(Things I found interesting recently.)
Bruce Sterling: 10 Technologies That Deserve to Die. I can’t disagree with any of these, really — except for manned spaceflight — I’m not giving up on that one dammit! ;)
Very informative details of what happened with the NY power failure, from an insider at one of the nuke plants supplying power.
Hooray — my new Gamecube’s arrived!
Neal Stephenson’s new book upends geek chic — Paul Boutin, Slate. Three thousand pages?! Yeesh.
find-hidden-word-text – a command-line UNIX tool to ease the task of discovering hidden text in MS Word documents.
More specifically, it is an implementation of Method 2 from Simon Byers’ paper, Scalable Exploitation of, and Responses to Information Leakage Through Hidden Data in Published Documents.
In other words, it’ll display just the hidden text (if any exists) in Word docs. Go forth and discover accidental leaks!
So a few months ago, I setup a cookie-producing mailto honeypot page at foojlist.php.
Well, I just got the first bite — and it’s a live one. It’s our old
friends at artprice.com. They’re a French spamhaus, operating from
Saint-Romain-au-Mont-d’Or, France, and reports claim that it’s all the
work of one guy — Thierry Ehrmann.
There’s lots of reports in USENET, and here’s their SBL listing, noting ‘extremely intense french spam source.’
This posting to NANAE notes that Colt France are not responding to complaints about them, either — but notes that ‘in France collecting e-mail addresses with the intention to send commercial mails without permission of the holders can be punished by law (article 226-18 of the Code Pe’nal – up to 5 years of prison or 300.000 euro)’. Interesting!
Full details of the spam, and the access_log entries from their web-scraper’s accesses, are attached.
Here’s the spam:
Received: from mail1.artmarket.com (mail1.artmarket.com [194.242.43.183]) by dogma.slashnull.org (8.11.6/8.11.6) wixh ESMTP id h8SLJZV12710 for < ( email addr deleted ) @fooj.jmason.org>; Sun, 28 Sep 2003 22:19:35 +0100 Date: Sun, 28 Sep 2003 22:19:35 +0100 Message-Id: (spam-protected) From: A R T (spam-protected) To: < ( email addr deleted ) @fooj.jmason.org> Subject: [adv] 1700 - 2003 Story of the Art Market MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit <HTML><HEAD> <TITLE>Artists search engine by Artprice TM - copyright Artprice.com</TITLE> <META http-equiv=''Content-Type'' content=''text/html; charset=iso-8859-1''> <META name=''UNSUB'' content=''<!--26398522_1-->''> <META name=''ROBOTS'' content=''NOINDEX''> </HEAD> <BODY bgcolor=''#FFFFFF'' text=''#000000''> <TABLE cellspacing=''0'' cellpadding=''0'' align=''center'' border=''0''> <TR> <TD><IMG src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/affil.gif''></TD> <TD><IMG" src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/search.gif''></TD> <TD><IMG" src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/fs.gif''></TD> <TD><IMG" src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/ind.gif''></TD> <TD><A" href="''http://www.artistbiography.com/''><IMG" src="'http://web.artprice.com/img/bio.gif'" border=''0''></A></TD> <TD><IMG src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/sig.gif''></TD> <TD><A" href="''http://web.artprice.com''><IMG" src="'http://web.artprice.com/img/Home.gif'" border=''0''></A></TD> <TD><IMG src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/Mediums/G.gif''></TD> <TD><IMG" src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/ps.gif''></TD> <TD><IMG" src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/Mediums/C.gif''></TD> <TD><A" href="''http://web.artprice.com''><IMG" src="'http://web.artprice.com/img/Home.gif'" border=''0''></A></TD> <TD><IMG src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/Mediums/I.gif''></TD> <TD><IMG" src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/sig.gif''></TD> <TD><IMG" src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/Mediums/J.gif''></TD> <TD><IMG" src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/fs.gif''></TD> <TD><IMG" src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/Mediums/C.gif''></TD> <TD><IMG" src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/Mediums/I.gif''></TD> <TD" align=''center'' bgcolor=''#FF0000''><B>A</B></TD> <TD><IMG src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/map.gif''></TD> <TD" align=''center'' bgcolor=''#FF0000''><B>R</B></TD> <TD><IMG src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/HelpBlack.gif''></TD> <TD><IMG" src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/search.gif''></TD> <TD><IMG" src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/AMI/AMInsight.gif''></TD> </TR> <TR>" <TD><IMG src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/Shop.gif''></TD> <TD><A" href="''http://web.artprice.com/corporate/EN/Visite/pages/nb.htm''><IMG" src="'http://web.artprice.com/img/HelpBlack.gif'" border=''0''></A></TD> <TD align=''center'' bgcolor=''#FF0000''><B>T</B></TD> <TD><IMG src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/map.gif''></TD> <TD><IMG" src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/today.gif''></TD> <TD><IMG" src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/Mediums/E.gif''></TD> <TD><IMG" src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/Mediums/F.gif''></TD> <TD" align=''center'' bgcolor=''#FF0000''><B>P</B></TD> <TD><IMG