Saturday, August 23, 2003
An Object Oxymoron?
Take a close look at the following. What you see is a piece of spam about getting rid of spam. I'm going to keep a copy, simply as an object of huge amusement.
This is worth checking out... please pass it on.
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Tired of annoying and offensive spam?
Now you can add your email address to the National Opt-Out Registry.
Over 70% of all email is unwanted and much of it is sexually explicit and offensive in nature. Now you can remove your e-mail address from marketers' mailing lists by adding your email address to the National Opt-Out Registry.
Register Now! http://www.remove.org/
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>To have your email address added to the national opt-out directory
>please click on the following link: http://www.remove.org/.
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If you do not want mail from us anymore, visit the web site below. As an alternative, send a request by postal mail to the address listed below, or call the number below. Reference mailing # 121524977. Please don't reply to this email as we will not be able to process your response. You may receive this mailing again.
OPM Network
7700 Camino Real Suite 300
Boca Raton, FL 33433 1-877-678-2536
complaints@flasail.com
http://www.oo.flasail.com/
This is worth checking out... please pass it on.
>
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
Tired of annoying and offensive spam?
Now you can add your email address to the National Opt-Out Registry.
Over 70% of all email is unwanted and much of it is sexually explicit and offensive in nature. Now you can remove your e-mail address from marketers' mailing lists by adding your email address to the National Opt-Out Registry.
Register Now! http://www.remove.org/
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>To have your email address added to the national opt-out directory
>please click on the following link: http://www.remove.org/.
>
>
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
If you do not want mail from us anymore, visit the web site below. As an alternative, send a request by postal mail to the address listed below, or call the number below. Reference mailing # 121524977. Please don't reply to this email as we will not be able to process your response. You may receive this mailing again.
OPM Network
7700 Camino Real Suite 300
Boca Raton, FL 33433 1-877-678-2536
complaints@flasail.com
http://www.oo.flasail.com/
Friday, August 22, 2003
Another Nail in the Coffin...
Write a Story, Go to Jail
From Wired Online
By Kim Zetter | Also by this reporter
02:00 AM Aug. 22, 2003 PT
Brian Robertson was just months away from graduation at Moore High School in Moore, Oklahoma, last year when he found the beginnings of what he thought was a short story on a school computer. He copied the file to another computer, added some paragraphs to the initial text and then promptly got arrested.
I urge you all to go read this story. Make time. I know that a certain caution is justified since the world turned upside down on 9/11/2001, but what we're seeing here is another big crack forming in the pillars that uphold our basic freedom. How much further must it go before they start general censorship of ALL OF US? Let's take a look at the situation: We can no longer speak our mind in public- we open ourselves up to lawsuits. We obviously can't write anything that might seem threatening, since we can be thrown in jail. The web will be next, of course. Then books. And the Law of the Land (i.e. the Constitution) is eroding before our eyes (or ears).
There may not be much time left, as we become a nation of cowards, instead of a nation of pioneers. Wake up, people! It's time to start putting on the brakes or prepare to get out while they still let us do that.
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From Wired Online
By Kim Zetter | Also by this reporter
02:00 AM Aug. 22, 2003 PT
Brian Robertson was just months away from graduation at Moore High School in Moore, Oklahoma, last year when he found the beginnings of what he thought was a short story on a school computer. He copied the file to another computer, added some paragraphs to the initial text and then promptly got arrested.
I urge you all to go read this story. Make time. I know that a certain caution is justified since the world turned upside down on 9/11/2001, but what we're seeing here is another big crack forming in the pillars that uphold our basic freedom. How much further must it go before they start general censorship of ALL OF US? Let's take a look at the situation: We can no longer speak our mind in public- we open ourselves up to lawsuits. We obviously can't write anything that might seem threatening, since we can be thrown in jail. The web will be next, of course. Then books. And the Law of the Land (i.e. the Constitution) is eroding before our eyes (or ears).
There may not be much time left, as we become a nation of cowards, instead of a nation of pioneers. Wake up, people! It's time to start putting on the brakes or prepare to get out while they still let us do that.
.
Thursday, August 21, 2003
The Rapes of Grath
An open letter to one of the better known techno-geek keyboard jockies:
Okay, okay, his name is Steve Bass, who was commenting on the recent rash of crap floating around the net in the wake of the Blaster worm...
The Annoyer this time is a semi-average computer user who just won't believe that anything he's connected to could be used in propagating a virus. Let's set the stage: last week I received a letter purporting to come from this individual. It wasn't, really. It was sent to me by the W32.klez.H virus and came with a fresh copy attached, all ready to mess with MY system. Norton took one look and screamed, loudly, while it was wiping out the bugger.
Now, I could have just ignored the thing, as you may have. Especially if I got as many attacks as you do, but this was my first go-round. So, I fired off a letter to the ISP that held the originating point of the mail and another to the individual whose system appears to be compromised. I say 'appears' instead of 'appeared', because this moron refuses to believe that any system he has anything to do with could be infected. Now, if I am to believe that Norton would kick up a fuss about a false positive, then I could ignore it, but it was very obviously not a letter this person would have written. In fact, there was no text in the main message at all. Well, all I got for my good citizenry was a return letter from this putz saying "I ran all kinds of virus checks and my system is clean".
