What you're leaving out is the detail: The U.S. GOVERNMENT will donate $35 million.
It's very likely more will be donated as time goes on. Already they have increased this from the initial $15M pledged on the day of the disaster. The size and scope of this is still coming in. One of the things the U.S. Government has already done was to send three P3 Orions to better survey and asses the damage so we'll know what is needed and how much.
Also, that is completely ignoring/not counting donations from the private sector (i.e. You, me, companies) and food donations. I would guess that also doesn't count costs to the U.S. Government for the costs of the manpower we are sending to that area to aid relief efforts.
Me, I'm proud to be an American. In spite of what others may say, our nation is full of compassionate and caring people.
Our pets are so dear to us. They shine so bright in our lives but sadly burn twice as quick (and quicker).
I had a blue tabby cat for 18 years. He was dear to me. Losing him hurt like hell.
After a year of waiting, I got a new cat, this one a long haired calico. She's totally different than my old cat. There's things she doesn't do that my old cat did - and I miss those things. She brings new and different joys into my life. I have come to treasure her for who she is.
In a way I believe cloning diminishes the unique treasures our beloved pets are. If I had my old cat cloned - I would've expected him to be the same old friend I knew for all those years. That is a disservice to him and who he could become the next time around. It was his lifes experiences as they happened that molded him into the cat I knew.
Conversely, if he turned out EXACTLY the same as he had before in terms of personality - is the general public ready to face the potential spiritual implications that carries? Thta is a pretty deep philisophical question with theological overtones.
Once upon a time I had several thousand shares of stock options with my old company. I shudder to think how much money I could've made had I blown the wad at the right time... Easily 10's of thousands.
Could've.
Back in late 2000 it ran all the way up to 40-something, rung the bell, and then cratered. The whole time I made the mistake of holding onto them out of some odd form of loyalty.
My biggest tip to those that have them, DO NOT hesitate to excercise them when the stock runs up. A sunnier day might come, it might not.
As it stood, when I was laid off my options were underwater and not worth the paper they were printed on. I've since lost them, but last I checked they were still underwater.
Easy come, easy go. I would not take them instead of a hard raise.
I too used to believe that that VS were the best money can buy, until I bought one.
A few years ago I purchased a ViewSonic GS815, 21" CRT monitor. It worked OK, but the problem is the screen didn't fill up the full available area when first powered up - after the monitor came up to temp it filled the full display area. Strike 1.
Called ViewSonic, exchanged it out for a different one of the same model - same damn problem. Is THIS the best I can expect from VS?!? Strike 2.
Last year it blew - fortunately it was within the warranty period. I had to ship that heavy SOB back on MY NICKLE - they repaired it and shipped it back. I should've let that SOB just sit and totally fry so it couldn't be fixed at all. Strike 3.
To add insult: I was playing NWN which dropped my refresh rate down to 60Hz - suddenly it goes wacky on me again and compresses the display down to a column in the center of the screen. Every time it drops to 60Hz I get the column. Fortunately I run my normal desktop at 85Hz where the problem doesn't rear its ugly head but still, it's annoying, very annoying.
To further salt the wound: My "Repaired" monitor waited until just after the repair warranty time to exhibit said problem. Calls to VS have been largely unhelpful and unsympathetic. Oh, and I'd have to send it in again on my nickle. (yet another $50)
The whole time this has been going on I've still had my old MAG Innovision MXP17F, it soldiers on and on and just keeps working with hardly a hiccough in the nearly 10 years I've used it.
Would I buy another ViewSonic based on my experiences with the GS815? HELL NO!! It was a POS, the service has been lackluster to crappy, and you pay a premium the name.
With spam laws is enforcement. CAN-SPAM is nothing more than a sad joke without the staff and money to enforce all of it.
I have some asswipe forging my domain right now which is a form of identity theft. I could call the FBI, but who would bother answering my call. Forget the local police department.
Fact is that eliminating spam is a 3 part solution:
Technical, make it such that it cannot be transmitted or very easily filtered with minimal to no false positives.
Laws, make it illegal to send spam
Enforce laws - Ralsky and others like him should hang. They know what they are doing pisses off millions, they are nothing but sociopaths and should be treated as such. Spammers should pay 2-4x the money spent to investigate and prosecute them.