src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/map.gif''></TD> <TD><IMG" src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/search.gif''></TD> <TD><IMG" src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/Mediums/C.gif''></TD> <TD><IMG" src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/ind.gif''></TD> <TD><IMG" src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/Shop.gif''></TD> <TD><IMG" src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/Mediums/F.gif''></TD> <TD><IMG" src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/Mediums/G.gif''></TD> <TD><IMG" src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/ind.gif''></TD> <TD><IMG" src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/Home.gif''></TD> <TD><IMG" src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/today.gif''></TD> <TD><IMG" src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/map.gif''></TD> <TD><IMG" src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/Mediums/D.gif''></TD> <TD><IMG" src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/Mediums/F.gif''></TD> <TD><IMG" src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/sig.gif''></TD> <TD><IMG" src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/Mediums/A.gif''></TD> </TR> <TR>" <TD><IMG src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/Mediums/B.gif''></TD> <TD><IMG" src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/Mediums/D.gif''></TD> <TD><IMG" src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/Mediums/G.gif''></TD> <TD><IMG" src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/Mediums/H.gif''></TD> <TD><IMG" src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/Mediums/I.gif''></TD> <TD><IMG" src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/Mediums/J.gif''></TD> <TD><IMG" src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/Mediums/J.gif''></TD> <TD><IMG" src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/Mediums/J.gif''></TD> <TD><IMG" src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/Mediums/C.gif''></TD> <TD" align=''center'' bgcolor=''#FF0000''><B>R</B></TD> <TD><IMG src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/Mediums/I.gif''></TD> <TD><IMG" src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/Account.gif''></TD> <TD><IMG" src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/map.gif''></TD> <TD><IMG" src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/Mediums/C.gif''></TD> <TD><IMG" src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/ind.gif''></TD> <TD" align=''center'' bgcolor=''#FF0000''><B>I</B></TD> <TD><IMG src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/contact.gif''></TD> <TD><A" href="''http://web.artprice.com/corporate/EN/Visite/pages/3818.htm''><IMG" src="'http://web.artprice.com/img/HelpBlack.gif'" border=''0''></A></TD> <TD><IMG src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/Mediums/I.gif''></TD> <TD><IMG" src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/map.gif''></TD> <TD><IMG" src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/today.gif''></TD> <TD" align=''center'' bgcolor=''#FF0000''><B>C</B></TD> <TD><IMG src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/Mediums/L.gif''></TD> </TR> <TR>" <TD><IMG src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/Mediums/D.gif''></TD> <TD" align=''center'' bgcolor=''#FF0000''><B>E</B></TD> <TD><IMG src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/map.gif''></TD> <TD" align=''center'' bgcolor=''#FF0000''><B>C</B></TD> <TD align=''center'' bgcolor=''#FF0000''><B>O</B></TD> <TD align=''center'' bgcolor=''#FF0000''><B>M</B></TD> <TD><IMG src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/Shop.gif''></TD> <TD><IMG" src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/ind.gif''></TD> <TD><IMG" src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/Mediums/G.gif''></TD> <TD><IMG" src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/Home.gif''></TD> <TD><IMG" src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/search.gif''></TD> <TD><IMG" src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/map.gif''></TD> <TD><IMG" src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/sig.gif''></TD> <TD><IMG" src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/Home.gif''></TD> <TD><IMG" src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/fs.gif''></TD> <TD><IMG" src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/contact.gif''></TD> <TD><IMG" src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/Mediums/I.gif''></TD> <TD><IMG" src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/contact.gif''></TD> <TD><IMG" src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/ps.gif''></TD> <TD><IMG" src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/Mediums/H.gif''></TD> <TD><IMG" src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/Account.gif''></TD> <TD><IMG" src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/map.gif''></TD> <TD><IMG" src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/search.gif''></TD> </TR> <TR>" <TD><IMG