Lindsay Lohan of drunken binges fame is taking the help of high-tech to cure her of her dipsomania. Just out of rehab, she has volunteered to wear an electronic anklet that will monitor her blood alcohol levels. The device works on the principle of “transdermal alcohol testing,” and if you know what “dermal” refers to, you’ll know how it does work: the anklet measures the alcohol level in the thin layer of sweat on the skin that’s there no matter what the ambient temperature is. It is sensitive enough to detect consumption of even a teensy-weensy shot.
The transmission of data is as sophisticated as the collection is. Whenever the anklet is within a range of 30 feet from a wireless modem, the collected data is sent to a secure Web site that alerts probation officers if the levels exceed permissible limits. And it is next to impossible to remove it: it has a tamper-proof clasp. And trying to slip something between it and the skin won’t work: an infrared beam measures the distance between the skin and the anklet. When this distance increases even slightly, an alert goes out.
Perhaps Ms Lohan can pass it off a new must-have accessory with her heels.
We always knew that on the Internet you could be anyone, no questions asked. But when you say you’re Steve Jobs, and keep a blog, people are going to be curious. Especially when the blog is titled “The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs” (www.fakesteve.blogspot.com).
The postings are decently funny and tongue-in-cheek, and some of the time politically incorrect. Sample: “Woz has nothing to do but give interviews.”
“Vista’s advanced speech recognition technology.” “Another super cool iPhone hack.” The blog has been quite a hit, with thousands of people viewing the site every day and many others blogging about it as well. Business 2.0 magazine has named Fake Steve Jobs the 41st most influential person in business. You can just see Obelix tapping his head and saying, “These techies are crazy”!
What really draws people to this phenomenon is how well the author of the blog has managed to remain hidden. Some claim he is a Macworld columnist named Andy Ihnatko, while others pooh-pooh the idea and say the perpetrator is a Silicon Valley-based reporter. In fact, people have gone to the extent of IP address tracking to find out the geographical location of FSJ (Fake Steve Jobs). But high-tech sleuthing has raised more questions than answers… then again, some are of the opinion that it would be for the best if FSJ stays hidden.
Posts by FSJ are flying in thick and fast. Watch this space for updates. We love to repeat ourselves.
Celebrities have long dealt with pesky fans and peskier paparazzi. Stalking is part of their lives, and courts have had to intervene too often to address privacy concerns. But most of these cases involved physical stalking. When the stalking becomes virtual, it gets scarier and more pervasive, as Chester Bennington recently discovered.
A woman has pleaded guilty to cyber-stalking Bennington, lead singer of Linkin Park. Devon Townsend, a former employee at Sandia National Laboratories, admitted that for almost a year she’d spied on Bennin-
gton and his wife’s online activities using government computers. She accessed their e-mail and private photos, monitored his financial transactions, and read transcripts of the couple’s phone conversations. She’d have done the post of a KGB agent proud… But as things stand now, she’s staring at a hefty fine and a long time behind bars.
As for Chester, we wonder whether he uses the Internet any longer. Perhaps he should look at moving to Bhutan.