It's sad, spammers IMHO are doing far more damage that Mitnick ever did or could. Yet they are not being taken down as publically or as hard as he was.
It's easy to sit there playing armchair quarterback on someone else's mistake. Face it, we ALL make mistakes and do stupid things while driving - and the advanced systems found in newer cars (ABS, VSC, et al) help our cars forgive us and regain control.
I can say in all the years I had my sport coupe it was never wrecked, due in part to the ABS system. It saved my ass at least 3 times I can recall. It forgave me leaving me to only contemplate the depths of my own stupidity rather than pay dearly for it.
When I was shopping for a new vehicle, ABS was a must, and the VSC system is also very cool - it really does work, helps the car do what you want and not what you told it to.
There is no such thing as idiot proofing unless you eliminate the chance for an idiot (random element) to interact with a system. How many drivers are prepared to surrender all control of their vehicles to a computer system?
This is really screwed up. Since when does abusing your customers become good practice?
Perhaps I am nieve or just old fashioned but whatever happened to CUSTOMER SATISFACTION. Support like this is an abuse of customers, how much are customers willing to take before they simply go elsewhere?
If I receive bad support from a company when I need it - I will remember that incident when it comes time to make my next purchase. If I receive good support, then I am not only going to likely be a repeat buyer, but I am also likely to recommend that company's product to others.
Good lord folks, did this story ever draw the Bush-haters out of the woodwork.
I am no Bush apologist nor am I enthralled at all with either major party. Jesse Ventura sounds better every time I see his show.
That said, what was done in Iraq is done. What would you have us do? Pull out? We cannot do that. We broke it, we now have to fix it. I hope for the best on that. Bush was likely wrong on his reasons, but that is pretty much a moot point now. I have yet to hear the Democrats say anything I was overly enthusiastic about...
When did Eric Robert Rudolf show up? How long were we looking for him? That loser stayed in North Carolina most if not ALL the time and he certianly did not have an army of fanatics defending him to the death ala Bin Ladin or Saddam. Those things take time, our military is powerful, not godlike - if it was, no soldiers would die and Osama would be chunky salsa now.
Last I heard, the economy was recovering - slowly, but it is coming back. What happend, in spite of what a lot of you were saying, was NOT the direct result of the politicians. Fact is a bunch of business owners, venture capitalists, and investors forgot what was important to make a business survive and prosper in the long term. That plus a number of accounting scandals, et al and you have what we had, an economic setback/correction - this happens.
On to space - yes, those things cost money. I want to see us go back to the stars. It is a resource we haven't even begun to tap in terms of science, minerals, and much more. Also, consider the beneficial side effects of putting companies to work to do those things - the science of the nation is advanced. How may of today's conveniences have come about due to the space program and the innovations it brought about?
Depending on how Google plays it, they could still do quite well.
Netscape lost their position because MS not only integrated IE into the OS, but also because Netscape 3-4.x series was unmanageable spaghetti code, resulting in an inferior product. IE during that time made matters worse because it was improving in leaps and bounds. Sadly if only that last part were still true...
If Google wants to keep the crown against the likes of MS, they are going to have to fight hard, fight well, and never rest on their laurels. They're also likely going to have to play some hardball with MS too - keep in mind MS has not only the OS and browser, but also content sites such as MSNBC and a number of others.
AFAIK, Consumer Reports does not take ANY units from manufacturers because there's always the chance they'll be sent a "ringer" unit that is better than the store bought models. It would seem that this is very much case in point.
Review sites that take donated hardware and advertizing from those same hardware vendors should always be held somewhat suspect until you verify the quality through another source. Few sites are willing to give a bad item "both barrels" because they would be essentially slashing their own throat/revenue stream.
A GOOD CPA, knows the tax system better than any program can and have insights and experience with the various writeoffs and such to maximize your returns. You'll DEFINITELY pay more (~10x more), but quite often they pay for themselves in the size of the return you get. Don't go with your vanilla HR Block - seek out recommendations and go with independents who know the game and how to play it without breaking the rules.
As a long term Intuit/Quicken customer, I was a bit turned off by that move. Now that I work for a bank I've seen other darker sides to Quicken as well.
