Category: Technology

..You are receiving this email notification because... 

-> MICROSOFT SENDS ILLEGAL UNSOLICITED COMMERCIAL SPAM <-

OUR MISSION: Worldwide Boycott of MICROSOFT Software / Hardware / Service
SHOW YOUR SUPPORT: "Don't Support Illegal Spam, Don't Buy Microsoft Products"

OUR GOAL: 100 Billion Views / 99.9% Internet Saturation / 178 Parts (2005-2007)

[SPAMIS Foundation: Strategic Partnership Against Microsoft Illegal Spam] 

[Part 47 of 178]
----- ---- --- -- -  -    -
Microsoft Employee Mike Lyman Speaks Out on Online Spam
Message Board NANAE & Mailing List SPAM-L on Microsoft Spam
___________________________________________________________

MICROSOFT IS ONE OF THE "GREATEST, MOST HATED INSTITUTIONAL SPAMMERS AROUND"

"I'm with one of the greatest, most hated institutional "spammers" around.
 most people speaking officially for the company will go round and round
 with you how we don't spam. Well, in the past it was not always obvious
 that you were opting in, sometimes it still isn't obvious and our sign up
 process still leaves a lot to be desired and is open to abuse."

FIRMLY ADMITTING THAT MICROSOFT IS A "SPAMHOUSE" AND SENDS OUT SPAM

"We are a spamhouse. Doesn't matter that we're Microsoft.  Our legitimate,
 unsolicited email is still just spam."

___________________________________________________________

MIKE LYMAN:
Microsoft Head Email Abuse Administrator for Microsoft Speaks
Out About Microsoft's Previous & Current Spamming Activities

PREVIOUS CREDENTIALS:
West Point Military Academy Graduate of 1987
Ex-Computer Administrator for the US Department of Defense
___________________________________________________________

MEDIA & JOURNALISTS INTERESTED IN A STORY ON SPAMIS AND/OR MICROSOFT SPAM?
LEGAL FIRMS INTERESTED IN LITIGATION AGAINST MICROSOFT'S ILLEGAL SPAMMING?
Contact: Spamis, Box 1259, Seattle, WA 98111 / Phone or Fax: (206)260-2409

QUESTIONS ABOUT THESE PUBLIC STATEMENTS FROM MICROSOFT:
Microsoft Head Spam Spokesmen: Aaron Kornblum or Ryan Hamlin

SPAMIS EXISTS DUE TO THE IMPROPER, RUDE AND FALSE ALLEGATIONS SET FORTH BY:
Microsoft Head Law Firm: Preston, Gates, Ellis, Seattle, WA - USA
Lawyers at Fault: Robert J. Dzielak / David A. Bateman / Theodore J. Angelis

[Part 47 of 178]
(c)2005 SPAMIS: Strategic Partnership Against Microsoft Illegal Spam

Thanks for playing, spammer. Perhaps my virulent anti-Microsoftism will inspire me to send you some cash. But probably not.

Some security is too secure. For example, I was signing up for something, and the application tried to prevent automated registration by forcing me to type this:

I can take my chances on whether the second and fourth characters are Ks or Xs, but what the dog is that third character? I don’t have a futhark keyboard, for cryin’ out loud.

I received an e-mail today, nominally from Sprint, but you never know:

Dear Valued Sprint Customer,

At Sprint, our focus is making sure that we always provide you with the highest level of service. Therefore, our policy is to send you emails only with your permission. Click here if you’d like to continue receiving email communications regarding account information, special offers and product updates. Remember that Sprint respects your privacy and will never share, sell, or rent your email address to any third parties.

Whether your current Sprint Service Plan is for personal or business use, we believe that email is the most efficient and environmentally friendly way to communicate with you. If you do not respond to this message, you will no longer receive emails from Sprint (unless you later provide us with your permission). This does not apply to online invoice notifications.

Thank you,
Sprint Customer Service

So I think: This is the future of the phish scam. A two-parter. Much like the Nigerian scam seeks a response, the phuture phish will send out opt-in notifications like this, and when the user clicks okay to acknowledge he or she is a customer of the company in question, then sometime in the near future, the “company” comes back with an audit e-mail or the common phish scams.

The scam will target only users who have acknowledged that they have an offline relationship with the company whose logo appears in the scam, and the user will expect legitimate e-mail from the company because he or she has told the company that he or she wants e-mail from the company.

It’s slick, it’s elegant, and it’s coming….

(Added to the Outside the Beltway Traffic Jam.)

Microsoft Will Drop ‘My’ Prefix for Longhorn:

If you are a Microsoft user, there’s a big change coming in Longhorn — the code name for the next MS operating system: the “My” prefix is disappearing.

