First of all, that used phone you’re thinking about buying – the one on Craigslist going for a ridiculously low price – is almost certainly stolen. You know that. We all know it.

Yet if you’re intent on buying a used phone – and don’t want to buy a hot one – the wireless industry has just given you a new tool that will allow you to be reasonably confident that the phone hasn’t been reported stolen lost.

From a CTIA press release:

CTIA, the U.S. wireless industry association, today announced the launch of a new tool www.stolenphonechecker.org to provide consumers with free one stop access to determine if a used or refurbished smartphone has been reported as stolen or lost.

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Is it possible that a writer at The Onion has previously toiled as a network engineer … or systems administrator? He or she at least did their homework to produce a “story” headlined: “Network Engineer Would Be Systems Manager If He Could Do It All Over Again.”

From the “story.”

Reflecting wistfully on what he might have made of himself had he chosen a different profession, Dynatrend Solutions network engineer Alan Miller said Wednesday that he would be a systems manager if he had the chance to go back and do it all over again.

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As a regular reader of Reddit’s section devoted to system administration, I have come to understand that subject lines such as “Found a leaky ethernet port” do no always mean what one might assume they mean. Today’s example:

“This is going to be a fun couple of days,” bemoans the Redditor who discovered this leak. “It's been raining for two days straight and it's expected to continue for another two.”

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For the first time in history, U.S. households with landlines – such as mine -- are now in the minority, according to survey numbers from a federal government report released this morning.

From that report issued by the National Center for Health Statistics:

The second 6 months of 2016 was the first time that a majority of American homes had only wireless telephones. Preliminary results from the July–December 2016 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) indicate that 50.8% of American homes did not have a landline telephone but did have at least one wireless telephone (also known as cellular telephones, cell phones, or mobile phones) —an increase of 2.5 percentage points since the second 6 months of 2015.

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Free is free and it’s probable that even the well-to-do of Manchester-by-the-Sea, Mass., would rather have a free year’s worth of Amazon Prime – retail: $99 per year – than not have a free year’s worth of Amazon Prime.

But it would be difficult to find a less needy population for such a gift.

Nevertheless, Amazon announced today that it is bestowing the free year – plus some free popcorn – upon the town to mark the streaming release on Prime of the Oscar-winning movie, yes, you guessed it, “Manchester-by-the-Sea.”

From a press release:

“Oscar winning ‘Manchester by the Sea’ is coming to Prime Video on May 5, and we wanted customers in the town to enjoy popcorn and a movie on us,” said Greg Hart, Vice President of Amazon Video, worldwide. “Manchester by the Sea is a masterpiece representing the best of cinematic storytelling. In other words, it is wicked awesome.”

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“Wake up!” the good folks a Merriam-Webster just tweeted. “Sheeple is in the dictionary now.”

Merriam-Webster via Twitter

And while the induction of such casual slang is sure to offend some, none will likely take great umbrage than Apple zealots, whose zealotry is cited by the dictionary as an example of the proper use of the word.

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The question occurs: What will happen if I cancel Verizon’s “Non-Published Service,” which for a ridiculously unjustifiable fee of $5.25 a month keeps my landline unlisted and my time at home almost entirely uninterrupted by scammers and robocalls.

If I cancel this alleged “service,” will Verizon really punish me by publishing my number – unlisted now for 10 years – against my will and even if I first ask politely that they not do so?

I know what you’re thinking: Of course, they will, they’re not only a cold-hearted corporation, they’re a carrier, for crying out loud. I, too, figure they will treat me like a shop owner who refuses to pay protection money: “Nice quiet dinnertimes you have going there; would be a shame if something happened to them.” But you never know for sure until you ask, right?

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MIT is selling half of its 16 million valuable IPv4 addresses – an increasingly scarce stash it has held since the birth of the Internet. While details of the sale have not been made public, at least some of those addresses have already been transferred to Amazon.

MIT says it will use the proceeds of the sale to finance its own IPv6 network upgrades and “support activities focused on the future of the Internet and the global cyber-infrastructure.”

From an announcement by Next Generation MITnet.

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News this morning that former New England Patriots player Aaron Hernandez reportedly had committed suicide sent the murderer’s name to the top of Twitter’s “trending” list. Clicking on it brought back a string of tweets that was positively littered with graphic pornography.

