From the category archives:

rant

Dear Curves: respect your client and employee data [UPDATE]

by Adam on June 28, 2008

Original post removed on 7/5 due to threat of legal action by the owner of the Curves franchise but I don’t like being censored so I have decided to put the original post back and reopen comments.

I have a new policy: I will not remove posts because people don’t like them

After speaking with the owner I believe that the Curves in question takes this matter (data security) very seriously and that a similar situation will likely not take place. I believe that this was an isolated oversight and that the owners have learned a valuable lesson.

I should clear some things up:

  • Beyond the phone numbers and addresses contained in the letters (WordPerfect docs) there was no other data found on the system.
  • The Curves database was encrypted and NO EFFORT was made to circumvent this encryption; no billing information (if any existed) was exposed.
  • I was slightly misquoted on The Consumerist - no credit card information was found. My original post pointed out the potential for billing information to be found based off information I read on the iGo software.
  • The hard drive was wiped (by me) using DBAN and no copies of the data exist.
  • Upon request demand of the owner the computer (and hard drive) were returned to them.

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TBS and Their Crap Commericials

by Adam on June 4, 2008

I was going to post a rant about TBS interrupting my “Family Guy” reruns in a pathetic attempt to advertise the “Bill Engvall Show” but Jason Kottke did a fine job of it:

They paused the TV show, ran a little mini-commercial for some show that no one cares about, and then returned to the last two seconds of the segment before going to commercial.

Not only did they do this just a few seconds before going to an actual commercial, they did this in the middle of the show as well.

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Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of Crap

by Adam on June 1, 2008

Indiana Jones

Not normally a movie critic, I don’t listen to movie critics… I prefer to see the movie and make my own conclusion and let others make theirs. Movies are art and therefore subject to one’s individual interpretation… I determined a long time ago that it’s pointless to try to convince someone a movie is good or a movie is bad, doesn’t mean I don’t try though…
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Six Degrees Could Change - Hummer

by Adam on February 12, 2008

Watched National Geographic’s “Six Degrees Could Change the World” last night (actual air date was Sunday) which was all well and good, really nothing new. If you’ve seen “An Inconvenient Truth” or have not been in a hole for the past few years it goes over the same climate changes and doomsday scenarios we could face if global warming is curtailed. Of course there was an emphasis on breaking our dependence on fossil fuels, clean energy and conservation. The irony of the program was the commercials - I didn’t count but I’m pretty sure just about every single commercial break had a Hummer ad. So on one side we have National Geographic telling us if we don’t do something about global warming the world is going to change for the bad and on the other National Geographic is allowing the peddling one of the most obnoxious, fossil fuel dependent cars on the road.

This seems like a bad move on Hummer’s part more than anything, did they seriously expect people to go out and buy a Hummer after watching a program like “Six Degrees Could Change the World”? Were they not clear on the premise of the show?

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