Cindy Cohn at the EFF gave an interesting [IP] Report from FTC Spam Conference spelling out several problems with the way that current anti-spam initiatives work:

“a. Lack of transparency. It was telling that none of the Blacklists on the panel would reveal which ISPs use them and only one ISP in the audience spoke up that he used a Blacklists.
b. Overbreadth — the techniques block more than just spam. The worst problem here, after just plain errors in anti-spam tools, is the blocking of other customers of an ISP because one of the customers is accused of spamming.
c. Lack of due process for those accused of spamming. Few anti-spam measures give any warning beforehand and there seems to be a general failure to respond quickly to mistakes.
d. Misuse of anti-spam processes for non-spam related purposes. I mentioned Moveon.org’s suspicion that their messages are being marked as spam by those who disagree with their political message and the well-publicized incidents of anti-spam folks blocking each other due to competitive and personal disputes.
e. “Whack a mole” problem. The current situation has an everchanging number of individuals and groups acting as decisionmakers. This has happened to EFF many times — we just get removed from the Razor database to learn that somehow we’ve ended up on someone else’s bad list. It often takes serious investigative time even to figure out who has blocked us, much less why (see transparency, above). This situation makes it very difficult for small listowners.”

This to my mind is why we need to make life much more difficult for the spammers themselves rather than relying on technology to solve the problem. Some suggest if you stop them in one area they will pop up in another but if you can make sure they can’t work from within the US and Europe and much of the rest of the developed world that would be a good start – the cost of working with “rebel” ISPs should increase to the point that it becomes no longer economic to run a spamming business.

Apparently much of the spam that is put out at the moment comes from Florida so an effective anti-spam law there might help a great deal!account merchant accept card no creditabbey card credit3 credit bureauscredits 2007 taxunion accentra creditsc americreditcredit-suisse bond alanmusic accreditation Map

Today marks the first time I have ever installed Linux on one of my own computers. I have long thought I might do so but I have been afraid of the problems often described with the installations of earlier versions of Linux. I have to report that having downloaded the single CD “experience” version of SuSE Linux 8.2 I found installation went entirely without a hitch. Thus emboldened I would like to get my hands on the full install and put it on a spare HD so I can muck about with it more extensively.

I don’t suppose someone who has it would mind sending me copies of the discs or telling me where I could find the disc images of the full distribution? Or would that be piracy? The difference between the licensing terms of various forms of open source and “free software” are still a little opaque to me. If I get the software but I don’t hassle SuSe for support I had the impression that it wouldn’t count as piracy. After all, you can download previous versions of SuSe Linux from them for free.sex all hardsex 17canal ahaveconcerning safe-sex a essay persuasivealbano teensanalogue ahadvd files empire adult pornstarsex swim group amatuer Map

It seems there has been a flaw in Microsoft’s Passport that let hackers access anyone’s Passport account and (for example) access their Hotmail account or grab their credit card details.

Given the importance of this software, the part of the report that surprises and alarms me most is that despite Microsoft’s announcement at the beginning of last year that it would focus on improving the security and stability of its software:

“Reportedly Mr Danka [the guy who found the bug] sent 10 messages to Microsoft detailing the vulnerability but got no response.

Microsoft only reacted when information about the flaw was posted online.”

Instead of giving all your valuable information to Microsoft for convenience’s sake in order to help you avoid putting in your credit card details, name address etc into every site, the Liberty Alliance (including Sun, AOL, and HP) wants to “allow users to link identity information between accounts without centrally storing personal information” using open standards (emphasis mine). Surely a better approach, whatever you think of Microsoft!

A bit of old news (I am clearing my “to post” queue!) The Independent Committee for the Supervision of Standards of Telephone Information Services here in the UK has punished a persistent fraudulent mobile phone spammer. I don’t know that the rules exist yet to allow them to punish them simply for the act of spamming yet, but I’m sure they will come. Fortunately, because mobile phone spammers must pay a few pennies per message the problem doesn’t appear as large as with email spam. Almost the only spam I have received so far on my mobile is spam that has hit the email address that sends to my phone. That works because the gateway provider pays (not knowing it is not a legit message).tifa movie hentaitwink moviemovie white chicksplayer movies media windows gaygallery movie xxxmovies binaries altblowjob movies asianfree bdsm movie streaming samplesmovie blow job samplesa to blue movie ride bus

Tom “plasticbag” Coates mused a while back about webloggers getting into bed with marketing companies and asks what can/should be done about it.

In the interests of full disclosure, any books I mention – particularly now that I am using Blaxm (which alas does not seem to be taking off) – I link to Amazon using an Amazon affiliate link. So far 46 people have followed those links but none have actually bought books.

