The idea is neat in theory but it probably won't work.
The reason your idea would fail is the same reason why successful MMORPGs end up losing players.
People don't play these games because they seek the mundane. They play these games to escape the mundane aspects of their daily life. The last thing they want is to have to play a game that reminds them of their boring real life. That's the problem with the high-end MMORPGs. In games like Everquest, policy and diplomacy and ass-kissing (to get into powerful guilds so you can access the high-end content) is so rampant that the game turns into a chore more than entertainment and suddenly you fight that you're spending more energy to get farther in a fantasy world than in real life.
MMORPGs are hit by an unintended side-effect these days. The more complex and detailed they are, the more they begin to resemble real life and turn off players.
Now let's get down to business. Who's got the best list of the IP addresses of all these broadband blocks so we can blacklist them? It's just a matter of time before almost every single one becomes worm-infected and starts up rogue SMTP relays? I've had it with this crap.
The majority of spam now comes from zombie machines on broadband connections. If the ISPs themselves won't release the IP lists of their DUL users, we should set up a master one ourselves so we can stop this zombie army.
If you're going to judge movies, you need to put them in proper context. There are tons of really bad movies, some of which are intentionally bad, or which boldly capitalize on tired characters, concepts and previously successful themes. But when you have ten times the raw material and resources of others, a script from one of the world's best screenwriters, and you botch it up this bad, someone should take a bat to your knees.
In the grand scheme of things, Aritificial Intelligence is easily the worst movie ever created.
I can forgive a grass roots crew with a dream but no clue. But you can't forgive Steven Spielburg and the millions of bucks he threw into this, or not be completely confounded as to why someone didn't question the butchering he gave to what was a promising script.
Who the hell was this movie for? No one knows really. It was the most perverse, illogical, pathetic and disappointing thing ever projected onto a screen.
And then he followed that pile of trash with another pile of trash called "Minority Report" whose listing of continuity errors would be ten times the size of the original script!
Spielburg's career is over. He needs to do everyone a favor and look into something else to do with his time, because his work is a disgrace to the good filmmakers out there that can't get any resources.
I'm sure it's nothing Halliburton or Diebold can't fix for $400 Million via a no-bid contract.
If they went public with this, I'd bet good money it's a precursor to an already set up proposal from a well-connected contractor who wants to ride the wave of public fear all the way to ten times the cost of fixing it.
Technological or Political/Enforcement problem?
on
CAN-SPAM Is A Bust
·
· Score: 1
Yesterday my server blocked 24,857 spams, up from 16,446 the same day a week ago.
Current figures indicate that approximately 81% of the e-mail traffic my server gets is spam. It's probably a little higher than that since there's always some spam that gets through.
To most people, it might not be a big deal, but since I pay for my own bandwidth to the backbone, this represents a tremendous waste of resources that I'm paying for.
The waste of resources is not a technological problem. It's called theft.
The vast majority of spam we're seeing now is originating from zombie PCs that have been compromised due to unauthorized computer break-ins. This is felony computer tempering.
Many spammers are promoting dubious ventures, MLM, casinos, drugs and drug paraphenelia, child porn, questionable OTC stock deals, copycat pharmaceuticals and other schemes. Most of what they're selling is illegal in various jurisdictions.
Consequently, why are those among our community still continuing to claim this is a technological issue? From almost day one, this has been a law enforcement issue. We've never needed any additional Internet-related laws. Software and RBLs have helped blind us to the reality of how bad it is, but none of this stuff has really done much to stop the perpetrators.
If you want to install some software that might actually make a difference, may I suggest a program that writes letters, faxes and e-mails to the local District Attorney in your jurisdiction, urging them to get off their goddam asses and start doing their jobs and prosecuting these spamming scum!
I fail to understand how repealing a mandatory helmet law (or seat belt law) for adults is dubious.
In Louisiana, it's called Darwinism.
They're obviously far ahead of everyone else in the nation. Why we're dissing them I don't know. I'm all for the no-helmet, no seatbelt law. Maybe it'll make the world less occupied by idiots.
