I'd accept all the spam in the world if they paid me 15 cents per message.
Coming soon: AllAdvantage for e-mail!
(Ha ha, only serious. With current trends in Internet advertising, who knows?)
Personally, I don't find the proposition too attractive. There are more dignified ways of selling yourself for money -- say, hawking your organs for cash. (What did you think I was going to say?)
webmaster@ is a magnet for spammers. I bounce it at all of my domains. Plus, it's WWW-centric; there's more to the Internet than just the Web. Should a Net site that doesn't run a WWW server be forced to keep a webmaster@ role account open to collect spam?
I do keep postmaster@ and abuse@ open on all my domains. In the latter case, it's just a convention, but a useful one. (And I don't see spammers sending to abuse@ every domain they can find, for obvious reasons.)
As for the rest, why should I keep noc@ (for example) for domains that are virtual hosts?
Some people simply do not have voice telphone numbers.
Search Google for various queries involving the term "voicemail". Depending on your needs, you can get a voicemail drop box for very cheap. (Including one that's at an extension if you want to get really cheap.) Voila, valid WHOIS contact info.
After all, you're going to have to spend some money if you want a domain name. I just consider it part of a cost to be amortized across the domains I own.
You've never had a right to privacy as a domain owner. If that bothers you, don't use DNS and just publish your web server's IP number.
Or:
Look for a country-code domain that will allow you to keep your contact info private. I don't know of any that will; but I haven't really looked through the list.
Use a proxy registration service and don't break their terms of service. (You shouldn't be spamming anyway.:-)
Buy a subdomain from a private party. I own oligarch.com, so I could hypothetically offer to let you pay me to make NS records on oligarch.com pointing lostcluster.oligarch.com to your name servers. Presto, you now have a working domain delegated to you with none of your info in the WHOIS. True, it's not a second-level domain; but there are many situations where people find this acceptable, particularly when it's under a nice, short second-level domain (e.g., cjb.net).
Turn off your computer. Go outside and play. <g>
And I'm sure there are other ways to go about using the DNS without putting your data in an ICANN-controlled database.
if everybody with bad WHOIS information lost their domains
Anybody who collects domains -- in particular, who trolls the expired/deleted domain lists looking for little gems -- would be delighted.
As someone who enjoys collecting cool domains, I am drooling at the thought. I'm sure a lot of domain squatters and people who run those pseudo "search engines" where there once were websites are, too.
For those who fear stalkers, etc., there are services like Domains by Proxy (related to the registrar Go Daddy). These services will register the domain on your behalf; they require valid contact info from you, and they put their own contact info in the WHOIS database. This is technically in line with the ICANN rules because the proxy registrant is the real registrant of the domain. (Although they have a contractual obligation of doing it on your behalf.)
If you break the terms of service -- for example, if you use the domain for spam support or to commit illegal activities -- the proxy registrant will expose your real identity. Otherwise, your privacy is pretty well protected with these services.
I've used those types of services (including Domains by Proxy) to register domains on behalf of minor children who shouldn't have their contact info exposed online, and for other purposes requiring some level of privacy. For my own domains, I'm not afraid to use my valid PO box address and phone number.
(Note: I am not affiliated with these services in any way, except as a customer.)
It's still very much like this in Windows, in fact, with the "Program Files" directory often containing everything (although "Documents and Settings" is becoming more used for user settings storage).
According to Microsoft's specifications, user settings and data are not supposed to be stored in Program Files.
This is for security reasons. The Program Files hierarchy is supposed to contain executables, and it is not supposed to be writeable by a regular user. (Power Users and Administrators can write to it.) When it comes to trojans, viruses, and assorted malware, you do the math.
On the other hand, Documents and Settings hierarchy is specifically organized so that each user's space in the tree is readable/writeable by that user and the System and by nobody else. That's your home directory for you. (You wouldn't store your data in a world-readable/writeable directory on a *nix system, would you?)
Unfortunately, some developers are stupid and ignore the Microsoft design guidelines. One side effect of this is that many applications break when you try to run them as a user (rather than as Administrator). Wow, run everything with admin powers that's a great idea! (Not.)
Fortunately, Microsoft is beginning to crack down. Future versions of Windows will be taking the attitude of, well, if your app is so poorly designed and breaks so many of the rules we have for security reasons that it won't run as a user, tough luck, your application will break badly and nobody will buy it.
