It's Been Real, Folks

I first got on the ‘net in 1995. I was on AOL beginning in 1994, but they didn’t offer the WWW until later. Some of my really nerdy buddies had installed winsock and connected up under DOS, but I didn’t make the jump until the release of Windows 95, the 32-bit system coming with built-in TCP/IP and socket connectivity.

A lot has happened since then. The internet went from a weird new buzzword to an exalted wonderland. Any tech startups that hinted at their use of the internet were bought up by hysterical investors. This trend continued until late 2000, when reality struck.

The result was that hundreds of businesses that had enjoyed free-flowing investor funds were suddenly stranded when stock prices fell and everyone began pulling out of the now-toxic hi-tech market.

I was flying pretty high myself. I was producing newsletter columns twice a week for Joel Comm for a nice paycheck. In addition, I would periodically run a promo of my own in the newsletter. One month I received around 900 bucks from an affiliate program that paid six bucks per referral for a free service.

Of course, such an insane situation couldn’t possibly last.

This column is a tribute to the stick-to-itiveness of the aforementioned Joel, a good friend with whom I have been associated for the last eleven years.

Joel ran an ad on AOL’s writers’ area in ’94 that caught my attention. He was looking for contributors to a startup that he called WorldVillage, promising nothing but exposure now, money when it began flowing in.

I took the bait.

Eleven years later, I’m still working on the side for Joel. I happen to have a 40-hour-per-week job that I love (sorry, didn’t mean to boast), but I always find time to provide editorial content for Joel’s various ventures.

You see, Joel survived when many others fell. He managed to squeeze a living out of the ‘net when there were dot-com casualties piled up all around him. His business sense tells him what pays and what doesn’t.

That brings me to this announcement: I won’t be cranking out any more Warped.info columns for a while. It just ain’t a smart business model.

My heartiest thanks to those who found this diversion pleasant. And who knows? Maybe we’ll be back.

In the meantime, Joel has seen fit to continue using my humble writing talents in other projects. So stay tuned.

Microsoft's Most Basic Flaw

“Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) yesterday released its monthly updates, which on this "Patch Tuesday" included fixes for the Windows operating system and Internet Explorer (IE), MSN Messenger, Exchange Server and Word. The company designated five of the patches as critical and three as important.”

Patches from Microsoft are along the line of death and taxes: a sure thing.

Why? Because crackers love causing mayhem, and Microsoft is the biggest whale in the ocean. Ergo, it gets the most harpoons tossed its way. To their credit, they generally respond quickly to the discovery and exploitation of security holes.

However, you, as a consumer, can minimize the damage before it occurs.

The problem is that Microsoft makes all its applications integrate tightly. That means that Outlook, Internet Explorer, and even Office are able to dig deeply into the operating system’s kernel. This is by design.

The result is that anything that penetrates illicitly into the aforementioned apps can get into the heart of your computer and cause irreversible damage.

What can you do? Don’t use IE, Outlook, or Office.

There are open-source alternatives out there that are free of charge and operate as SOFTWARE APPLICATIONS, not tunnels into your system’s kernel.

For instance, look at Mozilla’s Thunderbird. It’s an email client capable of SSL, intelligent spam filters, saved search folders, RSS support, privacy protection, and more. If you use it instead of oft-attacked Outlook, you instantly benefit. And just in case it DOES get attacked, it’s just an application! An attacker can’t get to the guts of your system as easily as he/she could via Outlook.

Try Firefox instead of Internet Explorer. It’s tight (a tiny download), user-friendly, and will quickly and painlessly import all your stored IE info. It’s also just an application, same situation as above.

And as far as Office is concerned, give OpenOffice a try. It’s free, and secure.

True, if the aforementioned apps get more popular (and their downloads are steadily increasing), crackers will take notice. But they simply don’t contain the inherent security nightmares that MS’s kernel-connected apps have by design.

Besides, your friends will think you’re cool! ;-)

310,000 Have Info Stolen from LexisNexis

“NEW YORK (CNN) - LexisNexis, which compiles and sells personal and financial data on U.S. consumers, said Tuesday that personal information on 310,000 people nationwide may have been stolen.”

So the number has grown from 32,000 to 310,000.

The identity thief’s most effective tactic has long been social engineering. The classic example of this involves the calling of individuals posing as tech support in order to ask for a password. A disturbingly large percentage of individuals are quite willing to offer up such info to perfect strangers.

However, the theft of personal info from LexisNexis is much more disturbing.

This is an outfit that is allegedly well-prepared to defend its cache of user information. They have to be, if they want their reputation to remain intact. And in their business, reputation is everything.

But indications are that the breached information was obtained simply via stolen passwords.

