That's like saying radio is dead, that it changed from the original form created by hobbyists, such as Marconi, Herz and others, into the commercial enterprise it is today. But it still exists much as it was in the early days. Interesting paragraph in that link, the last paragraph echoes the article.
Television replaced movie theaters, yet they still exist. Each fills a niche, as does the Internet.
As each technological advance comes into its own right, it is first thought of as the end to whatever it is replacing, yet all coexist in still recognizable forms today. For years, Radio Free Europe broadcast to Eastern Bloc countries, in spite of the blocking by the East. I can see that transposing to the Internet, that if one Company attempts to block or unilaterally control a portion of the Internet, we'll find ways around it, defeating their intentions.
In the end, I belive that the technology is morally neutral, it's all what we do with it that counts.
"Targeted advertising is far more successful than
any spam campaign." Conversion ratios of targeted banner advertising versus spam shows that targeted advertising far outdistances any spam campaign.
Spam is profitable only due to the fact that there is little or no investment to operate a spam campaign. Any other advertising campaign requires a capital investment in web servers, bandwidth, tracking, product or service fulfillment, etc.
Spam may be the most profitable, but far from the most successful. Considering the amount of capital needed to run a spam/scam campaign, it is virtually all profit. Analysts estimate Google has annual revenue of 60M to 100M, and I have never heard of Google spamming. Our 2002 annual revenue was just over 48M, and we have never spammed. Targeted advertising is far more successful than any spam campaign.
Most spam emails I see in my Inbox are scams, bogus prescription drugs, and Web site affiliates violating their related site TOS. Spammers would never be able to generate revenue comparable to the top Internet properties.
Our offices are about a mile away from UF. We chose this area because of the University, among other reasons.
When SoBig hit, we saw a lot of bounces in our mail queue, all originating from one UF IP. I called their tech support, and they took care of the problem. That was over a month ago, and since then they changed some of their policies regarding P2P. It was school funds (taxpayer money) that had to pay for the cleanup, not only of that one box but the entire system. UF isn't just in Gainesville, it has branches across northern Florida, and all of that had to be cleaned up.
UF has a private network, and I would imagine that they have provisions for legitimate research projects that would include file sharing applications. I'm just glad they cleaned up their systems when SoBig hit. At its peak I saw over 400 emails an hour bounced, with the majority coming from the UF systems.
You may of missed my point. I am NOT in favor of some judge making a "free speech" case out of sending spam. But that is what would happen eventually, someone would challenge any limitations on how many emails a person can send.
I agree that any ISP has the right to set limits for home and business users of their services.
CNN has an article regarding drugs shipped into the US from overseas, saying that approx. 90% of them were dangerous, that is, not up to FDA standards. I wonder how much of that is bought from a spam email, and how can people be so stupid.
If people only buy once and get burned, then in order for spammers to make any kind of profit, the amount of spam sent must be in the millions of emails a day. Another post suggested a maximum of sending 100 emails a day, a more realistic figure would be no more than 10,000 a day, anything over that, and it's more sensible to go with one of the reputable list server companies. I can't see any legitimate need for a home user to send out that many emails a day.
"limited to say 100 e-mails a day" I assume you mean sending no more than 100 emails a day. Not a bad idea, until some liberal judge decides you're infringing on peoples "free speech" rights, such as the recent decision by a Federal Judge in Denver regarding the Do Not Call List.
The quote is from Uncle Stoat Warbler, 6 Aug. 2003, directed at Burst.net, which is where my servers are located, so, yes, it was a threat against me, and can be found here.
The information regarding the other web site can be found here.
Why go after Terry Gilsenan? Any group that affects commerce in such a negative way must be held accountable. We're not talking about the CIA or MI-5, SPEWS is simply a good idea gone horribly out of control.
This is a classic case of "colleral damage" theory gone wrong. I'm willing to offer them some web space, and if a lot others would, then lets see India block the world.
From the Yahoo group, it looks like kyrmenlang may be the owner, at least thats the nickname that posted the first message on their board. I'll see if an email to that nick will get through.
