And very simply - the accounting firms that already do the taxes for large businesses get Passport accounts, and THEY deal with it, and not the business itself.
Additionally, again -- the government is considering it, not sure-fire definitly using it.
I swear to -god- my five year old has better reading comprension than some of you people.
The article mentions that is is for online services three times.
Quotes, with revelant words bolded for those of you who haven't finished 5th grade English yet.
"Microsoft's Passport is being considered as a way to authenticate users of the Web sites, said Mark Forman, associate director of information technology at the White House."
"The White House is instead pursuing an "e-identification" initiative, an effort to develop ways to authenticate people and businesses online who already have government identification numbers such as Social Security, business-registration and employer-identification numbers. "
"At the government-leaders conference, attended by representatives of 75 countries, Microsoft presented a blueprint for its "e-government" strategy that suggests they use Passport to verify the identity of visitors to their Web sites. It also suggested that its bCentral business Web site could be used to process business tax payments and that citizens could use its MSN Web site to handle address changes and voter registration"
---
Yes, its an amazingly laughable idea -- but its not the Big Brother in cahoots with Evil Bill Gates to steal all our privacy that the orignal poster makes it out to be.
Quite frankly - because aol is SUCH a common domain name, a number of spammers use a dictionary file to make up addresses - if they bounce, it costs them nothing.
Did you use random letters/numbers, or were there common names/words/numbers in that email address - its very likely that if the latter is true, then it was just a random address generator.
I OWN a domain of my own. I know I'm not selling the addresses on my domain to anyone, yet some of the addresses here get spam - even though they've never been used except for internal mail.
Filtering and some minor updates of filters is - at least so far- the biggest of the problem.
IMO, what needs to be done is more of an education -- Teach the average person how to setup filters, to block spam addresses, to blackhole and killfile on their personal accounts, and in a large amount the problems should be solved.
What doesn't help is that "America's Biggest ISP" has such limited custonization available for email filters (if they allow filtering at all.) that most people just assume that they must delete the spam and put up with it.
(Which reminds me of the client I had who was convinced that everyone in America had to use AoHell, simply because "It's America Online. AMERICA Online. Everyone in America has to use it." -- I wasn't sure if I should laugh or sob.)
It would require a -major- overhaul of the entire internet, because of the concept of Offshore Hosting. -- I host in Tawaii, send my spam from there. Oh, gee, its FREE! Ha, ha, silly American Tax.
Its also unworkable. I send an email to a list -- the LIST goes to 1,000 people -- is that 1 cent for me, 1,000 cents for the list host? Both?
What about auto-replys? Bounceback messages? Reciepts? Emails that don't go anywhere because the addres goes bad? Emails that go overseas? Auto-forwards? My work address forwards to my home address from 6 pm to 7am every day -- one cent or two per email?
I counted today - 312 emails recieved between 8am and 6pm. 109 sent out.
That, right there is $1.09 billed to me. (or in this case, since I counted just emails at work, to my employer). Now, I do this -every- day, 5 days a week -- 5.50.
52 weeks a year -- that's something like 280 dollars per year just for my emails. -- I work for a -small- company, so that's about 10 grand for all of us.
10,000 dollars. It took me an hour to write the filter for my work email that blows away 99.5% of the spam that I get. Took another 3 hours to copy it to everyone else's computers.
That's about 100 dollars worth of my time. (Assuming I make about 25 an hour, which I do.)
I get my slashdot responses in email. How many responses are posted PER article, per day?
--
The return on bulk mail via the Post Office is -maybe- one in 10,000.
And that makes a profit on the rates the Post Office charge.
A one-cent tax won't stop spam, it won't halt spam, it won't slow spam.
It'll just mean that everyone ELSE will have a harder time sending email.
(and as for 1,000 emails a month, well, just on average, I send 100 a -day-. Tech support. LOTS of emails. And that doens't count the personal ones.)
Additionally - it won't work.
Why? Because like you just said -- you send one email, you get charged one cent. The email goes to multiple people -- do you get changed multiple cents? Then mailing lists get penalized. Because daily digests are a pain to read -- and if you FORCE daily digests on everyone, you punish everyone for the spam of a few -- AND -- its still a -very- large number on a large scale list.
