Another Roland the Plogger story, trying to get traffic for his blog.
The real link to the project is here.. Roland the Plogger makes you go through two extra levels of blogs to get there. (Does he get traffic kickbacks, or what?) The project ran from 2001 to 2004; it's done.
And Keyhole does the same thing. For $29.95, not €12,000.
It's probably better than getting sued by the NY Attorney General.
Or worse, charged criminally with Computer tampering in the second degree, New York's law that covers minor computer tampering. "Section 156.20:
A person is guilty of computer tampering in the second degree when he uses or causes to be used a computer or computer service and having no right to do so he intentionally alters in any manner or destroys computer data or a computer program of another person."
That's a class A misdemeanor in New York. Maximum sentence is one year. Typical sentences are much less, but are often something like some number of weekends in jail.
Note the "causes to be used" clause. That lets prosecutors go up the food chain to the original advertiser who bought the adware deal.
Putting a few advertising executives in jail every weekend for six months would get across the message that adware is a no-no.
It's just a scheme by the RIAA members to recruit spammers. If a user spams somebody and they click on the link, the spammer gets a credit.
We'll probably see "tell a friend" mail generators by Monday or so. By Wednesday "PeerImpact" will be in most Bayesian filters, and in about two weeks, the RIAA servers will be on most major blocklists.
And then there's America's Army., the online FPS run by the United States Army Recruiting Command. Do well in there, and you will hear from a recruiter.
"Why are we here?"
"You have been chosen to defend the starleague against Zur and the Codan Armada". "Oh, NO!" -- The Last Starfighter
I encounter incompatible sites now and then. But so far, I haven't found an incompatible site that didn't have a compatible competitor. So what if "Weather.com" goes into an infinite redirect loop? There's Yahoo Weather.
That's not the Google mapping truck. That's Stanford's entry in the DARPA Grand Challenge,, which is a Volkswagen Touareg with a bunch of SICK laser line scanners mounted on a roof rack. The scanners all face generally forward and down, which is right for automatic driving but wrong for city modelling.
Those old Quonset huts are on Stock Farm Road near Campus Drive. The Stanford Solar Car project and the Grand Challenge team use them.
Now, a patented phishing scam! The CEO of WebLoyalty, Vincent D'Agostino, has two patents on the technology, both titled "Method and system for cross-marketing products and services over a distributed communication network".
Here's the WebLoyalty online demo.. This is triggered after checkout from some other store. All the customer provides is an E-mail address, or at least a click on the big red button below the E-mail address form. Their credit card information is taken automatically from the previous transaction.
The key to WebLoyalty is that it's embedded in VirtualCart, a popular shopping cart program, and is on by default. It's quite possible for a merchant to be serving the WebLoyalty scam without even being aware of it. The merchant can't even turn it off directly. From the VirtualCart WebLoyalty FAQ:
Q. How can webloyalty.com afford to offer Special Rewards and not get paid?
A. webloyalty.com ultimately generates its revenue from the customer. Each customer who claims the Special Reward is offered the chance to join a discount shopping and protection service (Reservation Rewards), discount travel service (Travel Values Plus), shopping protection service (Buyer Assurance), or credit card and identity protection service (Wallet Shield). Although there is never an obligation for the customer to continue after the 30-day free trial, many customers choose to continue a service for its valuable benefits. This subset of consumers provides revenue to webloyalty.com.
Q. Why allow the customer the opportunity to transfer his information as opposed to re-entering it?
A. We believe the customer is always right. And after chatting with hundreds of customers, we heard one thing loud and clear... they want convenience. Most consumers believe allowing them to transfer their personal and financial information with their express permission is much more convenient than re-entering it. Just ask Amazon.com's customers!
Q. How do I opt-out of this program?
A. Send us an e-mail to support@vcart.com with your cart ID and we will be more than happy to review your account for removal from this program. virtualCART reserves the right to require all merchants to participate in the program.
And there you have it, the world's most successful phishing scam, run by a Harvard MBA.