It’s one thing for the guy at work who enters packages received into the company system to give up his password. It’s another indeed for someone with access to hundreds of thousands of users’ personal data to be somehow bilked out of his credentials.

Is this what happened? LexisNexis isn’t giving much in the way of details.

It’s a sad fact that phishing has become boringly familiar to online account holders. Who hasn’t received “urgent” messages from PayPal or eBay demanding that users log in to confirm their ID’s and passwords? The thieving scum are getting more and more sophisticated in their techniques to lure the gullible into providing the coveted info. One of the latest tactics is sending users to a website with a javascript-produced “official” URL appearing in Internet Explorer’s address bar. After all, grandmas in Peoria have learned to make sure the website they are visiting has a “real” address, like paypal.com, instead of a bogus one like paypal.ripoff.cn.

So watch your backside. Stay tuned for future columns on the tactics of phishers and pharmers and what you can do to outwit them.

What is Mandriva?

“"In order to grow, Mandriva needs to focus on more than just brand equity. It needs to offer solutions that target the public sector and commercial customers," said Stacey Quandt, senior business analyst, Robert Francis Group.”

Mandriva, in case you were wondering, is not a lotion. It’s not an African primate. It’s not a synthetic fiber. It’s not a skin condition. No, it’s the name dreamed up by the PR folks at MandrakeSoft and Connectiva to entitle their new, merged company.

Now I’m no PR person. But honest to goodness, MANDRIVA? I know, I know, you take the first part of one name and the last part of the other, but geez! Why not Mandrake Connect? ManCon? Anything a little less . . .

Of course, this gets me to thinking of other potential mergers in the volatile hi-tech business world.

Cisco Systems is a mighty corporation renowned for buying out other companies and their technologies. They were recently flirting with purchasing Nortel Networks. A.B.Dick is a powerhouse in the industrial printing field, and Cisco is always looking to diversify. So, what if the three got together and formed . . . NABISCO? Oh, already taken.

Okay, let’s try again. Microsoft is another renowned buyer of other companies. Why, it wouldn’t be out of reason for them to even branch into the Automobile market, what with PC-driven electronics already in use. It might be particularly advantageous of them to enter the high-potential British subcompact market. And why not branch further into the print media? An up-and-comer is Skirt! Magazine, spreading its distribution across the SE United States as a periodical aimed at women. So, when the lawyers get all finished with the paperwork, we would proudly announce MICRO-MINI-SKIRT!

Okay, enough of that. My head is spinning with the possibility of country legend George Strait cutting some sort of deal with Pfizer, manufacturers of heating rub Ben-Gay . . .

Spammer Gets Nine Years of Hard Time

"Jeremy Jaynes of North Carolina has been sentenced to nine years for spamming AOL users with millions of unsolicited email ads. Judge Thomas Horne has postponed the jail term due to potential constitutional issues of the new anti-spamming law."

It reminds me of the joke: What do you call 10,000 lawyers at the bottom of the ocean? A good start.

A spammer gets hard time. Sweet!

The fine print reads thusly: The sentence is on hold until the anti-spamming law is tested constitutionally.

In other words, we’re back to those 10,000 lawyers.

I would like to think that lawyers as a whole would realize what a problem spam is, and what scumbags spammers are. But alas, everyone has lawyers willing to try to get their cases tossed, even child molesters.

I run a web hosting service, and I have long featured email addresses as part of the package. I am phasing them out and offering my clients Gmail addresses instead. Why? Because of the quantity of spam that I receive. My web server spends more time processing and killing spam than it does serving up websites. I’m eventually going to turn sendmail off completely.

Imagine that. If I’m dumping email as a service because of spam, no doubt others are doing so as well. A beneficial protocol dropped, because of massive abuse by criminals.

Is nine years in the can too heavy a sentence for someone whose crime was the sending of hundreds of millions of worthless, unsolicited email messages?

This offender was personally responsible for over 100,000 complaints from AOL users from just ONE of his spamming operations. He ran several others. And now, anyone thinking about spamming others within the US borders will have something to think about beforehand.

In August, 2004, statistics showed that 42.53% of spam originated in the US. That means that 57.47% came from other countries. That number will no doubt rise as this law is enforced.

But who knows? Maybe this will encourage more and more nations to do the same thing, as some already have.

True, society has far worse problems that unsolicited email. But spam is costing us the free use of the email protocol. That deserves some stern punishment.

Congress Mulls Increasing Daylight Savings Time

“WASHINGTON — If Congress passes an energy bill, Americans may see more daylight-saving time. Pending legislation would begin Daylight Savings Time on the last Sunday in March and end on the last Sunday in November.”