src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/Mediums/J.gif''></TD> <TD><IMG" src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/Mediums/B.gif''></TD> <TD><IMG" src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/Mediums/C.gif''></TD> <TD><IMG" src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/Mediums/J.gif''></TD> <TD><IMG" src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/bio.gif''></TD> <TD><IMG" src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/Shop.gif''></TD> <TD><IMG" src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/Account.gif''></TD> <TD><IMG" src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/today.gif''></TD> <TD><IMG" src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/affil.gif''></TD> <TD><IMG" src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/Account.gif''></TD> <TD><A" href="''http://www.artprice.net''><IMG" src="'http://web.artprice.com/img/map.gif'" border=''0''></A></TD> <TD><IMG src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/Mediums/B.gif''></TD> <TD><IMG" src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/Mediums/L.gif''></TD> <TD><IMG" src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/map.gif''></TD> <TD><IMG" src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/Mediums/F.gif''></TD> <TD><IMG" src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/bio.gif''></TD> <TD><IMG" src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/Shop.gif''></TD> <TD><IMG" src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/Mediums/B.gif''></TD> <TD" align=''center''><A href="''http://www.art-online.com''> </A></TD> <TD><IMG" src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/Mediums/C.gif''></TD> <TD><IMG" src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/Home.gif''></TD> <TD><IMG" src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/Mediums/J.gif''></TD> <TD><IMG" src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/ps.gif''></TD> </TR> <TR>" <TD><IMG src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/Mediums/J.gif''></TD> <TD><IMG" src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/Mediums/J.gif''></TD> <TD><IMG" src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/Mediums/F.gif''></TD> <TD><IMG" src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/fs.gif''></TD> <TD><A" href="''http://www.americanartists.com/''><IMG" src="'http://web.artprice.com/img/bio.gif'" border=''0''></A></TD> <TD align=''center'' bgcolor=''#000000''><B><FONT color=''#FF0000''>A</FONT></B></TD> <TD><IMG src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/Mediums/B.gif''></TD> <TD><IMG" src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/Home.gif''></TD> <TD><A" href="''http://web.artprice.com/corporate/EN/Visite/pages/arch02.htm''><IMG" src="'http://web.artprice.com/img/HelpBlack.gif'" border=''0''></A></TD> <TD><IMG src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/Shop.gif''></TD> <TD><IMG" src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/affil.gif''></TD> <TD" align=''center''><B><FONT color=''#FF0000''>R</FONT></B></TD> <TD><IMG src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/sig.gif''></TD> <TD><IMG" src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/Account.gif''></TD> <TD><IMG" src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/Mediums/I.gif''></TD> <TD" align=''center''><B><FONT color=''#FF0000''>T</FONT></B></TD> <TD><IMG src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/Mediums/J.gif''></TD> <TD><IMG" src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/Mediums/C.gif''></TD> <TD><IMG" src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/affil.gif''></TD> <TD><A" href="''http://web.artprice.com/corporate/EN/Visite/pages/3834.htm''><IMG" src="'http://web.artprice.com/img/HelpBlack.gif'" border=''0''></A></TD> <TD><IMG src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/Mediums/H.gif''></TD> <TD><IMG" src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/Shop.gif''></TD> <TD><IMG" src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/search.gif''></TD> </TR> <TR>" <TD><IMG src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/bio.gif''></TD> <TD><IMG" src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/ps.gif''></TD> <TD" align=''center'' bgcolor=''#FF0000''><B><FONT color=''#000000''>M</FONT></B></TD> <TD><IMG src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/Mediums/C.gif''></TD> <TD><IMG" src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/fs.gif''></TD> <TD><IMG" src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/ps.gif''></TD> <TD><IMG" src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/ps.gif''></TD> <TD" align=''center''><B>A</B></TD> <TD><IMG src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/map.gif''></TD> <TD><IMG" src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/ps.gif''></TD> <TD" align=''center''><B>R</B></TD> <TD><IMG src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/Mediums/B.gif''></TD> <TD><IMG" src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/Mediums/F.gif''></TD> <TD" align=''center''><B>K</B></TD> <TD><IMG