Saturday, August 21, 2004
Some very interesting reading on why spammers spam, and how you shoot youreslf in the foot when you open spam
A Day in the Life of a Spammer, By Jim Wagner
Richard Cunningham is like many twenty somethings in the United States -- he enjoys hanging out at the bars with friends, motorcycling, hiking and buying the latest electronic gadgets. He regularly puts in 12-hour days from his home office and is respected by peers in his industry.
But his industry is about as unconventional as it gets. And if the anti-spam community discovered who he really was, it would go out of its way to make life as difficult as possible for a guy who profits from flooding your e-mail inbox.
"Richard Cunningham" more than likely isn't his real name; he won't say one way or another. But that's the name that appears on the WHOIS (define) record for Spamsoft.biz, a domain he owns. He's also attributed as the owner of Sencode.com, though a WHOIS query of that domain reveals the site's owner information is protected by a RegisterFly.com service called ProtectFly.
Cunningham's identity is even murkier in the online forums he frequents. In those, he's known as "dollar" or "swank." He communicates mostly via online boards like SpecialHam.com and private message boards, or with instant messaging clients like AIM and ICQ.
There are many names attributed to Cunningham. But only one is common in nearly every language and known by every person who's ever owned a computer with an Internet connection: spammer.
The moniker isn't one Cunningham, or anyone else in the business of bulk e-mail distribution, is fond of, understandably so, as he claims to send only legitimate e-mails. Bulk mailing, he said, has been lumped into the same category as illegal spam, which sports spoofed e-mail addresses or peddles in a variety of unsavory markets like porn and Internet scams, such as the Nigerian spam scam.
"The anti-spam community and media tends to like to blame us for all of it and if you notice, a lot of the time the so-called spam-related cases were, in fact, not spam related but scam related," Cunningham said in an e-mail interview. "Notice how they try to say spammers are the culprits? It's another scheme to put a bad image to bulk-mail marketing; I investigate and turn in every single bit of these types of e-mails and operations I come across, as I cannot stand them either."
Lick to the rest of the story
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Friday, August 20, 2004
Money Matters - Outdated car-mileage tests steer buyers off course
USAToday.com Fri Aug 20, 7:29 AM ET
When car buyers go into a dealership, they view the sticker price as little more than a starting point for haggling. By contrast, the other numbers in the window - estimates of the car's mileage in highway and city driving - are considered immutable, scientific facts.
But as USA TODAY reported Wednesday, consumers can't trust the mileage numbers, either. Hard as it is to believe, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (news - web sites)'s test for estimating mileage hasn't changed since 1974, just after the nation's first oil crisis. The ratings don't account for vast changes in driving habits since then, ranging from faster highway speeds to more stops and starts on increasingly crowded roads.
As a result, the tests likely overstate the actual mileage vehicles get. According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, U.S. Energy Department data show that U.S. drivers average 10% worse mileage than the EPA numbers indicate. That amounts to an additional $20 billion a year in fuel costs for the nation.
The consumer's loss is a gain for the auto industry, which is opposed to revising mileage tests to make them more consistent with today's driving conditions. Why? Higher mileage figures help carmakers sell bigger vehicles that guzzle more gas - and produce higher profits.
Sticking with flawed mileage estimates for so long is proof that the government, not to mention normally vigilant consumer and environmental groups, has been asleep at the wheel. The problem first came to light two years ago, when a little-known environmental group called the Bluewater Network filed a detailed analysis of why the tests need to be changed.
At a time when world oil prices are nearing a record $50 a barrel, consumers who want to make a sound decision on which vehicles to buy at least should expect an accurate estimate of how much gas they burn.
Instead, they get estimates that assume:
Everyone's in the slow lane. The EPA tests assume no one drives more than 60 miles per hour. That may have been a valid assumption in 1974, when President Nixon signed legislation creating a national speed limit of 55. But since 1995, states have set the limits, often 65 or higher. And many drivers routinely cruise at 75 or more.
Drivers are hot. The EPA tests don't account for air conditioning, which can cut mileage by as much as 21%. Yet virtually all cars now have air conditioning that can run steadily, especially in the South and West.
Traffic's the same. U.S. roads have become much more congested in the past 30 years, resulting in more stop-and-go driving. But the 11-mile, 31-minute city-mileage test has not changed. Some critics also claim that the city tests underestimate the number of short trips today's drivers take. These hops decrease mileage because a car consumes a lot of fuel each time it's started.
