My other life as a Kickstarter scammer
I first found out about my impersonator, who I'll call Fake Jamie, from a LinkedIn message that popped up in late August last year. "Did we speak today?" the first line of the message read in bold. The person who contacted me had just launched a Kickstarter project, and apparently, I'd reached out to "help spread the word." I'd even pledged over $100 to show my enthusiasm. We'd set up an interview and on the call, I'd mentioned I know a guy that can improve the reach of Facebook ads. He's worked with various successful campaigns, and his service fee ranges from $150 to $250 per day.
The project creator was seriously considering it but had done the research. Before the interview, they looked me up; they knew what I sounded like, and the voice on the end of the Skype call was not me. They wanted to believe they were about to get press exposure, and that perhaps this highly recommended marketeer could give the project another boost. Still, they were glad they hadn't been duped.
I didn't think much of this first event. If anything I was flattered. Someone out there thought I had enough clout to be the frontman for an elaborate Kickstarter scam. But then the emails started coming in... one after another after another. Clearly I was naive to think, Once thwarted, twice shy.
I've received the odd LinkedIn message from suspicious project creators, but primarily they forward me email exchanges they've had with Fake Jamie, adding the question: "Is this really you?" The formula is always the same: Reach out on Kickstarter, follow-up via email, conduct interview, then talk up the services of someone that can give the campaign a better shot at meeting its funding goal.
Some of the finer details change. Fake Jamie has said on occasion that he wants to feature the project in new crowdfunding roundup column he's spearheading for Engadget; sometimes he says he's just going to cover it outright. He originally began plugging a Felix Benson as the magic-worker, but in the most recent example, it's Brett Pearson. The service they offer changes, too. Sometimes it's the promise of better Facebook reach, maybe, or a more prominent spot on the Kickstarter site.
Fortunately, Fake Jamie raises a bunch of red flags. For one, recommending the services of a marketeer is a bizarre if not entirely unethical move on behalf of a journalist. He also targets a variety of campaigns, several of which, such as fashion projects, would obviously fall outside of the purview of a consumer-tech publication. Not to mention that Engadget rarely covers crowdfunding campaigns anyway, given the inherent risks.
The most obvious red flags, though, are that Fake Jamie doesn't use an Engadget email address nor, for reasons I'm still completely stumped by, my picture. The Kickstarter profile image he originally used isn't me, though it is one of a nerdy type with rectangular, black-rimmed specs similar to ones I wore until recently. But you only have to Google me or go to my Engadget editor page to find an official-looking headshot for all your scamming needs. And as I've said, Fake Jamie doesn't sound like me -- he isn't even British -- but you would have to go out of your way to find an Engadget video I've fronted to note that inconsistency.
Beyond these cracks in Fake Jamie's facade, I've learned that many Kickstarter project leads are wary by default. I've come across various questionable Kickstarter campaigns in the past, from straight up money-grabs to attempts at selling white-label Alibaba wares for twice the price. Then there are the ones where the updates just stop coming one day, and products that are eventually delivered fall short of the original promise. I've had the pleasure of throwing money at a few of these myself. Kickstarter is a risky place, but that applies to project creators, too.
You can understand why they're targets. Many will have quit jobs and/or blown savings to make this product or that company happen. And they need help, hence turning to crowdfunding in the first place. If someone crawls out the woodwork and says they can drive traffic to a campaign, it's within the creators' interests to listen. Some of the Kickstarter landing page is manually curated, but other parts are algorithmically filled. From what I've read, aspects like how much traffic your campaign page gets, and how quickly it approaches its funding goal factor into your Kickstarter ranking, as it's called. But the so-called services I've found online that claim to game the system look sketchy at best. Then again, any seller of likes, clicks or fake reviews can be characterized as "sketchy," I suppose.
One creator told me about a project that employed one of these services, and with excellent results. What they thought was genuine engagement, however, turned out to be dummy accounts that canceled their pledges just before the end of the funding window. Fake Jamie, then, isn't really doing anything new, he's just adding another layer and an air of legitimacy by promising a write-up on this site alongside his completely impartial advice.
My initial flattery quickly turned to frustration, among many other emotions, as Fake Jamie grew more prolific. The fact he was using my name made me feel strangely responsible, and I began spending an increasing amount of my time responding, day or night, to the suspicious creators who were reaching out. I offered my phone number and spoke at length with people and teams that wanted a side of explanation with the main course of me dashing any hopes they had of appearing in Engadget.
