This, the first of our regional blogs, is authored by the technology and financial journalist Dominic Basulto. Dominic is a New York native, has been a senior editor at Corante since day one and has written for a number of online and offline media companies. Send tips or story ideas to: basulto@gmail.com.
About this weblog
Here we'll report daily on the latest tech and business developments in New York City. Impossible we concede: comprehensive coverage of the city's every story. What we hope you'll find: tips, tidbits and perspectives you won't find elsewhere. As well as unique insights, original interviews and more that should be of interest to New York's vibrant community of technologists and those who track, invest in and report on them.
The New York Post reports that Eliot Spitzer is fighting to make New York movie theaters more accessible for the visually and hearing impaired. In an agreement reached with eight national theater chains - including AMC, Loews and Clearview - 140 theaters across the state will now offer extras such as "rear-window captioning" and headsets that offer descriptive narration of films. Currently, only a handful of theaters in New York City offer captioned or narrated films. Eliot Spitzer explains the rationale for the move: "Movies are an important part of popular culture. Every adult and child should be able to enjoy a film with family and friends, especially during the holiday season."
Over at Tech Central Station, Johan Wennström argues that a congestion pricing scheme for traffic in New York City would become an unwelcome burden for New Yorkers. Pointing to examples from London and Stockholm, where congestion pricing schemes are already a fact of life, Wennström makes the case against congestion pricing:
"Is this really something for the Capital of the World? Manhattan is still recovering from 9/11. This is perhaps the worst time to carry through a system that would be a burden to New Yorkers...
On the eve of Bloomberg's re-election, he proclaimed that New York is back in business after the World Trade Center attacks. Why make it harder for the city to recover by imposing a toll system which, if following the international pattern, will only hurt merchants and consumers alike?"
In a blog post that references the "media elite" and last week's alcohol-fueled Open Source Media party in Manhattan, blogger Scott Sala of SlantPoint makes an impassioned case for blogging about local - not national - politics:
"...I have no interest in hobnobbing with the blog elite - though free top shelf liquor is always welcome. I've been heartily engaged in local politics because I see that the true citizen journalism frontier, where change can be made and stardom is not a primary goal...
Somewhere post-Bush43-squared I lost the mission. National political blogging was saturated and amounted to a lot of blathering and repetition, and a whole load of the top tier hunkering down and elbowing out the rest. It got predictable. I began to cite the source of 2nd, 3rd and 4th tier bloggers simply on content - that's from Drudge, that's from Malkin, that's from Glenn...
The local stuff is so much more the Wild West of blogging with a mission that is in your face. The people you write about meet you. The feedback is greater. The field is WIDE WIDE open. And frankly, in my position, the battle is very uphill (a Republican in NYC) - and I like it like that...
This isn't a hobby. This is a fight. I'm not an objective journalist, but an online activist. I ride the phantom line between journalism and advocacy, not quite an op-ed writer, but a digital evangelist in a strange land."
"Rather than trying to read the tea leaves of public records to figure out voters' tastes and leanings, they [the Bloomberg campaign staffers] had the money to simply call and ask about them directly. They called hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers in what top strategists in both the Republican and Democratic Parties said was one of the most ambitious pollings of an electorate ever undertaken.
They stored the answers in a vast computerized database to develop sophisticated psychological portraits of city voters - identifying eight never-before-identified voting blocs based on people's shared everyday interests and concerns, not on their broader racial, cultural or ideological differences... The extensive polling gave Mr. Bloomberg's campaign a deep understanding of the city's voters, and allowed it to tailor mailings, electronic messages and prerecorded telephone calls to voters' specific interests as never before."
Among the groups identified: FANS (Fearful and Anxious New Yorkers), MIDDLE AGES (middle class moderates) and CULTURAL LIBERALS. Surely, it didn't take millions of dollars to identify FANS and CULTURAL LIBERALS, did it? Nevertheless, we'd be interested to know what the other five groupings were... Maybe the JET SETTERS (really wealthy Manhattan folk who love the Jets)?
Tired of getting patted down during routine "subway searches" by the NYPD? Embarrassed by what's lurking at the bottom of that briefcase? There's help on the way - the New York Daily News is reporting that the NYPD has imported the latest and greatest in bomb-detection equipment that will be much less intrusive for subway search victims:
"The portable devices - ranging in size from a hand vacuum to a large computer printer - are programmed to detect traces of homemade peroxide bombs as well as military-grade explosives... Officials say the devices are less intrusive, yet more thorough, than a hand search. Cops pass a cloth swab over the handles or zippers of a bag, insert the swab into the device and get a reading within eight seconds."
In addition, a $2.9 billion bond act that will finance transportation projects statewide - including part of the Second Avenue subway and a link between the Long Island Rail Road and Grand Central Terminal - was approved by New York State voters yesterday. $450 million of the money will be used by the MTA to finance construction of the first segment of the Second Avenue subway (East 63rd Street to East 96th Street).
