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Archive for the ‘Internet’ Category

So I posted an entry yesterday about how I got the June/July newsletter from MySpace when I supposedly deleted my account back at the end of January. I replied to the [email protected] email which was among the options that were presented at the bottom of the newsletter. This may come as a shock to you, by I was answered quite quickly… by an automated response. I presented the following:

I am wondering…

If I deleted my account back at the end of January, why am I possibly still
receiving any kind of notification from MySpace to my “external
email”? And since I have no account at MySpace, how in the world would I
go about changing the Account Settings so that I no longer receive any more
notifications from MySpace aside from marking them all as spam with Yahoo’s
Spam Filter? Is there a problem with MySpace’s policy towards privacy in
regards to the emails of past members?

Truly, these are intriguing questions. Hopefully, someone with the correct
information can answer them.

Certainly these questions shouldn’t be too difficult to answer, especially for those at the other end of [email protected] My questions at first fell on blind eyes as the automated responder that monitors that address sent back the following:

Hello,

The upload a video follow the instructions below:

*  After logging in, go to your “Home” page then click the “Add/Change Video” link.
*  Find the ‘Upload Videos’ link on the upper right side of the screen.
*  You’ll be able to select a title, tag, describe, etc. your selected video.
*  You’ll need to accept our Terms and Conditions to continue by checking the box ‘I agree to the MySpace Terms of Service’.  (You also have the option to review them as well)
*  The next screen will prompt you to locate your video.  You will now need to click on the ‘Browse’ button, choose the video file that you desire to add and click the ‘Upload’ button.
*  Please ensure that your chosen video is the proper format and is under 100 MB.  Now, the system will process your video (please be patient).   Also, note that if you are uploading inappropriate material your account will be deleted by MySpace.

For the most up to date messages about MySpace, subscribe to the MySpace Help blog! You get updates almost every day! Go here to subscribe. www.myspace.com/myspacehelp

If you have any additional questions, please respond to this e-mail. Please do not alter the subject as it will be considered a new inquiry.

Thank you for contacting MySpace.com.

SURVEY FEEDBACK
Tell us how we’re doing. Copy and paste this link to into a new browser to let us know what you think:
[link removed] Please note, MySpace will NEVER ask you for your password as part of our survey feedback. We appreciate you taking the time to share your opinion with us.

I removed the survey link along with A LOT OF FUCKING WHITE SPACE in order to present it here. Even in their email correspondence, their formatting looks terrible. But how any of that information was supposed to answer any of my questions is beyond me. I immediately replied, without altering the subject, by simply asking for a real human response and repeated my original inquiry. Today I get:

Hello,

The issue seems to be resolved now.  If this does not address your issue completely, please press “Reply” and provide any additional information you feel is relevant.

For the most up to date messages about MySpace, subscribe to the MySpace Help blog! You get updates almost every day! Go here to subscribe. www.myspace.com/myspacehelp

Thank you,
MySpace.com
—————

Survey Feedback

Tell us how we’re doing. Click here to let us know what you think! Please note, MySpace will NEVER ask you for your password as part of our survey feedback. We appreciate you taking the time to share your opinion with us.

Yes, more white space was removed. Here we have the general form letter. I’m sure there were plenty of staff meetings involved with the creation of this boiled down reply. Take notice that there was no specific mention of any problem being resolved, just that it was. Now I have to hold on to this email for a possible future reply in case the issue has been “resolved” as they non-explicitly promised.

And see how they gave me the address to their Help blog? Updates everyday!!! You got to love a company that is so in tuned with their customer base. I’m betting I get a follow-up email in case I didn’t see those links for the survey feedback. Thank-you Simon Owen for finally giving me the motivation to ditch that company.

A while back, I wrote a couple of posts in response to a small movement by Simon Owen of Bloggasm for the mass deletion of accounts at MySpace back in January. I took part in the International Delete Your MySpace Account Day, waited for the supposed 48 hours it was to take for my account to be deleted, and verified that it was “gone”.

Now, you’re probably asking why I quoted that last word. Call me a cynic. Call me skeptical. But from what I’ve seen in my lifetime is that no-one’s account is ever, completely, deleted. Sure, my account was not accessible by any means at my disposal. But was my account truly deleted? Well, my answer came today.

The MySpace.com June/July 2008 Newsletter arrived in my inbox today to the delight of no-one at that email address. It was complete with announcements of new features such as MySpace Karaoke, MySpace Polls, MySpace Apps, and MySpace Latino… oh my! And it would not have been MySpace official without everyone’s best friend, Tom, starting off the newsletter.

From Featured Artist, to Featured Comedian, to Featured Videos, I was never so bored with a newsletter packed with so much excitement as I was with this one. Probably so much so because supposedly my account was deleted back at the end of January. Apparently, MySpace never bothered to mention that in some rare cases, my email would be retained for future use through shameless self-promotion in order to lure me back. Nice.

MySpace does offer an opt-out. They go into great detail over it at the bottom of the newsletter:

At MySpace we care about your privacy. We have sent you this notification to facilitate your use as a member of the MySpace.com service. If you don’t want to receive emails like this to your external email account in the future, change your Account Settings to “Do not send me notification emails.” Click here to change your Account Settings. You can also contact us with any questions or concerns regarding your privacy at: [email protected] MySpace, Inc. 8391 Beverly Blvd. #349 Los Angeles, CA 90048 USA © 2003-2008 MySpace.com. All Rights Reserved.

