First Time Ever Seeing That Message From Comcast

Just got an interesting email and text notice from Comcast.

For the first time ever, we've exceeded our internet data allotment of 1.2 TB!

I was unaware of such a limit and had never hit it before.

Then again, this month has been very heavy on Zoom usage due to both kids being at home and both of us working at home a lot.  

It's also due to a prominent situation of everyone  binging on Netflix and HBO Max and Amazon Prime programs this month, so I can easily see how we hit that number.

Thankfully, since it's the first time we apparently won't be charged for going over, but future overages are charged at $10 for every 50 GB over the limit.  Ouch.  

Now that I know how and where to look, it turns out we got close to that number for the past few months, most especially in September but not close enough to get a warning. 

1.2 Terrabytes!  That's a heckuva lot of data used.

That May Be Yours, But It's A Mine

Amazing what you can buy on the Internet these days.

The Detroit News: Bloomfield Township man finds out novelty land mine could have been real

After receiving what he thought was an inert gag landmine, the buyer got an email from the company that sold it that it may instead be live.

Whether the item or the email or both was the gag is an open question. The State Police secured it and likely in a preventative manner blew it up. No reports as to whether it was actually a live mine, but in any case, it's no longer his.

"The problem with internet quotes is that you can't always depend on their accuracy" ~Abraham Lincoln, 1864.

Basically if there's an appeal to authority with a quote that sounds too good to be true about a current day event, chances are, it is in fact fake.

A lefty I know published with approval this image on the Book of Face this morning:

Looks like the wise Jefferson is wisely foretelling the rise of the uncouth and media criticism of that Orange Man Bad Trump, and Orange Man is bad for acting contrary to the wise statement of Jefferson, now doesn't it?

The problem, of course, is that Jefferson never said nor wrote it, and the quote first seems to have popped up in February 2017, 191 years after Jefferson died. Would be a neat trick if he could have pulled that off.

In fact, Jefferson was rather Trumpian in his criticism of the press of his day:

"I deplore... the putrid state into which our newspapers have passed and the malignity, the vulgarity, and mendacious spirit of those who write for them... These ordures are rapidly depraving the public taste and lessening its relish for sound food. As vehicles of information and a curb on our funtionaries, they have rendered themselves useless by forfeiting all title to belief... This has, in a great degree, been produced by the violence and malignity of party spirit." --Thomas Jefferson to Walter Jones, 1814. ME 14:46

"Our printers raven on the agonies of their victims, as wolves do on the blood of the lamb." --Thomas Jefferson to James Monroe, 1811. ME 13:59

"From forty years' experience of the wretched guess-work of the newspapers of what is not done in open daylight, and of their falsehood even as to that, I rarely think them worth reading, and almost never worth notice." --Thomas Jefferson to James Monroe, 1816. ME 14:430

"Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle. The real extent of this state of misinformation is known only to those who are in situations to confront facts within their knowledge with the lies of the day." --Thomas Jefferson to John Norvell, 1807. ME 11:224

"As for what is not true, you will always find abundance in the newspapers." --Thomas Jefferson to Barnabas Bidwell, 1806. ME 11:118

"Advertisements... contain the only truths to be relied on in a newspaper." --Thomas Jefferson to Nathaniel Macon, 1819. ME 15:179

"The press is impotent when it abandons itself to falsehood." --Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Seymour, 1807.

In other words, one might just say Jefferson called the mainstream media of his day fake news.

There's many valid reasons to criticize Trump without resorting to fake quotes, but it does make it sound better to use a fake quote by a founder of our country rather than going "Reee, Orange Man Bad".

Now, its not just the left that make up historic quotes to bolster their arguments. We have plenty of fake quotes used by those on the right side of the spectrum by Adolf Hitler, George Washington and one particular quote claimed to be from Voltaire but isn't, constantly bandied about by the right side to bolster their arguments as well.

In short, if you come upon a quote by someone considered to be a historical authority or known to be a wise person and it looks like it suits the current drama of the day to a T, it's most likely fake and worth doing a quick check to see if the person quoted actually ever said it before you repost the fakery.

Home Upgrades: The Impressive Orbi

I had setup our home wifi about 7years ago. It has been running rather slowly, especially now that the kids have discovered Netflix on their devices, and coverage has always been rather lackluster. I had a router and then a wireless repeater to get coverage to the side of the house opposite where the Modem was and to provide coverage into the basement. Basement coverage was less than great, typically at most 2 bars and Netflix on the TV downstairs could be slow and coverage at the other side of the house was often not great either.