If you need to sue those guys, look them up at the Secretary of State of Connecticut , web site, which has their real address and the names and addresses of the corporate officers. Their actual business name is "WebLoyalty.com, Inc."
Most of what passes for "SF" today is either fantasy or space opera. Go to the SF section of a major bookstore, and skip everything that contains either magic or an interstellar war. How much is left? Not much. Clearly some new directions are needed.
We just had a big "mundane" era - cyberpunk. Most cyberpunk novels contained quite feasible technology. Cyberpunk died partly because it was too much like reality. The cyberpunk novels are now in the "technothriller" section, with Tom Clancy's lesser works (i.e. the NetForce series) featured prominently. So that's been done.
Mundane SF is likely to be dystopian. We have a big problem coming up - the oil is running out.
The era of cheap energy is over unless somebody comes up with something really good really soon.
And there's nothing as cheap in sight. We can get another century out of shale oil and coal, but it's going to be messy. SF about the return of "dark, satanic mills" can be quite readable, but it's not escapist literature. It's closer to the "theater depresso" era of the 1950s, when Arthur Miller's dismal "Death of a Salesman" played on Broadway for months.
Biotechnology offers some options. Michael Crichton turns out moralistic horror stories, most inferior to Mary Shelly's original work. Bujold handles biotechnology well, although in a space opera context. She's one of the very few authors to think through the moral issues of biotechnology. We need more like that.
For an overview of the lobbying effort, see "MILITARY IMPLICATIONS OF COMMERCIAL HIGH RESOLUTION IMAGING SATELLITES IN THEORY AND PRACTICE", by Lt. Col.
Peter L. Hays, USAF. He writes
"Then, in June 1996 the Wall Street Journal reported that Israel was lobbying the White House to restrict all U.S. commercial remote sensing of their territory to resolutions of no better than three meters." The cite is "Israel Asks White House to Place Curbs on 3 U.S. Satellite-Surveillance Firms," Wall Street Journal, 17 Jun 1996.
There are several known "political holes" in the Keyhole/Google database. Israel is one. The US has insisted on blanking out the details of the White House roof, and for some wierd reason, the entire U.S. Capitol is pixilated. The Baghdad imagery is high-res, but pre-war, despite the copyright date on that section. A big area just east of the Baghdad airport seems to have been dimmed out recently.
But you can look at the former USSR in considerable detail. Check out the Kremlin, where you can see cars.
Get the upgrade to a spherical planet here. Really.
The Google Maps thing is a limited HTML/Javascript image file hack. The real Keyhole application works through OpenGL, and you get real 3D. Pan, tilt, zoom, fly over 3D terrain, seamlessly.
After heavy pressure from Israeli lobbyists, the US Congress enacted "shutter control" specifically for Israel in 1997. Satellites using US technology aren't permitted to image Israel with a resolution of greater than 2 meters per pixel. That's why the images of Israel are so lousy.
A good first step would be a big lawsuit against Microsoft by victims of DDOS attacks from zombie Windows machines. Microsoft's EULA doesn't protect them against lawsuits by third party victims. I'd like to see some state attorney general file this. Elliot Spitzer could do it.
Year of the '60s/70s Remakes
on
Dr Who Rolls On
·
· Score: 1
The US registration status for Firefox is "The final review before registration has been completed for this Intent to Use application and it will register in due course."
The Firefox trademark was allowed for registration on 2005-04-15. It's currently in the "publication and issue section", where they print up the nice certificate with the seal and ribbon and send it to the Mozilla Foundation, print the notice in the Official Gazette of the United States Patent and Trademark Office and send it to all Depositary Libraries, "enter the trademark upon the Principal Register", and do all that 19th century stuff.
A stronger approach would be to find out who really owns the site.
For example, let's search Google for "london hotels", a common search phrase. The first return is LondonNights.com.
"Whois" returns "Worldview Ltd, 16 Marine Road West, Morecambe, LA3 1BS, Lancs, GREAT BRITAIN (UK)."
