Help! My Belkin Router is Spamming Me!

March 8, 2008 – 2:58 PM

The marketing geniuses at Belkin, the consumer networking vendor, have dreamed up a new form of spam – ads served to your desktop, by way of its wireless router.Uh Clem. a former Belkin wireless router user, was perplexed to find machines on his network redirected to an ad for Belkin’s new parental control system, following a software update.

Clem initially thought that the browser setting on the machine he downloaded the updated software had been changed. But when other machines displayed the same behaviour he realised his router was to blame.

The router would grab a random HTTP connection every eight hours and redirect it to Belkin?s (push) advertised web page.“It seems the router now supports a parental control and the market droids at Belkin got the bright idea of equipping the router with intrusive nagware,” writes Uh Clem. “Of course, I have this strange notion that routers should pass data unmolested by marketeers!”

There is an opt-out link on the advertised page but this failed to appease Clem who, not unreasonably, objects to having to “opt-out from commercials from my router”. Because of the ads, he’s decided not to buy Belkin products again.

In response criticism, a Belkin product manager came forward this week to confirm the behaviour was designed into the products as a way to make it easier for consumers to sign up to a free trial of its parental control software. Belkin’s Eric Deming is keen to allay concerns about the technique which have produced sharp criticism of the company on the news.admin.net-abuse.email newsgroup.

“We don’t have the ability to spam you at a later time if you select “No Thanks” or turn off the reminder manually,” Deming writes. “I know this feature might be misunderstood and might PO some people. I know the manual could do a better job explaining it. These are all things that we at Belkin are working to remedy.” ?

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/69/33858.html

I am a BAD American

March 8, 2008 – 2:57 PM

I Am Your Worst Nightmare. I am a BAD American.I like big cars, big hooters, and big cigars.I believe the money I make belongs to me and my family, not some mid-level governmental functionary with a bad comb-over who wants to give it away to crack addicts squirting out babies.

I’m not in touch with my feelings and I like it that way, damn it!

I believe no one ever died because of something Ozzy Osborne, Ice-T or Marilyn Manson sang.

I think owning a gun doesn’t make you a killer.

I believe it’s called the Boy Scouts for a reason.

I don’t think being a minority makes you noble or victimized.

I don’t celebrate Kwanzaa.

I believe that if you are selling me a Big Mac, you’d better do it in English.

I don’t use the excuse “it’s for the children” as a shield for unpopular opinions or actions.

I think Oprah is a big fat pig.

I think fireworks should be legal on the 4th of July.

I think that being a student doesn’t give you any more enlightenment than working at Blockbuster. In fact, if your parents are footing the bill to put your pansy ass through 4-7 years of college, you haven’t begun to be enlightened.

I don’t want to eat or drink anything with the words light, lite or fat-free on the package.

I believe everyone has a right to pray to his or her God or gods, just leave the rest of us out of it.

This also applies to sexuality.

Hillary Clinton is a carpet-munching lesbian.

My heroes are John Wayne, the Simpsons, and whoever canceled Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman.

I don’t hate the rich. I don’t pity the poor.

I know wrestling is fake and I don’t waste my time arguing about it.

I think global warming is a big lie. Where are all those experts now, when I am freezing my ass through a long winter?

I’ve never owned a slave, or was a slave, I didn’t wander forty years in the desert after getting chased out of Egypt, I haven’t burned any witches or been persecuted by the Turks and neither have you, so shut-the-*****-up already.

I want to know which church is it exactly where the Rev. Jessie Jackson preaches. And where does he get his money. And why is he always part of the problem and not the solution.

I think the cops have every right to shoot your sorry ass if you’re running from them.

I also think they have the right to pull your Ass over if you are breaking the law, regardless of what color you are.

I think if you are too stupid to know how a ballot works, I don’t want you deciding who should be running the most powerful nation in the world for the next four years.

I worry about dying before I get even.

I hate those bastards standing in the intersections trying to sell me crap or trying to guilt me into making ‘donations’ to their cause. These people should be targets.

I think if you are in the passing lane, and not passing, your license should be revoked, and you should be forced to ride the bus until you promise to never delay the rest of us again.

I think beef jerky could quite possibly be the perfect food.

I enjoy watching high-speed pursuits, the more damage the better.

I believe that it doesn’t take a village to raise a child, it takes two parents.

I think tattoos and piercing are fine if you want them, but please don’t pretend they are a political statement.

I think Dr. Seuss was a genius.

I’m neither angry nor disenfranchised, no matter how desperately the mainstream media would like the world to believe otherwise.

I believe if she has her lips on your willie, it is sex, and it is sex for both of you. This even applies when she is a fat pig with Self esteem issues, and you are President of the United States. “Is” means “is”, … dumbass.

If that makes me a BAD American, then yes, I’m a BAD American.

