I had gotten one of those. Verisign/Network Solutions is worse. I looked all over the "renewal bill" they sent me and couldn't find anything saying that it was a domain transfer. I finally found it, in tiny print on the back. The other one at least kept saying "Domain transfer and renewal" even if the form was designed to look like a bill.
While the movie companies try to entice us to buy by adding extras like deleted scenes onto their discs (thus improving the overall quality of the disc), the RIAA is more concerned with starting lawsuits and draining every last dollar out of consumers than improving their product.
See these quotes from the article made by Jim Urie, president of Universal Music and Video Distribution:
Urie says his company doesn't heavily research consumer attitude, noting, "We tend to ask how can we make more money and sell more product, not deal with consumer gripes."
(Actually, if they dealt with consumer gripes you'd probably sell more product and make more money.)
Urie argues that lowered prices won't make a dent in downloading, saying, "The fact that consumers can steal music sort of trumps anything else we can do."
The article makes the very good point that most people have a certain amount they'll spend on entertainment. If CD's and DVD's cost about the same, then the consumer is going to look at how much "bang for the buck" they're getting with each. A DVD is typically packed with extras. A CD, if you're lucky, might have some tiny pictures and lyrics on the insert. No wonder consumers would rather buy the DVD than the CD.
That's been going on for awhile. It's from altered Gnutella clients that are designed to return search results from any query (for spamming the network). It's easy to block with one of the many Gnutella apps have a "ignore results from these IP addresses" feature. You simply search for a nonsense string (e.g. oufhjoesbjl). Any matches will most likely be the Gnutella spammers, so you add those IP addys to your ignore list. Now you will be able to search without those spammers sending results from any search.
If the RIAA tries to take down a P2P network via false results, I predict that the P2P networks will "evolve" defenses against this. Then again, I'd much rather see the RIAA taking technological steps to prevent piracy than suing everyone in sight.
Sun has Enterprise licenses that drops the per-user cost the more licenses you buy. They have various levels from $50/user for 150 users to $25/user for 10,000 users. At 1,000 users, a company would pay $40,000 ($40 per user). (SOURCE: http://www.sun.com/service/support/sw_only/star_pr ogovw.html click on "StarOffice 6.0 Licenses")
I couldn't find MS's volume licensing, but even if they gave a huge discount from retail (say 75%off the retail price of $450 for Office XP Standard), the 1,000 user company would still wind up paying $112,500.
In other words, Star Office would save the 1,000 user company $72,500. (Companies might shy away from the free Open Office because there's no official support channels whereas you can call up Sun with tech support inquiries.)
I recieved two of these "domain renewal" forms. One of them (from a company whose name escapes me at the moment) at least put "Domain Transfer" near every instance of the word "renewal." Sure it's still underhanded, but they made some tiny attempt to remain above the boards.
Verisign, however, had no mention of domain transfer at all. It only said "Domain Renewal" and looked exactly like a bill. If I hadn't know better, I would have thought that was the bill to renew my domain and I should send in a payment. Then I would be transferred to NetSol without my knowing.
Of course I did realize what was going on for three reasons: 1) I moved away from NetSol when they couldn't do a simple contact info change in under 4 months. 2) My domain registrar (DirectNIC) is cheaper than the "special deal" NetSol was offering. 3) I actually know the name of my domain registrar... and it's not Verisign/NetSol! (See #1.)
Still an underhanded move which only serves to lower my already rock-bottom opinion of Verisign.
I can see it now: All shows are broadcast in widescreen and the top and bottom black areas are used to cycle ads. Of course, people will tune them out the same way they tune out banner ads on the web.
Since when is any industry guaranteed a constant increase in sales? Looking at the chart at Scriban it's quite obvious that sales have increased in every year (with 1997 being the exception). Sure record sales dropped last year, but they still had their third biggest year (at least as far back as 1992 which is where the chart ends).
So sales peaked, so what? One year's drop does not indicate a long-term trend. The RIAA acts as though they are entitled to constantly growing sales every year no matter what they do. And they're all too eager to blame others (file-sharing in particular) for any drop while praising themselves for any increase.
There's a spam-blacklist, so how about a spambot-blacklist?
You'd have a standardized spambot trap (like the one described in the article) on various webservers. The new spambot info could go into a "New SpamBots" database (which wouldn't be blocked). Once a day, the webserver would connect up with a central database and submit the new spambot info it's obtained. Then the server would download a mirror of the updated "SpamBots" database which it would use to block spambots.
