Posted 4:50 PM (0) comments

6 Simple Rules for Living on my Computer

With all the fuss these days about spyware, sleazeware, and adware, Google has decided to be proactive and attempt to formulate a set of "good practice" rules for internet advertisers and software vendors. Simplified, the 6 are:

1) Software should not trick you into installing it.
2) When an application is installed or enabled, it should inform you of its principal and significant functions.
3) It should be easy for you to figure out how to disable or delete an application.
4) Applications that affect or change your user experience should make clear they are the reason for those changes.
5) If an application collects or transmits your personal information such as your address, you should know.
6) Application providers should not allow their products to be bundled with applications that do not meet these guidelines.

If this were from anyone else, you think think they were being disingenuous, but somehow Google, the company whoose mission statement is "do no harm", can get away with it. Bravo!

Posted 2:17 PM (0) comments

Wanna buy a username?

Mark Phillips at C|net has a rather naif column this week called"Who owns your e-mail address?" Its about spam, the end of email and suing but the title question really set me off. Because nobody "owns" your email address. Its simply an identifier just as any other username (network, web site, database, et al) is. Or your social security number. No one "owns" that, its an identifier which uniquely identifies you. No more, no less. Some things are owned. Some were owned, but no longer are (who owns "aspirin", for example). And some things never were owned and never will be (who owns the Pacific Ocean?).

Posted 9:19 AM (0) comments

Liars, damned liars and poll-takers

Interesting story in the Register ("ID card backlash: is the poll tax effect kicking in?") about two polls, commissioned by opposing groups, concerning the proposed national ID card in the United Kingdom. Not only are the numbers vastly different between the two polls, but each has oddly divergent numbers within its own study. People who support (or not) the ID cards give quite different answers when asked about individual identity items -

"Most (47 per cent versus 41 per cent) don't want to have to tell the government when they change their address, and 24 per cent strongly oppose revealing it in the first place (So perhaps they'd care to revolt against passports and driving licences? But never mind...)."

the moral of the story is that polls are generally not worth the digital bits used to write the press release about them.

Posted 2:48 PM (1) comments

A Better Thing to Do

Congress, which has been seemingly blackmailed into launching an investigation of electronic voting might better spend its time going on the record as regards trademarks and search engines. Geico, the auto insurance company controlled by Warren Buffet, is suing Google and Overture for allegedly violating its trademarks by selling them as keywords in their advertising programs.

No one ever (successfully) sued the phone company for placing competitors' ads next to yellow pages listings. No one ever (successfully) sued a newspaper or magazine for placing an ad near a story about a competing company.

There's simply no basis for the Geico suit. Its a waste of the court's time and my money, because the costs of this suit will be borne by the stockholders and customers of the organizations involved. In fact, when the judge throws out the suit (as any jurist with half a brain should), Geico's shareholders should sue the company for misuse of fiduciary trust, bringing the company name into disrepute and, generally, being know-nothing bozos. And the sooner congress steps up to address frivolous lawsuits like this the better off we'll be and the better off our economy will be.

Posted 9:01 AM (0) comments

Misunderstood? Update 5/20

The BBC reports that an anonymous group is raising funds to aid virus writer Sven Jaschan, the author of Sasser. Called the "Sasser Support Team", the group claims that "Sasser was intended as a harmless wake-up call to the world,Sven did the right thing by making this alarm call."

Sorry, but a hotel's front desk doesn't send a wake-up call by setting the hotel on fire. There are better, less destructive methods to do so. And you don't call attention to exploitable weaknesses (especially those that already have patches available) by unleashing a destructive worm on the internet. Jaschan is, at best, a naive imbecile who needs to be locked up for his own good as well as society's. At worst, he deserves all of the punishments available from every country in which his little project broke the law.

"It ain't just a question of misunderstood;
Deep down inside him, he's no good! "
-Stephen Sondheim, "Gee Officer Krupke", West Side Story

UPDATE: The BBC reports that the group has been shutdown by PayPal after collecting approx. $100. The organizers, though, claim they weren't able to find a way to get the money to Jaschan so that he could spend it on "cigarettes and whiskey" before going to jail. Bizarre? Possinly, but pathetic? Most certainly.

Posted 9:08 AM (0) comments

Innuendo - or In From Windows? [update 5/20]

The Alexis de Tocqueville Institution (a.k.a., Ken Brown),has issued a press release touting a report which won't be available until next week, and then only as excerpts until the book-length report is issued. Sounds like a marketing campaign to me. The purpose is to attempt to smear the name of Linus Torvolds ("Torvalds claim to 'invent' Linux probably false, says new study") while painting the entire open source movement as theives and liars. This is all implied or stated in the press release without a scintilla of proof being offered.

Anyone want to wager that the "report" will offer more charges without proof, but that the proof will be promised in the book? Alexis de Tocqueville Institution, by the way, are the same folks (is the same folk?) who earlier released a report claiming that open source software was aiding and abetting terrorists in their activities. Microsoft has confirmed that they provide the funding to AdTI.

Groklaw has a good breakdown of the press release.

UPDATE: The Register has a fascinating story about the "report" which may or may not have been released today. The quotes from Linus Torvolds mentor about the interview he gave to AdTI's Ken Brown is priceless humor!