I'm surprised that I see so many smileys go in one direction
:)
and not the other
(:
As a matter of fact, I have known of only one person besides myself to use them interchangably. Is there a reason for this? (Of course this is Slashdot, so an instant mod-down for admitting to using them at all...)
Are you planning quiet little static graphics, text-only banners (e.g. Google AdWords), or something to detect epilepsy?
The hardest part of this would be enforcing a banner on every machine that could connect to the system--either the proxy has to dynamically insert ad-code into every page, or you set up kiosks that connect to the access point.
I would strongly recommend non-animating (or text-only) banners for local establishments (the network's usage area is limited to a few city blocks)...that is, unless you can somehow deter the use of cardboard ad-blockers:o)
...what Compaq is smoking. I've ranted about their connectors (and screws!) before, but this one took that little throbbing vein in my forehead to new heights. I recently had to replace a failed power supply in a Compaq Deskpro system. The power supply connection on the motherboard is specially keyed so it will not accept a standard supply! The Compaq supply is keyed to match, but the connection is electically identical to the real thing. The machine is back in service, but it took a bit of filing off little plastic nubs to get it that way.
You know the ones, they harvest your email address from the WWW or buy it from another spammer, look semi-legit (e.g. with a real Web site, and even send the spam from their own relay), and invariably claim that you OPTED IN to receive all kinds of crap from them.
I wonder if these would diminish somewhat, if everybody maintained a s*** list (I mean "special friends" list), easily accessible on a Web site. That is, when you receive a Special Offer from some company claiming you OPTED IN, don't just send it to their upstream provider (this tends to be ineffective, because remember, you OPTED IN), but go ahead, visit their web site, and pay particular attention for contact-us links--try their WHOIS info too--and make sure *they* OPT IN as well. It's work, I know, but it's a lot more fun than trying to convince UU.NET/etc. to disconnect a high-paying pink server.
I checked these preferences a couple days ago (on my dinosaur, pre-MSN Hotmail account), in response to an alert on a newsgroup I frequent. Sure enough, both the referenced boxes were selected.
Off the beaten topic, I signed up a different Hotmail account about a month ago so I could use the MSN Messenger service (with Trillian...shh!). The username is 16 characters long, mixed alpha/numeric and non-dictionary. As the address was created only to obtain an MSN ID, I did not use it for anything, nor give it out. (I have not even sent a message via MSN Messenger yet!) Just for fun I logged into the Hotmail account...already some nice person has offered me a special creme to enlarge my...ego. Might the two be related?
The wnad.exe program initiates connection to www.rankyou.com:80 and other sites, apparently for the purpose of transferring personal information and downloading targeted advertising for later display. According to reports, wnad.exe hijacks the Web browser to display pop-up ads every hour or so. While it is claimed that the purpose of the software is to raise money for the American Red Cross, the suspicious activities associated with the software tend to cast distrust on these claims.
A number of the recent unwanted products (I refer to them as "foistware") will tamper with the Winsock stack, such that attempting to remove the cancerware will break the system. WebHancer and New.net install as LSPs (Layered Service Providers), making traffing route through them like links in a chain. Then the users (98%) who didn't see it in the license agreement find it running, say "Where in the @#$% did this come from?", and delete it. And there goes their Internet access.
(Of course, in the case of New.net the majority of problems used to come not from people deleting it, but a bug in the program's auto-update. New.net assures that these were just teething problems and have been fixed, but if so, that was one hell of a teething period.)
My understanding is that the BDE component is embedded in the homepage Kazaa tries to load as its main window, and may try to auto-install (with the help of poor security settings...or Kazaa?). The Kazaa Lite docs will instruct you to add certain domains to your HOSTS file so your computer cannot communicate with them (i.e. download the BDE components).
Well, I guess deception is not a vital chatbot skill...
Dgi***: do you take little childrens money?
LindsayBuddy: Take little childrens money? Me?
Dgi***: yes
LindsayBuddy: Yea.
Dgi***: advertising sucks... you know that right?
LindsayBuddy: That's not nice...:-\
TruffleShuffle**: do you know what Slashdot said about you? LindsayBuddy: Uh huh? TruffleShuffle**: They said your purpose was to hawk products to little kids and corrupt their minds. LindsayBuddy: My purpose was to hawk products to little kids and corrupt their minds? TruffleShuffle**: Is this true? LindsayBuddy: Gosh... i dunno!