The centralized SpamBots database would take all of the new SpamBot info every day and analyze them in some manner as to detect abuse of the system (ensuring that only true spambots are entered). E-mails could be fired off to the abuse/postmaster/webmaster for the offending IP address. Finally, the new SpamBot info would be integrated into the regular SpamBot database.
This way you'd be able to quickly limit the effectiveness of the Spambot-traps across many websites.
For example, let us assume that you want the song "Doowop Fever" from some new band, but the rest of the CD is not interesting to you. Right now, the record company gets $10 from you even though you only want one song. If they move to your model, they get only $2 from you and still have to subsidize the same volume of risk.
Right now if I want the song "Doowop Fever" but I don't want the rest of the stuff on the CD, I just don't buy the CD. This isn't to say that I download it illegally, but I just figure that the $15 for the entire CD (Ok, $10 in your example) is not worth it for just one song that I like.
Sure you'll get some people who like three or four songs who will download only those instead of buying the whole album. But you'll also get people buying the individual songs who would never have sprung for the full CD. In my case, the RIAA would be up $2 by me buying "Doowop Fever" from them online.
Depending on how you read it, it's either hilarious parody or a woefully misinformed parent. I was in the hilarious parody camp until I saw the rest of his articles.
These guys really seem to be a rarity; a company focused on the consumer. Just check out the "FamilyLicense" you can buy:
You are allowed to install gobeProductive on each Windows and Linux computer in your own residence. You are also allowed to install gobeProductive on your computer where you work. A certificate is included in the gobeProductive package explaining to your employer that this is allowed.
So for $124.95 you get the Windows version, a certificate good for the Linux version when it comes out and a license to install it on every computer you use! No Product Activation telling you to plunk down another $450 because you have a second computer in your office.
I wonder if employers would give employees half of the cost back if they used it at work. Each side would benefit by saving close to $390! (Ok, employers might save less due to volume discounts.)
When I'm getting the run around from them and they refuse to let me escalate on their end, I escalate on my end. And my boss does have more clout from the sheer fact that it's someone higher up in the company. They might not mind annoying a "lowly" webmaster, but a manager? A Vice-president? Eventually you either reach a person who will give you a straight answer or you escalate to the level that they're uncomfortable giving you the run around (because a lawsuit might be initiated by a higher-up whereas I have zero power to initiate one).
Of course, my manager's call only gave us a better answer and a promise to escalate it on their end. I literally had to call them every day for a week to annoy them enough to force this through. (I imagine their call center began to put up "Warning. Look out for calls from Jason." signs.)
I knew right away something was fishy since it was addressed to "Jason." Yes, the idiots forgot to put my last name on the envelope. A quick look inside turned up that it was from NetSol and not my real registrar, DirectNIC. (Plus, it was for a domain name that I had just renewed with DirectNIC a week ago.) I'm so glad to be rid of Network Solutions. (And I'm spreading the joy by moving my company's domain names away from them.)
My company got a call from these folks as well. Actually the old contact for our domain got the call (since NetSol doesn't seem to update their Whois info often). The voice mail message got forwarded down the chain of command to me. It immediately sent up blaring sirens and red flags in my head and I did a Google search for "Domain Support Group." (With the quotes.)
I also found out that this scam is similar to another scam that took place last year from "Electronic Domain Name Monitoring." A Google Search on that name came up with the following FTC page:
The interesting thing is that both last year's scam and the current one seem to be based out of Toronto, Canada. Looks like the same guy's at it again.
Lastly, they make it ridiculously tough to modify your own contact information for a domain.
Amen! I had a similar experience. I had my contact information on my URateIt.com domain name set for my parent's house (where I lived at the time). I moved from Long Island to Albany and attempted to update my contact info.
Fill out the e-mail form, pretty easy, right? Except that NetSol kept claiming that I was filling it out incorrectly. I called them and the rep said they'd e-mail me instructions. I should have stayed on the phone because the instructions they sent were the ones I just finished telling her didn't work!!! (Tried it again just to be sure and surprise surprise it didn't work again.) Finally (for unrelated reasons), I changed web hosts and someone at my new web host had good contacts in NetSol and was able to update my address. This took FOUR MONTHS!
A few months later I found out about, and signed up with DirectNIC. It's only $15 a year (not $35) and they have an online account manager where I can update my info, change the domain name servers the domains point to, renew my domains, etc. And the few times I've had problems with them (very few, could probably count them on one hand), they resolved it quick and easy.
