101 Ways To Save The Internet 490
captain igor writes "Wired news is running an editorial detailing 101 ways to save the Internet from spammers, crackers and smothering regulation. What does do Slashdot readers think of these suggestions, and what other options should be considered to keep the Internet from falling to evil forces?"
Forget It (Score:4, Funny)
- Dark Helmet
Re:Forget It (Score:3, Funny)
"Evil will always triumph, because good is dumb."
Instantly an image came to my mind - Dubya !!
Re:Forget It (Score:3, Funny)
My question is... (Score:3, Informative)
I don't get any spam because I use a Hotmail account for anything public. I don't get pop-ups because I use Opera. I don't get hacked because I keep my patches up to date (which means not bitching about an RPC hole that was patched two months before that the government warned twice about).
Internet is just fine for me.
here's a start (Score:3, Funny)
Conflicting goals? (Score:4, Insightful)
Let's face it. We're past the "wild, wild west" stage of the internet. It's not the 1990s anymore and the mob is here and therefore regulation is required.
Re:getting rid of spammers (Score:5, Interesting)
The current tactic of ignoring spam "in the hope it will go away" just helps raise the spammers' signal-to-noise ratio when they look at their replies. If they had to go through a million bogus replies to get the 10 that are stupid enough to really want their crap, they'll become unprofitable quickly.
Re:getting rid of spammers (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, why not crack down on it on multiple fronts. Target the morons buying into spam by advertisements showing how stupid it is and create an effective, international anti-spam effort.
Re:getting rid of spammers (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:getting rid of spammers (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not sure such an offensive can be maintained without governmental support.
Let's take the private anti-spam groups, for instance, How many of them were DDOSed to oblivion this year? Futhermore, it's become more and more evident that at least some spammers are joining forces with organized crime and professional mercenary crackers. Would you start a fight with spammers funded by the Russian mafia?
Re:getting rid of spammers (Score:2)
Besides, it would only take a few thousand people at best :-)
Re:getting rid of spammers (Score:2)
I like the idea of having my spam program send them junk mail back. If for each spam sent they get 50 back they will go under. But I don't think AOL etc wants to buil
Re:getting rid of spammers (Score:5, Funny)
Re:getting rid of spammers (Score:3, Informative)
I once got spam with my own address.
Re:getting rid of spammers (Score:2)
I truly believe that there are no longer so many morons out there actually buying stuff. If you look at any of the major ISPs - even AOL, they all do a decent job of educating their users about spam. Can you honestly say that you think someone is going to respond to "INC`R_EASE YOUR DI;C_K WEIGHT u:" in the subject line?
I think the spam business now consists of mostly
Re:getting rid of spammers (Score:5, Insightful)
Another completely clueless message modded up as "interesting".
Most spam has a fake From: address. If you reply to it, your reply will either be undeliverable, or will go to the unlucky person whose email address was forged by the spammer. If the From: addresses were valid, getting rid of spam would be trivial.
Stop blocking spammers, block companies (Score:5, Interesting)
Spammers like to use images because that gets them past filters based on words. But images take up a large amount of bandwidth. 25 million messages sent with a 25KB image will take 667GB of transfer. So I simply filter out the domain that's hosting that image.
If you look at spam, spammers use affiliate programs. So although you're getting spam from hundreds or thousands of spammers, there are only a handful of domains they're wanting you to click on or are linking images from.
So you can try to block those thousands of spammers or you can block that handful of domains they're linking to.
And since I'm only filtering links that only spammers use, it's 100% effective and 100% accurate.
Nobody I know is going to be sending me e-mails with a link to www.2004hosting.org but dozens of spammers have and now that I've filtered it, dozens are trying and failing regardless of who they are. So I've effectivly blocked dozens of spammers by filtering a single company.
Lots of spammers also use common click-thru sites to claim their commission. By blocking that handful of domains I've just blocked thousands of spammers.
I now get a spam maybe once every few days and I simply VNC into my server and block the domain used to host the image and I'll never get a spam from any spammer who's using that domain to host their ad pics.