However, considering that I am not a member of the MySpace.com service, because I have no account to go to in order to change the notification emails setting, I guess my only hope is to contact them at the “privacy” address. I’ll be sending them a quaint reply. Stay tuned for any future developments.

Moved to MyBossIsAnAsshat.com

Source… xkcd.com

Source … xkcd

Source … Stuff.co.nz
Source … Gadgetophile
Source … Geocaching entry log

Tip Number One: Do not “plant” strange objects in public places. Especially areas that are monitored with closed circuit television (CCTV).

Security staff from Aotea Centre contacted New Zealand police that a man was acting strange around a railing and then placed a “device” before walking away. Fearing it was an explosive of some kind, they called in the Defence Force bomb squad while cordoning off the area. Fortunately, an employee from nearby Datacom explained what the “device” really was: a geocache. After further investigation, the police issued a press release.

“At approximately 6pm this evening the Defence Force revealed the suspicious package located in Mayoral Drive was not explosive nor a danger to any member of the public. All cordons have been lifted from the area and Police and Defence staff have dispersed. The package is believed to be a ‘Geocache’. A ‘Geocache’ is apparently an electronic package used by computer buffs that can be tracked electronically around the world. The computer buffs use them as a form of entertainment.”

Senior Sergeant Junior Abraham says, “If they are going to place these devices around the city of Auckland they should not be going to public places and buildings like the Aotea Centre.”

This week’s Spam Recount is (unofficially) sponsored by the Spam Museum in Austin, Minnesota. It’s 16,500 square feet of Spam history. Open all year (closed on Sundays and Mondays between Labor Day and April 30) with free admission, it can be found just off of I-90 at exit 178-B.

This week’s recount has a little more meat to it given that I let it build up for an entire week. We also get some more variety to the mix.

• Bonus Inches Of Pleasure [Boner]
• Alternative Health Products [Healthy Boner]
• Get a new, bigger p3nis easily by clicking here [Bon3r]
• Pleasure all women with the size of your instrument [Musical Boner]
• Get back your sex life with renewed confidence from our certified pen1s enlargement p1lls [1ll1terate Bon3r]
• natural product – success [Natural and Successful Boner]
• God is fair Try our latest d1ck enlargement pills that is all natural [Boner from God]
• Want to be well hung, with a thick, muscular tool? Now you can [Thick Boner]
• Unbelievably cheap high-quality replicas! [Fake Crap]
• Feeling less than ordinary? We’ll make you extraordinary… [Not your ordinary Boner]
• For your pleasure [I think it involves Boner]
• Get yourself a college girl, here [Definite Boner]
• Every girl lives for a Big Man [Boner to die for]
• You’ll never find lower prices for such stylish things! [Stylish Fake Crap]
• Do you wish ladies would have an… [Boner? I hope not!]
• Do you want to change your life? [Non-pumped Boner]
• It works and nothing else can compare! [Phenom Boner]
• Never be frustrated at the size of your dck again with this amazing new product [Bner]
• Rock solid performances every night [Boooooonerrrrrrrr!!!]
• Be the King of the bedroom with you new sceptre [Scary Boner]
• Deep inside her [Deep Boner]
• Herbal for a permanent increase in your length and thickness! [Boner perm]
• Don’t be an average man! ExpressHerbal will lift you up to the top! [Herbal Essence + Boner = Good night!]

So we had twenty-one for Boner and two for Fake Crap. Enjoy the links. Goodnight.

Source … 0×000000 – The Hacker Webzine

Apparently our friendly coders at Mozilla shuffled out the latest version of Firefox, 2.0.0.12, quicker than they should have. There is a major vulnerability in which a website could use JavaScript code in order to gain access to your browser’s preferences or gain access to every file within the Mozilla program directory. Since these conclusions are based on preliminary testing, the vulnerability may have the capacity to include a wider range of issues.

You do have a few alternatives until the stable release of 2.0.0.13, or higher. I hate to admit to defaulting back to Explorer, but using an alternative browser in the meantime would be beneficial. Opera and Safari are also acceptable choices. Konqueror is also available for the KDE crowd.

If you’re too attached to Firefox to switch, you can always install the NoScript add-on. NoScript automatically blacklists all JavaScript coding and requires your input to allow what can be allowed to run. Since this vulnerability depends on JavaScript in order to work, NoScript would help in blocking it. Of course, this will assume you don’t whitelist a site’s JavaScript that includes this hack.

I would also assume that switching off Firefox’s support of JavaScript in the meantime would also work. However, with the Internet’s dependency on JavaScript in which to add functionality to so many websites, this one included, shutting it down completely would make web browsing pretty useless.

Dear Google coders,

As it seems almost impossible to reach anyone directly at the behemoth known as Google, Inc., I hope this has an iota of a possibility that someone in the know will read it.

This is in regards to the new “Sorry” page that results from certain search queries. No, it is not from any virus or spyware. No, deleting cookies obviously does not fix the problem. No, my query originates from the actual Google search pages.

I’m not sure what the issue is, but there’s certainly a major failure taking place. Considering how I use Google for many reasons (search, mail, rss reader, analytics), I would be hard pressed to move my usage some place else. However, I need access to a search engine that is not prone to failure. Tonight, I haven’t been able to make more than two queries before having to prove my humanity with a captcha, or a flat out denial of service.

I can’t be the only one having this issue.