The above messages are all fake; they all landed on my smartphone in the past couple of days. You’ve probably seen them, or texts just like them. If they feel relentless, that’s because they are. According to Robokiller.com, Americans received 19 billion fake texts in June. Just in June! That’s [Keep reading]
It’s rockets and feathers. All over the economy. As economists and politicians keep wringing their hands about inflation, I sure wish they would read up on asymmetric price adjustment — a phenomenon dubbed “rockets and feathers” in this 2009 paper. Prices rise faster than they fall. Inflation always “sticks” longer [Keep reading]
Welcome to this scam roundup. I’m trying something new; a quick collection of scam stories that have come across my desk in the past week, along with follow ups on stories we’ve told at The Perfect Scam podcast, which I host for AARP. Seen a scam? Contact me here. I [Keep reading]
Machines dehumanize people. I’ve long had a mental experiment in mind that I’d love to pull off one day — force people to walk at a grocery store the way they drive on a highway. You know: cut each other off, flip the bird, breathe (literally) down someone’s neck on [Keep reading]
Dianna Tannery: “I was more… horrified just knowing that… that she didn’t die peacefully in her sleep. That her last few minutes was struggling and trying to breathe. So I think about that every night.” Loren Adair: “My brother and I both started having nightmares. I would have visions of [Keep reading]
It’s been a busy week in Facebook-must-answer-to-someone land. I really do feel like the conversation has been elevated by whistleblower Frances Haugen’s testimony before the Senate on Tuesday. I feel strongly that Facebook should be forced to offer an algorithm-free version of its product, as I argued earlier this week. [Keep reading]
Early September always fills me with a strange kind of dread. There’s a flood of horrid memories jumbled together with admiration and wonder for all the love and courage that each 9-11 anniversary churns up. I find the Tribute in Light over the World Trade Center a hauntingly beautiful, irresistible [Keep reading]
Facebook profits from advertisements it knows, or should know, are fraudulent, a federal lawsuit filed in California alleges. The social media giant makes it easy for criminals to target consumers who are not only likely to click on certain kinds of ads, but also likely to follow through with purchases, [Keep reading]
For many decades, economists wandered around in the dark, confused that their elegant formulas about consumer behavior failed again and again. They’d yell at their calculations in dark rooms, frustrated that people didn’t actually move through the world as rational actors, like the data they fed into those formulas. Then [Keep reading]
INTRODUCTION Computer criminals armed with ransomware were able to hold U.S. drivers hostage earlier this month. The Colonial Pipeline attack had such dramatic real-world results that the simmering ransomware crisis has boiled over. It’s impossible to ignore now. But what does that really mean? Ransomware criminals are raking in the [Keep reading]
Bob Sullivan