ANDLING SPAM where collaboration is involved can be a hard task, whereas in non-social systems, erasing SPAM (or content with vandalistic intent) may be easy(ier). There is virtually no interaction with the context in the latter case. With social Web sites and forums this equates to nuking a spammer along with some innocent people in the spammer’s surroundings. In the case of collaborative editing, such as this one which I discovered yesterday, judgment becomes difficult as well. It’s marginal because free of speech, authority, and censorship ought to be weighed.

I would like to throw in some random thoughts: earlier this morning, in Netscape, I had a look at some tag clouds and saw some arcane phrases dominating the cloud. I decided to dive in and I found that these sometimes came from spammers (brute-force tagging) whose account had been suspended. This led me to pondering if by leaving these links in tact spammers have an incentive to return. There’s a true dilemma where SPAM comes to a content management system. It’s much easier when it comes to E-mail, unless excessive marketing and bulk mail which fills up boxes is concerned.

Returning to my main concern, Netscape thrives in high figures. High figures may be good for site vanity and integrity of the whole community (e.g. not purging votes and comments of non-spammers), but what about a bury-like feature (a la Digg) that keeps these submissions of out the reach/sight of search engines (and sometimes human visitors too)? As it stands, spammers are currently being rewarded by going under the ‘radar’ of Web spiders.

Sadly, many people use a convenient argument to defend Windows’ security problems. They would like you to believe that security is failing because of relative market share, not inherent security, which one can attain through proper design. Windows was built to serve users’ convenience while neglecting to account for the subsequent inclusion of an Internet connection. Windows was very desktop centric, as Gates’ snubbing of the Internet has proven over the years. That, and only that, is why Microsoft struggles to rewrite a vast codebase in a quick and secure fashion that leads to mature and well-established libraries.

The following articles demonstrate and explain why Windows is simply insecure by design. Market share plays a relatively minor role in this equation.

• Linux Security: A Big Edge Over Windows
• Security Report: Windows vs Linux
• Microsoft Windows: Insecure by Design
• If Only We Knew Then What We Know Now About Windows XP
• Why Windows is a security nightmare

Consider more secure platforms, preferably ones that confirm with the POSIX/UNIX model that has matured over many decades. Keep the cr4ck3rZ working much hard(er).

Bill Gates arrested in his younger days (photo in public domain)

ET me make a seemingly spurious statement: Capitalism is about rival vendors competing with one another for the betterment of society (e.g. advancement in science and technology). It is not about monopolies that eliminate any attempt to compete, or simply absorb every threat to hinder advancement. Which leads me to discussing Windows Vista and monoculture…

There’s a certain arrogance in Vista. Yes, there’s a certain vain statement therein: what we implement will become the rule, or the ‘standard’ (de facto or otherwise). If case you have not heard, Hollywood and Microsoft have decided the control the users. This endangers our most basic rights. Never mind the backlash that conflicts with the “if you build it, they will come” field of dreams, which relies on a monopoly.

This whole scenario making of the rules reminds me of people who say “PowerPoint presentation” instead of “presentation” and limit format choice in conferences to just one proprietary (could be patented also) format that’s pricey to use, prone to breakage, insecure, etc. That gives me a compelling-enough reason to never say “use Google” but to suggest “Web search engines” instead. By limiting our choices at will we restrict improvement and punish ourselves in the long term. We naively hand over power to monopolies. And all evil empires begin small and rely on innocence and undeserved trust.

N this age when convenience is perpetually sought, will mankind care about other living species? Are they a priority? Are petty acts which demonstrate care, such as Dell’s latest initiative to plant a tree for every computer sold and encourage/assist disposal, truly helpful? And can this change the big picture? To me, it seems highly doubtful.

People seek the friendly mugs when the limelight turns to them. It’s about perception of those who surround us. Little gestures and niceties do not reverse something that progresses at a much larger scale. Meanwhile, our planet is being destroyed and lives are claimed in the process. Sometimes, this life which required hundreds of thousands years of evolution is never to be restored. It is sad really. Below is a short snippet from the article which stirred and led to this unannounced rant.

Experts estimate there are 15,589 species threatened with extinction. But a species is only accepted to have become extinct if exhaustive surveys in its known habitat range have failed to find any record of the individual.

My two stories at the very top of Digg.com (click for full-sized image)

IGG has possibly made a mistake by opening its doors to a wider crowd by augmenting its sections and encouraging short and lame postings. I was at times modded down because my comments were “too long”.

A friend of mine tends to agree that Digg was much better over a year ago. Even Slashdot is orders of magnitude more mature than Digg nowadays. Slashdot’s trolls have moved elsewhere and someone must ‘absorb’ them. Also, Digg is increasingly becoming people’s blog aggregator (just seen someone submitting 10 links to his blog in one day). This lowers the overall quality and raises ‘noise’ level. Maybe Digg is a victim of its own traffic-generating reputation, as well as ‘democratic’ nature (making it possible for inaccurate news to hit key pages).

My machine at an older office. It
ran Ubuntu Linux (see daily photolog)

OME would argue that the ‘market share’ of Linux has long ago exceeded 4%. Installed based, as opposed to market share, is difficult to gauge. People install Linux as they download or pass CD’s around. They do not buy Linux because Microsoft has a chokehold on OEM’s (AKA ‘Windows tax’, c/f 1, 2, 3). It’s a strategic, anti-competitive tactic.

Web statistics studies are still biased because they usually exclude Linux sites, they throw away “unknown” (often Linux with diverse http-header footprint/string), they ignore Squid, they don’t account for agent forgers (not just for MISE-only sites), and they neglect to account all the traffic that comes from Windows zombies (Windows/IE). In short, they cannot be relied on.

What is the true ‘market share’ of Linux then? There is no way of knowing. Software that is passed from hand tom hand or gets downloaded remains quiet and obscure. But the truth is out there. One just needs to sweep away disinformation which is enforced by companies that have plenty in stake. One of my Web sites, which boasts over 1,000 visits a day, indicates that Linux has a market share of over 40%. It’s not a typical and mainstream site. But will Web survey ever wish to include such a site in a survey? Who will ‘sponsor’ Freedom and encourage outing of the truth? Studies are typically backed and funded by commercial bodies which select their desired hypothesis and fit the conclusions to it, by carefully choosing the methods and data.

Take everything with a large barrel of salt. Just some thoughts to ponder…

AY Ozzie has just revealed one of Microsoft’s fruits from its deal with Novell. The authenticity, however, is yet subjected to doubt. On the face of it, Novell is set to acquire XenSoruce. From the ongoing discussions: ‘They (Novell) will release a new ZENworks Q1 for application virtualization on Windows and Suse. Novell also has the only reliable Identity Management, and Directory that scales the Enterprise… Also consider that if Microsoft purchased XenSource directly then VMWare and the other virtualization vendors would rightly scream “Antitrust”‘.

I tried to submit this gossip/scoop to Slashdot and I await the response. Indeed, as I would not deny, this is one of the reused Slashdot submission-type blog items. I use my personal blog as a ‘safety net’, so to speak. I also had to resubmit this because I can’t see the previous submission in the Slashdot dashboard, which is odd. There seem to be some changes going on in the site. Regardless, keep an eye on the news.