The first step is to link the email to a unique person. Once done, any email can be cross-referenced with your telephone records (NSA wiretaps). This information can be used to create a web of interactions. An example where this would be applicable might be (my apologies to all Robert's): Bob got an email from an IP address in Pakistan. Use Bob's profile to create a list of the people that Bob has had traceable interactions with (Bob's web). Now we can overlay Bob's web with other suspects' webs and look for hits.
The time information could be used to correlate interactions with past attacks (9/11, Millenium, etc). For instance, show me Bob's web +/- 1 week of 9/11.
If the information is being used this way, then I can see it as being potentially useful to law enforcement in trying to reduce massive amounts of data into something potentially actionable such as initiating additional surveillance on Bob.
The flip side of this is some spammer sends out email from a server in Pakistan. You happen to get this email. You live near a suspected terrorist. You happen to bank at the same place and order pizza from the same place as the suspected terrorist. You happen to have ordered a pizza on 9/10. You get a one-way ticket to Cuba.
As with many things today, this is a very complex issue. Many of us on/. today are old enough to remember when we actually respected doctors (remember marcus welby?). One of the main reasons lawyers have been so successful in suing doctors over the last 10+ years is that the AMA (i.e. doctors) have done a crap job of policing their own. Being from Texas, I remember being up in arms when our legislature, upon prompting from the AMA lobby, funded the the governmental body that oversaw rogue doctors (alcoholics, drug addicts, incompetents and worse) with a budget of just under $1mil. This allowed the two person team to DRIVE around Texas visiting these doctors. On average, they would see one of these doctors once every three years. And one of these guys had 23 malpractice suits currently against him and had killed five people in the previous two years. Still had his license though!
Not trying to bait anyone, but this is a very complex issue that cannot be handled in short sentences.
In a side note, I recently spent a year in Belgium and had the best health care in my life. And they only spend 1/6 of what we do per person. Key differentiators? No insurance companies. No lawyers. Reasonable drug prices. Doctors still do very well compared to the average person. There is limited "profit" motive and a very flat system with minimal paperwork (i.e. efficient).
The biggest problem with this approach is the user intervention. It requires the user to inspect each spam to validate the server(s) (you are traversing) being hit. It this is not done, then the spammers can simply send out spam with hidden links to spamhaus.org turning this approach into a targeted ddos against their enemies.
Have to 2nd this. I shoot 8K digital pictures a year with a pro-level camera and flash. I use the rayovac 1800 NiMH with the 1 hr charger and couldn't be happier never buying a duracell again. I typically get 700+ pictures on a single charge and 400 flashes on a single charge with the SB 80DX Nikon flash which is a hawg.
Hmmm, I've got a web site. Just a family thing. 150MB a month bandwidth limitation. Mainly used for sharing baby pictures, email, etc.
Somehow, through the extreme sleep deprivation, I manage to find the time to make something worthy of/.ing. One of my buddies submits its and, lo and behold, 1 million hits later, my bandwidth is gone.
Now, the geek part of me thinks this would be cool. I can now say I've been/.ed for the rest of my life.
The responsible father part of me (think ward cleaver with a pony tail) thinks this would be inappropriate behavior that could lead to significant unintended consequences. Depending on the day, I could be without email for a month (yep, that's bandwidth) without forking out hard earned cash. Now me, I'm flush with cash from all of my.com stock options. For some people, hello blood bank.
Now, I think to myself, "What did I do to deserve this?" Well, I took the time to create something cool enough to be/.ed and for that, I have no email for a month. There's got to be a better way to reward people that create cool stuff...
But wait, there is substance to this post./. makes money from advertising. Wouldn't it be nice if, before linking to me,/. contacted me and offered me the option of mirroring my site? They could have an agreement with the "marketer of the month" who sponsors this bandwidth. Nice little frame on top from the marketer, my content in the bottom.