Microsoft users have become used to the “My Music,” “My Pictures,” and other “My” folders, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, reported. Those Windows folders will still be yours — but they won’t keep hitting you over the head with that terminology.

Ending a longstanding tradition, Microsoft says, starting in the next Windows version due out next year, folders will be known simply as “Documents,” “Music,” and so on.

It’s a precursor to renaming all folders and whatnot as Our Computer, Our Music, Our Documents, and so on.

Oh, sure, the Roborior is designed to be a home security device, but listen to what it does:

The $2,600 (280,000 yen) contraption by Japanese robot maker Tmsuk Co. and electronics company Sanyo Electric Co. (SANYY) can connect with the owner’s mobile phone to relay streaming video taken on the robot’s digital camera.

It can be remote-controlled with a handset to go forward, backward, left or right. The buttons also adjust the angle of the digital camera to look up or down.

Were I to submit this to Fark, I’d use the headline New home security robot will protect your home, shoot Sarah Connor.

Nigerian scam of the day:

ZONAL CONSULTING AGENCY.
zonalconsultant@netscape.net

ZONAL Consulting:Private Investigators and Security Consultants is conducting a
standard process investigation on behalf of Deutsche Bank AG,the international
Banking conglomerate, and we will like you to assist with this Independent
Enquiry.

My name is MARIO WOLF. I am a senior partner in the firm. This investigation
involves a client who shares the same surname with you and also the
circumstances surrounding investments made by this client at Deutsche Bank AG.

The Deutsche Bank AG Banking client died intestate and nominated no successor in
title over the investments made with the Bank. The essence of this communication
with you is to request you provide us information/comments on any or all of the
four issues:

1-Are you aware of any relative/relation who shares your same surname whose last
known contact address was Hamburg, Germany?

2-Are you aware of any investment of considerable value made by such aperson at
the Deutsche Bank AG?

3-Born on the 1st of June 1927

4-Can you establish beyond reasonable doubt your eligibility to assume status of
successor in title to the deceased?

It is pertinent that you inform us ASAP whether or not you are familiar with
this personality that we may put an end to this communication with you and our
inquiries surrounding this personality. You must appreciate that we are
constrained from providing you with more detailed information at this point.

Please respond to this mail as soon as possible to afford us the opportunity to
close this investigation. Thank you for accommodating our enquiry.

zonalconsultant@netscape.net
Mario Wolf.

Well, that’s creative scamming, anyway.

The keyboard has no letters on it.

I am the only member of my generation, and the last in human history, who does not touch type and needs to orient himself by looking at the keyboard. Why, once El Guapo swapped a couple of keys on my computer keyboard at work and I could not log in because my password wouldn’t work–because it included one of the transposed keys.

(Link seen on /..)

More software problems with cars:

A software problem is causing some Toyota Prius gas-electric hybrid cars to stall or shut down while driving at highway speeds, according to a published report.

The Wall Street Journal reports that the problem involves Priuses from the 2004 model year and some early 2005 models.

The newspaper reports the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has logged 13 reports of the engine shutdowns, while Edmunds.com, a popular vehicle-information and shopping site, has had 13 individuals post complaints in a Prius forum. Some of the cars that shut down had to be towed to the shop before they could be restarted.

Well, that’s the side effect of moving from mechanical engineering, which has had thousands of years of quality assurance to software engineering, which was supposed to have two weeks of quality assurance but development ran long, so it got two days, including a three hour status meeting and a two hour argument about which defects to fix before release and which to fix after the release.

(Link seen on /..)

Security for the Paranoid:

I use very long passwords for everything, even with the lamest accounts I have. I require my kids to use at least 14 character passwords on our home network and I’m considering issuing them smart cards. No one else, not even my wife, knows my network password.

I don’t just throw out shredded documents; I spread the shredded bits into my garden to use as mulch.

I don’t do it because I think someone is going to go through my trash to reassemble bits of my research notes. I do it because it’s good security. I try to run my own network the same way I tell my clients to.

Firewall to zap XML viruses:

Salt Lake City-based Forum Systems plans to announce the addition of the antivirus module to XWall on Monday. It will be available at the beginning of May, with pricing ranging from $5,000 to $40,000.

The 5-year-old company is one of several companies that make software or devices for securing applications that use XML to format data or XML-based communications protocols, called Web services.

$40,000 piece of hardware specifically to block bad XML from coming into your company? Lord, love a duck, I though XML Schema Documents (XSD) did that.

There is a need for XML-specific products, according to these companies and industry analysts, because traditional security products are designed primarily to inspect Internet protocols, rather than XML or Web services protocols.