src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/ps.gif''></TD> <TD><A" href="''http://www.artprice.de''><IMG" src="'http://web.artprice.com/img/Home.gif'" border=''0''></A></TD> <TD><IMG src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/Shop.gif''></TD> <TD" align=''center''><B>E</B></TD> <TD><IMG src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/Mediums/B.gif''></TD> <TD><IMG" src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/ind.gif''></TD> <TD><IMG" src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/ps.gif''></TD> <TD" align=''center''><B>T</B></TD> <TD><A href="''http://web.artprice.com/corporate/EN/Visite/pages/jb02.htm''><IMG" src="'http://web.artprice.com/img/HelpBlack.gif'" border=''0''></A></TD> </TR> <TR> <TD><IMG src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/contact.gif''></TD> <TD><IMG" src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/Mediums/G.gif''></TD> <TD><IMG" src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/ind.gif''></TD> <TD><IMG" src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/contact.gif''></TD> <TD><IMG" src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/Mediums/J.gif''></TD> <TD><IMG" src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/ind.gif''></TD> <TD><IMG" src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/map.gif''></TD> <TD><IMG" src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/affil.gif''></TD> <TD" align=''center''><B>C</B></TD> <TD><IMG src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/Mediums/D.gif''></TD> <TD><IMG" src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/sig.gif''></TD> <TD><A" href="''http://www.13thcenturyart.com/''><IMG" src="'http://web.artprice.com/img/HelpBlack.gif'" border=''0''></A></TD> <TD><IMG src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/Home.gif''></TD> <TD><IMG" src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/Mediums/E.gif''></TD> <TD><IMG" src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/affil.gif''></TD> <TD" align=''center''><B>O</B></TD> <TD><IMG src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/Account.gif''></TD> <TD><IMG" src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/Mediums/D.gif''></TD> <TD><IMG" src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/Mediums/J.gif''></TD> <TD><IMG" src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/ind.gif''></TD> <TD" align=''center''><B>M</B></TD> <TD><IMG src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/Mediums/I.gif''></TD> <TD><IMG" src="''http://web.artprice.com/img/bio.gif''></TD> </TR> </TABLE> <BR><BR><BR> <TABLE" border=''0'' bgcolor=''#FFFFFF'' align=''center''><TR> <FORM method=get action=''http://web.artprice.com/en/artistsearch.aspx''><TD> <A href="''http://web.artprice.com''> <IMG" src="'http://web.artprice.com/Img/B/artprice_140.gif'" align=''absmiddle'' border=''0'' alt=''artprice''></A> <INPUT type=text name=searcharti size=39> <INPUT type=submit value=''OK'' style=''CURSOR: hand''> <INPUT type=hidden name=l value=en> </TD> </FORM> </TR></TABLE> <CENTER> <FONT size=''1'' face=''Arial''> THE WORLD LEADER IN ART MARKET INFORMATION - WELT-LEADER IN KUNSTMARKT-INFOS <BR>LEADER MONDIAL DE L'INFORMATION SUR LE MARCHE DE L'ART</FONT> </CENTER> <BR><BR><BR> <BR><BR><BR> <BR><BR><BR> <BR><BR><BR> <BR><BR><BR> <BR><BR><BR> <BR><BR><BR> <TABLE cellspacing=''3'' background=''http://web.artprice.com/Img/B/pixBl.gif''> <TR> <TD> <FONT face=''Arial'' size=''1''> <b>To remove</b> your email: (spam-protected) please click below:<br><a href="'http://list.artaddiction.com/?m=(email_address_hidden)%40fooj.jmason.org'> (spam-protected) </a><br> In" case the above link does not work you can go to<br> http://list.artaddiction.com/<br> or reply to this message as it is.<br> Please allow us 72 H for your e-mail to be removed.<br>Thank you for your co-operation. </FONT></TD> <TD><FONT face=''Arial'' size=''1''> <b>Pour désinscrire</b> votre email : (spam-protected) cliquez ci-dessous :<br><a (spam-protected) Si le lien ci-dessus ne fonctionne pas, vous pouvez aller sur :<br> http://list.artaddiction.com/ <br>ou répondez svp à ce message sans en modifier le contenu.<br> Votre désinscription sera effective dans les 72 H.<br>Merci de votre coopération. </FONT></TD> </TR><TR><TD colspan=''2''><FONT size=''1'' face=''Arial''>En conformité avec la loi 78-17 du 6/1/78 (CNIL), vous pouvez demander à ne plus figurer sur notre fichier de routage.<BR> <IMG src="'http://web.artprice.com/img/LogoArtp_90.jpg'" border=''0'' align=''absmiddle''>IX :28<BR> </FONT><FONT face=''Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif'' size=''1''>Artprice.com - Domaine de la Source BP 69 - F-69270 St Romain au Mont D'or - RCS : 411 309 198</FONT></TD> </TR></TABLE></BODY></HTML>
And, after decoding the address it was sent to, here’s the access_log entries the address was scraped with:
194.242.43.13 - - [26/Sep/2003:21:09:34 +0100] ''GET /foojlist.php HTTP/1.0'' 200 4066 ''-'' ''Art-Online.com 0.9(Beta)''
That’s one line from their scraping run, during which they scraped every single page on spamassassin.taint.org, including tar and zip archives, CGI scripts, everything — making 534 requests between 21:07:31 and 21:16:49.
