Posts by Shannon Jacobs

Google is going evil

However, I think the rampant spamvertising on YouTube and the eager support of spammers in Gmail are the best evidence of the rising tide of evil at Google.

On the other hand, at least Google didn't (yet) contribute much to the rules that drive so-called successful companies to evolve in the direction of ever increasing evil. I don't even blame the shareholders. I think primary blame belongs to the legislators and lawyers who sold their souls to the greediest and most selfish among us. The good guys just never cared that much about gaming the system for another buck.

Security maturity of Android?

Well, at least I'm hoping that this signifies that most of the bugs are being ironed out... It does reduce my eagerness to buy an Android phone, however.

Meanwhile, whenever I'm basically forced to use Windows, I wonder how many undisclosed bugs would be discovered by any competent security analyst who actually got access to THAT big steaming pile of source code. Just the random blind probing seems to be finding a number of bugs every month (that Microsoft acknowledges by patching). Is there a statistician in the house who can estimate how many bugs are really out there based on the visible rate of extermination?

I hope no one picks the pockets of my Android phone (whenever I do work up enough trust to buy it).

Spam is NOT a law of nature

While I approve of anything that bothers the spammers and reduces the spam, I'm not convinced that the C&C servers are the best points of attack. This is fundamentally a kind of arms race situation where the spammers always have the initiative. Each time the spammers devise new ways to hide their C&C system and new ways for the zombots to find them, the defenders are put back on their heels trying to figure out what has happened. Actually, if you believe that computer security is possible, doesn't that mean the spammers have the advantage here? The problem of concealing a clandestine network is fundamentally a security question.

In contrast, there are areas where the characteristics of spam prevent the spammers from hiding, and I think that is where we should focus the anti-spam efforts. "Follow the money" and cut it off. Most concretely, the spammers need to have visible servers where the suckers can go before they can send the spammers any money or be fooled into installing zombot software. Those servers and the DNS registrations that lead to them are better loci of attack because they cannot be hidden from the suckers and the spammers want the simple-minded suckers to connect as easily as possible.

The other characteristic of spam that should be exploited is that there are far more people annoyed by spam than there are suckers who fall for it. I think this argues for a crowd-based approach that will assist the large number of people (even if only a small percentage want to help in fighting the spam) in cutting the spammers off from their small supply of suckers. Essentially I think the major email suppliers (as in Google before they went evil) should offer something like SpamCop on steroids. An interactive form that will analyze the spam intelligently (perhaps in two or three rounds) to direct more effective responses against the spammers and all of the spammers' accomplices. (I think this system should also route replies to the secondary victims of spam, such as the legitimate companies that want to defend their valuable brands from the spammers' exploitation and devaluation.)

I think such a system could really make the bathwater too hot for the spammers. I'm not saying they would miraculously become decent human beings. I'm just saying the spammers would move under less visible rocks. They are fundamentally lazy scumbags and scammers looking for easy profits, and spam email should NOT offer those profits.

While I agree with some of the comments about Microsoft's negative contribution, I feel like the Paris Hilton icon, because she has benefited from easy profits... I thought there was an icon for spam? They have 35 icons, but none for spam, the #1 scourge of email?

Ubuntu peaked years ago and needs a new funding model

I've been using Ubuntu (when I can) for some years. My current attitude is just waiting for something better to come along, though I have little hope. In terms of usability, I'd say that Ubuntu peaked out several years ago and has continued to trend downwards, mostly because of sloppy regression testing, but you can argue that is just another aspect of not listening to their users. The current situation is basically driven as a rich man's charity with geek pressure in favor of more flash for no reason.

As a user, I just want it to work well. I do NOT want a constant flood of new problems that were fixed in previous versions of the OS. This is NOT progress. As a proponent of Linux (or anything else) over the evil works of Microsoft and Apple, I just want Ubuntu to succeed. Unfortunately, I also have a scientific mindset. I know that most people believe whatever they want to believe, but us scientific folks are obliged to consider the evidence from the real world, even when we don't like the conclusions. In this case, the fuzzy evidence is that Ubuntu is NOT getting better, but the absolute evidence is that Ubuntu is NOT threatening Microsoft or Apple.

