* Posts by Shannon Jacobs

783 publicly visible posts • joined 9 Apr 2007

Connecting Gmail to Google+ is SENSELESS, says Digg founder

Shannon Jacobs
Holmes

EVIL is as google does

Remember the corporate motto: "All your attention is belong to the google."

There was once a time when the google did not seem EVIL, but the love of money has clearly gotten to them and there is almost no pretense left. Yes, I'm still using the google for certain things, but it's for the same reason I use some Microsoft software: Lack of freedom to do otherwise. Here are my latest formulations of the problem that drives large American corporations to EVIL:

free = (meaningful + unconstrained) choice

time > money

I need to write it up at more length, but don't worry, you're unlikely to see it. Even if it isn't in a webpage under the google's control, the search that doesn't lead you there is NOT the path to Tao. However, here's a short explanation, just for amusement:

Starting with the inequality: Economists are lazy and incompetent fools, so they look for the missing valuables where the light is better, not where the value is. Money is conveniently countable, but time is too hard to measure, even though it's the truly valuable and limited resource.

The equation is just my biased American fixation on freedom, though there is increasing evidence (in China) that maybe the competitive advantage is with highly limited freedom and fake democratic 'reforms'. Obviously, from a corporate perspective, they want to constrain your choices to whatever that corporation is selling, and the only meaning they are interested is whatever means more profit for that selfsame corporation.

Proof of the proposition "Google is EVIL": As it has worked out in America, most businesspeople just want to play by the rules, but the game is defined by laws written by the most cheaply bribed professional politicians working for the greediest and least ethical businessmen. Google is now the leading lobbyist among high-tech companies. QED. (Yeah, the bit about most businesspeople, though true, is an extra premise.)

In ultimate conclusion, the most likely resolution of the Fermi Paradox is human extinction. Or, as Bruce Stirling put it in "The Swarm", there is no evidence that intelligence is a survival trait.

Have a nice day--on the short term.

Want Google to erase your data? Just wait for it to kill off one of its apps

Shannon Jacobs
Holmes

Re: What Google wants.. Google gets.

Actually, from the bean counters' perspective, it's the only smart way to capture technology. There are almost always a number of ways to solve the problem, but if you explore it with your own researchers, most of the ways you try are going to be duds. Actually, you can be sure that all but one of them will be inferior to the best solution. Therefore, most of your investment in real research will be wasted.

Much better to let the little guys try out the various solutions. Yeah, your big company needs some so-called researchers to evaluate the solutions. The most important thing nowadays is to recognize the good candidates and get a foothold in those doors, but that's mostly to make sure your big company can buy out the winning technology once you're sure they've gotten enough of the bugs out of it.

Google used to be different and used to be much more creative with their own technologies. Once they reached the critical mass, they stopped having to worry about it so much. The critical mass is actually when your company is big enough to say: "Either you sell out to us now, or we will crush you. We have the resources to dominate the new market even if we have to use second- or third-best solutions, and you have already proven it is possible because your technology works, so you might as well surrender now [Dorothy]." The rest is just haggling over the price, but the google can afford to be generous.

In the name of freedom, this should be illegal, but guess who wrote the rules of the game? It wasn't the butler in the kitchen with the carving knife. It was the most cheaply bribed professional politicians working for the greediest and least ethical big businessmen.

Shannon Jacobs

New motto: All your attention is belong to the google

Recently revealed to me by a googler, but perhaps he was intoxicated and exaggerating? However, it certainly looks to me that the google has been captured by the corrupt rules of American business, where the laws are written by the most cheaply bribed professional politicians working for the greediest and least ethical businessmen. I used to think the google was relatively innocent, but then I found out that the google has become the top lobbyist among high-tech companies. Innocent no more.

In the example of this article, the bean counters obviously determined that the amount of attention grabbed was insufficient, possibly in comparison to other google so-called products. What the peasants want? ROFLMAO.

This mostly troubles me because I used to believe that the google was trying to make the world better. Now I think the famous old motto was just a distraction, like the Stalin-era news reports in Pravda. For example, astute readers knew that reports of foreign plane crashes really meant there had been a plane crash in the USSR, and the Russian founder of the google must have been aware that his enterprise would eventually become evil, assuming it wasn't totally evil from the git go.

JAILBREAK! US smut spam king Kilbride flees minimum security prison

Shannon Jacobs

Re: All men's hands raised against him?

Still waiting for a constructive thought or comment, Mr Ito? Since you are such a superior being, surely you must have something useful to say.. I searched for your other comment, but you are right, it wasn't worth remembering. Obviously, I strongly disagree with you on the relative merits of our positions. However, since you seem to want to persist in the discussion, and since you seem to be having troubles in understanding what I have written, let me try to simplify it for you:

1. Spam is bad. It adds no positive value to the Internet and reducing the amount of spam would be a good thing.

2. The spammers are insane sociopaths, but they are not stupid. They persist in spamming because they are making money.

3. The spammers use a variety of economic models, but each of those models has weaknesses.

4. I would like to have tools to help identify and target those weaknesses. I don't mind that people like you, Mr Ito, would get a free ride if other people actually want to make the world better. I would gladly donate a bit of my time for the cause of less spam.

5. Notwithstanding the perverse peculiarities of so many of the people who write comments on the Register (such as a certain so-called Mr Ito), I think the overwhelming majority of normal human beings would vote with me for less spam.

One of my perversions is that I am resolved to try harder to make the world better.

Another perversion is that I can't understand the perspective of anyone who defends spam or spammers unless I imagine that such a person has a vested interest in sustaining spam, either because they are a spammer or possibly because they are a quasi-opponent of spam. For example, I think there are some postmasters who are basically happy with the way things are and who actually see spam as part of their job security. (Perhaps you have a position on the claim that many computer viruses actually originate with companies that sell virus protection software? I'm still thinking about that one...)

Shannon Jacobs

Can we lock up all the spammers?

I like the thought of arresting all of the spammers, but I think it is hard to do, especially considering the problem mentioned earlier in the discussion of defining what spam really is. If you are going to define spamming as a crime, you need to have a really solid definition.