Boing Boing links to a paper on the design of the Google Filesystem, Google’s in-house redundant-array-of-inexpensive-PCs cluster filesystem.
It’s very, very nice — and full of interesting tidbits about Google’s architecture.
‘The workloads also have many large, sequential writes that append data to files. Typical operation sizes are similar to those for reads. Once written, files are seldom modified again. Small writes at arbitrary positions in a file are supported but do not have to be effcient.’
A perfect example of traditional UNIX system design!
Ishkur’s Guide to Electronic Music v2.0, via MeFi.
Not bad at all! It actually has 2 Congo Natty tracks listed — even if it gets the name wrong for one of them ;) I’ll nitpick, though; the categories around drum and bass, ragga jungle, jungle, and breakbeat are a bit randomly-connected together; they didn’t really tie together that way at all IMO. And he randomly decided that hardcore should be renamed ‘breakcore’, created a new category for all that gabba shite, then called it hardcore. But hey… if you’re going to try to make some kind of sense out of it, you have to break some eggs, and never mind — there’s lots of nice samples!
BTW I can’t believe he lists Rob Hubbard’s theme music to Zoids in the Techno/VGM category. Has someone really released that?
And in passing, I should note, the description for ‘Not Trance’ under ‘Trance’ is spot on. As are many of the other recent trance/house-related categories. And, alright, some of the recent d’n’b categories too…
20 years ago tomorrow, on 27th September 1983, the GNU project was announced:
Free Unix!
Starting this Thanksgiving I am going to write a complete Unix-compatible software system called GNU (for Gnu’s Not Unix), and give it away free to everyone who can use it. Contributions of time, money, programs and equipment are greatly needed. ……
So that I can continue to use computers without violating my principles, I have decided to put together a sufficient body of free software so that I will be able to get along without any software that is not free.
Thanks to Ciaran O’Riordan for pointing this out!
Great news from the European Parliament — the good amendments have been passed and it looks a lot better. James Heald of FFII is quoted as saying ‘the directive text as amended by the European Parliament clearly excludes software patents. It hangs together incredibly cohesively.’
Congratulations to our MEPs who grasped the highly technical nuances of the issue, and voted the right way, and to the groups who advised them so well. No congrats to me who went on holidays just before this vote. ;)
Now, all that remains is to ensure that the Council of Ministers also do the right thing; unfortunately FFII note that ‘in the past, the Council of Ministers has left patent policy decisions to its patent policy working party, which consists of patent law experts who are also sitting on the administrative council of the European Patent Office (EPO). This group has been one of the most determined promoters of unlimited patentability, including program claims, in Europe.’ Not encouraging.
Meta: still catching up and getting through the jetlag…
Back from a great week-and-a-half in Ireland. Lots of fun (and Guinness) was had, Luke and Lean were successfully married, Ireland is officially the most beautiful country in the world, weather was amazing, got to meet up with virtually everyone, and I’m now back at the computer catching up.
Of course, some git has joe-jobbed both myself and a mailing list I’m on, so there’s thousands of bounce messages as a result and the server is slow as a wet week. Argh. But at least the SoBig onslaught has died down a bit.
Interestingly, I reported some spam to SpamCop a week or two before the joe-job. I wonder if the two really are connected — ie. report spam, and the spammers will decode the listwashing tokens from their mails, figure out your email address, and add you to their ‘enemies list’?
This is the first time I’ve reported spam to SpamCop in a long time, and the first joe-job I’ve been victim of. It seems like more than a coincidence, IMO.
I’m in Ireland for my friends’ wedding for the next week and a half, so blogging will be infrequent. ;)
In this article by Salam Pax, about how he got into weblogging, he says:
While the world was moving on to high-speed internet, we were being told it was overrated.