I get my content/.ed. Cool. I still have email. More cool./. makes some cash. Even more cool.
Of course, I could take the tact of putting my own SuperPornPopUp up on the page and make a mint!
Wow, I think I have a.com idea. Monitor who's been/.ed and sell porn advertising on their sites.
ReplayTV values your business. We are committed to seamlessly transitioning the ReplayTV Service to the product lineâ(TM)s new owners. Everyone on the ReplayTV team will be working closely with the new owners to ensure that our customers continue to receive the award-winning ReplayTV Service without interruption.
We are optimistic about our future and appreciate your support through this transition.
I'm in Texas and was laid off in June. My first day at home during the week I realized how many damn telemarketers were calling. Over about a week, I went from: 1. Trying to be nice 2. Trying to be polite 3. Hanging up politely 4. Hanging up with a vengeance 5. Unleashing a spew of random swear words 6. Screaming out loud 7. Screaming in mid-sentence 8. Threatening to kill them 9. Threatening to kill myself 10...
You get the picture. Finally got desperate enuf to buy the TeleZapper. Your mileage may vary, but I think it's the best thing since replayTV. My experience follows:
First week: Lots of calls (10 / day) that are hangups. This is the typical response from an automated system that gets the disconnected tone.
Second week: Fewer (5 / day) calls that are hangups.
Third week: Occasional (1 per day) calls that are hangups.
Since then: Rare (1 / week) call that is hangup.
Kind of miss screaming in mid-sentence, but it was much cheaper than therapy.
I purchased an HP DVD+RW about 6 months ago and I no longer use it. A couple of reasons:
1. I've already lost three disks full of information because HP's software cannot seem to handle system crashes. Windows crash = Lose all of your data. (remember I'm using DVD+RW).
2. A big hard disk with a firewire or USB2.0 enclosure is cheaper, faster, and more portable.
3. The lack of a standard has resulted in sketchy compatibility with home DVD players so burning video is a real problem.
4. The lack of a standard also affects PC DVD drives. Sometimes disks work and sometimes they don't. I have experienced complete BSOD's on Win2K when putting a DVD+RW in a friend's player (never seen one before).
If you are still set on buying a DVD writer, then I suggest the following:
1. If you want to burn video, look at your existing DVD player (and those of anyone you want to share with) and check this chart to see which style of drive to get (DVD-R or DVD+RW) http://www.vcdhelp.com/dvdplayers.php
2. If you want to do data backups, remember this when using DVD+RW: Only backup or restore data after a cold boot. Even then you may lose everything if something untoward happens during the process.
3. Really think hard about the external hard disk. $130 120 gig hard drive $ 60 Firewire external enclosure or $350 DVD Writer $216 24 DVD-R disks (@ 120 gig)
You can always buy the DVD Writer next year with the $350 you saved getting the hard disk and probably end up with better technology, faster write times, a better shot at compatibility, and a cool 120 gig hard drive with external firewire enclosure.:-)
1. Their home page. At the time of the purchase, AOL was dominant in the consumer market but had no handle on how to get access to the businesses. They saw the ability to drive significantly more advertising revenue by acquiring Netscape.com as they were the dominant business portal at that time. AOL closed deal after deal with major advertisers because of this.
2. Their browser. AOL hates Microsoft and really hates IE. Between 33% - 37% of their support costs were directly related to IE bugs. At the same time, they were forced to go with IE if they wanted that icon on the desktop of every new PC. By purchasing NSCP, they hoped to get the people and hard-earned know-how to put a competitive browser in play that directly integrated with not only the Internet, but AOL services.
3. Their servers. AOL was also looking at dumping their proprietary architecture and replacing it with a completely browser based solution. This, obviously, didn't pan out. But the thinking was they would have complete access to the best LDAP server, app server (performance and scalability wise), mail servers, and web servers on the market at that time.