That's a UK company, so we look it up at Companies House., where we find "WORLDVIEW LIMITED,
16 MARINE ROAD WEST,
MORECAMBE,
LANCASHIRE LA3 1BS,
Company No. 04588973". So we have a match on a registered company.
We check further with Dun and Bradstreet, which has a worldwide database of companies. We find "WORLDVIEW LTD
16 MARINE RD WEST
MORECAMBE , UK
Type of Location: single"
So they pass company validation, and we can get financial information about them.
Now let's try a domain that just appeared in a spam: "fleagroups.com". "Whois" gives us
"Flea Market Groups.
126 73rd Ave N.,
Coral Springs, Florida 34992.
US"
So we go to Sunbiz, the Florida State Division of Corporations, and search.
No "Flea Market Groups" under fictitions names.
No match on address under anything beginning with "Flea". No "Flea Market Groups" under corporations, and no "Flea Market *" address matches.
Looking in Dun and Bradstreet, there are "Flea Market *" hits, but no exact match and no address match.
So they fail company validation. Add to probable spammer list, drop search engine ranking.
This is a reasonable test for any site that appears to be selling something.
Slashdot Mirror
The real link to the project is here.. Roland the Plogger makes you go through two extra levels of blogs to get there. (Does he get traffic kickbacks, or what?) The project ran from 2001 to 2004; it's done.
And Keyhole does the same thing. For $29.95, not €12,000.
Or worse, charged criminally with Computer tampering in the second degree, New York's law that covers minor computer tampering. "Section 156.20: A person is guilty of computer tampering in the second degree when he uses or causes to be used a computer or computer service and having no right to do so he intentionally alters in any manner or destroys computer data or a computer program of another person."
That's a class A misdemeanor in New York. Maximum sentence is one year. Typical sentences are much less, but are often something like some number of weekends in jail.
Note the "causes to be used" clause. That lets prosecutors go up the food chain to the original advertiser who bought the adware deal.
Putting a few advertising executives in jail every weekend for six months would get across the message that adware is a no-no.
We'll probably see "tell a friend" mail generators by Monday or so. By Wednesday "PeerImpact" will be in most Bayesian filters, and in about two weeks, the RIAA servers will be on most major blocklists.
If the same SSAN is showing up in both tax payments and unemployment, that ought to be noticed. And the IRS sees both.
"Why are we here?" "You have been chosen to defend the starleague against Zur and the Codan Armada". "Oh, NO!" -- The Last Starfighter
I encounter incompatible sites now and then. But so far, I haven't found an incompatible site that didn't have a compatible competitor. So what if "Weather.com" goes into an infinite redirect loop? There's Yahoo Weather.
Those old Quonset huts are on Stock Farm Road near Campus Drive. The Stanford Solar Car project and the Grand Challenge team use them.
Like Disney DVDs, which disable controls through most of the pre-content crap?
The Appropriations Committee can put general legislation in an appropriations bill, and this is going through that route.
Here's the WebLoyalty online demo.. This is triggered after checkout from some other store. All the customer provides is an E-mail address, or at least a click on the big red button below the E-mail address form. Their credit card information is taken automatically from the previous transaction.
The key to WebLoyalty is that it's embedded in VirtualCart, a popular shopping cart program, and is on by default. It's quite possible for a merchant to be serving the WebLoyalty scam without even being aware of it. The merchant can't even turn it off directly. From the VirtualCart WebLoyalty FAQ:
And there you have it, the world's most successful phishing scam, run by a Harvard MBA.
If you need to sue those guys, look them up at the Secretary of State of Connecticut , web site, which has their real address and the names and addresses of the corporate officers. Their actual business name is "WebLoyalty.com, Inc."
We just had a big "mundane" era - cyberpunk. Most cyberpunk novels contained quite feasible technology. Cyberpunk died partly because it was too much like reality. The cyberpunk novels are now in the "technothriller" section, with Tom Clancy's lesser works (i.e. the NetForce series) featured prominently. So that's been done.