Heh, sounds like an Eircom quote ;)
Leni Riefenstahl dead at 101 (CNN). Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will, the 1934 Nazi propaganda film, is rightly famous — it’s technically excellent — but became a millstone around her neck for the rest of her life. To my mind, this lesson illustrates that an artist (or scientist) can never divorce the work one does from that work’s implications to society.
Music: 12-year-old sued for downloading music. ‘ ‘I got really scared. My stomach is all turning,’ Brianna said last night at the city Housing Authority apartment where she lives with her mom and her 9-year-old brother.’ Way to go, RIAA.
Spam: Paul Graham: a spam filter that fights back. Basically auto-spidering URLs found in spam messages as a form of anti-spam DDoS.
Just received a mail from a bunch called ‘microtution’, looking to write a collaborative political weblog. More details here.
But hold on there — this was an out-and-out spam, sent via an open proxy, using a spam tool, with faked headers, to a spamtrap address they scraped from one of my sites. Anyone considering helping out on this collaborative weblog might like to consider who they’re helping.
The mail was sent from 213.176.81.230, direct to my MX, from ‘Fredericka’ <[email protected]>, Subject ‘need help with political blog’.
Good interview with Samba’s Tridge. He explains where the penguin mascot came from — I never knew the linux penguin was in fact a fairy penguin! All those trips bringing visitors to Phillip Island while I was in Melbourne were not wasted then. ;)
Some time later Linus was looking for a mascot for Linux, and apparently the incident at the National Aquarium helped influence him towards choosing a penguin. If you go there now you will see a little plaque commemorating the fateful day when Linus caught ‘penguinitis’ from one of the fairy penguins in the enclosure (the 6ft one, of course).
ThisIsLondon: ‘David Blaine thought he was ready for anything. The US illusionist suspended in a glass box over London had prepared himself for 44 days of starvation, loneliness and boredom.
But there was one thing he had not planned for – Londoners.
… the prize for invention went to golfers who teed up with clubs on Tower Bridge and tried hitting the box with golf balls.’
So I’m back — I was up in Sunnyvale last week, on a work trip. Met up with Dan Kohn for the first time, which was great, and also had an impromptu SpamAssassin summit with Craig and Dan Quinlan — and got to meet the newest arrival in the Hughes family, the very cute Evan Alice.
I was hoping to meet up with a few more people, but didn’t quite organise it in the limited time there. Maybe next visit!
ObLAvBayAreaComment: Amazing how much better the drivers are up there, too. ;)
Still averaging about 68 SoBig.F virus mails, at about 100Kb each, for a total of about 7Mb per hour. That means my ‘reject’ mailbox is at 412 megs since Friday afternoon. Beats Charlie Strosser’s figures ;)
It’s all getting quietly bitbucketed, but the side-effects are still nasty. Take a look at this, for example; someone at adjv503ry3ec.ab.hsia.telus.net (142.59.69.220) has been spewing SoBig.F’s at the FoRK list, using my address, non-stop for weeks. Argh.
Patents: Richard Allen MP tackles the thorny software patents issue. It’s great being able to follow his thinking on these lines — more politicians should consider starting a weblog along these lines. True transparency.
Much better than Arlene McCarthy’s railing against ‘The Misinformation Campaign … by the Free Software Alliance’, whoever they are… I particularly like this statement from her PR:
If we were to follow the demands of these lobbyists then we would be handing over inventions to US multinationals and getting no return on our R&D investments in the field of computer implemented inventions. This will sound the death knell for our brightest and best European inventors, whilst the US and Japan will demand licence fees from European companies for the use of their patents. Without patent protection there will be no financial incentive for our most creative industries to develop genuine inventions.
… but — given that (a) software patents cannot currently be enforced in Europe, and (b) that 77% of the (currently-unenforceable) EPO software patents are registered already to non-EU companies, the only way for the US and Japan to ‘demand licence fees from European companies for the use of their patents’ would be if McCarthy’s proposed directive was passed, allowing those patents to be enforced in the EU. Oops — own goal!
VR: so I don’t lose this, Jaron Lanier’s 11 reasons why Virtual Reality has not yet become commonplace.
History: Came across the original SpamAssassin pre-release ‘try it out’ mail:
after quite of while of thinking about it, I’ve finally rewritten the spam filter I’ve been using for a while, and released it as free software.
It’s called SpamAssassin, and it’s a mail filter to identify spam using text analysis. Using its rule base, it uses a wide range of heuristic tests on mail headers and body text to identify spam, which it then tags for later filtering using the user’s own mail user-agent application.