Obfuscation is a virus, too. Those Web services protocols determine how XML messages are formatted, but they’re still sent over common Internet messages that use the same traditional Internet protocols that your native firewalls block. If someone is triggering a denial of service using SOAP against one of your public Web services, you’ll do the same thing you do when blocking a traditional DOS attack: You’ll block the IP addresses from the incoming flood or you’ll block/change the port number/URI of the Web service. No special XML-sniffing necessary.

But now they’ve expanded the service to include software that scans for XML Viruses, which are pretty common, hey?

Although they have not seen viruses written specifically for XML, these applications are still not adequately protected, executives from Forum Systems and CA said.

The only adequate prevention is heat; that is, just burning money on an XML-virus-sniffing and firewall product is the only thing that can protect you from XML! And SOAP! And all the potentially-malevolent buzzwords you don’t understand!

After all, gentle reader, your organization is at risk!

Forum Systems CEO Wes Swenson predicted that XML viruses will become common as people store Office documents in XML format and as developers use the Simple Object Access Protocol, which is written in XML, in tools for company-to-company communication.

The difference between XML files and Office document file types is that XML doesn’t execute code in and of itself. Wrapped in SOAP, an XML document can trigger the execution of a Web service, but that’s not an XML virus. Viruses need to run their contents to propogate, and if you’ve got an XML document that can propogate itself using SOAP, you’ve got a problem with your Web service.

But never mind that; spend the $40,000 and feel good about yourself.

“When you do have an XML-based virus attack, it will affect mission-critical servers as opposed to e-mail server and Web servers,” Swenson said.

The very words mission-critical indicate that CNET has passed on a press release as a news story. XML viruses don’t exist, and cannot exist unless you’ve got an XML-consuming application that’s poorly written and vulnerable to buffer overflow errors or, heaven forfend, runs code contained in XML messages. A DOS attack on a Web service will affect the servers hosting the “mission-critical” Web services, but you don’t need this guy’s product to deal with it.

But, hey, if corporations want it, let them have it.

Meanwhile, I am hard at work here in the lab to protect corporations from insidious ASCII text file viruses. Did you know that your company uses hundreds or thousands of these potentially hazardous files every day and that they can be transmitted through e-mail attachments or automatically copied from the Internet or across networks. And unlike XML files, ASCII flat files, particularly those with file extensions of .java, .cpp, or .vb, can contain malicious code that can take control of your desktop when executed.

Watch soon for the money-sucking Jeracor ASCII Virus Firewall, coming soon.

600 foreign software developers on a former cruise ship in international waters outside of Los Angeles. It’s Sea Code.

AOL is a funny animal. Hey, I’ll admit I first got onto the Internet using AOL and that I still use AOL (I’m a Web application tester, gentle reader, so I use more browsers and operatings systems on any given day than you’ll probably use in a year). But come on, some of their things are just funny.

Let’s start with this scenario. You know how AOL always warns you that no one from AOL will ever ask for your credit card information, your password, and so on? Well, if your credit card information changes (such as a new expiration date), what does AOL do?

Of course! It throws up a prompt for you to enter credit card information:

Why, oh why, would AOL expect its users to type their information into a prompt like this? Because they’re AOL customers, that’s why!

Back in the dial-up days of the mid nineteen nineties, AOL had trouble getting enough lines at its access numbers to accommodate the surging demand. Some people were leaving their computers connected when they weren’t at the computer, tying up those precious lines. So AOL deployed the Idle Message, a message that popped up for every user fifty minutes after the user logged in; if the user didn’t click OK to indicate they were still using the computer, AOL booted them. Many times, it kicked me off in the middle of a download. Handy.

Apparently, AOL’s gotten more sophisticated and has set the message to determine when the user is not doing something. I assume such because it’s called the Idle Message. I’ve never seen it, but I have seen this:

That’s right, since I have apparently turned off the Idle Message in my AOL for Broadband connection, AOL still pops up a message box to indicate I have been idle. The titlebar? Idle Message Off.

I think that AOL is trying to use paradoxes and irony to cause a rift in the space-time continuum so it can reach through to an alternate universe where its merger with Time-Warner was a good idea. It’s only a working theory, though, and I might be wrong.

Ever need to phone 7,000 people at once?

If you ever need to get in touch with several–or several thousand–people at once, Send Word Now has the software for you.

The New York City-based start-up is promoting a communication application at PC Forum that lets a user type a message on a PC that then transforms into a phone call to a few people, or a few thousand. (PC Forum is owned by CNET Networks, owner of News.com.)

Though the urgent message currently needs to be typed into a PC (or broadcast from a company’s server farm), on April 7, Send Word Now will announce that customers can broadcast messages with a Palm handheld.

Wonder how companies will use this technology, huh? Two words: Phone Spam.