What I am advocating is much more limited: Reduce the spammers' profits by breaking their economic models. Another way to consider it is that the people who don't like spam would be able to vote against the suckers who like it enough to send money. A little harder to describe, but they would also be voting against the right of some really stupid people to be victimized by the spammers. The anti-spam people would do this by getting between the spammers and their victims before the spammers can get the money--but we need better anti-spam tools to do this.

The key of the spammers' economic model is that they can send out billions of messages hoping to find a few suckers. This is sociopathic greed, and it is obviously working--partly because so many people, even the wise readers of the Register, accept it as the way things are. Maybe things are that way, but they don't have to be. Things do change, sometimes just because enough people want them to--and I still insist that the overwhelming majority wants LESS SPAM.

One of the things that mystifies me about the spam problem is that the email providers should be eager to help. They all claim to be as good at filtering spam as the other guys, but the spam continues flowing. It isn't just their email systems that are polluted and devalued, but the entire value of email and the Internet, and even the values of the companies whose reputations are defamed by the spammers. I cannot think of FedEx or Western Union now without thinking "419 spam". If I only had a nickel for each spam message I've received from a so-called bank, I'd be seriously rich--and could start my own email system with the serious anti-spam tools I'm advocating.

Shannon Jacobs

Re: DMARC, SPF, DKIM

Validating the sender is not bad, but that won't fix the problem unless we discard SMTP, and that ain't going to happen. I used to advocate for a replacement email protocol with a gateway to SMTP--and I advocated that the gateway would be turned off by default.

Among my other faults, I think it would be good if we lived in a world where we could freely share email addresses without floods of spam. SMTP is not that world.

Shannon Jacobs

Re: All men's hands raised against him?

Well, phucking excuse me for still thinking I should try to make the world a better place. A place with less spam.

So exactly what are you doing for anyone, Mr Ito? I suppose you need to rush back to your computer game?

By the way, it's nothing personal, Mr Ito. I'm just taking you as a representative of all the hopeless, non-constructive, and evidently rather feeble-minded critics (named and too-cowardly-to-be-named-even-by-a-Register-handle commenters) that the spammers depend upon to stay in business.

Shannon Jacobs

Re: 2013 closes on a joyous news note!

Hadn't heard about that. It's short and to the point, but unfortunately it is not enforceable.

By the way, I also agree that we can't eliminate spam. However I insist that we can make it much less profitable. I also believe that most people are pretty nice, and if you make it easier for them to do nice things (like disrupting the spammers' business models), then more of them will do so.

Let's run through the numbers again. The spammers send billions of pieces of spam. Their response rates are incredibly small. I think it is reasonable to say that ALL of the other recipients dislike the spam, more or less strongly. We don't need for ALL of those offended people to take action against the spammers, but if any measurable fraction, say 1% did sometimes take action, it would completely overwhelm the small number of suckers the spammers are trying to reach so desperately.

I understand that there are people who think it is too much trouble. Fine. They can be free riders benefiting from the reduced amount of spam. Some of these critics apparently don't even watch the Colbert Show, so they must be totally lacking in something...

However, if we took a vote NOW, the "less spam" side would win overwhelmingly. That is the side I stand on, and I wish (in public even) I had better anti-spam tools to make it so.

Shannon Jacobs
Holmes

Re: On the subject of spam - and if that's not 'optional'!

While it is important and useful to consider the sources, SMTP does not actually care. That's why we should look at the spam itself in a more intelligent way. The spammers are NOT expecting to reach their suckers via the email address that originated the spam. That address probably doesn't exist, but even if it was a real address, the spammers reasonably assume it will be nuked before the sucker can reply. The most vulnerable points right now are the dropboxes or websites where the spammer is waiting for a sucker.

The dynamics of spam require a human sucker at the other end, and there will be a delay before that sucker can respond. The supply of suckers is quite small, as measured by the miniscule response rates to spam. That delay before a human can reply is an opportunity for targeting by ANY of the MANY people who dislike spam. I'm suggesting we make it easier for those people to get between the spammer and the sucker so the spammer does NOT get any money. (Yes, the spammers have other objectives such as personal information or fresh spambots--but they still need some HUMAN time for the sucker to rise to the bait.)

Shannon Jacobs

Re: 2013 closes on a joyous news note!

The sophistry of appealing to lists of fallacies instead of THINKING.

And I still wonder about anyone who DEFENDS spammers for ANY so-called reason.

Okay, I picked an extreme example with child pornographers. How about Jehovah's Witnesses who knock on doors posted "No solicitors" because they just KNOW that they aren't solicitors? Or maybe you'd prefer to defend the Mormon evangelists?

Shannon Jacobs
Holmes

All men's hands raised against him?

This is the only comment about turning himself in, but it doesn't mention the most interesting aspect of why he did so. Try to imagine how many enemies he has. I can't count that high, because it is potentially EVERY person who has ever been annoyed by spam email.

The vigilante topic has been mentioned briefly in this discussion, but I were a spammer whose picture had just been circulated on the Internet... I'd be kind of desperate for police protection. Fortunately, I don't even own a gun these days, but I can imagine the response of the guy who shot him: "I read that he was an escaped convict and saw his picture in the article, but I missed the part where it said he wasn't violent, so I just felt like I had to shoot him to prevent him from escaping."

Even worse if I was the police officer taking the report: "Good thing you shot him 17 times so he couldn't run away."

That's why I'm only advocating a system to support "target acquisition and tracking". I should not be in a position to actually do anything about it... If you gave me a button to push and told me that each push administered a painful electric shock to a spammer, then I don't see how I could resist the behavioral extreme of pushing it several times a second until I died of starvation... (I've already confessed that I hate spam more than the average bear, and everyone knows that bears are soulless killing machines.)

Shannon Jacobs

Re: 2013 closes on a joyous news note!

That triggers my joke about the blame: If the creators of SMTP (including Jon Postel, RIP) had been more aware of the money aspects, then they would have included provisions for accounting in the protocol rather than assuming everyone would be a good sport about it. They were too concerned about just making it work, and insufficiently concerned about the money. Who was taking care of the money? Well, to a large degree it was Al Gore. I respect and admire Al Gore, but still this seems to be a case where his good attentions had problematic results...

