2002-09-12»
The word for lunch is tote bag»
Infinite Matrix is a great
online sf zine. It's having a fundraiser. Ursula K. Le Guin has donated a
"lunch bag" for auction, embroidered by her own hand. '"You can only have
lunch once," she says helpfully, "because it isn't washable."'.
If I was a zombie who developed my prose style by eating brains, I would
eat Le Guin's brain first. You can read her latest short story, set in the
Earthsea universe, for $0.91 here. (I
know it looks like I'm being paid off by FictionWise, but I just want to
applaud their promotion of uncrippled e-texts. For the record, I don't touch
their "secure" editions).
After Ursula, I would move on to John
McPhee's lobes.
2002-09-11»
Great quote on Google and usability»
Top W3C HTML honcho Steven Pemberton spoke on XHTML2 at BAYCHI yesterday, and included this
great quote (from, it looks like, the linux-elitists mailing list).
"Google is, for all intents, a blind user. A billionaire blind user with tens
of millions of friends, all of whom hang on his every word. I suspect Google
will have a stronger impact than [laws] in building accessible websites."
"In a world where Google likely has a valuation several orders of magnitude
higher than any chrome such as flash, graphics, audio, interactivity, or
"personalization", I see a heady revision."
Karsten
M. Self
Steven this HTML
page as his presentation, transforming it into powerpoint-esque viewpoints
(outline view, slide-per-page view) with a bunch of stylesheets.
2002-09-10»
Drive-by spamming redux»
Within a few hours of posting the correction
to ZDNet's
article on drive-by spamming, Adrian
Wright, the original misquoted expert, e-mailed me. "Saw your comments on
Oblomovka. Not exactly professional behaviour for a Sunday Times stringer", he
wrote. I asked him what he thought was unprofessional. As yet he hasn't
replied.
Meanwhile, the original misquote is already beginning to spread. News
sources like ZDNet are seen as authoritative sources online and off. From
miscellaneous Slashdot
posters to Professor Ed Felten, there are now
people who cite the piece as proof that there are recorded instances of
drive-by spamming.
As far as I know - and more importantly, as far as Adrian Wright, the
original source, knows, there exists no such evidence. The lead to the story,
"'Warspammers' are taking advantage of unprotected wireless LANs to send out
millions of junk emails" is simply not true.
Terry Schmidt, of NYC Wireless
wrote independently to the ZDNet UK journalist, Graeme Wearden, asking in the
light of the new comments by Adrian, admitting that he'd never seen a case of
drive-by spamming in real life, ZDNet would correct the original story. Here's
what Graeme wrote:
I asked Wright if he would like me to change anything in my story -
he didn't.
I think that's because, even if he did say 'could happen' rather
than 'is happening' (and sitting in the middle of that audience,
I thought he was discussing something that is taking place, and
that's what I wrote down), Wright thinks it very likely that
drive-by hacking is occuring.
That looks like the truth. But it's very different from the original story.
That article - still being spread, still being read - continues to mislead
people into believing drive-by spamming is happening right now, and
that Adrian Wright had seen it happen.
Misinformation like this has consequences. It encourages people to believe
that having an open network is an uncivil thing to do; that they should cower
in fear at the spammers stalking the streets, looking for outlets. It
encourages people to believe that the only solution to their fear,
uncertainty and doubt is to to hire security consultants with experience of
this rampant menace. And the more the original misleading article sits there,
the further the misinformation spreads.
This seems to be the opposite of what a journalist should do; and the
opposite of what a security consultant is paid to advise. I'm not sure who is
to blame here: but if anyone is being unprofessional, I don't think it's
me.
2002-09-06»
Drive-by spamming: still a theoretical danger»
Quote from Adrian Wright, the expert "quoted" in a ZD Net story which
claimed spammers were using open WiFi
points to send "millions" of unsoliticed e-mails :
It seems I've been everso slightly misquoted in that I actually said
'could' in this presentation. i.e. "These people COULD simply drive up
to a building armed with their... Apart from that it looks like a good
story!
Although I know of no hard evidence that this practice of wireless drive-by
spamming is taking place, I would be surprised if it was not happening -
given the increasing difficulties spammers face in retaining legitimate ISP
access - within the more developed nations anyway.
My emphasis. In other words, "drive-by spamming" is still a something that
some people endlessly predict will happen if you leave your AP insecure, but
of which no record exists in the wild.
Adrian also said that drive-by spamming had been covered many times (true)
and ZDNet was one of the most prominent new sources documenting the existence
of this practice. Wait - you're using as an authority the very organisation
who completely misquoted you? On the same topic? Is that wise?
2002-09-05»
Drive-by Spamming»
Hmm. C|Net ZDNet UK is reporting that "millions of
mails" are being sent by people who pull up to open wifi networks, and use
them to anonymously spam.
Okay, I'm suspicious. Spamming through open networks was always a
theoretical possibility (indeed, I remember people referring to drive-by
spamming almost as early as wardriving was coined), but I've never heard of it
happening in the wild. I've just left a message with Adrian Wright, the British security expert
quoted in the article, to see if he has any concrete cases. I suspect either
either he's pulling the examples out of his imaginary analyst hat, or he's
been misquoted.