Simple. Effective. I also block mail domains as possible because there is no silver bullet. You have to attack on as many fronts as you can. I've just found blocking companies to be the best out of the bunch. But it's litter and every little measure helps.
Ben
Watch out for Joe-Jobs (Score:3, Informative)
However, if spammers have genuine "remove-me" addresses (at least genuine enough to be collecting your address so they can resell it as "validat
Re:Conflicting goals? (Score:2, Insightful)
My point is, regulation can only go so far (about as far as your borders). And even if we get some sort of international regulation, what are the odds that everyone's gonna agree on it, and abide by it?
Re:Conflicting goals? (Score:3, Funny)
Sure no system is perfect, but it's better than nothing.
Re:Conflicting goals? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Conflicting goals? (Score:2, Insightful)
The answer is good design and proper engineering not the dead weight burdon of lawyers, politicians, and vari
Re:Conflicting goals? (Score:2, Insightful)
So you think the "bad men" won't find a way around engineering solutions?
Your attitude is a typical die-hard engineer's attitude. It completely misses the fact that you can't apply engineering rules to a human society. That's why we have sociologists, lawyers and politicians.
PenguinMan! (Score:3, Funny)
Next, get a big piece of cardboard and make a cutout of Tux. Remove the cutout and place the remaining cardboard over the lens of the spotlight.
Wait for a cloudy night, flip on the light, and wave it randomly around. Viola!
Re:PenguinMan! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:PenguinMan! (Score:2)
They made a typo. (Score:5, Funny)
11 Larry Flynt, build a porn browser It should cover our tracks coming and going.
I think we all know that should read "coming and coming".
Magic Bullet? (Score:2)
Items 26-33"
I think they meant Silver Bullet, thanks to Fred Brooks' Mythical Man Month [amazon.com].
Only 101? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Only 101? (Score:2)
Thank you.
Re:Only 101? (Score:3, Funny)
>
> Oh my. For the love of humanity, please do not take off your socks. Or your shoes.
> Thank you.
Ahem? Aren't we forgetting something?
Maybe the poster had planned on visiting VeriSign's head office before the sock removal.
Re:Only 101? (Score:2)
My favorite one (Score:5, Funny)
Lets see how long it takes wired to get DOS'ed by the Star Wars geeks of doom.
Stupid (Score:4, Insightful)
No you won't. The labels take 70 cents from all of the "legitimate" services. At 29 cents, you want as little volume as possible because you'll lose money on every download.
Re:Stupid (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Stupid (Score:2)
Re:Stupid (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, No.
Yes, The marginal cost of creating an extra copy of MS Office is $0 when the market price is $500, and the company makes maybe a few hundred thousands to a few million dollars on such sales.
However, for each song that sells for $.29, there is bandwidth cost, there is hardware cost that must proportionately increase if the number of downloads increase. And don't forget the credit card processing commission. Even if these t
Re:Stupid (Score:2)
No you won't. The labels take 70 cents from all of the "legitimate" services. At 29 cents, you want as little volume as possible because you'll lose money on every download.
You can make up for loss on every sale with volume if you have exponentially increasing sales every month. As long as that's true, this month's sales will more than cover last month's expenses, leaving you with a tidy profit. Of course, the down side is
This "article" sucked! (Score:3, Insightful)
#12 is dumb (Score:3, Insightful)
So, I would get my bubba@toofless.com email delivered to my new yankee@stankee.com account?
Since email addresses contain the ISP's domain account, this would get truly messy. However, if we changed the way email addresses were constructed so that the ISP's domain name wasn't involved, then we might have a workable method of keeping them portable.
BN
Re:#12 is dumb (Score:3, Insightful)
Further, email portability is already here for those who have accounts with
Poor tech article from Wired (Score:5, Insightful)
"Make email addresses portable" - get your own domain name and move it from ISP to ISP as you please.
