B10[mg]

The spam filters at my work aren't too good, so my Thunderbird filtering has a lot to do. Some spam, I get very often, is a mail with some weird text (probably Markov generated content), and an image like this

Since we're already comparing spam mails for the prices of VlIAgR4 at work (for fun), I decided to track the spamvertized stock.

The date is odd, for October 18th 2006 would be a Wednesday, last time I checked, yet since they constantly use the word Thursday, I assume the mean October 19th, today.

The funny thing is that that stock did go pretty good today. It went up 100%, according to Yahoo! Finance

Now that made me wonder. Was this incidental, or did people actually buy this stock, based on the spam? Well, let's keep track of such emails.

Today I also received this one, so let's see what happens tomorrow!

------------------------------------
Company name: Texhoma Energy, Inc.
Stock symbol: TXHE.PK
Current price: 0.12 (up 50% this week)
Expected price 10/20/2006: 0.52
------------------------------------

The information mentioned herein has not been released to the
general public and should be kept confidential until its
scheduled announcement on Friday, October 20.  I strongly suggest
that you get in before then.
[snip spam]

For some reason I doubt it's confidential, since it was mailed to an email account of mine I barely use and can be harvested easily ;-)

Before I have blogged about my bad feelings on Google and today, I feel the need to stress the point again. Google is Evil!

Of course I could just list all the complaints http://www.google-watch.org/ lists, but let's look what Google has done up till now in a bigger frame. It is however good to read about the infamous Google cookie.

The beginning

Google started nice. A website without bells and whistles and a heck of a good search engine. Wonderful. Nerds all over the world loved it and not too long after, the non-geeky people followed. Google grew to become a "verb".

USENET

So far so good. Then Google slowly started taking over tricks of yet another evil: Microsoft. The started to take over companies and care about shareholders. But, even worse, they started collecting. And what they couldn't collect anymore they bought.

Where are we now? Google knows:

• what you search for online
• what you post(ed) on USENET

News

Google News, yet another invention. By collecting news from various sources, you can quickly scan all the news you'd like to see. They even allow you to add alerts so you can get an email when breaking news comes in, matching your keywords.

Where are we now? Google knows:

• what you search for online
• what you post(ed) on USENET
• what news events you're interested in

Blog

In 2003, Google acquired Pyra Labs and became the home for Blogger. Like other Google services, they didn't really invent some complete new concept, they just offered a lot of megabytes for doing a something a lot of people already did: blogging. Most blogs are about personal events in people's life so:

Where are we now? Google knows:

• what you search for online
• what you post(ed) on USENET
• what news events you're interested in
• what happens in your life

In this year, Google also came up with the personalized search. A great way to know who even more about your personal preferences.

E-mail

Gmail followed not long after. The motto was (and still is) "Don't throw anything away". It fits the Google collecting spirit perfectly.

Where are we now? Google knows:

• what you search for online
• what you post(ed) on USENET
• what news events you're interested in
• what happens in your life
• what you send and receive by e-mail

Pictures

Picasa, Inc was the next victim of Google's need to expand. Picasa would make it easier to share pictures (through hello.com).

Where are we now? Google knows:

• what you search for online
• what you post(ed) on USENET
• what news events you're interested in
• what happens in your life
• what you send and receive by e-mail
• what you take pictures of

Telephone

What other means do people use to communicate? Phones! And before you knew it Google SMS was launched.

Where are we now? Google knows:

• what you search for online
• what you post(ed) on USENET
• what news events you're interested in
• what happens in your life
• what you send and receive by e-mail
• what you take pictures of
• your phone number

Proxy

To know even more about your web-surfing behavior, Google offers Google Web Accelerator. It's mainly just a proxy.

Where are we now? Google knows:

• what you search for online
• what you post(ed) on USENET
• what news events you're interested in
• what happens in your life
• what you send and receive by e-mail
• what you take pictures of
• your phone number
• what websites you visit

Instant Messaging

But, what about the other popular method of communication, instant messaging? Sure: Google Talk. Many IM services exist already (Jabber, MSN, AIM, ICQ, Y!M), yet we seem to need just-another-Jabber-client.