How is it that the members of the most dovish American ideology when it comes to foreign policy always seem to be the ones for inciting violence against their domestic enemies? CrimeThinc (yes, I actually read the article) is just one of a long line stretching back to the Weatherman Underground and the SLA up to the Seattle WTO protestors smashing windows. Discounting lone nuts like Timothy McVee (and remember that the Oklahoma City bombing was universally condemned among conservatives), how is it that the half of America which owns guns is never the one calling for violence?
Another example of the need for a -1 Ignorant flag.
Does anyone know what flavor of Linux these guys will be installing? I saw some reference to Dell - I'm not sure if they're the supplier or they use a particular brand. I know Red Hat is on NASDAQ; are any of the other major Linux distributors public companies?
I am old enough to remember when someone got a hummer, they paid 50 bucks for one.
you knoiw, it could be a bunck of people just having fun?
How practical will Doom III be?
You will have a point when Doom 3 costs as much as it would to feed an entire society of people in a third world country for a month. You're not there yet.
50 years ago, nobody but universities and a select group of powerful institutions had computers. Even 30 years ago, computers were never status symbols.
If you're "old enough to remember when someone paid $50 for a hummer", considering that's the going rate; considering what else you've written, it's a logical to assume you were born yesterday.
I just wanted you to know that there are many in America that completely agree with you and are looking on in disgust as the world around us is becoming polluted with these "high-end vanity-oriented accessories." I hate them and more and more want to move out to some unpopulated area...
Wow... what's funny is I am American. But I guess subconciously I feel so detached from "The American Way(tm) as-seen-on-TV" that I've taken to referring to my own nationality in the third person.
Pretty pathetic, yet revealing huh?
Maybe after November I'll start saying "us" instead of America, but not until I feel like I'm part of a nation instead of an embarassing collection of commercial interests that have used mass media to sedate the populace into apathy and self absortion.
You should also be concerned about America (as an idea or ideology) losing the moral high ground.
The rest of the planet has lots of folks short on food and other such items and etc.
This kind of thoughtless use of technology does not make other peoples look up to and admire the American way, yes they see and covet, in some cases, the material wealth but they do not see better people and that's a big problem.
They see a people fiddling while Rome burns, they see the idle rich amusing themselves with trivialities while others fail to survive.
I agree with you. The irony is that whatever entertainment, productive contribution, symbolic gesture, satisfaction or enjoyment could be obtained from acquiring a segway probably pales in comparison with what that $3000-$5000 could do if diverted to less-fortune people or a more productive outlet. But in America it's taboo to suggest such things these days.
From reading the article there seems to be no hard evidence that this was a DDoS. Doubleclick is simply saying this. If you were Doubleclick and you downgraded your bandwidth or had some systems failures, it would be all too convenient to say you're a victim of a DDoS when webmasters complained that their pages weren't loading because your system couldn't respond appropriately. I don't buy the DDoS excuse personally.
eBooks won't be practical until they appropriately exploit their use of the new technology. Simply as a cheaper means to publish material isn't enough.
First there is the issue of practicality of the readers. If you don't have impressive battery life, or the reader is more bulky than a real book, or the display isn't as clear, there's no point.
Then there is the value of the new medium to the consumer. The value to the publisher is obvious, but consumers don't care about that, especially since the greedy publishers don't intend to pass their production savings onto the consumer in the form of dramatically cheaper product costs. So if you want to come close to justifying the value of eBooks, they have to include special features that fully-exploit the platform they're using. One good example of this is integrated audio/video, hyperlinks, footnotes, searching and indices. Another example of proper exploitation would be interactive quizzes where readers can answer questions at ends of chapters and be judged on their comprehension of the material and have the eBook point them to relevant sections summarizing topics they may need to refresh.
I think the DRM issue is secondary to practical applications. Right now, there's no inherent value in eBooks so DRM is irrelevent. There are tons of public domain works that are available in eBook form these days that haven't done anything to spur the industry so I don't believe DRM is any sort of setback at this point.