As regards this particular situation, I suggest that a better funding model would allow the users of Ubuntu to put money behind their preferred interface. Specifically, using the system described at the URL below, they would offer several interface options and let the users vote with their wallets. Maybe they would get the funding for both interfaces--but the funding MUST include adequate regression testing. (In this particular case, the two budgets might be substantially different, but if they have enough committed Gnome users who are willing to make up the difference, then that's fine, too.)

http://eco-epistemology.blogspot.com/2009/11/economics-of-small-donors-reverse.html

In conclusion, whatever bad things you can say about Microsoft or Apple (or increasingly Google), you have to acknowledge that their financial models are working. OSS needs better financial models.

Black helicopters of MS?

I'm not saying it's a conspiracy or anything, but I just think that MS would have given a higher priority to shutting down the compromised servers if they were running their own OSes rather than the enemy's. Of course, I also have to agree that MS probably doesn't understand Linux security very well, or they'd have gotten around to securing their own OSes, eh?

How about that Windows Phone OS, eh? Okay, so I shouldn't kick them when they're down--like that so-called OS.

So who funds this guy?

Why didn't the Reg ask him about his own funding? If he's a completely impartial and honest scientist, then he should be delighted to open his own books.

Anyway, I'm not worried about his future, such as it is. Exxon's always ready to hire any global warming skeptics. The actual problem is that the scientific credibility declines markedly in that group... I'm not sure how eminent this fellow was, but I can't remember ever hearing of him. What did he ever discover or invent? And when?

The Paris Hilton angle? I bet her research is more up to date.

Well yes, worse is different?

Or maybe it's just the mediocre writing, but it sure sounds like all of the apparent differences are for the worse. However, I'm already using as little Microsoft as possible, so I guess it's no more skin off my nose.

*sigh*

I miss my Palm OS.

Who owns me?

Opt-Out is a load of garbage. (Yes, I wanted to use the spelling variation on the fish named "carp".)

My personal information should be MY property. The fundamentally backwards premise of all of these marketing basket cases (Yes again with regards to children born out of wedlock.) is that they have some right to collect MY personal information and use it AGAINST me to sell me as much useless carp as possible. All of the named basket cases, but especially Amazon, who didn't even get mentioned in the article. (I read a LOT of books, and I have tried Amazon, but I do not plan on EVER buying ANYTHING from that company EVER again.)

Dreaming, but the way it should work is that any company that wants access to my personal information should be required to tell me why and get my permission for LIMITED usage, especially as regards to how long they need to look at it. This could actually be done in a mostly automatic way, though it would require some legislative support of which there is NO chance, since all of the politicians are even bigger basket cases than the big business basket cases. (The automatic version would involve a personal privacy profile that each person could store to specify how most of the default situations should be handled. For example, a certified bank responding to my loan application has a good reason to see some of my historical financial information until the loan is paid off. A loan shark looking for debtors to victimize should have NO right to ANY of my personal information.)

So why hasn't OSS won?

As a long time Ubuntu user (on my primary machine at home and to a much lesser degree at work), I actually find these articles somewhat depressing. Sometimes superior products, lower prices, and apparently lower costs, so why hasn't OSS triumphed?

Well, whatever you want to say about Microsoft and Apple (and I can't think of anything nice to say, so I won't go there), you have to say that their economic models work much better than the economic models of OSS. Therefore I suggest OSS needs to explore alternative and possibly better economic models, and I just happen to have one in my pocket:

http://eco-epistemology.blogspot.com/2009/11/economics-of-small-donors-reverse.html

No disclaimer required. As far as I know, my only interest is that I'd like to donate via such a mechanism. I might chip in for a database application program for Android (for books), but I think my own bias would be for the independent media...

LinkedIn deserves it, but NOT the spammers

I got a copy of this one. Extremely professionally done and routed into my company's email system in an extremely impressive way. I sort of admire the craftsmanship, but not the pure evil behind it.