I'm now in the process of moving my companies domain names to DirectNIC. And sure enough, Verisign/NetSol bungled the first transfer we sent through. I was told that "it takes a month to transfer domains" and that "all managers are in meetings right now." (When I asked to speak to a supervisor.) Had my boss call them back and force a better answer from them.
Well, let's say your moral compass has been permanently derailed and you are planning to enter the "spamming industry." You can buy CDs with e-mail lists for cheap (I believe it's something in the order of 1 million names for $100). You also would use a program to find open relays and exploit them (why run your own mail server when you can hijack someone else's for less dough). Then you forge your e-mail headers (after all, you don't want to deal with messy details like bouncing e-mails and angry recipients).
Now say you send out a million spam e-mails. Your cost is $100 or so (the cost of the list) and whatever you're using for your Internet connection. That's less than a penny per person. If one hundredth of one percent of those names were to send $5 each, you'd take in $500, or about $400 profit. And that's just from one mailing. You'd ignore any "remove me off this #&*#&@ list" e-mails (actually, with the forged headers you wouldn't see them) and send another round hoping to lure in more suckers.
Now these aren't hard and fast numbers, but you can see how some people are lured into the "easy money." Of course, breaking into people's homes and taking valuables is "easy money" also, but spammers somehow convince themselves that they have a constitutional right to misuse other people's bandwidth and time for their own personal gain.
Couldn't resist this. I checked and "Anonymous Coward" (with the quotes to get the exact phrase) appears in Google about 30,200 times. And the second instance is (of course) Slashdot.
DigitalConsumer.org must read/.! When I sent my Fax the mailing address wasn't part of the form. Now it is. (Resent my fax with a note about the duplication.)
To contact your Representative and Senator. Go to http://www.digitalconsumer.org/fax.html and fill out your name, e-mail address, and Zip code. Then they'll fax a pre-made letter (which you can alter if you'd like) to your two Senators and your Representative (based on your Zip code). Very important since many people are concerned about this stuff, but balk when it's time to actually write and send a letter.
Salon (and this post) violating the DCMA...
on
Chained Melodies
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· Score: 2
From the article: Cianessi used a function of AudioGrabber to reset that start time to zero, and then was able to encode the music without a glitch.
.... and later...
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 makes it illegal to distribute or even discuss anything that circumvents digital copyright control.
Do Cianessi violated the DCMA by getting around the CD copy protection. And by mentioning how Cianessi got around the CD copy protection, Salon has violated the DCMA. And by me mentioning that Salon mentioned how he got by the CD copy protection, I've now violated the DCMA. And if you tell your friends..... I think you get the point.
Third, even if 5% of web users are using NS4, that is 5% I don't want to alienate. If you get 1000 visitors to your online shopping site, do you want to tell 50 of the to "go away" just because they use the wrong browser? Why not keep ALL of your customers?
Actually, I mentioned having a web site "degrade nicely" for NS 4.x. This means that IE 4.x+/NS 6.x/Mozilla users can get some nice CSS-enabled pages, but NS 4.x users will still see a decent, useable site. They won't get the browing experience I'd prefer them to have on my site, but they won't be turned away either.
To expand your analogy, suppose I were to get a 1% traffic rate from NS 3.x users. Should I make sure my site is designed to NS 3.x specifications so as not to turn away the 10 in 1000 NS 3.x visitors?
And what about cross-platform testing? A page on Windows might not look the same on a Mac or Linux even if you're using the same browser. There's not enough time in the day to test all the browser-platform combinations.
That's why I have what I call my "5% rule." If a browser (or platform) is consistantly below 5% of my traffic, I'm not going to spend my time testing and tweaking my site for it. NS 4.x has, so far, barely managed to avoid falling under the 5% mark so I still test on it, but I really do hope it goes away soon. A 7% NS 6.x crowd would be better to design for than a 5% NS 4.x crowd and a It is not that hard to accomodate all browsers.
Actually, it can be. CSS code that works properly in IE 5.5 doesn't look right in NS 6 and looks downright awful in NS 4.7. A site that looks fine in NS 6 and IE 5.5 might still have issues with NS 4.7. Then there's the cross-platform issue addressed above. And even if you were to leave CSS out of the picture, NS 4.x doesn't handle percent widths properly and has problems with input box sizes. Supporting NS 6 with a site designed for IE 6 isn't too much of a problem (assuming you're not relying on IE-specific tags), but supporting NS 4.x on a site designed for a 5.x+ level browser can be.
