ArtistBlog.ME

This small article contains a few topics at once …

Driving problems in 2001, Computer Security and Microsoft is a bad cocktail, terrorists and Outlook problems, war, snooping, sms (cellphone hacking) and much more!

First things first …
I have lately been having moral problems being on the road.

When driving around in Holland, especially where I stay a lot, in Emmen, it has been on my mind that people cannot drive anymore!

The people do not drive the car but the car drives the people! These days it looks like we are driving in London. All people are driving LEFT, trucks are driving RIGHT!

These times you can drive +/- 90Km/h instead of 120Km/h on the highways! The time they see a curve they hit the breaking pedal. The time they see a warning sign of ANY kind they start breaking and creating traffic jams from here to the North Sea! (as a figure of speaking!)

Microsoft, the famous softwarecompany that is present high-numbered has still no clue about computer security! (every word contains a link!); Then Microsoft’s chief security advisor will be leaving MS to work in the Whitehouse as security advisor; hope he gives better advice to them than to his previous employer! (This same guy told in a 1998 interview he denied that viruses in mail attachments are no problems!

The latest worm (new news!) is Goner what can spread through Outlook and ICQ!

Then, there is WAR. War against who? Against terrorists? or against the civilians? These days the government can sniff your Internet connection at their own will! Some references are Magic Lantern (not to be detected by MacAfee and Symantec; how long does it take to be standard in XP service pack 2 to be used as counter-intelligence tool or to wiretap people/companies unrelated to any crime (investigation)?), Carnivore (1 | 2 | 3), Echelon (1 | 2 | 3 | target=”new”>4>), …

Not even better news is that the famous MP3 P2P network is needing to shut down or face a penalty of 100 guilders (40US$/45Euro) per day to Buma/Stemra (the US RIAA equivalent in Holland).

The @home Bankrupcy story…
@Home is dead in the United States; Excite@home and Comcast/AT&T has reached a agreement through a $160 million deal [cnet news] to get 70% of the large population of rough 45% of Internet Users in the US (back) working! Hope it has nothing to do with the latest Orange in the UK, the very populair social; first text message community called Locust Cellular needs to be closed. There is even a saveLocust.org for the supporting people of Locust. SMS is getting too commercial these days .. you even hear the famous “beep-beep, …, beep-beep” on the radio to attract Nokia owners! The same is happening with MTN SMS and Proximus in Belgium, MTNSMS cannot send SMS’s to Proximus phones anymore!

Then yet again, Nokia phones are not really crash-free! You can crash a (and the very popular 6110,6150, 6210,6250,7110,3310 and 3330) Nokia phone over SMS!

I have seen a movie called “Silverlake Life” from Discovery Channel about a gay couple that has been seperated by AIDS. A very shocking and good visual document what makes you think twice! I have written an article about the upcoming risks of HIV! (this article is currently in re-edit!)