+1 for Microsoft in this regard. They have been taking the blame for a lot of problems that are really caused by app developers. Microsoft should be forcing application developers to put executables where executables belong and data where data belongs. No sane *nix admin would allow the wrong stuff to be put in the wrong parts of the filesystem, so why should a Windows admin allow the same?
Wow, the gap is closing? You mean I can get myself arrested and deported to the gulag for insulting our Great and Glorious Leaders or for arguing with their policies?
I'm skeptical, so let's do a scientific test.
Hey Bush, you son of a naggish equine, your policies are turkey-licking doo-doo.
Unbelievable! I'm still here! Any real dictator would have had my ass slammed into a re-education camp (or simply shot) for a lot less than that. Since I can say such things with no fear of being strapped to a chair in a dank room with my eyes taped open so I could be forced to watch Fox News Channel (;-), I guess that Bush's dictatorship must be pretty wimpy. Maybe he's just a miserable failure at being a despot.
Perhaps I just have to try harder. Let me taunt them again.
Hey Ashcroft, your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries.
(*checks self*) No, I didn't just get disappeared in the middle of the night. The jackbooted thugs aren't a-knockin' at my door. What a disappointment.
Yeah, here goes my karma, right into the Troll/Flamebait gulag. (Censorship! Censorship! The gap between Slashdot and Communist China is closing! Wahhhh!) Fuck it. I have family members who risked their lives 50 years ago to escape real tyranny. Comparing the current-day U.S. is an insult to them and to the hundreds of millions who have been brutally slaughtered by tyrannical regimes throughout history.
There is an order of magnitude difference America today and any dictatorship at any point in history. Are things perfect? No. Should we be complacent? No. Could it happen here? Yes, it could; and we should be vigilant against it; but saying it's practically here already is simply ludicrous. Sadly, saying that the gap is being closed demonstrates a true ignorance of what real dictatorship is like. Unfortunately, this only makes it more likely to happen here in the civilized world, for when people who claim to be advocates of liberty live outside of reality and scream like Chicken Little over simple petty politics, liberty looks pretty defenseless to me.
If Opera can indeed understand opera, I can just imagine the marketing:
Introducing Opera, the first browser you can command by singing to it in Italian, French, or German. (Requires Talent 2.4 and Training 8.6 to operate.)
For a limited time, buy Opera and get Concerto for free. It's the mail client you can command with virtuoso antics on your violin!
(In the latter case, filter as "definitely spam" any mail encoded on the C-clef. It's probably from a violist...)
ICQ didn't disappear when AOL bought them.
on
Microsoft Eyeing AOL?
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
[That] could be very very bad... Say goodbye to AIM!
ICQ didn't disappear or merge completely into AIM when AOL bought the company. While Microsoft would probably work slowly and gently to migrate users over to the whole Passport system, I seriously doubt they'd just pull the plug or force everybody to suddenly switch.
.NET is a FAILURE (apart from the most stupidist name ever)
You evidently don't understand how Microsoft works as a business. Unlike most software shops, they take the long-term perspective. Many of their competitors have learned this the hard way. (E.g., "Internet Explorer is a failure." As of version 3, it was a failure in terms of market penetration, but MS didn't care.) Full Microsoft product cycles typically take about ten years.
Every major new Microsoft product or technology takes the better part of a decade to take over the desktop. By about 2007-2008 or so, once there starts to be a large installed base of Longhorn machines (which will have.NET preinstalled),.NET will really start to take off for shrinkwrap applications. Five years down the line from there, it will be just about ubiquitous. In the meantime, programmers are learning it and it's becoming a familiar feature of Visual Studio (an excellent IDE).
Guide for Sysadmins: Upon learning that your systems have been penetrated, proper incident response is as follows:
Scream. Hold head between hands and moan.
Check passport, one-way tickets to South American country of choice. Express relief that the emergency escape kit is still operational.
Remember advising boss to recind deparmental policy of secure sticky-note-on-the-monitor storage for passwords. Recall boss' gales of laughter in response. Take hefty swig of Jack Daniel's.
Remember advising boss to please not open random e-mail attachments. Recall boss' blank stare in response. Suck on barrel of.357 revolver for 5 minutes or until sufficiently calmed down.
Remember pleading with boss to allow filtering executable attachments. Recall boss' response. Almost pull trigger.
Resist urge to yank server out of rack and dump out nineth-story window.
Advise boss of break-in. This starts the long chain of blame-passing that ends when the CEO sacks 5 random people in middle management and below.
Sit back and watch the spin machine start the vital post-incident response protocol of figuring out who might know what happened and silencing them.
