Steve, et Listers,
Thought you guys might find this article in New Scientist interesting with
respect to the "utterfilth" fiasco. The deal is, our computers give everyone
who's interested almost direct access to our brains. Don Daves is not the only
one with "Big Brother" looking over his shoulder. In fact, it is becoming all
too common for employers to monitor employees with programs that track their
activities on the computer. Your next performance review may be based on your
computer use "profile" instead of the traditional criteria; like productivity,
attitude, etc. And just think about all the new jobs this technology opens up.
Why, there are dozens of people working full time just ferreting out those
"immoral" sites to add to their surveillance application's data base. Now
there's a fun job (NOT!). And then, there are the guys who man the monitors
just watching for infractions. Again, another great job opportunity. (OK, all
of you closet censors, your time has finally come.) In addition to computer
watchdogs, a lot of employers also install hidden cameras and microphones in
washrooms, around the coffee mess, etc. And, it's all LEGAL!!
Although I know this is no excuse for my posting the utterfilth URL to this
list, the fact is that, without any help, any of us at any time can mistakenly
point and click a link and wind up with our job in jeopardy. So, let's not
loose sight of the real enemy here!! Protecting our children is a very valid
concern. But is the Internet any different than the drugstore bookstand I used
to walk by as a kid?? It's the same old problem, just the venue has changed.
Somehow we survived then and I'll bet or kids can survive now, even if we do
give them unfettered access to the Internet. (Just my, of course humble,
opinion.)
Now, for a little Tiger content to keep the TC Police happy.
A couple of weeks ago, my clutch slave started leaking again for the umpteenth
time. Time to call Rick again. (This happens about every 10-12 months).
Anyway,
just for the hell of it, I filled up the reservoir with safflower oil. Now
this
is Saffola brand 100% safflower oil so accept no substitutes. Well, guess
what.
Ever since I put the safflower oil in the thing's been working perfectly;
doesn't leak, works smooth, oil stays clean. Hey, maybe I'm on to something
here.
Oh yes, about the "Fight of the Millenium". Well, I guess Ramon passed out
before he could answer the second bell so the rest of us trundled off to bed
around 11:00 p.m. PDT. If any of you can't find a better way to spend you
Labor
Day weekend, check back in later. My guess is the referee (Laifman) is the one
most likely to get knocked out.
Feelin' free in San Diego,
Bob
Join the crowd
Its been fairly obvious that the vision of George Orwells classic ‘1984' would
somehow be connected to new technology. The latest issue of New Scientist
highlights not only the fact that ‘no matter how much you know about the web,
it knows more about you’, but also offers a way to get lost in the crowd.
Basically, every time you visit a website, you create a record that you were
there, and what pages you viewed. If you visit one site often, you also create
a profile of how you use the site. In quite a few cases, this presents no
problem or invasion of privacy. But, in some cases the information gathered is
used for commercial purposes or worse, as in the recent case of UK customs
scanning laptop hard drives for banned material.
So, Michael Reiter and Avi Rubin of At&T labs developed a way to literally get
lost by joining a pool of surfers called ‘Crowds’. The program is known as a
‘jondo’ after the practice of naming unidentified corpses in the US John Does.
Its simply a matter of randomly routing your request to visit a site through
several different addresses before actually connecting to the site.
Information
is then routed back to your computer. There are drawbacks which include a
slower surfing rate and the system is limited to those with a lot of power and
an ISDN line. But, is also offers the opportunity to legitimately claim
that it
was not you who visited a prohibited website and Crowds software regularly
strips out ‘cookies’: the small packets of information generated by a visit to
a website and stored on your computer.
See: Secret surfing, M. Ward, pp 16
Robert L. Palmer
Dept. of AMES, Univ. of Calif., San Diego
rpalmer@ames.ucsd.edu
rpalmer@cts.com
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