NAI Spyware Forum Recap

A couple hours ago, I spoke on a panel concerning the technological responses to spyware, along with Brooks Dobbs from DoubleClick, Richard Siennon from Webroot and Bill Wise from Did-It. Lots of terrific people were there, including Esther Dyson of C|Net, Lydia Parnes, director of the Bureau of Consumer Protection at the Federal Trade Commission and David Cavicke, general counsel for the Committee for Energy and Commerce (US House of Representatives).

A lot of the conversation centered around the controversy over both spyware and the anti-spyware software that removes rogue applications from consumers' computers. My particular panel talked at length about the problem of anti-spyware software identifying legitimate adserver cookies as threats and removing them from consumers' computers by default.

The one thing I didn't get a satisfactory answer about was why adserver cookies from Atlas, DoubleClick, 24/7 Real Media and others are specifically identified as threats by anti-spyware tools when...

1) These guys are the "good guys" and have gone out of their way to educate, provide opt-out mechanisms, disclose details of how cookies are used, and set up best practices concerning PII and privacy.

2) Most truly malevolent cookies are skipped over and not identified.

It seems the good guys have been caught in the blast of the nuclear bomb set off by the anti-spyware vendors. There are two big problems here:

1) Deleting cookies via anti-spyware software is responsible for a good deal of the cookie-clearing behavior we've been seeing lately, and

2) There is little incentive for the anti-spyware vendors to whitelist "good" cookies. The consumer seems to like this just fine (even though they're likely not fully understanding what they're doing or the impact they're having on the content sites they all know and love).

So what's the incentive for the anti-spyware vendors to whitelist Atlas, DoubleClick and the other "white hat" adserving vendors?

Nick Nyhan from Dynamic Logic suggested I get involved with SafeCount in order to fully explore this. I think I'll do just that.

Thanks to Peter Kosmala and Trevor Hughes from the NAI for letting me come by and speak my mind.

Falling in Love with The Discovery Times Channel

Good stuff on DTC lately, especially full-hour overviews of issues surrounding North Korea and Saudi Arabia. Couldn't finish up watching the North Korea episode last night, as I was tired, but I noticed that the show narrator stated that George Bush considers any attempt to have talks before NK's nuclear disarmament to be tantamount to blackmail. Does that seem a bit unrealistic to you? It's not as if Kim Jong Il is going to say, "Sure, we'll take apart the nukes we've built so Dubya will return my phone calls..."

Ignoring the situation just escalates things. Didn't we just invade a nation under the pretense of a possible threat due to weapons of mass destruction? And we didn't even have proof. Now here's the biggest totalitarian dictatorship in the world claiming to have its own nuclear arsenal and we ignore them? Makes no sense to me.

THIS Is Why I Don't Take The Mainstream Press Seriously

Oil is still over $52 a barrel. Gas prices in my hometown have shot up to $2.50 per gallon for the 93 octane my car demands. Higher oil prices are on the horizon. What does BusinessWeek Report?

"Gas Prices Decline By A Nickel A Gallon"

How can one miss the bigger story here? Oh, I know, by having a readership base composed mostly of Republican capitalists.

Then again, my theory might be wrong. Check out this Google News search on "Gas Prices." Seems the MSM has an identity crisis today. (When I did this search at 2:30 in the afternoon today, half the stories were about rising oil prices and the other half were about declining gas prices.)

I Want My Own Lightsaber

I wrote this tune recently called "I Want My Own Lightsaber." It's kind of this pop-punk piece with these cool lyrics about what would happen to you if you were able to invent a working lightsaber. Basically, you'd tell your best friend, who wouldn't be able to contain himself and he'd tell all of his friends. You might go find someone you don't like and carve his SUV into tiny pieces. But then word would get out. As soon as the word got out, you'd be cast into this Bourne Identity-esque situation where corporate interests and the government would hunt you down, take away your invention and leave you to die in a ditch along a lonely highway somewhere.

Anyway, I'd love to get this tune down on digital because it would be fun to post here. Unfortunately, there's little time for digital recording anymore and my keyboard seems to be on the fritz, with several key buttons and knobs not working. Maybe someday when I get the money to get it repaired...