Sometimes it's difficult to refrain from telling them to kiss my ass.
A man wouldn't refrain.
There's your problem.
(Of course, if you want to be extra manly, pop 'em one in the jaw for insulting a lady. It is, after all, the chivalrous course of action in when faced with such discourtesy.)
What I want is a big screen monitor covering the wall that can be divided up into quadrants and can be used to watch multiple channels all at once, with a few quadrants for terminals and some Gnome programs!
The software side is called a "windowing interface", and solutions are already available for *nix, Macintosh, and (of course) Microsoft platforms.
The real problem is user control. Wireless keyboards and mice pretty much suck, and old-fashioned remotes are already growing too many fiddly buttons for their own good. Every once in awhile, I see a new piece of human interface hardware that looks really snazzy but probably isn't all that practical; he who finds the real solution to this problem will be inventing the next mouse, so to speak.
Slashdot Mirror
Coming soon: AllAdvantage for e-mail!
(Ha ha, only serious. With current trends in Internet advertising, who knows?)
Personally, I don't find the proposition too attractive. There are more dignified ways of selling yourself for money -- say, hawking your organs for cash. (What did you think I was going to say?)
webmaster@ is a magnet for spammers. I bounce it at all of my domains. Plus, it's WWW-centric; there's more to the Internet than just the Web. Should a Net site that doesn't run a WWW server be forced to keep a webmaster@ role account open to collect spam?
I do keep postmaster@ and abuse@ open on all my domains. In the latter case, it's just a convention, but a useful one. (And I don't see spammers sending to abuse@ every domain they can find, for obvious reasons.)
As for the rest, why should I keep noc@ (for example) for domains that are virtual hosts?
Search Google for various queries involving the term "voicemail". Depending on your needs, you can get a voicemail drop box for very cheap. (Including one that's at an extension if you want to get really cheap.) Voila, valid WHOIS contact info.
After all, you're going to have to spend some money if you want a domain name. I just consider it part of a cost to be amortized across the domains I own.
Or:
And I'm sure there are other ways to go about using the DNS without putting your data in an ICANN-controlled database.
Anybody who collects domains -- in particular, who trolls the expired/deleted domain lists looking for little gems -- would be delighted.
As someone who enjoys collecting cool domains, I am drooling at the thought. I'm sure a lot of domain squatters and people who run those pseudo "search engines" where there once were websites are, too.
For those who fear stalkers, etc., there are services like Domains by Proxy (related to the registrar Go Daddy). These services will register the domain on your behalf; they require valid contact info from you, and they put their own contact info in the WHOIS database. This is technically in line with the ICANN rules because the proxy registrant is the real registrant of the domain. (Although they have a contractual obligation of doing it on your behalf.)
If you break the terms of service -- for example, if you use the domain for spam support or to commit illegal activities -- the proxy registrant will expose your real identity. Otherwise, your privacy is pretty well protected with these services.
I've used those types of services (including Domains by Proxy) to register domains on behalf of minor children who shouldn't have their contact info exposed online, and for other purposes requiring some level of privacy. For my own domains, I'm not afraid to use my valid PO box address and phone number.
(Note: I am not affiliated with these services in any way, except as a customer.)
According to Microsoft's specifications, user settings and data are not supposed to be stored in Program Files.
This is for security reasons. The Program Files hierarchy is supposed to contain executables, and it is not supposed to be writeable by a regular user. (Power Users and Administrators can write to it.) When it comes to trojans, viruses, and assorted malware, you do the math.
On the other hand, Documents and Settings hierarchy is specifically organized so that each user's space in the tree is readable/writeable by that user and the System and by nobody else. That's your home directory for you. (You wouldn't store your data in a world-readable/writeable directory on a *nix system, would you?)
Unfortunately, some developers are stupid and ignore the Microsoft design guidelines. One side effect of this is that many applications break when you try to run them as a user (rather than as Administrator). Wow, run everything with admin powers that's a great idea! (Not.)
Fortunately, Microsoft is beginning to crack down. Future versions of Windows will be taking the attitude of, well, if your app is so poorly designed and breaks so many of the rules we have for security reasons that it won't run as a user, tough luck, your application will break badly and nobody will buy it.
+1 for Microsoft in this regard. They have been taking the blame for a lot of problems that are really caused by app developers. Microsoft should be forcing application developers to put executables where executables belong and data where data belongs. No sane *nix admin would allow the wrong stuff to be put in the wrong parts of the filesystem, so why should a Windows admin allow the same?