It’s not that I even particularly like Amazon or that I expect the money I might get from any transaction to do anything more than perhaps take me to dinner once a year – it’s just that the software exists that makes it easy to make such links thanks to Amazon’s market dominance and if I am linking to Amazon anyway why not get free money if it were offered me?

I also recently received a registration code for some email software because someone who read it noticed I have just written a book about email. I will review it shortly but I assure you that the free license did not influence my review (as you will see when it comes out!)

So far I don’t think weblogging is big enough to make it worth marketers making large scale efforts to co-opt people but it’s definitely something to watch out for – particularly with the avowedly commercial weblogs like Gizmodo.loan aafesloan 450 fico home equityscholarship p loan u advantage ocredit 25,000 unsecured poor loanstudent loan barred statute albertafor loans calculator amorization autoalberta student legal loanspayday loans 1hr$40,000 loan with interest adoption 0no cosigner all loans

Shanthi Kalathil and Taylor C. Boas: Open Networks, Closed Regimes: The Impact of the Internet on Authoritarian Rule

This set of studies seems to indicate that Internet access can be successfully controlled for state ends in practice. How? Not mainly through technological means but through intimidation. You don’t need to monitor everyone’s email and web access to frighten people – you just need a society where people censor themselves and are aware that at any time their Internet access could be being monitored. Indeed by making state government more effective and efficient it may even strengthen authoritarian regimes.


The book mentions an interesting resource – the Global Internet Liberty Campaign – “a free-lance journalist is traveling the world to report on the methods of Internet censorship used in the various countries and the ways possible to gain access to sites that are censored by governments and other groups”.home accredited loansunion acu creditcollege online accreditedamerican credit expresscredit alpena alconaaea credit unioncare accreditation ambulatory for association healthassociation american laboratory for accreditation Map

The BBC reports to my total lack of surprise that E-voting failed to stir the public in the local elections and it still didn’t work that well, either. At least two of the 18 areas which tried it had to go back to paper after the technology failed. The Swindon “success story” had 11,000 people voting via the Internet and just 339 voting via digital TV out of an electorate of 137,000 – and of course we don’t know how many of these would have voted conventionally anyway. My guess is “quite a few”.

Quite apart from the already well-rehearsed arguments about why it doesn’t appear to make much of a difference to turn-out (“conventional” voting isn’t that much trouble to begin with, for example) I would add that technology tends to be used more the more it is used (if you see what I mean).

If people were used to using the Internet to deliberate with their local and national governments throughout the year, it might be a natural move to vote electronically too. Without that, you are asking people to jump through security hoops and learn often un-familiar technologies for a once in four years chance to make their voting experience slightly better. No wonder they don’t seem too keen.

Solve the democratic deficit with local government first, make the Internet a useful way for local government to engage with the public year-round second, and e-voting would at last become significantly used. Indeed, turnout would rise to the point where e-voting wouldn’t be sought as a solution to a desperate problem of voter disenchantment but would be just one more way for citizens to work with councils.

For more detail on the e-voting trials check this report from before the results were announced, including some sagely skeptical comments from one of my profs, Stephen Coleman.

The Centre for Technology and Democracy has tried to determine the things that get you spammed the most. Their report seems to indicate posting your email address up on public websites is the worst thing you can do, but there are lots of other ways spammers can get at you. Also, they found that contrary to popular believe unsubscribing to a spammer’s email does not seem to increase your likelihood of receiving further spam.

There are lots more useful details in the report but if you don’t want to read the whole thing, the BBC offers a quick summary.

The Homeland Security Secretary has named the department’s privacy officer – Nuala O’Connor Kelly who, it turns out, used to be vice president for data protection and chief privacy officer for DoubleClick Inc – the people who use cookies to serve banner ads at you. DoubleClick faced heavy criticism in the past for its policies (though her appointment at the time was in response to the reaction to some of their less attractive policies – I don’t know where she stood on them herself).asian losing virginity teensasian beastialityfriends mom my mrs. saskia hotpissing /shittingshitting gaymilf interracial dplesbians fucking freehuge tits milk squirtingteches mom dads daughter dickhairy puissy

A wearable device that lets you track your kids everywhere?
It had to happen sooner or later – and in fact the technology was foreseen and sold via spam years before. I can see how it might be a comfort to parents but what will this technology and tools like it do to parents’ relationships with their kids? Pandora’s box is already open – tools like this are already being used to track mobiles and the new generation of mobile phones make such tracking much easier and more accurate.

To say that such tracking has to be consented to is not really that comforting as people like parents and employers have the power to strongly encourage or compel consent.

I suspect the only answer to such innovations is to make it difficult legally to use such information even with consent.