The automobile industry defends the current standards, saying consumers should realize that their mileage may vary depending on how they drive. They point out that the EPA ratings include a range of low and high mileage to reflect different factors.
While mileage does vary greatly depending on driving habits, location and traffic, that's no excuse to continue using a rating system that is so out of date with road life in the real world.
The EPA, to its belated credit, is finally looking into whether it needs to adjust its calculations.
That should be a no-brainer. In these days of high gas prices, consumers deserve to know just how painful it will be every time they pull up to the pump
MY ADVICE endeavors at keen.com. The number is 1-800-275-5336 (800-ask-keen) + ext. 0329063 for tech stuff, 0329117 for running a small business, and 0329144 on investing. Want to CHAT, I use Yahoo's IM as the_web_ster. View me in the Friends & Family part of webcamnow.com, just click on "view cams", then in the Java window click on WebcamNow Communities drop down arrow & select Friends & Family. Under the live webcams look for & click on me "the_webster".
Thursday, August 19, 2004
A disposable digital camera enters the market at $19.99
By Jefferson Graham, USA TODAY
Jonathan Kaplan thinks digital cameras are too hard to use, so he decided to do something about it.
Kaplan, 36, is the CEO of Pure Digital Technologies, a scrappy start-up devoted to bringing digital photography to the masses. His solution: no wires, memory cards or having to connect the camera to the computer.
Pure Digital makes the world's first truly digital one-time-use camera. It has been on the market for more than a year but is slated to go prime time Monday when CVS, the nation's largest drugstore chain, puts it on its shelves. The Disney World resorts and Longs Drugs will be selling it later this year as well.
Pure Digital is a $19.99 digital camera, with a color preview screen and the ability to delete pictures. After you bring it in for processing, you get a free picture CD along with your prints.
The reat of the story
MY ADVICE endeavors at keen.com. The number is 1-800-275-5336 (800-ask-keen) + ext. 0329063 for tech stuff, 0329117 for running a small business, and 0329144 on investing. Want to CHAT, I use Yahoo's IM as the_web_ster. View me in the Friends & Family part of webcamnow.com, just click on "view cams", then in the Java window click on WebcamNow Communities drop down arrow & select Friends & Family. Under the live webcams look for & click on me "the_webster".
Wednesday, August 18, 2004
Security Flaws Found in SP2, they didn't test the patch? OH that Microsoft
Wed Aug 18,12:00 PM ET
Paul Roberts, IDG News Service
Security researchers inspecting a new update to Microsoft's Windows XP (news - web sites) found two software flaws that could allow virus writers and malicious hackers to sidestep new security features in the operating system.
The rest of the story
MY ADVICE endeavors at keen.com. The number is 1-800-275-5336 (800-ask-keen) + ext. 0329063 for tech stuff, 0329117 for running a small business, and 0329144 on investing. Want to CHAT, I use Yahoo's IM as the_web_ster. View me in the Friends & Family part of webcamnow.com, just click on "view cams", then in the Java window click on WebcamNow Communities drop down arrow & select Friends & Family. Under the live webcams look for & click on me "the_webster".
Google Lowers Expectations for Its Value
AP - 9 minutes ago
Google Inc. dramatically lowered expectations for the Internet search giant's value Wednesday ahead of its much ballyhooed coming out party in the public markets. The offering is still one of the biggest and highly anticipated for an Internet company, surpassing the hot issues of the dot-com boom.
Stay away from this one like I've been telling ya...
MY ADVICE endeavors at keen.com. The number is 1-800-275-5336 (800-ask-keen) + ext. 0329063 for tech stuff, 0329117 for running a small business, and 0329144 on investing. Want to CHAT, I use Yahoo's IM as the_web_ster. View me in the Friends & Family part of webcamnow.com, just click on "view cams", then in the Java window click on WebcamNow Communities drop down arrow & select Friends & Family. Under the live webcams look for & click on me "the_webster".
Half of U.S. Web Users Now on Broadband
By Eric Auchard
NEW YORK (Reuters) - More than half of all U.S. residential Internet users reached the Web via fast broadband connections in July, outpacing use of slower, dial-up connections for the first time, market researcher Nielsen//NetRatings said on Wednesday.
