Just another manic Monday.
June 28, 2004
Sadly, the scourge of comment spam in my blog seems to be moving forward through time. I get random pieces of comment spam–typically all advertising the same product, no less–but they’re all on older entries. As I mentioned at one point earlier, I noticed several entries that consistently got comment spam so I just disabled commenting on those entries altogether, but that doesn’t solve the overall problem of asshats using software the put spam on my website. Perhaps the next version of the backend software I use on my website will finally eradicate the comment spam, but alas, inbox spam is going to be around for a long time. I’ve even heard some inductry pundits claiming that email in its current form is completely dead. Estimates range that somewhere between 60-80% of all email on the Internet is spam, and there’s no end in sight and the volume just keeps rising and rising. I associate the rise in email spam to be like a stupid American trying to talk to a foreigner. It’s quite obvious that your first attempt at communication didn’t work, so what do you do? SPEAK LOUDER. The foreigner isn’t deaf, they just don’t understand you. Likewise, spammers seem to think that if they send out enough emails to the same people, sooner or later they will crack.
Personally, I’d like to be on some undercover FTC investigation. All I’d want to do is follow-through on the spams, find the companies who sell the products, and put them out of business. End of problem. MOst spammers are working under contract for the companies, so if you can’t put the spammers themselves out of business (and you won’t ever be able to), put their paychecks behind bars or out of business. Problem solved. By that point, the only email spams we’ll be seeing will be for adult sites, and most server-side content filters are able to filter those out nicely. Too bad everyone I know who complains about spam doesn’t HAVE any server-side content filters.
Speaking of spam, it’s also known industry-wide that the majority of the computer sending spam at this point in time are computers that have been hijacked by hackers and turned into relays. This past week there was a serious problem that developed where people had hacked into dozens of mainstream websites–last I heard, the Kelly Blue Book website was one of them–and used an exploit in Microsoft’s web server software to exploit an unpatched hole in Internet Explorer. Most security problems with Microsoft products–Windows, Outlook, Internet Explorer–require interaction by the user. You open a file or an email. You click yes to allowing a script to run. Those sorts of things. This time around, all you had to do was visit the site while using Internet Explorer. No clicking, no opening. Just type in the address, click Go, and boom, you’re infected with a trojan horse thanks to the incompetance of Microsoft’s programmers. This trojan contacted a website, loaded software on your machine silently, and suddenly boom, you have a keylogger on your system that records all your keystrokes and sends them back to the website to gain usernames, passwords, credit card numbers, etc. It also turned your computer into an open relay for spammers to send mail through.
I’d liek to take this opportunity once again to promote the Mozilla Firefox web browser, written from the ground up with security and usability in mind. It, the main Mozilla web browser, as well as the just-as-good-but-not-free Opera web browser were all immune to this exploit. The danger fromt his particular problem is over with, but the unpatched holes remain and something similar could–nay, WILL–happen again in the near future.
You see, Microsoft hasn’t done any work on their web browser in literally two years. The Internet Explorer development team was literally disbanded two years ago when Windows XP was released. They’ve let problems go unfixed, only releasing patches for certain security holes while letting major ones like the one exploited this last week to go unfixed. In the computer world, any piece of software that hasn’t had any development done on it in two years is considered to be dead. Yet Internet Explorer and all the security problems persist. Take my advice: do yourself a favor and try a new web browser that will automatically import all your cookies, history, and favorites from Internet Explorer. It has more features than IE, much better security, and new features and bugfixes are being worked on all the time.
I had an interesting weekend. Friday was a very nice day at work. My boss is out of town for two weeks, and so there’s been a much more relaxed environment around the office with people not caring as much if they cross an arbitrary line about some things. I spent my Friday doing work with music playing in my office (classical, but music at work is a no-no), went to McMenamins for lunch and had a beer (not sure if it’s a no-no, but I was stringly advised against it by my parents), and then after work drove back over to McMenamins with three of my coworkers and had a coupel more beers. That was a lot of fun. I haven’t hung out with any of my coworkers outside work yet, and it was good to talk to them on a personal level. On a stranger note, during the conversation, a name came up and it turns out that two of my coworkers who knew each other briefly in college share a friend with me, so we spent awhile laughing about him. Turns out this friend of mine wasn’t well-liked after I had lost touch with him, and it was humorous to hear some of the stories about him. Small world, no?
To make my Friday complete, I got home, nothing looked appealing, so I went down to–guess where?–about got myself some dinner. Three times in one day. I think that’s a new record. At least it wasn’t the same McMenamins three times in one day….
Saturday was spent mostly sitting around looking for something to do. I started replaying the game Freelancer, but that’s about it.
Sunday I drove over to my Dad’s and helped him move out his kitchen range and the microwave mounted above it. He bought a new gas range and new microwave recently, so we just had to make room for it when it’s delivered today. I’m supposed to go back over there today and help him mount the new microwave. I’m staying for dinner, too. Hmmm…no range, no oven. Should be an interesting dinner of what, pizza? Chinese food? Either one sounds right to me. I’m also going to jog over there this afternoon, since my alarm went off thsi morning at 5:15, I got up, started getting dressed, then realized that I was going to be at his house for awhile with nothing to do. Might as well do my jogging over there. That will give me the opportunity to not only go further, should I choose to, but to go at a slower pace. I find myself rushed in the mornings when I jog, because even though I get up at 5:15 AM I’m not usually set to start jogging until about ten minutes later or so after getting dressed, wlaking over there, a quick stretch, etc. I have to really push it if I want to finish in 20 minutes or less. I’ll take a much more leisurely jog this afternoon, then do another load of laundry. I did one load yesterday while I was over there, but didn’t get to finish the second and needed to do a small third one.
I also had a talk with someone online last night who I haven’t spoken with in about five months or so and who I parted ways with on less than amicable terms. I sent a nonthreatening “Hey” instant message and when I didn’t hear back from them for awhile thought I was being ignored, but if I’d seen them log off then I knew they would have blocked me altogether. Well I did finally hear back from them and we had a short, friendly chat to be continued in a week when they get back from a funeral, but it was interesting. At the time we ended our friendship, I was very angry with them and they were very angry with me, but all that anger that was inside me is gone now. Seemed like a good idea at the time, but someone else who I was talking to thought it was a bad idea. They remembered how mad I’d been at this person–even better than I, apparently–and despite their objections I think inside they’re ultimately curious to see if I can get along with this person again. LIke watched a train wreck in slow motion, perhaps? I don’t know.
The rest of this week is looking interesting. Tonight, as I mentioned, I’m heading over to my Dad’s to help him a bit more, etc. This upcoming weekend is a nice trifecta of events. Firstly, of course, is the 4th of July, though I am currently sans plans. Last year my dad and I went to a baseball game, and I suggested we have a repeat performance but it seems that we’ll be holding event #2, my sister’s birthday (while actually falls on the 3rd) on the 4th. That sort of eliminates that day for baseball. I think it’s going to be a standard Heather’s birthday meal: beef cubelets and onion rings. Yum. It’s been quite some time since the last time we made either of them, and I’m looking forward to the first batch of the season. Mmmm…Walla Walla sweet onion rings. The third event completing the trifecta is of course, my day off on Monday. Any day that I can sleep in is, of course, a blessing.
So that’s how my week wrapped up. And now I begin another. Ooo, and get paid, too. And Spider-Man 2 comes out this week. Looks like this week will be chock full of goodness. Well until next time then, kiddos.
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