Restaurants and several other 'hospitality' type businesses (amusement parks, casinos, resorts) use email -successfully- (and yes, with the double subscribe AND the unsubscribe link)
I'm subscribed to a few of the lists. Why? Because I bloody well LIKE getting a free dessert from BD's Mongolian BBQ on my birthday!
Because its kinda -cool- to get email from Disney twice a year saying "Hey, bring this to a Disney store, get 10% off. Happy Birthday" (one for each of my kids.)
Yeah, its marketing. Yeah, its EVIL advertising. God forbid they might WANT me to go shop in their stores.
The horror.
Eh. All in all, my kids like their toys, and I got a free chocolate sundae. Maybe I might've eaten there anyway. Maybe not.
legitimate businesses who use email for a variety of purposes.
I get my phone and internet bill through email -- so I can pay online from work instead of trying to weasel time in at home.
I am on several mailing lists that go out to hundreds of people -- if I send an email that goes to hundreds, is that one cent, or hundreds of cents? Who gets billed? Me, my ISP, the host of the list?
There -ARE- legimate email-marketing businesses. Who do opt-in, double-subscribe, instant unsubscribe lists.
---
Why should we penalize EVERYONE for the actions of some assholes who can't remember how to get permission first?
Its the website of someone who -obviously- has spent his time on things that are -entirely- not website related.
When someone builds their own roller coaster, do you honestly really expect them to have the time (and skills) to build a really polished website?
(And what you saw was a page, not a site. A site is a collection of pages.)
Not everyone with hobbies also has the skills to color coordinate. The page works, the links aren't broken, and frankly, it -exists-. What more do you want?
Now if Morpheus is able to reclaim it' users (it should be easy because they do include spyware), the FastTrack network will be amputated millions of users.
I replied:
No, Morpheus -does not- include spyware. They state this publically and half the reason that Morpheus is better than Kaaza is that Morpheus does NOT include spyware.
First off, don't assume that I'm -not- reading non-English news. Or non-American news.
Secondly -- Most people in other countries dislike -some- of our politics. It doesn't mean they want to, or are justified in killing Americans, or anyone else.
"Even before that flight left Amsterdam, Mr. Bar-Lev had demanded the
removal of two suspicious passengers -- who promptly boarded and
hijacked a Pan American flight. El Al's airborne precautions are
designed as a fallback to the more important security screening on the
ground."
So, what EXACTLY is their criteria of suspicious? I bet it was dark-skinned Arabic or Palenstian people.
"But the keystone of El Al's security is the interview. Well before
passengers arrive at the airport for their flight, El Al security agents
scour passenger manifests for names on watch lists and check information
about when reservations were made and how tickets were paid for, to
identify potential high-risk passengers. Then examiners, usually Israeli
university students, question passengers to compile a quick risk
profile, ranging from a naive type who may be unwittingly carrying a
bomb, as was the case with a pregnant Irish woman in 1986, to a person
deliberately plotting sabotage."
The interview, and PROFILE. They check information to identify high-risk passengers. How is that NOT profiling?
"El Al's profiling might smack of discrimination in the U.S. Palestinians
and other Arabs are almost always asked to step aside for more-thorough
questioning and searches. Aviation experts say that, like human agents
in the intelligence world, preflight interviews are an indispensable
security tool"
They admit to it and do the same thing that that I was talking about. If you're gonna comment responding to and trying to disprove a post, make sure you aren't gonna look like a great big dummy first off, okay?
You're forgetting that profiling Arabic young men on a one-way ticket paid in cash is an EXAMPLE.
I deeply suspect that ex-military types who have memberships in "militias" who are deeply Chrsistian, or who have rented Ryder trucks, or SOMETHING will be exhamined.
And several other groups as well.
While I have issues with police profiling, because it seems to lead to unfair arrests - in an airport? Comeon, I mean -big deal-. They open your luggage, and pat you down. Oh, god, the horror, they're SO opressed by this.
Lets be realistic here. Giving up privacy for safety is stupid. Giving up an hour of your time though? Reasonable price.
Disabilties don't have to be diseases, or work-related to qualify under the ADA. If you become disabled in a car accident, through an accident of birth, OR a work-related injury or a disease, you can still make a claim with the ADA. IT doesn't HAVE to be work-related or a disease, just an injury.
(and on that note, they didn't even say Carpal Tunnel was not a disablity. Just that this woman wasn't disabled.)