MS Money from what I have seen, will allow you to reconcile your accounts against a downloaded list. Quicken/Intuit on the other hand forces banks to be on their system to give the customer the ability to do that. This strategy effectively ties to strong-arm banks to use sign contracts with them Intuit. For smaller banks, this can be problematic.
I am also running Quicken '02 - I've been using Quicken now for 10 years and my father has been using it since Quicken for DOS! Quicken is becoming more and more a stupid billboard in which to advertise other services from Intuit. Their marketing is becoming more intrusive and I for one dislike that.
I agree with a few of the posters here who point out that the 471 far exceeds any "normal" crime.. Really silly how killing someone has a lesser penalty. The government needs to keep its head about when it comes to online crime - right now it's unbalanced at best.
Having said that, I feel that malicious domain forging should be specifically addressed. Make no mistake, it is an assault and can do some real damage. Getting "joe-jobbed" does the following:
Overloads your mail servers/inbox
Damages potential business relations with potential and current clients.
Wastes a huge amount of time to clean up the damned mess it creates.
Repeated job jobbing can result in loss of connectivity because the victim's ISP no longer wishes to deal with the problem.
Can provoke electronic and personal attacks from ill-infomed joe-job email recipients
From someone who's been joe'd before, it is utterly frustrating to deal with. Spammers know this and have been using it as a weapon to silence voices who cry out against them (see monkeys.com, doxdesk.com, other anti-spam sites and resources).
A more reasonable punishment would be something like 5 years in the clink, forfeiture of all computer assets, and a very stiff fine - preferably payable to the damaged party.
This is a great smart move and I really wish more companies would understand that there a lot of nostalgic gamers out here who recall the heyday of the arcades.
We need Sega, Midway, Nintendo, Namco, et al to get on this. I would love to have a 100% true version of the old Space Harrier, After Burner 2 and OutRun.
I remember back in the day getting After Burner and OutRun for my Sega Master System.. I could've cried. Definitely NOT up to par with the arcades, but then again the old SMS was a pretty limited system. They made up for it (some) with the later versions that came out on the Genny.
Bravo Atari - I'm sure there are more than a few gamers out here that'll be playing Gauntlet with a broad smile on their face.
In its latest battle against junk e-mail, China has blocked 127 mail servers it identified as responsible for spam, the official Xinhua News Agency said Tuesday.
*snip*
Ren said e-mail messages from 127 servers will automatically be refused. Xinhua said the sanctions would be lifted after the servers stop sending junk mail for three months.
Nevermind that ~70%+ of the spam sites I have been reporting are HOSTED in China. I had complained countless times to the Chinese whois contacts without positive result.
Spammers will ALWAYS find a way to send their unwanted garbage around until SMTP is upgraded/replaced with something more secure.
If China really cares, they need get Chinese companies to stop hosting these asswipes.
Personally I think it would be wonderful if technology alone could create the silver bullet and kill this annoying problem dead. But sadly as quickly as filters evolve, spammers are constantly looking for ways around them. All too often they find ways.
Even Earthlink's vaunted SpamBlocker is not bullet proof, in spite of using it, I still get some spam that slips in through it.
This is one of the reasons why we need some decent laws on the books so we can either force spammers to cease or prosecute the bastards.
I love Mozilla, have contributed to Mozilla, recommend Mozilla, and use it for my everyday browing. It's a great browser!
But this guy does have one valid point when it comes to Mozilla - it needs BUSINESS WINS. Until companies start adopting Mozilla as their core browser technology it will likely be always relagated to the back room.
Does Mozilla have evangelists? If not, it needs some.
What you are missing is the fact that laws themselves do not prevent you from doing ANYTHING. They discourage you from doing activities that your government has deemed unacceptible.
I would love to go to a spammer/joe-jobber and rip his throat out - but the penalties for doing such are quite high, in spite of the fact I have rid the world of a scumbag. So in lieu of being able to kill the SOB on sight, I am left to take alternative routes such as taking him to court and financially sodomizing him or pressing criminal charges.
If there were significant penalties for sending spam, some spammers will be discouraged from doing such activities. Those that do will risk thier financial well being and freedom(s).
That and the news.admin.net-abuse.email and news.admin.net-abuse.sightings groups contains plenty of good information on who these scumbags are and how they operate.
