Spam reporting seems to be effective in reducing quantities of spams recieved. 270 spams were recieved during December. That's down from 356 in November for an average reduction of 6.25 spams per week.

I have been filing reports for every spam recieved with SpamCop, the FTC and the Internet Fraud Complaint Center (IFCC). It will be interesting to see if these results will continue or whether spam will rebound in the wake of the ineffective anti-spam laws that Congress has enacted.

English-language spams declined by 49% (210 in November; 108 in December) while Russian spams increased by 85% (129 in November; 140 in December).

Spam Quantity by Day of Week
Language of Spam
Daily Spam Quantity
Historical Weekly Spam Quantity

There is a version with better formatting available on my website.

This is a follow-up to my Illiterate Financially? journal entry.

Many of you commented that question 20 was poorly worded. I read too fast and was also confused.

So I wrote the NCEE a letter through their online form December 17. I was hoping to post some reply from them, but I haven't recieved one yet and probably won't.

Hopefully they read it and they make some changes to future surveys.

I believe question 20 in your recent survey (http://www.ncee.net/cel/test/) may have an unexpectedly high error rate because it is phrased confusingly.

I thought it was just me that was confused and misread the question, but it appears others read the question wrong too.

http://slashdot.org/~capoccia/journal/55429

You should consider creating contrapositive versions of all your questions and rotating which version is asked to account for this type of error.

The National Council on Economic Education sponsored a survey of economic literacy among students and adults in the United States. The average adult scored 57% and the average high school student scored 48%. Take the test, and see how you compare.

Only 6% of adults and 3% of students scored an A, so I should feel good about only missing one question out of twenty, but it's still frustrating because I misread the question. If I had read the question correctly, I would definitely been able to eliminate two wrong answers. Maybe I would have even gotten the question correct.

I have decided to begin tracking the spam that I recieve to my primary email address. I am hoping it will provide some means of quantifying the effectiveness of my spam reporting. November is the first full month of tracking.

I have been reporting my spam using SpamCop's free service. This sends a report to the administrators of every system being (ab)used by spammers. I have also been sending a copy to the FTC via uce@ftc.gov.

I recieved 356 spam emails in November. There does seem to be weekly ebb and flow with the levels peaking in the middle and declining by the weekend. Less than 60% of my spam is even in English. The Cyrillic portion looks like Russian, but I can neither read nor write Russian.

Spam Quantity by Day of Week
Language of Spam
Daily Spam Quantity

Once again, there is a version with better formatting available.

Jackson's accuser has a history of filing lawsuits for large amounts. Jackson's Attorney, Mark Geragos, commented:

Michael Jackson is not going to be abused. Michael Jackson is not going to be slammed--he is not going to be a pinata for every person who has financial motives. This is not the lottery--this is this man's life. This is his family's life. These are scurrilous accusations. If anybody doesn't think that the true motivation of these charges and allegations is anything but money, then they are living in their own Neverland.

NOTE: The entry on my website is formatted much better and has pictures of the currency discussed below.
-----

Is the constant revision of our US paper money worth the trouble? Sure the new money looks a little better and a little more colorful, but it still spends the same. One has to wonder if professional counterfieters are really a greater cost to our economy than the costs of developing the currency, training cashiers and retooling vending machines.

10 Suriname Guilders is currently worth 0.00399616 United States Dollars. In 2001, it was worth about 2.6 times as much. Before 2001, the Guilder had wild price fluctuations. Then the Suriname government imposed a trading band of 2500 to 2800 Guilders to the US Dollar.

In spite of this historically low value, the bill has quite a few security features including colorful ink, security thread and Moire patterns to defeat scanners.

The new US $20 is just now getting away from it's monochrome green, but the U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing has introduced several other security features that are aimed at high-tech digital counterfeiting outfits. The Moire patterns are much tighter and more complicated than the Suriname bill. The faint background gradient is actually composed of nested groups of concentric hexagons. This feature is too fine to be seen in the scan on the left.

The US continues to have a very low incidence of counterfeitting (12 in 10,000 bills are fake). But the new twenty has already been faked. As long as there are stupid clerks, poor-quality fakes will continue to be used. There have been at least two individuals that have passed off $200 novelty bills.

In Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina, cashiers took the obviously fake $200 bill at both the Blue Flame and the Food Lion stores. It features a picture of President George W. Bush on the front, and protest signs in the White House lawn on the back.

The police investigated and arrested the perpetrator. He could only be charged with "attempting to obtain property by false pretenses," not counterfeiting, because there is no $200 US bill.

