City Controller: Philly government IT asking, begging for a major hack

9:50 a.m.: This article has been edited to clarify that the City Controller’s press release indicates the possibility of password breaches throughout the city government IT infrastructure, not just the city Web site.

If only a hacker could manage to navigate the city’s Web site, the administration might be in trouble.

That log-in passwords are lax and that fired city employees can still access secure portions of the city’s Web site are just two claims of the 2008 General IT Controls Review of the city’s Division of Technology, released yesterday by City Controller Alan Butkovitz. The review found that some terminated employees and contractors still had active user IDs to one or more of the city’s systems.

“There’s a lack of communication between the DOT and the Office of Human Resources,” said Butkovitz, who is embroiled in a primary race.  “Once an employee or contractor is no longer with the City, all of their user ID and password information must be terminated immediately. The current practice exposes the City to substantial risks by allowing access to important financial data by unauthorized personnel.”

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Mashable suddenly realizes Philly is only an hour away

In a joint event with Indy Hall, New York-based social media blog Mashable will be throwing its first ever Philadelphia event on May 1st at Cavanaugh’s River Deck.

Mashable, the seventh most popular blog on the Web, often hosts mixers in its home city of New York, but hasn’t wandered down the New Jersey Turnpike to kick it with Philly.

As any Phillies fan can tell you, Philadelphia and New York sometimes have a contentious relationship. Admittedly, Technically Philly feared that a New York brand would just elbow its way into throwing a party, take our money at the door and potentially disrespect the city’s tech scene.

However, co-organizers Alex Hillman, of Old City’s Independents Hall, and Mashable’s COO and events planner Adam Hirsch say they both took great pains to be sure the event wasn’t simply a New York takeover.

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Montgomery County schools on Twitter, canvassing the masses

Now this is why I joined Twitter — prom updates.

The Perkiomen Valley School District in Collegeville, Pa. and the Jenkintown School District, both of which are in Montgomery County, are using the microblogging service.

They are spreading school news and information to the masses, or, well, 62 and 21 Twitter accounts, respectively. To be fair, though, neither of them suffer the following of users like Sexplatorium.

“Now, parents will know where to go to get the information they need,” said one of the followers, Mary Ellen Polaski, mother of a 10th grader. “You don’t have the time to go all over the [district] Web site, finding out what’s going on. This is one-stop shopping.”

Events highlights for the week of April 13 – April 19, 2009

Our event calendar is a little thin this week, quite possibly because the community is gearing up for Entrepreneur Week and the Ignite/Mashable Party weekend that is sure to send the city into fits of nerdgasm.

This week, however, has the Young Professionals getting “unplugged” with everybody’s favorite mayor, and one half of the duo who invented Nutter Butter cookies.

While geography enthusiasts can get their map on, and Code Camp gets computer programmers of all stripes together in a free kinda-sorta-unconference.

All events listed on the event calendar are free to attend. Be sure to check our complete calendar for more information, or follow us past the jump.
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Duane, how do you pronounce Swierczynski?

Earlier this week, we covered Northeast Philadelphia’s favorite graphic novelist Duane Swierczynski.

We talked about social media – his blogging and tweeting – and other junk.

But dude’s dry humor is too good to not enjoy twice. After a ride through YouTube, watch our favorite posted interview experience of Duane’s from years passed.

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Friday Q&A: Mike Harris CEO of AnySource Media

Malvern-based AnySource Media thinks it has a good guess about the future direction of online video. The company, founded in 2006, provides software to TV manufacturers that allows consumers to pull their favorite Internet content directly to their television.

If you had AnySource’s technology on your TV and hooked-up to the Web, you could order movies, browse your favorite video content and even purchase products without getting your computer involved.

The company, started by former Ravisent Technologies employees, recently closed a $3.2 million funding round provided entirely by local investors and is anticipating its debut and first revenue later this year. We sat down with CEO Mike Harris to discuss how his company makes money without charging TV makers, what he thinks of Boxee and his fight against the West coast. Oh yeah, and he’s hiring.
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Friday Tech Links: Comcast competes, Indy Hall grows and more

In which we link out to the tech news from Philly and elsewhere (when it matters) that slips through the cracks and make it way fun.

Because that’s what we do best.

• The Inquirer’s Bob Fernandez rewrites a press release and puts two lanterns in the window, announcing that Verizon is coming; Verizon is coming. The company is upgrading its telephone network in Philadelphia for high-speed FiOS Internet and TV services, and they’re starting in Chestnut Hill.

Below see more stories you need to be sure you saw, including our most trafficked of the week.

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P’unk Ave Active Intersection sound installation now streaming live

Ashley John Pigford’s Active Intersection sound installation, running this month at P’unk Avenue‘s office in the Passyunk Square neighborhood of South Philadelphia is now streaming live.

We reported on the University of Delaware professor’s installation with near-excruciating detail earlier this month in our Shop Talk series last week.

Pigford’s installation is a trippy experiment that documents, translates and transmits activity in the street outside P’unk Avenue’s office near 9th and Federal streets as sound.

A camera records sound and video of happenings in the intersection. A computer extracts information from the recorded data and outputs it into a droning, fluctuating melody. Then, the re-processed sound then gets synced to a projection of the video recording.

“It’s constantly changing, constantly flowing, which I think is a very positive human experience.” — Ashley John Pigford on his sound installation.

Be sure to check out the live stream—which is quite hypnotizing—and find out how it all works in our coverage.

GPTMC, other urban destinations attract LGBT community online

Courting gay travelers is old hat for tourist agencies. What’s new is that now the courting is moving increasingly online.

In partnership with the the Greater Philadelphia Tourism and Marketing Corp., Southwest Airlines announced earlier this week that it launched Southwest.com/gayphilly, considered the first airline landing page for a gay destination, as first reported by the Inquirer. The GPTMC is giving away six free trips to Philly in a contest that, while featured in print advertisements, is almost otherwise entirely being promoted online, housed at gophila.com/gayphilly.

It may the first so Web-heavy advertising blitz directed at the gay community by the GPTMC, but it is certainly not the firsT — insert mildly euphemistic pun on the City of Brotherly Love.

In November 2003, GPTMC decided the city’s culture, history, nightlife and dining, packaged with the famed gayborhood could make Philly a top-tier destination for the LGBTQ community. So born was the popular “Get your History Straight and your Nightlife Gay” promotional campaign.

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IndyHall anticipates signing lease after membership drive

This article originally appeared in the April 9, 2009 issue of Philadelphia City Paper and is reprinted here with permission. Photo Credit: Neal Santos.

Picture Old City overwhelmed by a procession of independent workers carrying desks, chairs and laptops up Third Street. Add a lively marching band ushering them along and the evening news to document it.

�Can you imagine if Channel 6 had a helicopter in the sky?� Alex Hillman asks Geoff DiMasi, joking with his business partner in a conference room.

�It would be insane. We�d stop traffic,� he says, laughing chirpily.

Hillman and DiMasi run Independents Hall, a shared office space that rents desks to self-employed workers � though they�d cringe to hear it described so antiseptically. To them, the space is an environment for a �coworking� community, and the inevitable collaboration that comes from putting freelancers in close proximity.

In the two years since its inception, the number of freelancers interested in IndyHall (as it is popularly known) has grown dramatically, prompting Hillman and DiMasi to consider relocating from their current digs on Strawberry Street. They hope to make the move in May. If they pull it off, they�ll not only put Philly on the coworking map � they�ll be in the vanguard of the coworking movement.

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