Way to Go, UVic

The "geniuses" at the Neptune project took time away from their money fight to sell some un-used submarine cable. How did they sell it? eBay! Link here.

What is amongst the great parts of this: They have a "Buy it Now!" price of $150,000 Cdn, but they have also dropped in their own Terms and Conditions, including:

4. Offers of less than CAN $6,500/km (CAN $151, 905.00) may not be considered.

5. The University of Victoria reserves the right to withdraw the equipment from sale at any time.

Way to go, Western Stevedoring Company Ltd. aka

Jonathon Griswold (250 386 1321, ext. 208) or Bob Barlow, (250 386 1321, ext. 204)

Is Shaw Selling Your Clicks?

Big news from the Open Data Conference 2007. David Cancel, the CEO of Compete Inc. revealed that ISPs sell clickstream data. How much are your clicks worth? About 40 cents a month per customer and the Compete's CEO estimates that there are 10-12 big buyers of this data. In other words, your ISP is probably making about $5 a month ($60 a year) off your clickstreams. Who could be a buyer? Could this be why Google's search results sometimes border on Clairvoyance?

The data is not sold with accompanying user name or information, but merely as a numerical user value. However, it is still theoretically possible to tie this information to a specific ISP account with the number of users who are are on effectively static IP addresses via high-speed cable and ADSL. Cancel told Ars that his company licenses the data from ISPs for millions of dollars. He did not give a specific figure about what this broke down to in terms of dollars per ISP user, although someone in the audience estimated that it was in the range of 40¢ per user per month—this estimate was erroneously attributed to Cancel himself in some reports on the event. Cancel said that this clickstream data is "much more comprehensive" than data that is normally gleaned through analyzing search queries.

Someone points out that this is just as bad as the AOL search thing. "It's much worse!" David says -- his excited eyes indicating that he's a happy customer. Someone else observes that "worse" is in the eye of the beholder: for the ISPs it's awesome.

The Open Data morning session ended with a general consensus that consumers would be surprised and outraged by the amount of online data that is being collected, stored, and sold--and that sooner or later some smart journalist will pretend to discover this secret and trigger a consumer firestorm.

There is no word how much Shaw and Telus are selling their clickstream data for. Nor is there any word as to whether or not they will continue the practice. When contacted, both companies declined to comment. Wanna try to get an answer? You can find their contact/help forms here: Shaw, Rogers, and Telus.

I'm sure it won't be long before there's a Clicksteam class action afoot.

Nigerian Letter Scams

After reading this great exchange of a Nigerian letter scammer and his wouldbe victim
( http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthread.php?t=105805 ), I was reminded of my own brushes with these weaels:
First outting: I was smarting from being scammed by Lewis and Oswald, I was contacted by a Nigerian Letter scammer who wanted me to participate. I responded with zeal. They asked for my fax number so that they could fax me the documents I needed to fill out. I gave them Lewis and Oswald's voice line. The scammers emailed me that they couldn't get the fax through. I told them that the business was very busy and the best time to try faxes on this line was after midnight in our timezone. I told them that this was important and asked them to try as many times as it took to get this information to me.
Second outting: We used phpBB as a forum tool. It was also a spam magnet from weiners using our site to build their page rank. We were hit with hundreds of faked sign-ups and posts. I noticed a pattern to their postings and I recoded the script to look for this pattern. When it was encountered, the scammer was added to our block list and not our users list. But they got a thank you message as though all was well. It was a Chinese finger trap (ironic since most of the sign-ups came from China): the more they tried, the more info we gathered about them and better we were able to tune our blocking script and block their alternative addresses. The pay-off came when one of the scammers emailed us all verclamt (sic): they knew they signed up and were pissed that they couldn't get in. Nothing better than seeing some weasel all sad and checkmated.

I'm Sorry, I Can Only Screw Up Your Email

So a techie is so desperate for a job, he'll sleep with a guy. He gets the job. But he's lousy. How does he deal with stuff? Here is a sampler of his talents at work:

-----Original Message-----
From: Lousy-tech, Super
Sent: Monday, March 27, 666 12:52 PM
To: User, Unfortunate
Cc: Collateral, Gary
Subject: RE: Your removal from the Nessus list

Unfortunate,
If you give me the email address of this organization or domain name I
can add them to the white list* and they will be able to make it through.
This form of email is SPAM because it is sent out to many people at one
time and because it is coming from a LISTSERV name. If you send me the
domain I can put it on the white list and it won't have any issues any
more. But without you notifying me of this problem then I am not going
to be able to fix the issue. Anytime that you have a problem with the
Information Systems of the Nessus Art Circle of Hell, you are to notify me and
I will make sure that it is taken care of for you.

