‘I wuz robbed.’ Author and tech pioneer Cory Doctorow explains how a phone-phisher scammed him out of “$8,000+ worth of fraud … before I figured out what happened. And then he tried to do it again, a week later!”
■ Doctorow adds: “The thing is, I know a lot about fraud. I’m writing an entire series of novels about this kind of scam.”* (Image: Cryteria, CC BY 3.0, modified.)
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* And here he is, interviewed in a 2019 Square podcast.
■ Almost a quarter-million accounts on the would-be Twitter alternative Spoutible have been compromised.
■ Have I Been Pwned website creator Troy Hunt calls Spoutible’s fail “one of those stories where as it unravels, you lean in ever closer and mutter ‘No way! No way! NO WAY!’”
Physician, heal thy tech. Lurie Children’s Hospital’s network outage—knocking out phone service and data infrastructure, including surgical schedules and prescriptions—has lasted almost a week.
■ Metra said its Ventra app was back up and working. But then it wasn’t.
‘In return, Gaza called for a ceasefire in Chicago.’ Saturday Night Live “Weekend Update” anchor Michael Che mocked the City Council’s resolution on war in the Mideast.
■ With a full-page ad in Sunday’s Tribune, Chicago’s Jewish United Fund condemned Mayor Johnson’s tiebreaking vote for that resolution.
■ Columnist Steve Sheffey: “What Chicago alders think about foreign policy won’t sway anyone in Congress. But their votes should sway Chicagoans anytime they see the names of those who voted for this resolution on the ballot.”
■ If you haven’t read the resolution, you should.
■ Journalist and author Stephen J. Lyons: “Can I criticize Israel’s war in Gaza without being called antisemitic?”
Green schools push. Chicago students, teachers and political activists rallied yesterday to demand the Chicago school board focus more effort on things such as climate justice, climate-related job training, electric vehicles and free public transit.
■ The Sierra Club Illinois is out with its first endorsements for next month’s primary.
‘I don’t think he is fit to judge a beauty pageant.’ That’s the assessment of a woman whose brother was one of two people shot and killed by a Chicago police sergeant running for judge on the March 19 Democratic ballot.
■ The Onion: “Ohio Begins Executing Random People In Hopes They’re Criminals.”
‘The worst possible location for a successful, money-making casino.’ Chicago real estate watcher Don DeBat says pro gamblers are laughing at Bally’s inept rollout here.
■ A University of Chicago fundraising pro opines in the Trib: The taxing and banning of nicotine products isn’t working.
Stop not making sense. Ex-Trib and Sun-Times editor Mark Jacob runs down a list of annoying phrases reporters should abandon.
■ CNN’s canceling its morning show, moving production from New York to Atlanta—requiring staffers to reapply for their jobs.
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