It's election day, and while there's not any real drama about the outcome of the New York City mayoral race, there are a few interesting political tidbits floating around about the race between Bloomberg and Ferrer:
Last week, Micah Sifry, the eCampaign Director for Andrew Rasiej, posted an exhaustive and honest analysis of Andrew Rasiej's unsuccessful bid for NYC Public Advocate. There's a lot to chew on in Micah's analysis, including a realistic appraisal of how the Internet helped - and didn't help - in advancing the campaign of Andrew Rasiej. Going forward, there's still hope for a new era of "open source politics" -- but only if the local tech community does a better job of pitching in:
"Another one of the unconventional premises of our campaign was the idea that young, “wired” individuals who work and play in the new technology economy would rally to support one of their own, a candidate who “gets it”—that is, who demonstrably understands the power and potential of networks and transparency in politics. Indeed, we started with lots of support and good will from key Internet organizers from the Dean, Clark, Kerry and Kucinich 2004 presidential campaigns along with “A-list” technology opinion-shapers like Doc Searls and David Weinberger...
But the fabled tech community turned out to be mostly a fable when it came to actually embracing Andrew’s campaign and setting aside time to spread its message. Yes, about 100 local and national bloggers linked to the campaign. But few made an extended commitment to pitch in..."
Thanks, Micah - you fought the good fight in pushing along the public debate about the role of Public Advocate in New York City and in explaining the link between technology and participatory democracy!
Based on as yet unreleased poll numbers, The Politicker is predicting a huge landslide victory for Michael Bloomberg in this week's mayoral election: 60% to 28% over Fernando Ferrer. The comments to the post on The Politicker are especially illuminating - the question is not whether Ferrer will win or lose - it's whether Freddy will keep it respectable and hit the 40% mark.
Dawn Eden, who writes the "Blog On!" column in the Sunday New York Daily News, is a bit puzzled as to why so many liberal bloggers in New York City are "soft" on Mayor Bloomberg. After conferring with other bloggers and political pundits, a few theories emerge as to why "Bloomy-bashing blogs" are having such a tough slog of it:
"Liberal bloggers focus on national politics to the exclusion of local issues" [Daily Gotham]
"Political organizations... lack an understanding of blogs' power" [Daily Gotham]
"The majority of Ferrer's constituency is not online" [onNYTurf.com]
There might be another reason: Bloomberg has assembled a state-of-the-art, well-financed campaign steamroller that has very little chance of being defeated. Be like Mike and maybe you won't get run over.
According to media mogul Barry Diller, the high cost of compliance with some of the more onerous provisions of Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) is having a significant negative impact on U.S. businesses. While Diller agrees that senior executives should be held accountable for the reliability of their companies' financial statements, he took particular exception with Section 404, which he called "ridiculous" and "incredibly wasteful." In short, says Diller, "Congress has a duty to revisit Sarbanes-Oxley, to see what was smart about it and what wasn't, and conform it to sensible and current practice,"
Well, it looks like the terror alert level in New York just got ratcheted up a notch -- there's a "credible threat" that terrorists plan to attack the New York subway system using tactics and lessons learned from the London subway bombings. According to the New York Daily News, the terrorists plan to hide the bombs in baby carriages and briefcases and strike sometime during the Columbus Day holiday weekend:
"Up to a dozen terrorists planned to come to the city and assemble into cells of suicide bombers who would attack the subways - hiding explosives in strollers and briefcases. The terrorists envisioned a series of attacks that would be "London-scale, not World Trade Center-scale." They'd be terror strikes instead of spectaculars."
What's troubling is that a tipster in Iraq (not New York) apparently gave the information to U.S. officials, leading to the arrest of two potential terrorists in Baghdad (not New York). So, there's one cynical way to view all of this: President Bush's approval ratings have been sinking fast, and he has been facing increased criticism about the handling of the war in Iraq. So what if - and this is just idle speculation of one blogger - the Bush Administration wanted to scare the public back into submission by exposing a dastardly terrorist threat striking at the heart of the New York subway system? And what if that threat were being generated by terrorist thugs in Baghdad? Wouldn't that make the whole war in Iraq seem once again important and timely?
The New York Post got us all excited this morning with the first sneek peak at the new subway cams. (see pic) According to the Post, contractors have been busy testing the cameras at a platform along the West 86th Street No. 1 line station in Manhattan and the 161st Street-River Avenue station, near Yankee Stadium.
As of Monday afternoon, though, it's unclear how things stand. Crain's New York is linking to an AP wire report stating that a deal between the NYPD and a private sector security and surveillance equipment maker has been scuttled. The report says only that the pilot project with MSGI was "improperly authorized" by an NYPD inspector. (In corporate lingo, that's known as "rogue spending.") The shares of MSGI have been on a rollercoaster ride over the past two trading days -- on Friday, rumors of the new subway video surveillance system deal sent shares up 41%. On Monday, shares closed 17% lower as investors reacted to the bad news of the aborted deal.
