Tonight I noticed this new behavior from Rogers. I setup to use OpenDNS and opted out of everything. Problem solved?
Not really...
At some point over the last few months Safari started taking me to google if I made a mistake in address field (or purposefully typed a search rather than a website). I really liked this as I use google all the time.
After switching to OpenDNS, I now get the old Safari page that offers google as an optional search. To activate this search I have to click on the link rather than being taken directly to google with the search already run (as was the case up until this new behavior from Rogers).
Has anyone else seen this behavior?
BTW: I'm guessing the reason the "highly technical users" stop complaining is not that they get used to the service, rather that they switch to other DNS providers.
Reading these comments makes it clear that there is a division of opinion of the "privacy" afforded by the constitution thus far. One of the basic elements of the constitution is that it is a "living" document which may be amended as required thru time. In this case, I believe it may be time (perhaps well past time) that a specific privacy amendment be added.
This example is but one of many that hi-lights a sea change in our innate ability to maintain privacy (or anonymity) in our daily lives. While it might be possible for someone to be seen walking about hundreds of years ago, the actual chance of being "seen" would be very low unless one was the subject of an ongoing investigation. A reasonable person could thus conclude that their mundane comings and goings were private even if they interacted with folks along the way.
Today, the surveillance apparatus that has grown up all around us leads a reasonable person to realize that nothing they do in public can be assumed to be private. Information about one's daily comings and goings is not just available after one is the focus of an investigation. Indeed, we all live in an Orwellian microscope where the entirety of our public conduct is retroactively available to the authorities on a whim.
I submit that this is the essence of a totalitarian state.
I can completely understand the benefits we all get when "bad people" can be brought to justice due to our ability to track their actions easily. Nonetheless, this ability should be specifically controlled and managed by legislation to ensure that the government may not apply it arbitrarily or capriciously.
In short, I'm quite sure it is not possible to have liberty without first having privacy.
This is similar to what happens in a challenge-response system. In these cases, you send an email to someone and then get an email back that requires you to pass a "test" similar to that one you've described here.
It turns out that many people find these "challenges" offensive. I must admit that I don't really understand this feeling.
Microsoft and others have proposed that for every message that is delivered the sender's computer must solve a mathematical "puzzle" posed by the receiving computer. All of this would be done automatically. If you were sending mail to a dozen of your friends, you wouldn't even be noticed your computer "answering" these puzzles.
On the other hand, as a spammer, you would not be able to send out enough spam per minute (because your computer would have to solve a puzzle for each piece of spam).
The "computational cost" of sending email in this system would, in theory, put an end to spam. Its important to note that this "cost" is very different from the monetary costs being proposed by AOL and others.
I completely agree that whitelisting is subject to emails with forged From addresses. Perhaps if a large enough percentage of folks start using whitelisting, spammers will counter in this way. Until then, as was mentioned, viruses would seem to be the largest culprit.
I also think that anyone considering joining our service has to factor in that we have not been around too long. My only counter is that everyone has to start somewhere. As for "professional" services: we certainly feel we're professional. Our use of "cartoon-like" graphics may seem whimsical; we do, perhaps, lack a well developed sense of somberness.
We feel our service is an innovative way to support whitelists. Other services we've reviewed use a challenge-response system to support email from people and organizations that are not already on their members' whitelists. We avoid this by providing a simple web based method to send that first email.
If you rule out the following options for dealing with spam: challenge-response systems, Blue Security's method, and cost based email, what's left?
We noticed that even the best Bayesian and other filtering systems result in false positives that cause us to "dumpster-dive" routinely in order to ensure that no "good" email is lost.
Should we (as some seem to be attempting to do) joint sheltered email networks that vet their members and sanction those who start spamming?
Do any of you have other ideas?
Perhaps the most galling thing in all of this is various governments' support of spam as a viable marketing method that should be protected. In addition to the time that spam costs us it also burdens the internet as a whole and so costs us all in real terms as more bandwidth and physical facilities have to be added to "support" it.
I followed this entire story with interest. The idea of "hitting back" against spammers certainly sits well with me on a visceral level.
Spammers waste the most precious commodity any of us have: our time. Worst yet, they do so in order to scam money from folks who likely have very little and are by definition easy marks.
We have a new service designed to eliminate SPAM from our members' lives.
The idea is dead simple: You set up a whitelist of your contacts and organizations. Email from everyone else gets junked (or better yet deleted).
You direct other folks you come in contact with to our website. They contact you that way and are thus guaranteed a free ride to your inbox. Finally, you decide to whether to add them to your whitelist so that they may email normally there after.
Re: Re: You know...
Hmm...
I think Helmet knows that. I think that's the idea!
Safari whoas and Rogers
Tonight I noticed this new behavior from Rogers. I setup to use OpenDNS and opted out of everything. Problem solved?
Not really...
At some point over the last few months Safari started taking me to google if I made a mistake in address field (or purposefully typed a search rather than a website). I really liked this as I use google all the time.
