Big Brother, Bill, 1984, .Net, dot net, Microsoft, Smart Tags, Hailstorm, privacy
Big Brother, Bill, 1984, .Net, dot net, Microsoft,
Smart Tags, Hailstorm, privacy
Thousands of small business webmasters briefly lose their domain names at expiration, due to a simple lack of understanding about the roles of three key players in the drama: domain name registrars, web hosts and internet service providers. Fortunately for most, they learn quickly how to save their web site from oblivion by using the 30 day redemption period for expired domain names enforced by ICANN. One simple solution is to extend domain registration for the maximum ten years. The other solution is to treat domain registrar data as the critical business element it is.
I Can't Remember Where I Purchased My Domain Name!
It wasn't until my third client had called asking how to regain control of her domain name that I realized that it was a common problem for small business webmasters to forget where they had registered their domains. WHOIS my registrar? Why didn't I get an email about renewal? Why did my site stop working today?
People rarely realize how important it is to keep their domain registrar notified of changes to their email address and and other contact information. The registrar will send renewal notifications to the email address last on file. For most domain owners, the only time they think about contacting a registrar is the day they reserve their domain name. If they move to a new city and get a new internet service provider, it doesn't occur to them that the old email address will change and that meeans that the registrar can no longer contact them through the previous address, or phone or fax as each of them change and we rarely notify the controller of our domain of those changes.
Sometimes the first indication a business owner will have that there is a problem is the day their web site stops working. If they failed to notify their domain registrar of changed email address, they may never have received their domain renewal notice. Since many registrars honor a 30 day "redemption period" allowing expired domains to be redeemed, it may be possible to save the registration within 30 days following expiration by contacting registrars during 30 day domain redemption periods.
The following URL leads to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (AKA ICANN) discussing the grace period and redemption period rules it enforces.
http://www.icann.org/bucharest/redemption-topic.htm
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Big Brother Bill: It's 1984 all over Again!
by Mike Banks Valentine
Most of the commentary over the George Orwell's novel, "1984"
that occured in that year, was derision, saying that now it
was quite clear that the eerie picture painted of "Big
Brother" was unlikely, and certainly not possible.
Now Microsoft has proposed a sweeping web initiative which it
has dubbed "dot
Net" or .Net in which they would be the "host"
for the personal information of every single online consumer.
The idea has some appeal as a possible way to access information
from a central bank of servers using XML code to withdraw selected
info from the vast database of personal information about anyone
from a central "host".
To have web access to that information might save the life of
an accident victim allergic to medications or allow you to withdraw
cash from any bank via your cell phone.
The privacy implications though, are downright spooky. Now,
you combine that information with newly available science-fiction-like
"face-mapping"
software tested this year at the "Snooper-Bowl" where
certain law-enforcement agencies would have access to private
personal information and high resolution video scans of the
crowd and you have -- Big Brother. Combine that with "Telematics"
being used by car rental agencies to track the location and
even the speed of their fleet of cars and now it gets real ugly.
This is the George Orwell novel, "1984" come to life,
a little late, but it's definitely here. Carry a cell phone?
It will be federally mandated that your phone must use global
positioning technology so that when used to dial emergency services
via 911, you can be located to within twenty feet or less. It
doesn't take a genius to realize that could be used by Big Brother
just as easily without your knowledge.
Any idea if your boss is peering over your shoulder? More than
three- quarters of corporate
employers monitor employees in multiple ways. The following
is from Onvia.com web article on workplace monitoring.
"Although the average percentage of workers with office
e-mail and Internet connections remained relatively constant,
overall active monitoring grew to 78 percent from 74 percent
in 2000. The overall figure includes such measures as storing
and reviewing computer files (36 percent), video recording of
employees on the job (15 percent), recording and reviewing telephone
messages (12 percent), and storing and reviewing voice mail
(8 percent)
Other forms of surveillance, including telephone numbers called
and time spent on the phone, logged computer time and video
surveillance for security purposes brought the total for all
forms of monitoring to 82 percent, up from last year's 78 percent
and from 67 percent in 1999."
Consider that Microsoft provides the desktop software to most
of the corporate world and it doesn't take much of a stretch
of the imagination to see them building in their own monitoring
tools.
Add to that, "Smart Tags" that are being built into
Microsoft software so that all of their products are tethered
together and they now have access to virtually all of your information
from Outlook, Word, your calendar, your email addresses, your
files, your spreadsheets and your Powerpoint presentations.
The following quote came from a large computing company's lead
engineer, he was promised anonymity:
<-------- begin quote -------->
"Bill has held back technology in order to control the
growth at his own pace and suck up every ounce of revenue along
the way. He is a genius when it comes to business - probably
the smartest business man to ever live!
When he released MSDOS (early 80's) there were plenty of multi-tasking
OSs available - he released Windows NT in the mid 90's over
ten years after the technology was available on the PC! You
have to be pretty smart to hold off that kind of technology
for over ten years!
The consumer is just now starting to receive the benefits of
multi-tasking OS's with Windows 2000 and still has no idea how
much technology they are missing!
He uses his install base of (90+%) of the client market to control
and kill every standard in his greedy profit hungry companies
way.
Now he is trying to kill Java with SOAP, SNMP with CIMOM ...
etc.
He killed pop3 with exchange server - you have to buy your corporate
email server from Microsoft. No open email standards will stand
in his way - eliminate the competition!
The bottom line is Bill is the smartest business man in the
software industry and controls the pace of technology. You will
not get the technology until Bill can control and own the market!"
<-------- End of quote ------->
Bill Gates made $931 million as Microsoft shares rose about
2 percent, better than the Upside 150's 1 percent gain. The
Microsoft chairman was worth $50.6 billion at the end of trading
on June 29, based on his company stock holdings. That would
finance the Big Brother centralized database called .Net quite
easily.
Are you ready for 1984?
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