The final piece of the puzzle was an agreement with Sun to dump the rest of the enterprise software (BuyerX, SellerX, ECX, etc) on Sun. This was done in simultaneously with a major hardware purchase from Sun ($500M?) with Sun purchasing a huge amount of advertising from AOL ($250M?). This agreement took two years to complete as U.S. tax law would have stuck AOL with a $250M bill if they divested those assets within the first two years of acquiring NSCP.
I, personally, didn't think it was a great deal. NSCP was on the way down and I thought AOL could have bought those assets at firesale prices 3 months later instead of the $4B they paid. Oh well, they made some of my good friends rich.:-)
Slashdot Mirror
The time information could be used to correlate interactions with past attacks (9/11, Millenium, etc). For instance, show me Bob's web +/- 1 week of 9/11.
If the information is being used this way, then I can see it as being potentially useful to law enforcement in trying to reduce massive amounts of data into something potentially actionable such as initiating additional surveillance on Bob.
The flip side of this is some spammer sends out email from a server in Pakistan. You happen to get this email. You live near a suspected terrorist. You happen to bank at the same place and order pizza from the same place as the suspected terrorist. You happen to have ordered a pizza on 9/10. You get a one-way ticket to Cuba.
Not trying to bait anyone, but this is a very complex issue that cannot be handled in short sentences.
In a side note, I recently spent a year in Belgium and had the best health care in my life. And they only spend 1/6 of what we do per person. Key differentiators? No insurance companies. No lawyers. Reasonable drug prices. Doctors still do very well compared to the average person. There is limited "profit" motive and a very flat system with minimal paperwork (i.e. efficient).
$.02
The biggest problem with this approach is the user intervention. It requires the user to inspect each spam to validate the server(s) (you are traversing) being hit. It this is not done, then the spammers can simply send out spam with hidden links to spamhaus.org turning this approach into a targeted ddos against their enemies.
Have to 2nd this. I shoot 8K digital pictures a year with a pro-level camera and flash. I use the rayovac 1800 NiMH with the 1 hr charger and couldn't be happier never buying a duracell again. I typically get 700+ pictures on a single charge and 400 flashes on a single charge with the SB 80DX Nikon flash which is a hawg.
Somehow, through the extreme sleep deprivation, I manage to find the time to make something worthy of /.ing. One of my buddies submits its and, lo and behold, 1 million hits later, my bandwidth is gone.
Now, the geek part of me thinks this would be cool. I can now say I've been /.ed for the rest of my life.
The responsible father part of me (think ward cleaver with a pony tail) thinks this would be inappropriate behavior that could lead to significant unintended consequences. Depending on the day, I could be without email for a month (yep, that's bandwidth) without forking out hard earned cash. Now me, I'm flush with cash from all of my .com stock options. For some people, hello blood bank.
Now, I think to myself, "What did I do to deserve this?" Well, I took the time to create something cool enough to be /.ed and for that, I have no email for a month. There's got to be a better way to reward people that create cool stuff...
But wait, there is substance to this post. /. makes money from advertising. Wouldn't it be nice if, before linking to me, /. contacted me and offered me the option of mirroring my site? They could have an agreement with the "marketer of the month" who sponsors this bandwidth. Nice little frame on top from the marketer, my content in the bottom.
I get my content /.ed. Cool. I still have email. More cool. /. makes some cash. Even more cool.
Of course, I could take the tact of putting my own SuperPornPopUp up on the page and make a mint! Wow, I think I have a .com idea. Monitor who's been /.ed and sell porn advertising on their sites.
Dear Customers,
ReplayTV values your business. We are committed to seamlessly transitioning the ReplayTV Service to the product lineâ(TM)s new owners. Everyone on the ReplayTV team will be working closely with the new owners to ensure that our customers continue to receive the award-winning ReplayTV Service without interruption.
We are optimistic about our future and appreciate your support through this transition.
