Author Archives: Michael Froomkin

Bill Clinton Robocall in Coral Gables Mayor’s Race? (Electioneering April 10)

Posted on April 10, 2011 by Michael Froomkin

We got a Sanabria robocall this afternoon, but I wasn’t the one who picked up the phone and it was over before I got there, so I can’t tell you what it said.

I also got a call from someone who says several people have been getting a robocall from Bill Clinton — Bill Clinton — endorsing Tom Korge in the Mayor’s race. This surely has to be the smallest and most local election the former President has gotten involved in since he left the White House — and maybe since he entered it. Unfortunately, I haven’t gotten mine yet.

Presumably the connection is that Tom Korge and his brother Christopher were major fundraisers for the Clintons.

Posted in Coral Gables | Comments Off on Bill Clinton Robocall in Coral Gables Mayor’s Race? (Electioneering April 10)

Herald Does Gables Election

Posted on April 10, 2011 by Michael Froomkin

The Miami Herald does a long ‘process’ story about the elections coming up in Coral Gables and Miami Shores. It’s mostly about how there have been unprecedented expenditures and unprecedented negative campaigning. It’s a long story, and it’s in the print edition as well as online — probably more column inches then ever devoted to any of the issues in this election.

Two items of special interest. First, the Herald has found out something about the mysterious mailers (cf. Electioneering Report — April 8, 2011 (Update 4)):

According to a Statement of Electioneering Communication filed with the city of Coral Gables, Jordan Behlman is the committee’s chairman. When contacted by The Miami Herald on Friday, Behlman would not comment about his involvement with the group. Behlman, 30, is a registered student at the University of Miami School of Law.

The mailer’s return address is 3606 S. Waverly Cir., Tampa, which Behlman listed as his permanent address on the electioneering statement. It’s the address of Behlman’s parents. Behlman’s mother, Jaynee, said Friday they have nothing to do with Coral Gables.

“I don’t know what’s going on in Coral Gables,’’ she said. “I don’t know who got my address, but they’re using it without my permission.”

She said her son is not living at home and that she was approached by a private detective this week who said he was looking into the committee.

“He scared me to death,” she said.

The Committee for Coral Gables’ Future is not registered with the Florida Division of Elections. According to the statement of electioneering communication, the purpose of the organization is to, “support and oppose candidates in Coral Gables municipal elections.”

(Incidentally, as far as I can recall, I’ve never met this student.)

Second, they quote me (without giving the name of this blog or the URL). Ironically the point of my quote is that I wish they wrote more about issues and less about process.

“It’s always a struggle in municipal elections to figure out what the issues are and what the candidates’ stances are,” said Michael Froomkin, who has lived in Coral Gables for 19 years. A University of Miami law professor, Froomkin writes a popular blog that has chronicled the campaign.

“Certainly the high budgets and the negative mailers are what have attracted the media’s attention,” he said.

Indeed.

Posted in Coral Gables, The Media | 1 Comment

Electioneering Report – April 9

Posted on April 9, 2011 by Michael Froomkin

Saturday’s haul, in addition to the push poll, is one letter, three mailers, and a door hanger left while I was out.
Continue reading →

Posted in Coral Gables | 2 Comments

Waiting for Scrapbook+

Posted on April 9, 2011 by Michael Froomkin

All of the really important Firefox extensions I rely on daily have been updated to be compatible with Firefox 4 — except one: Scrapbook+, the infernally useful web page saving tool (no webrot fears here). The Scrapbook Plus Add-ons Page hasn’t been updated since August 2010, and is silent on the subject other than for some plaintive user requests. Some people say that they’ve downgraded to plain old Scrapbook, which has been updated, but there is also a prominent user report there of lost data that doesn’t make me feel all warm and fuzzy.

So I emailed the developer of Scrapbook+ to ask if an update might be in the works, and lo and behold, inside of ten minutes comes the answer, yes, one is in the works. Some days the Internet is great.

So I guess I’ll hold off on that Firefox 4 upgrade just a bit longer. I just hope the Scrapbook+ update gets here before Firefox 5, which allegedly has a mid-2011 release date.

The other extensions I rely on that is not FF4 compliant is Autocopy. Normally I’d override that problem with MR-Tech Toolkit, but it looks as if that isn’t compatible either…

Posted in Software | 2 Comments

Another Push Poll

Posted on April 9, 2011 by Michael Froomkin

This one in the Mayor’s race. First question: who are you supporting in the Mayor’s race? I said Korge, so the questioner told me he was on the Pensions Board and failed to prevent the pensions crisis, and that although he’s been critical of negative campaigning, a group supporting him [unnamed] has been doing negative campaigning.

Is this call — which since it is a “poll” isn’t covered by ordinary disclosure rules — paid for by Slesnick or Cason? We may never know. (Although it would help if other people getting the call note in comments who is and especially is not being attacked.)

Posted in Coral Gables | Comments Off on Another Push Poll

Dropbox ‘Insecure By Design’

Posted on April 8, 2011 by Michael Froomkin

Here’s the problem: the config.db file is completely portable and is *not* tied to the system in any way. This means that if you gain access to a person’s config.db file (or just the host_id), you gain complete access to the person’s Dropbox until such time that the person removes the host from the list of linked devices via the Dropbox web interface. Taking the config.db file, copying it onto another system (you may need to modify the dropbox_path, to a valid path), and then starting the Dropbox client immediately joins that system into the synchronization group without notifying the authorized user, prompting for credentials, or even getting added to the list of linked devices within your Dropbox account (even though the new system has a completely different name) – this appears to be by design. Additionally, the host_id is still valid even after the user changes their Dropbox password (thus a standard remediation step of changing credentials does not resolve this issue).

Dropbox authentication: insecure by design via Slashdot.

This is a somewhat big deal, especially for anyone using Dropbox file sync on a mobile device that could be easily borrowed for a minute. It will become a very big deal if someone writes a virus that takes advantage of it.

I love Dropbox, I don’t use it on anything mobile other than my laptop which I do keep a close eye on. I encrypt files with anything good on them before I put them in the Dropbox. I think all my machines are pretty well hardened against viruses. And this still makes me unhappy.

Posted in Software | Comments Off on Dropbox ‘Insecure By Design’