Had you read the article, I did not say I was going to sue SPEWS. I did say that by coming forth with the owner of SPEWS, it would compel SPEWS to either act responsibly, or disband. Also, rather than helping spammers, we do exactly the opposite, by posting the most aggregious spammers web sites on our Internet Scams section. My mobile home????? Spammers make in a year what I make in a week. I think you have me confused with the spammer that lives in South Florida, and was recently profiled in a news article regarding spammers. To say I'm linked to spammers shows a complete lack of knowledge on your part. Apparently you don't understand the meaning of "empirical evidence" when you make baseless statements. And calling someone names shows a total lack of maturity. It's long been thought that SPEWS should operate in secret, as if it was some clandestine government agency. Any organization that affects commerce must be open to scrutiny, or cease to exist. The word is "credibility".
Slashdot will now pause, while you go look up the big words.
The DDoS attacks
began in earnest about the time there was a shouting match between NANAE, the Usenet Group used by SPEWS,
and another web site a few months ago.
I don't believe that the SoBig and MSBlaster and subsequent DDoS attacks
were orchestrated by spammers, but I'll hold final judgement. It may
still be true, however, I think that a few misguided morons connected to another web site decided to
DDoS the blacklists, and that is what we're seeing now. Logically, I
can't see spammers bringing more heat down upon themselves than they
already have. DDoSing is not going to solve anything, just make the
situation worse by shutting down ISP's and sites not involved in the
controversy.
Just a few days ago in Slashdot there was a story about a spammer from South
Florida, including his home address, etc.
As I stated in my report naming the administrator/owner of SPEWS, "Spews No Longer Anonymous", I firmly believe that there are people capable of doing
real physical harm to persons on the opposite side, and it is time for
this to cease. I'm sure that the authorities are actively seeking the
authors of SoBig and MSBlaster, I see one has been apprehended the other
day, and once apprehended, their systems would be confiscated for
evidence. Should any of those systems hold any DDoS software, that
leaves the authorities no alternative but to pursue charges for
obstruction of communications, in addition to the charges of authoring a
malicious program.
I'm not as much interested in the fate of the blacklists as I am the
spillover into the general Internet, and the safety of all concerned,
regardless of position. In the long run, I want to see those that are
causing the DDoSing to be brought to justice, and that there will be
some real dialogue between the factions, rather than the comments I've
seen so far from both sides, which in some extreme cases border on
terroristic threats.
From "Spews No Longer Anonymous"
The primary reason I devoted my time to tracking down the Administrator of SPEWS was that I saw that if left unchecked, SPEWS would go further out of control. In recent months, SPEWS has managed to anger a good number of persons with the ability to mount a DDoS attack against both SPEWS and Osirusoft, a provider of the SPEWS blacklist. I saw this as an escalation that had an impact beyond the simple email blocks, and believe that in my bringing SPEWS into the light, SPEWS will cease publication of their blacklist, or face what is sure to be a large number of lawsuits by affected companies and individuals. It is well known that SPEWS kept their identity secret in order to avoid lawsuits, and with this revelation, they have no choice but to either act responsibly, or cease operations.
In going through the Usenet NANAE archives, I found many instances of thinly veiled threats by SPEWS supporters against alleged spammers and the "collateral damage" casualties, including one remark that "you're lucky no one has firebombed your NOC". I could see that if left as-is, there would most likely be real physical harm done to either an alleged spammer or SPEWS supporter, and this also motivated me to act to track down the owner of SPEWS.
I'm not happy with sitefinder, but I have seen some referrals from misspelled names to our main site. Not a lot, but enough to get noticed. What I also notice is that several domain names that I previously owned, but not owned by anyone at the moment, are all coming up as a sitefinder page. I just wonder if they are doing this to all expired, previously registered domain names. And for the record, the domain names were originally registered on Network Solutions/Verisign.
I'm Pete Carr, owner of Chatmag.com, the leading chat directory and safety site (google "chat safety", we're the second result). For the most part, the comments of other/.ers that MSN is closing their chat rooms due to financial concerns are right on target. It has been long known that chat is not generally a medium to "make a sale". I believe that the decision to close is the result of falling ad revenues in their chat section and potential liability suits.
Operating a good safe kids chat network is a full time job, not something to just put up and forget. MSN and several other major chat networks have been lax in assisting users with help and safety issues. Operating a help desk for chat means hiring trained personnel, taking a proactive stance to addressing help requests, and educating users to the potential hazards of chat.