Twitter

How much porn? I reported and blocked at least a half-dozen tweets and my rough estimate would be that about 1 in 50 were obscene (the flow has since receded to a trickle). I have been a daily, heavy user of Twitter since 2008 and this is by no means the first time I have encountered porn there. And, yes, it has previously been noticeable in instances where fast-breaking news makes the trending list. However, today’s deluge was by far the most concentrated and, well, offensive.   

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I have read a dozen or more Stephen King books over the years, but ‘It’ – the one upon which an upcoming movie is based and named -- is not among them. So I could relate right away to this observation posted to the section of Reddit devoted to sysadmins:

“I keep seeing posts and advertisements for the movie IT. Every time, I think of it as I-T and have to reread it. … Is it just me?”

No, it’s not just you. And, speaking at least for myself, this isn’t the first time I’ve been momentarily confused by an uppercase IT. My mind reads that as “an acronym for information technology,” not “the creepy clown from a Stephen King novel,” or any other meaning more commonly attached to the word it.

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You might think that a pickpocket skilled enough to steal 100 cellphones, pictured above, would also be savvy enough to know that at least the iPhones in that haul carry a means to foil his caper.

Then again, you might be giving the crook too much credit.

From a story on the website of a Boston television station:

A New York man was arrested at the Coachella music festival in Southern California after he was found with more than 100 stolen cellphones, according to Indio police.

During the concert festival on Friday, several people noticed their phones were missing and immediately activated the "Find My Phone" feature on their mobile devices.

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Here in Hopkinton, Mass., this morning, 15 fewer runners – cheaters, actually -- are gathering for the start of the Boston Marathon than would have otherwise, thanks to the cyber-sleuthing efforts of an Ohio business analyst.

Derek Murphy has made it his business to purge marathoning and, in particular, the Boston competition, of those who by hook, crook – or writing a check – seek to run as official entrants without having done the training to produce a legitimate qualifying time.

From a story posted Saturday in Runner’s World.

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The attorney general of Massachusetts has taken the abstraction of online privacy and brought it into  crystal clear focus by barring a Boston advertising agency from targeting anti-abortion ads at the cellphones of women the moment they arrive at reproductive health facilities.

From a story in the Boston Globe:

“You Have Choices,” one message said. Others offered “Pregnancy Help,’’ and assured recipients, “You’re Not Alone,” according to Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey, who on Tuesday announced a legal action that alleged the ads illegally used consumer health data.

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It’s a standard line of inquiry by sportswriters that until now has always generated answers straight out of the Crash Davis school of interview banalities.

Question: “How do you feel about the way you’re being used?”

Answer: “I’ll do anything to help the team; anything the (manager/coach) wants.”

For emphasis you may hear the athlete express a willingness to carry equipment or staff a concession stand or the like.

Then we have Sports Illustrated asking Cleveland Indians All-Star relief pitcher Andrew Miller about last year’s postseason, which saw manager Terry Francona not only calling upon Miller in virtually every game but often for multiple innings, a workload considered barbaric by today’s standards. Miller doesn’t see himself being used quite so often during this just-begun 162-game regular season, but adds:

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The White House announced Friday that come this summer it will be issuing commemorative safety glasses in anticipation of the Aug. 21 total solar eclipse, an extraordinarily rare event that will cast a rolling 60-mile wide swath of daytime darkness from Oregon cross-country to South Carolina.

Emphasizing the danger of viewing a solar eclipse without protective eyewear (NASA explains), these safety glasses will come emblazoned with the slogan, “Make America Safe Again,” the choice of which need not be explained.

The glasses will cost $9.95, with “100% of the proceeds going to charity,” according to a White House press release that included a photo of President Trump modeling a pair (above).

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The biggest names in technology are among 185 companies urging Congress to ignore a line item in the Trump Administration’s proposed budget that would entirely defund the Legal Services Corporation, a non-profit organization that has provided civil legal assistance to the poor since 1974.

The letter to Congress reads:

The undersigned 185 leaders of corporate legal departments across the country write to urge you to support the preservation of the Legal Services Corporation (LSC) and provide funding at a level of $450 million for FY 2018, which would be consistent with the appropriation received in FY2010, adjusted for inflation. As the cornerstone of equal justice in America, LSC creates a level playing field for the many lower and moderate- income families who cannot afford a lawyer. By upholding the fundamental American promise of liberty and justice for all, the minimal investment in LSC generates a significant positive return for business and for the health of individuals and communities across the nation.