MSGI offered only a dry formal statement via e-mail: ''While MSGI has received no notice of cancellation from the NYPD Transit Police, we understand that the project is on hold so that the issues relating to internal police protocol can be properly addressed... There was a degree of miscommunication within the Police Department.''
According to the New York Daily News, New York State Senator Frank Padavan has launched a new Web site ("Get Back to the Train") that includes a petition for New York subway riders to call on the MTA to roll back recent fare hikes. The logic behind the petition is simple - the MTA should do its part to help commuters cut back on gas consumption, and lower fares could be just the ticket to help motorists kick the car habit:
"Restoring transit fares to their 2004 levels would save transit riders $38 million - an average savings of about 7% off the cost of a monthly commuter rail ticket - and encourage them to leave their cars at home... An immediate fare cut would save money, encourage the use of alternate transportation and lend to a better, cleaner, more cost-efficient New York."
The cash-strapped MTA, as might be expected, responded by stating that there was no way that it would consider a fare rollback. That's the unfortunate thing about "temporary" fare increases to balance a budget shortfall -- they are rarely, if ever, rolled back to previous levels.
Over at Tech Central Station, I wrote a follow-up on Andrew Rasiej's unsuccessful campaign for New York City Public Advocate ("The Technorati Candidate"). Despite a technology-centric platform that seemed to resonate with tech-savvy voters, the Rasiej campaign team nevertheless barely managed to win more than 5% of the popular vote:
"In the 2000 presidential election, Al Gore found out that it was possible to win the popular vote, and still lose the electoral vote. In last week's Democratic primary for New York City Public Advocate, Andrew Rasiej found out that it was possible to win the blogger vote, and still lose the popular vote.
For the two months leading up to the primary election on September 13, Rasiej captured the hearts and minds of bloggers like no other candidate since Howard Dean with a technology-centric campaign that included a plan for citywide wireless Internet access, a video blog (in addition to a regular blog), and a plan for making 911 calls from the NYC subway. On the day preceding the election, in fact, "Rasiej" ranked as one of the ten most popular search terms on the blog search engine Technorati. Anyone convinced of the power of the blogosphere to determine the fate of political careers (Trent Lott, anyone?) would surely have guessed that Mr. Rasiej was on the cusp of sweeping into office with a broad new mandate to revolutionize politics."
Alas, it was not to be. So... will the blogosphere ever be able to elect one of its own? Are candidates like Howard Dean and Mr. Rasiej on the right track, or are all bloggers collectively participating in some kind of mass delusion?
"Government workers are far more likely to drive cars to work in Manhattan than private-sector workers... 33% of government workers drove to work in Manhattan compared to 11% of private workers. The reason: many government workers have free parking... If government workers commuted by public transportation or other means at the same rate as others, there would be 14,000 fewer cars coming into the Manhattan central business district each day."
Andrew Rasiej, who ran a valiant campaign for Public Advocate against incumbent Betsy Gotbaum with a technology-centric platform, ended the night with a little more than 5% of the vote. The final tally in the race for Public Advocate:
Betsy Gotbaum: 48.04%
Norman Siegel: 30.36%
Michael Brown: 9.09% Andrew Rasiej: 5.17%
Jay Golub: 4.78%
Damon Cabbagestalk: 2.56%
It was a disappointing finish (did Michael Brown even participate in the debates?), but all is not lost, according to Andrew Rasiej:
"I don’t consider this to be anything other than a victory speech…We changed the whole notion of what the Public Advocate’s office could be…It doesn’t matter what the percentages are, we created a real debate about what the Public Advocate’s office could be and we raised a lot of important ideas…In case you didn’t hear, today the New York Parks Department announced that they will be giving free Wi-Fi in most of the city’s parks today...
I don’t believe that one politician can solve the problems of 8 million people, but I can certainly buy everyone here a drink…let’s drink to our future, let’s drink to our city’s future, and let’s drink to the future of idea(s)!”
In his campaign for New York City Public Advocate, Andrew Rasiej has highlighted the ability of technology - in all its forms, not just wireless Internet access - to empower ordinary citizens and to make government more responsive and more transparent. Technology is not some kind of wonder drug that will make all the ills of society disappear overnight -- we're all a lot more aware of that after the dot-com collapse. Yet, nobody can deny that technology provides some powerful tools to make everyday life easier.
Over at Flickr, Esther Dyson explains why the Andrew Rasiej campaign, which has made technology a centerpiece of the debate over Public Advocate, is so important to the future of New York. Not just to the future of elitist, tech-savvy New Yorkers - but to all New Yorkers:
"His message is much more than WiFi for the People. He wants transparent and responsive government, which should lead to people feeling they *can* make a difference and getting motivated to do so. The Net and broadly available WiFi are just a means to that end. As someone once said, "Your responsibility does not end with complaining." Andrew is taking up the cudgel and trying to prove all that stuff - the empowering Internet, the changing balance of power, citizen involvement - can actually happen not just in Silicon Valley among the elite, but in New York City among real people...."
On September 13, New York will have a choice -- do they want to elect a Public Advocate who favors the status quo -- or do they want to elect a Public Advocate who really gets it?