"Simplify Web publishing Why can't we post files from our desktop to a Web site in one drag-and-drop move?" - my home directory, including public_html, is accessible from Samba. I can copy any file there and it is live on the web instantly.
"Big music, follow the money 8 of 9 adults beyond student age still pay for songs instead of ripping them." - ripping them? That has nothing to do with whether you paid for it.
"Replace servers with P2P Too many network services - domain names, Web servers, email - rely on the old client-server model, which is vulnerable to attack." - uhhh.... eeyeah.
Oh well. I guess they have to match the dumbed down state of their readers.
Re:Poor tech article from Wired (Score:3, Insightful)
Butbutbutbut...I like my 2sexykitty4u696969@msn.com address. All my buddies have it.
"Simplify Web publishing Why can't we post files from our desktop to a Web site in one drag-and-drop move?" - my home directory, including public_html, is accessible from Samba. I can copy any file there and it is live on the web instantly.
Apparently, clicking on "Put" in either Dreamweaver or Frontpage or any of th
Re:Poor tech article from Wired (Score:2)
Yes, things will be much better when the new P2P model opens up all sorts of new vulnerabilities on every home computer!
Re:Poor tech article from Wired (Score:2)
Optimist. I expect Wired to have glaring inaccuracies as a matter of routine. I should expect better but such isn't life.
Re:Poor tech article from Wired (Score:2)
"Simplify Web publishing Why can't we post files from our desktop to a Web site in one drag-and-drop move?" - my home directory, including public_html, is accessible from Samba. I can copy any file there and it is live on the web instantly.
Well, you're right, but I'm guessing the writer meant "why do I have to bother with this whole HTML thing anyway?" That said, there's plenty of software available to make the publishing process less painful.
Re:Poor tech article from Wired (Score:2)
You'd think they'd know by now. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:You'd think they'd know by now. (Score:2, Funny)
eep (Score:5, Insightful)
Some people do both. Way to keep your readers clued, Wired. Remember that the main objection of record labels to "Rip. Mix. Burn" was that they thought "rip" meant "steal" - and Wired seems to like to propagate this fallacy.
Knighthood for the guy that invented the browser! (Score:3, Funny)
Drag and Drop Web Publishing? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Drag and Drop Web Publishing? (Score:2)
What does do (Score:5, Funny)
What does this have to do with the Internet? (Score:3, Informative)
Right now, GSM does this for anybody who uses GSM. I walked into Gamestop, bought an N-Gage, changed the SIM from my old phone into it and was on the phone immediately.
Besides, GPRS is cool but dog slow and having more GPRS users won't enhance the Internet particularly.
Vigilantism... (Score:4, Insightful)
Save it from those who are trying to save it (Score:2, Insightful)
92 Turn off your HTML email (Score:5, Insightful)
HTML email is an abomination [usethesource.com] that must be stopped. It's bigger than necessary, it's ugly and it's the spammer's friend.
John.
Alternative Pls. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Alternative Pls. (Score:4, Insightful)
Give her Mozilla. It makes the links clickable, picture attachments show up at the end, and font size is configurable. That way, every e-mail she gets will be readable - not just yours.
If you just have to have your pictures embedded in your text, use some other delivery system, like http.
Re:Alternative Pls. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:92 Turn off your HTML email (Score:5, Insightful)
The counterpoint to this is that Joe Average seems to respond to HTML emails with large images and huge blinkenlights much better than he responds to plain text. That is actually the primary reason spammers use it - the people saavy enough to prefer text email are exactly the same people who never buy something they receive an unsolicited email about.
The sad truth is that people are dumb, and people like shiny flashy things (my preciousssss...). Just deal with it. Don't expect them to change just because it would create a positive externality for all of us who use the Internet.
Re:92 Turn off your HTML email (Score:3, Funny)
Doc (Score:3, Insightful)
A list of names, office numbers, email, phone numbers and so on was mailed out a couple months ago. It should have been a tiny text file (
Forgot one.. (Score:2, Insightful)
Internet tech issues will be self healing.. (Score:2, Insightful)
But the Internet regulatory issues will not take care of themselves.