There are numerous good, safe chat networks that cater to children and teens. Talk City went to a subscription only chat service, which on the one hand goes against the principle of free chat, but helps eliminate trollers and spammers. In addition, several law enforcement agencies, such as Operation Blue Ridge Thunder, regularly cruise chat rooms to search out pedophiles, and child porn filesharers.
This decision by MSN will certainly not be the "death knell" for chat. There are several dozen major IRC networks, and the estimated chat rooms now available via IRC and The Web are over 1.3M, including discussion boards and interactive sites such as Slashdot. Internet chat goes to the heart of what the Internet was designed for, communications. There will be new chat networks starting up, and the networks with a bad business model such as MSN closing.
The major problem that I see is that over the past years the Internet and computers have been intentionally made so as to be used by anyone with nothing more than "point and click" skills. This is turning out to be a double edged sword. On the one hand, it opens the world to the casual user, and on the other hand, does not challenge the user to learn more about what they are doing online.
I've always believed that education is the key, and where do we start? There should be a multi pronged approach, with computer manufacturers, Internet Service Providers, and third party site's and software vendors all pitching in to educate the "Joe Average" user.
Rather than a "license", why not have a system built with an integrated skill level. As the consumer uses their system, build in a tutorial that if answered correctly, takes them to the next level. With a web browser, this could be that the first time the browser is loaded, the consumer would get a short tutorial automatically, and have to check off a few simple questions in order for the browser to then access the Internet. With other software, it would be simple to set up the same type of tutorial. Email could be set up to give a tutorial with some hints as to not downloading certain files, basic antivirus and trojan/worm information, etc.
The ISP's should have a good basic education package for their new signups. Some do, most do not, all they care about is getting a new signup.
Third party sites such as ours are designed to educate the user in a particular aspect of Internet usage, and it is a vastly under utilized area. We'd like to see more fundamental sites covering the basics. You'd be surprised at how many hits our Help section receives every day, and the emails we get from people asking questions, or just complimenting us on having it available.
Software vendors could build in a tutorial, rather than be optional, it would not allow the program to function unless the user at least had an overview of the particular program. Everyone makes fun of the "Video Professor" type of tutorials, but how much better would it be if all users had to use that kind of a system before being allowed online.
Any domain name has a real value, depending on the coverage of the particular name. We all remember a few years ago that some domain names traded in the millions of dollars. A check of Great Domains shows numerous domain names for sale in a wide spread of prices.
I believe that the Domains by Proxy model could be used by all Registrars, similar to having an unlisted telephone numbers. Allow the option to hide from public view personal information, but allow that information to be retrieved by law enforcement and the various court systems. We seem to forget that the Internet is in its infancy, with laws just now being written to cover this new medium. In a few more years, as domain owners pass away, legal issues regarding ownership of domains will come up. There is the potential for loss of a valuable domain name, simply because the owner had no concrete proof of ownership. In my own case, I've incuded my domain names in my will so that they will pass on to my children (and no, I don't need more kids, so don't ask me to adopt you).
The History Channel is running a new series, Tactical to Practical, which shows military to civilian crossover applications of equipment.
Do you know the reason the Amish use hook and eye fasteners rather than buttons on their coats? Buttons were originally designed for military uniforms. There are countless examples of military research crossing over to civilian life, including the obvious, The Internet.
An amphibious car had been done in production by AmphiCar in Germany. Before that, the
Germans in WWII had a Schwimmwagen, by VW. This latest amphi looks like something I'd buy.
I have to agree that online forums seem the better choice, rather than RSS. We originally indexed only live chat rooms, but now are seeing a large number of good forums, and have included forums in our listings. Judging by the click thru's, forums are as popular as live chat.
RSS is still a viable option to UCE, but I do not see it lessening the amount of spam emails. I think the main reason RSS would be adopted by legitimate newsletter operators would be in order to avoid the possibility of blacklisting by such groups as the soon to be defunct SPEWS.
Slashdot Mirror
That's like saying radio is dead, that it changed from the original form created by hobbyists, such as Marconi, Herz and others, into the commercial enterprise it is today. But it still exists much as it was in the early days. Interesting paragraph in that link, the last paragraph echoes the article.
Television replaced movie theaters, yet they still exist. Each fills a niche, as does the Internet.