In the last Public Advocate debate, there was a bit of disagreement among the candidates as to what should be the proper role of the Public Advocate in New York City. Is the role of the Public Advocate to act as a watchdog over the Mayor and city agencies? To act as an ombudsman for the people of the city and to protect their interests? Or to serve a more expanded role -- to find new ways to empower New Yorkers through technological innovation? (e.g. citywide wireless networks that would provide low-income New Yorkers access to the Internet)
In a best case scenario, the Public Advocate should be able to empower ordinary citizens to use technology as a lever to move the vast, imposing rock of public bureaucracy. Consider the case of LaLa Wang and MLX.com... In 1993, the company created a single, open real estate marketplace where buyers, sellers, renters, landlords, and brokers could find one another. The open marketplace gave consumers more choices and made apartment hunting less expensive and time-consuming. That is, until the entrenched real estate interests (i.e. large brokerage firms) in the city got together to throw up roadblocks to the further operation of MLX.com. The New York Department of State eventually got involved, enforcing an outdated Apartment Information Vendor licensing law to prevent MLX.com from offering to renters many of the services that it originally intended to offer. (For more details on the case and a link to a public petition to state and federal officials, check out LaLa's Website).
In the first type of role (as Mayoral Watchdog), the Public Advocate probably would pass on this type of case since it doesn't involve either the mayor or a city agency. Moreover, the role of Watchdog would focus on cases of gross malfeasance or wrongdoing, not on cases of a fossilized bureaucracy.
In the second type of role for the Public Advocate, the case of MLX.com might have been accepted -- but more likely, there would be 8 million other citizens also clamoring for attention, and the case of MLX.com would simply be moved to the end of the queue. Is it really the job of the Public Advocate to solve the problems of all 8 million New Yorkers? With a $3 million annual budget, that's not too likely.
Now, consider what would happen if the Public Advocate took a proactive role toward technology and understood its ability to empower citizens. In the case of LaLa Wang and MLX.com, it would be clear that government bureaucrats were acting to suppress innovation in the real estate market -- innovation that benefits consumers. Instead of interfering directly, the Public Advocate would provide the types of technological tools and resources that would enable a company like MLX.com to take on the entrenched interests. The Public Advocate would also have an eye out for ways that city agencies could become more efficient and productive through technology.
Just in time for the September 13 primary, Gotham Gazette has a handy endorsement grid to figure out who's backing who in the mayoral race. As might be expected, The
New York Times is backing Fernando Ferrer in the Democratic primary, as is New York Magazine. But there are a whole lotta endorsements that are less obvious. In fact, sometimes it feels like George Bush's "coalition of the willing," whose ranks were swelled with a bunch of stalwart - yet largely unknown - nations.
Look at who's lined up behind Mayor Bloomberg -- the only newspapers to back Bloomberg thus far have been the Ecuador News, the Ecua Times (yo, Ecuador in the house!) and Sing Tao (the newspaper, not the beer). Granted, a whole host of everyday people who make the city run on a daily basis - plumbers, taxi drivers, construction workers, electricians, paramedics, doctors, building workers, security guards and civil servants - have also lined up behind Bloomberg, but what does it say when no major New York newspaper has endorsed Bloomberg?
As noted in an earlier post, the New York City Office of Emergency Management has dispatched an urban search-and-rescue team to Mississippi to help out with the post-hurricane disaster recovery process. Our hearts and minds go out to the brave members of New York Task Force 1, which will be spending the weekend at Camp Shelby in Mississippi taking care of business while the rest of us grill burgers and spend some time at the beach. On this Labor Day weekend, let's not forget the men and women of New York Task Force 1 who are working so that we don't have to.
the OEM site also has details on how to donate to the Hurricane Katrina relief effort.
It's not quite as dramatic as humans defeating robots in a Terminator flick, but Gothamist points out that human train operators are returning to the L subway line, displacing the robot operators. In other words, it's the end of the robo-train experiment:
"Hipsters, rejoice: An arbitrator said the L train conductors must go back to work because removing them violated a labor agreement. The MTA had removed conductors from L trains, in hopes of taking advantage of technology (the special, shiny robot trains) and trying to reduce costs (and start removing "excess" conductors from other train lines), giving riders the One Person Train Operation instead during nights and weekends - and then all the time later this year."
The New York Times calls it a "significant defeat" for the MTA since the third-party ruling means that the MTA will be hard-pressed in the future to eliminate the jobs of conductors from other city subway lines.
Crain's New York has the details on New York's emergency response to the hurricane-ravaged Gulf Coast. In addition to sending an urban search and rescue team (New York Task Force 1) to Mississippi, New York government officials are also urging New Yorkers who want to help to make donations to charities such as the American Red Cross, the Salvation Army or the Mayor’s Fund to Advance New York City (which gives the donations to disaster relief agencies).