Identity theft is something we're all supposed to be wary of. But I had always pictured it as someone trying to socially engineer my mother's maiden name out of me or stealing my passport from a hotel room drawer. I never imagined someone would take my name and my work, purely to use as a tool to scam others. That's a special breed of violation: Not opportunistic, but premeditated. And the deeper I went down the rabbit hole, the stronger that feeling of violation became.
Fake Jamie hasn't just been pretending to be me but has also established a paper trail of sorts. I discovered a Facebook profile, for instance, that was set up around the time this all started last August. Again, the picture isn't me, but it's another dude with rectangular, black-rimmed specs that could pass as me at a very cursory glance. And I know the Facebook account is supposed to be me because the header image is the same one Fake Jamie has plastered on his website. Yes, he registered a fucking website, jamierigg.co.uk, in order to have a semi-legit email address to run the scam from. The stones on this guy. The banner image on Facebook and the site, I've managed to trace back to royalty-free stock image library rawpixel.com. Once more, it doesn't look unlike me, and it's shot in a convincing setting.
Article source: https://www.engadget.com/2019/01/31/my-other-life-as-a-kickstarter-scammer/
Intel gives interim CEO Robert Swan the full-time job
Swan was previously Intel CFO, and stepped in to the top job after predecessor Brian Krzanich suddenly left his position. Krzanich's departure was due to the disclosure of a "past consensual relationship" with an Intel employee, violating the company's non-fraternization policies.
The new CEO outlined a number of causes that he will champion under his now official leadership at Intel. "Our execution must improve. And it will. Our customers are counting on us," which could be a dig at the company's recent manufacturing woes. A combination of security updates and an inability to produce enough chips forced Swan to publicly admit that Intel was struggling to make the chips its customers wanted.
In addition, Swan wants to continue Intel's transition from a PC company to one that is "data-centric" and to be bold rather than defensive. That may be a hint that Swan is dissatisfied at how much ground Intel has lost in mobile and in data centers.
Article source: https://www.engadget.com/2019/01/31/intel-gives-interim-ceo-robert-swan-the-full-time-job/
The movie industry is giving up on its UltraViolet digital locker
Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem (DECE), the industry consortium running the service, said it decided to shut down UltraViolet due to changes in the market. In the FAQs on its website, DECE said it's seen the emergence of services "that provide expanded options for content collection and management" outside of UltraViolet in recent years. As DECE chief Wendy Aylsworth told Variety, "The marketplace for collecting entertainment content was very small when Ultraviolet started. It was siloed into walled gardens at the time." The landscape has changed dramatically since the service's launch in 2011.
In addition, UltraViolet may have also suffered from Disney's decision not to support it. The digital locker went live with backing from all major movie studios except the House of Mouse. Disney later launched its own digital locker service called Movies Anywhere. If you have an existing UltraViolet account, you can continue linking your digital content to it and using it to redeem digital copy codes until July 31st. After it shuts down, you'll be able to access your movies and shows through the services of the retailers where you purchased them from.
Article source: https://www.engadget.com/2019/01/31/ultraviolet-shutting-down/
MoviePass rival Sinemia offers more flexibility with rollover tickets
Some monthly plans are a little cheaper than before. The single-ticket option costs $4, down from $6 (even on busier weekend days), and the three-ticket-per-month plan has dropped from $10 to $8. The plans work with Sinemia's physical debit card, which is used for in-person ticket purchases and helps avoid online processing fees.
"At Sinemia, we want to serve every type of moviegoer -- including people who go to the movies once a month, three times a month, even every day," Sinemia founder and CEO Rifat Oguz said in a release. "We understand not everyone can make it to the movies as often as they'd like. By making rollover tickets available, it's easier for our customers to take advantage of more affordable movie tickets and save money at the box office, without any blackout days."
Sinemia made the changes just as key rival MoviePass is set to relaunch its unlimited movie plan. MoviePass expanded its range of subscription options this month, such as with an option that lets you watch any movie in 2D at any time, rather than being restricted to a limited selection of films and days.