It's just my opinion, but I think the Segway is a great metaphor for the 21st century American. Its introduction was preceeded by a plethora of sensationalism about how it was going to "change the world", and then it turned out to be only mildly interesting, yet profoundly impractical, expensive, buggy and high maintenance. This of course, didn't stop some people from plunking down five grand for this vanity-driven embarassement of a vehicle, who now desperately seek to find realistic use or justification for their decision.
The Segway epitomizes the concept of the consumer economy, not unlike the Hummer. A piece of vanity equipment whose ultimate underlying purpose is to project the owner's own sense of insecurity upon others.
This is the legacy of the baby boomers in America. In their quest to prove to others (as well as themselves) that money and materialism = happiness, they've perfected this growing trend of high-end vanity-oriented accessories. I hope it works out for 'em.
I've apparently touched a nerve because some people are running HTML-email. That's fine, but don't call my post a troll when you know darn well that HTML-enabled e-mail is a security and privacy risk. It's not a troll. It's the truth.
I don't run HTML-enabled e-mail on my main account. I can appreciate how sometimes you need that feature, but with Eudora and I can turn it on and off where appropriate, but by default it's OFF, and I think that's the way it should be. I don't have to worry about webbots mapping my IP to my e-mail so that spammers can created region-specific mailing lists that are even more valuable. I don't like embedded viruses and worms that exploit holes in the html viewer. I don't need to waste more bandwidth loading html elements I didn't ask for. It makes sense. It may not be for everyone, but surely tech geeks can appreciate that HTML-email is more of a potential security issue than falling for phishing scams.
Let me be among the first to call "Bullshit" on you calling bullshit.
These scams are not directed at YOU. They're directed at your mom, your dad, your kid. You're correct any "nerd" although I think thats a stupid term to use, because I know plenty of "nerds" that don't know crap about stuff like this (*cough*90% of the CS students I work with*cough*).
Just because some people are dumb is no excuse. You can teach someone to know what signs to look for. It would take less effort to teach someone how to examine mail headers than it would be to get the average person to analyze grammar and terms of service for a zillion online entities to make sure the solicitations seem legitimate.
And saying there's something wrong with HTML-enabled e-mail is ridiculous. Yeah, I don't like it. But the LEGITIMATE e-mails sent by eBay are certainly a lot easier to read than a text version would be. Cause text is so much better at advertising then pictures, right?
I've obviously offended the sensibilities of a lot of geek weenies who undoubtedly recognize some inherent risks and security vulnerabilities in HTML e-mail, but prefer its convenience. That's your perrogative, but you can't defend it as IN ANY WAY as safe and secure as non-HTML mail.
Again, you bring up how ignorant people are as if that's a valid reason for employing less secure technology... well text-based mail would be a lot more difficult to fool people - you couldn't obfusicate links and slap up eye candy to confuse users, or you couldn't embed all manner of embedded references that install viruses without users clicking on attachments.
The truth is, html-based e-mail represents more of a security risk than phishing scams. If you want to take the risk by using html-based e-mail, that's your perrogative, but my argument stands on its merits despite a few "geeks" who like the convenience of it. It's still a major security issue. It's not a troll. It's reality. My parent post shouldn't have been modded as a troll - I call BS on that too.
It would be just as easy to create an e-mail plug-in that validates header information as it would be to analyze the content of the e-mail and try to determine if it was legitimate.
Indeed. We seem lucky so far that most such scams are falling down at the most obvious hurdles. However, it does make you think about the awful lack of security amongst many comanies that you do business with.
You hit the nail on the head. The other day I got a call from my broker who told me some kid called him and told him his whole network was wide open - his office was around the corner from a coffee shop and people were sitting there sifting through his hard drive. This is a guy who manages financial accounts for hundreds of people. It's scary.
any "nerd" would run his own DNS server and wouldn't need web-based turd like. Poser.