"We have all seen the devastating images of the damage that Hurricane Katrina has caused in the southeast United States. Our thoughts and prayers are with all the people in the area who have been impacted by this disaster, and we are eager to do everything possible to help. New Yorkers will never forget the extraordinary support we received following the dark days after 9/11 and how much it meant to our City."
The race for Public Advocate is heating up, with challenger Andrew Rasiej inviting his rivals - including Norman Siegel, Jay Golub and Betsy Gotbaum - to participate in a series of "People's Debates" in all five boroughs. (Thus far, only Gotbaum has not committed to participating in the debate, claiming that she has already fulfilled the two-debate quota mandated by the city's campaign finance law.) As one might expect, given the Rasiej campaign's focus on technology, the debates will be streamed via the Internet for any interested voters, says the New York Daily News.
WNBC carried the second Public Advocate debate Sunday morning, in which three challengers for the Public Advocate position (Andrew Rasiej, Jay Golub and Norman Siegel) took on incumbent Betsy Gotbaum for an hour of informal debate. What was surprising, perhaps, was that Andrew Rasiej was the only candidate who even mentioned what role technology could play in making the office of the Public Advocate more efficient, more productive and more powerful. After a laudatory op-ed piece in the New York Times praised Rasiej for his visionary Wi-Fi plans for the city, you would think that at least one of the other challengers would attempt to co-opt this theme.
As many readers of this site know, the Andrew Rasiej campaign has been front-and-center in promoting technology as a way of empowering everyday New Yorkers to solve their problems and deal with New York's massive bureaucracy. The public advocate, by promoting ideas like a citywide wireless Internet network, could act as a more powerful watchdog over the Mayor and the city agencies, enabling everyday citizens to have an active stake in what happens at City Hall.
Overall, the debate raised a number of significant issues about the scope and scale of the Public Advocate's office. One thing became clear within the first 25 minutes -- Andrew Rasiej is the only candidate who has done any serious thinking about the role of technology (namely, wireless Internet access for the entire population of the city) in overcoming the shortfalls of the Public Advocate position. Most New Yorkers don't even know what the position is, or that the Public Advocate would become acting mayor if (god forbid) something ever happened to the Mayor.
Yo, Osama, take a look at this: the NYPD has just added two high-powered sniper rifles to its arsenal. It's all part of an effort to beef up protection of the area's ports and waterways. Make no mistake about it, these weapons are ready to rumble -- each rifle is five feet long, weighs 37 pounds and can probably pierce an armor-plated tank at long distance. CBS News calls the rifle "without a doubt, the most powerful weapon you can buy." The New York Post has the details:
"The .50-caliber rifles — each selling for $10,000 and using 6-inch bullets that cost $4 a pop — were bought several weeks ago after months of tactical wrangling by Commissioner Ray Kelly and his top brass over whether the controversial weapon was needed in the Big Apple. The rifles can be fired from a police helicopter and pierce the hull of a boat to stop it from a distance of 1,000 yards..."
As reported last week, the Republican party is trotting out William Weld as a potential challenger to Eliot Spitzer in New York's 2006 gubernatorial election. Weld is the former governor of Massachusetts, but has little or no name (or face) recognition in the Empire State. Sure, he's buddies with Rudy Giuliani and other members of the Republican administration, but in New York, at least, he's terra incognito for many voters. What marketing campaign will Republican strategists dream up to promote William Weld for 2006? Word on the street is that Weld plans to raise between $40 million and $75 million for the gubernatorial bid, and that will buy a lot of airtime.
Maybe Mr. Weld should consider a a Snoop Dogg promotion, similar to the one that the famed rapper has with Chrysler's Lee ("Mocha Cocca") Iacocca:
"The 80-year-old Iacocca and Snoop Dogg, who made his name rapping about sex and marijuana, appear as golf buddies in the ad, scheduled to begin airing Saturday. Snoop Dogg wears an argyle sweater vest, while Iacocca dons a pastel plaid hat. At the end of the TV spot, Snoop Dogg says: "If the ride is more fly, then you must buy." Iacocca responds: "That's what I hear."
Ad Rants explains why the pairing of Iacocca and Snoop Dogg is so successful:
"With the usual old guy/young rapper dude culture clash, the post hopes to appeal to those under 40, many of whom have no idea who Iacocca is."
The New York Times is reporting that the MTA is close to signing a $200 million deal with Lockheed Martin to create a comprehensive security system for the city's bridges, tunnels and subway stations:
"According to people with knowledge of the talks... Lockheed Martin will lead a team of contractors in creating an "integrated electronic security system" that will include closed-circuit television cameras, motion detectors and "intelligent video" software that can automatically determine if a package has been left on a train or if a person is in a restricted area."
Joining Lockheed Martin in the deal will be a number of other contractors, including Rochester-based Lenel Systems International and Sweden's Slattery Skanska.
According to the article, the same Lockheed Martin unit has been hired by the governments of Albania and Uzbekistan to work on large-scale security projects. Hey, if it's good enough for Albania, it's good enough for New York City.
