Minnov8

Showcasing Minnesota Technology Innovation

Mobile Text Message “Cramming” Scam

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Sick with the flu all weekend I’d gone to bed early Sunday night (1/15/12) only to be awakened by two back-to-back text messages arriving on my iPhone. Having been in the internet/web industry since its beginning in the mid-1990s, I instantly recognized the potential for charges from this spammer so I sat up, grabbed my iPad, and started poking around to see if either the shortcode (the “318-50”) or the toll-free 866-861-1606 number was an active scam.

I was stunned to learn it is a scam. Not only that, based upon the sheer volume of complaints I found shows that this is rampant, apparently is seeing little-to-no preemptive action on the part of the wireless carriers, and many, many mobile users are being charged monthly fees. This fraud is commonly known as cramming.

I am writing this post for the express purpose of bringing this issue to your attention and that of Lori Swanson, our State Attorney General, in order to get some action and protect consumers. If *I* can get scammed (and I am VERY cautious, careful and savvy about online scams and still don’t know how my number was discovered). I can only guess how pervasive this is in Minnesota and that it appears the carriers are likely complicit in perpetuating these cramming scams due to conflicts of interest and their subsequent inaction.

THE SCAM
This is a mobile SMS (text message) scam which automatically subscribes the user to a monthly plan, in my case a $9.99 one as you can see from the screenshot to your right. What’s curious is that many people on several complaint forums I discovered recommended replying “STOP” to cancel since that would be an explicit opt-out. In my case I didn’t respond (never do to spam) and instead called AT&T Customer Service.

The charges were applied anyway which, I now know, is a common cramming practice. AT&T removed the charge and I explicitly requested they place a “subscription block” under my parental controls for all phones on my family plan. This part of the adventure burned up 45 minutes of my time.

During my short investigation last night for another 30 minutes, I came across these links to other people who have been victims of cramming from this same provider and have had similar charges:

…and so on and so on. But wait until you see how this cramming is potentially worth tens of millions of dollars per year for the scammers!

…  [Read More…]

Student Led Technology Conference

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Inver Grove Heights Community Schools has an upcoming event that seems so delightful that I had to bring it to you. It’s likely you know of someone who would really enjoy being enlightened about technology by a bunch of students, or perhaps you’d like to attend too and see how these kids have learned to use all the technology this district uses (you can get a sense in this highlights video).

A guy from the Inver Grove Heights Community Schools Office of Communications, Johnny Germscheid, reached out to us here at Minnov8 to tell us about the event. Its focus is about technology, education and breaking down the communication barrier between children and adults. I’m guessing there will be a lot of learning occurring on both sides (student-as-teacher and adult-as-student).

Students in grades K-12 will be teaching adults how to use iPads, iPods, and other devices and software programs. Conference highlights include:

  • Produce and publish an eBook using rich multimedia content.
  • Create a digital scrapbook to capture family memories.
  • Design a webpage or blog to share your story on the web.
  • Find out how to set up and manage your own social networking profile.
  • Collaborate electronically to edit documents in a more efficient manner.
  • Compose original songs to add flavor to your movies.
  • Learn how to get the most out of that new iPad.

This is the second year Inver Grove Heights Community Schools has offered this Student Led Technology Conference. Turns out the Inver Grove Heights school district (ISD 199) was nationally recognized in Washington DC by the Consortium of School Networking (CoSN) this winter for this innovative concept.

The conference is free and open to anyone in the metro, or our entire State for that matter. To check out details about the conference, which takes place on Saturday, February 25th from 8:30am until Noon, visit the event mini-site here.

UnitedHealth Group’s Booth at CES

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The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) is in full swing and UnitedHealth Group (UHG), along with its UnitedHealthcare health benefits and Optum health services businesses, is at CES this year because, as they say on their dedicated “CES Health” innovation showcase website, “…we’re increasingly invested in how the intersection of health and technology is empowering people to take greater control of their everyday health. By giving people the tools to better understand their health and health care, we’re helping them live healthier, happier lives. In short, our innovations are all part of a digital ecosystem we’ve created for health. See these innovations on display in booth #2833 in the North Hall at CES.”