Article source: https://www.engadget.com/2019/01/31/sinemia-price-cut-rollover-tickets/
How to watch the Super Bowl: A cord-cutter’s guide
Where and when?
Super Bowl 53 will take place at the Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, Georgia on February 3rd, with kick-off time set for 6:30PM ET.
CBS has the rights for the coverage in English, while ESPN Deportes does so for Spanish.
If you have cable or satellite TV:
Not surprisingly, those of you who have a pay-TV account won't have to worry about needing to watch on a laptop or dealing with a laggy, pixelated stream. If you have Charter Spectrum, Comcast, Dish, DirecTV or any of the other major TV providers, all you need to do is tune into CBS or ESPN Deportes and you're good to go.
If you have a streaming service:
Although Sling TV doesn't offer customers access to CBS, it does have ESPN Deportes, which will air Super Bowl 53 in Spanish. Meanwhile, PlayStation Vue has CBS but it depends where in the US you are, since the channel is only available in select markets. Like with Sling TV, though, ESPN Deportes is on PS Vue -- in case you don't mind watching the game in Spanish. On the other hand, DirectV Now, YouTube TV, Hulu with Live TV and fuboTV all feature CBS, so you won't have any issue finding Super Bowl 53 on these services.
Now, don't fret if you have Sling TV or live in a city where CBS isn't on PS Vue, because you're not out of luck. The first option you have is go old school and get a digital antenna for your TV, which will help you get the free, over-the-air signal for CBS. If you don't want to do that, then you can stream the game (including the halftime show and commercials) at no cost on CBSSports.com and NFL.com, as well as the CBS Sports, Yahoo Sports, Tumblr and NFL apps for iOS or Android.
If you don't have pay-TV or a streaming service:
Your options here are the same as if you had Sling TV or PS Vue: You can either buy rabbit ears for your HD TV or stream the Super Bowl for free on your computer, tablet or phone via the CBS Sports and NFL websites. Additionally, you'll be able to watch through the CBS Sports and NFL mobile apps, plus those from Yahoo Sports and Tumblr (which are owned by Verizon, Engadget's parent company).
So basically, the NFL and CBS made it quite simple for people in the US to enjoy Super Bowl 53, no matter where and how they want to watch -- whether that's on the big screen at home or on the go on the go with a phone or laptop. If you're abroad and can't on your local channel, then you always have the NFL's International Game Pass streaming service, which has a seven-day free trial available.
The only unfortunate thing, for many NFL fans at least, is that they'll probably have to witness Tom Brady and the Patriots win yet another damn ring.
Article source: https://www.engadget.com/2019/01/31/how-to-watch-super-bowl-liii-2019/
Telesat inks satellite internet deals with Loon and Blue Origin
It's an interesting move for Loon in particular. Until now it's been best known for its balloons that provide internet connections from the sky, which could prove a particularly impactful solution in rural areas. Still, Loon CEO Alastair Westgarth suggested to The Verge that the goal of blanketing the planet with internet connectivity from above is too much for one company to handle, and noted Loon had to find the right partners.
Loon will provide Telesat with a custom networking system that draws from the software it uses for its balloons. The aim is to help Telesat deliver consistent broadband internet connections by ensuring a smooth flow of data -- even as the satellites' positions above the globe and their orientation are in flux. It's the first time Loon has licensed its software.
Meanwhile, Blue Origin will use its heavy-lift New Glenn rocket to get the satellites into space in the first place. The in-development rocket, which is expected to have its maiden flight in 2021, will carry more than 30 satellites at once. Deploying so many of them with each launch will help Telesat keep costs down, compared with rockets that carry far less than New Glenn's expected payload capacity of 45 metric tons. Work recently began on the factory that will build New Glenn's engines.
Telesat aims to start satellite internet service by the end of 2022, CEO Dan Goldberg told The Globe and Mail. That timeline could put Telesat on track to have its network up and running before rival SpaceX's Starlink network, which is unlikely to be completed before the mid-2020s. Telesat has still to confirm its main partner that will build its satellites, though an announcement is expected later this year.