Since it was so well done, I made special efforts to call it to the attention of LinkedIn so they could defend their reputation and even their users. At a minimum, they might want to make sure the spammer's website is quickly nuked, but even better if they aggressively pursue the spammer's abuse of their supposedly valuable reputation. I routed the reports to two channels. There were robotic ACKs for the submissions, which is fine, but they were soon followed by identical robotic responses that apparently had to wait for an actual human to push a button. As far as defense of reputation goes, the spammers win again. However, I already had a rather low opinion of LinkedIn, so I suppose it doesn't matter that much to me.

Still, I'd like to see someone offer a REAL tool against the spammers. Sort of like a crowd-based vigilante-powered system. I'm thinking of something like SpamCop on steroids, with more iterations and more complaint channels, including channels for companies that actually care about and want to defend their corporate reputations--unlike LinkedIn.

I want to become a spam fighter first class. How about you? And how would you feel about ANY company that was really putting a dent in the spammers' heads? Wouldn't you want to use that company's websites and email system? (I'd even say "Are you listening, Gmail?", except that Google is too busy becoming evil to listen to anyone these days.)

Open is the new free was the old black

"Open is the new free was the old black" is about the spreading abuse of the meaning of words. However, I see a slight difference in that "free" in English had a long history of having a large number of senses and a wide range of meanings suitable for all sorts of unrelated contexts. In contrast, most of the meanings of "open" and "black" are recent and rather arbitrary extensions, and therefore I regard them as larger semantic abuses.

Get down with it, eh?

Java is Dead

Oracle killed Java. News at 11, except that there is nothing to see here.

The Paris Hilton angle? She may be an idiot, but she's smarter than Ellison when it comes to OSS.

Hook it up to an exercise bike

What I want is something like this hooked up to an exercise bike. Kind of a motivational thing, but also useful when preparing for travel or even local errands.

Would you join a vigilante army against spammers?

This is actually the kind of thing that should have been handled easily by SpamCop, depending on how quickly the webhosts responded to the notification. Also depends on whether or not SpamCop managed to properly parse the spammer's website, which is where SpamCop fails a lot.

Actually, I wish there was something stronger than SpamCop. Besides the source of the spam email and the most obvious website, I want something that would go after ALL of the spammer's accomplices. Something with more iterations that would ask me such questions as the kinds of email addresses and how they were being used. A human metric of the plausibility and apparent threat of phishing or 419 scams. A Joe job detector so I could tell reputable companies that the spammers were damaging their reputations. (Any of you able to think of Pfizer apart from spam?)

I still like SpamCop, but it seems clear to me that they've lost most of their fire. I really want to burn the spammers.

Would you join a vigilante army against spammers?

What I want is improved anti-spam options that will at least give me the feeling that I am doing something about the spammers. I'm thinking about something like SpamCop, but with more rounds of iteration, including human confirmations of the targets, and pursuing more of the accomplices and victims. For reference, SpamCop just traces the source and sometimes finds the host of the spammer's website. I think it should go after harvesting and reply email addresses, link redirectors, and Joe job victims (as in the legitimate companies whose reputations are slammed by the spammers).

Spam is clearly the #1 problem of the Internet. I'm not saying that we can or should eliminate all bad behavior. I'm just saying we should keep the bad people crawling from more visible, profitable, and annoying rocks to less comfortable rocks. You'll never convince me that spammers don't live under ugly rocks.

Are some businessmen sociopathic?

I don't know about Hurd, but I've been watching this Ellison guy for a while. I'm not saying that you have to be a sociopath to be a successful businessman--but it seems to help in many cases. Not the kind of sociopath that murders people, but a lesser form of sociopath who, for the sake of money, will do almost anything to get more of it. I'm mostly reminded of the potato-based billionaire who criticized those lazy slackers who were satisfied with a measly $20 million. (His big customer was McDonald's. He finally died in his 90s, as I recall.)

However, the real problem is when the sociopaths buy cheap politicians and write the laws to encourage (or at least legalize) their own form of vicious selfishness and mindless short-sighted greed. Maybe there is no alternative to a revolution--but I think the sociopaths are deliberately positioning themselves to make sure that the outcome (if a revolution happens) is even worse than the current state.