Nick Martin, vice president of innovation and R&D at UnitedHealth Group, gave a quick tour of the booth and some of the innovations within (listed here, by the way):

One thing has surprised both our tech peers in Minnesota as well as we here at Minnov8: Who knew UHG was so active delivering tech innovations? Some of these include: UHC.tv; OptumizeMe (an iPhone/Android app); and Optum’s NowClinic, a virtual Doctor visit/prescribing platform with a corresponding smartphone app.

Might be that these “innovations” are targeted directly at corporate customers and to their respective employees who are under a UHG health plan. It’s interesting that each of their branding, user interfaces and integrations seem to be in separate silos, with no overall direction discernable from their presentation online. Still, it’s good to see a Minnesota employer innovating in the internet and web space.

3M Company supports SOPA

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More than 400 organizations have publicly expressed support of the contentious Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), or the passage of other similar anti-piracy legislation, and we were stunned to see that Minnesota-based 3M Company made the list of those organizations IN FAVOR OF the Stop Online Privacy Act (SOPA) (click that link to get a quick overview of what SOPA is and why you should care).

3M’s support for SOPA came to light in this post at Digital Trends. Viewing the list was enlightening, especially considering the somewhat confusing array of those in favor of legislation that has virtually the entire tech industry — and specifically cybersecurity, internet inventors and internet engineers — lined up against it and the Senate’s version, Protect IP Act.

While it would have been somewhat less stunning to see a list comprised mostly of media companies, those around them like their law firms, and other clueless organizations supporting this act, it seems to make no sense that a company like 3M would even get in to the discussion.

We have reached out to 3M for a response and will publish it if and when we receive it.

Workface Adds Status

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At Minnov8, like most social media-savvy folks, we leverage all the social connection capabilities we can for Facebook, Twitter, and other sharing options. It’s an absolute requirement if your organization is online and you want to be “in the game” with today’s always-on and always-connected workforce.

As a fanboy of Workface (disclaimer: was at one-time a services vendor to them too), I pay attention to pings from the CEO, Lief Larson. He just alerted me to their announcement of the first version of the Workface “Chat Live” status button which is rolling out now.

Huh? You’re doing a post about a “status button” Borsch? Yes, but only because I’m personally connected to organizations who are using the Workface toolbar within their sites and would find this instantly useful. These companies are connecting their folks directly to prospects and customers with a toolbar that makes anyone in customer-facing roles like inside sales, support, community management and other functions immediately available to a site visitor in the Workface toolbar.

Brainerd Savings Sam Horn has her Workface status set for "Online! Chat Now". (click for larger view)

Even though that Workface toolbar can be resident at the bottom of a website at all times, some organizations load it only on specific website pages (e.g., a sales or support page). The problem has been that people are usually listed on one or more company pages, like this first-to-deploy Workface customer did on their team page at Brainerd Savings & Loan. This Status button means that wherever a person is listed on their website anywhere their status can be available to a visitor at the click of a mouse.

This Workface Status button alerts visitors to your website whether or not you’re online. If you’re connected to the internet, it says, “Online! Chat now”. When a visitor clicks on it, they can go directly into live text, audio, or video chat communications with you. It can easily be deployed for one person, or the whole company. When you’re no longer connected to the Internet, the button automatically changes to say, “Send a Message” and then your website visitor can drop you a message.

The entire Workface team is eating-their-own-dog-food and using the new Workface Status button. Check it out at Workface and consider signing up for their service.

Walker Art Center’s Awesome New Website

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Walker Art Center new website (click for larger view)

Earlier this week I had a friend send me a Twitter DM saying, “Man…you MUST check out the new Walker Art Center website.” So I headed over there that evening and spent over an hour reading, poking around and seeing what they’d delivered.

To say I was impressed is an understatement: the design is fresh, exciting to view and the content compelling. The breadth and depth of coverage of art and design quickly shifted my mind toward a completely different place, one of consideration, thought and ideas instead of my typical focus on the tech “flipper-flappers” and “eye candy” of this new website they’d delivered.