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The rush by Republicans in Congress to kill still-pending Obama-era rules that would put curbs on the ability of ISPs to collect and sell our personal Internet usage data has been met with howls of protest from privacy advocates and citizens.

And the outrage is no wonder, as the idea of our browsing habits and histories being hawked to the highest bidder is an affront to any understanding of personal privacy rights.

It’s also an affront to public opinion, as a Pew Research Center Survey last year shows:

• 93% of adults say that being in control of who can get information about them is important; 74% feel this is “very important,” while 19% say it is “somewhat important.”
• 90% say that controlling what information is collected about them is important—65% think it is “very important” and 25% say it is “somewhat important.”

Despite such overwhelming public sentiment, Republican majorities in both the House and Senate have voted in recent days to scuttle the privacy protections authorized last October by the Federal Communications Commission, protections that were scheduled to take effect later this year. That FCC measure passed on a 3-2 party-line vote, with then-Chairman Tom Wheeler and two fellow Democratic appointees in the majority, and current Chairman Ajit Pai and fellow Republican Michael O’Reilly opposed.

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Yesterday’s post about the relative tweeting habits of President Trump and his son-in-law Jared Kushner has inadvertently gotten swept up in a widely reported yet apparently false allegation that Kushner has recently deleted all his tweets, allegedly out of concern over what they might reveal relative to Russian interference in November’s election.

And while I am loath to defend anyone on Team Trump, the alleged mass deletion of tweets did not happen, at least according to the indispensable Internet Archive Wayback Machine, which has screen captures of Kushner’s Twitter page dating back to 2014. Those screen captures show that Kushner only tweeted three times – in 2011 and about innocuous matters. And while those tweets are indeed no longer visible on Kushner’s verified Twitter account, they haven’t been documented there since March 5, 2014.

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Actually, he tweets nothing.

President Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, plays a key role in the administration and is featured in a pair of big news headlines just today – his leading a special task force featuring tech industry luminaries,  and his pending testimony before a Senate committee investigating Russian meddling in November’s election.

(UPDATE: No, Kushner did not just delete all his tweets.)

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From time to time – very infrequently, to be more precise – I will ignore my better judgment and reenable Flash in Chrome so that I can watch a particularly enticing cat video or whatever.

I would do this more often, however, if more companies followed the lead of FedEx and offered me $5 just for doing so. Really, look:

FedEx

OK, it’s $5 off a purchase of $30 or more, but still seems like a good deal … unless you forget to deactivate Flash when you’re done.

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A “Top News” tweet from TechCrunch, pictured above, informs me that Alaska Airlines is killing off Virgin America … and Richard Branson?

Clicking through reveals a less gruesome reality.

TechCrunch

If you’re interested in Alaska Airlines’ reasoning, which does not threaten Richard Branson, here is a company blog post.

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The FCC this morning voted 3-0 to give carriers new regulatory cover to combat annoying and oftentimes fraudulent robocalls. The decision backs an ongoing effort begun last year with the establishment of a special government/industry task force.

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai called today’s Notice of Proposed Rulemaking “an important first step in ending the scourge of robocalls.”

Specifically, the new rules would assure carriers that they are allowed to block calls originating from unassigned numbers and other obvious attempts at fraud such as numbers using 411 or 911 as an area code.

In October the FCC reported that a trial of one such anti-spoofing measure cut IRS scam robocalls by 90 percent.

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As The 21^st Century Encryption Wars continue with no end in sight, security experts Bruce Schneier and Orin Kerr have collaborated on a paper that seeks to establish a common understanding of one aspect of the clash: encryption workarounds.  

The authors consciously avoid policy recommendations, but rather hope to better the understanding of those who will do so in our political and law enforcement arenas.

From the paper’s abstract:

The widespread use of encryption has triggered a new step in many criminal investigations: the encryption workaround. We define an encryption workaround as any lawful government effort to reveal an unencrypted version of a target's data that has been concealed by encryption. This essay provides an overview of encryption workarounds. It begins with a taxonomy of the different ways investigators might try to bypass encryption schemes. We classify six kinds of workarounds: find the key, guess the key, compel the key, exploit a flaw in the encryption software, access plaintext while the device is in use, and locate another plaintext copy. For each approach, we consider the practical, technological, and legal hurdles raised by its use.

