News: Follow The Spam, All The Way To The Top

By | November 24, 2011
0 Comment
 If you want to know how spam really works — and how closely it’s tied to legitimate big business — read an excellent piece by Bob Sullivan at MSNBC. He describes pursuing a spam “from Alabama to Argentina, from a tiny Birmingham-based firm and someone named ?Erp? past a notorious spammer named Super-Zonda ? and right through big-name companies like Ameriquest, Quicken, and LoanWeb”.
 
His conclusion: “While the dirty work is done by secretive, faceless computer jockeys who are constantly evading authorities, lots of companies with names you know profit, at least tangentially, from their efforts.”

Mail: Another Flaw For Cellphone Tracking

By | November 24, 2011
0 Comment
 Further on my posting about mapAmobile, the UK service that tracks the whereabouts of ‘loved ones’ via their handphone, reader Lynn Dimick points out quite wisely: “Why not just turn off the phone, and claim the battery died, if you don’t want to be monitored? I know that’s what my kids will do.”
 
How do you track someone who doesn’t want to be tracked?

News: Six Degrees Reborn

By | November 24, 2011
0 Comment
 I think Friendster is probably a more dynamic version of this experiment, but it’s interesting anyway. Duncan J. Watts, author and Associate Professor of Sociology at Columbia, has launched an experiment to update the 1967 findings of social psychologist Stanley Milgram who coined the phrase ‘six degrees of separation’ by testing the hypothesis that members of any large social network would be connected to each other through short chains of intermediate acquaintances.
 
 
The test is basically to give folk a package and ask them to pass it onto someone who could deliver it by hand to the addressee. They then hand it onto someone they know who may be more likely to know that person, or someone who knows that person, etc etc. As Watts points out, Milgram’s experiment was flawed, and didn’t really prove the hypothesis. So it could be interesting. Sign up if you want to participate.
 
My tupennies worth: As Malcom Gladwell’s excellent “The Tipping Point” points out not all people are equal. Some folk know no-one (me) and some know everybody (my friends Grainne and Ditta) so in my case I’d just give the package to them.

News: Now You Can Keep A Tag On Your ‘Loved Ones’

By | November 24, 2011
0 Comment
 Now you can monitor the whereabouts of anyone using a mobile phone, at least in the UK. Scary, or what? MapAmobile offers a service which can locate someone via their mobile phone, anywhere in the UK, notify you when they move from that location, 24 hours a day. The privacy element: mapAmobile, which is touting the service as a way to reassure yourself about where your loved ones are, needs the permission of the person you wish to locate and sends them regular text reminders that they’re being monitored.
 
 
My question: Isn’t this false comfort? Just because you know where the phone is, doesn’t mean you know where your loved one is, or whether they’re safe. They may have been kidnapped, had their handphone stolen, or just left it in the car. I can’t help feeling this kind of thing has more to do with bosses keeping an eye on employees (who would be smart enough to ditch their mobile in a drawer and then head out shopping). And if this has nothing to do with snooping, why is the ‘o’ in the logo a target?

News: Remote PC Users, Beware

By | November 24, 2011
0 Comment
 For those of you using software to connect to your computer remotely, here’s a chilling, cautionary tale from the New York Times of a guy who, for almost two years, used an arsenal of computers in his bedroom on the 14th floor apartment he shared with his mother to break into others, steal their credit card information and shop. GoToMyPC is mentioned in the story, which was one of the programmes the guy used to access and hijack other PCs, raising some serious warning flags about the downsides of these kind of programs, which allow you to access your PC remotely.
 
 
The bottom line: Be very careful when you use a PC in a public place, including your own. This guy mainly used software he had installed on public computers to capture the information needed to get access, but shoulder surfing — folk walking behind you, looking to see what you type — is another way. Certainly, don’t leave your computer unattended and still attached to the Internet if you don’t intend to use things like GoToMyPC. (And if you do, consider the information on your PC to be vulnerable.