Deals Deals Deals!

Blame it on the Scottish in me but one of my favourite things to do is to find deals via the Internet.  I've used Hotwire pretty frequently over the past 6 months and have found some pretty good prices on hotel rooms that wouldn't have normally been available.  Throw into that, a few entertainment related sites where I was able to get some great deals on wine tasting tours in the Niagara region, as well as other getaways, it's definitely much better than paying list price!

HowSpamWorks

The carousel of SPAM - or Internet Marketing - is ongoing.  As we become wise consumers of information online, the gauntlet is tossed our way as the Marketeers try to find innovative ways of suckering us in.

I've been caught on this a few times, most recently today on a link that was mixed in with (legitimate) "additional articles" on CNN.  I clicked on an article that sounded interesting and proceeded to read.  At the end of it, I thought to myself "hmm, why do I feel like I'm reading a commercial and not a objective news article".  

Suspicions arose and I went through other articles on this website which appears to be another "new oriented" website with sections like: News, Health & Beauty, Financial, Jobs, etc..  My first inkling was that was no Sports tab.  I know of very few information portals that would have one.  I then proceeded to pick and choose from each tab glancing through the articles and sure enough, the vast majority appeared to be a very subtle commercial.

It's not really all that hard.  If you are reading an article, then just take a moment and ask yourself, does it appear that the article is being objective.  The answer may not tell you right away if it is SPAM or not, but it will give you a sense.

I should add that I really shouldn't be referring to this instance as SPAM, as it's not being pushed to my email address, but the intent is the same as so many email messages that we receive on a daily basis.

I guess that the long and short of it is the maxim that has predated the Information Age - Don't Believe Everything You Read.

GMAIL and Email Addresses

I’ve been using GMAIL much more frequently over the past year or so and so it is with interest that I read an article on the naming convention of GMAIL email addresses that I was not aware of.

In any other email system that I’ve dealt with, the DOT is considered an alphabetic character which can also be used to improve readability of the email address. An email address of DavidOshea@yahoo.com could be setup as David.O.Shea@yahoo.com which would be different from David.Oshea@yahoo.com.

Where GMAIL is different is that it ignores the dot and although you can create an email address such as David.Oshea@gmail.com, any email to David.O.Shea@gmail.com or DavideOshea@gmail.com would also receive these emails.

GMAIL acknowledges this and calls it a feature. However, it is important for those that are setting up their email addresses to be aware of this so that their email addresses are sufficiently unique enough.

PRISM and the Digital Refraction

By their very nature, a prism is a geometric figure that refracts (bends) incoming light and changes the direction of it.

One of the hotter stories in the technology arena the past few weeks is that of the US Government PRISM program and it seems to me that their decision to name the program as such may not have been as deliberate as how I perceive it, but to me, it’s a very appropriate moniker.

PRISM is an electronic surveillance program developed and administered by the National Security Agency in the United States. The intent of this program is to monitor websites, photos, emails, and video and chat sessions in order to protect the country from foreign threats

Last week, an NSA contractor leaked documents which seem to indicate that the scope of the program has far exceeded the original intent and it is alleged that it now has direct access to the servers (and the data contained within) of Facebook, Apple, Google, Microsoft and other major websites.

The protection of a society is always paramount and many times it’s a delicate balance to afford this, while at the same time preserving the fundamental civil liberties. A program which tramples civil liberties (despite all of its good intentions) is as dangerous as a program where the population is at risk if the government is unaware of plots and aren’t able to intercept them.

What concerns me most is how it appears that the mandate of PRISM can grow, casting a bigger net over democracy. While they may be catching some of the bigger fish, there are too many smaller (and innocent) fish being caught up in the same net.

PRISM is not allowed to specifically target any individual unless there is reason to believe that there is direct evidence of a specific threat or plot.

In addition, there is also a “guilt by association” factor coming into play. If there is a specific “terrorist” where the NSA has significant reason to believe that there is a risk, then part of their online presence will be silently monitored. Further (and for me, this is the scary part), if there are a number of incoming emails to this individual, then the NSA can expand their scope and consider the sender to be a “person of interest” and as such, while they may not specifically monitor that person, at the very least, they could be flagged.

The danger is that with the technological age, the whole concept of “Six Degrees of Separation” has probably become more something like “3 ½ Degrees of Separation”. The number of people that we communicate with has grown exponentially in the digital age with message boards, user communities, social networking and the like.

In my mind, it’s very much like the Phacebook Phriends Phenomena which seems to be that it’s all about the number of “friends” on their profile. I find it hard to imagine that people actually have 500-600 true “friends”. I’m quite happy to keep my Facebook profile very sparse, but I digress.

Much like the prism, the PRISM program seems to be “bending” the data contained within the information superhighway to suit its purposes, assuming malevolence where there is not some.

Whether the large tech companies are permitting NSA full and unfettered access to their data remains to be seen. Even if this scandal turns out to be paranoid hyperbole, I am convinced that government agencies will not be able to resist the electronic breadcrumbs that we lay down.