Elliott C. Back: Internet & Technology

I just got the following interesting email. It actually contained W32/Sober-gen, some kind of malware which Cornell removed for me, but the copy reads as follows:

Dear Sir/Madam,

we have logged your IP-address on more than 30 illegal Websites.

Important:
Please answer our questions!
The list of questions are attached.

Yours faithfully,
Steven Allison

++++ Central Intelligence Agency -CIA-
++++ Office of Public Affairs
++++ Washington, D.C. 20505

++++ phone: (703) 482-0623
++++ 7:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., US Eastern time

I’ve never seen a spam ploy that depends on making you feel guilty to get you to run some binary of theirs. This is true innovation!

For the overly tired and worn down, Eminem offers a choice consolation from The way I am:

I don’t know you, and no, I don’t owe you a motherfucking thing. I’m not Mr. NSYNC, I’m not what your friends think, I’m not Mr. Friendly, I can be a prick. If you tempt me, my tank is on empty–no patience is in me…

In his lyrics you find his secret world-destroying inner wrath, an idea which translates well in the real world. If you’re looking to sit passively and observe how the world really works, I suggest inspiration ala Eric Clapton’s Broken Down:

Everywhere I look, I see problems, where I never seen before: the cracks in the sidewalk, when I get home my key don’t even fit the door. The moon don’t shine, it’s broken down. The clouds are crying, they’re broken down.

We all know the world sucks, but that doesn’t help with girl problems. For that, we need the sage advice of Jay Z and his musical odyssey into love and interpersonal relationships, Big Pimpin’:

You know I thug ‘em, fuck ‘em, love ‘em, leave ‘em, cause I don’t fuckin’ need ‘em

Because all there is in life is money…

The incident at Technorati where a determined data miner is using a dictionary of keywords to peek into the Technorati index is not an attack, really. And it’s only a denial of service by coincidence because you guys can’t handle the volume! I have to ask what’s wrong with having someone query your index in breadth and depth? What’s wrong with automating it to pull useful data? Nothing–it’s a public service. Of course Technorati can decide that to IPs x, y, and z it doesn’t want to deliver service, but as long as they allow you in, you should be fine searching for anything you want.

Something about their attitude towards their clients here bothers me. Shouldn’t they be more open? Why are these data-miners being called hackers?