Typosquatting

A few nights ago, I sat down and fired up my laptop to check out the news on CNN.com. Unfortunately, I mistyped the URL and instead was taken to XNN.com which is a domain purchased by a company or individual with the specific purpose of capitalizing on visitors to legitimate websites with a similar address. This is a practice known as “typosquatting” and has become rather prevalent in the past decade as web traffic has grown exponentially. 

Since it will only take the user a few seconds to realize their error, the designers of the website have a small window in which to convince you to stay. This is often accomplished by either offering products or services similar to the legitimate website they are typosquatting on or simply covering a wide variety of possible interests. Xnn.com appears to have chosen the later as their website offers services for those interested in Russian Jewish dating, stock market quotes, and humorous viral videos.

I must admit that the scope of xnn.com’s offerings was impressive. While other websites would have dismissed the idea of ensnaring a bored day trader in search of a comely Russian Jew for a night out on the town, xnn.com decided to throw a technological Hail Mary and go for broke. Inspired by their entrepreneurial vision, I went out in search of other typosquatters who shared their pioneering spirit:

• Mispace.com offers inexpensive auto insurance quotes and interracial dating services.
• Netflixes.com offers grocery coupons, Justin Bieber info and MP3 downloads
• Tweater.com features internet domain registration, used cars and health insurance
• Amazones.com is the source for college textbooks, women’s shoes and gently pre-owned medical equipment.
• Feecebook.com has a comprehensive list of Christian Singles and offers a photosharing service
• Snoops.com offers part time jobs and pictures of Kate Moss topless.
• Weikipedia.com is a clearinghouse for Firestone oil change coupons and video editing software

Ironically, someone has even purchased typosquatting.com and is offering divorce attorneys and deals on Jeep Cherokees. Most of the domains are purchased with the hope that the owner of the similar (legitimate) domain will make them an offer, but in the mean time I suppose there is nothing wrong with raising a little operating capital from ads and services. Eager to capitalize on this phenomenon I have determined that phacebook.edu is available so all I need is a foolproof listing of products and services guaranteed to catch the eye of anyone who stumbles across it:

• Ukrainian fly-fishing lures
• Illustrated guides for removing a human index finger
• Hot Episcopalian singles
• Exhaust kits for 2002 Dodge Ram Crew-Cabs
• Parakeet jewelry
• Blind Notaries
• Penguin recipes
• Prison blogging
• Refurbished swimsuits
• Lumberjack scholarships
• Canadian Multivitamins
• Competitive nude arc-welding
• DIY Ultrasounds

I will also place this sentence at the bottom to return as many search engine hits as possible:

This website is currently offering “low-interest financing” on the “foreclosed” upon “homes” and “repossessed cars” of “nude women” in need of “debt relief” who ironically spend the majority of their time scouring the Internet for “cheap airline tickets” on their “iPhone 5” while simultaneously watching videos on “youtube” and updating their statuses on “facebook” instead of searching the “job listings” in order to generate “supplemental income” to settle their overdue accounts on several “dating websites.” 

HIPAA Violations & You!

I recently visited a walk-in minor medical clinic to request a prescription refill and like similar establishments they require each patient to complete large amounts of paperwork before being seen. One of these forms concerns the Health Insurance Portability & Accountability Act (HIPAA) which allows the clinic’s staff to access your private medical data while reassuring you that any and all necessary measures will be taken to ensure your information remains in the correct hands.

 While in the waiting room, I began chatting with a co-worker who I would consider myself casually acquainted with. After exchanging pleasantries about the weather, this person was called back just moments ahead of me and we found ourselves in adjacent examination rooms. I know this not because I saw the room they walked into, but because I could hear every single word of my co-worker’s conversation with the attending physician.

As a result of my involuntary ease-dropping I am now privy to several facts about my co-worker. For instance, they were on a return visit in regard to some sort of “fungus” that required removal of their pants for proper inspection. I also discovered that the medicine they had been prescribed at their last appointment caused “severe diarrhea” and they were reluctant to continue the same treatment option as a result. The place was so quiet that I could almost hear the impending civil litigation.

The “trots” discussion went on for several minutes until another member of the staff entered the room and suggested that the undesirable side-effect could be controlled with Imodium or a similar over-the-counter pill. Mercifully, a course of action was agreed upon and as the patient left the two staff members effortlessly segued into a discussion as to what to eat for lunch. As they approached the door to my room and I quickly tried to recall the other patients in the waiting area that might be within earshot and whether I was going to discuss anything I didn’t want them to know.