Having said that, I also feel that monetary accounting is the wrong way to think about economics, including the spam problem. The truly valuable and ultimately limited commodity is our time. Ultimately our lives are rather finite (at least here on earth, even if you believe in some form of non-Buddhist immortality). To me the greatest crime of the spammers is simply the time they waste--OTHER people's precious and valuable time. It's the attention, stupid!

That reminds me of a recent discussion I had with a googler. He came right out and said that what google wanted was your attention. In other words, your MOST valuable time. The "Don't be evil" motto has been replaced by "All your attention is belong to the google." (Remember Zero Wing!) I was actually shocked by his frankness, but it goes a long way to explaining why Gmail is so spammer tolerant, though you'd think they'd resent the competition with spammers for the suckers' attention.

P.S. Not to say that google is the worst. Yahoo is clearly the spammers' best friend among the major email providers. I also think Microsoft has been the spammers' main adversary, but Microsoft has focused upstream, and I am advocating for downstream measures, mostly because that's where the suckers and victims are concentrated.

Shannon Jacobs

Re: 2013 closes on a joyous news note!

I don't think naive timing solutions will scale well, which is why my example was focused on a source-server level. They can provide bad service in eliminating spammers' dropboxes (which is why the spammers select those email services), but that bad service will bounce to their legitimate users, too. If they ultimately lose all of their legitimate users and offer email services only to spammers, then it's not like anyone is going to miss them when the other email systems blacklist them completely...

For what it is worth, in the early public Internet days (at the dawn of perpetual September) I was once the postmaster of what was probably the largest free email system in a large city. We didn't have much of a spam problem at that time, but keeping the email flowing was a high priority, and I was often checking on the servers at odd hours of the day. I am not proposing something that I think would be unlivable. If I'm running a small system and can only check on the spammer complaints a couple of times per day, then my users also have to expect the possibility that their email may be delayed. I tried quite hard to prevent it, but there were a couple of times when it happened, including worst cases when I had to travel to the servers and physically reset things...

Further by the way, my first quasi-commercial email system (registration fee, but unlimited email), used voice validation of all new members before they could have full access. I think that was a responsible way to run things, and I don't my system ever hosted a spammer.

Shannon Jacobs

Re: 2013 closes on a joyous news note!

This is part of the reason FOR my proposed solution. The anti-spammer email system I am suggesting should include a testing mechanism for unsubscribe mechanisms. Let me clarify with a thin example of how it could work:

(1) In the first pass of analysis, the webform that is returned to the recipient of the spam would indicate things that seem to be unsubscribe mechanisms, and the response would confirm that they are (or are not) correctly identified. The two most common cases involve websites and unsubscribe addresses.

(2) The server would then do additional processing on the returned form. For example, if it is an unsubscribe website, but the same URL is used elsewhere in the spam, then that is strong evidence that it's a fake unsubscribe link. If it's an email address, the server can send a test unsubscribe message using a honeypot address. If the address has already been tested, then the server has some information on hand for the next round, and for this example I'm going to follow that line.

(3) The next webform would report (for that part of the spam) the unsubscribe address had been tested with a honeypot address, and no responses or other spam had been received in a certain period of time. On that basis, the recipient of the spam could elect to try the unsubscribe option. (This is actually a feature that is crudely incorporated into Gmail, by the way, but in a very ad hoc way.)

(4) If the wannabe spam fighter has requested it, then the server will send the unsubscribe request. This is also part of the distancing mechanism to stay above vigilante problems--the spam fighters should only be helping with the targeting, not pulling the triggers directly.

(5) If you want to get really wrinkly here, then the server could store this spam in addition to the unsubscribe address (which should obviously be tracked). The reason is that the spammer might be relatively clever about detecting some honeypot addresses, but the system can use the copy of the spam to ask the recipient of later spam if there is reason to think the later piece of spam represents the same spammer ignoring the unsubscribe request. Yes, it's a bell and whistle and not really required, but it is the kind of thing that is only possible by taking a higher perspective of the spam.

Shannon Jacobs

Re: 2013 closes on a joyous news note!

Regarding filters, the short reply is that the spammers can obviously live with "Live and let spam" with filsters, as proven by the fact that they continue spamming. Remember the spammers regard their marginal cost of an additional million spams as being effectively zero, so why not spam more?

Just a tip of a larger reply: You mention and then ignore false positives. I'm guessing you pay attention to false negatives because they requite a click on a button (for those email systems that implement their adaptive Bayesian filtering in that way). Unfortunately false positives are also a real problem that sometimes should not be ignored. Remember that the spammers are always trying to blur the line between ham and spam. In my own limited sample, I am still looking for false positives on three accounts, and sometimes seeing them, and in at least one recent case it was a moderately important piece of email that was misfiltered, though most of them tend to be legitimate companies that have a legitimate reason or excuse to email me and who will honor my request to stop sending email.

There is MUCH more than could be said. Why don't we try to solve the problem, instead?

Shannon Jacobs

Re: Confused about time frames

The dumbest criminal story has to go to a gang of robbers who asked the victim to tie them up when the police arrived. I can't find the link now, but their brilliant idea is that they wanted the victim to tell the police that they were also victims of some other actual robbers. She didn't cooperate. Surprise, surprise.

On this actual story, considering it was a spammer, I'm glad he found prison so intolerable he wanted to escape and I hope he is caught soon and gets a substantial addition to his time away from spam.

Shannon Jacobs
Holmes

Re: 2013 closes on a joyous news note!

You know, anytime someone defends or protects spammers, it really makes me wonder. Do you also defend child pornographers? If so, do you defend only the sellers of child porn, or also the makers? Just asking, because the spammers would be glad to pitch that, too, if they thought they could make a nickel from it.

However, I am vaguely curious about your claim of irrelevance. Were you talking about the original post? If so, I would say that going to prison is a seriously broken economic model, and insofar as it prevented that spammer from sending spam or discourages that spammer from sending any additional spam in the future, my post is highly germane. If you were talking about my reply to the rather mindless response, then I simply note that that person reconsidered his post, apparently found it embarrassing, and decided to remove it.

However, in either case, I feel like returning to the original question: Why are you speaking in defense of the spammers? In one of the worst cases, it makes me wonder if you are a spammer yourself.

Oh yeah, about the down vote: Coming from someone who defends spammers, I have to count it as an endorsement.

Shannon Jacobs
Thumb Down

Re: 2013 closes on a joyous news note!