Sixty-three million Web users connected to the Internet via home broadband links, which include high-speed connections over cable television networks or upgraded phone lines using technologies like ISDN or DSL, it said.
That amounts to 51 percent of U.S. residential users, up from 49 percent in June and from 38 percent just a year earlier. Sixty-one million, or 49 percent of residential users, us narrowband hookups, down from 62 percent last July, Nielsen//NetRatings said.
Faster access times allow users to view a range of graphically richer content, including movies and more sophisticated advertising.
Narrowband connections are defined as links with speeds between 14,400 to 56,000 bits per second, typically delivered over conventional dial-up phone lines. They were critical to the first generation of commercial Internet use a decade ago.
The milestone was crossed in terms of users, but the actual number of U.S. households with broadband Internet connections remains significantly less, according to Bruce Leichtman, the principal analyst for market research firm Leichtman Research. This reflects the difference between users and subscribers, he said.
"We shouldn't really think that half of America is subscribing to broadband yet, but we may be there in a year," he said.
The number of residential broadband connections underestimates actual broadband usage because the figures do not include office connections, which many users rely on for personal Internet surfing, Leichtman noted.
U.S. broadband usage is far behind other industrial countries in Asia and Europe. For example, broadband was relied on by 91 percent of home Internet users in Japan during June, according to Nielsen//NetRatings statistics.
Despite rapid gains in U.S. subscribers over the past year, the pace of growth has slowed recently, the analysts said.
According to Leichtman, the 20 largest U.S. broadband carriers added 1.7 million subscribers during the second quarter, the lowest total in a year. The 20 largest companies have signed up 28.6 million high-speed Internet households and account for about 95 percent of the U.S. market, he said.
The 30 million or so U.S. households with broadband connections is less than one-third of the roughly 110 million households counted by the U.S. Census Bureau (news - web sites), Leichtman said.
"Despite a plateau in the growth of U.S. Internet access, we've seen continued high double-digit growth in users' broadband access," said Marc Ryan, an analyst with Nielsen//NetRatings.
Broadband usage was highest among subscribers under age 34, Nielsen//NetRatings said. Eighteen to 20-year-olds were the biggest users, at 59 percent, followed by young kids at 58 percent and 25- to 34-year-olds at 55 percent.
People between the ages of 65 to 99 years account for the lowest percentage of broadband users, at 34 percent.
Nielsen//NetRatings calculations are based on a long-running survey of 40,000 Internet users.
MY ADVICE endeavors at keen.com. The number is 1-800-275-5336 (800-ask-keen) + ext. 0329063 for tech stuff, 0329117 for running a small business, and 0329144 on investing. Want to CHAT, I use Yahoo's IM as the_web_ster. View me in the Friends & Family part of webcamnow.com, just click on "view cams", then in the Java window click on WebcamNow Communities drop down arrow & select Friends & Family. Under the live webcams look for & click on me "the_webster".
Google's cut-price IPO gets final clearance
AFP - 35 minutes ago
Google Inc. won final clearance for a cut-price initial public offering after demand flopped for the biggest technology debut since the dot-com bubble burst.
MY ADVICE endeavors at keen.com. The number is 1-800-275-5336 (800-ask-keen) + ext. 0329063 for tech stuff, 0329117 for running a small business, and 0329144 on investing. Want to CHAT, I use Yahoo's IM as the_web_ster. View me in the Friends & Family part of webcamnow.com, just click on "view cams", then in the Java window click on WebcamNow Communities drop down arrow & select Friends & Family. Under the live webcams look for & click on me "the_webster".
Todays Stock Market close in NY
Dow 10,083.15 +110.32 (+1.11%)
NASDAQ 1,831.37 +36.12 (+2.01%)
S AND P 500 1,095.17 +13.46 (+1.24%)
INTERNET 154.42 +3.13 (+2.07%)
PHIL. SEMIC 388.41 +12.77 (+3.40%)
SO. KOREA 786.44 +13.25 (+1.71%)
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MY ADVICE endeavors at keen.com. The number is 1-800-275-5336 (800-ask-keen) + ext. 0329063 for tech stuff, 0329117 for running a small business, and 0329144 on investing. Want to CHAT, I use Yahoo's IM as the_web_ster. View me in the Friends & Family part of webcamnow.com, just click on "view cams", then in the Java window click on WebcamNow Communities drop down arrow & select Friends & Family. Under the live webcams look for & click on me "the_webster".