Nowhere did it state that Carpal Tunnel Syndrome was not a disability -- it stated that in the case of the woman named, they were not considering it a disability because she was not impaired sufficently to be unable to do her job.
Or, just don't play games that require you to use Passport, and when MS finally -does- require it for Windows, -then- kill it.
Yes, its a gamble. You hope that by the time you have to kill the MS partition, that the Game Companies will have gotten the clue that the people who obsessivly buy games are likely to also be people who don't want to install Windows.
There -is- a middle ground for those of us who want to play Roller Coaster Tycoon and are just too bloody impatient to wait for it to come out on for Linux/BSD/whathaveyou. At least, there is -right now-
Ask me again in 2 years, I may have another answer for you.
Oh? You think so?
I can -easily- see a law being passed that considers websites that agree with -- or seem to agree with -- "the terrorists" (and isn't THAT just a nice vague term for a whole LOT of groups) "agenda". -- are "harboring terrorism". And didn't Duyba just say anyone "harboring terrorism' was as bad as the terrorists?
And how about when the website is sympathetic to the politics behind "the terrorists" -- but not the act itself?
Your never may come sooner than you think.
Hopefully though, it won't come at all, due to the ACLU, and other groups, and private individuals actually speaking up against this sort of thing instead of just sticking their heads in the dirt and saying it will never happen.
How long until we see "17,800 Internet Cafes in the United States were shut down last week due to the newly passed Eagle Act, which requires blocking all pro-terrorist sites."
Slashdot Mirror
And very simply - the accounting firms that already do the taxes for large businesses get Passport accounts, and THEY deal with it, and not the business itself.
Additionally, again -- the government is considering it, not sure-fire definitly using it.
Man, moutains out of molehills.
I swear to -god- my five year old has better reading comprension than some of you people.
The article mentions that is is for online services three times.
Quotes, with revelant words bolded for those of you who haven't finished 5th grade English yet.
"Microsoft's Passport is being considered as a way to authenticate users of the Web sites, said Mark Forman, associate director of information technology at the White House."
"The White House is instead pursuing an "e-identification" initiative, an effort to develop ways to authenticate people and businesses online who already have government identification numbers such as Social Security, business-registration and employer-identification numbers. "
"At the government-leaders conference, attended by representatives of 75 countries, Microsoft presented a blueprint for its "e-government" strategy that suggests they use Passport to verify the identity of visitors to their Web sites. It also suggested that its bCentral business Web site could be used to process business tax payments and that citizens could use its MSN Web site to handle address changes and voter registration"
---
Yes, its an amazingly laughable idea -- but its not the Big Brother in cahoots with Evil Bill Gates to steal all our privacy that the orignal poster makes it out to be.
There. I told you.
Quite frankly - because aol is SUCH a common domain name, a number of spammers use a dictionary file to make up addresses - if they bounce, it costs them nothing.
Did you use random letters/numbers, or were there common names/words/numbers in that email address - its very likely that if the latter is true, then it was just a random address generator.
I OWN a domain of my own. I know I'm not selling the addresses on my domain to anyone, yet some of the addresses here get spam - even though they've never been used except for internal mail.
Filtering and some minor updates of filters is - at least so far- the biggest of the problem.
IMO, what needs to be done is more of an education -- Teach the average person how to setup filters, to block spam addresses, to blackhole and killfile on their personal accounts, and in a large amount the problems should be solved.
What doesn't help is that "America's Biggest ISP" has such limited custonization available for email filters (if they allow filtering at all.) that most people just assume that they must delete the spam and put up with it.
(Which reminds me of the client I had who was convinced that everyone in America had to use AoHell, simply because "It's America Online. AMERICA Online. Everyone in America has to use it." -- I wasn't sure if I should laugh or sob.)
And again, how do you manage something like this?
It would require a -major- overhaul of the entire internet, because of the concept of Offshore Hosting. -- I host in Tawaii, send my spam from there. Oh, gee, its FREE! Ha, ha, silly American Tax.
Its also unworkable. I send an email to a list -- the LIST goes to 1,000 people -- is that 1 cent for me, 1,000 cents for the list host? Both?
What about auto-replys? Bounceback messages? Reciepts? Emails that don't go anywhere because the addres goes bad? Emails that go overseas? Auto-forwards? My work address forwards to my home address from 6 pm to 7am every day -- one cent or two per email?