FYI, I run my own DNS of course. But I use IPWHOIS from Dnsstuff. It's a nice, fast service and it's faster than doing it from the shell, and it has nice links so I can e-mail admins or drill-down to see who's in charge of IP blocks.
This sensationalist phishing PR campaign, if anything, once again proves that content-based filtering is a waste of time and resources. If you rely on spell-checking corporate e-mail as a means to identify its legitimacy, you're off track. If you rely on subtle hints in the message to tip you off that something's funny, you're wasting time.
A simple check of the source IP of the mail relay is the most reliable method of identifying phishing scams. Many of us who primarily use RBLs to block spammers don't deal with this crap because our users never get it in the first place. The main source of these phishing schemes are the same foreign servers that any decent mail admin has RBL'd a long time ago.
So we have another anti-spam company scaring consumers as a means to promote their ineffective spam-filtering solution that will likely involve continual upgrades and degredation of the user's mail service. There are better choices: don't accept any mail from rogus SMTPs. Blacklist the DSL pools, blacklist the IP space of ISPs that allow this illegal activity and you not only stop spam, but you stop worms and these phishing scams.
I am against any anti-spam/worm/phishing technique which involves analyzing the content of the e-mail. RBLs have proven to be more robust and reliable in stopping the spread of this junk and don't slow down mail service or compromise the privacy/security of users.
Let me be among the first to call "Bullshit" on this supposed test.
Any nerd worth his salt knows to first check the headers of the e-mail and Lookup the IP to see where the mail really came from, and/or view the source of the HTML and identify obfusicated URL redirects. Then again, any IT guy who is using HTML-enabled e-mail should have his geek license revoked in the first place.
I love Seagate drives. I won't put anything else in an important machine. I have servers that have been running continuously for more than five years with no problems.
On the other hand, I will NEVER use another Quantum drive ever. Those things run so hot you could probably cook on them and they're notoriously unreliable.
Slashdot Mirror
The idea is neat in theory but it probably won't work.
The reason your idea would fail is the same reason why successful MMORPGs end up losing players.
People don't play these games because they seek the mundane. They play these games to escape the mundane aspects of their daily life. The last thing they want is to have to play a game that reminds them of their boring real life. That's the problem with the high-end MMORPGs. In games like Everquest, policy and diplomacy and ass-kissing (to get into powerful guilds so you can access the high-end content) is so rampant that the game turns into a chore more than entertainment and suddenly you fight that you're spending more energy to get farther in a fantasy world than in real life.
MMORPGs are hit by an unintended side-effect these days. The more complex and detailed they are, the more they begin to resemble real life and turn off players.
Great, ok, nice.
Now let's get down to business. Who's got the best list of the IP addresses of all these broadband blocks so we can blacklist them? It's just a matter of time before almost every single one becomes worm-infected and starts up rogue SMTP relays? I've had it with this crap.
The majority of spam now comes from zombie machines on broadband connections. If the ISPs themselves won't release the IP lists of their DUL users, we should set up a master one ourselves so we can stop this zombie army.
I give 10:1 like all the other 911 critics, you didn't see the movie.
I couldn't agree with you more!
If you're going to judge movies, you need to put them in proper context. There are tons of really bad movies, some of which are intentionally bad, or which boldly capitalize on tired characters, concepts and previously successful themes. But when you have ten times the raw material and resources of others, a script from one of the world's best screenwriters, and you botch it up this bad, someone should take a bat to your knees.
In the grand scheme of things, Aritificial Intelligence is easily the worst movie ever created.
I can forgive a grass roots crew with a dream but no clue. But you can't forgive Steven Spielburg and the millions of bucks he threw into this, or not be completely confounded as to why someone didn't question the butchering he gave to what was a promising script.
Who the hell was this movie for? No one knows really. It was the most perverse, illogical, pathetic and disappointing thing ever projected onto a screen.
And then he followed that pile of trash with another pile of trash called "Minority Report" whose listing of continuity errors would be ten times the size of the original script!
Spielburg's career is over. He needs to do everyone a favor and look into something else to do with his time, because his work is a disgrace to the good filmmakers out there that can't get any resources.
