I was messing recently with Subrosasoft's free GlobalTraceRoute app (OS X). All the traces I did on Google went to Australia. www.google.com, www.google.co.uk, www.google.co.jp, the lot. Just tried to reproduce this from home but can't as I'm on satellite and the TTLs keep expiring.
A friend and I made the assumption that given the time of day (Approx. lunchtime, EDT), it was the middle of the night in Oz, so maybe Google was doing some kind of global load balancing, using places where resources were cheapest on a daily basis (i.e. at night) to do the bulk of processing. By this logic, the traceroute would move around the globe with the night, so maybe Australia, India, Europe, the US, back to Australia over 24 hours. However, when I tried the trace again around 1800 EDT, the destination was still Australia, as it was the next morning.
Was the software wrong? Is Google faking it to make it look as if it's in Oz? Or do they really have huge datacenter there?
Every time you need to supply your credentials, you fist get presented with a regular http page. For years I've been leaving the password empty and hitting return so I can get a full SSL page. They still don't get it. Yahoo! at last made the transition to a full https login a few months ago - kudos to them.
Even the new Monster universal connector thingumajig listed on the Apple car connector page won't connect your iPod to a Subaru. I've looked at so many after market connectors - none list Subaru. My iTrip rf transmitter is great (and so is my Subaru) but I sure would love a direct connection. Ah well... That's the beauty of all wheel drive.
I took a look at Blue Security's privacy policy and found this:
"email addresses that Blue Security establishes for you may be published on the Internet, and your designated email addresses will be provided in encrypted form to senders of unsolicited bulk email. In addition, email messages sent to your named email account will be forwarded to other members of the Do-Not-Intrude Registry." (my emphasis)
So it seems to me that not only are these folks distributing a list of email addresses of real people to spammers on request, they're also forwarding any spam destined for any person on their list to all the others - providing a very valuable service to the spammers themselves.
Is this just a cynical attempt to increase spammers' hit rates? Am I just too cynical? Please tell me I'm wrong.
Yep. MS Research published a study in which users were shown a bunch of Rorschach inkblot images. Since folks almost unfailingly put different interpretations on the same image, the same set of images can produce unique passwords of something like 20 chars in length by concatenating the first and last letters of what they see in each image. If they are shown the images again, they almost invariably come up with the same password, and after some time can enter it with little effort through tactile memory.
The paper is here: http://research.microsoft.com/displayArticle.aspx? id=417
I'm no fan of the "Evil Empire", but credit where it's due...
Times are tough right now in the federal govt. Imagine my superiors' delight this morning when I totally eliminated my agency's need for costly data backup facilities using a short Perl script which simply emails tarballs of the hard drives of our 3000+ machines to my GMail account!
Freedom of expression is not guaranteed - it's not a right, but a privelege (at least, it was when I spent my first 27 years there). If the govt says you can't say or do something, that's the law.
Slashdot Mirror
I'll give you $50 for it!
Update: Just launched Google Earth and typed in destination Ayers Rock. Earth crashed. Uluru is it!
I was messing recently with Subrosasoft's free GlobalTraceRoute app (OS X). All the traces I did on Google went to Australia. www.google.com, www.google.co.uk, www.google.co.jp, the lot. Just tried to reproduce this from home but can't as I'm on satellite and the TTLs keep expiring.
A friend and I made the assumption that given the time of day (Approx. lunchtime, EDT), it was the middle of the night in Oz, so maybe Google was doing some kind of global load balancing, using places where resources were cheapest on a daily basis (i.e. at night) to do the bulk of processing. By this logic, the traceroute would move around the globe with the night, so maybe Australia, India, Europe, the US, back to Australia over 24 hours. However, when I tried the trace again around 1800 EDT, the destination was still Australia, as it was the next morning.
Was the software wrong? Is Google faking it to make it look as if it's in Oz? Or do they really have huge datacenter there?
Every time you need to supply your credentials, you fist get presented with a regular http page. For years I've been leaving the password empty and hitting return so I can get a full SSL page. They still don't get it. Yahoo! at last made the transition to a full https login a few months ago - kudos to them.
...about the cameras if only I was a little more photogenic :(
Once we allow them to communicate, it's all over. You think they don't know we're MEAT???
I used to write stuff like this when I was a teenager, too. Don't be too hard on these guys - remember when you thought you knew everything?
Now you know how I feel whenever I look in the mirror.
Even the new Monster universal connector thingumajig listed on the Apple car connector page won't connect your iPod to a Subaru. I've looked at so many after market connectors - none list Subaru. My iTrip rf transmitter is great (and so is my Subaru) but I sure would love a direct connection. Ah well... That's the beauty of all wheel drive.
So what's your point? That Germany is just like every other country in the world?
I took a look at Blue Security's privacy policy and found this:
"email addresses that Blue Security establishes for you may be published on the Internet, and your designated email addresses will be provided in encrypted form to senders of unsolicited bulk email. In addition, email messages sent to your named email account will be forwarded to other members of the Do-Not-Intrude Registry." (my emphasis)
So it seems to me that not only are these folks distributing a list of email addresses of real people to spammers on request, they're also forwarding any spam destined for any person on their list to all the others - providing a very valuable service to the spammers themselves.
Is this just a cynical attempt to increase spammers' hit rates? Am I just too cynical? Please tell me I'm wrong.
Yep. MS Research published a study in which users were shown a bunch of Rorschach inkblot images. Since folks almost unfailingly put different interpretations on the same image, the same set of images can produce unique passwords of something like 20 chars in length by concatenating the first and last letters of what they see in each image. If they are shown the images again, they almost invariably come up with the same password, and after some time can enter it with little effort through tactile memory.
? id=417
The paper is here: http://research.microsoft.com/displayArticle.aspx
I'm no fan of the "Evil Empire", but credit where it's due...
Times are tough right now in the federal govt. Imagine my superiors' delight this morning when I totally eliminated my agency's need for costly data backup facilities using a short Perl script which simply emails tarballs of the hard drives of our 3000+ machines to my GMail account!
:-)
PS Just looked and I'm still at 1TB
I for one welcome this thoughtful and informative expose of the open source charlatans!
Freedom of expression is not guaranteed - it's not a right, but a privelege (at least, it was when I spent my first 27 years there).
If the govt says you can't say or do something, that's the law.