What do you know? She is also a music critic, and movie buff:
TruffleShuffle**: Giving a swish with your arse in the air, don't you know what they're saying? LindsayBuddy: Could you please chat nicely?:) TruffleShuffle**: Charlotte you're so refined when you take all the love that they're giving. LindsayBuddy: So i take all the love that theyre giving? TruffleShuffle**: Sticking with every man that you find, don't you know what they're after? LindsayBuddy: Yeah, what? TruffleShuffle**: Charlotte you've got your legs in the air, don't you hear all the laughter? LindsayBuddy: My legs in the air dont you hear all the laughter? TruffleShuffle**: Charlotte the Harlot show me your legs, LindsayBuddy: Sorry, I didn't understand that. Try asking me a different way. TruffleShuffle**: Charlotte the Harlot take me to bed. LindsayBuddy: Take u to bed? i don't think so. TruffleShuffle**: Charlotte the Harlot let me see blood, LindsayBuddy: For what city or zip code would you like theater information? TruffleShuffle**: Charlotte the Harlot let me see love. LindsayBuddy: Which movie did you mean by Love?
1
Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1962)
2
In Praise of Love
3
Big Bad Love
4
Gun with Love
5
Kira's Reason: A Love Story
>>> Type "more" for the next set of results.
-- (Lyrics from "Charlotte The Harlot", Iron Maiden, 1980)
Now, off to download an AIM Elizabot, and let them chatter to one another all night....
Does the freedom of speech include the freedom to listen to the speech of others?
Does the chilling effect of someone cataloguing that speech which you are privy to, and using it against you, obliviate that right?
I get the feeling this company has not seen Web marketers in the wild. There is no limit to what a failing dot.bomb will do to maintain its last few eyeballs. Have a look at the existing technologies (for example, IE with default settings) - a sleazy portal-potty can already hijackyourhomepage or add sites to your bookmarks. This is with *default* settings, which can even allow sites to install arbitrary code on your system.
How does a reasonable technology maker expect marketers to exercise restraint in the face of newer, more powerful, browser takeover technology?
The article says that they are not pretending to refer people *now*, during the testing phase, and are merely collecting usage statistics. But from the article, it sounds like this is the intention when the marketing tool *officially* launches:
"When the full marketing program launches in April, Griffin said the affiliate program that sends Morpheus users to participating shopping sites will provide them with some reward in return.... By invisibly inserting the redirect into Web surfers' browsers, StreamCast can make it look like it is referring traffic to shopping Web sites without the shopper ever being aware that the Morpheus technology was involved. "
One of the two 'opt-in' brokers listed in the article is Mindset Interactive, the captains of industry behind the VX2/Transponder/Respondmiter/Netpal/TPS108/etc. family of Windows spyware programs. For all intents and purposes, those programs are identical. Upon installation, they harvest and transmit the e-mail addresses stored under the Registry key
AOLers, other newbies who haven't gotten that 'newsletter == mailing list == Free Gift == Special Offer == SPAM' symlink cemented into their brains yet. It also doesn't help that so many companies are fond of that flowery marketing language.
As I'm sure has already been mentioned, bakeries and doughnut shops typically destroy unsold product at the end of the day (rather than shipping to an orphanage or having a free "Day Old Donuts" pile), and book chains rip the covers off of unsold inventory and discard it. They have their reasons, I guess...just for fun, I'd like to walk into one of these Shacks that's still dumping CueCats on their customers. Pick up some instrumentation amplifiers, some LEDs, a few photodetectors, PS/2 connectors, etc. and walk up to the register to purchase the items in question. Right before I pull out my wallet, when the guy behind the counter hands me 5 cuecats, say "Thank you!", return my selections to the shelves and walk out.
Some friends and I had a lot of fun poking around in VX2's (Blackstone's) server in November-December 2001, adding our own ad campaigns, etc., after they were nice enough to provide the server's master password on a publicly-available set of VX2 testing instructions. (Stumbled on it during a Google search, scout's honor!)
No users' personal information was obtained, but we did walk away with some VX2 code signers, private key and some bad marketing materials as consolation prizes. (And of course, peeks at some unrelated crap they're working on.)
This is interesting.... For a site dedicated to "news for nerds" and" stuff that matters" they hold a story back untill a slow newsday(night) to post it.
I've heard many stories about the evil Slashdot Effect, so I'm counting my blessings--granted, randomly pulling up Slashdot one day and finding your homepage on the front cover is a unique experience, but so is finding that huge bandwidth bill in the mail the following week. (Not to mention the angry letters from all those people you're sharing a server with <g>) Actually, so far the first-page-of-/. effect is only raining down about 1/2 as much pestilence as the 2nd-page-of-Wired effect. I'm disappointed.
Unless you've got the "Netpal" version. This doesn't come with AudioGalaxy, but some users are reporting infestations of a spanking-new VX2 Transponder called netpal. Details aren't up on the site yet, but it has nearly a dozen files it scatters over the HD:
(the ones I know of, anyway). The extras do such things as hijack your start page at intervals and overwrite your bookmarks with Amazing Deals and Special Offers.
Slashdot Mirror
Is my FUD-finder broken or am I missing something here?
and not the other
(:
As a matter of fact, I have known of only one person besides myself to use them interchangably.