Not looking to have the government telling us how to manage eletronic mail, what I am looking for is certian tools that can be used to prosecute/jail/sue those who do spam similar to the Junk Fax law. Some activities, like the "Joe Job" need to have severe penalties associated with them because of the damage and grief they can cause.
I agreee that the SMTP protocol needs to be refined to have to some defense mechanisms against this crap. For better or worse SMTP was developed back in the day before the general public & the sociopaths that go with them were able to get on the Internet en mass.
I can say from having had this done to me, it absolutely sucks. It creates a huge mess that takes weeks to clean up, plus the joy of dealing with people who decide to attack you for something you didn't/would never do. If I were to ever get my hands on those responsible....
Unfortunately, the problem with tracking down those responsible for this dispicable act is the same one with tracking spammers down in general. It is time consuming, costly and may not yield a desireable result.
It is good to bust/report spammers, but when you do, look at the spam and the site being spamvertized. You might have received a joe-job email and by reporting them, you're playing into the spammer's hands.
If you ever get joe-jobbed, I would say one defense on the web is to change your page to one similar to the "Spam Attack" page I reference above.
I like the intent, it's noble and all but one big downside: enforcement.
I live in Colorado, this last year I was Joe-Jobbed by a spammer for reporting him. What legal recourse and resources did I have from the state of Colorado to tracking him down so I could financially sodomize him with a laywer? *None* *Zilch* *Zero* *Nada* The attorney general couldn't offer any help whatsoever.
So what makes them think they'll be able to track any of the spammers down? It takes a LOT of work and a LOT of research to bust these asswipes.
That list has one other big negative - what's to stop a spammer from using it for the opposite of what it should be? If/when they do, what do they propose to do about it?
IMHO we definitely need some sort of legal tools we can use but this isn't it.
I can understand the privacy issues on this, but there are some cases where it is a necessity.
I work for a bank and prior to starting they did one on me. My credit is good and I take strides to keep it that way so I didn't mind so much.
HR departments often do Employment credit reports that do not show up, from what little I understand, as a normal credit check.
Some businesses have to go to great lengths to protect themselves. Working at a bank, I am exposed to critical details we use to verify identity of customers - that can be easily abused. If you have an employee who's deep in the hole - there is a higher chance they may abuse some of that information to magically "fix" that debt problem. It also is a way for them to check to see whether a given employee's debt load isn't so high that the salary they are planning to pay them can't cover it.
Would you hire a full time employee knowing that whatever you plan to pay them is in no way possible going to cover what their expenses are? They would either not last, be totally wiped out from working multiple jobs thus ineffective, or at worst screw you out of as much money as they can.
A credit report is no guarantee that a given employee won't screw you/your customers over. I for one would feel perhaps a bit more comfortable knowing X employee didn't have motivations to use me/my identity.
Yes, the check is perhaps a little intrusive. As long as my information isn't leaked/abused I personally have no problems with it. I can understand how it would make things all the more frustrating if I were out of money with bad credit on top of that. It has a very nasty potential for becoming a vicious cycle. As far as I know, there are no laws on the books to protect potential employees from being discriminated against on the basis of credit rating. (is there?)
I see the job market in general as coming full circle back to an environment similar to that of that of my great grandfather. In those days a person with a given skill set worked for whomever payed them the most and provided the most interesting projects. Experience is as valuable back then as it is today.
The days of working for a company for 30 years and retiring with full pensions are gone. Companies I see rarely offer pensions and more often than not you hear tales of them raiding pension funds anyway. At least with a 401K our money is out of their hands.
As an IT person(web primarily), I spend a lot of my personal time researching and learning new and different technologies. Partially because I have to, but mostly because I love to play with things on my LAN just to see how they work. Will I be doing the exact same thing 10 years from now as I am today? I hope not!
The IT field moves fast, as an IT person it is important to me in a job that the employer is willing to 1. Train me in additional skills and 2. Allow me to freedom to implement them however is best. If they can't offer that, then it's time to find one who will. Or freelance with someone who will.
Yes, times are dark now for the IT field. Things in the DotCom Craze swung so much out of control and the pendulum was bound to swing to the other extreme. God willing, things will balance out. Some great people have been hurt in the downturn in the IT field, but then again a lot have been flush out who had no business there to begin with!