Brer Rabbit says, "PLEASE don't buy me out..."
(And the moderation button you're reaching for is "Insightful", not "Funny"...)
I suppose it follows that in a few years, we'll be outsourcing our barratry to Indian law centers that handle our cases for a fraction of the price.
Wow, the gap is closing? You mean I can get myself arrested and deported to the gulag for insulting our Great and Glorious Leaders or for arguing with their policies?
I'm skeptical, so let's do a scientific test.
Unbelievable! I'm still here! Any real dictator would have had my ass slammed into a re-education camp (or simply shot) for a lot less than that. Since I can say such things with no fear of being strapped to a chair in a dank room with my eyes taped open so I could be forced to watch Fox News Channel (;-), I guess that Bush's dictatorship must be pretty wimpy. Maybe he's just a miserable failure at being a despot.
Perhaps I just have to try harder. Let me taunt them again.
(*checks self*) No, I didn't just get disappeared in the middle of the night. The jackbooted thugs aren't a-knockin' at my door. What a disappointment.
Yeah, here goes my karma, right into the Troll/Flamebait gulag. (Censorship! Censorship! The gap between Slashdot and Communist China is closing! Wahhhh!) Fuck it. I have family members who risked their lives 50 years ago to escape real tyranny. Comparing the current-day U.S. is an insult to them and to the hundreds of millions who have been brutally slaughtered by tyrannical regimes throughout history.
There is an order of magnitude difference America today and any dictatorship at any point in history. Are things perfect? No. Should we be complacent? No. Could it happen here? Yes, it could; and we should be vigilant against it; but saying it's practically here already is simply ludicrous. Sadly, saying that the gap is being closed demonstrates a true ignorance of what real dictatorship is like. Unfortunately, this only makes it more likely to happen here in the civilized world, for when people who claim to be advocates of liberty live outside of reality and scream like Chicken Little over simple petty politics, liberty looks pretty defenseless to me.
You do if you're a photographer.
Then I guess that all software should be free.
Oh wait...
If Opera can indeed understand opera, I can just imagine the marketing:
(In the latter case, filter as "definitely spam" any mail encoded on the C-clef. It's probably from a violist...)
ICQ didn't disappear or merge completely into AIM when AOL bought the company. While Microsoft would probably work slowly and gently to migrate users over to the whole Passport system, I seriously doubt they'd just pull the plug or force everybody to suddenly switch.
Am I the only one who misread that headline as "File Sharing Increases CD-R Sales"?
Yup. 228 years ago, they beat back Richard Montgomery and Benedict Arnold, killing Montgomery and wounding Arnold in the process.
And more recently, the Canadians have been a staunch US ally. ;-)
Who gave Canada a Department of National Defence?
Blame Canada!
Yes. (Disclaimer: I get kickback from this link.)
You evidently don't understand how Microsoft works as a business. Unlike most software shops, they take the long-term perspective. Many of their competitors have learned this the hard way. (E.g., "Internet Explorer is a failure." As of version 3, it was a failure in terms of market penetration, but MS didn't care.) Full Microsoft product cycles typically take about ten years.
Every major new Microsoft product or technology takes the better part of a decade to take over the desktop. By about 2007-2008 or so, once there starts to be a large installed base of Longhorn machines (which will have .NET preinstalled), .NET will really start to take off for shrinkwrap applications. Five years down the line from there, it will be just about ubiquitous. In the meantime, programmers are learning it and it's becoming a familiar feature of Visual Studio (an excellent IDE).
And then Al Gore demanded a recount.
(*crickets chirping*)
Thank you. I'll be here all evening, me and my digital chads.
Yes, this is a source of potential bias.
Internet users are more likely to hang up the phone on telemarketers or surveys.
(Lies, damn lies, and motivations ascribed to people about whom no real data exists.)
Guide for Sysadmins: Upon learning that your systems have been penetrated, proper incident response is as follows:
A man wouldn't refrain.
There's your problem.
(Of course, if you want to be extra manly, pop 'em one in the jaw for insulting a lady. It is, after all, the chivalrous course of action in when faced with such discourtesy.)
The software side is called a "windowing interface", and solutions are already available for *nix, Macintosh, and (of course) Microsoft platforms.
The real problem is user control. Wireless keyboards and mice pretty much suck, and old-fashioned remotes are already growing too many fiddly buttons for their own good. Every once in awhile, I see a new piece of human interface hardware that looks really snazzy but probably isn't all that practical; he who finds the real solution to this problem will be inventing the next mouse, so to speak.