The Underbelly of Junk Mail

I just finished watching a report about porn junk mail on NBC's Dateline tonight and saw something that reminded me of some other business actions not allowed in the US. The story went along the line that people, family people, where receiving pornographic e-mail without asking for it. The reporter John Hockenberry then went on a journey of two continents and 4 cities to trek down and confront the actual person that send the e-mail. I found it interesting that even though each piece of mail is identified with a code that shows you who sent the mail, no one wanted to correct the problem. Through Mr. Hockenberry's trips to Toronto, Las Vegas and Montreal He came across companies that did not have a physical listing. At the same time he found that several companies employed the same people even though they know they are breaking policies set by the company.

This is all fine and well and I do think that junk mail is a part of business that laws have turned there back on. What I don't see is why the companies that have fake or non physical addresses get strict penalties imposed on them for there illicit activities. The company that is being advertised in the junk mail has records of who is sending the mail and while some companies are out of the bounds of US law a large part of them still are and so they should be forced to give up who is behind all this internet clogging mail.

Internet providers are trying to fight the problem buy locking down the network they control. The logic is that you or me have some virus or Trojan that turns us into what's been called a SPAM ZOMBIE. If you become a zombie the locked down network now forces you to sign in to send mail. the zombie program doesn't use your outlook or thunderbird mail application so it doesn't know what it is and therefor is blocked. This will help for a few months but is not the answer. So instead of one person sending millions of e-mail it's thousands of people sending hundreds of thousands of e-mail. You don't know it and mail doesn't show up in your sent folder because the program that is doing this is different from the outlook or thunderbird program. Some answers for a common user like you and me is to use temporary e-mail accounts like mytrashmail.com or mailexpire.com. They are free to use, easy to sign up for, and you have no obligation to the account after it's created. The alternate solution is to have one account that you use for anything that asks for your e-mail address. Wait a few weeks to see if new types of junk mail is sent to you. Once a few weeks pass you change your e-mail account that you signed up with to one that you don't give out to just anyone. Another idea has been to restrict who can send you mail by placing them in your contact list.

Link to Datline story

Peer 2 Peer sharing

Recently the supreme court ruled that a company that makes software can be held accountable if it is shown that the intention of the software was for illegal use. Many other tech savvy sites equate this ruling to gun makers being responsible for gun related murders and armed robbery. I do see the similarities but I think gun violence is a far more serious crime then copyright piracy. And yet we have millions of dollars being spent to create legal boundaries on who is responsible when little Johnny downloads a song. If companies can be held accountable for creating programs like Grokster, Kazza, and Limewire then what about the companies that create FTP server and client software? What about the companies that create the old telnet bulletin board systems? Each of these are methods of transmitting software and each have been used in some form or another to pirate copyrighted material. I think this is all a waste of time because the simple truth is that if you take away the companies that create P2P software all that will be left are underground groups of individuals that will continue the work.Then who takes the responsibility when the entity that created the application is unknown or unseen. Worse yet the advancement of simple technologies to transmit data will be stifled. It is a trend I see more of lately. Companies and organizations fighting the wrong fight. The companies instead need to realize that the people they are targeting both as a friend and an enemy are un-willing to pay for a piece of media that is way over priced and in the case of music may only have one or two good songs not on the single. Some have been creative enough to take advantage of the P2P technology and are offering inexpensive downloads for music and movies, but even that is at a limit because the piece of music or the movie you just bought was really just leased. Currently if you buy a DVD or CD or even a game, for your favorite console system or PC, you own that software and it is difficult to remove it from your ownership. With current digital methods of delivery songs in your playlist have the potential to be removed, movies and games can be made un viewable. With current physical forms of media delivery you can take it anywhere and use it anywhere without any restriction. I do like the idea of being able to download my favorite songs, movies, and games but I would like to own the download. Copyrights have slowly but steadily been increased with time so something like a cartoon mouse will not see public domain longer then say a cheesy cult science fiction movie made around the same decade. Large corporations are fighting to hold copyrights to increase or maintain revenue but I don't think it can help the industries as much as it can hurt them. Just think of the possibility of great ideas silenced because it infringes copyright. It's a scary road to look down for sure but with the help of the consumers like you and me we can voice change by not using a service. In essence boycotting. That's my two cents on the whole thing anyway. Let me know what you think. Link to EFF's site on the decision

