The troubles with the Obamacare website offer this side benefit: consumers are learning a lot about the debate between “waterfall vs. agile” software development. During the next several weeks, we’ll probably learn about Brooks’ Law, too. I wish we were learning the word “pretotype.” And perhaps, we’ll learn about The [Keep reading]
When the Justice Department announced last week that it had indicted a Vietnamese national for allegedly masterminding an identity theft marketplace, it left out a crucial detail — where suspect Hieu Minh Ngo obtained the data dossiers he sold on 500,000 victims during a five-year crime spree. Thanks to security [Keep reading]
Surprisingly, the largest government computer systems integration in history isn’t going very well. Who would have predicted that? Imagine if Amazon’s checkout required 47 steps…and you couldn’t see a price before you finished those steps. That includes the most personal of personal information, and questions consumers you can’t readily answer. [Keep reading]
Puppy mills have attracted a lot of attention recently, with many states passing high-profile laws designed to make inhumane breeders clean up their act of get out of the business. But as we all know, passing a law can be a meaningless gesture. If a society is judged by [Keep reading]
What will happen this week if the U.S. government has maxed out its credit cards, as is expected to occur on Thursday? Here’s the truth: No one really knows. It’s quite likely Oct. 17 will come and go and no one will notice. Markets may yawn that day, and Americans [Keep reading]
Twitter has changed a major privacy setting, but it’s done so in the right way. It’s now possible for strangers to send private messages to users, making the service more like e-mail or text messaging. But by default, nothing has changed, so users have to take a step to do something [Keep reading]
Facebook and Google both announced huge changes with major privacy implications in the past 48 hours. Once again, both companies have made subtle steps designed to erode your privacy to benefit their invasive business models. Here’s what happened: Facebook made it easier for strangers to search for you and find [Keep reading]
Jim Mathes took one bad step out of his apartment in early September and wrenched his back. The pain was so intense he had to crawl back inside on all fours. He needed medical care, but there was no chance he could get himself down three flights of stairs to [Keep reading]
In most states, it’s illegal to over-serve patrons in bars. A law proposed in Michigan would make it illegal to under-serve them, too. The legislation would ban bars and restaurants from delivering anything less than 16 ounces when a customer orders a “pint” of beer. There’s no research to suggest [Keep reading]
Now that fall has fully arrived, can I play a game with you? What did you do on your summer vacation? I don’t want to know where you went, though you can tell me that, I bet it would have been somewhere exotic like somewhere in Southeast Asia, did you [Keep reading]
Bob Sullivan