Blog for "the-enabler" of the letsnet.org network

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A reason to use text-only email ....Does Yahoo! include web beacons in email?

In order to determine if email messages are opened and acted upon, Yahoo! includes web beacons in HTML-formatted email messages (messages that include graphics) that Yahoo!, or its agents, sends.

In general, any electronic image viewed as part of a web page, including an ad banner, can act as a web beacon. Advertising networks that serve ads onto Yahoo! may use web beacons in their advertisements.

For more information about how Yahoo! uses web beacons, please visit our Privacy Center.... and never open html mail

Contributed by: ByteEnable

General News Boston, MA -- The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has submitted a friend-of-the-court brief in a case that will have a profound effect on the privacy of Internet communications.

The brief argues that U.S. v. Councilman, previously decided by a panel of First Circuit judges, should be reheard by the entire First Circuit Court of Appeals. In the earlier panel decision, the court ruled that it does not violate criminal wiretap laws when an email service provider monitors the content of users' incoming messages without their consent.

The defendant in the case, Bradford Councilman, is a bookseller who offered email service to his customers. Councilman configured the email processing software so that all

http://www.linuxelectrons.com/article.php/20040904075434511



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".

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By Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols
August 30, 2004

Opinion: With the promises of Longhorn revealed as market-freezing trickery, Linux has its best chance ever to seize control of the desktop.

Microsoft's vaporware master plan is finally broken. The wonderful wizards of Redmond are still saying, "Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!" But even the most fanatical Microsoft supporter has to see that Longhorn has become Shorthorn.

Microsoft has often managed to freeze the market with promises that no matter how great a competitor's current program is, Microsoft's next program will be so much better that only a fool would settle for a bird in the hand instead of the two in the Microsoft bush. We have been such fools.

As I've said before, Longhorn was, among other things, just another attempt to lock down the market. This time around, Microsoft was trying to freeze out the insurgent Linux and the revitalized Mac desktops.

Microsoft has managed to get away with this time after time. But now, instead of a reborn version of Windows—which I think they needed to do—Longhorn has become nothing more than just another big XP service patch.

PointerRead more here about Microsoft's decision to remove features from Longhorn in order to meet the 2006 shipping date.

And with all of the application incompatibility teething pains and minimal security benefits that XP SP2 (Service Pack 2) has brought to the table, who needs it?

No, Microsoft has finally shown that its bag of tricks is empty. Now is the time for Linux vendors to get their act together and deliver the best possible Linux desktop.

Specifically, Linux desktop distributors need to go to hardware vendors and demand that they open up their APIs so that Linux can work on all common desktop equipment. In particular, we need full support for Wi-Fi and a better ability to identify network printers over CUPS (Common Unix Printing System).

Linux vendors also need to work on building the best possible desktop applications. For example, I like Xandros a lot, but I was embarrassed to find the other day that its main help application doesn't include a way to search through its help files for something as commonplace as backup.

As a Unix/Linux guy, I know about using man pages and the like to find what I need, but you can't expect Joe User to know what I know. It takes an experienced Linux user to make sense of the confusing combination of help files, man pages and HOWTO files that now passes for desktop help. That's not good enough. The Linux desktop needs a simple, straightforward help system.

Now is also the time for Linux companies to go to software developers and get more applications ported to Linux. I and many other users want applications such as Intuit's QuickBooks and Macromedia's Dreamweaver, a popular Web authoring tool, running natively on Linux.

According to Evans Data, there are more than 1.1 million open-source developers. The programmers are out there to make the Linux desktop a success.

Customers and Linux distributors need to demand that software vendors start putting those developers to work delivering Linux desktop business applications.

While I'm the subject of software, Linux also needs more enterprise-level remote management tools. We're beginning to see more of them. For example, Novell's ZENworks Linux Management and Shavlik's HFNetChkPro for Linux 2.0 make enterprise-grade management for SuSE and Red Hat Linux, respectively, much easier. That said, we could use more remote administration and management tools.