Please feel free to post an actual reply after you learn to read above kindergarten level. Each of the checkboxes you selected was specifically addressed in my actual suggestion, so therefore I'm guessing you picked options from the well known list with your magic eight ball, which is evidently worn out, too.

Shannon Jacobs

2013 closes on a joyous news note!

Pretty rare that the news makes me happy these days, but this story fills me with joy, admittedly of a perverse sort, which probably suits the original crime. Why? Because this little escapade has to end well. Hopefully he will be caught soon and resist arrest, resulting in a nice long extension to his little vacation in prison. He's already earned extra with the break, but a spammer deserves the extra for resisting arrest, too. Alternatively, he will remain in hiding, feeling the fear but too terrified to resort to his his old spamming ways. If there is one thing he does not need now, it is the publicity of spamming again.

That's part of why this entire spam thing amazes me: ALL of the spammers are waving big red flags. "I'm a criminal, and come to this website so I can rob you!" There are minor variations, but all of the interesting spam boils down to that kind of "Look at me! I'm a criminal" broadcast. (Most of the less interesting spam fits the same shoe, too.)

Why don't the big email providers fix the spam problem? I'm not saying that anything can turn the sociopathic spammers into decent human beings or that we can eliminate all spam, but we could certainly reduce the profitability of the spammers' business models, and this would drive most of the spammers to move under less visible rocks.

Imagine an integrated anti-spammer system built into the largest email providers. After all, without their support, the spammers' business has to fail. It would involve several rounds of automated analysis and human confirmation. Wannabe spam fighters would help the system categorize the spam and target the appropriate countermeasures to break ALL of the spammers' infrastructure, pursue ALL of the spammers' accomplices, and help and protect ALL of the spammers' victims--especially the victims who are stupid enough to feed the spammers' scams, but also such external victims as the corporations whose reputations are slammed by the spammers' vile abuse. There aren't many suckers available for the spammers, but there are LOTS of people who hate spammers and if it were made easier for the wannabe spam fighters to intervene, the thin links between spammers and suckers can be broken. This kind of system can also evolve to break any new models the spammers devise.

Here's a simple and concrete example. These days spammers often use dropbox email addresses on other systems. This analysis system would initially identify these addresses, for example by distinguishing them from other victims or joe-job addresses. In the second round of the analysis, the system could report on results of previous complaints to the relevant postmaster, perhaps offering upstream escalation as an option, or voting for a higher sanction of the email provider in question. One of the most obvious "extreme sanctions" that this could support would be a "delivery delay" sanction. If an email provider is slow about cutting off the spammers' email dropboxes, then the targeted email system would delay the delivery of email to and from that system. Some of the Yahoo subsidiaries are obvious examples, especially the Hong Kong Yahoo. Imagine the effect if Gmail imposed a policy like this: "If you fail to nuke a spammers' dropbox within 20 minutes of our reporting it to you (based on 5 human-confirmed reports), then we will delay all email to and from your system by your OWN response time to such complaints. Good luck in explaining your incompetence to your users."

Yeah, I hate spam more than the average bear, but I don't feel lonely just because I'm at that end of the bell curve. Why don't the email providers help turn some of such hatred of spammers into fondness for the email providers who really hurt the spammers?

Snowden to warn Brits on Xmas telly: Your children will NEVER have privacy

Shannon Jacobs
Holmes

Channel 4 is quite intrusive

Sorry, too much intrusion from the website for me to watch the message about intrusion on privacy. Is that part of the parody?

Party's over in Waterloo as BlackBerry pulls plug on 2014 Live conference

Shannon Jacobs
Holmes

Re: BlackBerry Live...

I don't suppose you'd buy

Blackberry Trace of Live?

How about

Blackberry in need of CPR?

Actually, my take on this sort of thing is that I wouldn't mind it if companies won and lost on their own technical merits. I'm not saying that marketing doesn't have any merits, though they are few, but these days there is no room for freedom of choice. The marketing hype destroys 'loser' companies even if the options they offer would enhance the freedom of some people. If they can't maximize profits like a cancer, then Wall Street decrees that they must be destroyed, apparently so a few trivial organs can be harvested.

Me? I favor an amoeba-based economic model. Don't think of it as a penalty for too much success. Think of it as a reproductive award. In other words, rather than growing like a cancer, which is ultimately unsustainable (even for the banks that claim to be too big to fail), when a company grows big enough it should be required to reproduce by splitting into separate companies that compete for the future while offering MORE choice and freedom to the customers.

And remember the google motto: All your attention are belong to the google!

Yahoo! boss! Mayer! sez! soz! for! lengthy! mail! outage!

Shannon Jacobs

Yahoo, best friend of spammers everywhere

Couldn't happen to a more deserving company. Of the big three, Yahoo is clearly #1 in supporting spammers, especially in providing the dropboxes to reach suckers, but also in helping the spammers with the separate throwaway addresses where so much of the spam comes from.

If Yahoo had been serious about shutting down the spammers' business models starting some years ago, we would be in a much better world. Now it's basically too late and we are dealing with serious and professional criminals, but... Imagine if Yahoo had provided integrated anti-spammer tools starting several years ago. Rather than playing games and feeding the spammers while they grew so strong and dangerous, we--ALL of the people who sincerely and fiercely hate spam--could have helped shut down ALL of the spammers' infrastructure, pursue ALL of the spammers' accomplices, and help and protect ALL of the spammers' victims. The "victims" is not just the suckers who send money to the spammers, but the corporations whose reputations are abused by the spammers, and even all of the other people who use the Internet. Also, can you imagine the value added to Yahoo Mail if the spammers were afraid of it? Given the reality, that's a ROFLMAO act of imagination.

Oh well. Evidently it's too late now. We don't have any option but to live with the spammers. Certainly nothing Yahoo can do about it. They can barely keep their email system afloat on the tide of their own spam.

Unlocking CryptoLocker: How infosec bods hunt the fiends behind it

Shannon Jacobs
Holmes

This is why "Live and let spam" is bad

Kind of too late now, but if these criminals had been driven out of business years ago, then they wouldn't have become the monstrous threat they now are. Not all, but most of the infrastructure they are now using has evolved steadily over the years of playing patty-cake with the spammers. The scams have been profitable enough to keep them at it, and now we have this ongoing fiasco.