Slashdot Mirror
What you're leaving out is the detail:
The U.S. GOVERNMENT will donate $35 million.
It's very likely more will be donated as time goes on. Already they have increased this from the initial $15M pledged on the day of the disaster. The size and scope of this is still coming in. One of the things the U.S. Government has already done was to send three P3 Orions to better survey and asses the damage so we'll know what is needed and how much.
Also, that is completely ignoring/not counting donations from the private sector (i.e. You, me, companies) and food donations. I would guess that also doesn't count costs to the U.S. Government for the costs of the manpower we are sending to that area to aid relief efforts.
Me, I'm proud to be an American. In spite of what others may say, our nation is full of compassionate and caring people.
Our pets are so dear to us. They shine so bright in our lives but sadly burn twice as quick (and quicker).
I had a blue tabby cat for 18 years. He was dear to me. Losing him hurt like hell.
After a year of waiting, I got a new cat, this one a long haired calico. She's totally different than my old cat. There's things she doesn't do that my old cat did - and I miss those things. She brings new and different joys into my life. I have come to treasure her for who she is.
In a way I believe cloning diminishes the unique treasures our beloved pets are. If I had my old cat cloned - I would've expected him to be the same old friend I knew for all those years. That is a disservice to him and who he could become the next time around. It was his lifes experiences as they happened that molded him into the cat I knew.
Conversely, if he turned out EXACTLY the same as he had before in terms of personality - is the general public ready to face the potential spiritual implications that carries? Thta is a pretty deep philisophical question with theological overtones.
Once upon a time I had several thousand shares of stock options with my old company. I shudder to think how much money I could've made had I blown the wad at the right time... Easily 10's of thousands.
Could've.
Back in late 2000 it ran all the way up to 40-something, rung the bell, and then cratered. The whole time I made the mistake of holding onto them out of some odd form of loyalty.
My biggest tip to those that have them, DO NOT hesitate to excercise them when the stock runs up. A sunnier day might come, it might not.
As it stood, when I was laid off my options were underwater and not worth the paper they were printed on. I've since lost them, but last I checked they were still underwater.
Easy come, easy go. I would not take them instead of a hard raise.
My personal experience:
I too used to believe that that VS were the best money can buy, until I bought one.
A few years ago I purchased a ViewSonic GS815, 21" CRT monitor. It worked OK, but the problem is the screen didn't fill up the full available area when first powered up - after the monitor came up to temp it filled the full display area. Strike 1.
Called ViewSonic, exchanged it out for a different one of the same model - same damn problem. Is THIS the best I can expect from VS?!? Strike 2.
Last year it blew - fortunately it was within the warranty period. I had to ship that heavy SOB back on MY NICKLE - they repaired it and shipped it back. I should've let that SOB just sit and totally fry so it couldn't be fixed at all. Strike 3.
To add insult: I was playing NWN which dropped my refresh rate down to 60Hz - suddenly it goes wacky on me again and compresses the display down to a column in the center of the screen. Every time it drops to 60Hz I get the column. Fortunately I run my normal desktop at 85Hz where the problem doesn't rear its ugly head but still, it's annoying, very annoying.
To further salt the wound: My "Repaired" monitor waited until just after the repair warranty time to exhibit said problem. Calls to VS have been largely unhelpful and unsympathetic. Oh, and I'd have to send it in again on my nickle. (yet another $50)
The whole time this has been going on I've still had my old MAG Innovision MXP17F, it soldiers on and on and just keeps working with hardly a hiccough in the nearly 10 years I've used it.
Would I buy another ViewSonic based on my experiences with the GS815? HELL NO!! It was a POS, the service has been lackluster to crappy, and you pay a premium the name.
I have some asswipe forging my domain right now which is a form of identity theft. I could call the FBI, but who would bother answering my call. Forget the local police department.
Fact is that eliminating spam is a 3 part solution:
- Technical, make it such that it cannot be transmitted or very easily filtered with minimal to no false positives.
- Laws, make it illegal to send spam
- Enforce laws - Ralsky and others like him should hang. They know what they are doing pisses off millions, they are nothing but sociopaths and should be treated as such. Spammers should pay 2-4x the money spent to investigate and prosecute them.