1. A.I.
Worst movie of all time if you ask me.
I'm sure it's nothing Halliburton or Diebold can't fix for $400 Million via a no-bid contract.
If they went public with this, I'd bet good money it's a precursor to an already set up proposal from a well-connected contractor who wants to ride the wave of public fear all the way to ten times the cost of fixing it.
Yesterday my server blocked 24,857 spams, up from 16,446 the same day a week ago.
Current figures indicate that approximately 81% of the e-mail traffic my server gets is spam. It's probably a little higher than that since there's always some spam that gets through.
To most people, it might not be a big deal, but since I pay for my own bandwidth to the backbone, this represents a tremendous waste of resources that I'm paying for.
The waste of resources is not a technological problem. It's called theft.
The vast majority of spam we're seeing now is originating from zombie PCs that have been compromised due to unauthorized computer break-ins. This is felony computer tempering.
Many spammers are promoting dubious ventures, MLM, casinos, drugs and drug paraphenelia, child porn, questionable OTC stock deals, copycat pharmaceuticals and other schemes. Most of what they're selling is illegal in various jurisdictions.
Consequently, why are those among our community still continuing to claim this is a technological issue? From almost day one, this has been a law enforcement issue. We've never needed any additional Internet-related laws. Software and RBLs have helped blind us to the reality of how bad it is, but none of this stuff has really done much to stop the perpetrators.
If you want to install some software that might actually make a difference, may I suggest a program that writes letters, faxes and e-mails to the local District Attorney in your jurisdiction, urging them to get off their goddam asses and start doing their jobs and prosecuting these spamming scum!
I fail to understand how repealing a mandatory helmet law (or seat belt law) for adults is dubious.
In Louisiana, it's called Darwinism.
They're obviously far ahead of everyone else in the nation. Why we're dissing them I don't know. I'm all for the no-helmet, no seatbelt law. Maybe it'll make the world less occupied by idiots.
How is it that the members of the most dovish American ideology when it comes to foreign policy always seem to be the ones for inciting violence against their domestic enemies? CrimeThinc (yes, I actually read the article) is just one of a long line stretching back to the Weatherman Underground and the SLA up to the Seattle WTO protestors smashing windows. Discounting lone nuts like Timothy McVee (and remember that the Oklahoma City bombing was universally condemned among conservatives), how is it that the half of America which owns guns is never the one calling for violence?
Another example of the need for a -1 Ignorant flag.
Does anyone know what flavor of Linux these guys will be installing? I saw some reference to Dell - I'm not sure if they're the supplier or they use a particular brand. I know Red Hat is on NASDAQ; are any of the other major Linux distributors public companies?
rewind 50 years, replace segway with computer.
I am old enough to remember when someone got a hummer, they paid 50 bucks for one.
you knoiw, it could be a bunck of people just having fun?
How practical will Doom III be?
You will have a point when Doom 3 costs as much as it would to feed an entire society of people in a third world country for a month. You're not there yet.
50 years ago, nobody but universities and a select group of powerful institutions had computers. Even 30 years ago, computers were never status symbols.
If you're "old enough to remember when someone paid $50 for a hummer", considering that's the going rate; considering what else you've written, it's a logical to assume you were born yesterday.
Happy birthday.
A post on iPods elicits 500+ comments.
A post on a pioneer of DNA research: under 200.
Let's hope the next generation of iPod can cure cancer, or we're all fucked.
I might be wrong, but you don't sound American.
I just wanted you to know that there are many in America that completely agree with you and are looking on in disgust as the world around us is becoming polluted with these "high-end vanity-oriented accessories." I hate them and more and more want to move out to some unpopulated area...
Wow... what's funny is I am American. But I guess subconciously I feel so detached from "The American Way(tm) as-seen-on-TV" that I've taken to referring to my own nationality in the third person.
Pretty pathetic, yet revealing huh?