Which company is most evil?

Doesn't it seem to you that these days most of the news about tech companies involves squabbling of which company can be most evil? In spite of this tiff with Google, I still regard Oracle as part of the little league of evil. I was beginning to think that Microsoft was trying to get relegated to the same league, but I think that Allen's new and expansive lawsuit should be enough to keep Microsoft a player in the evil big league. Meanwhile Google seems to be playing several games at the same time, and a couple of them show potential for big-time evil. I'm still confused about Apple and Amazon, though not about their general movements towards evil. It's the specific natures of their evil acts and their implications that are confusing... Lots of other companies I could mention, but one has to stop somewhere, eh?

Actually, I don't blame the companies so much as I blame the rules of the game as encoded into laws. The problem is that the rules are increasingly written at the behest of the largest companies, which have become so large precisely because they are the most greedy companies, with a generous dose of immorality, to boot. Therefore, the best we can say in defense of Google is that they haven't been around long enough to own many politicians?

OSS needs a better economic model to squish Ellison

My suggestion is that OSS needs a better economic models to help squash greedy bastards like Ellison, and I think I happen to have just that sort of idea. It's basically an open accounting model for charitable projects (including OSS as a special case). In software development, you use it so that the potential users can agree to pay for the features they want with an incentive to recruit more users. Each user would only pay something like $10 toward each feature (but less if they can get more people involved), but the programmers wouldn't actually start work until the funding was secure. Other advantages: Ellison's good programmers could make a living elsewhere (assuming he still has any good programmers in that awful company), donors could assess the track record of the programmers before supporting them, and the project budgets could include funded testing to prevent the kind of continuing quality slump that is ruining Ubuntu.

http://eco-epistemology.blogspot.com/2009/11/economics-of-small-donors-reverse.html

Using the pickpocket icon as the best representation of Ellison's business model.

OSS is a bad economic model

It seems obvious that the problem with OSS is the economic model. Microsoft may produce awful software, but you have to admit that their economic model works quite well. Microsoft used to push the rules of the game to their limits, and maybe even stuck a few toes over the line, but they never received more than a wrist slap for it. You may think over $1 billion is a hefty fine, but it's chump change to the economic model Microsoft has used so well.

My suggestion is that OSS needs a better model, and I happen to have just the baby on my blog. It's basically an open accounting model for charitable projects. In this situation, you get the users to agree to pay for the features they want with an incentive to recruit more users. Each user would only pay something like $10 toward each feature, but the programmers wouldn't actually start work until the funding was secure. Other advantages: Donors could assess the track record of the programmers before supporting them, and the project budgets could include funded testing to prevent the kind of quality slump that is ruining Ubuntu.

http://eco-epistemology.blogspot.com/2009/11/economics-of-small-donors-reverse.html

Where's the icon for money? Anyway, I'll use the Web 2.0 icon on the theory that fixing the OSS financial model would be really helpful for buying more and better badger paws.

Hard to take Ellison seriously

Then again, Ellison's economic model has worked pretty well. His software is even worse than Microsoft's, but he's made pretty good money with it.

My suggestion is that we need better economic models to help squash greedy bastards like Ellison. Shockingly enough, I think I happen to have just that sort of puppy on my blog. It's basically an open accounting model for charitable projects (including OSS as a special case). In software development, you use it so that the users can agree to pay for the features they want with an incentive to recruit more users. Each user would only pay something like $10 toward each feature, but the programmers wouldn't actually start work until the funding was secure. Other advantages: Ellison's good programmers could make a living elsewhere (assuming he still has any good programmers in that awful company), donors could assess the track record of the programmers before supporting them, and the project budgets could include funded testing to prevent the kind of continuing quality slump that is ruining Ubuntu.

http://eco-epistemology.blogspot.com/2009/11/economics-of-small-donors-reverse.html

Using the pickpocket icon as the best representation of Ellison's business model.