It's sad, spammers IMHO are doing far more damage that Mitnick ever did or could. Yet they are not being taken down as publically or as hard as he was.It's easy to sit there playing armchair quarterback on someone else's mistake. Face it, we ALL make mistakes and do stupid things while driving - and the advanced systems found in newer cars (ABS, VSC, et al) help our cars forgive us and regain control.
I can say in all the years I had my sport coupe it was never wrecked, due in part to the ABS system. It saved my ass at least 3 times I can recall. It forgave me leaving me to only contemplate the depths of my own stupidity rather than pay dearly for it.
When I was shopping for a new vehicle, ABS was a must, and the VSC system is also very cool - it really does work, helps the car do what you want and not what you told it to.
There is no such thing as idiot proofing unless you eliminate the chance for an idiot (random element) to interact with a system. How many drivers are prepared to surrender all control of their vehicles to a computer system?
This is really screwed up. Since when does abusing your customers become good practice?
Perhaps I am nieve or just old fashioned but whatever happened to CUSTOMER SATISFACTION. Support like this is an abuse of customers, how much are customers willing to take before they simply go elsewhere?
If I receive bad support from a company when I need it - I will remember that incident when it comes time to make my next purchase. If I receive good support, then I am not only going to likely be a repeat buyer, but I am also likely to recommend that company's product to others.
Whether Lexmark will attempt to DMCA them?
That'll make for a wonderful headeline:
"Lexmark to sue monks"
Still, can't help but think of Brother Theo from Babylon 5, great character.
Good lord folks, did this story ever draw the Bush-haters out of the woodwork.
I am no Bush apologist nor am I enthralled at all with either major party. Jesse Ventura sounds better every time I see his show.
That said, what was done in Iraq is done. What would you have us do? Pull out? We cannot do that. We broke it, we now have to fix it. I hope for the best on that. Bush was likely wrong on his reasons, but that is pretty much a moot point now. I have yet to hear the Democrats say anything I was overly enthusiastic about...
When did Eric Robert Rudolf show up? How long were we looking for him? That loser stayed in North Carolina most if not ALL the time and he certianly did not have an army of fanatics defending him to the death ala Bin Ladin or Saddam. Those things take time, our military is powerful, not godlike - if it was, no soldiers would die and Osama would be chunky salsa now.
Last I heard, the economy was recovering - slowly, but it is coming back. What happend, in spite of what a lot of you were saying, was NOT the direct result of the politicians. Fact is a bunch of business owners, venture capitalists, and investors forgot what was important to make a business survive and prosper in the long term. That plus a number of accounting scandals, et al and you have what we had, an economic setback/correction - this happens.
On to space - yes, those things cost money. I want to see us go back to the stars. It is a resource we haven't even begun to tap in terms of science, minerals, and much more. Also, consider the beneficial side effects of putting companies to work to do those things - the science of the nation is advanced. How may of today's conveniences have come about due to the space program and the innovations it brought about?
Depending on how Google plays it, they could still do quite well.
Netscape lost their position because MS not only integrated IE into the OS, but also because Netscape 3-4.x series was unmanageable spaghetti code, resulting in an inferior product. IE during that time made matters worse because it was improving in leaps and bounds. Sadly if only that last part were still true...
If Google wants to keep the crown against the likes of MS, they are going to have to fight hard, fight well, and never rest on their laurels. They're also likely going to have to play some hardball with MS too - keep in mind MS has not only the OS and browser, but also content sites such as MSNBC and a number of others.
Either way Google folks, best of luck to you!
AFAIK, Consumer Reports does not take ANY units from manufacturers because there's always the chance they'll be sent a "ringer" unit that is better than the store bought models. It would seem that this is very much case in point.
Review sites that take donated hardware and advertizing from those same hardware vendors should always be held somewhat suspect until you verify the quality through another source. Few sites are willing to give a bad item "both barrels" because they would be essentially slashing their own throat/revenue stream.
A GOOD CPA, knows the tax system better than any program can and have insights and experience with the various writeoffs and such to maximize your returns. You'll DEFINITELY pay more (~10x more), but quite often they pay for themselves in the size of the return you get. Don't go with your vanilla HR Block - seek out recommendations and go with independents who know the game and how to play it without breaking the rules.