Flash, CSS, all that stuff is not needed.
I'll agree that Flash isn't needed (although it can be useful in some cases), but CSS is quite handy. I can use it to position elements exactly where I want them (eliminating complex and slow-to-load table structures), assign an easily updateable global style, and replace some image effects with quicker-loading text effects.
I shoot for the lowest common denominator, and can still help out everyone, make a decent looking site, and not alienate any customers. That is why when I create a site, I test with NS4, Mozilla, IE4, and IE5. I want NO ONE, not even 5%, to be turned away just to make a page look better of load a little quicker.
I agree that you must test on as many browsers as possible, but at what point do you stop testing? If NS 4.x were to fall to 4% of your traffic, would you still design the site to be viewable for those users? 3%? 2%? At some point you shift your "target browser(s)" up a version number or two while making all reasonable attempts to have your site degrade nicely for those using the older browsers.
Instead of catering to a small group using an old browser, I shoot for the most commonly used browser(s) while making sure that the rest of my audience can still browse my site. I won't turn anyone away knowingly, but I'm also not going to waste time testing my site on every browser out there. If I did, I'd never complete a single web page.
There are a few problems with a "Test on NS 4.x, assume it works on everything else" strategy. First of all, I've found things that work with NS 4.7 that don't work with NS 4.0x. Should I now test with every sub-version of NS 4.x just to make sure it works across the board?
Secondly, blindly assuming that a site tested with NS 4.x will just work with IE 4.x/5.x/6.x and NS 6.x and Mozilla can lead to the site not displaying correctly under non-NS 4.x browsers. For example, you can use the LAYER tag to position elements on the page in NS 4.x. It's a tag the NS developers invented in an attempt to make it the CSS standard. However, support for the LAYER tag was dropped (in favor of DIV) in NS 6.x (and was never present in IE). You could design a site using LAYERs that will display perfectly in NS 4.x, but won't display right in any other browser. You should always test your site against as many browsers as possible (or at least against the most commonly used browsers).
Finally, NS 4.x is 1998 technology. (Maybe 1999 with some of the newer revisions.) It's 3 to 4 years old. Why should a developer limit his site building to old technology just because 5% of his audience refuses to upgrade? Especially when using CSS can reduce download times and make a site look much better.
I'm not saying that web sites should be inaccessible to NS 4.x users, but you can use CSS for IE 4.x+/NS 6.x/Mozilla and still make it degrade nicely for NS 4.x. It's that "degrading nicely" part that can be a pain simply because NS 4.x won't just ignore CSS. It will try to render it and will fail miserably. When it was first released, NS 4.x was the top of the heap, now it's just an old pain that refuses to go away.
This is definitely good news, but not just because a decreased IE browser share will give incentive for both MS and the Mozilla development crews to improve their browsers. Perhaps, with more people using Mozilla, Netscape 4.x users will finally upgrade.
I develop three different websites and I can't tell you all the headaches NS 4.x has given me. If you think IE is bad, try coding for NS 4.x. And it's not as if I can say "Very few people use that browser so I can ignore it." I get about 5-6% NS 4.x traffic, that makes it small enough to be annoying but big enough to make me have to address it. (By comparison NS 6.x comprises less than 2% of my traffic.)
I have no problems with someone using a non-IE browser so long as it conforms to standards. And yes, as non-conforming as some think IE is, it is more compliant than NS 4.x.... Maybe not more than NS 6.x, but it seems like a lot of people aren't upgrading. Anything that gets people to ditch that awful browser (be it for IE, Mozilla, NS 6.x, or some other up-to-date browser), is a good thing for web developers everywhere.
Record companies regularly deduct 15 percent off the top of sales as an allowance for "breakage" -- a survival from the days of shellac records that now simply serves to reduce artist royalties by that amount.
Ok, I guess I can understand if they're shipping fragile records. (Still wouldn't you take better precautions?) But CDs? If 15% of the CDs you ship are defective when they reach the consumer's CD player, something in the chain from CD press to consumer needs to be re-examined. Of course, the RIAA isn't *really* claiming that 15% of the sales are of "broken" merchandise, it's just a good way to say: "Hey Mr. Artist, we're only paying you for 85% of the royalties we owe you."
Then again, if they introduce copy-protected CDs in wide release, this breakage number might just skyrocket.
Slashdot Mirror
I had gotten one of those. Verisign/Network Solutions is worse. I looked all over the "renewal bill" they sent me and couldn't find anything saying that it was a domain transfer. I finally found it, in tiny print on the back. The other one at least kept saying "Domain transfer and renewal" even if the form was designed to look like a bill.