Spam is NOT a law of nature

Gravity and evolution are laws of nature. Spam is NOT. Unfortunately, it is a law of human nature that there will be some people like this--but the laws of email are different. We (in a collective sense) made those so-called laws of email. We could fix them so that the low-life scum like this bastard would have to crawl under some other rock.

We can't really make them go away, but we can make sure they have as few rocks as possible, and make sure those rocks are as unpleasant as possible. There is something EXTREMELY wrong with any game that allows scum to make millions of dollars.

(In the long term, I'm sure we will fix the rules of email--but I don't get to live in the long term, and it really pisses me off to see scamming spamming scumbags like this one rip off millions of people on one hand so he can literally fsck with children with the other hand.)

Who wants another Microsoft phone?

That figure wasn't reported in the article, but based on my own experiences with a phone using a Microsoft so-called OS, the only way you'd get me to buy another is by including a second phone--and NOT a Microsoft-based phone, either. (Then again, Apple seems bound and determined to become the new Microsoft, as measured on the evil scale.)

By the way, I've been in the market for a new phone for six months, and leaning towards Android, but the Japanese market situation is rather confused and out of sync. I'm pretty sure that Brew is dominant here, but not even mentioned in the article. The company with the best position in Android phones has a terrible contract as regards data... Last time I had to wait about 4 years for anyone to offer what I wanted to buy.

As a veteran and victim of Windows Mobile

I kind of wish the article included a list of some of the sucker companies--to sell short. Oh well, just as well it didn't. The stock market is even stupider and crazier than Windows Mobile. You can never tell for sure how long you have to hold the short position, no matter how stupid the company's actions--as in using Windows Mobile. (A turd by any other name smells just as bad.)

No tethering, no customer

At least speaking for myself, the crazy anti-tethering policies are the main reason I haven't switched to a smart phone.

All the packets you can eat, but only on the tiny phone display? I don't wish anyone ill, but whoever goes blind first, please be sure to sue the phone company that did it to you.

Even more amusing is a large Japanese phone company that sells unlimited packets--except for any form of streaming, any form of P2P, any form of VOIP, with additional restrictions against many popular games. All you can eat, as long as you like to eat rocks--and only small rocks, to boot.

Any change that annoys the spammers is a GOOD change

As long as the rules of the game are the same for all of the registrars, I don't think they have ANY leg to stand on. ANY change that bothers the spammers is a GOOD change. Period.

Actually, I think the registrars should be one of the prime targets of the strong anti-spammer tool I'm waiting for. Google, are you listening? I want an industrial strength version of SpamCop, which currently makes a pretty good effort to find the ISP and a rather feeble effort to identify the webhost. The REAL anti-spam tool should go after ALL of the spammers' accomplices, and the domain registrars are HIGH on that list of targets. The domain registrars need to be vigorously sorted into the legitimate victims (playing on an even playing field) and the illegitimate spammer facades--and the facades need to be boarded up, fast and hard, with some barbed wire thrown in for luck.

Try to imagine how much value would be added to the Internet by the removal of most of the spammers? I actively want to be able to fight the spammers more effectively. I hope you would, too, but I don't mind if you just want to benefit from the efforts of people like me who really HATE the spammers. Don't you want to join a vigilante army of good Samaritans against spammers? Don't you want to become a spam-fighter first class?

Drive a stake through its heart already!

This is beginning to remind me of SCO (aka SCOX for those of you who were following the amusing stock prices). Yeah, Microsoft has much deeper pockets, but their so-called 'mobile OS' has never been as lively as Frankenstein's monster. "Igor, the monster will live in the next version!"

It doesn't really surprise me that Microsoft continues to pour good money after bad. That's just corporate inertia. The thing that amazes me is that Microsoft still hasn't figured out what's fundamentally wrong here. It's not the anti-freedom thing (projective advertising notwithstanding), but the OS mindset. If your underlying perspective of your OS is as a weapon to blow away the competition, then of course you can't make it small and nimble. Who wants a teeny tiny weapon? Weapons always get bigger and hairier, even if they sometimes plotz (like Vista). The result of Microsoft's OS philosophy HAS to be humongous and scary, so the little old lady who just wants to send email to her nieces on Sundays winds up with a trench mortar. Is anyone expecting such users to handle all the power of Windows? Nope, but the spammers sure do love those supercomputer zombots.