In particular, if the major email providers had been serious about shutting down the spammers' business models starting some years ago, maybe we would not have reached this point. Now it's basically too late and we are dealing with serious and professional criminals, but... Imagine if the email providers had bothered to provide integrated anti-spammer tools starting several years ago. Rather than playing games and feeding the spammers while they grew so strong and dangerous, we--ALL of the people who sincerely and fiercely hate spam--could have helped shut down ALL of the spammers' infrastructure, pursue ALL of the spammers' accomplices, and help and protect ALL of the spammers' victims. The "victims" is not just the suckers who send money to the spammers, but the corporations whose reputations are abused by the spammers, and even all of the other people who use the Internet.

Tell you what. I'll sponsor a prize for anyone who can convince me the spammers make ANY positive contribution to the world. I'm not saying we can cure their vicious sociopathy, but we could have pushed them under less visible rocks.

Oh well. Evidently it's too late now. We don't have any option but to live with them--and in perpetual fear of clicking on the wrong attachment.

One-minute Koch-blocking earns attacker two years, massive fine

Shannon Jacobs

How much free speech can you afford?

If it means disagreeing with the Koch brothers, maybe you should keep your fingers far away from the keyboard, eh?

Watch me get in trouble now: I think they are worthless scum. They did NOTHING to earn their fortune, and everything they have done to protect and increase their fortune has been on the scale from morally despicable to purely evil.

PC market staging a RECOVERY. (Only joking, it's through the floor)

Shannon Jacobs

It's not that there are no new ideas under the sun

The problem is that Microsoft doesn't own the sun. Basically just an agreement with the post I'm replying to, but I would like to dig a bit deeper into the fundamental anti-innovation company that Microsoft has become. There are lots of new things that could be done with PCs, and some of them that even call for legitimate improvements in the OS, but unless Microsoft sees the SAFE profits, they are going to continue doing everything they can to stifle all significant innovation.

The dynamics are kind of simple. There are only a few basic ways to get to the top. Being lucky is the most common, though I'm willing to say that Microsoft may have simply had good timing. Extremely hard work is a possibility, but actually one of the least likely paths unless combined with some luck and good timing.

However, once a company does get to the top, by any path, the situation changes. There are only three basic options. One, continue struggling harder than ever to remain #1. Two, relax and slump down in the ratings. Three, do everything you can to prevent anyone else from getting close to you. These days that mostly means bribing politicians to make laws that perpetuate your monopoly position, where the monopoly is more or less disguised.

REVEALED: How YOU PAY extra for iPHONES - even if you DON'T HAVE ONE

Shannon Jacobs

Borrowing from the Microsoft economic models

I think it is more significant to compare this with Microsoft's business models in terms of distancing Apple from the actual users. It's quite a bit like Microsoft selling directly to the manufacturers and to the devil with the software preferences of the actual users at the bottom of the hole. I think this will be ultimately destructive of Apple just as it has make Microsoft into a brake against innovation. I'm not quite sure how it will work, because I do admit that Apple has been genuinely innovative in many cases in the past, whereas Microsoft has only purchased or stolen the relatively few innovations it has propagated.

Yahoo! staff! slapped! for! 'snubbing! own! webmail! and! preferring! Outlook!'

Shannon Jacobs

Hey, morons! You want to make your email system compelling attractive?

If Yahoo wanted to make their email system compellingly attractive, all they have to do is remove the spam. Okay, they can't get all of it, but they can certainly do VASTLY better than the current patty-cake games.

What I would like to have would be a integrated spam-fighting system WAY beyond the stupid 'report spam' button. It would run through several rounds of analysis and confirmation, identifying just what the spam is and letting me help with the targeting of the most appropriate countermeasures. The objectives are simple: Disrupt ALL of the spammers' infrastructure, pursue ALL of the spammers' accomplices, and help and protect ALL of the spammers' victims. Remove the profits and the spammers will not become decent human beings, but most of them will move under other rocks of much lower visibility and annoyance. If Yahoo Mail actually the best system of this type, then the spammers would develop and allergy to Yahoo.

Lots of wrinkles possible, but sadly Yahoo is too near bankruptcy to tackle it. Though it would be an inconvenience to me and many other people, at this point I believe that Yahoo's bankruptcy would be an even bigger hassle for the spammers.

We're making too much say CryptoLocker scum in ransom price cut

Shannon Jacobs
Holmes

If the spam problem were reduced, then this would be reduced, too

Excellent example of why the major email providers should actually try to disrupt the spammers' business models. It's the total volume of garbage that makes it easier for these sorts of crooks to run their scams.

My own suggestion remains integrated multi-round anti-spammer tools that would allow volunteers to disrupt every part of the spammers' infrastructure and pursue ALL of the spammers' accomplices. No, you better not give me a rope or a nuclear bomb, because I would push that button several times a second, but I really want to help with the targeting against the spammers.

Here's another trivial wrinkle that could be done with this approach: You could agree to let other spam fighters use your probable spam in their spam-fighting efforts. As I would like to set it, if I'm not online when spam arrives, other volunteers could compare it with their own fresh spam, and if two of them agree it's spam, then it would disappear from my spam folder or move from my inbox to the spam folder.

By the way, the reason freshness matters is because the spammers need time to reach the human suckers. If their dropboxes and websites are nuked before they can get any suckers, then their business model stops working so well.

Google's Schmidt predicts end to global censorship in a DECADE

Shannon Jacobs

You mean the google is going to loosen up their ToS?

The headline really made me laugh. The google has been censoring me for several years. I'm not even sure what services it covers, though it certainly spans most of their help systems. However, the infuriating part is that the google never said which of the many clauses of the ToS I was in violation of. This started a couple of years ago, so they've had plenty of time to say something, ANYTHING, if they wanted to, but they obviously don't want to. To heck with you puny human life forms, says the google of EVIL.

For what little it's worth, my theory is that it was my potty mouth that got me in trouble. The research claims that obscenities may reveal your emotional sincerity, and sometimes I get a bit too sincere? Or is it my military experience? Serving my country seems to have expanded my vocabulary in the wrong directions, but I've heard that they don't swear nearly as much these days. (They just go nuts from insanely repeated deployments. My timing was much luckier, and I am happy to note (or claim?) that I had no actual combat experience.)