This person runs part of a club devoted to popup camper owners. It's hosted on Earthlink. If we're to believe that Earthlink's system is infected, then I suppose the virus could have got my e-mail address from there, but I really suspect that the offending letter actually did come from the person whose e-mail address appeared in the 'From' column.
The bottom line is that the club lost a member. I set OE to delete all letters claiming to come from this guy from the server before downloading. I'm like the man who refuses to stand in the middle of the road because he's learned that, no matter what the lines on the pavement say, it's NOT a safe place to be.
Sometimes ya just can't win...
Okay, okay, his name is Steve Bass, who was commenting on the recent rash of crap floating around the net in the wake of the Blaster worm...
The Annoyer this time is a semi-average computer user who just won't believe that anything he's connected to could be used in propagating a virus. Let's set the stage: last week I received a letter purporting to come from this individual. It wasn't, really. It was sent to me by the W32.klez.H virus and came with a fresh copy attached, all ready to mess with MY system. Norton took one look and screamed, loudly, while it was wiping out the bugger.
Now, I could have just ignored the thing, as you may have. Especially if I got as many attacks as you do, but this was my first go-round. So, I fired off a letter to the ISP that held the originating point of the mail and another to the individual whose system appears to be compromised. I say 'appears' instead of 'appeared', because this moron refuses to believe that any system he has anything to do with could be infected. Now, if I am to believe that Norton would kick up a fuss about a false positive, then I could ignore it, but it was very obviously not a letter this person would have written. In fact, there was no text in the main message at all. Well, all I got for my good citizenry was a return letter from this putz saying "I ran all kinds of virus checks and my system is clean".
This person runs part of a club devoted to popup camper owners. It's hosted on Earthlink. If we're to believe that Earthlink's system is infected, then I suppose the virus could have got my e-mail address from there, but I really suspect that the offending letter actually did come from the person whose e-mail address appeared in the 'From' column.
The bottom line is that the club lost a member. I set OE to delete all letters claiming to come from this guy from the server before downloading. I'm like the man who refuses to stand in the middle of the road because he's learned that, no matter what the lines on the pavement say, it's NOT a safe place to be.
Sometimes ya just can't win...
Wednesday, August 20, 2003
Thoughts on a day too hot to play outside
I'm sitting here thinking. And listening.
Listening and thinking.
Listening to an album recorded 8 years ago. It's an album by Peter, Paul, and Mary (who I know, but that's another story) with songs that seem just as imprtant today as they did in the 60's, when the music that we listened to was a kind of thread connecting us all. It was a thread stronger than the strongest steel and it kindled a fire in us that burns as hot as it ever did, in some of us. That may be the defining quality to come from that turbulent time of public and private strife. That quality that says 'The thing that made the Bible's teaching important is still alive, even after 2000 years or more'. It's the thing that makes the "authenticity" of the Bible irrelevant. The truth comes through much stronger than any difference in language. Or religion. The ideas that call to us so strongly after all that time aren't confined within the pages of a particular book or the edges of some scroll taken from a sandy cave. Those ideas can't be legislated into or out of our hearts and minds or souls. I guess you have to be born with that kind of fire. Feed it and hope it never dies.
An old hippie simply hopes that the power of the music and the words hasn't died with so many of our dreams. Or so many of us. The best gift we can give those who follow is a little piece of that fire.
Listening and thinking.
Listening to an album recorded 8 years ago. It's an album by Peter, Paul, and Mary (who I know, but that's another story) with songs that seem just as imprtant today as they did in the 60's, when the music that we listened to was a kind of thread connecting us all. It was a thread stronger than the strongest steel and it kindled a fire in us that burns as hot as it ever did, in some of us. That may be the defining quality to come from that turbulent time of public and private strife. That quality that says 'The thing that made the Bible's teaching important is still alive, even after 2000 years or more'. It's the thing that makes the "authenticity" of the Bible irrelevant. The truth comes through much stronger than any difference in language. Or religion. The ideas that call to us so strongly after all that time aren't confined within the pages of a particular book or the edges of some scroll taken from a sandy cave. Those ideas can't be legislated into or out of our hearts and minds or souls. I guess you have to be born with that kind of fire. Feed it and hope it never dies.
An old hippie simply hopes that the power of the music and the words hasn't died with so many of our dreams. Or so many of us. The best gift we can give those who follow is a little piece of that fire.
Monday, August 18, 2003
Is Zip coming undone? | CNET News.com
Is Zip coming undone? | CNET News.com: "Finding a place for Zip
The need for file-compression utilities--once a staple of PC use--has diminished in recent years, as broadband Internet connections and huge hard drives have lessened the need for squeezing files to save space"
By David Becker
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
August 12, 2003, 4:00 AM PT
No need for compression??? This David Becker must be some sort of brain-damaged moron. I can't think of anything else to say about it, except that it must be some kind of quota of words that he had to fill, so he stuck in nonsense.
The need for file-compression utilities--once a staple of PC use--has diminished in recent years, as broadband Internet connections and huge hard drives have lessened the need for squeezing files to save space"
By David Becker
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
August 12, 2003, 4:00 AM PT