A similar scenario played out at a Dairy Queen in Danville, Kentucky. Police are still looking for the woman who left with her $2.12 in food and $197.88 in change.

These novelty $200 bills are available across the country and on the internet. I bought mine from TheFreeGuide.com. The 10 Guilder bill comes courtesy of the Vermulens as a reminder of their labors in Suriname guiding churches and translating the Bible.

In case you haven't had your fill of information regarding the latest Wacko Jacko news, Michael Jackson has set up a press release website to archive all his statements regarding the case. In the Statement After Processing in Santa Barbara, Michael opines, "Lies run sprints, but the truth runs marathons. The truth will win this marathon in court." Jackson deserves a fair trial like everyone else, but the media circus is going to make it very difficult to find jurors who haven't already decided his guilt.

For the last few hundred years, political orientation has been measured with one dimention: left to right. A British group, The Political Compass (keep an eye out for where the British and American spellings differ), was the first to propose a two-dimensional system. They have retained the left-right (economic) axis and added an orthogonal social axis with libertarians on one side and authoritarians on the other.

Where do you think you fit on such a plane? Political Compass has organized a survey to test your views on a variety of subjects and see where you really line up.

There have been some who are concerened that Political Compass' results are slanted. Political Compass has essentially ignored requests for more openness into how they score the questions and develop the results. Political Compass says it generates its income from sponsorship and seminars and cannot release this information without compromising its viability.

Chris Lightfoot didn't like this situation, so he designed his own, similar political survey. Unlike Political Compass, he shows all of his linear algebra methodology. He also shows all the statements he uses in their positive and contrapositive forms.

I would strongly recommend you not look at either the eigenvectors or the statement list pages until after you have taken the survey.

Chris' survey consists of 75 questions; Political Compass' has a few less. Both are split into 6 pages worth of survey. Both are similar in the sense that they make statements and ask whether you agree or disagree.

Where do you stack up against political celebrities like Adolf Hitler or Tony Blair? Political Compass has slightly different results on their analysis page (remember the comment about skewed results?). Another interesting comparison is the mapping of the 2004 US Presidential Primary Candidates.

My Results: I took Chris Lightfoot's survey twice. For some of the questions, my position allowed the question to be answered more than one way. I added the blue dot to represent the region where I think similar surveys should place me. Political Compass' survey placed me a little more to the left than Lightfoot's.

Anyone know a Bill Walker? This is a pretty creative spam list test method. It's sure to pass every Bayesian filter.

If you're not convinced the following letter is spam, look at the following:

• cyberbet@runbox.net is a very casino-ish email address
• My email address has my name in it. It's clearly not Bill Walker
• Postmaster is not what you would expect in the "To:" field of an email looking for Bill Walker.

I started filing all my spam through spamcop about 1 1/2 months ago. I still haven't seen any drop-off in quantity. It sure does make me feel like I'm doing something, though.

This month I also started a spreadsheet to keep track of how many spams I recieve. I have graphs tracking the average daily for each day of the week and day of the month.

It's been one week, so it's not a very statistically meaningful result, but Saturday was the only day with any appreciable drop in the amount of spam. The rest of the days averaged 15 (+/- 2) spams per day; Saturday was 9.

Return-Path: <cyberbet@runbox.net>
Received: from mx27.nyc.untd.com (mx27.nyc.untd.com [10.140.24.87])
  by maildeliver07.nyc.untd.com with SMTP id AAA94YDWHAY8MEXA
    for <chriscapoccia@netzero.net> (sender <cyberbet@runbox.net>);
    Thu, 6 Nov 2003 19:16:23 -0800 (PST)
Received: from outbound20-2.nyc.untd.com (localhost [127.0.0.1])
  by mx27.nyc.untd.com with SMTP id AAA94YDWHAXMS6V2
    for <chriscapoccia@netzero.net> (sender <cyberbet@runbox.net>);
    Thu, 6 Nov 2003 19:16:23 -0800 (PST)
Received: from runbox.net ([218.48.50.95])
      by mx27.nyc.untd.com with SMTP id AAA94XVT3AMGTAZA
    for <chriscapoccia@netzero.net> (sender <cyberbet@runbox.net>);
    Thu, 6 Nov 2003 14:42:01 -0800 (PST)
Message-ID: <4g44v4aep166$w2l80c50$3b1v4a28@runbox.net>
From: <cyberbet@runbox.net>
To: Postmaster
Subject: How are you doing ?
Date: , 7 11 2003 07:41:57 +0900
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
X-Priority: 3
X-MSMail-Priority: Normal
X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2800.1106
X-ContentStamp:1:1:2594775125
 
is this the right email address? is this Bill Walker?