She who must be obeyed requested I fix this problem as it was becoming rather annoying, especially when she needed a strong connection for work while the kids would play.

So this weekend, I picked up a Netgear Orbi RBK to replace my prior system.

Setup was very easy.

I unplugged the old router and had the router plugged into the cable modem and the satellite setup where the old repeater had been. Withing a few minutes I was fully up and had all the devices around the house (printer, computers, everyone's idevice), reconnected to the Orbi and the Orbi network ID renamed to something the kids chose which was to them rather whimsical and clever but suitably edgy, and the default username and passwords changed.

Testing it out, the performance was impressively improved.

There was full reception in the basement and in the far reaches of the house, and the speed and smoothness was markedly increased throughout the house.

Two Netflix movies playing and computers could still connect and do work without issue.

Seven years worth of improvements in home wireless technology certainly has paid off in this device.

A definite recommendation if you're finding your home internet wifi slow and in need of an upgrade.

A Good Check To Run On Your Home Router

Wordfence offers a free scan utility for you to check if your home router has a vulnerable port open that could expose your network and allow the router to be hacked and used for attacks on other sites.

It's worth running the scan to be on the safe side, and its rather nice of Wordfence to provide it for free and get some awareness of the issue out there.

There Is No Tinfoil Hat Large Enough . . . .

Thanks to Tam's link to a Zerohedge post, I've fulfilled my quota of viewing displays of human ignorance and stupidity out of court for the day, and this morning I've already fulfilled my viewing of in-court stupidity for the day, so I'm good in both departments.

Great Ghu, the post itself is nucking futz - a sort of smorgasbord of just about every dipstick conspiracy theory about America known to man. The comments accompanying the post then take it past 11 and are, if anything, worse. It's sort of an echo chamber of the perpetually paranoid and delusional.

Some people can function off their meds, and apparently quite a few really can't.

NSA And The Future Of The American Republic

Both Borepatch and Say Uncle link to the presentation below by Jacob Applebaum discussing the NSA's means and methods of hacking the heck out of the internet, and computers, and phones.

It's worth the hour to sit down and view it in its entirety. Yes, it's real, and it's darn scary.

On the one hand, I want the NSA to be able to listen in and gather signals intelligence on America's enemies.

On the other hand, I'm rather concerned that the NSA seems to have decided that Americas' enemies includes the American people.

Here's a happy thought as we enter 2014, with a congressional election looming and three more years of Obama as president:

Take the presentation's revealed breathtaking capabilities of the NSA.

Now couple that with, for example, the Obama administration's and the Democrat's desire to continue fundamentally transforming America and stay in power. For those on the left reading this blog, switch that to the next Republican president who comes into office.

Next, take the premise that the NSA's data is not just being used for anti-terrorism purposes, and if it actually is for now, good luck on it remaining so locked-down -- such wide-ranging and tasty information obtained tends to be used far beyond its promised original "national security only" limitations -- but is instead being used for political purposes of the party in power such as listening in and discerning opposing candidates' strategy to stymie, delay or defeat them. Much as we've already seen the IRS' power being so used against the Tea Party in the last election. And to that the sweeping ability of the NSA to intercept all internet and phone communication and to deny computer and internet transmissions at opportune times.

Then folks, if that's the case, the only thing left to say is:

Ave Atque Vale Res Publica Americana

Internet Speed Testing And Home Internet Reconfiguration

My home internet service from Comcast was supposed to be fast, and I was certainly paying enough money every month for it.

Lately however I've noticed its been quite slow, especially when watching shows from Amazon or if one of the kids is on Facetime or another app on another system at the same time.

So I did a VUDU Speed Test and found I was getting all of 3Mbps. Considering I'm paying for 20 Mbps this is disappointing to say the least.

It turns out the modem I had issued to me from Comcast was the problem, being only a DOCIS Level 2 modem. While their tech support claimed it was not the problem. Well, it most certainly was.

This led me to my latest home project.

I went online to Amazon and bought a Linksys DOCSIS 3.0 Cable Modem (DPC3008-CC) from Amazon for all of $78. I installed it and had Comcast register it for service and hey whaddya know, I'm now getting 20Mbps and its great.

So yes, I was right and the online tech was wrong, imagine that. The tech I spoke to today setting up the system was far more competent.

Considering it's $7 a month to lease the super-slow-modem from Comcast, I'm ahead in money in less than a year with much faster performance to boot. The difference between 3Mbps and 20Mbps is very real.

