Category: Evil

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blog Cell Phones Evil Free Google Google Voice Net10 spam Verizon

Verizon wireless and text messages

Let me start this off by saying that I have used AT&T, Verizon, & Net10 for my cell phone. I have never worked for any of the aforementioned companies before I wrote this. I can’t say I won’t in the future as I do not know everything that will happen in the future.

Well I’ve been with Verizon wireless for about 18 months now. I have never been so glad to know the my contract with a cell phone company is nearing the end. I will most likely go back to Net10 as they treated me in a nicer manner. I’ll list some of the differences.

  • Net10 only charged me 5¢ to receive a text message if I actually read it, it was free if I never read it. (Verizon charges me 20¢ just for receiving a text message) (They both will send certain messages for free, but those are service related messages, like reminding you that your going to expire.)
  • Net10 allowed me to rollover my minutes while Verizon is still in the dark ages where you only get a certain amount & if you don’t use it up you never get to see it again.
  • I almost never got spam when I was on Net10, but my wife has been hit with spam while on Verizon. (To get refunded for the spam she has to call them after they have billed us for the month, while if I just ignore them on Net10 I don’t get charged.)
  • Verizon told my with that they raised the text message rate from 10¢ to 20¢ to be competitive. When I heard that I thought that was outrageous as Net10 still only charges 5¢ for sending or receiving a text message & again they only charge you if you read it not just receive it, unlike Verizon that charges you just for receiving the message.

Since my family has several member that insist on sending text messages I applied for & eventually received a Google voice account. I did that because I now have a cell phone number where I do not get charged for receiving a text message.

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blog Evil Internet Microsoft Security TCPIP Windows Zune Zune software

I found out why Zune 4.0 was killing the Internet for me

Today I woke up early & couldn’t go back to sleep. I just remembered something is that I’ve installed some updates on my computer & realized that it might be Microsoft restricting the tcpip.sys file to 10 half open TCP connections. That was killing my Internet on my computer.

So I went to download a program to patch it to a more reasonable number, which happens to be greater than the default Microsoft sticks you with. I did that because I realized that the Internet on other computers was not wasted by the Zune software constant downloading of PDF files. I think they should force the Zune team & the Windows team to have a podcast that is at least 50% PDF files with this version of the software running so they can learn why it is a bad idea to only allow 10 connections at a time & also learn why they shouldn’t keep downloading the same file that they can’t read anyway because the software doesn’t support PDF files.

When I made the last post I had forgotten to check on a different computer if I was killing the network or just the one computer. I was still blaming the right company it was just two different departments that were working together to screw me over. To bad they still think that Windows XP should be choked to death so that it can’t do much. I forget how long ago Microsoft Imposed that limit on Windows XP but I do remember it was long before Windows Vista came out. Well a quick Google search yields Windows XP SP2 was the beginning of the abuse Microsoft Imposed on Windows XP. I did some more searching & I found that it was released back on August 6, 2004 or 2004-08-06 so they have had it broken for a very long time ([fergcorp_cdt_single date=”Fri, 06 Aug 2004 00:00:00 -600″]) I’m just glad other people have come up with ways to fix the file so that it behaves more reasonably then the way Microsoft seems to think it should.

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blog Evil spam

Spammers don’t ever seem to give up

I really don’t understand why people delete the account. I came up with a better solution, at least I think it is.

  1. I changed the password for that account.
  2. I made it so the user doesn’t even have read rights. Thanks Role Manager.
  3. I changed almost everything about the user to indicate it is a spam account.
  4. I disabled the forgot password feature. Thanks WP-IDS.

Yes I am talking about the account alina77vere9uk account that everyone seems to be getting on tons of blogs that has that really suspicious e-mail address of alina77vere@gmail.com.

I am also grateful to BlogSecurity for info on securing my blog.

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blog DMCA Evil MPAA RIAA Sony

The RIAA, the MPAA, Sony & the DMCA

I was looking up the word terrorism & I realized that it applies to the RIAA & MPAA, as they are trying to instill a sense of fear into the population. I had heard someone saying the at it should apply to Sony back when the rootkit was first discovered in 2005. (I had to use the Internet Archive to get that because the original page is gone now.) I know I’m afraid of downloading MP3 files because of the number of lawsuits that the RIAA has started & the MPAA doesn’t seem much better only I haven’t heard as many frivolous lawsuits from them. By that I mean how the RIAA keeps suing people even people who are dead & didn’t have a working computer.

Since President Bush declared war on terrorism I think that should to apply to organizations like Sony, the RIAA, & the MPAA. Sony for the rootkit they released & the attitude they had about it. The RIAA & MPAA for the way they behave with all the frivolous lawsuits. I think I should be able to have my movies edited so they don’t have the filth that Hollywood seems to keep coming out with.

They seem to think that if they scare us they can stifle technology. They seem to be going into the future while traveling into the past. They didn’t embrace the Internet or MP3’s when they came out. Now you have to hear crap about you would do this or that before you can watch the DVD you just bought. I agree the artists should receive some money for what they have done, but I believe that with the Internet the artists should be able to free themselves of the shackles that the RIAA & MPAA place on them.

Next that the MPAA doesn’t seem to have a clue about how to do a proper rating system. Here are some rules that I think should be implemented on the rating system.

  1. The people who are rating the movies need to be on a publicly available list. This is so they can be held accountable. The only group I know of that doesn’t do this for a rating system is the CIA & I am ok with them keeping it secret. All other major rating systems I know of have a way of finding out who did what. (Do we really want another Enron?)
  2. There needs to be a set of rules written as to what makes a movie to what rating & it needs to be followed to the very last jot & tittle. (BTW from what I understand a Jot & a tittle are two of the smallest marks in the Hebrew Language.)
  3. When a precedent is set by saying one thing is ok in a certain rating to be fair it should be allowed or the previous rating needs to be stricken.
  4. There should be at least one clergy from each major religion making the rules. Yes I know this means the Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Mormons & several other religions that I can’t remember the names of.

Ok those are the rules I can think of so far. If anyone has any other Ideas I’d be glad to hear them.

More information about the RIAA can be found at this blog. And they prove me right about Sony being evil too. Wow I hate to say this but AOL now actually has competition for being the most evil major corporate entity. I mean the spyware, adware, & other scumware programs come close, but they are to small after all to really compete with the RIAA, MPAA, Sony, or AOL.

So where does this leave us. We need to do something about companies with attitudes like this. The evil needs to be stopped. I don’t pretend to know how, but I know something must be done.

One other thing while I’m ranting about evil companies. What I really don’t get is why do they call DRM “Digital Rights Management” when it should be “Digital Restrictions Management”. Yes that’s right it is about putting Restrictions on what you can do & thanks to DMCA (PDF warning) you can’t legally go around the DRM.