I remember the “fuel shortage” of 1973, in reality a spanking given the US by Arab nations for supporting Israel. Gasoline hit a then-shocking 75 cents a gallon, fuel oil prices jumped as well, and long lines at gas stations became a common sight.

Anyhow, Nixon, Congress, and the US Senate came up with a couple of foolish ideas and turned them into law: year-round daylight savings time, and the nationwide 55 MPH speed limit.

I remember going to school in pitch-black darkness at 7:30 in the morning.

It didn’t take long to realize that year-round DST simply was not feasible. It was abandoned in short order. Unfortunately, it took 21 years before a “deeply disturbed” President Clinton reluctantly signed the bill that gave the states the power to set their own speed limits.

So here we go again.

I believe that the legislators are taking the wrong approach.

They are trying to squeeze more daylight out of days that are naturally shorter because of the tilt of earth’s axis.

Why not pass a law declaring the axis to be perpendicular to earth’s orbit about the sun?

Think of the benefits. Each day would be precisely twelve hours of daylight, twelve hours of night. Why, even the polar areas would get these evenly-divided days. That would curb the widespread depression problems common to northern Canada and Alaska in the winter.

Even the climate would even out and become more temperate, further saving energy dollars.

So come on, Congress. Have the courage to pass a REAL law. And don’t worry about enforcing it, you’re the nation’s lawmakers! You can legislate ANYTHING!

Britney Spears and Her New TV Series

“Tired of all the false tabloid' rumors about her life with hubby Kevin Federline, Britney Spears is exercising the obvious prerogative of any celebrity who values her privacy: She's starring in a reality show.”

So let me get this straight.

Britney Spears, whose singing talent is dwarfed only by that of Rosanne Arnold, is venturing into the entertainment cesspool that is reality TV. This being the same Britney who frequently lashes out at those who provide her with what she needs more than life itself: publicity.

Britney sprang onto the scene a few years ago, proclaiming her chastity while starring in some rather racy music videos. She became the spokesperson for the new generation who is “saving themselves for marriage,” while at the same time experiencing epidemic STD’s from doing things that are dubiously classified as being within the realm of saving oneself.

What a perfect candidate for reality TV. This unfortunate genre sprang on the scene with the 2000 debut of CBS’s Survivor, which crawled out of the mire of some exec’s imagination to become a highly rated and eagerly followed Thursday night waste of time. Scantily-clad egotists compete in silly activities and vote each other off the show. I’m not sure how that works, because I would assume that when it got down to two, the votes would cancel each other out.

The high ratings of the show, while testifying poorly about the population’s intelligence in general, have also spawned innumerable clones, involving the eating of vermin, volunteers being buried alive, the catching of cheating spouses, the forcing of urban dilettantish vacuumheads to live on the farm, the airing of dysfunctional rock star familys' daily doings, etc. etc. The greatest irony is that it is called “reality.”

So now, the queen of lightweight talent will foist yet another “reality” series upon us.

I’m glad she finally found her true calling. She and the genre deserve each other.

Al Gore launches a TV network

“SAN FRANCISCO - Al Gore, the former U.S. vice president, has announced the launch of a new cable TV channel, Current, made by and for young people.”

At this point, I apologize in advance to liberals. Don’t worry, I promise to poke fun at conservatives soon.

Jump ahead a year:

Joe Shlabotnik, spokesman for Current, the cable channel made by and for young people, stated in a press conference that the network’s poor performance in the ratings war was the result of skewed Nielsen procedures that discriminated against their audience.

“Basically, our viewers were systematically shut out of the Nielsen ratings. They have been disenfranchised!”

Shlabotnik went on to describe the process by which Current’s audience was cheated at the Nielsen polls.

“Our viewers have a hard time figuring out their remote controls. Here in San Francisco, we’re cable channel 124. Everybody is used to typing 123, as in the first three numbers. I mean, it’s natural. You punch in a 1, then a 2, what’s next? 3, of course! So instead of tuning into Current, they tune into The History Channel. They have been deliberately deceived!”

Shlabotnik went on to describe additional deceptions.

“Not only that, but the online TV guide is against us as well. The channel number is WAY over to the left side of the screen, and the listings are WAY over to the right. Our viewers get confused! It’s not their fault they end up at HBO or ESPN, when they obviously want to watch our far superior and more intelligent programming!”

In a related announcement, Current is suing the Nielsen Corporation for skewed rating results, and is demanding several recounts. The case is expected to make it to the Supreme Court.

Boy band singer runs for mayor

“CINCINNATI - Justin Jeffre, a former member of 98 Degrees, wants to be Cincinnati's next mayor, saying his love for his hometown and desire to make it better motivated his decision to run.”