Brace! yourselves! startups! Yahoo! can't! wait! to! blow! $1bn! on! shiny! new! things!

Shannon Jacobs

Silly idea, but how about if Yahoo increases it's value?

For example, Yahoo could stop being the spammer's BFF. Yahoo could create anti-spammer tools that would disrupt or even destroy many of the spammers' business models. I know Yahoo doesn't have the resources anymore, but they could ask us for help, and leverage some of our spammer dislike (and hatred) into an actual fondness for Yahoo. Silly idea, eh what?

The amusing part is that by reducing the spam, Yahoo could actually increase the value of the entire Internet along with their own value. ROFLMAO. Yahoo? Do something to make the world better?

Google SO CAN scan ALL BOOKS onto its sites - judge

Shannon Jacobs

Absolute power corrupts absolutely

Not saying this power is absolute, but the google is already far down the path of EVIL, especially in censorship, and I don't see how this new power is going to make things better. Guess who is going to decide what is included in the excerpts and what gets censored.

Hint: Guck foogle and the horse it rode in on.

(My theory is that much of the censorship targeted against me is due to my emotional and sincere use of profanity, but I learned it when I was supposedly serving my country. Well, most of it, and certainly the frequency was increased.)

Who! wants! cursed.com? Yahoo! flogs! domains! in! multimillion-dollar! sale!

Shannon Jacobs

Business model of domain squatting versus REAL value

I hate to beg for the upvotes, but how many of you think that Yahoo should focus on REAL value.

For a while I actually worked for a fellow who 'invested' a lot of the VC money in domain speculation. After a while I left and a while after that he went bankrupt. Yahoo is overdue.

My own favorite REAL investment for Yahoo would be to add some EFFECTIVE anti-spammer-business-model tools into Yahoo Mail. The basic idea would be to make it MUCH easier for people who hate spam to disrupt the spammers' business models.

Can you imagine how much value it would add to Yahoo Mail if the spammers were actually afraid of Yahoo because spamming there tended to lose money? I'm not advocating for vigilante tools, I just think we should be allowed to help with the targeting, especially faster targeting so that the spammers can't reach their suckers and get any money.

Then again, if I did have a button to push to nuke the spammers, I can't guarantee I wouldn't press it. At least not oftener than several times per second.

Shuttleworth sorry for 'Open source Tea Party' jibe

Shannon Jacobs

Linux needs better financial models

Pretty good example of what is wrong with the big donor financial model. When the big donor makes bad decisions, the project goes down. Rather late for Ubuntu, which has already suffered from far too many bad decisions. At one point I had high hopes that Ubuntu would become a viable competitor for Windows and iOS, but now I cannot recommend Ubuntu to anyone (though I still run it on at least three or four computers).

Rather than go into the weeds of what went wrong, let me just briefly refer to the economic model that I think would be better. I don't think there's anything wrong with Linux in a technical sense, but it is absolutely clear that the economic models used by Microsoft and Apple work, even in support of inferior software, whereas the economic model used by Ubuntu has not worked. I recommend "reverse auction charity shares", where the donors would in essence pool their donations to guide the specific direction of the software development.

'Nuff said.

Galaxy is CRAMMED with EARTH-LIKE WORLDS – also ALIENS (probably)

Shannon Jacobs

Re: Cool..but also oddly disturbing

My conclusion or belief is that they are out there, but after evolving into machine intelligences, they are basically just amused by watching the various solutions of the natural intelligences. In other words, I strongly suspect the evolution of the machine intelligences is convergent, but that they leave us alone, either because they don't care or because they are gambling on whether or not we will exterminate ourselves. I suppose another possibility is that they might occasionally intervene to prevent us from exterminating ourselves. (Maybe that's what happened when we almost went extinct about 50,000 years ago...)

In more detail, some of my old ramblings on the topic:

http://eco-epistemology.blogspot.jp/2007/08/resolution-of-fermi-paradox.html

We'll build Elon Musk's Hyperloop ... if you lob us ONE-MEELLION dollars

Shannon Jacobs

Fast horizontal elevator?

Interesting idea, but how often would you want to ride in what is essentially a fast horizontal elevator? I think it might more sense to rethink it in economic terms of network linkage where you can actually justify the cost in terms of sufficient numbers of human beings who have to move between points.

At least in my case, I certainly doubt that I would often want to ride an elevator for 30 minutes at a time.

Google burns promise of 'no big banner ads'. Don't Be Evil next?

Shannon Jacobs
Terminator

guck foogle

Can't blame you for being so afraid of the EVIL google 2.0 that you prefer the AC. There must be some reason why I don't care anymore.

At one point I used to like the google and think the company might even make the world a better place.

Now I regard the google as EVIL leaders, including in their lobbying expenses. The reality is that most businesspeople are not evil, but most businesspeople are not bribing the politicians. It is a small minority of the greediest and least ethical businessmen who are paying the cheapest professional politicians to write the laws that basically require all large American companies to become EVIL just to survive. Last reports I read said that the google is the leading legalized briber among high tech companies.

guck foogle, and twice on Sundays.

Google pulls all Android apps linked to adware badness THAT MUST NOT BE NAMED

Shannon Jacobs

the google is now officially EVIL

In theory, the google has the information to warn you if you may be at risk. In reality, guck foogle and the horse you rode in on.

Here's a related story from Japan. It's from a couple of months ago, which mostly proves that the google is too EVIL to fix or even look at such problems even AFTER the barn door has been left open.

Today I'm actually in the same prefecture where the criminals were arrested. There were (at least) 7 of them (as reported to the public), led by a poker shark, which I translate as a professional gambler and probably yakuza (a kind of professional criminal in Japan, sort of like being in a biker gang, but generally with better discipline). The scam involved a number of Android apps, some of which had apparently been available on the Google Play website for a long time. There were a variety of apps, none of which were labeled "software supporting crime". Surprise, surprise.

After the story hit the papers and Web, I actually contacted the police to see if they could identify the apps. The vague report indicated that several of them were games of the sort that I might have tried for the sake of Japanese study. I'm not surprised that the police couldn't answer, but I also pursued the matter with the google. I accept that the police are not especially competent when it comes to cyber-crime, but the google has no excuse save being EVIL.