The regulatory issues are what require our attention most, so if you're a voter, write your representatives whenever you can help further their understanding -- for issues on DRM, SPAM legislation, email and internet access taxation, ISP customer privacy issues etc. Support the EFF - visiting their pages w
Re: (Score:2)
Build a .sex red-light district (Score:4, Interesting)
Many the intention is to just allow porn in .sex and also in .com. This may lead to some sites duplicating content in both TLDs, but why would a porn site abandon .com for .sex voluntarily? What do they have from making their sites easier to block?
Re:Build a .sex red-light district (Score:2)
Making their sites easier to block is for the benefit of, as always, the children.
Yes, kids will find porn. Older ones. Older than, say, 13. It's the 6-year-olds that people really worry about.
As for what I would put in
Educate Joe Sixpack (Score:5, Insightful)
Your 2 GHz Athlon is not obsolete when the 2.1 GHz one comes out
The Microsoft is not the Internet
WWW is not the Internet
Nigerians are not that generous
MS' Passport is _not_ handy
A $300 rebate on 3 years of AOL is not "free"
The case of your computer is not "the CPU"
Downloading those MP3s from Kazaa is almost certainly illegal
MS Office is NOT the gold standard for Office Suites that some make it out to be
Save the Internet? That's like 'saving the Planet'. The Internet will be there regardless of the S/N ratio on it. Save the people FROM the Internet, the new, spammy, MSN-y, pointy-clicky Internet.
Re:Educate Joe Sixpack (Score:3, Insightful)
Your 2 GHz Athlon is not obsolete when the 2.1 GHz one comes out - Joe Sixpack does NOT think this way, however computer geeks with too much money, rich parents or an unhealthy fanaticism with having the hottest hardware on the block just so they can use 10% of its potential performance playing Counter-Strike, do.
WWW is not the Internet - while true, do we really need
68: President Schwarzenegger (Score:2)
#1 entry is stupid as hell (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, that's a real smart idea. *sigh* Do I dare even read the rest of the list if THAT is #1?
I think some of these things are ideas by someone who doesn't understand technology. Check this one out:
12 Make email addresses portable
Yeah, whatever. I've taken my email address with me through several ISPs. Are they suggesting something stupid like taking your @aol.com address with you to some other ISP? Ugh. There's so many things wrong with that one I won't even bother listing them.
Many of the ideas contradict each other, also, which is interesting.
#92 should the the One Rule for Everyone who sends email. Everyone. Yes, this means YOU!
Self-installing Adware? (Score:5, Insightful)
Too bad more often than not its users who are social engineered to click "Ok" and authorise windows to install it.
Guess What? (Score:4, Funny)
Grow a brain? (Score:2, Insightful)
It's not like it's all that difficult, just running a personal firewall blocks nearly any attack that anyone would bother to run against a personal computer. The people with the knowledge, skills, and motivation to exploit a computer at a regular home wou
recalling emails is a terrible idea (Score:2)
That's a terrible idea. If you don't want to say something, don't say it. If you change your mind, say you've changed your mind. But being able to recall emails means implementing the sort of pervasive DRM that would only be good for the RIAA and John Ashcroft. Not to mention the chilling effects heavily covered here before on things like whistle-blowing and other essential tools for a
Stopping spam, popups, etc. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Stopping spam, popups, etc. (Score:3, Insightful)
On the other hand, don't fall into the trap of thinking that they are not the solution to anything.
Some people simply will never play nice with others. For these, you must have laws with penalties, and then enforce them.
There is a reason why we go through this completely silly exercise of writing down laws on books that say you can't steal from my home. Such a thing should be obvious right? So why is it that we spend money on legislatures to go through thi
another bad idea (Score:2)
If you are linking to a page, you are effectively stating that it is significant in some way. Even if you hate it, that doesn't mean it's insignificant. An overriding goal for Google should be (is?) objectivity, and that means ignoring your bias as well as their own in delivering relevant results. If someone's searching for information on a given issue, ideally they would get results from both sides, which is as it should be. Nob
Only 5 ways to fix the Internet? (Score:2)
I was surprised that Wired could only come up with 5 good ideas for fixing the Internet.
