The Twilight Blogosphere
1. For starters, the New York Times has been running a sporadic series about people who posted blogs that were actually read, and who then felt that their privacy had been breached. For those who feel compelled to write such items as 'The King is a Fink,' but who would prefer that no one know about their screed, the traditional way was to write on paper in secret code. and then keep the papers locked up where no one could find them.
Of course, the most famous example of such writings was rather easily found and quickly deciphered, or so the scholars tell us, though I am not completely convinced that the scholars didn't just invent Mr. Pepys' tales of what he'd seen based on unencrypted accounts, and, since no one else could break the cipher, no one could question the scholars' deciphered publication of the diary.
Today, of course, the person who feels compelled to write, but who doesn't want anyone to read his Jeremiads, can simply type into a document and encrypt the document electronically. Writing a blog and then feeling violated when someone reads it seems strange to me. But the New York Times says that bloggers who find themselves unexpectedly read have every right to be irate.
2. Anyone who bothers reading the sporadic comments to this blog has seen (since I've left them there) several commercial spam posts. Anyone who has tried to comment will also have seen that I try to block spam comments with the blogger CAPCHA, which should require human intervention for every post, something that doesn't seem to be happening. I am confused.
One possibility is that desperate people in marketing are just typing in keywords like Dubai and manually posting their company's ads on every blog that shows up. The other possibility is that Blogger is selling access to spammers, allowing them to post comments on millions of obscure blogs such as, e.g., Dubai@Random. As of current date, this remains an unsolved question.
Of course, the most famous example of such writings was rather easily found and quickly deciphered, or so the scholars tell us, though I am not completely convinced that the scholars didn't just invent Mr. Pepys' tales of what he'd seen based on unencrypted accounts, and, since no one else could break the cipher, no one could question the scholars' deciphered publication of the diary.
Today, of course, the person who feels compelled to write, but who doesn't want anyone to read his Jeremiads, can simply type into a document and encrypt the document electronically. Writing a blog and then feeling violated when someone reads it seems strange to me. But the New York Times says that bloggers who find themselves unexpectedly read have every right to be irate.
2. Anyone who bothers reading the sporadic comments to this blog has seen (since I've left them there) several commercial spam posts. Anyone who has tried to comment will also have seen that I try to block spam comments with the blogger CAPCHA, which should require human intervention for every post, something that doesn't seem to be happening. I am confused.
One possibility is that desperate people in marketing are just typing in keywords like Dubai and manually posting their company's ads on every blog that shows up. The other possibility is that Blogger is selling access to spammers, allowing them to post comments on millions of obscure blogs such as, e.g., Dubai@Random. As of current date, this remains an unsolved question.
posted by Dubai@Random at 1:02 am
1 Comments:
That's why I blog far away from Arab countries. It removes that element of uncertainty.
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