As far as how SPAM is filtered here at the musuem, that is something
that I have been given control of as the Information Systems Manager.
At this point the solution that we have is doing a decent job, SPAM is
never something that is easy to concur unless we are willing to pay
extraordinary amounts** for an outside vendor to scan everything before it
gets to us which is something that is definitely not in our budget***. We
have to make due with what we have, if I don't have an email filter then
there are thousands of emails that will come into everyone's email box
not just a few. If there are specific people that you feel are having a
hard time getting into us then please notify me and I'll put them on the
white list so that there is no disruption, but without knowing that it
is happening then I'm not going to be able to do anything about it. As
far as receiving emails from Listservers or newsletters of some sort, we
as a whole need to be careful about what we sign up for because that
generates more SPAM and there is going to be a policy about this in the
near future.

Thanks,


J-Off

-----Original Message-----
From: User, Unfortunate
Sent: Friday, March 24, 666 10:06 AM
To: Lousy-tech, Super
Cc: Collateral, Gary
Subject: FW: Your removal from the Nessus list


Super:

I received this message earlier this week (see below). This is from a
listserv that I have belonged to since the day I started work here at
the Circle of Hell. This is from a reputable company; one I often consult for
reference purposes because it has such high ratings.

This particular listserv sends out information about arts and cultural
events in the greater Nessus area. Our own Circle of Hell is regularly listed.
I had been receiving an issue every other week until February of this
year but, as you can see, recent changes to our e-mail system has
prevented the issues from coming through. In particular, their
statements in the last two paragraphs are extremely interesting to me.

I am concerned about this as I have been trying to commmunicate with
several vendors throughout March and none of them have replied to
repeated requests for price lists, etc. One message sending out login
information for a free trial of another online product was blocked over
three times before I finally got it. I fear that other messages are
being rejected, too.

Meanwhile, I no longer have any messages being routed to my junk mail
folder; software ads, pharmaceutical ads, etc. are now coming directly
to my inbox. This does NOT concern me as junk mail is very easy to
identify and I delete these items immediately. Overall, I would prefer
to retain control of everything than miss out on important messages. Is
it possible to let all messages to my address come through without
manual or automatic filtering?

Please let me know if this can be arranged. I would like to know where
things stand before I ask some of my contacts to try and send things
again.

Thanks,

Unfortunate

-----Original Message-----
From: L-Soft list server at About.com (1.8d)
[mailto:LISTSERV@MCLIST.ABOUT.COM]
Sent: Tuesday, March 21, 666 10:53 PM
To: User, Unfortunate
Subject: Your removal from the Nessus list

Wed, 22 Mar 666 00:43:29

You have been automatically removed from the Nessus list (A
Free Nessus, AZ newsletter from About.com) as a result of repeated
delivery error reports from your mail system. This decision was
based on the automatic error monitoring policy in effect for the
list, and has not been reviewed or otherwise confirmed by a human
being. If you receive this message, it means that something is wrong:
while you are obviously able to receive mail, your mail system has
been regularly reporting that your account did not exist, or that you
were otherwise permanently unable to receive mail. Here is some
information which may assist you or your local help desk in determining
the cause of the problem:

- The failing address is Unfortunate.User@Hell.ORG.
- The first error was reported on 21 Feb 666.
- Since then, a total of 5 delivery errors have been received.
- The last reported error was: Probe failed.

PLEASE DO NOT IGNORE THIS MESSAGE. While you can of course
re-subscribe to the list, it is important for you to report this
problem to your mail administrator so that it can be solved. This
problem is not specific to the Nessus list, and also affects your
private mail. This means that YOU HAVE PROBABLY LOST SOME PRIVATE MAIL
AS WELL. Anyone trying to write to you during the same time frame
will probably have received the same errors for the same reason.
The Nessus list is but one of the many people who may have tried
to write to you while your mail system was malfunctioning.

DO NOT LET TECHNICAL PEOPLE CONVINCE YOU THAT THIS IS NORMAL. It is
never normal for a mail system to claim that a valid, working account
does not exist, just as it would not be normal for the post office to
return some of your mail with "addressee unknown" when the address
was written correctly. It is true that some mail systems are less
reliable than others, and your technical people may be doing the best
they can with the tools they have. But, ultimately, the level of
service that you are receiving is the result of a business decision,
and not something due to a universal technical limitation that one can
only accept. Reliable mail systems do exist, and it is ultimately up to
you to decide whether this level of service is acceptable or not.