There are only 10 kinds of people in this world. Those who understand binary, and those who don't.
Re: (Score:2)
Happy New Years to you too (Score:4, Funny)
It's mostly nonsense... (Score:2)
46 Free the Beeb The BBC is dragging its feet on a plan to put its vast archives online. Come on, chaps, it's your best idea since Monty Python.
Aunty really really wants to put it's archive online. But the legal issues a
Ban the width= attribute (Score:2)
I'm getting sick of being forced to resize my browser window for nearly every new page.
Hey, Firebird guys, can you privide an option to disable the width= attribute on all tags? The height= attribute might go, too. Thanks in advance
Geek +article = reaction. (Score:2, Insightful)
1 Unleash vigilante justice on spammers One activist has proposed filters that launch distributed denial-of-service attacks back at spammers. Great. Just make sure we have the right addresses first.
And for the love of God, make it devastating. Forget the annoying little "plug the pipes" attacks, find their homes and spray-paint "I send penis-enlargement spam mail" on the front or something in 300-point text. Let the neighbors know that they've got a spammer nex
Control the Ends and the Medium (Score:5, Insightful)
Beyond that, software will simply evolve to handle any problems such as SPAM; it's an emergent system.
--
101 Ways to Save Apple (Score:5, Funny)
33 Create a P2P email program (Score:2)
I'm still trying to figure out "Death to Verisign". On one hand, a lot of nifty things could be done if more people had smartcards and certificates. On the other it pretty swiftly does away with lots of
Remember the days of the BBS? (Score:2, Interesting)
Bring Back The Home Grown BBS!
Well, I'm not thinking that a dial-up BBS would be popular today, but I'm looking toward the future when this internet "fad" self-immoliates. Don't get me wrong, the concept and idea behind the internet is really sound and strong, but legislators and multinational conglomerates are hell bent on re-creating it into a bigger and bigger cash-co
I saw this article... (Score:3, Insightful)
stuff like:
"Replace servers with P2P Too many network services - domain names, Web servers, email - rely on the old client-server model, which is vulnerable to attack."
really irked me.
articles like this add to the problem... a long whiny list of "problems," most of which are solved by education & training.
Not very technical (Score:3, Interesting)
It's called an href tag.
39 Upgrade to IPv6
Why? NAT works great. It is even arguably more secure than some flat space. IPV6 is pretty cool, but not because of the number of possible devices.
42 Replace servers with P2P
They mentioned something about servers being vulnerable to attack... I guess I should run Kazaa so that my machines become invulnerable.
Hit and miss (Score:3, Insightful)
5 Create the all-in-one inbox Email, phone calls, instant messages - they should all go into a single app.
Riiight... since it will be written by the same guys who designed the Outlook Express security model, just try to imagine the next generation of viruses; you could get infected by simply answering the phone.
16 Simplify Web publishing Why can't we post files from our desktop to a Web site in one drag-and-drop move?
I don't know, why you can't; I can do exactly this with my MacOS X + dot Mac. Write a text file, save it as HTML to your desktop, drag'n'drop the icon to the "Sites" folder of your iDisk. Presto.
59 Make anonymous Net use easier
Nice idea - but how do you intend to fight the spammers then?
What about wireless? (Score:2)
But even using local free wireless networks to share proxies (without letting anyone leach of your own Internet connection) would speed up web access for everyone. The outli
Many are good, at least five are BAD (Score:3, Insightful)
12 Make email addresses portable
I don't know how this is supposed to work. If I have an address @yahoo.com, it's because Yahoo serves it. There's no reason for hotmail to save the same name.