As each technological advance comes into its own right, it is first thought of as the end to whatever it is replacing, yet all coexist in still recognizable forms today. For years, Radio Free Europe broadcast to Eastern Bloc countries, in spite of the blocking by the East. I can see that transposing to the Internet, that if one Company attempts to block or unilaterally control a portion of the Internet, we'll find ways around it, defeating their intentions.
In the end, I belive that the technology is morally neutral, it's all what we do with it that counts.
I ran across an article regarding another project using the Seti@Home model. Fight AIDS at Home is using it to screen drug compounds.
"Targeted advertising is far more successful than any spam campaign." Conversion ratios of targeted banner advertising versus spam shows that targeted advertising far outdistances any spam campaign.
Spam is profitable only due to the fact that there is little or no investment to operate a spam campaign. Any other advertising campaign requires a capital investment in web servers, bandwidth, tracking, product or service fulfillment, etc.
Spam may be the most profitable, but far from the most successful. Considering the amount of capital needed to run a spam/scam campaign, it is virtually all profit. Analysts estimate Google has annual revenue of 60M to 100M, and I have never heard of Google spamming. Our 2002 annual revenue was just over 48M, and we have never spammed. Targeted advertising is far more successful than any spam campaign.
Most spam emails I see in my Inbox are scams, bogus prescription drugs, and Web site affiliates violating their related site TOS. Spammers would never be able to generate revenue comparable to the top Internet properties.
Our offices are about a mile away from UF. We chose this area because of the University, among other reasons.
When SoBig hit, we saw a lot of bounces in our mail queue, all originating from one UF IP. I called their tech support, and they took care of the problem. That was over a month ago, and since then they changed some of their policies regarding P2P. It was school funds (taxpayer money) that had to pay for the cleanup, not only of that one box but the entire system. UF isn't just in Gainesville, it has branches across northern Florida, and all of that had to be cleaned up.
UF has a private network, and I would imagine that they have provisions for legitimate research projects that would include file sharing applications. I'm just glad they cleaned up their systems when SoBig hit. At its peak I saw over 400 emails an hour bounced, with the majority coming from the UF systems.
You may of missed my point. I am NOT in favor of some judge making a "free speech" case out of sending spam. But that is what would happen eventually, someone would challenge any limitations on how many emails a person can send.
I agree that any ISP has the right to set limits for home and business users of their services.
CNN has an article regarding drugs shipped into the US from overseas, saying that approx. 90% of them were dangerous, that is, not up to FDA standards. I wonder how much of that is bought from a spam email, and how can people be so stupid.
If people only buy once and get burned, then in order for spammers to make any kind of profit, the amount of spam sent must be in the millions of emails a day. Another post suggested a maximum of sending 100 emails a day, a more realistic figure would be no more than 10,000 a day, anything over that, and it's more sensible to go with one of the reputable list server companies. I can't see any legitimate need for a home user to send out that many emails a day.
"limited to say 100 e-mails a day" I assume you mean sending no more than 100 emails a day. Not a bad idea, until some liberal judge decides you're infringing on peoples "free speech" rights, such as the recent decision by a Federal Judge in Denver regarding the Do Not Call List.
Press any key to continue
The quote is from Uncle Stoat Warbler, 6 Aug. 2003, directed at Burst.net, which is where my servers are located, so, yes, it was a threat against me, and can be found here.
The information regarding the other web site can be found here.
Why go after Terry Gilsenan? Any group that affects commerce in such a negative way must be held accountable. We're not talking about the CIA or MI-5, SPEWS is simply a good idea gone horribly out of control.
This is a classic case of "colleral damage" theory gone wrong. I'm willing to offer them some web space, and if a lot others would, then lets see India block the world.
From the Yahoo group, it looks like kyrmenlang may be the owner, at least thats the nickname that posted the first message on their board. I'll see if an email to that nick will get through.
