Charles on… anything that comes along

Neat idea: DDOS the spammers, or at least up their bandwidth bills SETI-style. The BBC reports on a Lycos screensaver that tackles spam websites essentially by polling them again and again. It gets its benefit from scale - the more people do this, the tougher on the spammers. (Though one also suspects this is like trying to kill cockroaches.)

However, the link on the BBC page, to http://makelovenotspam.com/intl goes nowhere for me except to a sales page trying to get me to sign up to Lycos.

Um, Lycos people? This is the thing that should be at the end. Because if I’m concerned about spam then I *already* have an email account. Stands to reason, don’t you think? I’m not going to click on any of the options to sign up for a paid-for or free Lycos account. I just want the anti-spam screensaver. That’s assuming it’s available for OSX, which may be hoping too far. But I’ll never know, will I?

The sensible way to have done this would have been to have a few pages explaining how the screensaver works, with links along the way to Lycos’s email packages. Forcing the issue like this simply means nobody gets to download the screensaver.

Because the screensaver must exist, right? It’s not just a.. publicity stunt?

These posts might be related (the database thinks..):
• That didn't last long: Lycos withdraws its spammer-DDOSing screensaver (6 December 2004; score: 168.12%)
• My take on the BBC licence fee in the future digital age (4 March 2005; score: 43.84%)
• Spam: the beast is in the numbers (6 March 2006; score: 40.6%)

This week’s Science and Technology pages are up at The Independent: I’ve written about the long tail effect, where digital goods can sell forever - and even “unpopular” ones sell well (did you know that all of the 1.2 million tracks on Apple’s iTunes Music Store in the US have been downloaded at least once, and that more than half of Amazon’s sales are of items ranked below 130,000 in its sales ranking?).

Charlotte Ricca-Smith has the best gadgets of 2004. And in Science, Kate Ravilious explains what might happen to the Amazon as global warming gathers page.

These posts might be related (the database thinks..):
• The long tail, shortened from 57 per cent to... about 20 per (15 August 2005; score: 89.46%)
• "Tails are cool" (26 October 2005; score: 66.47%)
• Done a book review on Amazon? .... oh, so you have (18 November 2005; score: 50.42%)

We return to the subject of speed cameras, as previously covered on this blog. There I wrote about an article in Which? magazine which marshalled the scientifially-analysed data about speed cameras, and concluded that those arguing against them don’t have a scientific leg to stand on. The arguments against speed cameras are emotive; they don’t have science on their side, to quote the article.

There’s a new comment there from Paul of the “Safe Speed” organisation - which actually (despite its name) argues against speed cameras. I’ll quote his comment here (to save you the hassle of going there):

“The article in Which was really very superficial and not very accurate. You should be interested in our published comments: http://www.safespeed.org.uk/which.html
I totally accept that the author made an attempt at fair balance, but unfortunately he really didn’t dig deeply enough into the data and analysis he was presenting.
The Safe Speed website is now in excess of 350,000 words and over 7,500 hours of my best efforts have gone into it. It is completely unreasonable to suggest that Which presented “our best arguments”. It didn’t come anywhere close. For a brief overview of “our best arguments” see:
http://www.safespeed.org.uk/againstcameras.html
Best Regards, Paul Smith”

OK, I’ve briefly gone to scan his site. The introduction begins: The way that speed cameras have been introduced to British roads has been shoddy in the extreme. Mm, not too prejudgemental then.

The number of speed camera fines is doubling every 3 years, yet roads fatalities are not falling at all. True, but as the Which? article pointed out, many fatalities occur on roads without cameras - minor roads, A roads.

There are lots of other arguments there. I think they still fail the scientific test; and many are arguable. For instance, at http://www.safespeed.org.uk/pr110.html we’re told that Departtment for Transport data from 2001 shows Data from 13 Police forces for 2001 reveals the following most frequent accident contributory factors: Inattention 25.8%.. (as the highest-ranked cause). But inattention is inevitable when driving. The question is whether there is time enough to recover control of the car if something happens that distracts you, or you lose attention. The higher your speed, the less likely.

Safespeed seems to me to be trying to have it both ways: arguing that “the vast majority” of drivers are careful, responsible, etc etc, and that therefore we don’t need speed cameras. But the vast majority of people don’t break into peoples’ homes., We still find police useful to track down burglars, and take precautions against them. Also, drivers who impose their ideas of “safe” speed on others - say, by tailgating on motorways (a behaviour you can observe on any motorway every day) - now, would they belong to that “vast majority” or not?

These posts might be related (the database thinks..):
• Arguments against speed cameras demolished wholesale (10 October 2004; score: 81.35%)
• That's funny, I thought the answer was 'an iPod' or 'Robosapien' (7 December 2004; score: 42.75%)
• What's the future of photography? (18 November 2005; score: 37.6%)