2002-06-25»
Wed Jun 26 01:02:00 2002»
The desperate traffic in illicit goods across America’s borders continues. With Kinder Eggs.
Kinder (pronounced as in kindergarten and meaning “children” in German) can’t be sold legally here because the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission says the toy is a choking hazard. The Food and Drug Administration also objects, deeming the thumb-sized plastic capsule that contains the little toy an illegal, “embedded” nonfood item.
For years, Americans who returned from Kinder lands supported a small market here in the illegal eggs, and the feds were prompted to make periodic crackdowns against importers, often ethnic food shops. But in the past year or so, scofflaws have risen to a new level of Internet-fueled defiance, touching off a lucrative Kinder boom. Web sellers buy the candies — which are the size of a hen’s egg, with milk chocolate on the outside, white chocolate on the inside — and charge from 80 cents to $2 or more per egg.
via Cardhouse
Comments Off on Wed Jun 26 01:02:00 2002
there goes another one.»
Owen Thomas’ Ditherati.com just got domain-jacked. And there continues to be a pattern. I’m not sure, but I’m betting that the new whois owner:
Administrator:
Huang ming drc@vip.163.com 13018501730
Huang ming
gd
Guangzhou,gd,CN 510000
is another fake, but convincing-sounding, international address. Just like hoopla.com and smug.com. I feel like I’m in some clumsily-updated Agatha Christie novel, where a mysterious stranger is knocking off all my favourite Websites, one by one. Except the real criminal here is no stranger at all. Is there a security hole in Network Solution’s system, being exploited by one group of domain thieves? Or even an exploit script doing the rounds? Hard to tell – but I wouldn’t be surprised. Those incompetent, money-grubbing, secretive little fatcats at NetSol have sat in luxury so long they couldn’t even secure their own disgusting little monopoly.
Update: it expired. Reminder got lost in the post. Netsol let off hook. Daaamn them!
VerisignOff – it’s the only solution.
And do you know what really pisses me off? The one thing that ICANN could have done, should have done, within a week of its existence, was shut down Network Solution’s (now Verisign) .com monopoly. The rest of that quango’s job is, as so many people say, merely what Jon Postel did alone at his workstation for decades. But when ICANNwere first given power, for a brief moment they had the political mandate to cut NetSol down to size, and spread the registry out. And no matter what they claim, they fumbled that chance. And within a year or so, they were the absolute creature of Verisign.
Comments Off on there goes another one.
virgin mobile usa, strike two»
There’s a expiry time for top-up credits. And, it appears, an expiry time for the phones themselves. Nick found the the FAQ:
Q. Is there a minimum amount I need to Top-up?
A. The minimum amount you can Top-Up at a time is $20. As long as you add at least $20 every 90 days your account will stay “Current.”
Every time you Top-Up your 90 days starts over. If you forget to Top-Up at all in 90 days, your account becomes “Past Current” and you won’t be able to make or receive calls.
60 days after your account becomes “Past Current” your account will expire. But you don’t want that to happen because expired accounts lose their phone numbers.
Ah well. This isn’t that bad, but it’s still nothing like the straightforward nature of Virgin’s deal in Britain. One more catch and they’re out, I suppose. I did worry that they’d get screwed over by the American telcos.
The customer support voicemail is Very Virgin as well: 1-888-322-1122, if you’re in the US. This is not necessarily a good thing.
Comments Off on virgin mobile usa, strike two
