Internet and e-mail policy and practice including Notes on Internet E-mail

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Home 11 May 2013 Buying coffee via a series of tubes Money When I was a small boy and needed clothes, my mother would take me to the Best's department store, where we'd pick something out, and then go to pay for it. The clerk would take the money and the slips, put them in a cylindrical container, and send them off with a whoosh through a pneumatic tube to somewhere upstairs. After a delay of what seemed to me to be about a week and a half, our change and receipt would whoosh back, and we could go. Buying things with Bitcoin is a lot like that. It's really, really slow to use, like ten minutes to several hours per transaction. While there are workarounds to speed it up, they all break some of the aspects of Bitcoin that make it different from normal money. See more ... posted at: 23:09 :: permanent link to this entry :: 0 comments Trackback link is http://jl.ly/Money/bcslow.trackback 04 May 2013 I don't think I'll be unblocking mail from .PW any time soon Email One of the managers at .PW sent me a note saying that (paraphrased) now that the world knows their customers are gushing spam, they're finally starting to set up some of the anti-abuse measures that they should have done in the first place. But then I got my first response to an abuse report: See more ... posted at: 20:13 :: permanent link to this entry :: 0 comments Trackback link is http://jl.ly/Email/pwnope.trackback 02 May 2013 Poor Palau Email Palau is a tiny country of about 20,000 people with excellent snorkeling in the South Pacific. Like every country, it has a two-letter country domain .PW. Back in 2004, Palau leased .PW to Encirca, who tried to brand it as Personal Web, with approximately no success. Late last year, DirectI took it over and rebranded it as Professional Web. They went through an ICANN-style sunrise and landrush process and apparently got tens of thousands of defensive registrations. About a month ago, they opened it up to everyone with very cheap $5 registrations, and the spam began. See more ... posted at: 22:12 :: permanent link to this entry :: 0 comments Trackback link is http://jl.ly/Email/palau.trackback 22 Apr 2013 Why I don't like LinkedIn, part XLXXVIII Email LinkedIn is probably the most successful social network other than Facebook. They've carefully positioned themselves as the network for professionals. I've been a LinkedIn member for a long time, and have 735 connections (all people I actually know at least a little.) Nonetheless, I am ever closer to closing my account and dumping the whole thing. Why? Because they are phenomenally annoying. Consider this message they just sent me: See more ... posted at: 22:14 :: permanent link to this entry :: 1 comments Trackback link is http://jl.ly/Email/lbjobs.trackback 03 Apr 2013 There's nothing like a poke with a sharp stick Internet Last week I blogged about a white paper Verisign sent ICANN called New gTLD Security and Stability Considerations in which they listed a bunch of reasons that ICANN isn't ready to roll out lots of new TLDs. Among the reasons were that several of the services the new GTLDs are required to use aren't available yet, including the Emergency Back End Registry Operators (EBEROs), who would take over the registry functions for a TLD whose operator failed. They were supposed to have been chosen in mid-2012. By complete coincidence, yesterday ICANN announced that they had chosen the three Emergency Back End Registry Operators. I can't wait to see what happens next week. posted at: 19:20 :: permanent link to this entry :: 0 comments Trackback link is http://jl.ly/Internet/ebero.trackback 01 Apr 2013 ICANN announces Blocking Usage Review Panel ICANN Culminating a year-long policy development process, ICANN today launched its new Blocking Usage Review Panel (BURP). The BURP provides long-needed oversight over services that block Internet traffic. "While everyone understands that national laws such as the U.S. CAN SPAM define what traffic is or is not elegible to block, legal processes can be slow and cumbersome," said a spokeswoman. "Since the Internet is global and traffic often traverses multiple countries, the array of different laws cause uncertainty." See more ... posted at: 10:36 :: permanent link to this entry :: 2 comments Trackback link is http://jl.ly/ICANN/ubrp.trackback 29 Mar 2013 Verisign doesn't think the net is ready for a thousand new TLDs Internet Yesterday Verisign sent ICANN a most interesting white paper called New gTLD Security and Stability Considerations. They also filed a copy with the SEC as an 8-K, a document that their stockholders should know about, It's worth reading the whole thing, but in short, their well-supported opinion is that the net isn't ready for all the new TLDs, and even if they were, ICANN's processes or lack thereof will cause other huge problems. See more ... posted at: 14:20 :: permanent link to this entry :: 1 comments Trackback link is http://jl.ly/Internet/vznewtld.trackback 01 Mar 2013 Leak of the week: dropbox Email A friend and I were corresponding about the many otherwise legitimate companies who leak addresses to spammers, such as the Economist and the IEEE. He was surprised to note that his Dropbox address was now getting spam, I looked at the logs and what do you know, starting this Tuesday I was too, I just hadn't noticed because it was all so spammy it got caught by content filters. Tsk, tsk. Looking at previous mail, I don't see any of it coming from an ESP, so it seems to have been an internal leak. Double tsk, tsk. posted at: 17:53 :: permanent link to this entry :: 1 comments Trackback link is http://jl.ly/Email/leak3.trackback 30 Jan 2013 The incredible leakyness of commercial mailers (cont'd) Email Last week I blogged about the way that lots of otherwise legitimate companies leak e-mail addresses to spammers. Here's a few more thoughts. See more ... posted at: 01:51 :: permanent link to this entry :: 1 comments Trackback link is http://jl.ly/Email/moreleak.trackback 20 Jan 2013 The incredible leakyness of commercial mailers Email Acronis is a company that sells backup software. They have been around for over a decade, and have lots of big respectable customers. The Wall Street Journal is the nation's leading business newspaper. Equifax is one of the big three national credit bureaus. Shelfari is a book interest web site owned by Amazon. The Economist is a globally influential newsweekly. Airliners.net is a popular photosharing site for airplane enthusiasts. What do they have in common? They all leaked my address to spammers, and none of them have ever accepted any responsibility. See more ... posted at: 01:04 :: permanent link to this entry :: 8 comments Trackback link is http://jl.ly/Email/leaky.trackback

Topics Copyright Law - 16 Email - 194 ICANN - 88 Internet - 34 Money - 13 My other sites Who is this guy? Airline ticket info Taughannock Networks Other blogs CAUCE Announcing CAUCE 11 days ago A keen grasp of the obvious On corporate charity 22 days ago Related sites Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial E-mail Network Abuse Clearinghouse

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