Article source: https://www.engadget.com/2019/01/31/telesat-satellite-internet-loon-blue-origin/
Uber adds public transportation options to its app
In a lot of ways, it looks similar to the public transit info you can already find in Google Maps and Apple's Maps app -- after putting in a starting point and destination, the Uber app shows what transit lines are nearby, when the next bus or train arrives, and how far you'll have to walk at the beginning or end of the trip. Estimate for when buses and trains are arriving will be provided by Moovit, a service that does real-time tracking and route planning for public transportation. To differentiate itself from what you can already do in Google Maps, Uber will also soon let customers buy digital RTD tickets right in the app. That's something that would certainly make getting around via public transit easier, particularly for people who aren't familiar with the city they're trying to traverse.
This is just Uber's initial public transit offering; the company says it is actively making it easier for other transit agencies to partner with the app and see what kinds of services it offers. Uber's already made partnerships with a number of other agencies, but this marks the first time it is integrating a city's public transportation options right into the app. Given today's announcement, though, it seems likely this service will show up in other cities before too long.
Article source: https://www.engadget.com/2019/01/31/uber-public-transit-denver-test/
Kanye West settles lawsuit over ‘The Life of Pablo’ Tidal exclusivity
When The Life of Pablo first dropped on February 14, 2016, West said the album would be available only on Tidal. The day after its initial release, the artist took to Twitter to say "My album will never never never be on Apple. And it will never be for sale... You can only get it on Tidal." That drove many people, including Baker-Rhett, to sign up for Tidal, either grabbing a free trial or ponying up the $9.99 monthly subscription fee to hear the album. Despite the rapper's claims, TLOP made its way to Spotify and Apple Music just a few weeks later, leaving fans stuck with an unwanted subscription to Tidal.
West defended the release of TLOP on other streaming services by claiming that, because he made changes to the album and added a song after its release, it was actually a different record entirely. With the settlement between West and Baker-Rhett, the artist will (for now) avoid a class-action case that would have allowed anyone talked into Tidal just to hear TLOP to join the suit.
West is no stranger to controversy, but The Life of Pablo has had a particularly contentious history. Beyond the whole exclusivity fiasco, the album is also at the center of a criminal investigation in Norway. Investigators in the country believe Tidal may have inflated the streaming figures on a number of exclusive albums including TLOP and Beyoncé's Lemonade.
Article source: https://www.engadget.com/2019/01/31/kanye-west-the-life-of-pablo-tidal-exclusive-lawsuit-settlement/
Gaming accessibility is the star of Microsoft’s Super Bowl ad
Microsoft has placed more focus on accessibility as of late, an effort that has extended into gaming, particularly with last year's release of the Xbox Adaptive Controller for Xbox One and PC. Now, the controller is taking center stage in a Super Bowl ad that highlights some of the ways it helps gamers with mobility limitations. During Sunday's game, CBS will air a 60-second version of the charming "We All Win" clip.
Article source: https://www.engadget.com/2019/01/31/microsoft-super-bowl-ad-xbox-adaptive-controller-accessibility/
How sex censorship killed the internet we love
I pop over to Yahoo News and try the same searches, exhaling relief to see 892 news articles for "porn" from outlets ranging from Associated Press to Rolling Stone. They're there. It's just that Google's 2018 algorithm upgrade filters out news with the word "porn" in it. Like articles about porn performer suicide, tips for revenge porn victims, parents who oppose porn website age-verification (turns out, today's parents are more afraid of data collection than their kids watching porn).
Stories with the word "porn" in them are important because they're about censorship, sexual health, business trends, sex work, politics, gender and women. They're about people.
But not for the world's most popular search engine. Google's war on sex took root in 2011 when Google Plus launched with a strict no-sex policy. In 2013, the company enacted a porn purge across Blogger and Android's Google Keyboard was updated to exclude over 1,400 "inappropriate" words, like "lovemaking," "condom," and "STI." In 2014 Google Play banned sex-themed apps, and an algorithm change in Search destroyed organic results for sex websites. 2014 was the same year Google made changes to its AdWords policies to prohibit sex-related advertising.
When Google first launched in 1998, Nerve was one of the internet's leading websites. It was an online magazine about sex with articles and featured erotic artists, busy personals, packed forums, publishing terrific sex books by writers and photographers, and had a wildly popular free blogging service (one of the first). From 1997 through the early '00s, Nerve was the fun, exciting, sex-positive place to be and hang out, bursting with creative communities, optimism, and hope that a vital future was being explored.