There was an undeniable irony in being inundated with privacy-retention paperwork to be allowed to walk thirty feet down a hallway so that your privacy could be violated. I didn’t want to know about my associate’s struggle with crotch-fungi and thunder-squirts any more than they would want to familiarize themselves with my ailments.

I suppose in this particular case the physical location’s craftsmanship was an important factor (since apparently the walls had fabricated out of deli-sliced sheetrock) but that does not mean the staff couldn’t take other steps to minimize the sound distribution. Perhaps piping in a local radio station or investing in a few white-noise machines would be money well-spent. After listening to the diagnosis I heard, I would have happily settled for a recorded loop of Gilbert Gottfried reading Grey’s Anatomy transcripts.

Though not nearly as extreme, I experienced something similar while during my ill-fated urologist visit a few years ago. I heard several doctors describing various maladies into a telephone located just outside my room. This was either the result of using a remote dictation service or they were unnervingly-specific when their spouses asked “So, what has been going on at work?” In either case, it was far too easy to overhear my fellow patient’s business.

Even without the ambient noise, I could probably tune out the HIPAA breaches if there was something vaguely interesting in the exam rooms. Despite what the American Medical Association may think, a poster of the circulatory system and a handwritten “Bring ALL Your Medicine With You!!” sign does not qualify as engaging scenery.

I do enjoy inspecting the diplomas while I wait for the physician to appear. I suppose there is a small chance that one day I will spot a suspicious amount of correction fluid or a questionable accreditation from the “AAA+ Center for Medical Learning.” I believe that HIPAA is a great concept and I will gladly fill out the paperwork, but when I can discover that it burns when Frank pees without having ever met Frank there might be a slight loop-hole.

Movie Talkers

Recently, the Texas-based Alamo Drafthouse Theatre made headlines after they published an obscenity-laced voicemail by an irate patron. The theatre is known for having a strict policy concerning cell-phone use during a movie and they routinely remove customers for infractions such as talking on texting if it disturbs other attendees. The woman in question was removed for what theater owners referred to as excessive texting during a feature and as per policy was not issued a refund.

She later called the theater’s office and argued that she had “texted in all the other theaters in Austin” and was unaware of the no cell-phone use rule in their “crappy-a** theater.” Her message closes with some remarks on the establishment’s management team being “a**holes” and one final appeal that all people are “free” to text in the “United States of America.” The Alamo Drafthouse concludes the video by thanking the texter for never returning.

I myself have often dreamt of opening my own theater and would embrace such a policy. There is nothing worse than paying $10 for an adult ticket and then missing a crucial plot point because the guy two rows back can’t possibly miss a phone call from “Big Freddie.” I was once in a movie with someone whose phone rang three different times during the film and he answered every time. I can let one ring slide as it is plausible that you simply forgot to put it on silent, but all subsequent incidents would seem to point to a simple lack of functional intelligence.

I could not help but wonder if this young man found himself perplexed every time the tiny electronic device in his pocket emitted noises, because he still acted surprised even the third time it rang. It was as if he believed himself to be in possession of mystical religious artifact that just happened to produce the first 45 seconds of “Big Pimpin’ at random intervals and he was powerless to stop it.

It also seems that these same people are unable to control the volume of their spoken conversations. They will cup their hand over the phone it an effort to muffle the sound but continue to speak as if they are fabricating sheet metal. In some cases the conversation will simply consists of them describing what they are seeing in the movie as if they are witnessing an event never to occur again like a unicorn fight or a leprechaun dance-off .  

There are those who defend the young woman’s point of view and argue that the theater has no right to tell me when I can and can’t use my cell phone. I have even heard the “what if it was an emergency or I had a close relative on their deathbed” argument. That sounds plausible in theory but if grandma is expected to “go rest high on that mountain” any minute now why would you leave her side to catch the 7:30 showing of Transformers 2 in the first place.

Now if this woman was a neurosurgeon on call I personally would not mind if some brief ambient light from her cell phone disrupted my movie; but after dropping $20 for my wife and I to gain entrance I don’t feel that it is too inconvenient to ask everyone else to hit up their “besties” outside.

Let’s face it, while there are some genuine emergencies that arise during the screening of a movie, about 95% of interruptions are people forgoing their current social activities to plan their future social activities which they will inevitably interrupt to plan more future activities. I sometimes suspect that people conspicuously talk on their phones in theaters just to remind the other patrons that their popularity is so demanding a movie simply serves as a “social appetizer” to the festivities they will be involved in later.