Where are we now? Google knows:

• what you search for online
• what you post(ed) on USENET
• what news events you're interested in
• what happens in your life
• what you send and receive by e-mail
• what you take pictures of
• your phone number
• what websites you visit
• what you chat about and with whom

Wi-Fi

The latest plans as of yet are to provide the city of San Francisco with Wi-Fi. The whole city will have to become on big Google hotspot.

Where are we now? Google knows:

• what you search for online
• what you post(ed) on USENET
• what news events you're interested in
• what happens in your life
• what you send and receive by e-mail
• what you take pictures of
• your phone number
• what websites you visit
• what you chat about and with whom
• everything you do over unencrypted lines

Other services

There are other dubious Google services out there. Think about the Google Toolbar, the Google Deskbar, Froogle, Google Desktop Search, Google Ride Finder, and many, many more. It's just too much to comment on all of them, and you'll get the basic idea. They most likely all collect data.

Where does this go?

Why would Google want to capture everything the can about you? This world knows very few to no people who do things just out of being nice, so what is going on exactly? Who could benefit from all this information?

I am absolutely not saying this is true, but what comes to my mind is: governments, and spammers. Yes, very conspiracy theory'ish, but until I have seen a better explanation, I'll stick with this.

Regardless of who will benefit from all the information, do you really want anyone to know all of this about you?

Time to drop Google and look for alternatives. Clusty seems as a nice search engine alternative. Email shouldn't be a problem for anyone nowadays, but if it is, have a look at hushmail.com for free webmail with PGP encryption. Instead of Google Talk, you can just use any Jabber server out there. Need a blog? Try livejournal or install some software on your own webspace (most ISPs give you some for free).

The only thing we all are stuck with is groups.google.com. If Google was really about sharing information, they'd open up the old DejaNews archives for anyone to download. Until then, we have to get used to the new, crappy interface.

---

  'Google is Evil'
   -rw-rw-rw-  1 satan demons  0 Jun 06 06:06 google

The title of this entry might seem a little blunt, yet it is how I feel at the moment. I always loved HTML and often even spent a lot of time to check out W3C to keep up to date.

The reason I dislike it is fairly simple: too much typing.

I know, I can use products such as Dreamweaver, or FrontPage, or way too many other WYSIWYG editors to avoid typing, yet I never really gotten to like them either (and yes, I do realize they don't produce the crap output that they used to do anymore). And, it doesn't solve the real problem here, that it's fairly unreadable.

Let's look at an example. For instance, when I want to emphasize something, I would use <em>something</em>. It takes me nine characters to make your browser understand that I want to put emphasis on one word.

Most browser will use italics for that emphasis. Now if I'd use POD, I'd type I<something>, a lot shorter, with the same result.

Because I'm obviously not the only one who is lazy enough to dislike all the typing/reading, people started coming up with other methods to generate ugly HTML out of more readable, workable, editable markup languages.

Currently, Textile seems to be my favorite, and I'm happy to type my blog entry in that right now. But a very reasonable other markup language is Markdown.

In Textile, I'd type _something_ to put emphasis on something, and Markdown would accept *something* and also the Textile approach. That is a hell of a lot easier to type and a hell of a lot easier to read!

Now why do we really want to use (X)HTML? Probably because changing the HTML standard would involve a lot of problems and frankly, I'm not perfectly happy with either Textile, Markdown, POD or any other markup language for that matter ;-)

Oh well, by now you should understand that I just had to write (and format) a document in HTML, which I thought would be small enough to hack directly in HTML, but turned out too big that I wish I started in Textile...

I'm probably so late with this site, but still, it's funny ;) Instead of the TinyURL.com project, now I found HugeURL.com. So, next time you want to get to my blog, just remember this easy-to-remember URL:

