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April 4, 2012 

Let’s Talk About . . . Customer Service

I’m not one to shill. In fact, I have never been paid to show off any piece of media, software, company, etc. That’s not to say I haven’t ever sold anything — I have, but not here. This is my space, and you will never see ads here. Because they’re annoying, and they make you infertile. There I said it. I know everyone always skirts around the issue, but it’s true. Real life scientists have proven it.

That said, when I feel like a company has done something right, and has continued to do things right for the last 7 years I have been a customer, I feel like I ought to let you know. In this case, I’m talking about my hosting company, Dreamhost. They’re not only a very fun, entertaining company to work with (You should see the newsletters they send out. Hilarious every time.), they provide a pretty top-quality service. Granted, they have not been entirely without their issues in the last 7 years I’ve been a customer with them, but the amount of time I have had to deal with problems is negligible at best. They’re pretty great.

Every now and then, when I’m mucking about behind the scenes, I have been known to mess things up, and I have to go to their support staff for help. They have always responded promptly, with well-worded, precise, and real help. I have never gotten a form letter back, it’s always been a real person giving me real advise on how to get back up and running in a timely manner.

Recently, as I’m sure you’re aware, a number of wordpress blogs all over the internet were infected due to a security flaw found in a great many of them. Mine was one such blog, and while I was, yet again, letting mine waste away, I failed to notice. When I did happen to notice, I took the site down, dreading the workload ahead of me to clean it off, and get things back up and running. In fact, I had this exchange with Rachelskirts about my displeasure with the ordeal:

Sure enough, I got a friendly email from Elizabeth L in Dreamhost support, with a wonderfully complete email full of possible vulnerabilities, a list of files they were able to clean and a list of files they removed for me, etc. I was given a full set of instructions and tips on how to avoid such problems again in the future. It took me a little over half an hour to follow the instructions and get everything locked down.

So, that brings us to the part where I tell you to go sign up for them and surreptitiously use a referral link that will net me some money. Well, I could do that. Or, I could just tell you that I believe you should be using Dreamhost so strongly that I’ll give my entire referral bonus (a generous $97) entirely to you, so you can get a yeaar’s worth of hosting for about $22. Go sign up with a new account, and use the promo code “GO97.” If you don’t get the option to, just email support and let them know you’d like to use the GO97 promo code, and you’ll get $97 off your first year.

So, Thanks Dreamhost! I’m glad to have my site back.

January 21, 2012 

Let’s Talk About . . . More Privacy Problems

I use my name in my URL. I use my name as the author of these posts. I am not afraid of being found on the internet, nor should anyone who uses Facebook, twitter, etc. Especially if you have ever (even accidentally) left the GPS information in a picture you posted, or a tweet you made. Let’s face it: in this day of unending connectivity, we are more identifiable than ever.

That said, the Internet lends itself to a great sense of anonymity if you choose. Domains can be registered under any name (for now), you can post to websites under any number of pseudonyms, and you can tell anyone anything you like, because, you don’t have to connect your real life to the internet. This has its positives and negatives, to be sure.

On the positive side, it allows people in oppressive countries to voice their concerns and complaints in a forum everyone can see, and not become a prisoner of the state in the process. On the negative, it allows people to get away with any number of heinous acts of abuse and depravity against people, children, etc. I don’t think anyone can say that it wouldn’t be good if we could do something to stop these acts, particularly those involving children.

Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX), the very same representative who introduced SOPA, has introduced a new bill right on the heels of the suspension of PIPA and SOPA. It’s called H.R. 1981 or the “Protecting Children from Internet Pornographers Act of 2011.” The bill would be more aptly named “H.R. 1984,” but I suppose the PR fallout would be a bit much.

I linked the bill there, but The Atlantic explains it well enough.

In short, the bill would require your ISP to keep records of everything you’ve done on the internet, attached to your IP address and YOUR NAME, along with financial information and any other personal identification. These records would be kept FOR 18 MONTHS. So, now, your ISP has a big database of your personal information tied to everything that’s been done through your internet connection.

There are a number of perfectly legal activities one could engage in online that one would rather not be remembered. While perhaps offensive to the moral sensitivities of some, the fact remains that pornography or adultery or what have you are perfectly legal. These should, in no way, be able to be used by your government against you in any way. But under this new legislation, they could be. Suspicious spouse? File a divorce, and get a subpoena during discovery, and your entire browsing history is suddenly public record.

As it stands, the reasons for which a person’s data could be subpoenas are extremely lax, leading to a government by fear, which in fact, is a tactic the Atlantic points out was used quite effectively by Russia’s communist leadership. But the lax position on subpoenas is really a minor problem. The problem is in the requirement for a database to begin with.

Let’s put aside for a moment the absurdly heavy-handed approach to catching a very small number of criminals, and focus on the track record of companies keeping our data safe: Sony is hacked for months before they notice, Bioware was hacked, exposing EA data, Zappos, Sony again, and . . . well, do you get my point? Intrusions happen. And they are happening a lot. Perhaps they’re just getting more press, but the fact remains: data is NOT secure, no matter how hard they try.