For many, Nerve represented a new era in which we could finally, freely talk about sex, gender, orientation, sex culture -- and exchange ideas. Thanks to Nerve's "literate smut" tagline and ethos, private acts of creation could make tortured people feel valid and whole. People don't make sites like Nerve anymore. No one can.
When was the last time the internet made you feel good?
I can feel my anxiety climbing as I search for art and photography. I am looking for Black erotic art, because this kind of visibility matters to me. Like the millions of people who enjoyed Tumblr, I do not want the stereotypes and advertising assault of commercial porn 'tube' sites, which performers say profit unfairly off their hard work.
We used to have a living, breathing museum of sex culture online. But in December 2018, Tumblr banned and removed adult content from its service. Estimated loss: at least 12.5 million blogs.
When Tumblr started in 2007, it made people feel like the battle to defend erotic art as socially and sexually valid was won, and the necessity of sexual communities was cemented. We found out so much, like that transgender people had hot sex and great erotic art too, and this was ... just incredibly cool.
When Tumblr erased millions of sex blogs and communities overnight, many lamented that without the website they would've been lost and suicidal trying to figure out their sexuality. When I worked the sex crisis call lines in 2005, before Tumblr, our most common call was from teens in abstinence-only education states who did not know how to prevent sexual disease, infections, injuries, or pregnancy — and youth who were terrified they weren't "normal."
The kids we spoke to were afraid and alone. At the call center we sometimes doubled as a suicide crisis line (the office next to ours was, in fact, the suicide hotline). I can tell you for a fact that Tumblr helped a generation of frightened, isolated kids trying to figure out sexual identity. Now Tumblr is a sex-free haven for white nationalists and Nazis.
In 1997, Ann Powers wrote an essay called "In Defense of Nasty Art." It took progressives to task for not defending rap music because it was "obscene" and sexually graphic. Powers puts it mildly when she states, "their apprehension makes the fight to preserve freedom of expression seem hollow." This is an old problem. So it's no surprise that the same websites forbidding, banning, and blocking "sexually suggestive" art content also claim to care about free speech.
Like Facebook. Artnet wrote last March that Facebook's brutal art censorship includes the Venus of Willendorf, Gustave Courbet's The Origin of the World, "the banning of Gerhard Richter's blurred rendering of a nude descending a staircase, Evelyne Axell's Pop art painting of a woman licking an ice cream cone, and Danish Modernist Edvard Eriksen's beloved, more than 100-year-old public sculpture The Little Mermaid."
So we tried to post the photo of this potato on Instagram. AND IT GOT CENSORED
Hey @instagram Since when potatoes are not allowed on your platform?? #Instagram #censorship #potatoban pic.twitter.com/q15WAFNCiR
— Sex School (@SexSchoolHub) January 26, 2019
The erasure of erotic art, to me, represents a crisis point of culture, of democracy. Art effects the greatest change and empowerment when it's transgressive, scandalous, nude, erotic. Visibility matters. Art is where minds are opened, ideas challenged, viewpoints explored, where people who hate have a chance to be changed, even if for a minute.
When was the last time the internet gave you hope?
I can feel my anxiety climbing as I look for the voices of adult performers and sex workers online. The silence is so overwhelming it's suffocating. In 2018, an estimated 42 million sex workers worldwide were evicted from the open internet and essentially went into hiding with the passage of FOSTA-SESTA.
The censorship wave was unprecedented in internet history. Twitter, Facebook, and all major web service providers immediately changed their rules to tightly police what was posted and messaged about sexual content, by anyone. Entire online communities were kicked off services like Cloudflare (55,000 users of Switter), and hundreds of thousands were disappeared by the shuttering of safety forums and advertising-screening services. Reddit removed entire communities overnight. Recently, YouTube banned videos where people simply talk to sex workers.
The voices erased are the voices of women. Of gay and straight men, transgender people, the voices of people of color. These populations make up the majority of sex workers. So in America, FOSTA is analogous to how the World Health Organization is categorized as "pornography" in web filters used in Kuwait and the UAE.
The law legalized sex censorship online. FOSTA was pushed by Sheryl Sandberg and Facebook — who used their support of FOSTA to appease Sen. John Thune (R-SD). Thune pushes the false narrative that Facebook censors conservatives and previously said he wanted to regulate the company. FOSTA falsely states that consensual adult sex work is the same as sex trafficking, and was opposed by the Department of Justice, the ACLU, the EFF, numerous online free speech organizations, and actual sex trafficking organizations.