Would you join a vigilante army against spammers?

What I want is for one of the major email providers to offer a REALLY effective anti-spam option. (Are you listening, Google?) Basically something like SpamCop, but with more rounds of analysis and human confirmations to really target the spammers hard. SpamCop just looks for the ISP and the website, but there are SO many other angles that could be targeted with a bit of human effort, and I would be glad to donate a bit of my time to the fight. For example, the owners of brands that are being damaged by the spammers might want to be notified. (Are you listening, Facebook and Pfizer?) Domain registrars should be sorted into the legitimate ones that want to be told about spammers using their system verses the spam-supporting registrars that need to be shut down. Redirection services and link shorteners should receive more intelligent and faster reports of abuse. Special attention should be paid to high priority abuse like phishing websites. (Are you listening, banks?)

Remember two things. (1) There are only a small number of suckers who feed the spamming animals whereas there are a LARGE number of people who dislike spammers. (2) The spammers cannot obfuscate beyond human intelligence because they need to reach some humans to get the money (even if those humans are really stupid).

I want to become a spam-fighter first class in an army of good Samaritans against spammers! How about you?

Principles of Privacy 101

Facebook needs to start with some clear principles of privacy. I suggest that Principle #1 should be a simple application of the Golden Rule for the default privacy setting. If someone wants to see some of my personal information, then they should agree to show the corresponding personal information to me. Only after we both agree should any information be shared.

The sharing of information should NOT be transitive or transferable, and Facebook should be actively looking for anyone who is actively trying to cheat. For example, it might make sense for someone to spend a lot of time looking in some detail at the information about one actual friend, but it makes no sense for someone to be scanning lots of personal information at robotic harvesting speeds.

The underlying principle should be that I own my personal information, and anyone else should be allowed to access it only with my permission--which I can revoke at any time and for any reason. Of course, that revocation can only be in principle in these days of easy copying, but the principle of ownership needs to be established, and any abuse of personal information needs to be regarded as a crime.

You don't think so? Okay, then start telling me all of your personal information and see how it feels. Have you EVER made a serious mistake? I bet you have, and I bet that you wouldn't want to have it widely publicized. Even if you're as pure as Caesar's wife, if I know enough about your personal likes and interests and even your strengths, then I guarantee that I could find some way to twist you like a pretzel.

Maybe the secret masters of Facebook are right and privacy is already dead. If so, freedom died with it and we need to schedule a nice funeral.

Principles of Privacy 101

1. My personal information should belong to ME, not to ANY company that manages to collect it. Any possession of my personal information should be at my sufferance, and I should have the right to revoke permission at any time and for any reason.

2. In a case like Facebook, the default privacy setting should be the Golden Rule. If someone wants to see some part of my personal information, they must first offer to let me see their corresponding information. Only after we BOTH agree should any information be shared--but still subject to Principle 1.

3. My personal information should be available in a form that I can take PHYSICAL possession of it. For example, Google should offer a capability to download ALL of my personal information that Google has collected. If I ask Google to then delete their copy of my personal data, they must do so. (My own copy could be uploaded back to Google at some later date, and Google can include checksums to prevent my tampering with the data.)

Not schadenfreude

Just pure joy to hear about the demise of any supporter or accomplice of the spammers. However, I still wish there were better user-level tools available so that I could do more to help run down the spammers. Remember, the spammers can't obfuscate beyond human comprehension because they need to be understood by the human suckers who send them money. Not completely, not honestly, but at least a little bit, and I want to help bridge that gap so the spam fighters can nail the spammers more early, more often, and MUCH harder.

Microsoft started killing the newsgroups years ago

Actually, Microsoft made their first attempt to kill the newsgroups years ago. The notion of free support has always been anathema to them. How dare ANYONE share ANY knowledge that Microsoft could even potentially at a PROFIT?