Mundane SF is likely to be dystopian. We have a big problem coming up - the oil is running out. The era of cheap energy is over unless somebody comes up with something really good really soon. And there's nothing as cheap in sight. We can get another century out of shale oil and coal, but it's going to be messy. SF about the return of "dark, satanic mills" can be quite readable, but it's not escapist literature. It's closer to the "theater depresso" era of the 1950s, when Arthur Miller's dismal "Death of a Salesman" played on Broadway for months.
Biotechnology offers some options. Michael Crichton turns out moralistic horror stories, most inferior to Mary Shelly's original work. Bujold handles biotechnology well, although in a space opera context. She's one of the very few authors to think through the moral issues of biotechnology. We need more like that.
This is a well-known issue in the imaging world.
But you can look at the former USSR in considerable detail. Check out the Kremlin, where you can see cars.
The Google Maps thing is a limited HTML/Javascript image file hack. The real Keyhole application works through OpenGL, and you get real 3D. Pan, tilt, zoom, fly over 3D terrain, seamlessly.
After heavy pressure from Israeli lobbyists, the US Congress enacted "shutter control" specifically for Israel in 1997. Satellites using US technology aren't permitted to image Israel with a resolution of greater than 2 meters per pixel. That's why the images of Israel are so lousy.
Anyone interested in setting up "unsafecount.com", where you vote against cookies?
A good first step would be a big lawsuit against Microsoft by victims of DDOS attacks from zombie Windows machines. Microsoft's EULA doesn't protect them against lawsuits by third party victims. I'd like to see some state attorney general file this. Elliot Spitzer could do it.
Major concept shortage this year.
The Firefox trademark was allowed for registration on 2005-04-15. It's currently in the "publication and issue section", where they print up the nice certificate with the seal and ribbon and send it to the Mozilla Foundation, print the notice in the Official Gazette of the United States Patent and Trademark Office and send it to all Depositary Libraries, "enter the trademark upon the Principal Register", and do all that 19th century stuff.
But it's been a done deal since April.
If the Internet had been around in Chuck Colson's day, he probably would have tried that.
Mercedes: "We agree."
Mercedes, a division of Daimlier-Chrysler
Sales are up.
For example, let's search Google for "london hotels", a common search phrase. The first return is LondonNights.com. "Whois" returns "Worldview Ltd, 16 Marine Road West, Morecambe, LA3 1BS, Lancs, GREAT BRITAIN (UK)."
That's a UK company, so we look it up at Companies House., where we find "WORLDVIEW LIMITED, 16 MARINE ROAD WEST, MORECAMBE, LANCASHIRE LA3 1BS, Company No. 04588973". So we have a match on a registered company.
We check further with Dun and Bradstreet, which has a worldwide database of companies. We find "WORLDVIEW LTD 16 MARINE RD WEST MORECAMBE , UK Type of Location: single"
So they pass company validation, and we can get financial information about them.
Now let's try a domain that just appeared in a spam: "fleagroups.com". "Whois" gives us "Flea Market Groups. 126 73rd Ave N., Coral Springs, Florida 34992. US" So we go to Sunbiz, the Florida State Division of Corporations, and search. No "Flea Market Groups" under fictitions names. No match on address under anything beginning with "Flea". No "Flea Market Groups" under corporations, and no "Flea Market *" address matches.
Looking in Dun and Bradstreet, there are "Flea Market *" hits, but no exact match and no address match.
So they fail company validation. Add to probable spammer list, drop search engine ranking.
This is a reasonable test for any site that appears to be selling something.
So says the film production designer.
-
The Shuttle is scheduled to be retired after 2010, or after the next crash, whichever comes first.
-
NASA doesn't even have a design ready to replace the shuttle.
-
NASA's last three heavy-lifter projects all failed.
-
It took 11 years, from 1970 to 1981, to build and fly the Shuttle.
So there's going to be a period after 2010 during which the US won't have a heavy launch capability. Probably a long period.