Stupidest text message ever

Ever read a news report about what somebody did and said to yourself, "That's really dumb"?

How about the Italian dude who texted his wife in mid-air, telling her that his plane was being hijacked? Stoopid enuff for ya? Naturally, the police weren't too impressed.

Yeah, he probably looked a bit like this guy, albeit with more clothes. And Italian (this guy's probably Belgian). Oh, and jammed into a tiny aircraft seat. What seat pitch does Lauda Air use on long-haul anyway? SeatGuru doesn't know. Wait, what was I talking about again..?

Is this the best we can do to fight spam?

In InformationWeek, Bob Evans polled for ideas to stop spam. Also noted in Sarah's blog.

Can't say I'm too impressed with the answers he got. (Reading between the lines, I don't think he is, either.)

The best contribution turned out to be Tempfailing. In case you've not come across this before, the idea is that if a receiving MTA "tempfails" an incoming connection, spammers will give up and go somewhere else. An example of a tempfail is, "4451 4.7.1 Please try again later." Legitimate MTAs will just pause and resend, so the theory goes. (Note that many people call this "Greylisting," however other people use that term to describe other anti-spam techniques.)

Nice idea in theory, but as I've said before, it doesn't work any more. These days, most spam is sent by botnets (armies of virus-infected PCs, remote-controlled by spammers). The spamming software running on these "zombie" PCs is quite capable of queueing and retrying, just like any regular MTA is.

I can't help thinking that greylisting advocates have an exaggerated sense of spammers' technical stupidity.

Rio500 under Windows 2000 HOWTO

Amazing. People still want this howto! If this is useful to you, please click on some of my nice Google Ads.

Version 1.6a (updated with fixed link to zip file) -- Richi Jennings richi (at) richi (dot) co (dot) uk—feel free to e-mail me with suggestions or corrections.

Based on the original posting on NT Compatible by myan1 (at) san (dot) rr (dot) com Perhaps this works on Windows XP as well? I dunno: I have an iPod now...

1. Uninstall Audio Manager 2.1, if you have it installed. Make sure the Audio Manager directory is deleted (the songs database format is incompatible).
2. Unpack the RAM2020.ZIP (1.74MB) file to where you want it -- it will create a new RioPort\ directory (normally this is \Program Files\RioPort\). That's right: there's no installer -- you may need to create your own icon under the Start menu.
3. Open a CMD.EXE prompt, CD to the Audio Manager directory and run SWITCHTO500.BAT -- this will install all the MD*.DLL files in WINNT\SYSTEM32\. Check that MDMUSER.DLL is there -- if not, copy it from the RioPort\ directory.
4. Run the Audio Manager program, 1SMUSIC.EXE, just to make sure it works. Once you're happy that it's working, just close it (it may warn you that it can't find a portable player, but don't worry about that).
5. Unpack the USB1001.ZIP (8KB) file -- it should create a directory called USB 1.0.0.1\ with the Rio USB drivers in it.
6. Plug in your Rio500. Win2k will detect it, and will ask you for drivers for it. Click the Browser button, and point it at the USB 1.0.0.1\ directory. It will now install the drivers.
7. Now you can run the Audio Manager again, and it should all work... ;-)

If this has been helpful, please leave a comment below.

The master version of this HOWTO is kept at http://richi.co.uk/.

Viral address harvesting

Ferris Research: Viral address harvesting

Previously, we talked about people who don't get spam because their email address isn't known by spammers. The bad news is, this is changing. If you're feeling smug because you're one of these fortunate people, get ready to join the rest of us. Spammers may not know your address yet, but... [more]

What's wrong with online dating?

Ferris Research: What's wrong with online dating?

Just a quick thought—it seems to me that the economic incentive for a dating website to provide a good service is broken. Most businesses thrive on repeat business, or a regular cashflow from a subscription model. Customer retention being less expensive than customer acquisition, as any MBA could tell you.

Think about it; online dating isn't like that. If the service succeeds in bringing two customers together into a lasting relationship they're both going to be canceling their subscription, aren't they?

Inspired by this NYT article, E-Dating Bubble Springs a Leak.