On top of that, I went and bought an OBi100 VoIP Telephone Adapter and Voice Service Bridge and have now replaced the Comcast Home Internet Telephone system with The Obi and Google Voice for essentially a free home phone and a payoff measured in less than 2 months. More money saved and more fun in configuring the service which actually is not that difficult to do. The quality is just fine and I can't beat the price.

If you've got Comcast Internet, I'd strongly advise running a speed test a few times to see if you're really getting the performance that you're paying for from them. I'd also suggest looking at Obitalk's OBi100 and Google Voice for home VOIP telephony service.

You Know You're Getting Legally Old When....

I'm teaching a class on computer law and the night's lecture is on cyberspace and copyrights.

I begin with a general overview of copyrights and then start talking about the Sony safe-harbor decision.

The Sony Safe Harbor rule, which sprang out of the case of Sony v Universal Studios, essentially summarized, is that if a technological device is capable of mainly non-copyright-infringing uses, then it is not banned as a technology just because it might have infringing uses as well. This decision has had a profound effect on computer and home entertainment technology. In fact, the decision, so bitterly opposed by the MPAA, has resulted in their making massive revenues off the sale first of movies on Betamax and VHS tapes, and then on laser disc and DVDs.

Sadly, None of the law students in the class knew what the namesake of the safe harbor rule, the Sony Betamax even was.

None of them currently own a VCR.

At least all of them knew what Napster was, so we could analyze how the courts ruled that it didn't fit the Sony safe harbor.

Ah, a bunch of kids and Baby Sharks, the lot of them.

It'll Be A No Go To Sue Go Daddy

The Detroit Free Press: Women sue Go Daddy over nude photos on revenge-porn site

If ever 'twas a case of an article being useless without the pictures in question this is it.

Go Daddy has been named lead defendant in a Texas lawsuit filed by 17 women whose nude photos were published without their permission on a "revenge porn" website hosted by the Scottsdale-based company.

The lawsuit exposes an obscure Internet pornography niche that often involves jilted ex-boyfriends posting nude or semi-nude cellphone pictures of their former girlfriends, with each photo usually accompanied by personal information such as the woman's name and city of residence.

All prurient interest aside, suing Go Daddy is a No Go.

The only good and constitutional portion of the Communications Decency Act of 1996, is Section 230, and 230's subpart (c) provides:

(1) Treatment of publisher or speaker

No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.

In short, Go Daddy isn't liable for any damages for the publication of materials made by one of its hosted websites, plain and simple. Go Daddy isn't the publisher and can't be liable for the acts of a website that it simply hosts.

This is hardly new law. The leading case on this, Zeran v AOL, dates to 1997 and held:

"[L]awsuits seeking to hold a service liable for its exercise of a publisher's traditional editorial functions – such as deciding whether to publish, withdraw, postpone or alter content – are barred."

The lawyer who pulled Go Daddy into the case, on dubious civil conspiracy grounds related to the publication of the perverse pics for the purpose of procuring a deep pocket for a payout probably should have known better and practiced law in accordance with precedent.

Putz.

A Gloriously Fun Time Sink - World of Tanks

For addictive fun (and free) online gaming, its hard to beat World of Tanks.

You start off with a garage of light tanks and one medium tank, and using experience points gained in battles you can upgrade them and also move on to even better armored units over time. You can then get other light tanks, medium tanks, heavy tanks, tank destroyers, and assault guns.

The battles are a lot of fun with lots of players on some very interesting maps and the system seems to balance the sides well so my tier 1 tank isn't getting clobbered by tier 3 or 4.

It's a pretty cool game indeed, and has a way of taking up a lot of free time.

Having played for a few hours I'm just starting to learn the basics of the game and to get some second tier tanks (and a 2nd tier tank destroyer) and it is neat how every tank has some significant performance differences.

It's well worth looking into if you like armored first person shooters.

Michigan Governor Signs Social Media Privacy Bill

In the flurry of bills passed in the lame duck session, HB 5523 was among those that have been signed into law.

HB 5523, styled as the Internet Privacy Protection Act, prohibits employers and educational institutions from demanding access to, or firing / disciplining employees and students for refusing to provide access to their personal email accounts, social media accounts, and other personal internet accounts except for some very limited circumstances.

The bills properly exempts accounts owned by an employer or educational institution from such a ban and permits investigations when there is specific information concerning work-related employee misconduct, unauthorized transfer of the employer's information, or criminal activity.