At the end of the day it just boils down to common courtesy. It is difficult for me to envision a call too important to wait until the end of a movie but not important enough to warrant standing up and walking 20ft to the exit. I often wonder how a theater run by Robert DeNiro’s character from Casino would handle rude cell phone interruptions. I imagine after the first patron got the “Joe Pesci” treatment, subsequent showings would take on the reverent silence of a monastery.

Bargain Hunting

Since the recent economic downturn, bargain hunting has gone from a pastime to an Olympic-level sport. I stand in awe of friends and family whose diligence in acquiring coupons allows them to obtain $200 worth of merchandise for $20. It is perhaps this epidemic of American frugality that has spawned an outbreak of discount stores with each one claiming the title of “best bargains in town.”

Not long ago my wife and I had occasion to enter one of these bargain hunter’s paradise to look for classroom supplies and perhaps an inexpensive bookshelf. Like similar outlets, this particular store dealt in returned, refurbished, or discontinued items from upstream retailers such as Wal-Mart or Target with a few wholesale items thrown in for good measure. Unlike similar retailers, they implemented an unnecessarily confusing pricing system that had to be explained using a chart.

Each item had a price sticker and a date on it. If 30 days had passed since the date on the sticker, you would receive a 10% discount on the marked price at the case register; for every ten days past that, you received an additional 10% off until your discount topped out at 70%. After two separate trips to the store entrance to reference the chart, I felt confident that we were ready to bargain hunt.

After walking up and down several aisles, my wife selected a series of interlocking floor mats that would fit nicely into her classroom décor. Utilizing the training I had received upon entering, I scoured the packaging for the two pieces of information I needed but was never able to locate a date. Confused, I took the item to customer service and requested help from the associate. The conversation was as follows:

Me: “I could not locate a date on this to calculate the discount.”

Her: “It doesn’t have one.”

Me. “Then how am I supposed to calculate the discount.”

Her: “Some items are not eligible for the discount and therefore are not marked with a date. However, not all items that do not have a date are ineligible so you should ask us even if there is not a date because they could still be eligible.”

Me: “So this eligible?”

Her: “No, but thanks for asking.”

Unsure of what had just happened, I placed the item back and we continued to browse. We did find some graph paper and walked to the register to complete our purchase. Directly ahead of us were two women who appeared to be shopping together and as we approached I heard the clerk explaining the store’s unnecessarily complicated pricing system for what had to have been the 100^th time that day.

Right as he was finishing his spiel, one of the women’s phones began playing a Lil’ Wayne tune as she leisurely went about the task of unclipping it from her cleavage. Managing to answer just as Weezy dropped another f-bomb, she left her friend to continue the bargaining. Her companion was agonizing over whether she really wanted one of the items in her basket and asked the clerk if she could remove it from the packaging.

He reluctantly agreed and from the box she produced a boy’s athletic supporter and proceeded to hold it up to the light as if she was inspected a counterfeit $20 bill. Still undecided, she asked the clerk if he thought the device would fit a 12 year old boy since the packaging clearly designated it for 11 and under. Understandably reluctant to discuss the crotch of a twelve-year old boy with a complete stranger, he shrugged and mumbled something to the effect of “should be fine..”

Still holding the apparatus in her hand, she announced that while the boy was older than the indicated age he was rather “small” and should be “covered” by the device. She continued to silently study the device like a dinosaur fossil for the next few minutes until she reached a conclusion. To the relief of everyone within earshot, she returned the item to the packaging and completed her transaction without further commentary.

Do not misunderstand me; I am a big fan of financial prudence but if there is one area I would be willing to avoid returned, refurbished, or damaged items it would be the protection of my reproductive organs. You cannot expect junior to take a fast ball to the plumbs with confidence knowing that his jockstrap has a “slight manufacturing defect.”

Of course the other possibility is that the item was simply returned by the previous owner and in that case I wonder how they answered the question, “Why are you retuning the item today?”

• This is the worst eye-patch ever….
• Why would anyone put so many holes in a soup ladle….
• The water balloons kept falling out….
• My friend said he needs a much smaller size…..
• The XL is too small. I am going to need the “Clydesdale” model
• Our school librarian has no sense of humor……
• I already had one that came in my box of Lucky Charms…..
• It didn’t look right under my prom tux…..