By the way, I used to think it wasn't the google's fault. They are forced to play the game by American rules, which means according to laws that are written by the most easily bribed politicians working for the (tiny minority of) least ethical and greediest businessmen. Of course large American companies are basically forced to become evil just to survive. Then I found out that the google has become a large, probably the largest, lobbyist among high-tech companies. That is the google's fault. EVIL is as the google does.

Why not tell us if we are at risk for the crimes the google sponsored? Evidently because we don't work for the NSA.

America: Land of the free, still home of the BIGGEST spammers on the planet

Shannon Jacobs

The crowd HATES spam

I think this would basically work, but you would need to have an interface to SMTP email, and that side of the email would remain polluted. I think a better way to attack the spammers' business models would be an integrated anti-spam tool built into the email system.

Right now we have "Report spam" button that simply tunes the spam filters a bit. Imagine a "Hunt spam" button that would trigger an analysis of the spam. You would get a webform of your analyzed spam, with embedded radio buttons to confirm the analysis. You would confirm or reject the various results, and then submit, and it would send you another webform based on those results. The second analysis would be more refined, and it might go for several rounds until all of the aspects of the spam had been confirmed, and you had recommended the most plausible countermeasures.

Of course we shouldn't be allowed to form a lynch mob, but we can help with the targeting against the spammers. We can disrupt ALL of the spammers' infrastructure, pursue ALL of the spammers' accomplices, and help ALL of the spammers' victims. The profits of spam will go down, and the value of the Internet will go up.

Obamacare goes LIVE, and so do the survey-spewing spambots

Shannon Jacobs

This is not the spam your filter was looking for

That's why the spammers' love spam filtering. Live and let spam is the business motto of such incompetents as Yahoo and EVIL spam-lovers as the google. I'll give Microsoft a bit of credit for at least hitting on the spammers upstream.

Why doesn't anyone give US (the vast majority of people who hate spam and spammers) some integrated and effective spam-fighting tools? Don't you want to disrupt the spammers' infrastructure? Wouldn't you like to pursue all of the spammers' accomplices? How about helping the spammers' victims?

Actually, it doesn't matter if you personally say no. There are lots of good people who want to be better, and if we had the tools, we would make the spammers' lives much more miserable than they are. You may think that is difficult, but don't you even want to find out?

Yahoo! Finds! Cash! Behind! Sofa! For! Proper! Bug! Bounties!

Shannon Jacobs

Well, I suppose every little bandaid helps, but...

Why doesn't Yahoo go after the spammers' business models? Well, apart from their increasingly evident incompetence, maybe it's because they just don't have enough humanpower. So why don't they let us help?

Here's the numbers. There aren't that many spammers and they are hunting for an extremely small number of fools who feed them. In contrast, there are a VAST number of people who don't like, dare I say HATE, spam. If Yahoo leveraged the big number against the small ones, then the spammers could not make money. I'm not saying they would become decent human beings, but at least they would go looking for more profitable rocks to live under.

I'm suggesting integrated spam-fighting tools that would allow us to annotate the characteristics of the spam for the most suitable countermeasures. Of course they can't let us pull the triggers (talk about your instant lynch mobs), but at least we can help aim the weapons. Yahoo obviously can't do it alone, but I really want to help go after ALL of the spammers' infrastructure, pursue ALL of the spammers' accomplices, and help or protect ALL of the spammers' victims. (Well, maybe not quite all of the spammers' victims. I confess that there are some despicable companies that rather deserve abuse from the spammers--but that's okay. Insofar as those companies are not despicable to other people, I'm sure they'll get some help anyway and it's no skin off my nose, as they say.)

Analyst says Brit rail broadband plan is TRAIN CRAZY

Shannon Jacobs

Sounds crazy and backwards

The proper solution is to put a base station in each carriage. Perfect wireless signal all the time. The 'backbone' could either be handled with a wired connection, perhaps transmitted in the rails, or with an expansion of the same system the railway company uses to communicate with the drivers on the trains. If it is a wireless link, there's certainly no shortage of power there. Compared to the juice they need to move the trains, the communicates power would be a blip in the error term.

However, what I really want is a talking car where all the phone people can go. I want it so I can sit elsewhere. Unfortunately, I think if you put it to a vote of the passengers, you'd probably wind up with 9 talking cars full of NOISE for each quiet car.

Okay, now I have to go to far. How about USB electricity vending sockets on the talking cars?

500 MEELLION PCs still run Windows XP. How did we get here?

Shannon Jacobs

Blackmail as a business model, eh?

Life imitates art, and Microsoft must be imitating the neo-GOP in America. Blackmail is NOT the best way of doing business, but bean counters have no qualms about extortion if it seems to add shareholder value (or attract more lobbyists, in the Congressional case).

I've been using Windows 7 for a while now on a couple of machines. If I had the choice, I don't see any reason to do so. As far as I know, there is not a single new feature that I need or use. (There is one feature I do like and probably would use, but it is deliberately crippled by the ISP involved with that machine. However, even that feature is possible with Windows XP, though it's more difficult to do.)

In short, I'm only using Windows 7 because I was forced to adopt it. There is NOTHING there that would actually make me want to replace Windows XP. If Microsoft had the guts to offer the choice, I would probably be willing to pay a SMALL amount for improvements to Windows XP, but if Windows XP were competing FREELY against Windows 7, it would have to be a very small amount.

WIndows 8? Sorry, Microsoft, your extortion needs to be ramped up. However, I hate dealing with extortionists.

Google says it's sorry for Monday's hours-long Gmail delays

Shannon Jacobs

Let's fix the #1 problem with email: SPAM

Hey, here's a silly idea. Gmail doesn't need more capacity, it needs LESS spam. Why doesn't the google give us some powerful and effective anti-spam tools that allow us (the VAST majority of us who hate spam) help target and destroy the spammers' business models? If you cut them away from the few suckers who feed them money or personal data or zombie computers, then the spammers will not become decent human beings, but at least some of them will move under less visible rocks. Apart from their sociopathic greed, the spammers are also lazy bastards, and if you increase the required effort, many of them will look for easier scams.