FOSTA claimed to stop sex trafficking and has utterly backfired. San Francisco just released its 2018 crime statistics. The only violent crime that increased in San Francisco in 2018 was "human trafficking" — up by an astonishing 170%. These are not sex worker arrests, which fall under a "vice" subcategory.
Before FOSTA, the voices of sex workers were readily available. Anyone could ask sex workers who they are, why they make the choices they do, and what actual sex workers think about doing sex work.
It was an incredible moment because before free blogging and social media sites, the only way we heard the voices of sex workers and porn performers was through media outlets that portrayed them as broken rape victims -- or sex trafficked children. Adults having consensual sex for entertainment were not given a voice unless it validated a narrative of sin, of pain, of regret.
Now all the women (and LGBTQ, PoC) who could speak truth to any of this have been driven underground, silenced by algorithms, bans, and FOSTA-empowered 4chan troll brigades.
When was the last time you felt free on the internet?
I can feel my anxiety climbing as I type. Starbucks is filtering its WiFi with a secret porn blacklist. Patreon, Cloudflare, PayPal, Facebook, Instagram, and Square will eject you for getting near a sex business, linking to perceived sex sites, letting the wrong people use your online business.
Facebook recently banned sexual slang; YouTube bans users for sex ed or LGBTQ content because it might be about sex; Twitter has a mysterious sex-shadowban that no one can get a straight answer on. Tumblr can't tell a potato from a boob. Guides on sexual self-censoring are popular — and necessary. Google Drive scans your files and deletes what it believes to be explicit content. Apple just straight-up hates sex.
It's critical at this harrowing juncture to understand that apps won, and the open internet lost. In 2013, the lion's share of users accessing the internet went to mobile, and stayed that way. People don't actually browse on the internet anymore, and we are in a free speech nightmare.
Because of Steve Jobs, adult and sex apps are super-banned from Apple's conservative walled garden. This combined with Google's censorious push to purge its Play Store of sex has quietly, insidiously formed a censored duopoly controlled by two companies that make Morality In Media very, very happy. Facebook, even though technically a darknet, rounded it out.
In fact, Facebook's FOSTA-SESTA law should share credit for its success with Morality in Media (rebranded as "National Center on Sexual Exploitation"), who claimed the victory as well. Morality in Media was also behind Apple's massive "sexy apps" purge in 2010. And Google's 2014 AdWords sex-ban was claimed by Morality In Media as a victorious outcome from their pressure and meetings with Google to crack down on porn.
When was the last time you thought of the internet as a weird and wonderful place?
We are on the other side now. Like everyone I know, my anxiety climbs as I open any new browser window, check any app or news site. As corporations have scuttled the weird and the wonderful, the taboo voices and forbidden artwork, we wonder only ... what hate will we see today? What attacks await, now that the common rooms and public squares are the playgrounds of racist and anti-sex algorithms, of incels and Nazis, of advertisers and corporations ruling platforms with the iron fist of dated conservative values.
Because it is women, people of color, LGBTQ communities, writers, and artists who comprise the majority population of sex communities, it is everyone who pays the price. It is a curtailing of our freedoms, period.
The people who excised the erotic artists and photographers from Tumblr, who decided that sex talk on iTunes podcasts must not titillate, those who implement anti-sex language filters in anything ... they will pay for it, too. Just not in the ways we'd like (their pocketbooks, their conscience).
The fear is, they'll pay with a little piece of their soul when a young intersex girl can't find a healthy representation of pleasurable sexuality for her own body, and decides that suicide is better than her oppressor's moralistic illusion of isolation. The ignorance behind the war on sex raged by the Facebooks, the Apples, the Googles, the advertisers, the algorithms, is not only dated, but dangerous. As women fight for control of our reproductive organs, as trans people fight for the right to use a bathroom, the trolls have convinced the gatekeepers that sex must be silent, and 4chan — acting on the urges of right-wing populists — deserves a voice.
I don't know what would've happened if the internet could've been allowed to continue without the war on sex. But I know it's not the terrible place of anxiety and fear we're in now.
Article source: https://www.engadget.com/2019/01/31/sex-censorship-killed-internet-fosta-sesta/