38 Simplify URLs
I don't disagree (this should happen with computer hardware connectors, too), but there are places that can do it for you. Try TinyURL [tinyurl.com].
50 Add a broadband department to Wal-Mart
The fact that Wal-Mart dominates the market is a bad thing--for local ownership, competition, free speech, fair wages, environmental protection, and (oh yeah), the ability for America to manufacture anything domestically. Kick Wal-Mart's ass, don't try to expand it!
75 Let us link to a page we hate without boosting its ranking
The whole idea is: if a page is relevant, it's ranking should rise. Thus, if I want to read about something you hate, it's easier to find.
76 Add mobile numbers to the phone book
As if telemarketing at home wasn't bad enough. At least with a cell phone, even the exempt groups (charities and politicians) still can't find me.
77 Create an email address directory
Um, no. What the heck would I want that for? Email gives relative anonymity to those who don't know you. This is a GOOD THING. It also gives us a running start on spammers.
Poorly researched article (Score:4, Informative)
56 Enable automatic file encryption We've heard the promises for years. But even Apple offers this already - what's the holdup?
That's been available since at least Win2K - select a folder, right click, Properties, Advanced, "Encrypt contents to secure data", answer the questions. Select the correct options, and all files moved to/created in that directory will be automatically encrypted. Perhaps that's not simple enough for them, but it's there, and it works.
Some of the other points, there and elsewhere, are similarly wrong, or just plain nonsensical.
Top 10 stupidest of the top 101... (Score:3, Insightful)
Create the all-in-one inbox Email, phone calls, instant messages - they should all go into a single app.
Why do people think a single app is the solution to problems? Massive apps that try to do everything are bloated, hard to maintain, and have make compromises that hurt all the other functions. Mozilla has wisely decided to split the mail reader and the internet browser into firebird and mozilla. Make applications seperate, but able to communicate with one another.
8 Declare spammers are terrorists And put Ashcroft, Ridge, and Rumsfeld on their tails.
Ugh. This is mostly tongue in cheak I'm assuming,
but the last thing we need to do is water down the definition of "terrorist"
10 Free the handsets We should be able to buy any cell phone and match it with any service plan.
Just what I want, a bloated, expensive phone that supports the 5-10 different mobile phone standards/frequencies, of which I use one. Providers already give you a free phone if you sign up for them. The phone itself is already a commodity, why is making it more expensive/bloated necessary?
12 Make email addresses portable
Huh? If you want a "portable" email address just register a domain, and forward your email to the provider of the week. The situation just isn't analogous to phone numbers, where you've never been able to own what amounts to an exchange.
38 Simplify URLs Why can't http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail//0375
Because a lot of information needs to be conveyed in a URL. I suspect the real complaint is it's hard to exchange a URL unless you do it via
email, etc.
42 Replace servers with P2P Too many network services - domain names, Web servers, email - rely on the old client-server model, which is vulnerable to attack.
Wired is smoking crack. There's a place for p2p, but it isn't in replacing webservers, dns, and email. The reasons should be fairly obvious (not fast or reliable enough, etc).
58 Take the blame Software license agreements that absolve you of, oh, deleting three years' worth of email are irresponsible. Bugs are negligence, and negligence should cost you, not us.
And kill off open source, single programmers, and anyone else that can't afford million dollar lawsuits. Software is unreliable, shouldn't be guaranteed unless you require it. Anything that puts someones life on the line is different of course (there's an example of a cancer irradiating machine that comes to mind), but it's your responsiblity to back up your data from being wiped out.
75 Let us link to a page we hate without boosting its ranking
Why are you linking to sites you hate? Why create the link at all, and not just mention the site in text? If you create the link, it's probbably interesting. If lots of people hate it, maybe I want to know why?
76 Add mobile numbers to the phone book
77 Create an email address directory
Good god no. The last thing I want is more spammers finding my email address, and people calling up my cell phone I don't know. If I _want_ people calling/emailing me, I give out that information.
Make email P2P?! (Score:3, Insightful)
To send you email, I look up the corresponding MX record and connect to your host directly and attempt to deliver.