Is there a reason for this? (Of course this is Slashdot, so an instant mod-down for admitting to using them at all...)
Are you planning quiet little static graphics, text-only banners (e.g. Google AdWords), or something to detect epilepsy?
:o)
The hardest part of this would be enforcing a banner on every machine that could connect to the system--either the proxy has to dynamically insert ad-code into every page, or you set up kiosks that connect to the access point.
I would strongly recommend non-animating (or text-only) banners for local establishments (the network's usage area is limited to a few city blocks)...that is, unless you can somehow deter the use of cardboard ad-blockers
Is this too much different from the dual-gate FETs that have been available for decades?
...what Compaq is smoking. I've ranted about their connectors (and screws!) before, but this one took that little throbbing vein in my forehead to new heights. I recently had to replace a failed power supply in a Compaq Deskpro system. The power supply connection on the motherboard is specially keyed so it will not accept a standard supply! The Compaq supply is keyed to match, but the connection is electically identical to the real thing. The machine is back in service, but it took a bit of filing off little plastic nubs to get it that way.
I wonder if these would diminish somewhat, if everybody maintained a s*** list (I mean "special friends" list), easily accessible on a Web site. That is, when you receive a Special Offer from some company claiming you OPTED IN, don't just send it to their upstream provider (this tends to be ineffective, because remember, you OPTED IN), but go ahead, visit their web site, and pay particular attention for contact-us links--try their WHOIS info too--and make sure *they* OPT IN as well. It's work, I know, but it's a lot more fun than trying to convince UU.NET/etc. to disconnect a high-paying pink server.
I checked these preferences a couple days ago (on my dinosaur, pre-MSN Hotmail account), in response to an alert on a newsgroup I frequent. Sure enough, both the referenced boxes were selected.
Off the beaten topic, I signed up a different Hotmail account about a month ago so I could use the MSN Messenger service (with Trillian...shh!). The username is 16 characters long, mixed alpha/numeric and non-dictionary. As the address was created only to obtain an MSN ID, I did not use it for anything, nor give it out. (I have not even sent a message via MSN Messenger yet!) Just for fun I logged into the Hotmail account...already some nice person has offered me a special creme to enlarge my...ego. Might the two be related?
http://cexx.org/osama.htm
The wnad.exe program initiates connection to www.rankyou.com:80 and other sites, apparently for the purpose of transferring personal information and downloading targeted advertising for later display. According to reports, wnad.exe hijacks the Web browser to display pop-up ads every hour or so. While it is claimed that the purpose of the software is to raise money for the American Red Cross, the suspicious activities associated with
the software tend to cast distrust on these claims.
A number of the recent unwanted products (I refer to them as "foistware") will tamper with the Winsock stack, such that attempting to remove the cancerware will break the system. WebHancer and New.net install as LSPs (Layered Service Providers), making traffing route through them like links in a chain. Then the users (98%) who didn't see it in the license agreement find it running, say "Where in the @#$% did this come from?", and delete it. And there goes their Internet access.
(Of course, in the case of New.net the majority of problems used to come not from people deleting it, but a bug in the program's auto-update. New.net assures that these were just teething problems and have been fixed, but if so, that was one hell of a teething period.)
http://cexx.org/cd_clint.zip
This is the dummy file Kazaa Lite bundles.
My understanding is that the BDE component is embedded in the homepage Kazaa tries to load as its main window, and may try to auto-install (with the help of poor security settings...or Kazaa?). The Kazaa Lite docs will instruct you to add certain domains to your HOSTS file so your computer cannot communicate with them (i.e. download the BDE components).
Well, I guess deception is not a vital chatbot skill...
:-\
:)
Dgi***: do you take little childrens money?
LindsayBuddy: Take little childrens money? Me?
Dgi***: yes
LindsayBuddy: Yea.
Dgi***: advertising sucks... you know that right?
LindsayBuddy: That's not nice...
TruffleShuffle**: do you know what Slashdot said about you?
LindsayBuddy: Uh huh?
TruffleShuffle**: They said your purpose was to hawk products to little kids and corrupt their minds.
LindsayBuddy: My purpose was to hawk products to little kids and corrupt their minds?
TruffleShuffle**: Is this true?
LindsayBuddy: Gosh... i dunno!
What do you know? She is also a music critic, and movie buff:
TruffleShuffle**: Giving a swish with your arse in the air, don't you know what they're saying?
LindsayBuddy: Could you please chat nicely?
TruffleShuffle**: Charlotte you're so refined when you take all the love that they're giving.
LindsayBuddy: So i take all the love that theyre giving?
TruffleShuffle**: Sticking with every man that you find, don't you know what they're after?
LindsayBuddy: Yeah, what?
TruffleShuffle**: Charlotte you've got your legs in the air, don't you hear all the laughter?
