Tony Webster: Investigating using domain & SSL info

Minnesota-based freelance journalist Tony Webster is somebody you should follow on Twitter. He's been mining public records and other info to provide additional insight into what's going on in Minneapolis (my home town) right now.

You should check out his website, too. One thing that really caught my eye was this: Using domain registrations, security certificates, and Shodan to break news. He calls it, "A quick guide for journalists: how to spot new domain registrations, recently-issued SSL certificates, and new servers to report on political, business, and government initiatives." It's good stuff! It might need an update, as WHOIS output in a GDPR-compliant world can be limited compared to what it once was (thanks, ICANN), but there's still some very good stuff here.

How to Send a Text Message Via Email

I'm not sure how the website "20somethingfinance.com" ended up being a good resource for this, but that's where I found the most information when I started doing my research. Just to be safe, I'm going to share their same info here just in case that website disappears.

Want to use email to send a text message to your cell phone? Just send an email message to your ten digit phone number + @ + your provider's SMS/MMS gateway domain name. For example, the Verizon Wireless domain for this is vtext.com. If you're a Verizon Wireless customer, and your mobile phone number is 3125551212, you would send email to 3125551212@vtext.com to send a text message to your mobile phone.

Please hire: Aric McKeown

My friend Aric McKeown is a smart guy on a job hunt. Are you hiring? Got anything suitable for his unique set of skills? He's got very solid deliverability, email operations expertise and more!

Aric writes: I have spent the last 5 years work in email deliverability and the 13 previous years working in email marketing production, website analytics, and website design.

In addition to my work resume, I have a large swath of creative side work I've been involved in and created.

Least Dangerous Game - A urban scavenger hunt created at the outset of Twitter, highlighted by Twitter's Jack Dorsey himself.

Make Me Watch TV - A one-year experiment in web 3.0, allowing users to dictate the TV shows I would watch and live-blog nightly.

The Mustache Rangers - A 250-episode improvised podcast produced, edited, and performed by me. 

Blank It - An abstract and surreal webcomic written by me.

A Talking Cat!?!: The Blog - Examples of extreme critical and humorous writing pertaining to the horribly bad movie A Talking Cat!?!

If you, or somebody you know, needs someone with a large history of email marketing skills, or any of my other myriad of critical and creative skills, please let me know.

You can reach Aric directly at aricmckeown@gmail.com or click here to view his LinkedIn profile.

Dead domains: upcmail.cz, chello.cz, karneval.cz, mistral.cz and mbox.dkm.cz

Back in 2019,  UPC (Liberty Global) sold their Czech Republic holdings to Vodafone. Fast forward to May 2020 and they've just announced that email service to the Czech UPC/Chello domains is being shut down, with service terminating on August 31, 2020.

Finally! A font-based solution to the Scunthorpe problem

I've mentioned the Scunthorpe problem a couple times previously--how computerized attempts to block profanity inevitably result in silly false positives. Today it is with glee I note that a kindly font designer has taken heed of the plight of the town of Scunthorpe and implemented a rather silly font that automatically blocks most swears, but allows the name "Scunthorpe" to remain fully viewable. You'll want to click on through and learn more about this, I am sure.

[H/T: Boing Boing]