Had you read the article, I did not say I was going to sue SPEWS. I did say that by coming forth with the owner of SPEWS, it would compel SPEWS to either act responsibly, or disband. Also, rather than helping spammers, we do exactly the opposite, by posting the most aggregious spammers web sites on our Internet Scams section. My mobile home????? Spammers make in a year what I make in a week. I think you have me confused with the spammer that lives in South Florida, and was recently profiled in a news article regarding spammers. To say I'm linked to spammers shows a complete lack of knowledge on your part. Apparently you don't understand the meaning of "empirical evidence" when you make baseless statements. And calling someone names shows a total lack of maturity. It's long been thought that SPEWS should operate in secret, as if it was some clandestine government agency. Any organization that affects commerce must be open to scrutiny, or cease to exist. The word is "credibility".
Slashdot will now pause, while you go look up the big words.
Not a problem at all. The people that I am thinking of post replys such as this one.
I won't even dignify that post with a reply. Obviously he didnt read my full post, explaining why I tracked down the admin/owner of SPEWS.
Threats like that are the reason why anonymous blacklists/blocklists should not exist.
The DDoS attacks began in earnest about the time there was a shouting match between NANAE, the Usenet Group used by SPEWS, and another web site a few months ago.
I don't believe that the SoBig and MSBlaster and subsequent DDoS attacks were orchestrated by spammers, but I'll hold final judgement. It may still be true, however, I think that a few misguided morons connected to another web site decided to DDoS the blacklists, and that is what we're seeing now. Logically, I can't see spammers bringing more heat down upon themselves than they already have. DDoSing is not going to solve anything, just make the situation worse by shutting down ISP's and sites not involved in the controversy. Just a few days ago in Slashdot there was a story about a spammer from South Florida, including his home address, etc.
As I stated in my report naming the administrator/owner of SPEWS, "Spews No Longer Anonymous", I firmly believe that there are people capable of doing real physical harm to persons on the opposite side, and it is time for this to cease. I'm sure that the authorities are actively seeking the authors of SoBig and MSBlaster, I see one has been apprehended the other day, and once apprehended, their systems would be confiscated for evidence. Should any of those systems hold any DDoS software, that leaves the authorities no alternative but to pursue charges for obstruction of communications, in addition to the charges of authoring a malicious program.
I'm not as much interested in the fate of the blacklists as I am the spillover into the general Internet, and the safety of all concerned, regardless of position. In the long run, I want to see those that are causing the DDoSing to be brought to justice, and that there will be some real dialogue between the factions, rather than the comments I've seen so far from both sides, which in some extreme cases border on terroristic threats.
From "Spews No Longer Anonymous"
The primary reason I devoted my time to tracking down the Administrator of SPEWS was that I saw that if left unchecked, SPEWS would go further out of control. In recent months, SPEWS has managed to anger a good number of persons with the ability to mount a DDoS attack against both SPEWS and Osirusoft, a provider of the SPEWS blacklist. I saw this as an escalation that had an impact beyond the simple email blocks, and believe that in my bringing SPEWS into the light, SPEWS will cease publication of their blacklist, or face what is sure to be a large number of lawsuits by affected companies and individuals. It is well known that SPEWS kept their identity secret in order to avoid lawsuits, and with this revelation, they have no choice but to either act responsibly, or cease operations.
In going through the Usenet NANAE archives, I found many instances of thinly veiled threats by SPEWS supporters against alleged spammers and the "collateral damage" casualties, including one remark that "you're lucky no one has firebombed your NOC". I could see that if left as-is, there would most likely be real physical harm done to either an alleged spammer or SPEWS supporter, and this also motivated me to act to track down the owner of SPEWS.
From the bio, I'd say he's setting himself up for an insanity defense of some sort.
I'm not happy with sitefinder, but I have seen some referrals from misspelled names to our main site. Not a lot, but enough to get noticed. What I also notice is that several domain names that I previously owned, but not owned by anyone at the moment, are all coming up as a sitefinder page. I just wonder if they are doing this to all expired, previously registered domain names. And for the record, the domain names were originally registered on Network Solutions/Verisign.
I'm Pete Carr, owner of Chatmag.com, the leading chat directory and safety site (google "chat safety", we're the second result). For the most part, the comments of other /.ers that MSN is closing their chat rooms due to financial concerns are right on target. It has been long known that chat is not generally a medium to "make a sale". I believe that the decision to close is the result of falling ad revenues in their chat section and potential liability suits.
Operating a good safe kids chat network is a full time job, not something to just put up and forget. MSN and several other major chat networks have been lax in assisting users with help and safety issues. Operating a help desk for chat means hiring trained personnel, taking a proactive stance to addressing help requests, and educating users to the potential hazards of chat.
