Sunrocket (my VoIP service provider) quietly called it quits yesterday. Normally, a company going bankrupt will already greatly inconvenience their customers. Sunrocket’s exit however, just absolutely takes the cake.

The CEO Lisa Hook, who only got the job less than 16 months ago, suddenly resigned last Friday. Without notifying any of Sunrocket’s subscribers or employees, she disconnected all services and laid all the employees off. Now thinking back, what did I really expect from an ex-”AOL broadband” executive. You can read the NYTimes’ perspective on the matter here:

Internet Phone Company Halts Operations

By MATT RICHTEL
Published: July 17, 2007

SunRocket, one of the largest start-up companies offering Internet phone service, has ceased operation and is moving its customers to one or more other companies, a person briefed on its status said yesterday.

A message on SunRocket’s customer service line said the company was “no longer taking customer service or sales calls.” Executives of SunRocket, which is based in Vienna, Va., and had 200,000 subscribers as of April, could not be reached for comment.

—

The internet of course, is up in arms about what to do. If you are among the unfortunate Sunrocket subscriber base, contact your credit card company immediately and file a dispute.

Also, a member of slickdeals, y_2032, has suggested that Sunrocket violated FCC rules when they disconnected members’ services without prior notice. You can file a complaint against the CEO here:

I AM MORE CONCERNED THAT WE THE CUSTOMERS HAVE RECEIVED NO SHUTDOWN NOTICE.

I HAVE CONTACTED THE FCC WHO CLAIMS THAT THERE IS A REGULATION REQUIRING SHUTDOWN NOTICE. THE SUGGESTED THAT EVERYONE FILE A COMPLAINT. PLEASE CALL THE FCC AT:

Phone: 1-888-CALL-FCC (1-888-225-5322)
TTY: 1-888-TELL-FCC (1-888-835-5322)
Fax: 1-866-418-0232
E-mail: fccinfo@fcc.gov

also submit an online complaint at:

http://svartifoss2.fcc.gov/cib/fcc475.cfm

as this lack of notification should NEVER happen again.

You can also unlock your current gizmo using one of these username / passwords:

• User:Admin || Password:7UprUtew
• Password: s.M

Straight from Jim Zhuang @ Google China comes one of the more hilarious education fraud stories that has come across my IM window.

IMPOSTER CAUGHT

High school graduate pretends to be a Stanford student, even living in the dorms, buying textbooks and ‘studying’ for exams

Azia Kim was like any other Stanford freshman. She graduated from one of California’s most competitive high schools last June, moved into the dorms during New Student Orientation, talked about upcoming tests and spent her free time with friends.

Azia Kim allegedly climbed through this first-floor window in Okada to sleep during spring quarter. The 18-year-old was evicted after her ruse was uncovered Monday night.

The only problem is that Azia Kim was never a Stanford student.

Kim, an 18-year-old from Orange County who graduated from Fullerton’s Troy High School, lived in Kimball throughout fall and winter quarter. She lived in Okada, the Asian-American theme dorm, until Monday night, when University staff finally caught onto her ruse.

…

I always knew that this was possible, given how lax security is on college campuses. I just didn’t think someone would actually carry this through! Now let’s hope Stanford doesn’t over-react in its response.

I am a big proponent of colleges having “open classrooms”. By that I mean, anyone who wants to attend class, whether a student or not, should be allow to attend. The students are really paying for the diploma anyway. Afterall, colleges are suppose to spread knowledge and produce our next generation of leaders, why not let those who want to learn.. learn?

Unfortunately, Azia Kim went overboard when she decided to move into University Housing. Her “roommate” is actually pretty cute:

But seriously, how do you not know something is amiss.. when she’s going through windows every day.

Still, Kim had neither a Stanford ID nor a key, forcing her to sneak into meals and enter her room through its window, which overlooked the Munger construction pit, the Wilbur parking lot and a dumpster, three feet off the ground. Zhou never noticed, as she spent nearly all her nights in her boyfriend’s room.

The Stanford Daily later posted another article poking fun at the situation. There’s some prized quotes in this one as well.

Dear Ms. Azia Kim . . .

I tip my hat to you. Many of us actual Stanford students read your story in awed delight yesterday, but I for one saw through the carefully orchestrated deceit to the underlying genius of your plan. You are an American heroine for managing to pull a fast one on so many of us who considered ourselves the best and the brightest. Turning lemons into lemonade — or rather, I should say, a free college education — is no easy feat, but you, Ms. Azia Kim are a mastermind, deserving to be ranked up there with Frank Abagnale and D.B. Cooper as one of the greatest con artists of the 20th century.