So, when someone hacks your ISP and gains the data in this master database of you, it’s just a matter of contacting you (using all that fun information they have about you), and blackmailing you for whatever they want, really, or they’ll tell the world you have a latex fetish. Or you meet up with people from Craigslist. While maybe not wholesome, these actions are not not illegal, and they’re certainly no one’s business but your own. Certainly not the hacker’s, and certainly not your government’s.

Don’t get me wrong: child pornography is a dastardly, disgusting thing, and it really should be stopped. However, as I said with SOPA, the loss of liberty of an entire country for the capture of a few is NOT justice. It is, in fact, the opposite, and I don’t believe for a second that these congressmen believe this (and any other similar) bill is for the greater good. This bill is hiding behind abused and defiled children, in the interest of increased government surveillance. Shame on Rep. Smith, and shame on our government for trying.

Lamar Smith has shown a clear disregard for the safety and protection of any of his constituents, and it is a symptom of a government who assumes it no longer has bounds, or a commitment to its people. It’s a symptom of a government, of a leadership, so used to getting exactly what they want, they will do what best serves themselves, not the people they represent. It’s a disgusting glut, and as we enter election time again, we must keep that in mind.

SOPA and PIPA may be dead, but the fight for the safety of the internet and privacy from our government is far from over. Stay vigilant, and don’t let up.

So let’s talk about what we can do. About what steps we can take, who must we contact, and where do we go from here?

January 12, 2012 

Let’s Talk About . . . SOPA

Stop Sopa, from Joystiq Image from Joystiq

SOPA, or the Stop Online Piracy Act and its sister bill PIPA, or the Protect Intellectual Property Act, are two of the latest in the corporate war on piracy. At least ostensibly. Point of fact, the wording of the laws are so incredibly invasive, their constitutionality should really called into question by our congressmen, much as the DMCA’s should have been. I wrote a paper about the DMCA, and a lot of my research kept taking me back to the EFF and their work to brief congress on the ill effects of such ridiculously unbalanced law. (If on the off chance anyone wants to read it, let me know. I’ll dig it up and post a PDF.)

A quick history of Copyright Legislation

The DMCA was a piece of protective legislation that applied extremely lateral judicial powers to the whims of the copyright holders. At the time, the major culprits were the RIAA and the MPAA, though the RIAA was considered the worse of the two. What the DMCA allowed the RIAA to do was request–and receive–subpoenas without having a name or really any information more identifying than an IP address. What’s worse, is there was no judicial oversight on the issuance of these subpoeans. All it took, to simplify, was filling out a form. No judge ever saw the documents, or approved the subpoena. Crazy, right?

These nameless subpoenas were served to ISPs across the nation demanding the names and addresses of the users to whom those IPs belonged. Verizon took exception to this, and refused, so the RIAA sued. A federal court ruled Verizon must comply, but it was appealed and a federal appeals court ruled against the RIAA.

SOPA and PIPA

Fast-forward to last year, when SOPA and PIPA were introduced. These two bills offer rights-holders similar widely lateral judicial leeway, but it extends so much further now. Instead of merely demanding a user, the media companies can hold hostage a website which had a user post a link to another site that has something copyrighted on it. What’s worse, the rights holders can request damages from the website with the offending user, as if the website itself were responsible! The law is so broad, and provides such unilateral judiciary power to bodies well outside the scope of judiciary authority, and all it takes a complaint form, and out go the lights. It nearly seems guilty until proven innocent.

Think about the real world repercussions of such a law. Facebook has something like 800 million active users. If 1 of those 800 million people, even one who lives outside of the USA, post a screenshot from the latest Warner Brothers film, Facebook could be blacklisted because it aided copyright infringement. Youtube has around 350 or 400 million active users. If ONE person posts a clip from the latest episode of Family Guy, Fox could pull the plug on Youtube. If Google crawls and indexes a link to a fan’s painstaking transcription of the latest Nickleback album, it just takes a complaint. And you’ve lost Google.

This is pure madness. There are no real checks and balances in place, seemingly no real recourse for the targeted site. No “innocent until proven guilty.” Just any vaguely related post by any user about anything copyrighted can land a site and its owners in hot water. It’s a piece of legislation that will breed paranoia, fear, and corporate censorship of the Internet, which has been a relatively unbridled mode of free speech for decades.

Where will it leave us?

Would you want to live on an Internet where you’ve got to mind your Ps and Qs because you don’t know if big brother is watching? What if big brother were watching, and what if big brother weren’t even your government. It was corporate fat cats, waiting in the wings to censor anyone who dares talk about the product they’re trying so hard to sell? Wait a tic. Doesn’t that seem a little backward? You’re going to censor out your own product from the system by which you are likely to get the most exposure? It just makes bad business sense. Frankly, the idea is utterly terrifying to me. While I’m not typically an overly-paranoid conspiracy theory kind of guy, but the sheer invasiveness of this legislation tickles my privacy bone all kinds of wrong.