* Gmail is on Sir Knob Gobble's blacklist.
** EmailDefenses.Net charges approximately $1/mo./user. $12/yr? Woo! That's too much.
*** Spam Assasin is free

Future Shop's "Sale"

How does Future Shop keep their prices low? Volume? Nope. Bait'n'switch.

I went into the store on the afternoon of March 21st. I asked a sales person if they had a laptop with a particular video card. I was directed to the Gateway Intel Centrino Duo T2300 1.67GHz Laptop (MX6708). The price was $1399.99. The noteworthy stats on the accompanying sticker were as follows:

- 128 MB video card
- 256 MB of RAM

The salesperson told me that the stats on the laptops they had in the store were better than the label. Instead they were :

- 256 MB video card
- 512 MB of RAM

I was surprised, but suspicious. When I asked to start up the actual laptop that I intended on buying to see if the stats of the model I would purchase matched the stats of the display model they demonstrated, another salesperson interrupted and they that the model on display was the "platnium" model and then removed the shelf sticker. At that point, I grew more suspiscious and left.

I feel that Future Shop placed a different model or a variant on display than that which they would actually sell to customers. If I obtained that model and found that it matched the advertised stats and not those demonstrated, I would have had little recourse as it would have been the word of the salesman vs. myself.

Have you been screwed too? Share your tale of woe with Industry Canada. There are big cash prizes... well, sort of. Instead of you getting money, scummy retailers can get big fines. You know what they say, "It's not enough that I succeed; you must fail."
http://www.competitionbureau.gc.ca/internet/index.cfm?itemID=258&lg=e

Portrait of a Failed Lawyer and Failed Web Designer

There's this guy. Let's call him Hans Jawb. He graduates law school but he can't be part of a law firm for some reason, so he starts one of these paralegal places that hands out forms but can't dispense legal opinions. Well something happens with that business. Can't say what. What do people do when they fail real bad in the real world? They take up web design.

What happens if they also can't design or create content? Well, they view the web like the Sudatenland and annex content. Then a writer finds that their content was poached and calls him on it. This is this the reply:

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: theftstudio.com Inc. [President, Hans Jawb]
Date: Aug 18, 2005
Subject: RE: Improper use of Copyrighted Material
To: Victim, team@theftstudio.com


Frankly Victim I think you take yourself just a tad too serious.

I alone take full responsibility for the content that is and has been on this page for numerous years now and if you have an issue with that then you can pursue whatever options you think you may have.

I practiced law for 20 years and if you can convince a court that you have copyright over those 2 sentences of fact then I'll be happy to pay you court-ordered costs and damages.

Good luck :-)

Hans Jawb. LL.B.
President & CEO
www.theftstudio.com Inc.
1-877-275-589_

When the Law Society (basically the province's equivalent of the bar association) was asked about Hans and his 20 years of practising law, this was their reply:

....

I confirm that Mr. Jawb is not currently nor has ever been a member of the Law Society of British Columbia. That, of course, does not mean that he has not practised law in some other jurisdiction and you would have to make enquiries of either Mr. Jawb directly or other jurisdictions to determine if he has practised elsewhere.

I trust this answers your question.

Yours truly,

xxx, Complaints Officer
The Law Society of British Columbia

Of course, when you hear "practiced law" the front part of your brain goes "practiced like a lawyer", the back part pipes in, "practiced like a spoon balancer". Turns out Jawb is more the latter. This demonstrates that those who can't do, teach. Ironically, given his thieving ways, much of this piece may end up on his website soon.

Of course, his scams may be exposed. After that, he would have to change it something else like http://www.schoolvictoria.com/ I guess MIT and Stanford don't have to change their names all the time. What does that say about places that seem to always have wet paint on their signs?

tags : tech colleges scams web design

Databases? We're not going to have those on this campus

This woman's iMac died. First off, she was forced to use an iMac. The dweebs put Macs into every role in the building: web server, print server, Windows machine, you name it. Anyways, her records were in FileMaker Pro for Mac. The campus didn't own a copy of FileMaker Pro for Windows; so, she wanted to translate the file to MS Access. The tech dweebs couldn't find
her backup file on the server.

This woman tried to get a course through Computing User Services (CUS) -
Educational Services Group. You'd think that a university with a full fledged Computer Science department would be decked out. She found that CUS no longer supports MS Access. Why? Because they are currently not supporting ANY DATABASE PROGRAM. When she asked why,
she was told that "there are safer ways to store data." Safer ways than a database. Like etching on stone?

So she asked, "What do you suggest for a solution then?" and was told to buy FMPro for Windows and move the file over. CUS said they "could translate the file to MS Access" but that it would cost "about $200." (That decision took a team of Rainman techies blurting out "about a hundred dollars.")