After switching to OpenDNS, I now get the old Safari page that offers google as an optional search. To activate this search I have to click on the link rather than being taken directly to google with the search already run (as was the case up until this new behavior from Rogers).
Has anyone else seen this behavior?
BTW: I'm guessing the reason the "highly technical users" stop complaining is not that they get used to the service, rather that they switch to other DNS providers.
Cheers and TIA,
Bruce.
Time for a new amendment?
Perhaps it is time for a new amendment?
Reading these comments makes it clear that there is a division of opinion of the "privacy" afforded by the constitution thus far. One of the basic elements of the constitution is that it is a "living" document which may be amended as required thru time. In this case, I believe it may be time (perhaps well past time) that a specific privacy amendment be added.
This example is but one of many that hi-lights a sea change in our innate ability to maintain privacy (or anonymity) in our daily lives. While it might be possible for someone to be seen walking about hundreds of years ago, the actual chance of being "seen" would be very low unless one was the subject of an ongoing investigation. A reasonable person could thus conclude that their mundane comings and goings were private even if they interacted with folks along the way.
Today, the surveillance apparatus that has grown up all around us leads a reasonable person to realize that nothing they do in public can be assumed to be private. Information about one's daily comings and goings is not just available after one is the focus of an investigation. Indeed, we all live in an Orwellian microscope where the entirety of our public conduct is retroactively available to the authorities on a whim.
I submit that this is the essence of a totalitarian state.
I can completely understand the benefits we all get when "bad people" can be brought to justice due to our ability to track their actions easily. Nonetheless, this ability should be specifically controlled and managed by legislation to ensure that the government may not apply it arbitrarily or capriciously.
In short, I'm quite sure it is not possible to have liberty without first having privacy.
Re: Re: Re: Re: New Service Fights SPAM
Sounds like we may end up leaning toward Stephen's suggestion: Implement SPF, DomainKeys.
If I understand it correctly, this method guarantees that email was sent from the sender it purports to come from...
One problem with this might be that if the sender's computer is infected with a "spamming" virus, it would likely send out properly encoded email.
What about the math puzzle approach?
http://NokNokNumber.com/100-0012
Re: What about some form of handshake?
This is similar to what happens in a challenge-response system. In these cases, you send an email to someone and then get an email back that requires you to pass a "test" similar to that one you've described here.
It turns out that many people find these "challenges" offensive. I must admit that I don't really understand this feeling.
Microsoft and others have proposed that for every message that is delivered the sender's computer must solve a mathematical "puzzle" posed by the receiving computer. All of this would be done automatically. If you were sending mail to a dozen of your friends, you wouldn't even be noticed your computer "answering" these puzzles.
On the other hand, as a spammer, you would not be able to send out enough spam per minute (because your computer would have to solve a puzzle for each piece of spam).
The "computational cost" of sending email in this system would, in theory, put an end to spam. Its important to note that this "cost" is very different from the monetary costs being proposed by AOL and others.
http://NokNokNumber.com/100-0012
Re: New Service Fights SPAM
I completely agree that whitelisting is subject to emails with forged From addresses. Perhaps if a large enough percentage of folks start using whitelisting, spammers will counter in this way. Until then, as was mentioned, viruses would seem to be the largest culprit.
I also think that anyone considering joining our service has to factor in that we have not been around too long. My only counter is that everyone has to start somewhere. As for "professional" services: we certainly feel we're professional. Our use of "cartoon-like" graphics may seem whimsical; we do, perhaps, lack a well developed sense of somberness.
We feel our service is an innovative way to support whitelists. Other services we've reviewed use a challenge-response system to support email from people and organizations that are not already on their members' whitelists. We avoid this by providing a simple web based method to send that first email.
If you rule out the following options for dealing with spam: challenge-response systems, Blue Security's method, and cost based email, what's left?
We noticed that even the best Bayesian and other filtering systems result in false positives that cause us to "dumpster-dive" routinely in order to ensure that no "good" email is lost.
Should we (as some seem to be attempting to do) joint sheltered email networks that vet their members and sanction those who start spamming?
Do any of you have other ideas?
Perhaps the most galling thing in all of this is various governments' support of spam as a viable marketing method that should be protected. In addition to the time that spam costs us it also burdens the internet as a whole and so costs us all in real terms as more bandwidth and physical facilities have to be added to "support" it.
http://NokNokNumber.com/100-0012
New Service Fights SPAM
I followed this entire story with interest. The idea of "hitting back" against spammers certainly sits well with me on a visceral level.
Spammers waste the most precious commodity any of us have: our time. Worst yet, they do so in order to scam money from folks who likely have very little and are by definition easy marks.
We have a new service designed to eliminate SPAM from our members' lives.
The idea is dead simple: You set up a whitelist of your contacts and organizations. Email from everyone else gets junked (or better yet deleted).
You direct other folks you come in contact with to our website. They contact you that way and are thus guaranteed a free ride to your inbox. Finally, you decide to whether to add them to your whitelist so that they may email normally there after.
If you want to email me on this, try it out!
Email: http://NokNokNumber.com/100-0012