Maybe after November I'll start saying "us" instead of America, but not until I feel like I'm part of a nation instead of an embarassing collection of commercial interests that have used mass media to sedate the populace into apathy and self absortion.
You should also be concerned about America (as an idea or ideology) losing the moral high ground.
The rest of the planet has lots of folks short on food and other such items and etc.
This kind of thoughtless use of technology does not make other peoples look up to and admire the American way, yes they see and covet, in some cases, the material wealth but they do not see better people and that's a big problem.
They see a people fiddling while Rome burns, they see the idle rich amusing themselves with trivialities while others fail to survive.
I agree with you. The irony is that whatever entertainment, productive contribution, symbolic gesture, satisfaction or enjoyment could be obtained from acquiring a segway probably pales in comparison with what that $3000-$5000 could do if diverted to less-fortune people or a more productive outlet. But in America it's taboo to suggest such things these days.
From reading the article there seems to be no hard evidence that this was a DDoS. Doubleclick is simply saying this. If you were Doubleclick and you downgraded your bandwidth or had some systems failures, it would be all too convenient to say you're a victim of a DDoS when webmasters complained that their pages weren't loading because your system couldn't respond appropriately. I don't buy the DDoS excuse personally.
eBooks won't be practical until they appropriately exploit their use of the new technology. Simply as a cheaper means to publish material isn't enough.
First there is the issue of practicality of the readers. If you don't have impressive battery life, or the reader is more bulky than a real book, or the display isn't as clear, there's no point.
Then there is the value of the new medium to the consumer. The value to the publisher is obvious, but consumers don't care about that, especially since the greedy publishers don't intend to pass their production savings onto the consumer in the form of dramatically cheaper product costs. So if you want to come close to justifying the value of eBooks, they have to include special features that fully-exploit the platform they're using. One good example of this is integrated audio/video, hyperlinks, footnotes, searching and indices. Another example of proper exploitation would be interactive quizzes where readers can answer questions at ends of chapters and be judged on their comprehension of the material and have the eBook point them to relevant sections summarizing topics they may need to refresh.
I think the DRM issue is secondary to practical applications. Right now, there's no inherent value in eBooks so DRM is irrelevent. There are tons of public domain works that are available in eBook form these days that haven't done anything to spur the industry so I don't believe DRM is any sort of setback at this point.
It's just my opinion, but I think the Segway is a great metaphor for the 21st century American. Its introduction was preceeded by a plethora of sensationalism about how it was going to "change the world", and then it turned out to be only mildly interesting, yet profoundly impractical, expensive, buggy and high maintenance. This of course, didn't stop some people from plunking down five grand for this vanity-driven embarassement of a vehicle, who now desperately seek to find realistic use or justification for their decision.
The Segway epitomizes the concept of the consumer economy, not unlike the Hummer. A piece of vanity equipment whose ultimate underlying purpose is to project the owner's own sense of insecurity upon others.
This is the legacy of the baby boomers in America. In their quest to prove to others (as well as themselves) that money and materialism = happiness, they've perfected this growing trend of high-end vanity-oriented accessories. I hope it works out for 'em.
I've apparently touched a nerve because some people are running HTML-email. That's fine, but don't call my post a troll when you know darn well that HTML-enabled e-mail is a security and privacy risk. It's not a troll. It's the truth.
I don't run HTML-enabled e-mail on my main account. I can appreciate how sometimes you need that feature, but with Eudora and I can turn it on and off where appropriate, but by default it's OFF, and I think that's the way it should be. I don't have to worry about webbots mapping my IP to my e-mail so that spammers can created region-specific mailing lists that are even more valuable. I don't like embedded viruses and worms that exploit holes in the html viewer. I don't need to waste more bandwidth loading html elements I didn't ask for. It makes sense. It may not be for everyone, but surely tech geeks can appreciate that HTML-email is more of a potential security issue than falling for phishing scams.
Let me be among the first to call "Bullshit" on you calling bullshit.
These scams are not directed at YOU. They're directed at your mom, your dad, your kid. You're correct any "nerd" although I think thats a stupid term to use, because I know plenty of "nerds" that don't know crap about stuff like this (*cough*90% of the CS students I work with*cough*).