Washington Technology reports on a high-tech war game at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point that featured an unusual enemy: Internet scammers. The Wall Street Journal called the exercise "good guys masquerading as bad guys pretending to be good guys." (If you think about the Citigroup ads for identity theft, this makes much more sense) It was all part of a larger effort to make West Point cadets more aware of phishing scams that appear to have originated from a well-known source.
There's clearly a lot of training yet to do -- "We got an 80% click rate on the first test e-mail, sent to 400 West Point cadets... Subsequent exercises with as many as 3,000 cadets produced lower response rates, but the rates did not drop sharply." (In all fairness, though, the phony e-mails included the name of a West Point colonel, and everybody knows that you don't disobey a direct order from a higher-ranking officer)
The top-ranking Internet security official of New York state also reported similar findings in tests of 10,000 state employees in five departments. The government employees were especially susceptible to "spear phishing" attacks, in which the scammers targeted a specific organization. Basically, if people working in the cubicle next to you get the same message as you do, and the e-mail appears to be coming from your boss, it's an easy trap to fall into...
The MTA is obviously taking the hint that it hasn't done nearly enough to protect the city's vulnerable subway system, especially in light of the terrorist bombings in London.
The MTA apparently has had access to a massive war chest of hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funds, but has spent only a fraction of it. Now there's talk of installing hundreds of subway surveillance cams throughout the subway system, similar to what London already has. This is an election year, so "it's a safe bet that at least some of the cameras will be up before Bloomberg faces re-election in the fall, and certainly by year's end."
The New York Times is apparently jumping on Andrew Rasiej's wireless bandwagon... According to the Times, Andrew Rasiej, running for Public Advocate against incumbent Betsy Gotbaum, has decided to rev up the campaign with a series of TV ads on NY1. For the next ten days, Andrew will be educating the city about the virtues of a citywide wireless Internet network and focusing on his campaign's major theme: "the need to integrate technology more fully in New Yorkers' lives."
Time is running short, though: the latest poll figures show Gotbaum garnering 38% of the vote, with Rasiej a disappointing third with less than 10% of the vote.
Police officers searching for bombs in the New York subway system are now equipped with bomb-residue detection wands. Or, as we like to call them, magic sticks. Officer.com (via the New York Post) has the details:
"Transit officers began training yesterday with bomb-residue detection wands - the kind that have become familiar at airports - as part of a bid to improve the NYPD's program of random searches. The wands have a cloth tip that can be rubbed on bags to tell if a bomb is in a bag, or if bomb components have come in contact with the surface."
It's like a player from the Red Sox being signed by the Yankees... Roger Clemens, anyone? Former Massachusetts governor William Weld has decided that he now wants to become governor of New York. The U.S. hasn't had a two-state governor since Sam Houston, but Weld is hoping that his platform of "tax cuts and social liberalism" will play on the New York political stage. The Republican camp - including Rudy Giuliani and Karl Rove - is desperately looking for someone who can take on Eliot Spitzer now that George Pataki has decided to run for president. So, these political strategists are receptive to the idea of Weld, a native New Yorker, running for office. Even if he is a New England carpetbagger.
New York City is slowly but surely moving to a system of pre-paid parking cards for its single-space parking meters, says Newsday. Instead of packing quarters, it's now possible to pick up cards in $20 and $50 denominations. Currently, cards are available online at the NYC Department of Transportation Website, by calling 311 or by visiting a City Store.
For those following the NYC Public Advocate race between incumbent Betsy Gotbaum and a host of challengers including Andrew Rasiej, a videoblog ("The Private Advocate in Her Private Office") from the Rasiej campaign team might be interesting -- it shows young voters being kicked out of Gotbaum’s office simply for asking for her public schedule:
"What is in Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum’s public schedule that would drive her to kick young people our of her office who were interested in asking her questions? That’s the question begging to be answered after the Public Advocate refused yet again to disclose her public schedule – this time to a pair of young New York voters—Rasiej interns going “double top-secret undercover”– who paid a visit to her office in downtown Manhattan to find out where Gotbaum would be in public next."
While we agree that the Public Advocate should be a highly visible position, and while we generally endorse the Andrew Rasiej campaign in its "Where is Betsy?" activities, me thinks that if a bunch of kids holding digital video cameras showed up at your office in the middle of the day asking for your whereabouts, the results would have been much the same.
Eliot Spitzer doesn't like it when people smack each other around, according to Newsday. His staff, bored with hunting down white collar Wall Street evildoers, must have cooked this one up. Apparently, Eliot Spitzer went after radio station Hot 97 for its "Smackfest" promotion, in which women engaged in "violent slapping" for concert tickets and cash. Making matters worse, said the Spitzer camp, the images of these violent slaps were then posted on the Hot 97 Website. After much posturing and negotiating, Spitzer managed to wring out a $240,000 settlement from Hot 97's parent company, Emmis Communications.