Of course in the real world, home Windows machines typically do not run their own mail servers, and rely on some other server (their ISP?) to handle mail for them. But there's nothing stopping users from handling their own mail if they have decent network connectivity and working name service.
Here is another example of how widespread NAT and dynamic IPs cause problems that we have to struggle to work around. This is the problem, not any lack of P2P-ness of email!
Does this guy know what he's talkiing about? (Score:3, Interesting)
1 Unleash vigilante justice on spammers One activist has proposed filters that launch distributed denial-of-service attacks back at spammers. Great. Just make sure we have the right addresses first.
That's fine with me, but the potential for disaster is pretty high. I like the odds, but most people (polticians and corporations especially) will not.
2 Slash song prices charge 29 cents per download. You''ll make it up in volume.
Bring it on. It' make it 25 cents, for the "Only a quarter" factor. Related note: Perhaps music stores should use BR, or make it an option? Seamless BT for broadband users would save the company a bit on bandwidth, maybe making it possible to run more cheaply (maybe not, I've really no idea).
3 Quit already, Jack Valenti
That will only treat a symptom of a problem.
4 Appoint Larry Lessig to the Supreme Court Is he a Democrat or a Republican? Who cares! Laws governing information flow are the new affirmative action, abortion, and gun control rolled into one.
Would never happen soon enough to be crucial to those issues, would be cool.
5 Create the all-in-one inbox Email, phone calls, instant messages - they should all go into a single app.
Haha. Sure. And invent a computer which anybody can make do anything they need without effort, first time, every time. How? Oh, I thought we were exchanging fantasies...
6 Triple our cable modem speed First step: Just turn off the Golf Channel and UPN.
Fine by me. But make it ESPN and ESPN2 and all sports channels and all shopping channels and leave UPN. They rerun Buffy.
7 Demand truth in advertising for software updates C'mon, AOL 9.0 is really AOL 8.0 with the version number increased 1.0.
So what do you want? A feature list? A changelog? Fine print which says "Improvements may not be dramatic?" How would this work?
8 Declare spammers are terrorists And put Ashcroft, Ridge, and Rumsfeld on their tails.
This would REALLY not help. The problem is that if spammers can be classified as terrorists, so can legitimate emailers, and so can I, and so can you. Jumping to extreme measures ALWAYS backfires, sooner or later.
9 Hands off Internet phone calls Just because the creaky old phone system was regulated to death doesn't mean VoIP should suffer the same fate.
Indeed.
10 Free the handsets We should be able to buy any cell phone and match it with any service plan.
Sure.
11 Larry Flynt, build a porn browser It should cover our tracks coming and going.
Some moz extensions would probably do this. What does Flynt know about software? Nothing. What do Mozilla developers knw about porn? I'd guess an awful lot. The group with the right ranges of experience is clear.
12 Make email addresses portable
Eh? Portable how? If you mean what I think you mean, then we have it already (more or less) and you're a nutjob if you propose "fixing" that in the way I think is like.y Hell, you're a nutjob anyway.
13 Don't let the Pentagon hog the airwaves The DOD doesn't need that many civilian-free radio frequencies to do its job.
Sure.
14 Dump the Digital Millennium Copyright Act
Yes!
15 Stop the US Patent Office before they patent the hyperlink Oops, too late.
Filler. Padding. Why?
16 Simplify Web publishing Why can't we post files from our desktop to a Web site in one drag-and-drop move?
Um... yeah, sure. Run a loca webserver. Problem solved! Mount your SFTP connection as a directory. Problem solved!
The point is, we can do this already.
17 Let a thousand Wi-Fis bloom Open spectrum is the new open source.
Nothing will ever be "the new open source". That would imply open source is some kind of buzz-word or fad. While it may also be the former, it is most definitely not the latter.
18 Build a
Re:url (Score:5, Funny)
http://www.amazon.com/wolf/wired [amazon.com]
Sucker...