I counted today - 312 emails recieved between 8am and 6pm. 109 sent out.
That, right there is $1.09 billed to me. (or in this case, since I counted just emails at work, to my employer). Now, I do this -every- day, 5 days a week -- 5.50.
52 weeks a year -- that's something like 280 dollars per year just for my emails. -- I work for a -small- company, so that's about 10 grand for all of us.
10,000 dollars. It took me an hour to write the filter for my work email that blows away 99.5% of the spam that I get. Took another 3 hours to copy it to everyone else's computers.
That's about 100 dollars worth of my time. (Assuming I make about 25 an hour, which I do.)
I know which one our accountant would go for.
Except that the post I had made specified that the email marketing programs I had seen were opt-in and double-confirm.
*shrugs*
No accounting for folks who can't read, I suppose.
Okay, lets take this a little more personally.
I get my slashdot responses in email. How many responses are posted PER article, per day?
--
The return on bulk mail via the Post Office is -maybe- one in 10,000.
And that makes a profit on the rates the Post Office charge.
A one-cent tax won't stop spam, it won't halt spam, it won't slow spam.
It'll just mean that everyone ELSE will have a harder time sending email.
(and as for 1,000 emails a month, well, just on average, I send 100 a -day-. Tech support. LOTS of emails. And that doens't count the personal ones.)
Additionally - it won't work.
Why? Because like you just said -- you send one email, you get charged one cent. The email goes to multiple people -- do you get changed multiple cents? Then mailing lists get penalized. Because daily digests are a pain to read -- and if you FORCE daily digests on everyone, you punish everyone for the spam of a few -- AND -- its still a -very- large number on a large scale list.
Buzz. Wrong.
Restaurants and several other 'hospitality' type businesses (amusement parks, casinos, resorts) use email -successfully- (and yes, with the double subscribe AND the unsubscribe link)
I'm subscribed to a few of the lists. Why? Because I bloody well LIKE getting a free dessert from BD's Mongolian BBQ on my birthday!
Because its kinda -cool- to get email from Disney twice a year saying "Hey, bring this to a Disney store, get 10% off. Happy Birthday" (one for each of my kids.)
Yeah, its marketing. Yeah, its EVIL advertising. God forbid they might WANT me to go shop in their stores.
The horror.
Eh. All in all, my kids like their toys, and I got a free chocolate sundae. Maybe I might've eaten there anyway. Maybe not.
legitimate businesses who use email for a variety of purposes.
I get my phone and internet bill through email -- so I can pay online from work instead of trying to weasel time in at home.
I am on several mailing lists that go out to hundreds of people -- if I send an email that goes to hundreds, is that one cent, or hundreds of cents? Who gets billed? Me, my ISP, the host of the list?
There -ARE- legimate email-marketing businesses. Who do opt-in, double-subscribe, instant unsubscribe lists.
---
Why should we penalize EVERYONE for the actions of some assholes who can't remember how to get permission first?
Its the website of someone who -obviously- has spent his time on things that are -entirely- not website related.
When someone builds their own roller coaster, do you honestly really expect them to have the time (and skills) to build a really polished website?
(And what you saw was a page, not a site. A site is a collection of pages.)
Not everyone with hobbies also has the skills to color coordinate. The page works, the links aren't broken, and frankly, it -exists-. What more do you want?
You said:
Now if Morpheus is able to reclaim it' users (it should be easy because they do include spyware), the FastTrack network will be amputated millions of users.
I replied:
No, Morpheus -does not- include spyware. They state this publically and half the reason that Morpheus is better than Kaaza is that Morpheus does NOT include spyware.
First off, don't assume that I'm -not- reading non-English news. Or non-American news.
Secondly -- Most people in other countries dislike -some- of our politics. It doesn't mean they want to, or are justified in killing Americans, or anyone else.
No, the lesson we learned is that You can't Make Everyone Happy all the time.
Because, if we pull out of being the "global police' like we're accused, we get accused of being isonaltionist.
If we try to help, we get accused of an 'agenda' or are called "The Great Satan"
You can't please ALL THe people all the time -- and somehow, I seriously doubt that Osama and The Taliban are ONE FIFTH of the world's population.
One 500th maybe. Learn Math. Sheesh.
AUGH!
El AL uses profiling, you great bleeding moron.
Quotes.
