she saw several boxes on her stoop. The total came out to $350. The content not only included the Barbie, but other toys and video games. Caitlyn’s older cousin, Ria, posted a picture of the child posing with a smirk on her face and crossed arms on Twitter. Ria talked about how her cousin bought over $300 worth of toys without her parents finding out. So what happened to Caitlyn? According to Ria, she wasn’t punished, but they returned all the toys Caitlyn ordered except for the Barbie.
Caitlyn’s episode isn’t a unique one. I’m reading several incidents on Twitter where kids are using the easy add to cart and pay buttons to buy to the max. This is a huge flaw for the world’s largest IT service company. In our Boston computer service shop, while searching for a part for a computer repair job, I accidentally pressed the purchase button for the wrong part. Luckily, I was able to correct the issue. But what if a professional adult scammer sees this and goes to town with your credit/debit card Amazon already has on file? Six year old vs Amazon: Cute or warning sign? If it is a warning sign, then what should we do about it?
So you think the US had a good IT support week last week? China had it a little better. Here is China’s wonderful week of IT service.
So, do you know what an E-class supercomputer is? It’s a computer that can match, maybe even exceed, neurons in the human brain. Basically, that means this computer can make hundreds of? trillions of calculations per second. China is on it’s way to completing this supercomputer. In fact, they may be already there. Because they announced their supercomputer Tianhe #3 will be the world’s fastest supercomputer by 2020. They make no bones about it. China wants to break away from America’s dependency on US computers. Will they? Should that concern us if they do?
But wait. Because there is more. Alibaba, the Amazon of China, is now getting into the education profession. This is because they’re creating a new generation of e-commerce workers they can have all to themselves. Also, some of these efforts won’t even come from China. Some will come from neighbors, like Malaysia and Vietnam. This is because these nations are huge supporters of Alibaba, one way or another. So far, they trained over 7,000 people from ten nations. They’re also training businesses.
So what? Why am I writing about China in a Boston, MA, USA computer service shop? China is not only one of our biggest partner, but our competitors as well. Well, thanks to the tariffs, they may be more of a competitor than a partner. It also looks like they’re trying to be more of a competitor and less of a partner. The Chinese leaders themselves said they’re doing this to break away from America, and the American computer systems. Is that why Alibaba is in such a hurry to train more workers? Is that the reason of China’s wonderful week of IT service?
So a few days ago, I saw something on the news that made me sad. A college professor making $100,000 has to sleep in her car. It’s because she can’t afford a place to live in San Jose. San Francisco area’s housing crisis is affecting everybody, including IT service employees.
In the greater San Francisco area, buying a home is impossible for many in the IT support and computer tech industry. This includes those working for big name companies. In fact, 59% of all tech workers in that area can’t afford a home. Then, another stat says a person making $110,000 a year or less in the San Francisco/Silicon Valley area is below the poverty line. No tech company is immune. Even employees from Facebook, Apple and Google are struggling.
The average price for a San Francisco home is $1.6 million. The super rich often bid hundreds of thousands or pay cash altogether. Therefore, many software engineers or tech managers can’t afford housing in Silicon Valley. In fact, only 12% of Silicon Valley/San Francisco residents can afford a their own home. Only 49% of Google employees say they can afford homes, and they’re faring the best. But here is the irony. Apple just became a trillion dollar company. Yet, only 37% of Apple employees in this area say they can afford homes.
People are leaving these areas because of San Francisco area’s housing crisis. In fact, whole tech companies are leaving because of the Silicon Valley area’s housing crisis. They’re moving to Seattle, Denver, Raleigh, NC, and yes, our Greater Boston area. But San Francisco and Silicon Valley are losing more citizens than any other metro area in America right now. Even more than crime ridden Chicago. It’s causing havoc on the streets, to the point where downtown streets are littered with heroin needles and human urine and feces. Keep in mind this was once one of the most beautiful and treasured cities in America. But now, it’s come to this. Yet, they’re celebrating because they banned straws! However, they can’t seem to find housing for their citizens, even those in computer repair. Are their priorities out of whack?
So this weekend has been a bad one for Infowars and it’s host, Alex Jones. If you don’t know what Infowars is, it’s a controversial right-wing alternative media platform. Infowars vs social media: A free speech threat?
First, Facebook punished Infowars. They got rid of four of their podcasts in the last week. Then, they gave Alex Jones a 30-day ban from Facebook altogether. That’s just Jones’ page, but the Infowars page goes on as normal, except for these four episodes. But this punishment is for, “repeated violations of community standards”. Also, one Facebook leader accuses these pages of ‘glorifying violence and using language to dehumanize others’.