http://www.hugeurl.com/?ZTVlMGI2NWRhYzI4NDI5YzM5YWVmNTVjYTdh N2ZjYzMmMTImVm0wd2QyUXlVWGxXYTJoV1YwZG9WVll3Wkc5alJsWjBUVlpP V0Zac2JETlhhMUpUVmpGYWMySkVUbGhoTWsweFZqQmFTMk15U2tWVWJHaG9U VmhDVVZadGVGWmxSbGw1Vkd0c2FsSnRhRzlVVjNOM1pVWmFkR05GZEZSTlZU VkpWbTEwYTFkSFNrZGpTRUpYVFVad1NGUlVSbUZqVmtaMFVteFNUbUY2UlRG V1ZFb3dWakZhV0ZOcmJGSmlSMmhZV1d4b2IwMHhXbGRYYlVaclVsUkdXbGt3 WkRSVk1rcElaSHBHVjJFeVVYZFpWRVpyVTBaT2NscEhjRlJTVlhCWlZrWldh MVV5VW5OalJtUllZbFZhY1ZscldtRmxWbVJ5VjI1a1YwMUVSa1pWYkZKRFZq QXhkVlZ1V2xaaGExcFlXa1ZhVDJOdFNrZFRiV3hYVWpOb1dGWnRNSGRsUjBs NFUydGthVk5GV2xSWmJHaFRWMVpXY1ZKcmRGUldiRm93V2xWb2ExWXdNVVZT YTFwWFlrZG9jbFpxU2tabFZsWlpXa1prYUdFeGNGbFhhMVpoVkRKT2MyTkZa R2hTTW5oVVZGY3hiMkl4V1hoYVJFSmFWakZHTkZVeGFHOWhiRXBYVjJ4U1dt SkhhRlJXTUZwVFZqRndSMVJyTlZOaWEwcElWbXBLTkZReFdsaFRhMlJxVWtW YVYxWnFUbTlsYkZweFUydGthbUpWVmpaWlZWcGhZVWRGZUdOSE9WZFdSVXBv VmtSS1QyTXlUa1phUjJoVFRXNW9WVmRXVWs5Uk1sSnpWMjVTVGxkSFVsWlVW bHBYVGxaV2RHUkhkRmhTTUZZMFdUQmFjMWR0U2toaFJsSmFUVlp3VkZacVJt dGtWbkJJWlVkc1UySllZM2hXYTFwaFZURlZlRmR1U2s1WFJYQlpWbXRXZDFk R2JITmhSazVyWWtad2VGVnRkREJoYXpGeVRsVm9XbFpXY0ROWmEyUkdaVWRP U0dGR2FHbFNia0p2Vm10U1MxUnRWbGRUYmtwb1VqTm9WRmxyVm5kV1ZscDBa VWM1VWsxWFVucFdNV2h2V1ZaS1IxTnVRbFZXTTFKNlZHeGFZV1JGTlZaUFZt UnBWbGhDU1ZacVNqUlZNV1IwVWxob2FsSkZOV0ZhVjNSaFlVWnJlRmRyZEd0 U2EzQjZWbGQ0VDJGV1RrWlRhM1JYVFc1b1dGZFdXbEpsUm1SellVWlNhRTFz U25oV1Z6QjRUa1phYzFWc1pGaGhNMUp2VlcxNGQyVkdWblJOVldSWFRVUkdl VlJzVm05V01VbzJVbXRvVjFaRldreFdha3BQVW14YWMxcEhiRk5OVlZZelZt eGFVMUl4YkZkWGJrcE9WbXh3V0ZsWWNGZFdSbFp5Vm10YVQxVlVNRGs9

Tatsuhiko Miyagawa, the author of some "nice modules", announced that he now created a Perl plugin for gonzui, a source code search engine.

With that, you now can search CPAN sources (well, search a mini-cpan).

Cool stuff!

Recently, I ranted about annoying things on the web, CAPTCHAs being one of them. Alan Turing would roll over in his grave if he'd seen the horrors of today.

To demonstrate the horrors of CAPTCHAs, let's look at some fine examples. And remember, these tests are supposed to be easy for humans, but hard for machines.

phpclasses.org provides the world with a wonder called veriword. These generated images are so hard to read, that I doubt it's ever going to be useful.
Example:

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Another brilliant coder can be found at ravis.org. This coder comes up with a few solutions, of which the first example is really nice. I just saved these examples from the site, I did not alter anything.
Example:

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Let's see the next gem! This one comes from the WordPress Plugins page and is not as bad as others, but still good enough to scare your visitors.
Example:

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Is there more insanity? Of course! The next example (BaffleText) is even better. Unreadable, but at least the URIs used in the source give help. The full url contains the word "workind" clearly. Great way to throw a spider off ...
Example:

There are many many more out in the wild (and for some reason, most of them seem to be written in PHP). These examples should be enough proof not to use this idiotic technique.