Spam, will it ever stop?

Spam has become a fact of life nowadays, but is their anything we can do to stop it? The answers boils down to no, we can’t. If we make it illegal, the spamsters move abroad or go underground, as we have seen in the United States. People have been prosecuted, but again this does not deter people. Spamhaus have a novel idea, by trusting domains on reputation, based on spam reports. But this has one fatal flaw, it involves people reporting spam.

The situation is not as bad if you use Gmail, that is Google Mail. For over a year and a half,I got spam, but it was properly sorted and easily deletable. Before that I used Yahoo Mail, which like Hotmail before that, would mark items I wanted as spam, which is never acceptable. I am not saying Gmail is perfect, as I have recieved 3 spam messages into my inbox (thats 3 out of well over 3000 emails, so a tiny percentage, .3). What can we do to deter people from spamming us? I believe awarness is the key. Google, Yahoo and all major web companies should advertise a charity set up to inform people on spam, phising and the like. Have a nice flash guide on how to spot fraudulent behaviour! Why should these companies do this? Because it will save them money, if spammers get the message!

Google will organise your life

Google have released a calendar, as part of their mission to “Organise the Worlds Information”. While it is what you expect from Google, the Calendar did not impress me a whole lot. It does have an intuitive interface, that is easy to use. It does integrate with Gmail, although the full extent has yet to be seen, as they fall short of mentioning it in Gmail at all, but I would expect this to change. I see great potential for users though, and where Google is heading. They will eventually integrate it with GoogleTalk and Gmail, producing a hybrid interface where you can organise a conference on GoogleTalk, schedule it on your calendar (which is syncronised with your PC and your workgroup server [therby informing fellow employees]), submit video of it to Google Video, write minutes with writely, email minutes with Gmail, that mail (with document and video) being attached to the meeting on the Calendar, which is in turn archived on your PC in Google Desktop and your Gmail Drive. While that is only one scenario, it is very possible. Google have already leaked information on their eagerness to hold the entire contents of ones hard drive on the internet.

This of course leads to privacy fears, will the U.S. or Chinese governments have access to literally anything on your computer? The Electronic Frontier Foundation is an online rights advocacy group, and they recently discouraged people from downloading the latest Google Desktop, due to the fact it will backup your information online for 30 days. You can exclude folders and files from Google Desktops index, but this is a manual process. So where will the future lie, and how far will Google go to get the most relevent results? Who knows, but one thing is for sure, with their increase in market share at expense of MSN and Yahoo, Google is here to stay.

Ekiga's Vorbis

Ekiga’s Vorbis

I am all for open standards, but they face huge problems. Not least is lack of intergration between them. Take SIP used by VOIP providers, such as OpenWengo. While OpenWengo is open source, and it is SIP, they are not helpful in informing you how to use other clients, or dial other OpenWengo users from other networks. What I am really talking about is the need for an all-in-one communications program, that is multi-platform. Their is already open source code for: Google Talk (aka Jabber), MSN, AOL, ICQ, SIP, H.323, Yahoo! but why isn’t their an all in one client? Surely it would be easy to reimplement some code from other programs into Ekiga (SIP, H.323) , Kopete or Gaim (both Jabber, MSN, Yahoo, AOL and ICQ)? I know GoogleTalk is based on SIP, so why not SIP compatability? That is poor implementation which is fragmenting the Open Source community, how are we going to challenge MSN’s userbase with this sort of fragmentation? That said I like Google Talk and its way of doing things. Also it is rumoured GoogleTalk will be interoperable with AOL at protocol level, since Google owns 5% of AOL.

This is also a factor across open standards, such as Ogg Vorbis, the open alternative to MP3. Rather than people developing a kernel to run Matrix backgrounds on an iPod, why not develop an Ogg Vorbis decoder? That way nearly 80% of the digital music player market could possibly play Ogg Vorbis, rather than the current selection of a few iRivers, less than 1%. If Open Source is serious about the desktop and its formats, we have to work together and stop forking our efforts! Good News is it is getting there all the time, albeit too slow for most of us!

Europe’s New Voice

As tech savvy readers will be aware, dot EU is the latest domain to go into public use. What is a domain? A domain is the name used for internet site like “dueyfinster.eu“. It has already sold over 1.25 million names already, this entering the third day of the public sale. Their have been bitter critics of how it has dealt out, with heated arguments over some domains such as Polo.eu, which was claimed by no less than 3 entities: Volkswagen, Ralph Lauren and Nestle. Volkswagen won out eventually, all because they got their application in first.

Why is it important? Well I think it is, not only because I own one, but because it creates a Europe wide identity, suitable for individuals and companies. I think personally, it wasn’t handled the best way possible, with all major companies not having control of their domains by Landrush period (Landrush is the public sale). It will be months for PriceWaterhouseCoopers in Belgium to sift through all documents companies have submitted. Surpisingly, United Kingdom has registered the most domain names and is one of the most Eurosceptic countries, while France have only slightly registered more than other smaller countries such as Belgium, Ireland and the Netherlands.

Their is also speculation that Swiss and Norweigan companies may miss out, as they are not part of the European Union (EU). Maybe this explains why Nestle weren’t so lucky registering Polo.eu? I don’t know, but I hope this domain brings new meaning to European citizenship, and makes us all proud to be part of the largest trading block in the world.