Actually, I admit that Gmail has more anti-spammer tools than some of the other email systems. You could even argue that Gmail is the leading email system--but you'd have to twist and turn to find the justifications. For example, below is the link to one of their "best" anti-spammer tools, but if you study how it actually works, you have to conclude it is a piece of garbage compared to what it could be.

https://support.google.com/mail/contact/abuse

Tedious and effectively useless, but it could be made into something useful--though it has been substantially unchanged for as long as I can recall.

So why is the google so tolerant of spammers? I'm convinced it is because of the EVIL that has taken over the company. I used to think it mostly wasn't their fault. After all, the American legal system is written by the most easily corrupted politicians working for the least ethical and greediest businessmen. Of course the rules of the business game reward EVIL. Then I found out that the google is so EVIL as to be the leading lobbyist among tech firms. If you can't beat 'em, join in the EVIL game, eh?

How the internet turned ram-raiders into sophisticated fraudsters

Shannon Jacobs

Following the money to security

That's why Google Play should have a "financial model" tab in the Android app library. The developer should explain where the money is supposed to come from or why he is developing and offering this app, and Google should add a comment (that the developer cannot modify). It can be as vague or as specific as the developer wants to get, and Google doesn't have to say anything substantive about it. Here are some examples:

Example 1:

Developer: My revenue will come from the professional version of the app.

Google: For every 10 free versions, 3 professional versions have been downloaded.

Example 2:

Developer: My revenue will come from advertising.

Google: The developer is participating in our advertising program and has received revenue ranking him in the second quartile of advertising-based developers.

Example 3:

Developer: My application development is supported by Company X to support their hardware.

Google: We contacted Company X and did receive confirmation that this developer is receiving some funding, but no details.

Example 4:

Developer: I am independently wealthy and I'm creating this app out of the goodness of my heart.

Google: We have no evidence supporting this funding model.

London Underground cleaners to refuse fingerprint clock-on

Shannon Jacobs

Just what I was thinking

I'm okay with it as long as they let ME store MY personal data at MY specified location under MY specified disclosure policies. If someone wants to check ANY of MY personal information, first they should tell me why, and then MY preferences would control whether or not the access is granted.

As it would apply in this case, the hash code for my fingerprint would be stored on my system. When I clocked into their system, it would have to contact the system where MY data was stored and ask for permission to look at it. Their system would have to prove its identity and explain why they wanted to check it, and then I would (under normal circumstances) have granted the permission. Retention of MY personal information for ANY other purposes than those to which I agreed should be a crime.

Possession is nine points of the law. Wage slavery still a form of slavery.

Microsoft's $7.1bn Nokia gobble: Why you should expect the unexpected

Shannon Jacobs
Holmes

Kiss of Death

At least that's what came to mind as I considered the ramifications this morning... To the bean counters, the idea is trivial. They stick a number on the thing they want to buy, and then they see if they can buy it for less than that number. How can they deduct for Microsoft's abysmal track record in hardware? Especially small hardware?

Wait a minute? Did Microsoft ever make a profit on their mice?

Level 3 starts round 2 of layoffs: 60 UK workers to lose jobs

Shannon Jacobs
Holmes

As ye sow, so shall ye reap--SPAM

One of the best backbones--for the SPAMMERS. They've evolved to be especially good at ignoring reports of network abuse, the value of the Internet declines--and so does THEIR precious corporate value and profits.

Sorry, I hope every company with such tolerance of spammers goes down. Yahoo, are you listening?

You'd think Yahoo might be desperate enough to implement some powerful and effective anti-spammer tools. Not vigilante justice, but at least let us help with the targeting.

If anyone can convince me that the spammers add ANY positive value to anything, then I think I should buy someone a beer for spraining my brain.

'Kim Jong-un executes nork-baring ex and pals for love polygon skin flick'

Shannon Jacobs

Cult of Personality

That's how they refer to Stalin's religion. Odd coincidence of the day: I'm in the middle of Gorky Park, which heavily features the peculiarities of the Soviet Union, though some years after Stalin. In the recovery phase? However, I have some reservations since it seems the author (Martin Cruz Smith) doesn't actually speak any Russian. Notwithstanding questions about its historical or sociological accuracy, he does write well, and it's certainly been quite entertaining so far.

Thought the PC market couldn't get any worse? HAH! Think again

Shannon Jacobs

Lack of insight is depcressing? Wise crowds?

I was expecting to see more insight here and I am sorely disappointed. At least in the first page of comments all of my searches came up dry, and I'm scarcely motivated to search further. Ergo, let me state the obvious:

Touch interfaces suck, both absolutely and relative to the existing alternative of keyboards and mice and the future alternative of voice interfaces. Most users have enough common sense to figure this out, and THAT is the underlying reason Windows 8 shall die the big death.

Touch is good for certain things. For example, if the computers really could suck, then there are some people who would find that a major selling point. (Just a negative side effect of reading another of Ryu Murakami's books?) However, in general touch lacks utility, precision, and flexibility. Typing is quite accurate for text input and the finger is probably the least accurate pointing device, at least on the scale of computers. A bit speculative, but I do think that voice interfaces will mature in the future, which partly means more precision (based on context awareness) but mostly means more flexibility and intelligence. I definitely expect to live long enough to work with computers that emulate human assistants, at least for basic stuff.

In conclusion, if I were a speculator I would be betting strongly AGAINST touch interfaces, but especially on the long term. Even on the recent short term, it is clear there was money to be made in shorting them...

Tesla cars 'hackable' says Dell engineer

Shannon Jacobs
Holmes

Already a bit late

How do you think Michael Hastings was murdered? Hint: Start with the source code for all of the car's electronic systems, including the brakes, accelerators, GPS controls, wireless network, and of course the airbags, windows, and door locks. Make the evidence go away? Just run the hack from volatile memory so it disappears as soon as the power is lost. Chain of command to trace? Sorry, it was just an independent contractor operating on his own initiative. No orders given, none received, no reports filed. Just a wink and a nudge, and probably a bonus for unspecified special services on behalf of "national security". Nothing to see here.

Remember, he was not drunk or chemically impaired. He was a cautious driver. And his leg was fractured from stomping on the brake pedal very hard. Obviously to no effect. Can't you just wait for the self-driving cars?

Me? No thanks.