Good News

I appeared on WSOC-TV‘s Eyewitness News Monday at 5:00 and then again at 11:00. Apparently alocal website was hacked and defaced by a disgruntled former employee. I was interviewed to explain how this happens and how people can secure themselves.

This is a very serious issue. Last year, 2500 web sites were hacked everyday, and the problem is only growingworse. It is imperative that people get virus protection software such as the free AVGAnti-Virus from Grisoft and keep it updated, run a good personal firewall such as unless you’re absolutely sure the person sent it to you on purpose.ZoneAlarm or the one included with Windows XP Service Pack 2, and run Windows Update often (and configure it to automatically notify you when updates are available). Oh, and whatever you do, don’t open email attachments

Remember: the question is not, "Can they get in?" The question is, "How long will it take them?" Your computer is vulnerable; taking the abovesteps will hopefully make it so difficult to get in that the hacker will give up and go elsewhere looking for easier prey.

Reply to an Anonymous Coward

A few days ago, I had a Letter to the Editor published in the Charlotte Observer about a proposal to raise North Carolina’s cigarette tax, and one reason given was that it would help curb teenage smoking. I wrote in my letter that it wouldn’t, because all it would do is make a more profitable black market for cigarettes, and I cited New York as an example. I also pointed out that these criminal black marketeers don’t check IDs.

Today I received a letter in the mail from someone responding to this. I have no idea who, as this person gave no name, no return address, and no e-mail address. This person didn’t see fit to send in a reply to the Observer or any other public forum, or give me any way to respond directly. So I’m putting it here for all to see.

The blockquoted portions are from the letter. The rest is my response.

You claim that New York’s high cigarette tax is responsible for a black market run by criminal gangs. How then would you explain why my mother-in-law was buying black market cigarettes back in the late ’60s, before a significant cigarette tax existed?

Because black markets have always existed and always will. I don’t know much about cigarettes in New York in the 1960s, but one possibility is that people were buying illegal drugs anyway and hey, might as well get them all from the same source. But the recent cigarette tax has made it much more profitable to do so, so much that individual cigarettes are selling on the streets for 50� or more.

There’s a good article in Reason Magazine from 2002 about the New York taxes and cigarette smugglers.

The fact is that as long as there was another state that had an even lower cigarette tax (like North Carolina) even if only a few cents a pack, there was an incentive for gangs to transport truckloads of cigarettes. If every state imposed cigarette taxes as high as that charged by the highest taxing state, all incentive would cease for black market operations.

That just isn’t true. Criminals rarely pay taxes on contraband. They can even get items that are illegal and highly enforced, like heroin and cocaine. They would have no trouble obtaining cigarettes tax-free. Criminals aren’t likely to pay taxes out of a sense of civic duty. Tax it all you want, you won’t stop it, just like making heroin and cocaine illegal hasn’t stopped their use.

Besides, there’s a blatant inconsistency here: above you say that there was a black market for cigarettes without "a significant tax." Here, you say that if the tax were uniform it would remove the incentive for the black market. You can’t have it both ways.

You’ll have to think a little harder if you want to come up with a reasonable argument against raising North Carolina’s cigarette tax. I suggest you start saving your pennies now so you’ll be able to pony up the extra $.50 per pack that will be required to support your habit.

Anyone who knows me will tell you that I don’t smoke–never have, and never will. I’ve also never so much as touched an illegal drug, haven’t had a sip of alcohol since college, and even gave up caffeine a few years ago. Why did you assume that I smoke? Is it just easier to assume that I have a vested personal interest and bias on this issue? Does that make it easier for you to dismiss my arguments? Can anyone say, "Poisoning the Well" fallacy?

The letter is signed, "A Member of the Non-Smoking Majority." Well, I’m a member of the non-smoking majority as well. But I also know that this country is a republic, not a democracy, and the tyranny of majority rule is not supposed to apply here. I hate smoking and everything about it, and try to avoid it as much as possible. But I love freedom more than I hate cigarette smoke.

It’s a shame more people aren’t of that mind. Where is the love of freedom that made our forefathers fight and die for it?

I’m sick to death of people complaining about spam

You know, I am getting sick and tired of hearing people complain about spam (meaning unsolicited commercial email, not SPAM the lunch meat). Yes, I get tons of spam. And yes, I hate it. But as far as problems in my life goes, this ranks up there with stubbing my toe on the bed.

It wouldn’t be so bad if these whiners just kept their complaining on internet discussion boards. But now we have Federal laws designed to stop spam (and they have the Constitutional authority to do this, how?). The government has for years been looking for excuses to get in and regulate the internet, and all of this hype about spam has given them just another excuse. Not that they’ll be successful, but they’ll make so many lives miserable in the attempt.

The reason why there’s so much spam is that, unfortunately, it works. A study from the University of Maryland has found that 4% of internet users buy something they read about in a spam email. That’s a fantastic response rate given how cheaply emails can be sent.

You might say that there’s no reason that 4% should "force" the rest of us to read spam. But that’s simply not what’s happening. We are all responsible for our own lives, and most of the problems facing this country are caused by people trying to avoid that responsibility. There are tons of solutions, many of them free, that exist to help alleviate the problem. I use the Mozilla suite to read email, and it has an excellent intelligent learning spam filter. The same filter is in their standalone email reader, Thunderbird. If you don’t want to switch email programs, and your email program doesn’t already have a spam filter (most do by now), there’s always the free and excellent SpamBayes. They even have a version that plugs directly into Outlook. Mine gets about 95% of all spams and sticks them in a Junk Email folder, where they’re automatically deleted after seven days. For the few that remain, it’s an easy matter of simply deleting them, or marking them as spam and they automatically go to the Junk folder.

So get over yourselves and take responsibility for your life. It won’t kill you to have to hit the DEL key a few times.