At last, a viable career for former boy band singers: politics.

Boy bands have been around for a long time. In researching this piece, I discovered that some groups who were widely viewed as boy bands in their early days included the Beatles, The Beach Boys, Paul Revere and the Raiders, Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers, and the Temptations.

Now, obviously, there is some genuine artistic and creative talent in that list of names. I don’t know anyone who would call the Temptations a boy band today. And who knows? Maybe the future will place ‘N Sync or Backstreet Boys on the same pedestal as the aforementioned groups (although I have serious doubts about that).

Anyhow, back to the subject at hand. The aforementioned Jeffre stated “I am serious about this, and I intend to win.”

Cincinnati has long been associated with popular music. After all, the never-shark-jumped series was WKRP in Cincinnati. The infamous Who concert deaths took place there as well in 1979. So a former (I guess he was one at one time?) musician running for mayor doesn’t seem too outlandish.

So why not run for mayor? Hey, Clint Eastwood did a serviceable job of running Carmel, California in the 80’s. His qualifications? A mean sneer and a taste for little cigars.

Let’s not overlook the fact that the current governor of California did a little acting. Well, maybe describing that amount as a little is a bit generous . . .

And singerwise, the well-loved Sonny Bono received kudos as mayor of Palm Springs before his untimely death.

So maybe Jeffre has a shot. After all, his singing talent is certainly within shouting distance of Sonny Bono.

Neil Young recovering from a brain aneurysm

“NEW YORK (CNN) -- Rocker Neil Young was treated for a "dangerous brain aneurysm" this week but is expected to make a full recovery, his agent said Friday.”

Occasionally, a generation is fortunate enough to have gracing its presence a talented individual whose inventive and creative genius defines its life, its traditions, its personality.

One Leonardo Da Vinci did so in the renaissance.

A bright inventor named Thomas Edison did so in the late nineteenth/early twentieth centuries.

Baby boomers are fortunate enough to have Neil Young.

Neil Young, whose musical output remained of a consistent astronomically high quality throughout the last third of the 20th century, shows no signs of slowing down in the 21st.

Now he deals with a brain aneurysm. No stranger to physical limitations, Neil has two sons suffering from cerebral palsy.

Such a devastating hand dealt from life’s deck of cards might make a lesser person crawl into a shell of self-pity. It turned Neil into an inventor.

What kid (or grownup) doesn’t love model trains? Certainly, Neil and Ben Young do. Why should a kid not be able to control a train set just because he can’t control his own body? Thanks to a wireless paddle invented by his dad, Ben Young can maneuver the engine and cars through a ten-minute journey over a vast model terrain.

Neil first began inventing toys and tools for challenged kids for older son Zeke, who has a milder case of cerebral palsy than Ben.

So, ignoring for now the vast musical gifts this man has bestowed, here’s a tribute to his helping kids who have gotten a bad break help themselves.

Get well soon, Neil. We need more of your genius.

Gene Simmons, Cartoon Hero

Gene Simmons, the fire-breathing, blood-spitting KISS star, just might be the next SpongeBob, thanks to his latest project: "My Dad the Rock Star." The show recently started airing in the United States on the cable channel Nickelodeon, alongside animated favorites like "Jimmy Neutron," "Rugrats" and "The Fairly Oddparents."”

Maybe Jimi, Janis, and the Lizard King saw stuff like this coming, and decided to check out early.

Rock and Roll burst upon the scene in 1954, with the Crew Cuts’ “Life Could Be a Dream,” closely followed by Bill Haley and the Comets’ “Shake, Rattle, and Roll.” Soon, parents everywhere were shocked and disturbed to find their kids jamming to music that young white folks just shouldn’t be listening to.

Within a very short time, Rock and Roll was being used by advertisers to sell cars, shaving cream, and sodas.

In the 70’s, some parents were likewise shocked by the makeup-clad noisemakers known as KISS. Why, their very name stood for “Knights in Service to Satan,” according to some authority who never seemed to be named. As it turned out, the band had no direct connection to Satanism, but did suffer from a rather shallow creative well.

In 2002, the mainstreaming of Rock and Roll which began with 50’s advertising took a strong upward turn with the debut of The Osbournes, which took a lighthearted look at former Black Sabbath (a group who really did sing about Satan, though nobody seemed to notice) front man Ozzy Osbourne. Basically, the show, while doing horrible things like contributing to the popularity of reality TV, also performed a public service: kids, stay off drugs, or you could end up like THIS!

I haven’t seen My Dad the Rock Star yet. It has potential to educate kids in a similar fashion. By any chance, is the father hard of hearing?