As a long term Intuit/Quicken customer, I was a bit turned off by that move. Now that I work for a bank I've seen other darker sides to Quicken as well.
MS Money from what I have seen, will allow you to reconcile your accounts against a downloaded list. Quicken/Intuit on the other hand forces banks to be on their system to give the customer the ability to do that. This strategy effectively ties to strong-arm banks to use sign contracts with them Intuit. For smaller banks, this can be problematic.
I am also running Quicken '02 - I've been using Quicken now for 10 years and my father has been using it since Quicken for DOS! Quicken is becoming more and more a stupid billboard in which to advertise other services from Intuit. Their marketing is becoming more intrusive and I for one dislike that.
Having said that, I feel that malicious domain forging should be specifically addressed. Make no mistake, it is an assault and can do some real damage. Getting "joe-jobbed" does the following:
- Overloads your mail servers/inbox
- Damages potential business relations with potential and current clients.
- Wastes a huge amount of time to clean up the damned mess it creates.
- Repeated job jobbing can result in loss of connectivity because the victim's ISP no longer wishes to deal with the problem.
- Can provoke electronic and personal attacks from ill-infomed joe-job email recipients
From someone who's been joe'd before, it is utterly frustrating to deal with. Spammers know this and have been using it as a weapon to silence voices who cry out against them (see monkeys.com, doxdesk.com, other anti-spam sites and resources).A more reasonable punishment would be something like 5 years in the clink, forfeiture of all computer assets, and a very stiff fine - preferably payable to the damaged party.
This is a great smart move and I really wish more companies would understand that there a lot of nostalgic gamers out here who recall the heyday of the arcades.
We need Sega, Midway, Nintendo, Namco, et al to get on this. I would love to have a 100% true version of the old Space Harrier, After Burner 2 and OutRun.
I remember back in the day getting After Burner and OutRun for my Sega Master System.. I could've cried. Definitely NOT up to par with the arcades, but then again the old SMS was a pretty limited system. They made up for it (some) with the later versions that came out on the Genny.
Bravo Atari - I'm sure there are more than a few gamers out here that'll be playing Gauntlet with a broad smile on their face.
Justification for the lack of spell checking on Slashdot...
Spammers will ALWAYS find a way to send their unwanted garbage around until SMTP is upgraded/replaced with something more secure.
If China really cares, they need get Chinese companies to stop hosting these asswipes.
Personally I think it would be wonderful if technology alone could create the silver bullet and kill this annoying problem dead. But sadly as quickly as filters evolve, spammers are constantly looking for ways around them. All too often they find ways.
Even Earthlink's vaunted SpamBlocker is not bullet proof, in spite of using it, I still get some spam that slips in through it.
This is one of the reasons why we need some decent laws on the books so we can either force spammers to cease or prosecute the bastards.
I love Mozilla, have contributed to Mozilla, recommend Mozilla, and use it for my everyday browing. It's a great browser!
But this guy does have one valid point when it comes to Mozilla - it needs BUSINESS WINS. Until companies start adopting Mozilla as their core browser technology it will likely be always relagated to the back room.
Does Mozilla have evangelists? If not, it needs some.
What you are missing is the fact that laws themselves do not prevent you from doing ANYTHING. They discourage you from doing activities that your government has deemed unacceptible.
I would love to go to a spammer/joe-jobber and rip his throat out - but the penalties for doing such are quite high, in spite of the fact I have rid the world of a scumbag. So in lieu of being able to kill the SOB on sight, I am left to take alternative routes such as taking him to court and financially sodomizing him or pressing criminal charges.
If there were significant penalties for sending spam, some spammers will be discouraged from doing such activities. Those that do will risk thier financial well being and freedom(s).
- Register of Known Spam Operations
That and the news.admin.net-abuse.email and news.admin.net-abuse.sightings groups contains plenty of good information on who these scumbags are and how they operate.Not looking to have the government telling us how to manage eletronic mail, what I am looking for is certian tools that can be used to prosecute/jail/sue those who do spam similar to the Junk Fax law. Some activities, like the "Joe Job" need to have severe penalties associated with them because of the damage and grief they can cause.