While the movie companies try to entice us to buy by adding extras like deleted scenes onto their discs (thus improving the overall quality of the disc), the RIAA is more concerned with starting lawsuits and draining every last dollar out of consumers than improving their product.
See these quotes from the article made by Jim Urie, president of Universal Music and Video Distribution:
Urie says his company doesn't heavily research consumer attitude, noting, "We tend to ask how can we make more money and sell more product, not deal with consumer gripes."
(Actually, if they dealt with consumer gripes you'd probably sell more product and make more money.)
Urie argues that lowered prices won't make a dent in downloading, saying, "The fact that consumers can steal music sort of trumps anything else we can do."
The article makes the very good point that most people have a certain amount they'll spend on entertainment. If CD's and DVD's cost about the same, then the consumer is going to look at how much "bang for the buck" they're getting with each. A DVD is typically packed with extras. A CD, if you're lucky, might have some tiny pictures and lyrics on the insert. No wonder consumers would rather buy the DVD than the CD.
That's been going on for awhile. It's from altered Gnutella clients that are designed to return search results from any query (for spamming the network). It's easy to block with one of the many Gnutella apps have a "ignore results from these IP addresses" feature. You simply search for a nonsense string (e.g. oufhjoesbjl). Any matches will most likely be the Gnutella spammers, so you add those IP addys to your ignore list. Now you will be able to search without those spammers sending results from any search.
If the RIAA tries to take down a P2P network via false results, I predict that the P2P networks will "evolve" defenses against this. Then again, I'd much rather see the RIAA taking technological steps to prevent piracy than suing everyone in sight.
Sun has Enterprise licenses that drops the per-user cost the more licenses you buy. They have various levels from $50/user for 150 users to $25/user for 10,000 users. At 1,000 users, a company would pay $40,000 ($40 per user). (SOURCE: http://www.sun.com/service/support/sw_only/star_pr ogovw.html click on "StarOffice 6.0 Licenses")
I couldn't find MS's volume licensing, but even if they gave a huge discount from retail (say 75%off the retail price of $450 for Office XP Standard), the 1,000 user company would still wind up paying $112,500.
In other words, Star Office would save the 1,000 user company $72,500. (Companies might shy away from the free Open Office because there's no official support channels whereas you can call up Sun with tech support inquiries.)
I recieved two of these "domain renewal" forms. One of them (from a company whose name escapes me at the moment) at least put "Domain Transfer" near every instance of the word "renewal." Sure it's still underhanded, but they made some tiny attempt to remain above the boards.
Verisign, however, had no mention of domain transfer at all. It only said "Domain Renewal" and looked exactly like a bill. If I hadn't know better, I would have thought that was the bill to renew my domain and I should send in a payment. Then I would be transferred to NetSol without my knowing.
Of course I did realize what was going on for three reasons: 1) I moved away from NetSol when they couldn't do a simple contact info change in under 4 months. 2) My domain registrar (DirectNIC) is cheaper than the "special deal" NetSol was offering. 3) I actually know the name of my domain registrar... and it's not Verisign/NetSol! (See #1.)
Still an underhanded move which only serves to lower my already rock-bottom opinion of Verisign.
I can see it now: All shows are broadcast in widescreen and the top and bottom black areas are used to cycle ads. Of course, people will tune them out the same way they tune out banner ads on the web.
Since when is any industry guaranteed a constant increase in sales? Looking at the chart at Scriban it's quite obvious that sales have increased in every year (with 1997 being the exception). Sure record sales dropped last year, but they still had their third biggest year (at least as far back as 1992 which is where the chart ends).
So sales peaked, so what? One year's drop does not indicate a long-term trend. The RIAA acts as though they are entitled to constantly growing sales every year no matter what they do. And they're all too eager to blame others (file-sharing in particular) for any drop while praising themselves for any increase.
There's a spam-blacklist, so how about a spambot-blacklist?
You'd have a standardized spambot trap (like the one described in the article) on various webservers. The new spambot info could go into a "New SpamBots" database (which wouldn't be blocked). Once a day, the webserver would connect up with a central database and submit the new spambot info it's obtained. Then the server would download a mirror of the updated "SpamBots" database which it would use to block spambots.
The centralized SpamBots database would take all of the new SpamBot info every day and analyze them in some manner as to detect abuse of the system (ensuring that only true spambots are entered). E-mails could be fired off to the abuse/postmaster/webmaster for the offending IP address. Finally, the new SpamBot info would be integrated into the regular SpamBot database.
