SPIT and SPAM

As a guest today on Talk of the Nation, I covered a variety of topics relating to spam, which is growing faster than ever.

Responding to a call-in question about open source software, I speculated that Firefox is no more secure than IE. I based this on theoretical arguments that might apply if Firefox were as popular a target as IE, and if the settings were as flexible, but in reality what I said is wrong. Contrary to the suspicions of one angry podcaster (who issued a fatwa on my head!) I have no financial motivation to "lie" about Firefox. In fact, as an investor in Flock which builds on the Mozilla code, I am happy to be corrected about the security of Firefox.

I guess I also provoked disagreement from the other guest, Dechlan McCullagh of CNET, who was articulate, well-informed, and clearly more comfortable on radio than I. I made the prediction that one day email spam will pale in comparison to SPIT (SPam over Internet Telephony). With free VOIP calls, spammers can now use computers overseas to generate voice messages that they broadcast to every 10 digit telephone number in North America.

"Press 1 to join Party Chat! Sexy Singles are standing by..." "You've been pre-approved for a low-rate credit card! Press 1 to complete your application..." "Why pay so much for prescriptions? Press 1 to get a free month of medicine from Cayman Islands Pharmacy..."

They needn't pay for the calls, the human reps, or the lists of valid phone numbers (so unlisted cell phones are vulnerable). Email spam is bad enough, but when our phones ring constantly, the intrusion on our lives will be profoundly greater, and unlike email spam, SPIT will carry payloads that cannot be examined until after we accept the call.

Anyway, I predicted that one day we'll be forced to turn off our ringers altogether, marking the end of real time telephone conversations. Dechlan pointed out that we could simply choose to ignore calls from people we don't know, as one of his buddies does. Good idea, except that the spammers will use our friends' and family's phones to call us, just as they do today with email.

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I Want a DUMP Button

Last week my family made a post-school season pilgrimage to our nation's capitol. What a splendorous city of Parisian architecture, clean streets, warm air, Southern greenery, and magnificent monuments (soiled only by the requisite portraits of our President). We hit the major landmarks and monuments, but here are some highlights:

• The FDR Memorial.

Completed 10 years ago, this riverside walkway pays tribute to the 32d president through sculpture, water features, and stones engraved with Roosevelt's stirring words.  

• Bureau of Engraving and Printing.

See a bill printed start to finish in a quick, easy 45 minute tour. ($700 million printed every day!)

• The Spy Museum.

Spy history, gadgets and techniques.

• Simthsonian National Air and Space.

Always an inspiration. I wish we had set aside a whole day for it.

• Library of Congress.

In the largest library in the world, you won't see any books--they are safely locked away from the public, but anyone (not just Americans) can enter the reading room with a request. The foyer is incredible, graced with sculpture, murals and engravings such as "Ignorance is the Curse of God." (Isn't it the other way around?)

• "The Awakening".

Sculpture of a buried giant struggling to the surface, along the Potomac. Climbable!



Private attractions, if you know someone...

• Central Intelligence Agency
  

I wish I could tell you about it!

• National Public Radio

Thanks to my friend Barrie Hardymon (asst. editor for Talk of the Nation and principal contributor to Blog of the Nation),  my son and I got our daily dose of Neal Conan right there in the control room, standing beside the call-in screeners.

NPR broadcasts live with a 6-second delay, and so Barrie pointed out the DUMP button that radio hosts press to instantly delete 6-second spans containing objectionable expletives. After DUMPing the dirty words, NPR then broadcasts without delay while DSP software works for several minutes in the background to imperceptibly slow the transmitted conversation until it re-builds 6 seconds of latency.

"What happens if you need to DUMP it again before it's ready?" my 8-year-old asked. Barrie conceded that it is indeed a problem on rare occasion. "If you build up 12 seconds of delay instead of 6," the boy suggested, "you can press DUMP again if you need to." I thought it was a Capitol Idea!

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