]
]
] America Online on Tuesday unveiled a sweepstakes to tout
] its success in fighting spam: the Dulles, Va.-based
] Internet provider will give away a Porsche seized from a
] spammer.

HAH!

AOL To Give Away Porsche Seized From Spammer

] POPFile is an automatic mail classification tool. Once
] properly set up and trained, it will scan all email as it
] arrives and classify it based on your training. You can
] give it a simple job, like separating out junk e-mail, or
] a complicated one

Since I've started playing with Bayesian spam filters, the following
occured to me: generalize it into an n-way classifier (spam filter
would be 2-way) so, e.g. if you have a help@ address, it will
automatically file mail for webmaster, postmaster, news admin,
accounts admin, etc.

This package isn't quite the right answer but I'm glad to see that
I'm not the only person to have this idea. Might be worth pestering
the dspam/crm114 people to think about adding this.

POPFile -- Automatic Email Classification

] "Open-source software--available widely through the
] Internet--has the potential to provide our nation's
] enemies or potential enemies with computing capabilities
] that are restricted by U.S. law," McBride said. "A
] computer expert in North Korea who has a number of
] personal computers can download the latest version of
] Linux...and in short order build a virtual
] supercomputer."

New angle from SCO -- go after government Linux users. Though it seems doubtful that it will help push SCOX back up ... closed at $8.71 today after hitting a low of $8.43 earlier in the trading session.

U: According to Groklaw, this is old news ... this was one
of the letters sent back in December. There are a number of other
interesting details as well -- check Groklaw.

SCO targets federal supercomputer users - News - ZDNet

] And let's end the illusion right now that adult voters
] make their decisions based on careful study of the
] candidates and their issues. We all know that's bullshit.
] To pretend that teenagers would vote for the first
] politician who promises to outlaw homework ignores the
] fact that their parents are probably dumb enough to vote
] for a politician who promised to shorten commercial
] breaks and make super-sizing free.

I happen to think that this is a good idea. I find the notion of half and quarter votes a little remeniscient of slavery, but the fact is that half a vote is better then none, and that the political systems, notably local governments, routinely use teenagers as a political pinatta without any consideration of their interests whatsoever. Curfews, loitering laws, unreasonable catch-22 situations where those who comply with a court summons are considered truants, school uniforms, laws against skateboarding, parties, and other recreation, laws which upgrade minors to adult courts arbitrarily, unfair/unequal treatment in traffic courts, school systems which appropriate funds in ways that are most visible to local adults rather then most effective in the school, random search and seizure on school property, metal detectors, phsycological evaluations, surveillance technology... In fact, I don't think I've ever heard of a peice of legislation involving minors which seemed reasonable. I'm not kidding.

"They are easily deceived by political charlatans." So is 90% of the adult population. What planet are you people living on?

Proposal to extend vote to minors in California

] "Needless to say there was blood all over the floor on
] the SCO side of the aisle none on the 'left' side.

First Report from Grokker Inside Hearing: IBM Wins Both Motions to Compel

] More and more people are becoming aware that the reading and/or
] writing of GIF images requires a license to use Unisys patented
] Lempel Ziv Welch (LZW) data compression and decompression
] technology, including United States Patent No. 4,558,302, Japanese
] Patent Numbers 2,123,602 and 2,610,084, and patents in Canada,
] France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom. Since January of
] 1995, Unisys has entered into almost three thousand license
] agreements for use of GIF and other LZW-based technology.

Info on the LZW patent from Unisys

Don't know if this is evil or not but the acronym is hilarious:
SHIELD -- Securing the Homeland by Integrating Existing Local Databases. Its being deployed in the northeast to integrate local law-enforcement info.

]
] Here is IBM's Memorandum in Support of its Second Motion
] to Compel Discovery. IBM is doing some very fine legal
] work. I'm enjoying the learning experience. You don't get
] to see really skilled legal work every day, even if you
] work in the field.
]
] You know how sometimes at a concert, you will see the
] other musicians watching one of the group doing something
] particularly outstanding and you can see that even though
] they are playing themselves, they are also noting and
] really admiring what the guy is doing? It's a little bit
] like that for me, watching IBM's lawyers at work. It's
] impressive to watch the detail work, how they seem to
] catch everything, so many levels of strategy, and how
] they turn SCO's own words against them. It's all very
] calm and cool, but at the same time aggressive. The two
] sides are not friends, that is obvious. I guess I would
] characterize it as complex, careful steam roller, and
] while I'm busy doing my own work, sometimes I just have
] to take a moment and enjoy watching them do what they do.

IBM is starting to turn the thumbscrews....

GROKLAW

] The SRV RR allows administrators to use several servers
] for a single domain, to move services from host to host
] with little fuss, and to designate some hosts as primary
] servers for a service and others as backups.

Unfortunately, noone uses them. I claim that the main reason for this is the lack of support in (free (not GPL)) resolver libraries. I have a minimally working implementation that I will probably release under a BSDish license in the next few days.

SRV records might, for example, make sitefinder much less bad; if the wildcard were

*.com IN SRV host=sitefinder.verisign.com port=80 priority=1 weight=1

rather than

*.com IN A ...

I expect that the effects would be much less disruptive, i.e. browsers would be redirected but everything else would not.

So first, we have to get resolvers out there and then we need to get software fixed. Who's with me?

A DNS RR for specifying the location of services (DNS SRV) (RFC2782)

] In commenting about Tuesday's deliverance of the policy
] revisions to the DOC, ICANN's President and Chief
] Executive Officer M. Stuart Lynn talked about the
] importance of his organization in hammering out policy
] for the Internet.
]
] "It is in the interests of all Internet users-commercial
] and private, businesses and individuals-that ICANN
] continue to develop and mature as a vehicle for consensus
] policy development," Lynn said. "These new agreements, by
] eliminating much of the unique legacy treatment of
] VeriSign/NSI, will be a major step in that direction.
] They will help to maintain the continuing stability of
] the DNS as an important and effective part of the
] Internet, and will improve the ability of ICANN to serve
] as an effective administrator of this important
] resource."

From 2 years ago ... eerily prescient of the current mess.

ICANN Passes Final VeriSign Contract to DOC