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Whether strictly the creation of an algorithm run amok or an inexplicable human error, Google News right now is demonstrating the kind of news judgment that has made it one of the company’s weakest products … and may well speak to the state of our celebrity-worshipping society.

As Congress simultaneously holds hearings on Russian interference in last year’s presidential election and the pending confirmation of a justice to the United States Supreme Court, topping both stories in terms of importance, at least according to Google News, is the recovery of Tom Brady’s missing Super Bowl jerseys.

Google News

I’ve been a Patriots fan longer than I’ve been a journalist and I’ve been both for longer than I’d like to admit. This is nuts.  

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No wonder people from Massachusetts get called that name we all find kind of amusing but I still shouldn’t print on this website for networking professionals.

The Massachusetts State Police posted the above photo to Facebook a few hours ago, along with this admonishment:

Soooo..... this just happened.

Trooper Paul Copponi just stopped this vehicle on the Massachusetts Turnpike in Weston. How little regard do you have to have for the lives and safety of your fellow citizens, not to mention your own life and safety, to do this?

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Put aside the matter of Russian interference in our presidential election to instead consider this scenario: If Vladimir Putin ordered his government-employed hackers to plant spyware on your personal computer – stealing all your data and even recording your Skype calls – you would have no access to any legal remedy in the U.S. court system.

Preposterous, you say?

That’s the law, according to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, which yesterday upheld a lower court decision denying even a day in court to an American citizen who moved here from Ethiopia 30 years ago and was victimized by that country’s government in the exact fashion described above.

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Let’s say you can’t be bothered to fill out one of those basketball forms you’ll see floating around the office this week. You couldn’t care less but want to look like you care. Well, ESPN the website has just the feature for you: “Autofill a bracket.”

Just don’t expect to win anything.

Autofill comes in four different flavors, each guaranteed to produce a filled-in bracket form with one click, and each guaranteed to look nothing like the form filled out by your future office pool winner.

The first option is called “chalk,” which is sports slang for picking the higher-seeded team. You don’t really need any technology to fill out a chalk bracket; just go with the higher seeded team in every single game until you’re done. You could do that with a pen, or pencil if pen seems intimidating. But we’ve already established that you’re lazy, so click chalk. (Spoiler alert: Villanova will be your winner because Villanova is the tournament’s top-seeded team.)

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Having begun my time here covering the late 1990s email/collaboration battles between Lotus Notes/Domino, Microsoft Outlook/Exchange, and, yes, Novell GroupWise, it’s interesting to see IBM, which bought Lotus in 1995, pledging to support Domino and Notes for, well, an open-ended long period of time.

Not surprising, though.    

In a blog post published yesterday, Ed Brill, vice president of product management and design for IBM Collaboration Solutions, laid out the company’s current thinking:

“Notes/Domino 9.0 shipped in 2013, and IBM’s normal five-year support model meant that mainstream support could have ended in 2018. However, we know how important these products are to your business, and we are continuing to invest in new functionality. For IBM Notes/Domino 9.0, we have announced that product support will be extended through at least 2021, and extended support through at least 2024. There is no end of life planned for Notes and Domino, and we will continue to update the timeline for support as appropriate based on future releases and market requirements.”

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A systems administrator was showering the other day (maybe not literally) when he had this thought: “I’ve never actually seen Stack Overflow’s front page. I wonder what percentage of their traffic requests are to simply http://stackoverflow.com.”

As with any knowledge market – and news sites such as this one – most of the traffic to Stack Overflow would be assumed to arrive at addresses other than its homepage. The wondering here was about details. And no one need wonder any longer, as stepping up to the plate is Nick Craver, Stack Overflow Architecture Lead:

Someone poked me for an answer here so here's some data:

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On the campaign trail, candidate Donald Trump was so determined to present himself as the solution to H-1B visa abuse – the kind that has American IT workers training their foreign replacements -- that he promised to launch an investigation of the program on day one of his administration. Not in due time, on day one.

Today is day 43. No investigation has been launched. No changes have been made to the H-1B program. And it’s not clear when or if any will be forthcoming.

That no one should be surprised does not mean no one has taken notice. From a Computerworld story:

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