I did a wacky spam entry a while back. Here's another one.

I recieved one other spam today that was very similar. the chosen letter was "r" instead of "f".

The body of the spam consists of a single letter. This has got to be the height of trying to defeat a bayesian filter. Unfortunately, you can't sell much with a single character, so I'm not sure what this is supposed to accomplish.

Needless to say, I reported it. Here's the spam in full for your viewing pleasure:

Return-Path: <y5uaszhth@ic.net>
Received: from mx02.lax.untd.com (mx02.lax.untd.com [10.130.24.62])
    by maildeliver03.nyc.untd.com with SMTP id AAA92XZL7AWE8TVA
    for <chriscapoccia@netzero.net> (sender <y5uaszhth@ic.net>);
    Mon, 13 Oct 2003 10:14:05 -0700 (PDT)
Received: from d226-113-127.home.cgocable.net (d226-113-127.home.cgocable.net [24.226.113.127])
    by mx02.lax.untd.com with SMTP id AAA92XZL4AWF2VUS
    (sender <y5uaszhth@ic.net>);
    Mon, 13 Oct 2003 10:14:02 -0700 (PDT)
Received: from [22.19.25.126] by d226-113-127.home.cgocable.net with ESMTP id <592350-96288> for <chrisjen@netzero.net>; Mon, 13 Oct 2003 14:08:48 -0400
Message-ID: <n00183i2q$8o--$524x-mn0@rvv12s3>
From: "Shelby Friend" <y5uaszhth@ic.net>
Reply-To: "Shelby Friend" <y5uaszhth@ic.net>
To: chrisjen@netzero.net
Subject: vise shylork
Date: Mon, 13 Oct 03 14:08:48 GMT
X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook, Build 10.0.2627
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
    boundary="EE3BC701FDD38_F"
X-Priority: 3
X-MSMail-Priority: Normal
X-UNTD-UBE: 5
X-ContentStamp: 2:3:3738731135
 
--EE3BC701FDD38_F
Content-Type: text/html;
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
 
f
 
--EE3BC701FDD38_F--

Gamblers will bet on anything. At least one has placed a bet that Arnold Schwarzenegger will become President of the United States. But this is extremely unlikely to happen because Schwarzenegger was born in Thal, Austria.

The US Constitution, Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 clearly describes the requirements for being eligible for President:

No person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty-five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.

So one would have to be a natural-born citizen or a citizen at the time of the adoption of the Constitution and at least 35 years old and at least a resident for 14 years.

Some British bookies and gamblers are unfamiliar with our system. Robert Coppini from Little Acton, near Stourport-on-Severn, Worcs has wagered 200 on Arnie for President at odds of 500:1 (the payout would be 100,000). Bookmaker William Hill has now slashed the odds about President Schwarzenegger to 50:1.

Hill could set the odds to 1000:1. Schwarzenegger cannot become president unless the Constitution is ammended to allow non-natural-born citizens to become President. This would require a 2/3 majority in Congress and ratification by the states.

I send my fax to my Congresspeople whenever an issue I agree with shows up on the EFF Action Center or ACLU Action Alerts website even though I am not a member of either organization. This time it was the EFF and the issue was SCO.

If you live in the US and use Linux but haven't sent a letter to your Congresspeople, what are you waiting for?

Anyway, Tiberi is my Representative. I've recieved a form letter response to every fax I've sent, but at least the letter means his office is counting faxes and planning a response. The issue has recieved some attention, which is more than was the case before I sent my fax.

The form letters also say something about Tiberi's current position on the matter. This is nice since not every issue is prominent enough to have is position detailed in a press release.

Here's the response:

Dear Mr. Capoccia:

Thank you for your recent letter regarding SCO Group, Inc.'s decision to sue individual users of the Linux operating system. I appreciate this opportunity to correspond with you.

As I am sure you are aware, the SCO Group is alleging copyright infringement in the most recent version of the Linux operating system, kernel 2.4. According to a company spokesman, code was added to the newest version of Linux that violates SCO copyrights. In response, the company has taken legal action against IBM, other business users of Linux, and private individuals such as yourself. As you pointed out, the validity of SCO's claims have not been established. Furthermore, the case against IBM is not scheduled to go to court until the year 2005.

I understand your concerns about this issue and realize they are important to you. While I have not studied the situation in great detail, I will do so at the earliest convenience.

