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In this article, SurgControl: tries to introduce its own catchy names (Hidden Agenda, Treacherous Tracks, Dodgy Domains, Random Ramblings, Counterfeit Characters, Elusive Illusions) for various common tactics.

Who profits from spam? Surprise: tracks down the connections between some reputable firms and the “affiliates” they buy leads from.

Primate Programming Inc: The Evolution of Java and .NET Training

Can Primate Programmers work at my location?
We do not recommend it unless you provide a separate work area. Primate Programmers need to be nearby the offices of IT managers to get questions answered, be managed, etc. However, since primates and great ape hominids have environmental needs that differ from that of humans, we recommend waiting until you have have experience with Primate Programming via offsite outsourcing. Thereafter, you can set up a leafy, comfortable workspace for your Primate Programmers at your site. We offer consulting in how to do this. Issues include menu planning, personal primate hygiene, air quality, daily primate exercise, and noise management.

Do you offer Primate Programming training, for my own Primate Programmers?
Yes. Please see our page on services. We do require that you engage us for at least 30,000 hours of billable time before we provide primate programming training services to your company. You must also sign a non-compete agreement, meaning your primate staff is for the use of your firm only. Our core curriculum includes training in teamwork, Human Great Ape (HGA) sensitivity training, and organizational skills training. Our technical curriculum includes Java training, .NET training including ASP.NET training, and some JSP training. The entire staff receives ongoing tech training in XML, ADO and other technologies that change often.

NY Times: First Test for Freshmen: Picking Roommates:

This summer, for the first time, Emory let freshmen pick their own roommates in an online roommate-selection system that works on the same principles as computer dating.

EcoTalk and Scoop: E-Voting Expert Ousted From Elections Conference:

Dr. Rebecca Mercuri, a leading expert in voting machine security, had her conference credentials revoked by the president of the International Association of Clerks, Records, Election Officials, and Treasurers (IACREOT), Marianne Rickenbach. … David Chaum, the inventor of eCash and a member of Mercuri’s ‘voter-verified paper ballot’ group, had his credentials revoked on the first day of the conference. On the second day his credentials were partially restored. Chaum was allowed to visit the exhibitors hall, but not attend the IACREOT meetings.

If, as demonstrated above, the security strategy of the voting machine industry is security by obscurity, then it is doomed to perpetual failure. That’s not good enough!

VentureBlog: Putting The “Power” In PowerPoint:

if you want to understand the “power” in PowerPoint, watch a Lawrence Lessig presentation. They are a fantastic combination of content, art and brand (if you’ve seen one of Professor Lessig’s PowerPoint presentations, you’ll forever associate the white typewriter font on black blackground with Lessig

So I watched the presentation at http://randomfoo.net/oscon/2002/lessig/ and what can I say except What a great talk, what a great presentation.

Joe Stewart (LURHQ): Migmaf Reverse-Proxy Spam Trojan

In late June 2003, spam-fighters from the news.admin.net-abuse.email Usenet group noticed a particular spammer seemed to be able to move his websites around at will, minute-by-minute. This activity was also pointed out in an article by Richard M. Smith of computerbytesman.com.

It appeared at first that the spammer had managed to infect thousands of systems with a small webserver trojan - rotating them in and out of the DNS for the domain names he owned every 10 minutes. It made it nearly impossible for ISPs to track and shut down, as the IP addresses were largely owned by dialup users, so ISPs would be fighting a constant battle to keep track of all the reports.

The sites being advertised in the emails were generally Russian porn sites, and Richard Smith pointed out the same servers were involved in a Paypal scam email he had seen.

LURHQ was able to obtain a copy of the trojan - detected from suspicious activity originating from a VPN user on a firewall on a network we monitor. What we found was the trojan was not a webserver at all, but instead: a reverse proxy server. Instead of hosting the content on the victim’s computer, the spammer instead maintained a “master” webserver. We have dubbed this trojan “Migmaf”.

John Graham-Cumming: ActiveState - ActiveState Field Guide to Spam

Peter Norvig: Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years « Researchers (Hayes, Bloom) have shown it takes about ten years to develop expertise in any of a wide variety of areas, including chess playing, music composition, painting, piano playing, swimming, tennis, and research in neuropsychology and topology. There appear to be no real shortcuts: even Mozart, who was a musical prodigy at age 4, took 13 more years before he began to produce world-class music. In another genre, the Beatles seemed to burst onto the scene, appearing on the Ed Sullivan show in 1964. But they had been playing since 1957, and while they had mass appeal early on, their first great critical success, Sgt. Peppers, was released in 1967. Samuel Johnson thought it took longer than ten years: “Excellence in any department can be attained only by the labor of a lifetime; it is not to be purchased at a lesser price.” And Chaucer complained “the lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne.” »

A recent Harvard Business Journal article by Nicholas Carr entitled IT Doesn’t Matter is rebutted by Michael Schrage in CIO Magazine in Why IT Really Does Matter.

I’d say that good IT management is scarce enough to be relevant. The evidence: The ever-growing list of IT failures, many of which are for projects “that have been done before.” On the positive side, consider companies in commoditized industries, for which IT management is the only explanatory variable. (Schrage cites some good examples.)