This way you'd be able to quickly limit the effectiveness of the Spambot-traps across many websites.
For example, let us assume that you want the song "Doowop Fever" from some new band, but the rest of the CD is not interesting to you. Right now, the record company gets $10 from you even though you only want one song. If they move to your model, they get only $2 from you and still have to subsidize the same volume of risk.
Right now if I want the song "Doowop Fever" but I don't want the rest of the stuff on the CD, I just don't buy the CD. This isn't to say that I download it illegally, but I just figure that the $15 for the entire CD (Ok, $10 in your example) is not worth it for just one song that I like.
Sure you'll get some people who like three or four songs who will download only those instead of buying the whole album. But you'll also get people buying the individual songs who would never have sprung for the full CD. In my case, the RIAA would be up $2 by me buying "Doowop Fever" from them online.
According to this guy, using AMD, Bonzai Buddy, Flash, and Quake makes you a hacker.
Depending on how you read it, it's either hilarious parody or a woefully misinformed parent. I was in the hilarious parody camp until I saw the rest of his articles.
These guys really seem to be a rarity; a company focused on the consumer. Just check out the "FamilyLicense" you can buy:
You are allowed to install gobeProductive on each Windows and Linux computer in your own residence. You are also allowed to install gobeProductive on your computer where you work. A certificate is included in the gobeProductive package explaining to your employer that this is allowed.
So for $124.95 you get the Windows version, a certificate good for the Linux version when it comes out and a license to install it on every computer you use! No Product Activation telling you to plunk down another $450 because you have a second computer in your office.
I wonder if employers would give employees half of the cost back if they used it at work. Each side would benefit by saving close to $390! (Ok, employers might save less due to volume discounts.)
Still a good deal worth checking out.
When I'm getting the run around from them and they refuse to let me escalate on their end, I escalate on my end. And my boss does have more clout from the sheer fact that it's someone higher up in the company. They might not mind annoying a "lowly" webmaster, but a manager? A Vice-president? Eventually you either reach a person who will give you a straight answer or you escalate to the level that they're uncomfortable giving you the run around (because a lawsuit might be initiated by a higher-up whereas I have zero power to initiate one).
Of course, my manager's call only gave us a better answer and a promise to escalate it on their end. I literally had to call them every day for a week to annoy them enough to force this through. (I imagine their call center began to put up "Warning. Look out for calls from Jason." signs.)
I knew right away something was fishy since it was addressed to "Jason." Yes, the idiots forgot to put my last name on the envelope. A quick look inside turned up that it was from NetSol and not my real registrar, DirectNIC. (Plus, it was for a domain name that I had just renewed with DirectNIC a week ago.) I'm so glad to be rid of Network Solutions. (And I'm spreading the joy by moving my company's domain names away from them.)
My company got a call from these folks as well. Actually the old contact for our domain got the call (since NetSol doesn't seem to update their Whois info often). The voice mail message got forwarded down the chain of command to me. It immediately sent up blaring sirens and red flags in my head and I did a Google search for "Domain Support Group." (With the quotes.)
c e.html
Found this page with some info:
http://www.carr-ferrell.com/pubs/html/dotinfonoti
I also found out that this scam is similar to another scam that took place last year from "Electronic Domain Name Monitoring." A Google Search on that name came up with the following FTC page:
http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2001/02/morgenstern.htm
The interesting thing is that both last year's scam and the current one seem to be based out of Toronto, Canada. Looks like the same guy's at it again.
Lastly, they make it ridiculously tough to modify your own contact information for a domain.
Amen! I had a similar experience. I had my contact information on my URateIt.com domain name set for my parent's house (where I lived at the time). I moved from Long Island to Albany and attempted to update my contact info.
Fill out the e-mail form, pretty easy, right? Except that NetSol kept claiming that I was filling it out incorrectly. I called them and the rep said they'd e-mail me instructions. I should have stayed on the phone because the instructions they sent were the ones I just finished telling her didn't work!!! (Tried it again just to be sure and surprise surprise it didn't work again.) Finally (for unrelated reasons), I changed web hosts and someone at my new web host had good contacts in NetSol and was able to update my address. This took FOUR MONTHS!
A few months later I found out about, and signed up with DirectNIC. It's only $15 a year (not $35) and they have an online account manager where I can update my info, change the domain name servers the domains point to, renew my domains, etc. And the few times I've had problems with them (very few, could probably count them on one hand), they resolved it quick and easy.
