Worms, Flies and then there are Insects!!!
Morning Guys, and the weekend is once more upon us. This seems to have been one of those "Oh Dear" weeks for everyone.Monday saw the rise of the Blaster (and variants) worm, and this weekend we are waiting for other types of Computer destruction to arrive.
Here, in the UK, the summer always seems to have it's "insect of the summer". A few years a go it was the "Lady Bird", which bit and harried its way across the South Coast. Early on this year I would have said it was the year of the Butterfly, the garden flowers where adorned with the largest number of butterflies that I have seen for many years. But, sadly, I think this year, around here at least, will be the year of the Fly. The house is full of them. Every where I have been in the last few days - there they are. Horrible, buzzing, irritating. Hate them.
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Below are a few of my info trawls I thought you might like to have a look at. Please feel free to let me know what you think.
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The stories above, are, really a continuation of the opening conversation.I have posted several times in the passed my feelings and opinions of people who waste their obvious talents by writing malicious script to cause ordinary people untold grief and hassle. I know the targets of these attacks are, shall we say, the "Establishment" , but it is Mr and Mrs Ordinary, me and you, that generally suffer the consequences of the outcome of these attacks. I have spent time this week helping out a couple of friends who have suffered because of a Virus/Worm combination. I have been to a couple of line faults for work that have turned out to computers unable to access the internet. The reason? A Virus has altered the settings, and they can't "fight " the virus enough to prevent it crippling their systems. But these are no big multinationals. These were "one-man" operations. I mean what benefit is it to these people to cripple systems belonging to people who are just trying to make a living. And then to top that, these "Hero's" of the Internet then cripple the systems belonging to a Hospital. Now that really does take the biscuit.:------------------------------------------------------------------------:
Want Truly Anonymous Mail? Anonymity and privacy are two separate things. While they often go hand in hand, there are times when they can be separated. I have to admit, I really like the idea Bob Cringely is describing in his latest column of an anonymous email system that has been put in place called Mailinator. Whenever you're asked to enter in a "valid" email address for something, where you don't want to give out any info but do need to get a "response" email, you just enter in any thing @mailinator.com and it will work. You don't have to sign up with Mailinator. You don't have to worry if someone already has that email address. So, how do you retrieve the email? You just go and check it. There are no passwords. In other words, it's anonymous - no one knows who you are. But it's not private. Anyone can check your email - if they know what email address you used. There's a little bit of privacy through obscurity, but probably not much. So, more common "addresses" might have mail coming in for multiple people, but everyone can go in and find their email. Cringely also suggests that someone will create a search engine for the system that will run through all the email accounts, but I'm not sure why that's worthwhile. [via Techdirt]
I saw this story, via Newzcrawler and Techdirt, and wondered. Is it really possible to have true anonymity with an e.mail. If you want to give the site a try - feel free (link is above) , and it does seem straight forward. Someone asks for your "e.mail", you invent one with a @mailinator type ending (full details on the site) and then you go to the site at a later point (hopefully remembering what you said your e.mail was in first place?) and draw off your information. To be honest, I haven't actually tried it, but there seems to be a site that, in effect, is willing to take your spam for you. I wonder??????????
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Blog Is An Official Word Didn't we just do this? A couple months back we pointed out that in the latest Oxford English Dictionary there were a bunch of new techie words like "dot-com", "screensaver" and "search engine" (which seems like two words, but who's counting?). However, now that the dictionary is actually coming out, there are plenty more articles discussing some of the 3,000 new words that have been added, including plenty of others from the technology world. From Reuters we learn that "egosurf", "cyberslacker" and "hacktivist" are all officially words. Over at the Associated Press, they're telling us that "blog", "mission creep" and "prairie dogging" (again, what's with the "two word" words?) are words. For those of you who don't know, "prairie-dogging" is apparently used to describe workers in cubicle farms (is that a word?) who pop their heads up to see what's going on elsewhere in the office. Amusingly, in spell-checking this post, my spell-checker had problems with many of these words. Too bad the Oxford English Dictionary people don't set up their list as a web service that my spell-checker can check in real time. [via Techdirt]
Hurray , now its official will my spell checker get updated to suit - 
. Isn't it funny what sorts of words end up being "official". Mind you , saying that, I've not personally heard of "egosurf", "cyberslacker" and "hacktivist", although I could make a half decent guess. I suppose the English language is still devloping and altering to suit the times. I suppose , one day, I might see if there are anywords that have fallen out of use. But then again, I guess not. That's what "Call My Bluff" is for.
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The End Of Pop Ups? It appears that slowly, but surely, advertisers may be realizing that pop ups are a doomed advertising method. With more and more pop-up blocking products showing up - including the new Google toolbar and Earthlink offering free pop-up blocking downloads - advertisers are suggesting that the age of pop-ups may be ending. The simple fact is that they annoy most users, and annoying users isn't the best way to get your message across. Of course, this only means that they're going to work on the next intrusive and/or annoying method of advertising. Rather than trying to come up with more effective means of advertising, they always seem to concentrate on coming up with the most annoying means of advertising. This doesn't seem very smart, but it's certainly much easier for the lazy marketer.
Another Hurray - well sort of. Do you know anyone that has actually purchased something from a pop-up. Well? No me neither. I have seen plenty of sites that clicked by accident - "Do You want a loan - best rates in the US!" . Great if you live there I suppose. "The Smallest Web-Cam in the World" - Yippee-de-do. Big 
I have literally never seen anything in those "offers" that I want. All I can say is that three quaters of the computers in the world must be running slow because of all that software that can be used to stop your computer from slowing down because of all the software that it is runnng.
The downside?. As the article said. If they don't use Pop-Up's what will they us?
I've just noticed, I use the term "THEY" alot.
Suggests a bit of paranoia doesn't it.
What me?
Never !!!
What was that? Who's there?
Got to go now they are after me - NOT 
Hope you all have a nice weekend ( and a fantastic Bank Holiday Weekend for all of my UK friends)
God Bless
Dave
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