klyjen.blog

I wrote about President Reagan once, when I was eight or nine years old. Actually, I wrote about a neighbor, a then-new friend of my mothers, who had worked for the President when he was the Governor of California. I had overheard part of a story between the adults, and my interpretation made it into my essay for the GATE program's journalism unit at my elementary school. Unfortunately, what was an innocent comment in my mind turned out to be a rather humorous, innuendo-laden comment to the adults who read my essay, and it was subsequently published (without my parents or the friend seeing it first) in the local paper. You can imagine the ensuing hilarity.

Oops.

Anyway. Every morning this week I am choked up with sorrow for his family as the newscasters describe the masses of people waiting to pay final respects in venues I know well--first at the Presidential Library down the road from my undergraduate alma mater that was dedicated while I was in school, and then today in DC. I have wished, this week, that I were still in Washington, where his funeral service is being anticipated with the solemnity and pomp that seem so appropriate. I wished today that I could attend the processional on Constitution, feeling the pressure of the humidity and the pressure of the masses of mourners saying farewell, knowing that I was watching a moment in time.

Missy has pictures from the processional.

Posted by Jen at 10:15 PM | Permalink

Ernie mentions DidTheyReadIt (an e-mail service that purports to allow senders to know when a message is read without the recipient’s knowledge) as a possible tool for enabling on-line service of process.

From the FAQs:

Q: Can I use DidTheyREADIt at work?
A: Yes, unless your office uses Microsoft Exchange.

heheh So, really, the answer is No for a significant number of organizations. Most (not all) law firms, especially, tend to rely on Exchange.

But even more amusing, to me, is the claim to "invisibly" track whether or not a message is read. The technology uses the same concepts used by spammers to confirm the validity of an e-mail address; a web component is embedded in the message, and when the message is opens, the component pings the host server to download itself, thus registering that the message was read. If your recipient uses Outlook 2003 with the default settings, he or she will know that something is up with the message because it will open with a notification that "To help protect your privacy, Outlook prevented automatic download of some pictures in this message." Boom; the invisibility is gone, and the recipient knows that something is going on.

Your workaround here, of course, is naivety in the general user population. Most users will not be aware that downloading those "pictures" can confirm that the message was read (whether the confirmation goes to a spam center or to a process server). Replying to or forwarding the message, even in Outlook 2003, will notify DidTheyREADIt the message was read even if the pictures were not downloaded at origin. A savvy user would delete the component first, removing it from the message forever--but you can imagine how rarely that would happen.

The extent to which this sort of technology bugs me cannot be adequately articulated; no one needs to know what I read or when. Even the Post Office cannot confirm to a sender that the recipient actually read the contents of a registered letter. The company's comparison of its service to CallerID is particularly misguided (Think of it like caller ID. Caller ID works most of the time and will show you who is calling you, but every now and then you get a "Private Call" or "Unavailable" number); the comparison would be better applied to a service that confirmed the true sender of a message before I opened it.

Okay. End rant.

Posted by Jen at 01:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

It is voting day in my district in Virginia (the 8th), where my friend and former co-worker Andy Rosenberg (go Andy!!) is challenging incumbent Rep. Jim Moran in the Democratic primary. Members of all parties can vote in Virginia's open primary system, so if you live in that area, get to the polls. Find your polling place at the Virginia State Board of Elections site.

Posted by Jen at 10:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

ExtremeTech reports a security vulnerability in the Linksys Wireless G Broadband Router (WRT54G). (Link from eWeek.)

As a side note, I'm not sure it qualifies as a security hole in the device; the claim is that access to the router can be accomplished using an "easily guessed" password. The problem (based on my admittedly quick read) appears to be related to weak passwords or careless users who do not change the defaults. Perhaps I'm misunderstanding something. Calling this a security hole, then, is misleading and implies that the vendor is responsible for the vulnerability, rather than the user who neglects to read the instructions and protect herself.

Posted by Jen at 03:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)