Others agree. In his post at ArtInfo “Why the Walker’s new website is a big deal“, Tyler Green calls it a “game changer” since the Walker site is atypical for a museum, usually an informational site intended to lead visitors to the art institution’s building and its exhibits. Instead, argues Green, the site redefines how the Walker sees its role: as both a physical and as a virtual hub.

Walker Art executive director, Olga Viso, wrote this article about their new site, saying in part:

“As the Walker’s name signals, we’re a center: a hub that brings together various pursuits related to contemporary art, from presenting the visual, performing, and media arts of our time to publishing the latest scholarly research; collecting art objects and commissioning new works to hosting artist residencies and convening public discussions about art and ideas. Given these activities—and more importantly, our mission to investigate the questions that shape us and inspire us as individuals, cultures, and communities—I’m excited to introduce our new website, an online hub for ideas about contemporary art and culture, both inside the Walker and beyond.”

Talking about the why of launching such an ambitious site redesign, Viso said, “The intent of the new site is to make visible our role as a generative producer and purveyor of content and broadcast our voice in the landscape of contemporary culture.”

Any downsides or critique? Two, but the first is a biggie and the second not so much.

…  [Read More…]

Heard About The Mass Spying Industry Yet?

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Wikileak’s founder, Julian Assange, made headlines around the world this past week with his presentation on the release of tens of thousands hundreds of documents (with more to be released) outlining that “Mass interception of entire populations is not only a reality, it is a secret new industry spanning 25 countries.”

So that you are able to stay informed about developments that may positively or negatively impact your application development or personal use of technology, you should know about an emerging global industry focused on mass-scale spying on mobile devices, social media, or other internet-based use and so you are encouraged to view the video below and then visit Wikileaks – The Spy Files.

In case you are ready to immediately dismiss this as a “foreign country” problem and that it wouldn’t or couldn’t affect you or your organization, remember the “inadvertent” collection of U.S. citizen’s communications when domestic warrantless wiretapping ensued. In addition, it has been revealed that in January 2011, the National Security Agency broke ground on a $1.5 billion facility in the Utah desert that is designed to store terabytes of domestic and foreign intelligence data forever and process it for years to come.

While it is an imperative that our government intelligence agencies can stay on top of the exponential explosion in online communications and technologies, we’ve quickly learned this week with the CarrierIQ “rootkit scandal” how much we don’t know about what software is on our devices, how the carriers are using their ability to track our location within a few feet of our mobile phones is being used, and whether or not they are automatically storing ALL of our data with open, non-warrant-based analysis by intelligence agencies.

The flip side of this is another issue, one that certainly justifies U.S. expenditures and an acceleration in intelligence agency capability. It is how the stakes are rising QUICKLY on everything happening in cyberspace. As more and more of us shop online, map our businesses and processes to the web, interact socially online and can instantly (and for free) talk with anyone, anywhere on the planet, ensuring that the bad guys in other countries aren’t able to mass vacuum up our data and use it against us is critical to our national defense.

Google’s Schmidt visits CoCoMSP’s Grain Exchange Site

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screengrab from StarTribune video accompanying their article on Google's Eric Schmidt visiting CoCoMSP's facility in the old Minneapolis Grain Exchange

L-R: Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak; CoCo co-founders Kyle Coolbroth & Don Ball; Google Chairman Eric Schmidt (screengrab from StarTribune video on their website article referenced below)

Google’s chairman, Eric Schmidt, paid a visit to CoCoMSP’s Minneapolis Grain Exchange facility on Wednesday, November 30th after his speaking engagement to a small audience at the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey School of Public Affairs.

The StarTribune this morning had a print newspaper Business section front page article by Steve Alexander called, “Face of Google Faces Minneapolis” and the online version in that link has a short video that will give you a good sense of what transpired during his visit to CoCo. It’s well worth a read and the video is short and well done AND it’s a lot easier to see who’s who at the facility (vs. the “Where’s Kyle and Don?” photo in the printed newspaper looking at Schmidt, captured with a sadly goofy look on his face).