Many of you have your own websites. What happens if you have a commenter post a link to a youtube video–assuming Youtube still exists–of a copyrighted song as a response to your funny picture of a weasel? Well, if SOPA passes, YOU could be responsible. Wouldn’t that make you think twice about keeping that blog? Because you can’t control your users, and you can’t probably police everything they might post. (Well, I can. 0-4 comments per post would be pretty easy, especially since half of those are me.) This legislation would destroy the open–free–Internet as we know it.

If you don’t believe me, go take a look at the big websites around. Google, Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, and a number of others I’m sure are considering a blackout for a day in protest of SOPA. Think about that. These are websites with MILLIONS of page hits a day, generating BILLIONS of dollars in ad revenues. And they feel so strongly about this legislation they’re willing to give it all up just to prove they’re serious.

Think about it. Do you want an Internet without Google? Without Reddit? Without Wikipedia? Without Youtube? Do you want an internet–an international community–which runs in fear of AMERICAN corporate interpretations of fair use? It’s a trick question, of course. You could want it all you like, but it would never exist. How could it? Corporate webmasters would be so neutered, they would just shutter their sites and move on to other ventures. Site like twitter, which were so instrumental in the OWS protests, not to mention any number of the foreign protests, could never exist. Too many users to police, too few dollars, too much risk.

What now?

We’re on the precipice of a real world-changing piece of legislation. While I wish it were something more akin to a national ban on fossil fuels, or nationalized health care, it’s an all-out assault on our first amendment rights. No. We do not have the right to thievery. We do not have a right to share anything and everything ever created. The corporations have their right to make money, too. But not at the expense of civil liberties. Not at the expense of an international tool, one considered by the UN to be a basic human need now.

Do what you can. Write your congressmen and women. Write your mom. Write your aunt. Tell them they’re at risk of losing their farmville. Whatever it takes, but do SOMETHING. We’re standing at a precipice. Don’t stand idly by while we step off it.

January 9, 2012 

Let’s talk. Trust me. I’m from the Internet

After 7 years of being online as the pseudonymous “Thursday’s Child,” I have decided to do away with anonymity, because, let’s face it, I wasn’t that hard to find anyhow. And, well, I guess I’ve just outgrown it.  While it was fun, and I’ll still be keeping the other domain, I’ll likely just use it for email, since I have a number of things attached to that email address.  I’ll be posting here.  And with new focus.

My blog has always been about me. But it’s becoming readily apparent, that road has been trod a few too many times, and the pickings for posts has grown perilously thin. Indeed, I have come to accept that I am not an interesting individual, nor will I probably ever be. The only thing I’ve got going for me, in the regard of interest, is my brain, and well, I guess I keep that to myself.  But not any more.  My brain is filled with all manners of fantastical, mythic, and ridiculous thoughts just like yours is. That’s what makes brains so special. They’re grey and squishy, and all look about the same, but they contain within them infinite worlds.  Words and pictures and smells, all different, all new and novel to anyone else but you.  And then there’s the internet.

Websites all look relatively the same. There’s some flashing something, some rectangles, some words, some pictures. But they’re all drastically different. You’ve got photo blogs, news blogs, science blogs, personal blogs, fiction blogs, artist portfolios, Facebook, Google Plus. All of them the same, but all of them unique and novel to anyone who hasn’t been there before, and each one novel every new day when you log on, filled with the brain matter of other people. So let’s all put our brains to it, and see what we might do to help each other out, eh?

We’re all good at something. So we all have something to contribute. Some of us are good at contributing boring, but necessary, things. Some of us are good at contributing exciting, but unnecessary, things. Some of are good at contributing boring, but still unnecessary things. And the world goes on.  Me? I’m a problem solver. I look at problems and try to break them into component parts, and solve a piece at a time. It doesn’t always work, and for that, I’ve got other people who are good at other things to help me along.

So let’s talk. Let’s talk about money. About credit. About debt. About investing. About cooking. About that nasty English paper you’ve got coming up. Let’s talk about photography and poetry. Let’s talk about love and about hate and about that mean guy two cubicles over.

Maybe, just maybe, together, we can get through this big ole nasty world together. And maybe, just maybe, we’ll be all the better for it. I’ll offer what tips I can. You can correct me if I’m wrong. I will often be wrong. I will often be right. There will often be no right answer.

For those of you who know me, you’re probably wondering who’s taken over my blog, and what they’ve done with the real me. I assure you, I’m of sound mind. I just want to try something new. So bear with me as I work out the kinks. Go ahead and help if you like. That’s the idea.

This will continue to be my blog where I make posts sporadically about any number of things. But I want to experiment with it being your blog, too. When you want to say something that doesn’t fit on your own. Or that you can’t fit in 140 characters.  Go ahead and send them to me. My email is in the about page.

I’ll go through them, post them either alone or smashed up with others, giving credit if you want, or leaving it anonymous. I’ll respond to each one here, so that maybe someone else having that problem might benefit. Let’s see what we can do.

When it comes down to it, what do you have you lose? Besides. Trust me. I’m from the internet!

*NB: The thumbnail image you saw is a painting by a Cuban artist who painted three of those, as commissioned by my father. They’re a representation of the scripture which says to bear one another’s burdens. While I may not really be a religious guy, it’s a pretty good way to live, and is kind of the idea of this experiment.

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