Tuesday, July 10th, 2007 (
No comments yet)
Beware of the new scam that spammers have thought up. Now they’re sending fake e-cards which can trick a recipient into opening a website or even downloading a virus without realizing it. The problem with e-cards is that people are already used to receiving these randomly (since you never know when you might get an e-card) and they have always required that you click the link in the e-mail to get your actual card.
It looks like e-card companies are going to need to address this by only putting the card reference number in the e-mail and making people come to their site directly and enter it instead of using in-email links. Chances are that the e-card companies will be reluctant to do so since any added steps or difficulty will reduce the number of users willing to look at the cards, but they may not have a choice if this scam gets out of hand.
Tuesday, July 3rd, 2007 (
5 comments)
Spyware: Any software that covertly gathers user information through the user's Internet connection without his or her knowledge, usually for advertising purposes. Spyware applications are typically bundled as a hidden component of freeware or shareware programs that can be downloaded from the Internet. Once installed, the spyware monitors user activity on the Internet and transmits that information in the background to someone else.
Because of the End User License Agreement of Vista,
Microsoft arguably has the legal right to collect a large amount of data on you and report it back to their home servers. Some will say that they're not hidden, but is being buried in a giant EULA that most people don't have the expertise to understand really the same as full disclosure?
Microsoft says that users have the possibility to disable or not use the features and services altogether. But at the same time Windows update is crucial to the security of Windows Vista, so turning it off is not really an option, is it?
Not only that, but you have to know this a problem and then perform the immense amount of work required to identify all the various services and features that spy on you and disable them properly. By the time you're done, you won't really be using much of the software that came with Vista in the first place.
JTAG ERROR: No slashdot_ht index defined
Tags:
Consequences,
If You Only Knew,
Windows
Tuesday, July 3rd, 2007 (
No comments yet)
I really did wonder if
Bush would have the guts to pardon Libby which only furthers the image that he's cultivated over the years as being someone who completely flouts the law. To be straight, he didn't actually
pardon him, just commuted, but that still means that Libby won't be seing the inside of a jail.
He's left instead with a $250,000 fine and probation, but gosh if that 3 year sentance wasn't "excessive".
Bush couldn't allow that for a loyal lier. Torture is ok for people that look like terrorists, but
bushies remain ever safe.
The president noted Libby supporters' argument that the punishment did not fit the crime for a ''first-time offender with years of exceptional public service.
Oh really?
He was convicted of a "five-count indictment alleging perjury, obstruction of justice and making false statements to FBI investigators" during an investiagation of presidential misconduct. His actions shielded the nation's highest criminal and this quote definitely applies:
"People who occupy these types of positions, where they have the welfare and security of the nation in their hands, have a special obligation to not do anything that might create a problem"
If ever someone someday pardons Bush and Cheney,
their career will die (I hope).
JTAG ERROR: No slashdot_ht index defined
Tags:
George Bush
Monday, July 2nd, 2007 (
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There's a lot of angry news out there saying that the
US Supreme Court's recent ruling against school diversity plans is a major set back to racial equality. The catalyst was a suit brought by parents who's kids had been the subject of discrimination:
One plaintiff in the case was a white woman in Louisville whose son was denied a transfer to attend kindergarten in a school that needed more black pupils to keep its minority population at the district-required minimum of 15 percent.
Excuse me, but isn't still discrimination even if the kid is white?
We only hope those schools will continue to value racial diversity and will make the effort to identify and use other methods to integrate classrooms.
How about accepting whoever lives in the area? If you're in a primarily white town, the students will reflect that. If you're in a highly hispanic or black neighborhoods, you'll probably end up with hispanic and black children. Discriminiation will never end if we have all these laws that focus only on skin color (no matter what the reason).
Tags:
Schools
Friday, June 29th, 2007 (
No comments yet)
I thought that retailers were done making
sex objects out of children after that last fiasco, but apparently,
I was wrong.
Though the article states that the sizes are for 18 month olds and up, the
actual size chart only goes down to roughly 3 year old size (according to a
pediatric growth chart I found).
That aside, there’s several problems with this. First: what kind of stupid sleazy retailer values money so much that they would make suggestive articles like bikinis for kids? Second: what parent in their right mind would buy this stuff?
And you wonder why I’m a proponet of industry regulation…
Tags:
Consequences,
If You Only Knew,
Kids
Friday, June 29th, 2007 (
No comments yet)
Bruce Schneier posted a great essay about how US Census data was used by the government to incarcerate innocent Japanese Americans during WWII.
When we think about our personal data, what bothers us most is generally not the initial collection and use, but the secondary uses. I personally appreciate it when Amazon.com suggests books that might interest me, based on books I have already bought. I like it that my airline knows what type of seat and meal I prefer, and my hotel chain keeps records of my room preferences. I don't mind that my automatic road-toll collection tag is tied to my credit card, and that I get billed automatically. I even like the detailed summary of my purchases that my credit card company sends me at the end of every year. What I don't want, though, is any of these companies selling that data to brokers, or for law enforcement to be allowed to paw through those records without a warrant.
He goes on to say that the two dangers of
data brokering (a.k.a data mining or data brokering) are that when people aren't certain that their data is private, they become less willing to provide it or give false information. The second is the risk of errors in the data which can cause different kinds of headaches alltogether (
think of the no-fly list snafus).
Most of us who complain about the systems and laws that are changing for the worse over time (and especially during the regime of emperor Bush and our flacid Congress) are those who can clearly see how they can be used for more than intended. But you don't have to be a visionary to see what can happen.
Look into history instead.
Tuesday, March 12th, 2019 (
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For those who weren't paying attention, fears of child abduction and abuse are fairly overblown.
Although statistics show that rates of child abduction and sexual abuse have marched steadily downward since the early 1990s, fear of these crimes is at an all-time high. Even the panic-inducing Megan's Law Web site says stranger abduction is rare and that 90 percent of child sexual-abuse cases are committed by someone known to the child. Yet we still suffer a crucial disconnect between perception of crime and its statistical reality. A child is almost as likely to be struck by lightning as kidnapped by a stranger, but it's not fear of lightning strikes that parents cite as the reason for keeping children indoors watching television instead of out on the sidewalk skipping rope.
Why is this important? Because companies that want humans to accept RFID implantation will try to use fears of child abduction to sell their products. The industry wants this badly (and possibly the government too), because once people begin implanting children, no one will get them removed as adults and eventually, every citizen will have them. Once we are all tagged, we can be tracked wherever we go and whatever we do.
Tags:
Big Brother,
Big Business,
Families,
Market Lies,
Police,
RFID,
RFID Implant
Monday, March 11th, 2019 (
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Monday, March 11th, 2019 (
No comments yet)
According to Public Citizen, the DoD has proposed some rules that severely limited the scope of protections as suggested by consumer protection groups. Up to June 11th, you can submit your ideas about the proposal to them directly (information about sending in the comments is on the last page of the proposal).
Tags:
Predatory Lending
Sunday, March 10th, 2019 (
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In more good news, the RIAA has been thwarted in their attempts to seize a computer belonging to a relative of one of their lawsuit victims.
Tags:
Bully Lawsuits,
Legal Overreach,
RIAA
