dantwood writes “In an Infoworld article, Dan Tynan writes about the ‘7 Dirtiest Jobs’ in IT. Number three? Enterprise espionage engineer (black ops). ‘Seeking slippery individuals comfortable with lying, cheating, stealing, breaking, and entering for penetration testing of enterprise networks. Stipulations include familiarity with hacking, malware, and forgery; must be able to plausibly impersonate a pest control specialist or a fire marshal. Please submit rap sheet along with resume.’” Paging Mike Rowe, Mike Rowe to the IT desk.

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chrisd writes “Just wanted to drop a line reminding open source projects that they only have until March 12th (Pacific time) to apply for Google’s Summer of Code. We are accepting more organizations this year than last because we want to add a couple hundred more students to the program. If you are part of a great project or know someone who is, we’d love to see an application. Please note that this is for organizations and not for prospective students, that’s not for a few more weeks (see the program timeline)!”

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mattnyc99 writes “We’ve seen overtures by personal manufacturers to build in chip security before, but now Popular Mechanics takes a long look at growing worries over counterfeit chips, from the military and FAA to the Department of Energy and top universities. While there’s still never been a fake-chip sabotage or info hack on America by foreign countries or rogue groups, this article recommends just how easy it would be for chips embedded with time-release cripple coding to steal data or bring down a critical network - and how that’s got Homeland shaking in its boots (but not Bruce Schneier). While PopMech has an accompanying story on the possible end of cheap gadget manufacturing in China as inflation rates soar there, it’s the global hardware business in general that has DoD officials freaking out over chips.”

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Filed under: Rumors, Products and services, Consumer experience, World wide web, Competitive strategy, eBay (EBAY), Marketing and advertising

If nothing else… eBay Inc. (NASDAQ: EBAY) users are a feisty bunch. After just coming off a multi-week sellers strike, they’re already planning their next revolt, tentatively set to launch Might 1.

The most recent strike was orchestrated in reaction to current changes made on the site and lasted from the week of Feb. 18 through last night. While eBay is steadfast that the recent site boycott had no effect on its business, not everyone is buying that, and are expecting hitting the site again come May.

Some statistics have shown that eBay witnessed a 13% drop in its on the web listings, but eBay denies any impact. The site claims that the statistics out there are not taking into account a 20-cent listings promotion that it had launched just prior to the boycott that temporarily inflated its auction listings.

We have looked a lot at the eBay boycott over the past couple of weeks, and we have repeatedly pointed to a couple key factors that are infuriating eBay users. These include increased final listing fees, removal of seller feedback, and changes that could result in some PayPal payments being held up to 21 days.

While all of the above were enough to ruffle some feathers, I’ve to believe that the ultimate “slap in the face” to sellers was the removal of the option for sellers to leave negative feedback on the site. Rate increases are nothing new to the site, which had to raise its rates as recently as 2005 and 2006. While sellers did not like seeing the rate hike, they ultimately accepted it as a cost of business. The feedback system however, seems to be a little too much for some to bear.

While it is still debatable what effect the most current boycott had, organizers of this next boycott are hoping to accomplish larger and better results from their actions. By taking around six weeks to get mobilized they expect a greater effect, and they are going so far as setting up “state leaders” and looking to form a better organized approach to this upcoming boycott.

So far, the sellers that are joining up have claimed to be 1,000 strong and looking to attract a much broader base of users.

For all you eBay users out there… did you participate in your the most recent boycott? Will you join the next sellers strike? As for the impact on the site, do you feel the strike had any impact what-so-ever on eBay? And one final topic of interest… which change made the site upsets you the most? Fee increase, feedback change, or PayPal change? Let us hear from you!

Michael Fowlkes has worked as a stock trader for seven years and spent the last four years working as an analyst for the online investment advisory service Investor’s Observer.

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bfwebster writes “According to a local news article from last week, Kentucky say lawmaker Tim Sofa wants to ban anonymous posting on the internet in order to ‘cut down on on the internet bullying’, which he says has been ‘a particular problem in eastern Kentucky.’ His bill would require posters to register with their real names and e-mail addresses under threat of fines. Looks like another battle in the right for anonymous free speech.”

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pcause noted that the New York Times is running a story about the information being collected about you by world wide web advertisers. Of course much of this is not news to you, but it’s important that the mainstream media is more aware of the issues surrounding this.

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Filed under: World wide web, Web services, Social Software, web 2.0

You might turn to Facebook to see what your friends are up to, organize a celebration, or just waste some time. But a non-profit group has decided to try to leverage the social networking site for another cause: to find blood donors.

Despite the fact that thousands of people give blood every day, there are constantly shortages of blood. People keep getting sick and hurt, and donated blood has a limited shelf life. So the Red Cross and other organizations regularly reach out to news organizations to get the word out that there’s a need for more donations. But the non-profit group Takes All Types wants to send the message out via Facebook.

