hayashi

back home

So I’m finally back in town from a long week in New Orleans. What a tough week it was. Glad to be back home. Photos are coming soon.

Leaving for N.O.

Well the time has come once again. My associations big conference in New Orleans. I’ll be there starting tomorrow, Sunday 21, 2007 through the 26th. I have a long week ahead of me. 

Bypass those annoying voicemail greetings

Verizon or Cingular: press *
Sprint: press 1
T-Mobile: press #

Verizon Wireless: If you don’t opt out, we get to share your CPNI call data

By Ken Fisher | Published: October 14, 2007 – 11:38PM CT

Over the weekend, a small storm erupted over new legal language that Verizon Wireless is passing quietly on to its subscribers. It appears as though the cellular provider is changing its terms of service to give the company the right to share sensitive calling data with third parties.
Related Stories

* Verizon says phone record disclosure is protected free speech

At issue is so-called Customer Proprietary Network Information (CPNI) data. While CPNI data does not include explicit information identifying your name and address or your phone number, it does include data on the calls you make and receive, and the services that you may make use of. This includes information about the features of your phone and its capabilities. The data could easily be mined to see what kinds of businesses you call and how often.

Verizon Wireless has been contacting its customers via snail mail to inform them of their intent to share CPNI data with its “affiliates, agents and parent companies (including Vodafone) and their subsidiaries.” The company says that customers who do not want their CPNI data shared need to call 1-800-333-9956 to “opt-out.” Upon dialing the opt-out number, Verizon customers will be prompted for their phone number, billing ZIP code, and last four digits of their Social Security Numbers (in the case of businesses, their Employer ID numbers). Failure to opt-out will be interpreted by Verizon Wireless as “consent” to the company’s data-sharing practices.

Although the Federal Communications Commission has said that it is very concerned about the protection of CPNI data, and is exploring the possibility of strengthening its rules on the issue, Verizon’s opt-out notice appears to fulfill the Commission’s CPNI disclosure requirements.

The Skydeck company blog was the first to suggest that what Verizon wants to do here is use CPNI data to offer targeted advertising. For its part, Verizon Wireless only says that it hope to improve its “services,” but give no concrete examples of what such improvements would look like. Without a doubt, the notice given by the company is extremely vague. Skydeck has a scanned PDF copy available for your perusal.

Verizon Wireless may just be a first mover among other telcos. The race is on in the telecom industry to tap the well of advertising for mobile services, and this opt-out approach is guaranteed to give Verizon a lot of CPNI data to share, an undeniable treasure trove of information for marketers. We don’t envision Verizon selling this data to third parties, using it instead to build its own analytic advertising system to capitalize on the targeting in-house. The company isn’t likely to broadcast such plans until they are very close to fruition, however.

We will update this story when we hear back from Verizon about this new policy. In the meantime, if you’re a VZW customer and don’t want your CPNI data shared, you know the number to call.

[news via ars technica]

Mission Ethiopia

Hello world…

So attached to this post is the slideshow I made with some music and photos I took in Ethiopia. Hope you enjoy. Our website should be updated soon.

Todays Daily Devotional

“I have set the Lord always before me.” Psalm 16:8 NIV
“My eyes are ever on the Lord.” Psalm 25:15 NIV
“I will extol the Lord at all times; his praise will always be on my lips.” Psalm 34:1 NIV

Hey Jude – Beatles

Where are you God?

These past couple days have been the roughest I’ve had in awhile. Everyday that I get up sigh that I have to continue with my life. It sounds more depressing than what it really is. 

I’m in class right now. Class hasn’t started. 

I started reading “Into the Wild” by Jon Krakauer, recommended by C. It’s about a 24 year old guy name Alex. After graduating grad school, he decided to go find him self. He treks into the wild with little money he had, gave away all his possession, and carried on backpack filled with a camera, 10lbs of rice, and a few books. He ultimately dies (I’m not giving away the ending) but it’s an incredible story so far. 

As I’m reading this book I feel so selfish. In the story Alex is so thankful that he’s alive, and I’m here complaining about my life. I recommend this book to everyone, so far.