I just got an email that starts out, “We are the leading manufacturer and exporter in China.”
OK, good for you, but what does this have to do with my personal website in California?
It all just adds to the noise…
Category: Tech
Giving virus writers honest work
By way of Justin Mason and the SpamAssassin mailing list comes this post about writing add-ons for Outlook.
Seth Goodman writes of Outlook’s contact list:
This feature was apparently added for the convenience of virus writers, who it appears were one of the key groups that set the design requirements for this product
Ronald F. Guilmette replies:
So if I want source code for a software tool that can extract addresses from a personal Outlook address book, I guess that I should just go out and hire a virus writer! Hummm. I would have no problem with that. At least this would give them some honest work for a change… keeping them off the streets and out of trouble for a short while.
So now, where does one post a ‘HELP WANTED’ ad for a virus writer?
Copyright law: All ficced up
We were having a discussion last night about the specifics of copyright law on derivative works, sparked by a ridiculous flamewar discussion thread on fan-made music videos. While it’s generally known that posting fanfic and fanart is illegal, we were speculating on when exactly these creations become violations of the law. Is it when you distribute the work? When you show it to a stranger, whether they get a copy or not? When you show it to your spouse? Turns out that unless you have specific permission from the copyright holder to use the specific work involved, it’s not legal to create fanart or fic at all, whether you show it to anyone or not.
This runs up against a belief of mine that I’ve termed “the Six-Year-Old Doctrine:” if, in order to fully enforce a law, authorities would need to prosecute a fair number of unwitting six-year-olds, that law is in need of changing. With respect to copyright and derivative works, every first-grader who draws a picture of Dora the Explorer or Barney or Bugs Bunny is technically in violation of copyright law. Realistically, no one is going to issue C&D letters to a classful of fans, or sue their parents for damages. Sadly, the owners of the depicted property do have that right.
Copyright law is quite black and white, but feels incredibly gray. And no wonder, with the fineness of the dividing lines between legal and illegal. Continue reading
Butterfly wings
Last week I started looking at ways to cut down on false positives in our spam filters. I’ve only seen two in my own mailbox this year, but of course everyone gets different kinds of email. I’ve been trolling the server logs for low-scoring “spam,” looking for anything that looks like it might be legit, particularly if the Bayes subsystem has already identified it correctly but isn’t enough to counteract the score assigned by other rules. (Unfortunately, it’s hard to tell when all you’ve got is the sender, subject, and list of spam rules.)
One item I noticed was a copy of the Microsoft Technet Flash newsletter. I thought this was odd, since I’d gotten a copy of the same newsletter and it hadn’t been labeled. In fact, it turned out that my copy only scored 0.3 points, and the other hit 6.4! (5 points indicates probable spam.) What could explain such a disparity?
Answer: two very small differences. Continue reading
A new reason to block ads
Great. Just great. Now there are ad networks using banners to install malware.
The article from Netcraft goes on to say that some phishing attacks are using banners to install keystroke loggers and other spyware. So now, just by using an insecure browser* to click on the link in a message claiming to be from your bank can make it possible for hackers to steal your passwords, credit card numbers, etc., even if you realize the site’s a scam and don’t fill in the form. Fun, fun, fun!
Time to look into those alternative browsers again…
* Yes, security holes have been found in Mozilla, Opera, etc. With the rise in popularity of Firefox, some attackers are starting to target Mozilla. But aside from looking at the sheer number of holes in IE compared to other browsers, just about everyone seems to have a better track record at fixing vulnerabilities than Microsoft does.
A mute? (It got better)
Last week I started to notice Eudora’s musical you’ve-got-mail tones, very faint, at times that I got new mail. This was odd for two reasons: my sound was muted, and I’ve long since replaced the sound with the “Message for you, sir!” line from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. I assumed it was just coincidence, and the guy in the next cubicle had his email set to check on a similar schedule.
Well, it seems that mute doesn’t actually work on my Win2k box, at least not if it’s muted when I log in. The volume icon in the taskbar says it’s muted, the checkbox is checked, but it still sends sound to the speakers. Unchecking and re-checking the mute box solved it.
Now I need to figure out why it reset the sound clip. I did install a new version of Eudora recently, but it kept the rest of my settings intact. My best guess is that I moved the file a while back and forgot about it (since it’s been on mute for months), and Eudora, unable to find it, fell back to the default.
If I hadn’t turned the volume down so far, it would have been obvious. And I probably wouldn’t have bothered writing this.
I’ll get you, my pretty!
Ouch. I can see these people take Darl McBride seriously: Techworld.com – Linux is mine, all mine, cackles distracted SCO head.
I know it’s been said before, but he really is starting to sound like the famed Iraqi Information Minister.