The article states, in part:

Later Wednesday, Schmidt appeared with Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak at the small business incubator CoCo Minneapolis, based in the former Minneapolis Grain Exchange, and visited with several local technology entrepreneurs.

Schmidt praised the incubator concept, in which entrepreneurs meet to share office space and ideas, and the city’s role in helping promote it.

Schmidt said it is a better alternative to people working alone out of their homes.

“Distance-working is a disaster,” Schmidt said. “People want to work in a group. People are social.”

Don Ball will be on the Minnov8 Gang podcast which will be recorded Friday morning at 8am CST at the CoCoMSP facility and posted by early afternoon. We’ll talk with Don about what’s new in co-working and, especially, about what transpired during this momentous visit.

Stop the Internet Blacklist

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I normally don’t harvest content en masse from a website, but I honestly didn’t think the SOPA/Protect IP bills would actually make it to the floors in Congress.

It has and the hearings are going on right now but, according to Tim O’Reilly (the tech publisher) on Google+ a moment ago, “This is really important. They aren’t even hearing testimony from opponents of the bill. The “hearings” are a sham, with testimony from supporters only.”

A veritable Who’s Who of tech giants—including Facebook, Google, Twitter, eBay, Yahoo, AOL and Mozilla—explicitly came out against both SOPA and PROTECT-IP in a letter to the ranking members of the House and Senate Judiciary committees

To get you up-to-speed quickly, here’s why this is bad:

Good infographic is here too.

The following came from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF):

Big media and its allies in Congress are billing the Internet Blacklist Legislation as a new way to prevent online infringement. But innovation and free speech advocates know that this initiative is nothing more than a dangerous wish list that will compromise Internet security while doing little or nothing to encourage creative expression.

As drafted, the legislation would grant the government and private parties unprecedented power to interfere with the Internet’s domain name system (DNS). The government would be able to force ISPs and search engines to redirect or dump users’ attempts to reach certain websites’ URLs. In response, third parties will woo average users to alternative servers that offer access to the entire Internet (not just the newly censored U.S. version), which will create new computer security vulnerabilities as the reliability and universality of the DNS evaporates.

It gets worse: Under SOPA’s provisions, service providers (including hosting services) would be under new pressure to monitor and police their users’ activities. While PROTECT-IP targeted sites “dedicated to infringing activities,” SOPA targets websites that simply don’t do enough to track and police infringement (and it is not at all clear what would be enough). And it creates new powers to shut down folks who provide tools to help users get access to the Internet the rest of the world sees (not just the “U.S. authorized version”).

WHAT CAN YOU DO? Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) has placed a hold on the Senate version of the bill, taking a principled stand against a very dangerous bill. But every Senator and Representative should be opposing the PROTECT IP Act and SOPA. Contact our members of Congress now to speak out!

Senator Office Phone Fax Email
Senator Amy Klobuchar (D- MN) 202-224-3244 202-228-2186 http://klobuchar.senate.gov/emailamy.cfm
Senator Al Franken (D- MN) 202-224-5641 202-224-0044 http://www.franken.senate.gov/?p=email_al


Big Healthcare Data

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Datuit is an innovative software company that is developing a new platform for creating, storing, and managing healthcare data. The firm is taking advantage of federal regulations to drive demand for this technology which will allow patients, clinicians, and even patients to securely integrate and analyze healthcare information.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) was a major stimulus initiative enacted by the 111th United States Congress and signed into law in 2009 by President Obama. The primary objectives to this law were focused on immediate objectives in saving and creating jobs. The secondary goal was to provide short-term relief programs to industries decimated by the recession and also to provide investments in areas like health, infrastructure, education, and ‘green’ energy initiatives.

The healthcare industry received 19.1% percent of the $787 billion in funding at the time this was signed into legislation. The largest allocation of these funds within healthcare went to Medicaid funding, which was followed by health information technology (HIT) investments and incentive payments. For example, these federal guidelines will provide incentives for clinics to meet meaningful use thresholds. Among other things, this would require clinics to adopt structured documents whenever feasible and ubiquitous patient access to self management tools. …  [Read More…]