Brian Livingston at Windows Secrets did a piece about this because of the potential implications for newsletter editors like him. The reason it only applies to kids is that CAN-SPAM preempts state laws about spam. But states can still write child-protection laws - so Michigan and Utah did.
Here's a link to an article at MarketingSherpa, which says it is a media company serving professional marketers. I think the article is free until 7/10.
Now the question is whether Slahdot has to worry about this...
This, and the story about Kensington security cables being easy to pick, reminded me of an apartment I lived in with a friend while at Columbia in NYC in the 60's. Not the best area back then - Columbia is near Harlem.
We had what was called a "police lock" - presumably to keep the police out. It had this thick, 5 foot long metal bar that angled between the door and a notch in the floor, to keep anyone from kicking the door in. On the door, it fit into a latch, and you could lock it with a key from the outside. We felt safe.
Then we got robbed. Our "hi fi" stereo and other stuff was stolen. No computers back in those days.
We thought my roommate had forgotten to lock the door. Then we learned that the LOCK on this "police lock" was about as secure as a paper bag. You could probably use a screw driver to force it open. So we had this great big metal bar to keep the door shut, but nothing useful to keep the bar in place!
Back in 1996, I upgraded the motherboard on one of my PC's. When I powered it up, I entered a date of 1986 by mistake, and did not notice it.
Booted up windows - some symantec utility I was running kept telling me 'some file attributes corrupted.' No details - finally, just to get it to stop TELLING me, I told it to go ahead and fix it. Which it did - by setting the creation date of every file to 1986.
I probably could have lived with that - but I figured 'I have a tape backup - I will just restore that.' Well, the tape had an error and missed about 10% of the files (after wiping them out). Left an unuseable system that required a complete rebuild.
I remember it was a 3-day weekend, and my wife did not see me the whole time.
I have started doing something about this, because I am concerned about providing for my wife if something were to happen to me. I have started documenting everything about my computer, online accounts, financial data, etc, so someone could care for my wife (who is in the early stages of alzheimer's) - or even take care of me, if necessary.
The two problems are a) who would take on this responsibility, and b) where do I put all this info so that it cannot be used until I *want* it to be used. I am talking to friends, family, lawyers, etc - but it would seem like this would not be an unusual situation.
One small component of this is making sure the appropriate person gets notified if something happens to me. I *thought* I remembered a software package or web site that operated as a "dead-man switch" - if you did not check in periodically, it would assume you were dead and take appreoriate actions - like delete pr0n, send email notification, etc. But I have not been able to find this. Any suggestions?
I dont know the economics in detail - but I think of nuclear power as cheap as long as you dont count the expense, for example, of getting rid of used nuclear fuel. It piles up and then the govt (meaning us) bails out the companies by providing storage somwhere.
Slashdot Mirror
Brian Livingston at Windows Secrets did a piece about this because of the potential implications for newsletter editors like him. The reason it only applies to kids is that CAN-SPAM preempts state laws about spam. But states can still write child-protection laws - so Michigan and Utah did.
...
Here's a link to an article at MarketingSherpa, which says it is a media company serving professional marketers. I think the article is free until 7/10.
Now the question is whether Slahdot has to worry about this
Dan Kronstadt
This, and the story about Kensington security cables being easy to pick, reminded me of an apartment I lived in with a friend while at Columbia in NYC in the 60's. Not the best area back then - Columbia is near Harlem. We had what was called a "police lock" - presumably to keep the police out. It had this thick, 5 foot long metal bar that angled between the door and a notch in the floor, to keep anyone from kicking the door in. On the door, it fit into a latch, and you could lock it with a key from the outside. We felt safe. Then we got robbed. Our "hi fi" stereo and other stuff was stolen. No computers back in those days. We thought my roommate had forgotten to lock the door. Then we learned that the LOCK on this "police lock" was about as secure as a paper bag. You could probably use a screw driver to force it open. So we had this great big metal bar to keep the door shut, but nothing useful to keep the bar in place!
Booted up windows - some symantec utility I was running kept telling me 'some file attributes corrupted.' No details - finally, just to get it to stop TELLING me, I told it to go ahead and fix it. Which it did - by setting the creation date of every file to 1986.
I probably could have lived with that - but I figured 'I have a tape backup - I will just restore that.' Well, the tape had an error and missed about 10% of the files (after wiping them out). Left an unuseable system that required a complete rebuild.
I remember it was a 3-day weekend, and my wife did not see me the whole time.
That's the last time I ever used tape for backup.
I have started doing something about this, because I am concerned about providing for my wife if something were to happen to me. I have started documenting everything about my computer, online accounts, financial data, etc, so someone could care for my wife (who is in the early stages of alzheimer's) - or even take care of me, if necessary.
The two problems are a) who would take on this responsibility, and b) where do I put all this info so that it cannot be used until I *want* it to be used. I am talking to friends, family, lawyers, etc - but it would seem like this would not be an unusual situation.
One small component of this is making sure the appropriate person gets notified if something happens to me. I *thought* I remembered a software package or web site that operated as a "dead-man switch" - if you did not check in periodically, it would assume you were dead and take appreoriate actions - like delete pr0n, send email notification, etc. But I have not been able to find this. Any suggestions?
I dont know the economics in detail - but I think of nuclear power as cheap as long as you dont count the expense, for example, of getting rid of used nuclear fuel. It piles up and then the govt (meaning us) bails out the companies by providing storage somwhere.