Tuesday, December 07, 2004

Recently, on WIRED NEWS...

Here are a couple of stories I read last night and this morning... Blogs May Be a Wealth Hazard:
What do a flight attendant in Texas, a temporary employee in Washington and a web designer in Utah have in common? They were all fired for posting content on their blogs that their companies disapproved of. The rise of blogging over the past few years has, inevitably, given way to another phenomenon, as companies are forced to confront employees' easy access to ranting and raving about work in public online forums like Blogger and LiveJournal. [Read Story]
Who's Recycling Techno Trash?
No current figures exist for how much e-junk is recycled, but industry experts believe it's a sliver of the total. People don't know where to take their used electronics, and toxic components are a mounting problem. [Read Story]

We Don't Need No Stinkin' Login

While many online newspaper readers are used to the idea of registering to read free content online, some news buffs are supporting and creating sites that help them beat the system with fake or shared login information that helps keep their personal information under wraps. [Read Story]
Spyware on My Machine? So What?

Not all web surfers think spyware is a problem. Some say the snoopy software is a fair trade-off for free applications, even with the intrusion into their computers and lives. "Typically the assumption has been that spyware sneaks onto computers, or users are unaware of what they have agreed to install," said Gregg Mastoras, a senior security analyst at antivirus vendor Sophos. "But some people actually do knowingly install adware because they want to use a particular application that comes bundled with it. Some just aren't particularly concerned by adware's presence on their computers." [Read Story]

That last story bugs me. How can people not care about spyware? I must have half a dozen different apps that I use just for scrubbing cookies and detecting/deleting spyware. I know, I know ... there are folks who feel that the only people who are doing something shady need to worry about spyware and privacy. Well, if you don't think spyware is a problem, then you should check out Marketscore, which is mentioned in the article and is a program that "routes all of a user's web traffic through Marketscore's own servers, where it is then analyzed to 'create research reports on internet trends and e-commerce activities.'"

Yeah, that means logins and passwords, are routed through Marketscore's servers, too. Real nice.

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