The bill also protects employers and educational institutions by affirmatively setting out that they do not have a duty to search or monitor such personal accounts. it also states that they are not liable for failing to request or require the student or employee to allow such access to their personal accounts.

Of course, the ban doesn't prevent a school or employer from using information that is publicly available or made public by the employee or student. So don't expect to get off under this bill if you call in a sick day and then post on Facebook about your attending some event on the same day.

Overall, its a good law and one that helps to separate the work/educational institutional sphere from people's private lives (to the extent that there's much in the way of a private life left).

Cory Booker Falls For Fake Internet Quote

Mayor of Newark, New Jersey and Democrat rising star when not challenging Obama, Cory Booker fell for the dreaded trap of the internet - the convenient but fabricated quote.

Opposing Views: Newark, New Jersey Mayor Cory Booker Challenges Twitter User to Live on Food Stamps

The challenge came after Mayor Booker quoted the Greek historian Plutarch on Twitter.com: “An imbalance between rich and poor is the oldest and most fatal ailment of all republics.”

Mayor Booker then explained how public investment in education and nutrition would save money on police and prisons.

Having studied the classics, the quote struck me as quite off, and sure enough Plutarch never wrote it.

The quote doesn't appear in any of his works, and the closest is a passage describing the appointment of Solon by the Athenians in The Life of Solon

The Athenians, now the Cylonian sedition was over and the polluted gone into banishment fell into their old quarrels about the government, there being as many different parties as there were diversities in the country. The Hill quarter favoured democracy, the Plain, oligarchy, and those that lived by the Seaside stood for a mixed sort of government, and so hindered either of the other parties from prevailing. And the disparity of fortune between the rich and the poor, at that time, also reached its height; so that the city seemed to be in a truly dangerous condition, and no other means for freeing it from disturbances and settling it to be possible but a despotic power. All the people were indebted to the rich; and either they tilled their land for their creditors, paying them a sixth part of the increase, and were, therefore, called Hectemorii and Thetes, or else they engaged their body for the debt, and might be seized, and either sent into slavery at home, or sold to strangers; some (for no law forbade it) were forced to sell their children, or fly their country to avoid the cruelty of their creditors; but the most part and the bravest of them began to combine together and encourage one another to stand to it, to choose a leader, to liberate the condemned debtors, divide the land, and change the government.

Then the wisest of the Athenians, perceiving Solon was of all men the only one not implicated in the troubles, that he had not joined in the exactions of the rich and was not involved in the necessities of the poor, pressed him to succour the commonwealth and compose the differences. Though Phanias the Lesbian affirms, that Solon, to save his country' put a trick upon both parties, and privately promised the poor a division of the lands, and the rich security for their debts. Solon, however, himself says, that it was reluctantly at first that he engaged in state affairs, being afraid of the pride of one party and the greediness of the other; he was chosen archon, however, after Philombrotus, and empowered to be an arbitrator and lawgiver; the rich consenting because he was wealthy, the poor because he was honest. There was a saying of his current before the election, that when things are even there never can be war, and this pleased both parties, the wealthy and the poor; the one conceiving him to mean, when all have their fair proportion; the others, when all are absolutely equal. Thus, there being great hopes on both sides, the chief men pressed Solon to take the government into his own hands, and, when he was once settled, manage the business freely and according to his pleasure; and many of the commons, perceiving it would be a difficult change to be effected by law and reason, were willing to have one wise and just man set over the affairs; and some say that Solon had this oracle from Apollo-

This is because your current policy preference always sounds better if you can support it with some ancient wisdom.

Indeed, as Abraham Lincoln (as channeled by Clayton Cramer) once said:

“The problem with Internet quotations is that many are not genuine.”

While the real text above has everything you need for a Battlestar Galactica episode: - Cylons, Lesbians, oracles and Apollo - it lacks any viable way to get to “An imbalance between rich and poor is the oldest and most fatal ailment of all republics.”

The real Plutarch would hardly be in favor of Booker's side.

Plutarch, in this passage notes much of the discord was from the poor paying one sixth of their income to the creditors, while most now pay far more than one sixth in taxes.

Indeed, Plutarch's lives records the shift of the Athenians (and others in his other works) from democracy to tyranny, or Republic to dictatorship as the fickle mob is flattered and bought off by the demagogues. Not quite the message Booker would want to highlight considering he's a Democrat.

Yet another warning to be suspicious of un-sourced quotes on the Internet that support your position, especially when they sound both modern and convenient.