At this time, there is no legislation pending in the House of Representatives that relates to SCO Group's legal actions in this situation. However, I will be glad to pass your views on to my colleagues who serve on committees with jurisdiction over this issue. I thank you for bringing this matter to my attention. If I may be of further assistance on this or any other issue, please don't hesitate to contact me.

Sincerely,
[Signed]
Patrick J. Tiberi
Representative to Congress

The last paragraph is the most interesting.

Also it seems the Caldera globe logo is especially appropriate as SCO tries to take over the word.

I don't usually do too much with Windows at home (I mostly use BeOS and some Debian GNU/Linux), but I told one of my Windows-only delusional friends that there was this great new P2P app that he should be using instead of KaZaA. Of course he wants to know if I've ever used it and how to set it up. So here's what I learned.

This entry is also at my website in pretty much the same form. I cut out my list of proxies (left the google links) so as not to clutter all of your amigos lists.

EarthStation 5 is a new brand of P2P filesharing. Created by a diverse group of Palestinians, this software attempts to beat Napster and KaZaA where they failed in security and anonymity without forcing users into a totally foreign concept like Freenet. The ES5 team is also pretty brash in their statements against the RIAA/MPAA.

Here are a few tips for setting up the program to be secure.

Under Advanced Settings in Stealth Mode HTTP Proxies, copy in the proxies for HTTP and SSL. Check Enable Stealth Mode and Highest Stealth Possible.

If you're using Slashdot and have never heard of anonymous proxies, you need to be slapped. Start your Google search here.

SSL Proxies are the same idea, just more secure. again, start looking here).

Under Network Settings in Internet Address Filters Prevent IP Addresses copy in the blocked IPs (to keep out the RIAA).

I used the IPs from theTechfocus RIAA/MPAA .htaccess project

When you're done, exit ES5 (make sure you exit the program in the system tray too). Then start the program up again. If the status bar has a green block that says Stealth SSL, then you have more than enough security to evade the RIAA. Even if it says Low Stealth, you're fine.

There are lots of settings to fiddle with. Search in the help for the name of the setting you want to use. The help is pretty good.

Right now, the FTC is flooded with spam. Maybe they're just trying to protect against SoBig, but all of my messages to uce@ftc.gov are bouncing back with a message like this:

Your message has encountered delivery problems
to the following recipient(s):

uce@ftc.gov
Delivery failed
452 4.4.5 Insufficient disk space; try again later

Failed to deliver to domain ftc.gov after 50 tries.
Last error was:
Sent: MAIL FROM: SIZE=3189
Received:452 4.4.5 Insufficient disk space; try again later

In their Consumer Complaint Form, the FTC continues to request spam be forwarded them at uce@ftc.gov.

I go in spurts of actually doing something about my spam levels. I use a Bayesian-filter-equipped email system, but every so often I get sick of just deleting spam and decide to send copies to the ftc and the spammer's/open relay's ISP.

Right now, I am in one of those spurts. I have been forwarding my mail for about 2 weeks and have not noticed any sustained decline in my spam yet (about 15/day).

What do you do with your spam? In Paul Graham's latest essay, he outlines various things you can do with spam.

This has got to be the cruelest spam I have ever recieved:

Return-Path:
Received: from mx3.nyc.untd.com (mx3.nyc.untd.com [10.140.24.63])
        by maildeliver05.nyc.untd.com with SMTP id AAA9TPLK9AYE82UA
        for (sender );
        Thu, 17 Jul 2003 09:48:47 -0400 (EDT)
Received: from mail02.defconsys.net (dpvc-68-161-241-88.ny325.east.verizon.net [68.161.241.88])
        by mx3.nyc.untd.com with SMTP id AAA9TPLK9AR5ZLCA
        for (sender );
        Thu, 17 Jul 2003 09:48:47 -0400 (EDT)
Received: from hotmail.com [68.211.155.59] by mail02.defconsys.net with ESMTP
    (SMTPD32-7.15) id A3A870106; Wed, 16 Jul 2003 03:50:00 -0400
Message-ID:
To:
From: "Erica"
Subject: date has been scheduled
Date: Wed, 16 Jul 2003 03:40:39 -1900
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain;
        charset="Windows-1252"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
X-ContentStamp: 8:4:1938915096

A friend invited you on a Blind Date! Everything has been arranged. Have Fun!

Click here to confirm or reschedule your date:
http://womenlook4men.com/confirm/?oc=52210080

Click here if you do not wish to be invited again:
http://womenlook4men.com/remove/?oc=52210181

Just as strange is the fact that the domain womenlook4men.com is owned by a company in Great Britain and Russia called Eastern Women. They also own russianbrideservice.com.