In what the New York Post is calling the War of the Roses, Jeanine Pirro, a high-profile prosecutor from Westchester County, announced plans to challenge Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton next year as the Republican candidate for U.S. Senator. It'll be the catfight to end all catfights, with Pirro pounding away on one issue: that Hillary is more interested in the U.S. presidency than in serving New Yorkers. On the tech front, Pirro will likely play up her role in Westchester's Internet stings of would-be child molesters.
A Pirro-Clinton matchup is not guaranteed, though. Pirro still needs to outpoll Edward Cox -- a son-in-law of former President Nixon -- in the GOP primary before taking on Clinton. Moreover, Pirro's husband could be a real liability, given that he's served time in federal prison for tax fraud and has been linked to Mafia informants.
Last week, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman gave a glowing endorsement to the campaign of Andrew Rasiej, one of the candidates for New York City Public Advocate. As has been noted here on the Corante New York site, Andrew has been at the forefront of a number of important issues facing New Yorkers in the coming election -- like citywide Wi-Fi networks and 911 calls from the subway. The idea of using technology to solve societal problems, says Friedman, is exactly what makes Rasiej special. Like Howard Dean before him, Rasiej has recognized the power of technology to reach into any sphere of life and make it more efficient and more powerful:
"The technological model coming next - which Howard Dean accidentally uncovered but never fully developed - will revolve around the power of networks and blogging. The public official or candidate will no longer just be the one who talks to the many or tries to listen to the many. Rather, he or she will be a hub of connectivity for the many to work with the many - creating networks of public advocates to identify and solve problems and get behind politicians who get it."
As might be expected, the article by Friedman generated quite a bit of commentary throughout the blogosphere. For awhile, in fact, the article was the #1 most-emailed article on the New York Times website. A big hat tip to the Rasiej campaign team!
Apparently, Ryan Sager of the New York Post doesn't approve of Eliot Spitzer's crackdown of payola in the music business:
"Maybe Attorney General Eliot Spitzer should simply pay radio stations to mention his name on a daily basis as he gets ready to run for governor. That way, at least, we'd all be spared wastes of time and money like his recent investigation into music-industry payola..."
Sager questions whether Spitzer's crackdown on payola is nothing more than a tempest in a teapot: "The real question New Yorkers should be asking themselves is whether any of what Sony did is actually wrong or harmful to consumers. Payola is as old as recorded music itself. In fact, it's older..." In other words, it's business as usual, so stop with all the naivete. There are so many other ways for musical acts to reach consumers that radios no longer have a monopoly on what's popular. Cracking down on payola only leads to bland, faceless Top 40 formats, says Sager, where DJs no longer have any authority to determine what's played.
We're developing a strange fascination with gubernatorial candidate Eliot Spitzer. Love him or hate him, he's just more interesting than George Pataki. It's already clear that Spitzer will provide considerably more blog fodder than just about anyone else during the gubernatorial campaign because he's not afraid to take on the Establishment (with a capital 'E').
Anyway, Spitzer was in Schenectady this week, trying to win over New York's high-tech leaders. The easiest way to do that, of course, is to bash the governor over the head while he's not looking. According to Spitzer, the governor has shown little or no vision for how to develop New York's high tech sector:
"We are not capitalizing throughout the SUNY system, through our private universities; we're not capitalizing on the opportunities presented by bringing together educational systems and the economy and government to build the foundations we need for our economic growth."
Of course, some would beg to differ with Spitzer: both the nanotech and semiconductor industries have heaped generous praise on Pataki, with many giving the governor credit for making upstate New York a destination site for new R&D work. For now, it looks like Spitzer will try on his new "friend of high-tech" persona in places like Albany - if it helps him, he may bring the act to places like Long Island and New York City.
Andrew Rasiej, candidate for the office of Public Advocate, continues to come up with innovative new ways to address everyday problems in the city. Yesterday, Gothamist pointed to a new Website created by Andrew Rasiej's campaign team: We Fix NYC. The site will track and document potholes in order to "build a photographic map of where they are and how long it's taking the city to fix them..." Information is then posted to a Google Map.
So, if there's a pothole in your neighborhood, here's what to do:
"Reporting a pothole is easy. Just take a picture with your cell phone or digital camera, and then send the photo to potholes@wefixnyc.com. Make sure to include the address or intersection where the pothole is located, otherwise we won't be able to mark it on our map."
It's not official yet, but it appears that Governor George Pataki will not seek re-election in 2006, clearing the way for a possible presidential bid in 2008. The decision by Pataki also means that Attorney General Eliot Spitzer is the clear frontrunner to win election as governor next year, especially since both former Mayor Rudy Giuliani and former Massachusetts Governor William Weld have basically taken themselves out of contention as a replacement candidate for Pataki.
The New York Daily News claims that the MTA is maintaining a "secret database of people stopped and questioned for filming or photographing bridges and tunnels as part of the agency's efforts to thwart terror." Apparently, the database is under the auspices of the MTA's Interagency Counter Terrorism Task Force, but it's not exactly clear how this information is shared with the Department of Homeland Security or other anti-terrorist agencies.
