Open Thread

World Technology Award:Media & Journalism

Abd the winner is… [Sound of envelope tearing. Squeal of joy!]:

Dan Gillmor, Business and Technology Columnist , San Jose Mercury News!

Congratulations, Dan!

I never thought the Kerry/Edwards ticket would do something stupid enough to cost them votes in San Francisco. But it happened.

Yesterday, Edwards stood with the hotel workers union and told of his support for the strike.

The strike that has become a tremendous quality of life issue in downtown, including *residential* areas of downtown, where there are all day and all night parades of shouting strikers, pounding on makeshift steel drums and tom-toms, private amplifiers shouting near-obscenities heard for blocks around.

These are Kerry/Edwards people!

Support the lock-out, encourage your unemployed friends to take permanent replacement worker jobs, and let’s sock it to these rabble-rousing union troublemakers!

And re-elect George Bush, to prevent a vicious radicalization of our labor laws.

I’m concerned about the security of stuff being passed around on the internet while signing up, logging in, etc. And unfortunately, not much attention is being paid to it 🙁

Nowadays, there are more and more sites and services coming up that offer a lot of fabulous (in each and everyone’s opinion) things for free. Stuff like Blogger, Orkut, Flickr, FeedBurner, …

However, AFAIK, none of these sites use HTTPS or other forms of secure communication while doing a sign-up or logging into their site. Understandably, they aren’t passing around the password in plain text, but I’d be much more happier to see HTTPS for a start.

The issue becomes slightly compounded because I’m responsible for what I’m (supposedly) putting up on such sites and if the access is not secure, how can one say with certainty.

An entry on my blog @ First, I’ve filled up a dummy email address in the required section ‘cos I don’t know if the comments section are subject to spam email harvest. Anyway, coming to the issue at hand.

I’m concerned about the security of stuff being passed around while signing up, logging in, etc. And unfortunately, not much attention is being paid to it 🙁

Nowadays, there are more and more sites and services coming up that offer a lot of fabulous (in each and everyone’s opinion) things for free. Stuff like Blogger, Orkut, Flickr, FeedBurner, …

However, AFAIK, none of these sites use HTTPS or other forms of secure communication while doing a sign-up or logging into their site. Understandably, they aren’t passing around the password in plain text, but I’d be much more happier to see HTTPS for a start.

The issue becomes slightly compounded because I’m responsible for what I’m (supposedly) putting up on such sites and if the access is not secure, how can one say with certainty.

An entry on my blog @ http://tinyurl.com/5j3u9 talks about this. My comments on Evan’s blog (of Blogger fame) is @ http://tinyurl.com/6q7sv.talks about this.

query, All the noise getting to you, is it? Kind of like the pot calling the kettle black, wouldn’t you say?

First, now you have some idea of what most people on this blog think of your rather strident, mindless, banging-pot-and-pan-sounding posts. 😉

The difference between you and the strikers is that they have a real need, where all you want is attention. So here, consider this post a gift for your own very peculiar brand of attention-deficit disorder.

Second, it’s those hotel workers that keep San Francisco’s economy stoked. What’s San Francisco’s #1 enterprise sector? In case you don’t know, it’s tourism.

Why should those who are largely responsible for quietly and efficiently keeping comfortable the millions of tourists who pour into San Francisco every year not gain an increase in benefits? How many tourist bathrooms have you cleaned lately? Might I suggest a dose of three months or so in the shoes of those strikers to help you regain any humility (one of Jesus main qualities) that you might have once had.

Perhaps the noise might wake some neighborhoods up (pun intended) to the problems that lowly paid hospitality workers suffer as they help keep those neighbors property values elevated.

Lastly, what continues to amuse me about your posts is how they have the same general tenor of the Bush message – i.e. lots of sloganeering and emotional hot-button jabs with little understanding of the real depth of issues (just like your post today).

I’m actually beginning to feel pity for those that buy into the Pavlovian prompts that Bush and his people put out there. It’s the kind of pity that comes while watching people gladly (whilst blindly, from pure emotion) show how inherently unthinking they are as they continue to embarass themselves – not to mention their species.

At first, some of the stuff you put up was just plain annoying, but now that your pattern is clear, it’s come to resemble the desperation we’re seeing from the underdeveloped forebrain types in the Bush camp.

So, please don’t stop posting as it’s fun (and easy) to counter the kind of mindless spin you put up here. Kinda makes my day from time-to-time. 😉

Dan — I would like to thank you for allowing this open-thread debate on your web site. Please keep our trolling “freedom” alive –Thanks

Vibrissae — I think you misunderappreciate the power of sending multi-level messages (mixed messages) to the sub-cortical brain layers.

It may not matter what the thinking part of the brain says. The other two parts (limbic and reptilian) cast their votes too. In some people, the votes of the lower brain parts outweigh that of the thinking part.

By the time Nov. 2 rolls around, we will have forgotten the substance of the debates and all that will remain is the room-spinning buzz of the campaign ads.

Practice the following mixed messages every day from now until Nov. 2. Eventually your cerebral cortex will cave in and the lower brain stems will take over:

Sad-damn Whose-sane?
Sad-damn Whose-sane?

Mixed Messa Jess
Mixed Messa Jess

Liberal Flip Flopper (arms wide open, flap ’em like a bird))
Liberal Flip Flopper (arms wide open)

Those who HATE us
Those who HATE us

You can run, but who will save ya?
You can run, but who will save ya?

George, george … he’s our boy-MAN
If he can’t save ya, no one can

Cheers

Sudhir Parasuram: You should be more worried about what happens to the data once it’s on the server than about someone eavesdropping on it in transit. Especially if the site uses Microsoft’s web server.

The President closed the deal. The election is over.

Really, query? Who did he buy for this election?

Yeah the president closed the deal…on his condo in Crawford Texas where he will spend rest of his life in his bathrobe muttering “I did not make any mistakes”.

BTW did ya hear Kerry say “Nano-second”? Gotta love a guy who knows enough to say that. Now that is a president who understands science!

Unfortunately, it won’t be over until the swing lady on the U.S. Supreme Court sings.

(No one is saying Sandra Day O’Conner is fat.)

Currently, it looks like 2004 will be a replay of the year 2000 election. Too many swing states, too many questionable voting machines, etc. –our democracy system is broken.

Quote “Sudhir Parasuram: You should be more worried about what happens to the data once it’s on the server than about someone eavesdropping on it in transit. Especially if the site uses Microsoft’s web server.”

I would be VERY worried if it was a microsoft based Web server. As a matter of fact I’ve had to format and restore many high end and very important Windows Based Servers because of Microsoft’s sorry security.

fyyiia ahaizi.