NaDa 0.5

March 8, 2008 – 2:56 PM

NaDa is a new concept. A thought, really. It is very light : 1 byte. It doesn’t take long to fetch. It doesn’t take long to understand. It doesn’t disturb your habits nor does it makes you feel insecure. It is a reassuring piece of software that does nothing, and does it very well. That’s a lot !

Most products we see on the market want to increase our productivity, organize our screen joyfully or make wonders with our sound card, but NaDa does nothing. This is a revolutionary whole new approach, a concept far beyond what you usually expect from the software industry. Download it and forget it.

http://www.bernardbelanger.com/computing/NaDa/index.html

You’ve got mail — and the boss knows

March 8, 2008 – 2:55 PM

More than nine out of 10 (92 percent) managers check up on their employees’ use of e-mail and the Internet at work, according to a new survey of 192 companies by Bentley College’s Center for Business Ethics.

The study by the Waltham, Mass., college found that 26 percent monitor employees’ online activities all the time, not just when something gives cause for concern, and only half of the respondents considered monitoring an issue to be covered in employee training sessions.

All companies in the survey are members of the Ethics Officer Association, the professional association exclusively for managers of ethics, compliance and business conduct programs.

Among other findings:

  • Almost all companies participating in the survey (92 percent) allow their employees reasonable personal usage of their electronic systems, yet fewer than half actually define what they consider reasonable.
  • As with personal use of the telephone, employers do not want work patterns, productivity or performance to be disrupted; and where that starts to happen is the point at which most employers draw the line on personal usage.
  • Another major consideration for employers, apart from misuse of company time, is the protection of corporate interests. By certain kinds of personal usage of e-mail and the Internet, employees can put themselves into conflict with the legitimate interests of their employers. Interviews revealed that employers’ greatest concerns in this area pertain to minimizing corporate risk exposure.
  • Less than half (44 percent) of the companies surveyed involved their ethics officer in the monitoring process, and:
  • A quarter of the companies admitted that they do not have in place any procedures or safeguards to ensure that the monitoring process is not abused;
  • Nearly half do not have written guidelines, policies or procedures by way of monitoring guidance;
  • Two-thirds of respondents do not require the monitoring department or person to sign a confidentiality agreement.

http://sanjose.bizjournals.com/sanjose/stories/2003/10/06/daily29.html

10 steps everyone should take to protect their online privacy

March 8, 2008 – 2:54 PM

Online privacy is at risk now more than ever. It is important that people take the protection of their personal information into their own hands. Below are ten steps everyone should take to protect their personal, sensitive, and valuable information.

Step 1 Think before you type. The Internet is the least privacy-friendly communications medium ever developed. It is critical to be ?street wise.? Be aware of what information you are providing and to whom. Take an active roll in protecting your personal information.
Step 2 Only do business with reputable companies and web sites. Make sure you know and trust the businesses with which you?re doing business or providing information.
Step 3 Never volunteer information. Just because a web site asks for information about you doesn?t mean you need to give it to them. If you cannot proceed without giving out personal data, consider whether you really want to do business with that site.
Step 4 If you are required to provide personal information, get creative! If you must answer intrusive personal questions to proceed, and your answers are not legally required to be valid, consider using false names, addresses, ages, and occupations.
Step 5 Use ?disposable? email accounts for all web forms. If you must provide an email address to a web site, and you do not want to continue to receive email from them in the future or risk having your email address sold to spammers, use a disposable email account, like Hotmail or Yahoo!. Create a new email account at least once a month.
Step 6 Do not follow web links in emails sent by a questionable sources. This is especially true when the web site requests sensitive or financial information from you. It is easy for criminals to forge a URL to make it look like a trusted web site. Rather than clicking on a URL, type it in yourself, or, better, make sure the accurate sites for your trusted vendors are bookmarked.
Step 7 Don?t enter online contests. Most are simply tricks by advertisers to gather more detailed information about you.
Step 8 Clear out tracking data on your PC. As you roam the Internet, tracking ?cookies? and other sensitive information accumulates on your PC. Use a tool like Total System Sweeper from Anonymizer to eliminate this information from your computer.
Step 9 Regularly scan your computer for ?spyware.? These programs, typically downloaded to your computer along with useful utilities or games, monitor your internet activities, then report back to the advertisers in order to bombard you with additional pop-ups and other ads. A program like SpyWare Killer will help eliminate these programs from your system.
Step 10 Protect your personal information from being harvested by the sites you visit. Your computer is configured to give away a huge amount of information about who you are, where you?re located, what sites you?ve visited, what software you?re using, and much more. It is critical to use a comprehensive privacy system like Privacy Manager to ensure your personal privacy is protected.

http://www.anonymizer.com/tensteps/index.shtml