VoIP and a problem

In Michael Robertson blog, Legal Battles In VOIP: Vonage and e911 a few weeks back. He talked about disagreeing that "e911" should be mandatory by companies offering VoIP service. His argument is that it would be near impossible to pin point where an e911 call is originating and that the cost of getting this created would slow or even stop some businesses from continuing. I disagree with this statement because I think it would be fairly easy to create a system of software that would either register the device to an area and/or acquire the location of the net call from the ISP. It currently is done with trace routing software and that same technique could be used to generate a general origin and have either the user, VoIP vender, or ISP fill in the details of the address. I do see that Wi-Fi connections could be more difficult to manage. Especially when you get into a situation like WiMax or wireless anywhere connections because the triangulation would be difficult but even then a solution could be created. Currently several companies are established that will locate stolen laptops and have been successful enough to offer a $1000.00 guarantee payment when a stolen system is not recovered within 60 days. Michael says in his blog that "There is a growing number of phone providers, including cable companies and Internet companies. If 911 is important enough to customers, then those companies will be motivated to offer that service." I firmly believe that an open standard is a better way because then the smaller companies have an even market and then it makes it harder for monopolies to emerge. I'm eager to hear what you think.

Tips: Digital Camera: What to know when buying

It occurred to me that even though digital cameras have been selling for some years now, people might not know what to look for when buying a digital camera. Well in this post I will give some pointers that will hopefully give you a better idea of what to look for and how to recognize a good value.

First off you need to know your budget or what you are willing to pay for a camera with all the features you are looking for. Please don't tell me you are not willing to pay anything. It's just to obvious. In any case I try not to spend more then $US 400.00. So far I have been able to find well made cameras that also have features I am looking for. Next decide what kind of zooming capabilities are necessary. Are you going on safari? Do you find yourself at the back of the school gym no matter how early you get to little Johnny's school play? You will want a camera with a large number optical zoom. Third you want to decide on a megapixle size. 4 megapixles is becoming a standard base size because it still offers a person some flexibility when they decide to print them lager then 4x6. I recommend trying to go even higher because the higher the megapixle size the longer the camera will last. What I mean to say is that as technology gets ever more advanced the hardware, like your digital camera, starts to loose it viability or usefulness. Fourth look at the power source. some cameras allow you to use regular batteries, while others use special rechargeable batteries. My Olympus uses a special battery but the charge keeps for a long time and the charger was included. If you do end up with a special battery insure the charger is included. Lastly you want to consider how the picture is saved when you press the button. Currently there are several to choose from so look at the cost of the memory and the abilities of that storage type. Some things to consider when looking for memory are time it takes to write data and cost per Mb (Megabyte).

Now depending on your budget that could mean something towards the professional end like an SLR camera or something more intermediate. You will have to do some leg work to stay in budget. I've found great success at local office supply chains like Office Max or Staples. They offer a higher end camera at a reasonable price. Other places to look are outlet style web sites that deal with selling or reselling closeout or overstock items. No matter what camera you choose it's always a good idea to try it out first. Get a feel for how long it takes to turn on, and the amount of time you wait between taking pictures. Sure you can't try before you buy on a web site but you can buy and return, or better yet try the camera out at a local store and then buy it online if the price is better. It's usually a good idea to read reviews about the product from consumer watch groups like Consumer Reports. This is the guidelines I use when I purchased my camera and I used it again a few weeks ago when I bought my wife a new camera. We have had lots of success and we are both happy with our purchases. Look for a review of my wife's camera in the coming month.

-- John D Geek www.johndgeek.com