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Comment Doesn't seem terribly practical (Score 3, Insightful) 151

by digitalme2 (#29255701) Attached to: Skype Trojan Can Log VoIP Conversations
Seems more like something that would be used by investigators, employers, jealous partners, and their like. As TFA says, "The downside for the malware creators is that they would need a lot of time on their hands to go through hours of Skype audio files to find anything of monetary interest." The idea is so obvious that this is likely why we haven't seen this before.
Spam

Opting Out Increases Spam? 481

Posted by timothy from the damned-either-way dept.
J. L. Tympanum writes "I used to ignore spam but recently I have been using the opt-out feature. Now I get more spam than ever, especially of the Nigerian scam (and related) types. The latter has gone from almost none to several a day. Was I a fool for opting out? Is my email address being harvested when I opt out? Has anybody had similar experience?"

Comment I think I'm missing something here... (Score 1) 1079

by digitalme2 (#27575933) Attached to: College Police Think Using Linux Is Suspicious Behavior

The dorm room search stemmed from an investigation into who sent an email to a Boston College mailing list alleging that another student was gay. Police say they know who sent the email and that the sender committed the crimes of "obtaining computer services by fraud or misrepresentation" and obtaining "unauthorized access to a computer system." However, nothing presented by the investigating officer to obtain the warrant, including the allegation that the student sent the email to the mailing list, could constitute the cited criminal offenses.

First of all, I think outing someone is an abhorrent thing to do. It can psychologically destroy someone, and I'm all for punishing the outer. However, this is one of two things (provided Boston College doesn't handle this internally): a) libel or b) a civil suit for emotional damage. So what I'm missing is, how does one jump from a posting to a public mailing list to unauthorized access and computer fraud? And why would Boston College pursue legal recourse first instead of sanctioning him as a student?

Comment Twitter should solve its own problem (Score 2, Insightful) 354

by digitalme2 (#27550407) Attached to: Can rev="canonical" Replace URL-Shortening Services?

Instead of using a plethora of different URL shortening services, any of which might disappear at some point in the future, Twitter should implement its own URL shortening service (using, say, the domain http://tw.it/ or similar) and thereby shorten any URL's that Twitter users post. Assuming the Twitter team can manage this (given their track record with things like message queues, however...) then there would be no possibility of linkrot.

Unless you're using shortened URL's somewhere besides Twitter, of course. But why on Earth would you do that?

Comment Talk about doublespeak (Score 1, Informative) 488

by digitalme2 (#27446269) Attached to: Trick Used To Pass French "Three Strikes"

HADOPI, the office which is charged with overseeing the three-strikes system, stands for "haute autorité pour la diffusion des oeuvres et la protection des droits sur Internet" which more or less means "high authority for the distribution of [creative] works and the protection of internet rights".

I know that some level of doublespeak is to be expected of politics, but calling a government office whose express purpose is to limit what people can do on the internet the office for protection of internet rights? Damn. Maybe I'm just naïve though.
Censorship

After Columbine, Eric Holder Advocated Internet "Restrictions" 430

Posted by timothy from the but-that-was-then-and-this-is-now dept.
ErikTheRed writes "In an audio clip discovered by NewsBusters, then-Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder advocated federal censorship of the Internet. This was in the aftermath of the Columbine High School shootings. From the clip: 'The court has really struck down every government effort to try to regulate it. We tried with regard to pornography. It is gonna be a difficult thing, but it seems to me that if we can come up with reasonable restrictions, reasonable regulations in how people interact on the Internet, that is something that the Supreme Court and the courts ought to favorably look at.'" Holder is reported to be Barack Obama's choice for Attorney General of the United States.

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