Thank you,
The ReplayTV Team
I'm in Texas and was laid off in June. My first day at home during the week I realized how many damn telemarketers were calling. Over about a week, I went from:
1. Trying to be nice
2. Trying to be polite
3. Hanging up politely
4. Hanging up with a vengeance
5. Unleashing a spew of random swear words
6. Screaming out loud
7. Screaming in mid-sentence
8. Threatening to kill them
9. Threatening to kill myself
10...
You get the picture. Finally got desperate enuf to buy the TeleZapper. Your mileage may vary, but I think it's the best thing since replayTV. My experience follows:
First week: Lots of calls (10 / day) that are hangups. This is the typical response from an automated system that gets the disconnected tone.
Second week: Fewer (5 / day) calls that are hangups.
Third week: Occasional (1 per day) calls that are hangups.
Since then: Rare (1 / week) call that is hangup.
Kind of miss screaming in mid-sentence, but it was much cheaper than therapy.
I purchased an HP DVD+RW about 6 months ago and I no longer use it. A couple of reasons:
:-)
1. I've already lost three disks full of information because HP's software cannot seem to handle system crashes. Windows crash = Lose all of your data. (remember I'm using DVD+RW).
2. A big hard disk with a firewire or USB2.0 enclosure is cheaper, faster, and more portable.
3. The lack of a standard has resulted in sketchy compatibility with home DVD players so burning video is a real problem.
4. The lack of a standard also affects PC DVD drives. Sometimes disks work and sometimes they don't. I have experienced complete BSOD's on Win2K when putting a DVD+RW in a friend's player (never seen one before).
If you are still set on buying a DVD writer, then I suggest the following:
1. If you want to burn video, look at your existing DVD player (and those of anyone you want to share with) and check this chart to see which style of drive to get (DVD-R or DVD+RW) http://www.vcdhelp.com/dvdplayers.php
2. If you want to do data backups, remember this when using DVD+RW:
Only backup or restore data after a cold boot. Even then you may lose everything if something untoward happens during the process.
3. Really think hard about the external hard disk.
$130 120 gig hard drive
$ 60 Firewire external enclosure
or
$350 DVD Writer
$216 24 DVD-R disks (@ 120 gig)
You can always buy the DVD Writer next year with the $350 you saved getting the hard disk and probably end up with better technology, faster write times, a better shot at compatibility, and a cool 120 gig hard drive with external firewire enclosure.
1. Their home page. At the time of the purchase, AOL was dominant in the consumer market but had no handle on how to get access to the businesses. They saw the ability to drive significantly more advertising revenue by acquiring Netscape.com as they were the dominant business portal at that time. AOL closed deal after deal with major advertisers because of this.
2. Their browser. AOL hates Microsoft and really hates IE. Between 33% - 37% of their support costs were directly related to IE bugs. At the same time, they were forced to go with IE if they wanted that icon on the desktop of every new PC. By purchasing NSCP, they hoped to get the people and hard-earned know-how to put a competitive browser in play that directly integrated with not only the Internet, but AOL services.
3. Their servers. AOL was also looking at dumping their proprietary architecture and replacing it with a completely browser based solution. This, obviously, didn't pan out. But the thinking was they would have complete access to the best LDAP server, app server (performance and scalability wise), mail servers, and web servers on the market at that time.
The final piece of the puzzle was an agreement with Sun to dump the rest of the enterprise software (BuyerX, SellerX, ECX, etc) on Sun. This was done in simultaneously with a major hardware purchase from Sun ($500M?) with Sun purchasing a huge amount of advertising from AOL ($250M?). This agreement took two years to complete as U.S. tax law would have stuck AOL with a $250M bill if they divested those assets within the first two years of acquiring NSCP.
I, personally, didn't think it was a great deal. NSCP was on the way down and I thought AOL could have bought those assets at firesale prices 3 months later instead of the $4B they paid. Oh well, they made some of my good friends rich. :-)
Just say no to cool sigs,
gzo