When installed on your computer, it immediately hooks itself deep into the bowels of your registry like a tapeworm. If you try to buy something online, it’ll reroute you to a different site, or try to cash in on referral credit. It hijacks pages, logs keystrokes and, from the moment it is installed, calls out over the Internet to other spyware: “There’s a party over here and everyone’s invited!”
internet
Antispam Spammer Gets Spammed Out of Business
By 5.19.06
We pretty much knew this was going to end in tears when we first heard of antispam company Blue Security’s scheme to start spamming spammers. The idea was technically sound: market a software that automatically floods addresses associated with spammers with millions of emails, shutting down their servers and spam capabilities.
Email Users Incompetent At Spying Out Scams
By 5.16.06
We saw this great post indicating exactly how clueless the average person is when trying to detect spam of phishing schemes in their in-box. The blogger launched a site called SpamorHam.org to see how savvy Internet users were across the board when trying to detect email fraud. Unfortunately, users of the site are failing the test in overwhelming rates.
You Don’t Own Anything With DRM
By 5.15.06
One problem with DRM in general is that it is an industry concept that takes-as-read the consumerist fallacy that you don’t actually own things you buy, you just license them. Perhaps this is the natural evolution of consumerism now that products like media are, if not less tangible, at least a bit more ethereal. Still, DRM gives all the power to the companies… and companies prove time and time again that they can’t be trusted.
Southwest Launches Corporate Blog, But Where’s The CS?
By 4.28.06
Southwest Airlines have launched a pretty respectable example of a half-decent, minimally-manipulative, somewhat-entertaining corporate blog. If you know what we mean. This isn’t McDonald’s stupid “Horse Whsiperer” Corporate Responsibility nonsense. For example, we got a kick out of the entry about a bee hive that was found in the tail of a plane that was being repaired and the bee keeper who was brought in to deal with the problem.
Time Warner Cable Install A Sisyphean Ordeal
By 4.21.06
This is pathetic. Time Warner Cable, you are a corpulent prude whore, an easy slut who won’t put out.
AOL Denies Censoring DearAOL
By 4.17.06
AOL has predictably denied blocking emails that mentioned DearAOL.com. Instead, they have described it under the handy bugbear of being a “software glitch” that affected “over 50 sites with no commonality.” A list of the sites affected was not released, so, you know, we’ll just have to take their word for it.
90% of US Account Holders Think Bank Security Sucks
By 4.10.06
You just know your entire industry is gang raping the pooch when statistics like these are coming out:
Verizon on Net Neutrality: “Trust Us.”
By 4.7.06
With the depressing defeat of the Net Neutrality bill before the House Telecom and Internet subcommittee yesterday, many Internet users are getting a bit nervous. Are we on the precipitous edge of one of those nefarious slippery slopes people are always talking about? Will common sense prevail? If it doesn’t, can we trust providers like Verizon and AT&T to not cripple the Internet?
