Posted 8:57 AM (0) comments

Duh!

To stop spam, stop replying. That's what PCWorld is reporting that Australia's Net industry will be saying to users who feed the spam problem by buying spammers' goods. Laws, filters and guerrilla attacks on the spammers hasn't worked so now Australia's Internet Industry Association will launch a campaign (backed by Microsoft, Yahoo, America Online, and a number of international consumer and privacy organizations) to inform readers of the root cause of the flood of spam - its successful, it makes money because people respond and buy stuff. Stop buying and you drive the spammers out of business.

You might as well stop, those "little blue pills" don't work, any way!

Posted 8:40 AM (0) comments

ISDM? No, not a misprint.

According to this story in The Register (with the really odd title "IT services at work are pants") New workers wait weeks for PCs and help.  In a study sponsored by IT services software firm newScale, US workers report that it can take several weeks after starting a new job to get the computer equipment they needed to perform their job functions. NewScale is looking to promote software to exploit a new niche called "internal service delivery management", but a little dose of what now must be considered "old-fashioned" provisioning software should do the trick. There's really no need to create a new tool when the old one does the job and does it well.

Posted 4:23 PM (0) comments

Maybe John Ashcroft will arrest Bill Gates! [Update 9/25]

In what has to be one of the dumbest reports to come out of Washington, D.C. in years, the Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA) has released the FUD-based Report: Widespread use of Microsoft software poses security risk. Of course, when you realize that it was bankrolled by Sun, Oracle and other "I Hate Redmond" software vendors, it begins to make more sense. These folks couldn't beat Microsoft in the marketplace. The anti-trust settlement did nothing to guarantee them sales so now they want the government to force Microsoft to develop application for non-Windows platforms. No longer is their mantra "diversity" or "competition", though. Now its "security" and "terrorists"! Yep, if you let Microsoft win then the terrorists win. And you'd believe Scott McNealy and Larry Ellison when they told you that, right?

But its not Microsoft's fault, says co-author Bruce Schneier (whom I've never known to pass up a chance to bash Microsoft in the past). Nope, its you who are to blame, the people who buy the software! "I think the blame falls mostly on the buyers," said Schneier. "Because everyone is buying it, because it's compatible, because it's easy, everyone is doing it. The point of the report is to say, 'Hey, there are security implications to your decision.'" Un huh. And if you buy that argument, I've got a bridge I want you to look at.

[Update] A story in the Washington Post quotes Edward J. Black, president of CCIA, as saying that Microsoft's reaction to the report "if anything, underlines the importance and credibility of the report and its authors." So if I tell half-truths about you, and you deny them (as well as criticize my methodology), that validates the charges? Which universe does Mr. Black live in?

Posted 8:25 AM (0) comments

The grass is always greener, or something like that [Updated 9/23]

I'll admit that I always find it easier to solve someone else's problem than to make the hard decisions on my own problems and evidently I'm not alone. ICANN, perhaps trying to divert attention from its new agreement with the US Commerce Department, has now askedVeriSign to suspend its now redirection service for mis-typed .com and .net URLs. Whole hoards of folks are upset with Verisign - but most of them are upset because a) they didn't think of it themselves or (especially) b) they did think of it, but Verisign's move preempts them.

And anyone who calls what Verisign is doing "cybersquatting" is an automatic candidate for a good editor. Verisign is providing a service whereas cybersquatters claim unused "virtual estate" and attempt to hold it for ransom. If you can't get your terms right then I feel no compunction to listen to any of your argument.

[Update]

Verisign has now politely told ICANN to mind their own business while the Internet Architecture Board (IAB), in a report released late last week, criticized Verisign but also revealed that a number of other top level domain administrators had previously instituted similar services - mostly in the country code domains (e.g., .US, .UK, .JP, etc.). So it isn't as if Verisign was setting a precedent.