When Security Hampers Usability

While trying to stop viruses and other nasties from harming my PC, I've been noticing some serious issues with my web browsers recently. From ridiculous slowness. to complete freezing, to text coming out jumbled when being typed in, it was becoming a major problem.

After running lots of anti-virus scans, checking various network settings and everything else I could think of, I've finally tracked it down and figured out that the problems are caused by the Constant Guard Toolbar provided by Comcast as part of their computer security stuff they give you for free as a subscriber.

It is helpful that they give you the security package and it obviously benefits them as it prevents or at least reduces the risk of their network from becoming a bunch of virus-infected and hacked computers.

But, the Comcast Constant Guard Toolbar really does not get along well with Firefox and Google Chrome, and least not in their latest updated iterations.

How badly does it not get along?

Try as badly as absolutely constantly freezing the browser, waiting forever for pages to load and then suddenly getting a "program not responding" message as the browser goes translucent, and anytime you try to enter text in a text entry on a website it just doesn't work.

So I disabled the Constant Guard Toolbar and voila - functionality is back to 100% with the browsers and speed and text entry is back to normal.

So, if you're experiencing Chrome or Firefox browser freezing and browser slowness, you may want to try disabling the Constant Guard Toolbar and see if that resolves your problem.

Good security tools shouldn't destroy your usability in the name of enhanced security.

Of course, if you couldn't use the web browser due to the security tool making it unusable, I suppose your web browsing would then be 100% secure.

Constant Guard Toolbar - The operation is a success but the patient died. No thanks, I'll take an operational browser with a slightly higher risk over an unusable source of frustration any day.

Animal Rights Activist To Face the Music For Her Threats?

The Detroit Free Press is covering the case of a Florida Animal "Activist" who has been threatening a Michigan researcher at Wayne State University.

Animal rights activist accused of writing blog posts calling for death of Wayne State researcher

Animal rights activist can return to Florida until hearing on graphic blog posts, judge rules

While the activist is claiming her threats are protected under the First Amendment, her activities have included publishing his name and address and how to defeat his home alarm system as well as advocating that he be slowly killed, and continuing to email him in a harassing manner.

The Court, following the rationale and ruling in Planned Parenthood v. ACLA, 290 F.3d 1058 (9th Cir. 2002) should certainly be able to restrain her speech activities from continuing these threats against the doctor.

If the court fails to do so, there's going to be an interesting variation created in the protection afforded abortion doctors versus the protection afforded animal researchers from internet-based threats of violence.

Vanessa Hudgens finds out that storing nude photos online is not the best idea

The Detroit Free Press: FBI tracking hacked nude photos of Vanessa Hudgens



(Photo taken by Emma Lilly, CC BY-SA 3.0)

Angry about the latest round of personal nude photographs leaked to the Internet this week, the pretty "Beastly" star Vanessa Hudgens has recruited law enforcement officials to help her crack the case.

Hudgens, 22, who skyrocketed to fame in the Disney-made "High School Musical" films, met with FBI agents for more than an hour Wednesday hoping to expose the perpetrators who hacked into her Gmail account, then stole and distributed her personal files, according to TMZ.com.

Keeping those photos, or other items you wish to remain private, "in the cloud" where they can be hacked is just not the best idea. This is especially so when you're a celebrity and hackers want to go after your stuff for the thrill of it, especially when you've got that wholesome image thing going.

I'm not excusing the wrongfulness of the hackers in breaking into her account, but if you don't want the risk of your photos coming out, keep them in a secure location so they're not the fruits of a successful hack.

As more and more data starts living in a cloud, expect more hackers to try and make some rain.

Considering that a lot of these hackers are teen boys who in addition to the Internet have something else on the brain, expect lots of nude photos to be falling out of the clouds...

You Can't Take The Text From Me

Borders’ management opened their books this week and turned to Chapter 11.

When Borders announced it was declaring bankruptcy, it was quick to assure its e-readers that their e-texts that were stored for their Cruz readers would still be available and not affected by the bankruptcy and the reorganization of the company.

There are some definite advantages to e-books: My Droid X is loaded with 20 books, and there is a lot of convenience of having them with me in a small package with an easy-to-read screen with a pleasing font. Thanks to the Baen Free Library, I’ve had the opportunity to read a number of authors I would not have otherwise known about or tried, leading to my purchasing many of their books after the generous free samples of the first few books in a series, and also the chance to load my Droid with books I already had in paper format, leading to convenient transportation of many a good read.