"Even before that flight left Amsterdam, Mr. Bar-Lev had demanded the
removal of two suspicious passengers -- who promptly boarded and
hijacked a Pan American flight. El Al's airborne precautions are
designed as a fallback to the more important security screening on the
ground."
So, what EXACTLY is their criteria of suspicious? I bet it was dark-skinned Arabic or Palenstian people.
"But the keystone of El Al's security is the interview. Well before
passengers arrive at the airport for their flight, El Al security agents
scour passenger manifests for names on watch lists and check information
about when reservations were made and how tickets were paid for, to
identify potential high-risk passengers. Then examiners, usually Israeli
university students, question passengers to compile a quick risk
profile, ranging from a naive type who may be unwittingly carrying a
bomb, as was the case with a pregnant Irish woman in 1986, to a person
deliberately plotting sabotage."
The interview, and PROFILE. They check information to identify high-risk passengers. How is that NOT profiling?
"El Al's profiling might smack of discrimination in the U.S. Palestinians
and other Arabs are almost always asked to step aside for more-thorough
questioning and searches. Aviation experts say that, like human agents
in the intelligence world, preflight interviews are an indispensable
security tool"
They admit to it and do the same thing that that I was talking about. If you're gonna comment responding to and trying to disprove a post, make sure you aren't gonna look like a great big dummy first off, okay?
Yes, see, but if I can get one of you people to do it for me, I have more chances to get my WORK DONE and more time to read /. Bwahaha.
You know, you'd be making a lot more sense now if you posted, say, what those security procedures are, or where to find them.
I'd rather have a russian of any flavor than a bigoted /. reader. Asshole.
You're forgetting that profiling Arabic young men on a one-way ticket paid in cash is an EXAMPLE.
I deeply suspect that ex-military types who have memberships in "militias" who are deeply Chrsistian, or who have rented Ryder trucks, or SOMETHING will be exhamined.
And several other groups as well.
While I have issues with police profiling, because it seems to lead to unfair arrests - in an airport? Comeon, I mean -big deal-. They open your luggage, and pat you down. Oh, god, the horror, they're SO opressed by this.
Lets be realistic here. Giving up privacy for safety is stupid. Giving up an hour of your time though? Reasonable price.
Freedom is STILL not free people.
Maybe you should get glasses and READ THE ARTICLE.
It specifically states that it was just in this woman's case, and not in ALL Cases of Carpal Tunnel.
Disabilties don't have to be diseases, or work-related to qualify under the ADA. If you become disabled in a car accident, through an accident of birth, OR a work-related injury or a disease, you can still make a claim with the ADA. IT doesn't HAVE to be work-related or a disease, just an injury.
(and on that note, they didn't even say Carpal Tunnel was not a disablity. Just that this woman wasn't disabled.)
Nowhere did it state that Carpal Tunnel Syndrome was not a disability -- it stated that in the case of the woman named, they were not considering it a disability because she was not impaired sufficently to be unable to do her job.
Or, just don't play games that require you to use Passport, and when MS finally -does- require it for Windows, -then- kill it.
Yes, its a gamble. You hope that by the time you have to kill the MS partition, that the Game Companies will have gotten the clue that the people who obsessivly buy games are likely to also be people who don't want to install Windows.
There -is- a middle ground for those of us who want to play Roller Coaster Tycoon and are just too bloody impatient to wait for it to come out on for Linux/BSD/whathaveyou. At least, there is -right now-
Ask me again in 2 years, I may have another answer for you.
Hey, I know. We'll increase trade and improve relations with China by exporting Carnivore to the Chinese government.
Oh? You think so? I can -easily- see a law being passed that considers websites that agree with -- or seem to agree with -- "the terrorists" (and isn't THAT just a nice vague term for a whole LOT of groups) "agenda". -- are "harboring terrorism". And didn't Duyba just say anyone "harboring terrorism' was as bad as the terrorists? And how about when the website is sympathetic to the politics behind "the terrorists" -- but not the act itself? Your never may come sooner than you think. Hopefully though, it won't come at all, due to the ACLU, and other groups, and private individuals actually speaking up against this sort of thing instead of just sticking their heads in the dirt and saying it will never happen.
How long until we see "17,800 Internet Cafes in the United States were shut down last week due to the newly passed Eagle Act, which requires blocking all pro-terrorist sites."
?