While we applaud the MTA for doing its share in protecting the bridges and tunnels of the city, it's still a bit creepy to think that the MTA - an agency that can't seem to make the subway trains run on time - has tasked itself with assembling a secret dossier of information on individuals. What's next, the US Postal Service creating a top-secret file of individuals known to have received correspondence from Iraq or Afghanistan?
Slate takes a probing look at whether random subway searches conducted by the NYPD are legal. The answer? It depends. There is one basic test that these searches must pass:
"According to legal precedent, a random search is acceptable if it fulfills special needs like public safety. If New York's subway screenings are challenged in court, the city's lawyers could argue that the program's primary purpose is to protect the city from terrorism."
However, as Daniel Engber goes on to explain, proving this is sometimes harder than it sounds. Roadblocks used to screen drivers for drug-related crimes, for example, have been struck down as unconstitutional, as have random bag searches at last year's Republican National Convention in NYC.
Bottom line: even meeting the first test ("special needs") is not enough if the searches are deemed to be an invasion of privacy or if the police unfairly singles out certain people for the screening. And, as Michael Bloomberg found out this week, lawyers can really turn up the heat when bad things happen to good people -- such as when a group of British tourists were handcuffed and forced to kneel on a Broadway sidewalk in the blistering summer sun. As these Sikhs from Britain found out, parts of New York City have become real tourist traps during the summer...
Eliot Spitzer has temporarily shifted his focus from Wall Street to the music industry, cracking down on what he calls "bribes" and "payoffs" paid to influence decision-makers who determine what songs are played on the air. The New York Times has the details of the legal settlement between Sony BMG Music Entertainment and New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, in which Sony BMG Music Entertainment agreed to stop providing extravagant gifts, free trips and other giveaways in exchange for airtime for its artists on radio stations.
Expect more on this over the coming months: "The settlement... is the first in a broad investigation by Eliot Spitzer, the New York attorney general, into incentives that record companies offer to radio stations in hopes of getting airtime that will raise their artists' profiles, increase a song's ranking and, of course, drive up sales."Among the other companies targeted by Spitzer: Universal Music Group, the EMI Group and the Warner Music Group.
If nothing else, we now know why Jessica Simpson and J. Lo - both represented by Sony BMG - get so much airtime in key rotation slots.
Craigslist New York went live five years ago, giving New York Magazine the perfect opportunity to reflect on how Craig Newmark, the founder of Craigslist, has impacted a variety of different sectors and markets -- from reality TV shows to vintage furniture to, of course, real estate. The site receives more than 50,000 posts (not visitors) per day. New Jack City is now New Craig City.
The explosions in London today - coming just two weeks after suicide bomber attacks in the London Underground - remind us again of just how difficult it is to protect any city's transportation system. Earlier this week, the New York Daily News had an update on the MTA's "first wave of major anti-terrorism projects," including the installation of high-tech surveillance systems to protect the underwater tunnels leading into Manhattan:
"The systems will be able to detect intruders entering the 14 subway and commuter rail tunnels leading into Manhattan - sending alarms and images to Metropolitan Transportation Authority police and anti-terror staff in command centers, sources said. Cops would be dispatched immediately to thwart any possible attack."
It's a solid step forward, but the article hints that the MTA has been dragging its feet on the whole process. Despite having access to more than $500 million in funding for anti-terrorism, the MTA has spent only a miniscule fraction of this money -- money that can be used to protect New Yorkers.
Over at Newsday, John Valenti points out that it may soon be possible for New Yorkers to take six-hour defensive driving courses online if legislation drafted by a Long Island politician is signed into law by Governor Pataki. A similar system is now in use in 15 other states, including California, Florida and Texas. The online course would cover standard defensive driving topics: driving techniques, road signs, accident avoidance, alcohol and drug awareness and regulations.
The New York Times takes a closer look at who's watching the city's 14 underwater subway tunnels. Somewhat surprisingly, given their vulnerability, nearly half of the tunnels have not been continuously guarded by the NYPD since 9/11. With the recent terrorist attack in London, though, the police department is scrambling to come up with a solution that will prevent intruders from entering the tunnels. Devising a full-blown strategy won't be easy, warns the Times:
"The question of how best to safeguard the tunnels is among the most vexing for the police and transportation officials struggling to address the many security challenges posed by the country's busiest mass transit system. It involves decisions about money, personnel and technology."
The folks at the NYPD have been busy reading Philip K. Dick novels this summer, we see. On Thursday, the NYPD unveiled a new $11 million high-tech crime-fighting center. CBS 2 picks up on the sci-fi/futuristic look of the center: "Mixing elements of Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s media empire and the science-fiction film “Minority Report,” the New York Police Department has created a high-tech nerve center to provide officers instantaneous data about crimes, suspects and even convicts’ tattoos."
"The crime center looks fancy, sort of like a TV control room meets what Hollywood thinks police departments look like (but usually only in futuristic films, like Judge Dredd). Mostly, as much as this is good for the NYPD, this also sounds like the Mayor's answer to CompStat, which was Mayor Giuliani's claim to dramatically decreasing NYC crime."