We also need more PC vendor support for Linux. With Microsoft, the company's admission that it can't deliver a real desktop upgrade now is the time for Linux distributors to talk to PC vendors about trying Linux.

Technically, the Linux desktop is ready to go mainstream today. With the Longhorn wizard revealed to be a fraud and XP SP2 proving to be a pain, the Linux desktop has its best business chance ever. Here's hoping that the Linux vendors make the most of it.

eWEEK.com Senior Editor Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols has been using and writing about operating systems since the late '80s and thinks he may just have learned something about them along the way.

Check out eWEEK.com's Linux & Open Source Center at http://linux.eweek.com for the latest open-source news, reviews and analysis.


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".

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HottiEKelly248 [10:25 PM]: HeY is that you ImARealSweetheart? rEmember me? I'm kelly, we talked a few nights ago and I just wanted to get to know you more.

Just last night we created a brand-new AOL screen name, popped into an AOL chat room, and boldly sent a single message: Hi.


That's all it took. Within 30 seconds, we received the instant message quoted above. In a few minutes, several more arrived. And in less than half an hour, the account was receiving a steady flow of IM spam.

Though we performed our experiment on AOL, AIM is by no means the only system where spam occurs. Any instant-messaging system that has a display listing active users or is part of a service in which spammers can learn your "handle" via a chat room or directory is susceptible.

How do IM spammers do it? They begin with screen scrapers—programs that extract text from computer displays—to capture the names of users on IM systems. The spammers then use special software that typically can inject keystrokes and mouse clicks into the client software to send unsolicited messages to the harvested names.

Most services, especially AOL's and Yahoo!'s, terminate IM spammer accounts quickly after receiving complaints. But it's easy for spammers to create new accounts, and the services have to verify abuse to avoid terminating the account of a legitimate user, so it's a game of whack-a-mole. As soon as one spam account is terminated, a spammer pops up elsewhere.

How do you avoid IM spam? Fortunately, all of the popular IM systems provide some safeguards. AIM lets you reject all instant messages from anyone who's not on your Buddy List or from anyone who's sending the message from the Internet client instead of AIM. (To activate the safeguards, click on the Setup button at the bottom of your Buddy List, then click on Set Preferences, then select the tab marked Privacy.) Perhaps the simplest way to keep spammers at bay, however, is to prevent them from discovering your handle. A cardinal rule, as our experiment illustrates, is to stay out of chat rooms or to visit them using a separate identity that refuses all instant messages. (This may also help you to avoid e-mail spam.) And of course, never accept files sent via an IM system, as they may contain worms or viruses.

You should also set restrictive security settings on your Internet browser and install all of the latest security patches for it. Not long ago, a worm was created that used a flaw in Microsoft Internet Explorer to take control of AOL users' machines, turning them into unwitting IM spammers. The worm caused infected machines to contact everyone on the users' Buddy Lists, telling each "buddy" to visit a booby-trapped Web page (which, in turn, caused their machines to be infected).

Third-party IM security products, such as Zone Labs' IMsecure (which comes in free and paid versions), can also block IM spam. Companies that want to run spam-free internal IM systems use products such as Jabber Messenger or IBM Lotus Instant Messaging. AOL and Microsoft have also jumped into the fray with Enterprise AIM Services and MSN Messenger Connect for Enterprises.

Some Windows users who have never used IM systems are encountering another scourge of the Internet known as Windows Messenger spam or pop-up spam. Although the name Windows Messenger in the title bar suggests that these unwelcome pop-ups might originate from the Windows Messenger system in Win XP, they don't. The pop-ups are created via a LAN messaging function that's built into every copy of Windows. Unfortunately, Microsoft didn't secure this feature against abuse. So to avoid annoying pop-up messages, use a personal firewall or have your network administrator block UDP packets bound for ports 135 and 1026.




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".