Of course, my eBooks are stored locally on the Droid or my computer, not at the mercies of an entity that instead of filing Chapter 11 could have filed Chapter 7 and disappeared, taking the eBooks with them. Paper books that you purchase offer some permanence – the store going out of business doesn’t result in your books being taken away or failing to work.

Having your data, in this case eBooks, stored with a entity that can go away, leaving you without a copy of the data is a problem, and one that more people will likely face and need to deal with as they begin to depend on applications and data stored in a “cloud” online. Sometimes that cloud is not going to have a silver lining but instead bring a perfect storm to the cloud users.

Normal Blogging Now Resumes

I've been out of contact as we just had the joy of being approved to close on a house and then actually moving.

Combine various issues arising in the closing process. Thank you Bank for your spurious objection that was resolved once we proved a negative to your satisfaction, one the day before closing. And thank you, FHA for delaying closing for a week after making an issue the day of the closing - how about being proactive and finding the "issues" before the closing, it's not like this was a surprise purchase. So after almost being homeless, we closed at 5:30 pm the day before the movers came for our stuff. Lots of fun and some new gray hairs as a result. Only downside to the new house - the driveway is even more vertical than the last - I mean we can ski off that sucker in the winter and it is at least a blue square if not a black diamond. To put it simply, the moving truck could not make it up the hill.

Adding to the fun, Comcast instead of making the account a transfer to the new house completely canceled the internet and TV and phone account completely, rendering the house without all such services.

Then right after Comcast came and installed the services, Vista crashed. You know its bad when the only message you get is "Corrupt System Volume". After much cursing, restoring and hoping, it has been brought back to life, and a neglected complete backup of the data and pics on the computer was hastily made. Note to others - do your backups regularly and do em often. But all is well and we finally have internet access again at home.

So Coming up shortly, I will post on the incredible Great Lakes wreck dives I did last Sunday, complete with pictures.

SANS to Lawyers: Watch your data

As if the legal profession doesn't have enough on its plate, Lawyers needs to be on the lookout for hackers: SANS NewsBites Vol. 11 Num. 91 : Hackers now targeting law firms to get secret corporate negotiating information

Interesting story in the Washington Post this morning by Lolita Baldor of the Associate Press on an FBI announcement that attackers are now targeting law firms with the same advanced techniques they are using against government and defense contractors.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/17/AR2009111701074.html
An almost identical announcement was made in a private letter to the
heads of the 300 largest companies in the United Kingdom, from the head
of MI5. The UK announcement was made two years ago.

The SANS Institute is a great cyber security resource and Lawyers need to keep their IT people on their toes and their servers secure to protect their clients' data.

Thanks to Scott of Providentia for the tip.

Trick or Tweet: Woman's Twitter lands her in a Defamation lawsuit

People don't seem to realize that now with the ease of communicating to the public, when you're making casual remarks to your online friends you now open yourself up to liability for what you say.

Landlord sues tenant after tweet about moldy apartment

It all started when Twitter user @abonnen (Amanda Bonnen, who has since deleted her Twitter account) said to a friend on May 12, "You should just come anyway. Who said sleeping in a moldy apartment was bad for you? Horizon realty thinks it's okay." At the time of the tweet, Bonnen's profile was public (meaning that everyone could read her Twitter stream) and she had about 20 followers.

Given that Twitter is pretty limited it is quite likely that the statement can be read as defamatory. I'm not sure on Illinois law but according to the article no request for retraction was made, which is necessary in Michigan before you can receive exemplary and punitive damages, leaving a plaintiff to only recover actual damages which in a defamation claim tend to be quite slight and hard to prove. (According to the Citizen Media Law Project there is no requirement for a Plaintiff to demand a retraction in Illinois).

The Complaint in the lawsuit can be read here.

Off the cuff Twitters about others that aren't clearly shown to be statements of opinion rather than fact can pretty easily expose the sender of the Tweet to potential liability for defamation and the expense of defending a lawsuit. Now whether it makes sense for the landlord to create such a firestorm of likely negative press and commentary about itself and its decision to sue over the seemingly innocuous tweet may be a questionable business decision, especially as landlords would likely prefer even the suggestion that they have a less than habitable apartment be as understated as possible and the lkess attention to such incidents the better. On the other hand, even negative publicity may indeed prove to be good publicity.

The real fun will be when an employee of a company says something off-the-cuff and defamatory or otherwise liability-causing over Twitter and the company gets sued for it.