You Tube did the same thing Facebook did recently. Then there is Apple, who took the strongest stance of them all. Because Apple removed all Infowars and Alex Jones content altogether. The only one they left was, ‘Real News with David Knight’. Apple says they used hate speech and violated their policies. One Apple spokesperson said, “Apple does not tolerate hate speech, and we have clear guidelines that creators and developers must follow to ensure we provide a safe environment for all of our users”. We don’t know when, or if, Apple will let them back again. Don’t hold your breath.
Infowars has caused? controversy for around 20 years. They claimed the government knew, and even helped plot the 9/11 attacks. They also claimed mass shootings like Sandy Hook in 2012 and San Bernadino in 2015 were conspiracy theories. It got so bad that Sandy Hook families are suing. This is Infowars vs social media. Personally, I don’t like the things Infowars or Alex Jones says. But there is concern here. What are they going to call hate speech? Is every IT service company going to wipe people out because they say something they don’t like? Will a little blogger like me in my computer repair shop be punished because I offended somebody? That is the real fear. Because I’ve had Facebook friends be put in ‘Facebook jail’ even for the slightest thing these days. Is this punishing haters? Or is this a free speech threat?
Yesterday, Apple made not only IT support history, but American history. So you think a $100 billion bushiness is good? It may be, but there’s a new standard in town now. Apple is worth a trillion dollars.
Apple is the first company in American history to have capital value of over one trillion dollars. We can also thank the latest quarter earnings for this. Furthermore, Apple passed stockbrokers’ expectations of sales. Then they have high hopes for the months ahead, you know, back to school season, then holiday shopping season. Yesterday, all this good new pushed stocks to over $207 a share. An noon yesterday, Eastern time, Apple officially became a trillion dollar company.
But it’s not the first global company to do this. PetroChina, a Chinese big oil firm, crossed the trillion dollar mark back in 2007. However, not only did it not stay there, but PetroChina’s worth soon nosedived. By the end of 2008, at the Great Recession’s height, their net worth fell to $260 billion. But that is PetroChina. This is Apple. I think trillion dollar mark isn’t based on previous sales, but on speculation. Rumors say 3 new iPhones are coming out in the near future. Apple lovers also look forward to a new Apple watch and iPad Pro that might be coming out. Look at the nouns and verbs…rumors, look forward, might be.
What I’m saying is this feat isn’t really based on anything tangible. That is a dangerous position to put yourself in, especially if you’re a mega company like Apple. So if I were an Apple executive or stockholder, or even a loyal Apple consumer, I wouldn’t be popping any champagne if I were you. I’m already seeing Apple stocks are down slightly, not even 1%. But more to the point, Apple is worth a trillion dollars. Mostly based on hopes and dreams. It could come true? But what if they don’t? Also, Amazon could make the trillion dollar worth mark before too long. Is this an IT support watershed moment? Or is this a disappointment just waiting to happen?
So there are many things to talk about,as usual. But I think this episode will resonate with all of us. Because we all fly, and fortunately, I only fly a couple of times a year. American Airlines glitch exposes fragile system.
Yesterday, American Airlines grounded all their flights. However, this wasn’t because of weather, terrorism or crime. It was due to a computer glitch and IT service failure. They felt the outage nationwide. This is especially true in their busy airports, like Chicago O’Hare and Minneapolis/St. Paul. You can bet, it didn’t take long before complaints flew and tempers flared.
But there is some good news. This IT support outage didn’t last very long. The operating system and dispatch went out around 2:05 yesterday EST. However, by 2:45 EST, they fixed the problems and all operations ran as normal. They also did a good job coordinating with the FAA to handle this ground stoppage. One more piece of good news. They didn’t have to cancel any flights because of this. In fact, they only delayed nine flights because of this stoppage. And from what I’m reading, there was no physical violence or incidents or uprisings in the wake of this glitch.
So what? Why do I write about this? To show you how the American Airlines glitch exposes a fragile system. Yes, it only lasted 40 minutes, thank goodness.? I do applaud American Airlines and the FAA for correcting the problem quickly before it got out of hand. But during the glitch, there was no way the passengers could have know that. For all they knew, this could have lasted for hours. I hate to say it, but American Airlines passengers got lucky yesterday. In recent years, a lot of airline glitches got a lot worse. Not only that, what if somebody hacks into the system and holds it for ransom? I’m not trying to scare anybody. But the airline industry and the government needs to do something prevent, or at least minimize, these glitches. But what though?