I'm now in the process of moving my companies domain names to DirectNIC. And sure enough, Verisign/NetSol bungled the first transfer we sent through. I was told that "it takes a month to transfer domains" and that "all managers are in meetings right now." (When I asked to speak to a supervisor.) Had my boss call them back and force a better answer from them.
Well, let's say your moral compass has been permanently derailed and you are planning to enter the "spamming industry." You can buy CDs with e-mail lists for cheap (I believe it's something in the order of 1 million names for $100). You also would use a program to find open relays and exploit them (why run your own mail server when you can hijack someone else's for less dough). Then you forge your e-mail headers (after all, you don't want to deal with messy details like bouncing e-mails and angry recipients).
Now say you send out a million spam e-mails. Your cost is $100 or so (the cost of the list) and whatever you're using for your Internet connection. That's less than a penny per person. If one hundredth of one percent of those names were to send $5 each, you'd take in $500, or about $400 profit. And that's just from one mailing. You'd ignore any "remove me off this #&*#&@ list" e-mails (actually, with the forged headers you wouldn't see them) and send another round hoping to lure in more suckers.
Now these aren't hard and fast numbers, but you can see how some people are lured into the "easy money." Of course, breaking into people's homes and taking valuables is "easy money" also, but spammers somehow convince themselves that they have a constitutional right to misuse other people's bandwidth and time for their own personal gain.
Couldn't resist this. I checked and "Anonymous Coward" (with the quotes to get the exact phrase) appears in Google about 30,200 times. And the second instance is (of course) Slashdot.
And don't forget http://catalogs.google.com/ for online searching of mail-order catalogs. (They scan 'em, OCR 'em, and make 'em searchable.)
DigitalConsumer.org must read /.! When I sent my Fax the mailing address wasn't part of the form. Now it is. (Resent my fax with a note about the duplication.)
To contact your Representative and Senator. Go to http://www.digitalconsumer.org/fax.html and fill out your name, e-mail address, and Zip code. Then they'll fax a pre-made letter (which you can alter if you'd like) to your two Senators and your Representative (based on your Zip code). Very important since many people are concerned about this stuff, but balk when it's time to actually write and send a letter.
From the article:
...
Cianessi used a function of AudioGrabber to reset that start time to zero, and then was able to encode the music without a glitch.
.... and later
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 makes it illegal to distribute or even discuss anything that circumvents digital copyright control.
Do Cianessi violated the DCMA by getting around the CD copy protection. And by mentioning how Cianessi got around the CD copy protection, Salon has violated the DCMA. And by me mentioning that Salon mentioned how he got by the CD copy protection, I've now violated the DCMA. And if you tell your friends..... I think you get the point.
Third, even if 5% of web users are using NS4, that is 5% I don't want to alienate. If you get 1000 visitors to your online shopping site, do you want to tell 50 of the to "go away" just because they use the wrong browser? Why not keep ALL of your customers?
Actually, I mentioned having a web site "degrade nicely" for NS 4.x. This means that IE 4.x+/NS 6.x/Mozilla users can get some nice CSS-enabled pages, but NS 4.x users will still see a decent, useable site. They won't get the browing experience I'd prefer them to have on my site, but they won't be turned away either.
To expand your analogy, suppose I were to get a 1% traffic rate from NS 3.x users. Should I make sure my site is designed to NS 3.x specifications so as not to turn away the 10 in 1000 NS 3.x visitors?
And what about cross-platform testing? A page on Windows might not look the same on a Mac or Linux even if you're using the same browser. There's not enough time in the day to test all the browser-platform combinations.
That's why I have what I call my "5% rule." If a browser (or platform) is consistantly below 5% of my traffic, I'm not going to spend my time testing and tweaking my site for it. NS 4.x has, so far, barely managed to avoid falling under the 5% mark so I still test on it, but I really do hope it goes away soon. A 7% NS 6.x crowd would be better to design for than a 5% NS 4.x crowd and a It is not that hard to accomodate all browsers.
Actually, it can be. CSS code that works properly in IE 5.5 doesn't look right in NS 6 and looks downright awful in NS 4.7. A site that looks fine in NS 6 and IE 5.5 might still have issues with NS 4.7. Then there's the cross-platform issue addressed above. And even if you were to leave CSS out of the picture, NS 4.x doesn't handle percent widths properly and has problems with input box sizes. Supporting NS 6 with a site designed for IE 6 isn't too much of a problem (assuming you're not relying on IE-specific tags), but supporting NS 4.x on a site designed for a 5.x+ level browser can be.