Unfortunately for Microsoft, the first attempt on the newsgroups was so clumsily handled that it created something of an uproar and Microsoft had to back down. The ruckus involved the MVPs that Microsoft was exploiting, so after that the long-range strategy was first to suck the life out of the MVP program, which was eventually in a sufficiently zombie-like status to make this 'transition' smooth.

Much of the demise of the newsgroups in general is not Microsoft's fault. I'd actually say that most of it was due to abuse of anonymity and the state of perpetual September in the Web. However, I do believe that it might have been possible to save the newsgroups--but only IF the big players like Microsoft had been interested in pitching in. Unfortunately, there was no RoI there, so now we have RiP.

(By the way, Google is also strangling the newsgroups from the other end. There motivations seem more ambiguous and hard to interpret. Perhaps just another example of the general creeping evil of Google?)

With sufficient personal information, I can control you

Absolutely yes, but I'm betting it will never happen. The default should be "Possession is 9 points of the law" and they should be required to store our personal data on our OWN storage (of course with checksums to prevent tampering), and they (even including the guys with silent black helicopters) should be required to ask nicely whenever they want to see or use our personal data--and say WHY.

Good luck, Mr Phelps.

Is Google too big to fail?

Does anyone doubt that Google is acting as a monopoly? At least it seems to me that the residual question is whether Internet search is somehow a natural monopoly (Perhaps because there is only one Internet as most users think of it?) or just some kind of de facto monopoly.

In the natural-monopoly case, then I think there is a strong argument for regulation, since I don't believe any monopolist can resist the temptation to abuse their monopoly power. In fact, I feel that I have already been victimized and censored (though in a minor way) by Google's ToS, but I can't even be sure since Google won't respond to any questions about the topic). A claim that the company doesn't want to be evil is not adequate, and especially if you believe the laws almost require evil behavior by companies.

In the de-facto-monopoly case, then I think the main concern is with 'too big to fail'. You can argue that a de facto monopoly will eventually make mistakes or be out-competed and lose its monopoly position--but the transition may be quite traumatic if the company has become big enough. In that case, dividing overly large companies into smaller companies competing with each other is good in the long run.

Don't think of it as a penalty for too much success. Think of it as a requirement for reproduction of the good ideas. However, I think of it as a freedom thing. Real freedom is about meaningful and significant choice. That means the options have to be truly different, and I have to know enough about those differences to make my own decisions. (To be starkly contrasted with Microsoft's fake version of choice in terms of minor flavors all from Microsoft.)

Just send them to Wikipedia, for goodness sake

I don't know about the German version, but the English Wikipedia has LOTS of articles about many facets of Star Trek. The original series really was a path-breaking series for it's time. Someone recently loaned me the full set of episodes as dubbed in Japanese, and I'm surprised how many of the stories have managed to stand the test of time--though I acknowledge that I'd forgotten how cheesy some of them were...

As far as 'live long and prosper', Leonard Nimoy has already done that. At least by earthling standards.

Disgusting defeatism

If they can't do anything substantive about the spam problem, why don't they give US better tools to help fight spam. Something like SpamCop on steroids, with more rounds of analysis and human confirmation, and targeting not just the ISPs and webhosts, but EVERY other resource exploited by the spammers, such as reply addresses, fake opt-outs, link shorteners, slandered brand names, and especially the registrars.. Don't bang heads on the strongest defenses the spammers have (the sadly robust spambots), but go after them everywhere with some serious collective intelligence. Anyone else want to join an army of "ANGRY Good Samaritans Against Spam"? (Call it AGSAS?)

Reasons why I think this would be more effective in reducing spam:

1. There are lots of people who hate spam and only a few suckers the spammers are hunting for.

2. Whatever else the spammers automate, they can't automate the suckers.

3. However they obfuscate, they can't obfuscate beyond the suckers understanding.

Just for the obvious example, if Gmail included such a power spam-fighting tool, would you use it? Would the spammers even spam Gmail if they were certain of aggressive and intelligent countermeasures against ALL of their spamming infrastructure?

No one would have to participate, but even a small number of volunteers would be far more numerous than the suckers. Me? I want to be a spam-fighter first class.