I agreee that the SMTP protocol needs to be refined to have to some defense mechanisms against this crap. For better or worse SMTP was developed back in the day before the general public & the sociopaths that go with them were able to get on the Internet en mass.
Sometimes spammers do this just by putting whatever domain in. Other times this is done deliberately as a means of attacking someone.
The term Joe-Job got it's name originally from Joes.com when a spammer decided to get revenge in this fashion. Information can be found here:
Spam Attack!
I can say from having had this done to me, it absolutely sucks. It creates a huge mess that takes weeks to clean up, plus the joy of dealing with people who decide to attack you for something you didn't/would never do. If I were to ever get my hands on those responsible....
Unfortunately, the problem with tracking down those responsible for this dispicable act is the same one with tracking spammers down in general. It is time consuming, costly and may not yield a desireable result.
If you want to see more on this, just Google Search for "Joe-Job"
It is good to bust/report spammers, but when you do, look at the spam and the site being spamvertized. You might have received a joe-job email and by reporting them, you're playing into the spammer's hands.
If you ever get joe-jobbed, I would say one defense on the web is to change your page to one similar to the "Spam Attack" page I reference above.
I like the intent, it's noble and all but one big downside: enforcement.
I live in Colorado, this last year I was Joe-Jobbed by a spammer for reporting him. What legal recourse and resources did I have from the state of Colorado to tracking him down so I could financially sodomize him with a laywer? *None* *Zilch* *Zero* *Nada* The attorney general couldn't offer any help whatsoever.
So what makes them think they'll be able to track any of the spammers down? It takes a LOT of work and a LOT of research to bust these asswipes.
That list has one other big negative - what's to stop a spammer from using it for the opposite of what it should be? If/when they do, what do they propose to do about it?
IMHO we definitely need some sort of legal tools we can use but this isn't it.
I can understand the privacy issues on this, but there are some cases where it is a necessity.
I work for a bank and prior to starting they did one on me. My credit is good and I take strides to keep it that way so I didn't mind so much.
HR departments often do Employment credit reports that do not show up, from what little I understand, as a normal credit check.
Some businesses have to go to great lengths to protect themselves. Working at a bank, I am exposed to critical details we use to verify identity of customers - that can be easily abused. If you have an employee who's deep in the hole - there is a higher chance they may abuse some of that information to magically "fix" that debt problem. It also is a way for them to check to see whether a given employee's debt load isn't so high that the salary they are planning to pay them can't cover it.
Would you hire a full time employee knowing that whatever you plan to pay them is in no way possible going to cover what their expenses are? They would either not last, be totally wiped out from working multiple jobs thus ineffective, or at worst screw you out of as much money as they can.
A credit report is no guarantee that a given employee won't screw you/your customers over. I for one would feel perhaps a bit more comfortable knowing X employee didn't have motivations to use me/my identity.
Yes, the check is perhaps a little intrusive. As long as my information isn't leaked/abused I personally have no problems with it. I can understand how it would make things all the more frustrating if I were out of money with bad credit on top of that. It has a very nasty potential for becoming a vicious cycle. As far as I know, there are no laws on the books to protect potential employees from being discriminated against on the basis of credit rating. (is there?)
I see the job market in general as coming full circle back to an environment similar to that of that of my great grandfather. In those days a person with a given skill set worked for whomever payed them the most and provided the most interesting projects. Experience is as valuable back then as it is today.
The days of working for a company for 30 years and retiring with full pensions are gone. Companies I see rarely offer pensions and more often than not you hear tales of them raiding pension funds anyway. At least with a 401K our money is out of their hands.
As an IT person(web primarily), I spend a lot of my personal time researching and learning new and different technologies. Partially because I have to, but mostly because I love to play with things on my LAN just to see how they work. Will I be doing the exact same thing 10 years from now as I am today? I hope not!
The IT field moves fast, as an IT person it is important to me in a job that the employer is willing to 1. Train me in additional skills and 2. Allow me to freedom to implement them however is best. If they can't offer that, then it's time to find one who will. Or freelance with someone who will.
Yes, times are dark now for the IT field. Things in the DotCom Craze swung so much out of control and the pendulum was bound to swing to the other extreme. God willing, things will balance out. Some great people have been hurt in the downturn in the IT field, but then again a lot have been flush out who had no business there to begin with!