Just because some people are dumb is no excuse. You can teach someone to know what signs to look for. It would take less effort to teach someone how to examine mail headers than it would be to get the average person to analyze grammar and terms of service for a zillion online entities to make sure the solicitations seem legitimate.
And saying there's something wrong with HTML-enabled e-mail is ridiculous. Yeah, I don't like it. But the LEGITIMATE e-mails sent by eBay are certainly a lot easier to read than a text version would be. Cause text is so much better at advertising then pictures, right?
I've obviously offended the sensibilities of a lot of geek weenies who undoubtedly recognize some inherent risks and security vulnerabilities in HTML e-mail, but prefer its convenience. That's your perrogative, but you can't defend it as IN ANY WAY as safe and secure as non-HTML mail.
Again, you bring up how ignorant people are as if that's a valid reason for employing less secure technology... well text-based mail would be a lot more difficult to fool people - you couldn't obfusicate links and slap up eye candy to confuse users, or you couldn't embed all manner of embedded references that install viruses without users clicking on attachments.
The truth is, html-based e-mail represents more of a security risk than phishing scams. If you want to take the risk by using html-based e-mail, that's your perrogative, but my argument stands on its merits despite a few "geeks" who like the convenience of it. It's still a major security issue. It's not a troll. It's reality. My parent post shouldn't have been modded as a troll - I call BS on that too.
It would be just as easy to create an e-mail plug-in that validates header information as it would be to analyze the content of the e-mail and try to determine if it was legitimate.
Indeed. We seem lucky so far that most such scams are falling down at the most obvious hurdles. However, it does make you think about the awful lack of security amongst many comanies that you do business with.
You hit the nail on the head. The other day I got a call from my broker who told me some kid called him and told him his whole network was wide open - his office was around the corner from a coffee shop and people were sitting there sifting through his hard drive. This is a guy who manages financial accounts for hundreds of people. It's scary.
any "nerd" would run his own DNS server and wouldn't need web-based turd like. Poser.
FYI, I run my own DNS of course. But I use IPWHOIS from Dnsstuff. It's a nice, fast service and it's faster than doing it from the shell, and it has nice links so I can e-mail admins or drill-down to see who's in charge of IP blocks.
This sensationalist phishing PR campaign, if anything, once again proves that content-based filtering is a waste of time and resources. If you rely on spell-checking corporate e-mail as a means to identify its legitimacy, you're off track. If you rely on subtle hints in the message to tip you off that something's funny, you're wasting time.
A simple check of the source IP of the mail relay is the most reliable method of identifying phishing scams. Many of us who primarily use RBLs to block spammers don't deal with this crap because our users never get it in the first place. The main source of these phishing schemes are the same foreign servers that any decent mail admin has RBL'd a long time ago.
So we have another anti-spam company scaring consumers as a means to promote their ineffective spam-filtering solution that will likely involve continual upgrades and degredation of the user's mail service. There are better choices: don't accept any mail from rogus SMTPs. Blacklist the DSL pools, blacklist the IP space of ISPs that allow this illegal activity and you not only stop spam, but you stop worms and these phishing scams.
I am against any anti-spam/worm/phishing technique which involves analyzing the content of the e-mail. RBLs have proven to be more robust and reliable in stopping the spread of this junk and don't slow down mail service or compromise the privacy/security of users.
Let me be among the first to call "Bullshit" on this supposed test.
Any nerd worth his salt knows to first check the headers of the e-mail and Lookup the IP to see where the mail really came from, and/or view the source of the HTML and identify obfusicated URL redirects. Then again, any IT guy who is using HTML-enabled e-mail should have his geek license revoked in the first place.
I love Seagate drives. I won't put anything else in an important machine. I have servers that have been running continuously for more than five years with no problems.
On the other hand, I will NEVER use another Quantum drive ever. Those things run so hot you could probably cook on them and they're notoriously unreliable.