Flash, CSS, all that stuff is not needed.
I'll agree that Flash isn't needed (although it can be useful in some cases), but CSS is quite handy. I can use it to position elements exactly where I want them (eliminating complex and slow-to-load table structures), assign an easily updateable global style, and replace some image effects with quicker-loading text effects.
I shoot for the lowest common denominator, and can still help out everyone, make a decent looking site, and not alienate any customers. That is why when I create a site, I test with NS4, Mozilla, IE4, and IE5. I want NO ONE, not even 5%, to be turned away just to make a page look better of load a little quicker.
I agree that you must test on as many browsers as possible, but at what point do you stop testing? If NS 4.x were to fall to 4% of your traffic, would you still design the site to be viewable for those users? 3%? 2%? At some point you shift your "target browser(s)" up a version number or two while making all reasonable attempts to have your site degrade nicely for those using the older browsers.
Instead of catering to a small group using an old browser, I shoot for the most commonly used browser(s) while making sure that the rest of my audience can still browse my site. I won't turn anyone away knowingly, but I'm also not going to waste time testing my site on every browser out there. If I did, I'd never complete a single web page.
There are a few problems with a "Test on NS 4.x, assume it works on everything else" strategy. First of all, I've found things that work with NS 4.7 that don't work with NS 4.0x. Should I now test with every sub-version of NS 4.x just to make sure it works across the board?
Secondly, blindly assuming that a site tested with NS 4.x will just work with IE 4.x/5.x/6.x and NS 6.x and Mozilla can lead to the site not displaying correctly under non-NS 4.x browsers. For example, you can use the LAYER tag to position elements on the page in NS 4.x. It's a tag the NS developers invented in an attempt to make it the CSS standard. However, support for the LAYER tag was dropped (in favor of DIV) in NS 6.x (and was never present in IE). You could design a site using LAYERs that will display perfectly in NS 4.x, but won't display right in any other browser. You should always test your site against as many browsers as possible (or at least against the most commonly used browsers).
Finally, NS 4.x is 1998 technology. (Maybe 1999 with some of the newer revisions.) It's 3 to 4 years old. Why should a developer limit his site building to old technology just because 5% of his audience refuses to upgrade? Especially when using CSS can reduce download times and make a site look much better.
I'm not saying that web sites should be inaccessible to NS 4.x users, but you can use CSS for IE 4.x+/NS 6.x/Mozilla and still make it degrade nicely for NS 4.x. It's that "degrading nicely" part that can be a pain simply because NS 4.x won't just ignore CSS. It will try to render it and will fail miserably. When it was first released, NS 4.x was the top of the heap, now it's just an old pain that refuses to go away.
This is definitely good news, but not just because a decreased IE browser share will give incentive for both MS and the Mozilla development crews to improve their browsers. Perhaps, with more people using Mozilla, Netscape 4.x users will finally upgrade.
I develop three different websites and I can't tell you all the headaches NS 4.x has given me. If you think IE is bad, try coding for NS 4.x. And it's not as if I can say "Very few people use that browser so I can ignore it." I get about 5-6% NS 4.x traffic, that makes it small enough to be annoying but big enough to make me have to address it. (By comparison NS 6.x comprises less than 2% of my traffic.)
I have no problems with someone using a non-IE browser so long as it conforms to standards. And yes, as non-conforming as some think IE is, it is more compliant than NS 4.x.... Maybe not more than NS 6.x, but it seems like a lot of people aren't upgrading. Anything that gets people to ditch that awful browser (be it for IE, Mozilla, NS 6.x, or some other up-to-date browser), is a good thing for web developers everywhere.
This is a new one for me:
Record companies regularly deduct 15 percent off the top of sales as an allowance for "breakage" -- a survival from the days of shellac records that now simply serves to reduce artist royalties by that amount.
Ok, I guess I can understand if they're shipping fragile records. (Still wouldn't you take better precautions?) But CDs? If 15% of the CDs you ship are defective when they reach the consumer's CD player, something in the chain from CD press to consumer needs to be re-examined. Of course, the RIAA isn't *really* claiming that 15% of the sales are of "broken" merchandise, it's just a good way to say: "Hey Mr. Artist, we're only paying you for 85% of the royalties we owe you."
Then again, if they introduce copy-protected CDs in wide release, this breakage number might just skyrocket.