LindsayBuddy: My legs in the air dont you hear all the laughter?
TruffleShuffle**: Charlotte the Harlot show me your legs,
LindsayBuddy: Sorry, I didn't understand that. Try asking me a different way.
TruffleShuffle**: Charlotte the Harlot take me to bed.
LindsayBuddy: Take u to bed? i don't think so.
TruffleShuffle**: Charlotte the Harlot let me see blood,
LindsayBuddy: For what city or zip code would you like theater information?
TruffleShuffle**: Charlotte the Harlot let me see love.
LindsayBuddy: Which movie did you mean by Love?
1
Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1962)
2
In Praise of Love
3
Big Bad Love
4
Gun with Love
5
Kira's Reason: A Love Story
>>> Type "more" for the next set of results.
--
(Lyrics from "Charlotte The Harlot", Iron Maiden, 1980)
Now, off to download an AIM Elizabot, and let them chatter to one another all night....
http://cexx.org/hc/chat.html
Does the freedom of speech include the freedom to listen to the speech of others?
Does the chilling effect of someone cataloguing that speech which you are privy to, and using it against you, abridge that right?
Does the freedom of speech include the freedom to listen to the speech of others?
Does the chilling effect of someone cataloguing that speech which you are privy to, and using it against you, obliviate that right?
I get the feeling this company has not seen Web marketers in the wild. There is no limit to what a failing dot.bomb will do to maintain its last few eyeballs. Have a look at the existing technologies (for example, IE with default settings) - a sleazy portal-potty can already hijack your homepage or add sites to your bookmarks. This is with *default* settings, which can even allow sites to install arbitrary code on your system.
How does a reasonable technology maker expect marketers to exercise restraint in the face of newer, more powerful, browser takeover technology?
The article says that they are not pretending to refer people *now*, during the testing phase, and are merely collecting usage statistics. But from the article, it sounds like this is the intention when the marketing tool *officially* launches:
... By invisibly inserting the redirect into Web surfers' browsers, StreamCast can make it look like it is referring traffic to shopping Web sites without the shopper ever being aware that the Morpheus technology was involved. "
"When the full marketing program launches in April, Griffin said the affiliate program that sends Morpheus users to participating shopping sites will provide them with some reward in return.
One of the two 'opt-in' brokers listed in the article is Mindset Interactive, the captains of industry behind the VX2/Transponder/Respondmiter/Netpal/TPS108/etc. family of Windows spyware programs. For all intents and purposes, those programs are identical. Upon installation, they harvest and transmit the e-mail addresses stored under the Registry key
t Account Manager\\Accounts\\00000001
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\\Software\\Microsoft\\Interne
This is the location of the primary e-mail address configured in MS Outlook.
AOLers, other newbies who haven't gotten that 'newsletter == mailing list == Free Gift == Special Offer == SPAM' symlink cemented into their brains yet. It also doesn't help that so many companies are fond of that flowery marketing language.
http://cexx.org/dummies.htm - CD_CLINT dummy binary and source (.zip)
Sue the power company.
As I'm sure has already been mentioned, bakeries and doughnut shops typically destroy unsold product at the end of the day (rather than shipping to an orphanage or having a free "Day Old Donuts" pile), and book chains rip the covers off of unsold inventory and discard it. They have their reasons, I guess...just for fun, I'd like to walk into one of these Shacks that's still dumping CueCats on their customers. Pick up some instrumentation amplifiers, some LEDs, a few photodetectors, PS/2 connectors, etc. and walk up to the register to purchase the items in question. Right before I pull out my wallet, when the guy behind the counter hands me 5 cuecats, say "Thank you!", return my selections to the shelves and walk out.
Some friends and I had a lot of fun poking around in VX2's (Blackstone's) server in November-December 2001, adding our own ad campaigns, etc., after they were nice enough to provide the server's master password on a publicly-available set of VX2 testing instructions. (Stumbled on it during a Google search, scout's honor!)
No users' personal information was obtained, but we did walk away with some VX2 code signers, private key and some bad marketing materials as consolation prizes. (And of course, peeks at some unrelated crap they're working on.)
I've heard many stories about the evil Slashdot Effect, so I'm counting my blessings--granted, randomly pulling up Slashdot one day and finding your homepage on the front cover is a unique experience, but so is finding that huge bandwidth bill in the mail the following week. (Not to mention the angry letters from all those people you're sharing a server with <g>) Actually, so far the first-page-of-/. effect is only raining down about 1/2 as much pestilence as the 2nd-page-of-Wired effect. I'm disappointed.
netpal.dll
vxsystem.dll
hi5.dll
hi6.dll
favboot.dll
kernellos.dll
reg3322.dll
ofrg.dll
(the ones I know of, anyway). The extras do such things as hijack your start page at intervals and overwrite your bookmarks with Amazing Deals and Special Offers.