GeekPhilosophy.com: Geek of the Week: John Aravosis

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Major geeky kudos to John Aravosis, master and commander of AmericaBlog.org, who has been riding cell-phone companies hard lately over their complete willingness to treat their customers like dirt.

It started last month, when John discovered a nasty open secret about the cell phone records of you and me and everyone we know:

Sprint joins growing list of wireless companies whose customers' phone records are available to anyone for $89.95
by John in DC - 1/13/2006 02:19:00 PM
Sprint today joined Cingular Wirless and T-Mobile as cell phone companies whose customers' private cell phone records are available online for anyone to buy for as little as $89.95.

A friend earlier today bought the cell phone records of AMERICAblog writer Joe Sudbay (Joe in DC) from CellTolls.com. These included the dates and numbers of 91 calls made to and from Sudbay's Sprint cell phone in November and December 2005. CellTolls is the same company AMERICAblog used yesterday to buy the T-Mobile phone records of former presidential candidate General Wesley Clark. And last Friday, I used LocateCell.com to easily buy my private Cingular Wireless cell phone records. (It appears that LocateCell and CellTolls are operated by the same company.)

No word yet from any of these companies as to why their customers' allegedly private cell phone records are readily available to anyone with an Internet connection and a credit card.

John has stayed on the story like a bulldog even as the mainstream press has started to pick it up. Which is a vital and necessary service, particularly for those of us who have come to depend upon the Net and remember the days when things like phone services were considered public utilities, not a way for corporate executives to fatten their own personal coffers. As we hear more about the greed and cravenness of these corps -- as they bend over for the Feds’ illegal eavesdropping programs and plot to turn the Internet into private shopping malls that we peons will have to pay through the nose to use -- work like John’s is ever more important.

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who I am

I'm MaryAnn Johanson: geek goddess, film critic, and Generation Xer. I'm a writer and ponderer in New York City who drinks too much wine and thinks way too much about such inconsequences as movies, TV, books, and the meaning of life.
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Not all geeks are Generation Xers. Not all Generation Xers are geeks. Not all those who self-identify as either geeks or Xers will recognize themselves in everything I discuss here. Please do not unduly concern yourself with such details. There is value to be found in thoughtfully considered generalizations. This is what I seek.

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comments

posted by Kathy A (February 8, 2006 1:34 AM)

I first started reading AmericaBlog during the Katrina debacle (wasn't getting enough Bush-slamming just from my Salon subscription, so I started exploring their blog links), and I really like the entire mentality behind it and other similar sites, such as DailyKos and Atrios.

Another good example of how hands on media-savvy GenX liberals can be is in Tuesday's story about the wounded vet who had to pay the Army for his body armor that was discarded after being removed from his bleeding body. After putting out an appeal to raise the $700 the Army was demanding, John raised $5000!! (See story here--http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/02/we-raised-5000-for-body-armor-we-more.html)

This sort of fundraising is typical of what I've seen happen on the internet. A discussion board that I frequent has raised thousands of dollars for various charities and board functions, always within a matter of hours from the time of the original appeal.

posted by MaryAnn (February 8, 2006 12:18 PM)

I heard about the armor thing. John is pretty much a geek hero all the time, basically.

posted by Alex Knapp (February 8, 2006 7:56 PM)

You know, I don't know about the other companies, but Sprint has filed a lawsuit against all of those websites for illegally obtaining and selling their cell phone records.

That would be the "big, bad corporation" protecting consumer privacy at its own expense.

posted by MaryAnn (February 10, 2006 4:25 PM)

Yeah, but Sprint only filed that lawsuit in response to customer complaints. Why were Sprint's systems so open in the first place that they allowed just anyone to get access to customer records? If no one had made a stink about this, the records would still be available and Sprint wouldn't be doing a thing about it.

I don't quite get the characterization of such an act as "at its own expense." It's not like Sprint is doing anyone a favor by suing these web sites -- it's the *least* the company could be doing, not some extraordinary measure its taking out of the kindness of its corporate heart.

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