…

The only drawbacks to your plan were the potential ramifications for your roommate from Okada — her parents just found out that their daughter was sleeping with her boyfriend so much that she practically wasn’t even in the room they were paying for. Oy. I know my parents would kill me. I can’t even imagine what hers will do to her.

…

That . is . just . priceless .

UPDATE: Since someone asked, here’s the PDF copy of “Dear Ms. Azia Kim” from Google Cache, since the actual article got taken down.

UPDATE 2: It seems like the Stanford Daily didn’t completely take down Dear. Ms. Azia Kim, but rather updated the article with the new title “Dear Ms. Kim“

If you use the internet regularly, I’m sure you’ve mistyped a URL at least once or twice, and come across a webpage with nothing but useless links. This is actually a phenomenon called “domain squatting”. Almost every single domain name that remotely sounds like a word, or even the combination of two words have now been squatted on. These scum of the earth assholes’ are actually making fortunes abusing the open internet model.

The man who owns the Internet

Kevin Ham is the most powerful dotcom mogul you’ve never heard of, reports Business 2.0 Magazine. Here’s how the master of Web domains built a $300 million empire.

(Business 2.0 Magazine) — Kevin Ham leans forward, sits up tall, closes his eyes, and begins to type — into the air. He’s seated along the rear wall of a packed ballroom in Las Vegas’s Venetian Hotel. Up front, an auctioneer is running through a list of Internet domain names, building excitement the same way he might if vintage cars were on the block.

As names come up that interest Ham, he occasionally air-types. It’s the ultimate gut check. Is the name one that people might enter directly into their Web browser, bypassing the search engine box entirely, as Ham wants? Is it better in plural or singular form? If it’s a typo, is it a mistake a lot of people would make? Or does the name, like a stunning beachfront property, just feel like a winner?

…

That’s right, the guy makes HUNDREDS of MILLIONS of dollars contributing absolutely NOTHING to society. In fact, he actually affects society negatively. As an internet entrepreneur, we often find our prospective domains squatted on. Not only is he filling the internet with junk, he’s preventing others from contributing to the internet. For a bloody spammer, he sure seems awfully concerned about his own privacy:

Registrant
KEVINHAM.COM
c/o Whois IDentity Shield
142-757 W. Hastings St., Suite #777
Vancouver, BC
Canada V6C 1A1

Someone should find his real address, and give him a serious beating.

Students often complain they are treated as nothing more than a collection of standardized scores and their GPAs. Well, it turns out adults are similarly judged by numbers, the most prominent of which is the credit score. Everyone from employers, banks to landlords use credit scores to get a quantiative measure of one’s “trustworthiness”. Even medical schools are beginning to use credit scores to evaluate applicants. When this single number is of such pervasive influence in everyday life, one might have expected strong government oversight… but you’d be wrong.

Until recently, most consumers have no idea what’s in their credit report. The information within it can be completely wrong and they wouldn’t even know! It wasn’t until 2003 that US Congress passed the Fair and Accurate Credit Transaction Act (FACTA). It finally guaranteed consumers access to one annual credit report from each of the 3 major consumer credit agencies: TransUnion, Experian, and Equifax. Exparian, of course just couldn’t wait to create some confusion for consumers. While the government mandated credit reports can be obtained here:

http://www.annualcreditreport.com

Experian decided they would operate a PAID credit viewing service here:

http://www.freecreditreport.com

When a service charges 13 dollars a month to view credit reports, how exactly does that qualify as free? MSNBC has even written an article on this most blatant deceptive marketing scam.

Don’t fall for FreeCreditReport.com

Also one year ago, credit bureau Experian was also slapped on the wrist by the Federal Trade Commission for misleading consumers at its FreeCreditReport.com Web site. The FTC said Experian didn’t make clear to consumers that they would be charged $79 for an annual subscription after they signed up at FreeCreditReport.com.

What the FTC didn’t say (but was abundantly clear to anyone with a brain) was that FreeCreditReport.com and Experian were benefiting from confusion over news stories telling consumers were entitled to a free copy of their credit report every year. And the site was designed to add to the confusion.

While not admitting wrongdoing, Experian agreed last August to give consumers refunds and make the terms of its product clearer.

….

Given all the confusion, and the legal action, it�s amazing that FreeCreditReport.com is allowed to continue operating. I know it continues to cause mix-ups. Earlier this year, during the hubbub about the missing Veterans Administration laptop, I heard experts testifying before Congress point to the wrong site by accident.

Exparian has even recruited other websites (including movie ticket websites!) to sign up unsuspecting consumers onto their service, hoping they wouldn’t look hard enough at their credit cards bills to notice this recurring charge:

CIC*Triple Advantage877-4816825

The few times we actually need lawyers for a class action lawsuit and they are nowhere to be found!