There are numerous good, safe chat networks that cater to children and teens. Talk City went to a subscription only chat service, which on the one hand goes against the principle of free chat, but helps eliminate trollers and spammers. In addition, several law enforcement agencies, such as Operation Blue Ridge Thunder, regularly cruise chat rooms to search out pedophiles, and child porn filesharers.
This decision by MSN will certainly not be the "death knell" for chat. There are several dozen major IRC networks, and the estimated chat rooms now available via IRC and The Web are over 1.3M, including discussion boards and interactive sites such as Slashdot. Internet chat goes to the heart of what the Internet was designed for, communications. There will be new chat networks starting up, and the networks with a bad business model such as MSN closing.
Carl Sagan shares the same birthdate as myself, 9 Nov. and as we all know, Scorpios are too intelligent to believe in horoscopes.
The major problem that I see is that over the past years the Internet and computers have been intentionally made so as to be used by anyone with nothing more than "point and click" skills. This is turning out to be a double edged sword. On the one hand, it opens the world to the casual user, and on the other hand, does not challenge the user to learn more about what they are doing online.
I've always believed that education is the key, and where do we start? There should be a multi pronged approach, with computer manufacturers, Internet Service Providers, and third party site's and software vendors all pitching in to educate the "Joe Average" user.
Rather than a "license", why not have a system built with an integrated skill level. As the consumer uses their system, build in a tutorial that if answered correctly, takes them to the next level. With a web browser, this could be that the first time the browser is loaded, the consumer would get a short tutorial automatically, and have to check off a few simple questions in order for the browser to then access the Internet. With other software, it would be simple to set up the same type of tutorial. Email could be set up to give a tutorial with some hints as to not downloading certain files, basic antivirus and trojan/worm information, etc.
The ISP's should have a good basic education package for their new signups. Some do, most do not, all they care about is getting a new signup.
Third party sites such as ours are designed to educate the user in a particular aspect of Internet usage, and it is a vastly under utilized area. We'd like to see more fundamental sites covering the basics. You'd be surprised at how many hits our Help section receives every day, and the emails we get from people asking questions, or just complimenting us on having it available.
Software vendors could build in a tutorial, rather than be optional, it would not allow the program to function unless the user at least had an overview of the particular program. Everyone makes fun of the "Video Professor" type of tutorials, but how much better would it be if all users had to use that kind of a system before being allowed online.
Any domain name has a real value, depending on the coverage of the particular name. We all remember a few years ago that some domain names traded in the millions of dollars. A check of Great Domains shows numerous domain names for sale in a wide spread of prices.
I believe that the Domains by Proxy model could be used by all Registrars, similar to having an unlisted telephone numbers. Allow the option to hide from public view personal information, but allow that information to be retrieved by law enforcement and the various court systems. We seem to forget that the Internet is in its infancy, with laws just now being written to cover this new medium. In a few more years, as domain owners pass away, legal issues regarding ownership of domains will come up. There is the potential for loss of a valuable domain name, simply because the owner had no concrete proof of ownership. In my own case, I've incuded my domain names in my will so that they will pass on to my children (and no, I don't need more kids, so don't ask me to adopt you).
The History Channel is running a new series,
Tactical to Practical, which shows military to civilian crossover applications of equipment.
Do you know the reason the Amish use hook and eye fasteners rather than buttons on their coats? Buttons were originally designed for military uniforms. There are countless examples of military research crossing over to civilian life, including the obvious, The Internet.
An amphibious car had been done in production by AmphiCar in Germany. Before that, the Germans in WWII had a Schwimmwagen, by VW. This latest amphi looks like something I'd buy.
I have to agree that online forums seem the better choice, rather than RSS. We originally indexed only live chat rooms, but now are seeing a large number of good forums, and have included forums in our listings. Judging by the click thru's, forums are as popular as live chat.
RSS is still a viable option to UCE, but I do not see it lessening the amount of spam emails. I think the main reason RSS would be adopted by legitimate newsletter operators would be in order to avoid the possibility of blacklisting by such groups as the soon to be defunct SPEWS.
Obviously that kid was at the glue strip of his intellectual envelope.