If you sign up, Takes All Types will send you a Facebook alert when your blood type is needed in your area. You’ll also be prompted to give blood regularly, and you can opt to receive notifications by phone, fax, email, or SMS as well. Overall, this seems like a great way to get the word out when there’s a blood shortage, as you can directly target people who have already expressed an interest in donating blood.

[via New York Times]

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Filed under: Business, World wide web, Web services, web 2.0

Zoho already has an on the web office suite that makes Google Docs look like Microsoft Works. Now Zoho is expanding its software lineup from document management to people management. Zoho People is an on the web human resources application suite designed for small businesses.

At first glance, this might seem like a strange fit for a company that provides word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation software. But part of the appeal of Zoho’s office applications is their collaborative nature. You can easily share documents with your colleagues because they’re all stored on the internet. So if you’re already collaborating with your employees using Zoho Office, why not manage your personnel using the same application suite?

Zoho People gives you tools for creating custom forms, creating and managing company departments, recruiting employees, creating checklists, and allowing employees to enter their own data.

[via CenterNetworks]

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Filed under: Finance, World wide web, Web services

It can be hard to build your credit history if you don’t have a mortgage, vehicle loan, student loans, or credit card bills to pay off. But odds are you’re making other payments on a regular basis, like your rent and utility bills. They just don’t usually count as far as credit history goes.

PRBC is a service that helps make those other payments count. PRBC stands for Payment Reporting Builds Credit, and your PRBC info can become part of your FICO score. So all you have to do to build your credit history is keep paying your monthly bills on time. In order to participate, you need to either have your financial institutions send info to PRBC or pay a fee so that PRBC can verify transactions you enter on the internet site.

But starting this day, there’s an easier way. You can sign up for PRBC through Billeo, and on the internet bill paying service. Billeo is free, but users who opt into PRBC will be charged a one-time fee of $5. Once you’re signed up, every time you pay a bill using Billeo’s free web-based service the company will track your payments and send the information to PRBC/Fair Isaac.

Billeo doesn’t store your sensitive financial data on the web. Instead it’s encyrpted and saved on your computer, while PRBC as a “consumer reporting agency” is legally required to comply with federal and state privacy laws.

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Filed under: World wide web, Blogging, Web services, web 2.0

Oh day three, where the point values are doubled and the hangover is permanent. If you decided to skip SXSWi this year, joining the hip kids who claimed it was “too commercial” and “too over-hyped”, shame on you. The only thing too commercial were the panels and, frankly, no one goes to those anyway.

So far today we’ve caught up with the guys from Bloxes, which even though not a tech product is remarkably cool in its simplicity. They’re also the same guys behind the uber-cool Songza, which embodies the exact same dead-simple “Why didn’t I think of that?” logic. Interlocking cardboard forms may not be terribly sexy from a software perspective but, who can argue with the ability to build 3d forms out of recycled content. Bloxes are the things you use to build cheap structures in the ultra-hip loft office space where you create the future of the web.

During the day we also had a great interview with Mindbites, which we’ll have encoded and uploaded for your vicarious viewing pleasure, soon. Christina talked with Chris Saad, the founder of Dataportability.org, who is also working on a new version of his other great idea, Particls. I caught up with Saul Colt from Freshbooks, the web app that finally brought the sexyback to invoicing all your freelance clients.

We’d also like to take a minute to address a pressing social issue, Pubic Relations consultants. These hardworking mavens of the tech universe are largely underpaid, over worked, and almost never get glamorous perks like celebration invites, expensive bottles of wine and the adoration of beautiful women. You’ve probably asked yourself, as you lay awake at night, unable to sleep for worry over their living conditions and the status of their multi-million dollar contracts, “What can I do to help?” Fear not, there is a solution. For only hundreds of dollars a day, you can fill the tanks of their luxury cars with precious gasoline, and make the difference between the regular coffee Seattle’s Best and a latte at Starbuck’s.

The numbers:

• Tweets about the Zuckerberg disaster: immeasurable given available tools
• Sandwiches consumed in Bloghaus: 134
• Times the guy in the press room breaks your concentration to ask, “Can I get you anything?”: 17
• Shirts we’ve acquired to give to our readers: 2
• Approximate number of man-minutes Mark Zuckerberg and Sarah Lacy wasted with a useless interview: 112,500
• Newly coined words overheard : 1 (”Radool”, Gary Vaynerchuk)
• Parties we skipped to bring you this content: 3 (well, 2.. we couldn’t resist making an appearance at Gawker)
• Times we’ve left messages for Mullenweg about an interview: 3
• Times Mullenweg has left return messages with no schedule detail: 1

(Matt, we love you and we’re only concerned that you’re ok. Please, we’re worried sick. We’ve called all the hospitals, homeless shelters and even the morgue. Where are you?)

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