Carnivore, the gold standard for conspiracy theory, has apparently been mothballed. An interesting element of this is that Carnivore has been removed from service not because it is invasive of civil liberties, but rather because it has failed to perform against commercially-available monitoring technologies. Of course, since we do not know what those technologies *are*, it may be that they have built into them considerations of individual rights to privacy that Carnivore could not be altered to respect. However, given the drift of the US on matters of data privacy, this seems unlikely... So, what are the programmes that do it better than Carnivore? What do they have to offer that Carniviore doesn't, or is it just the ISPs are now offering information straight to the government? And does this mean that it is no longer fashionable to append long strings of exciting-sounding nouns to emails? (Apologies if this is old news to the more plugged-in - this report has only just been released under FOI)
posted by tannhauser on Jan 16, 2005 - 27 comments

If Earthlink starts killing pop-up ads will a trend emerge? I hate pop-up ads, but they must have some effect because I see more and more. I can see the logic in Earthlink's attempt to gain customers by promising to block pop-up ads, but will it have an effect? I can get other pop-up killers without getting it from Earthlink. Why don't they address spyware and attack web advertisers where they live?
posted by john_lustig on Aug 20, 2002 - 27 comments

75% of dial-up users are satisfied with their current speeds. This opinion piece states that, out of those people that have not yet made the switch to broadband, only 25% of them even would if available. Thus, little ISP's shouldn't worry about losing dial up business so much anymore. Can the Internet continue to evolve at 56K speeds?
posted by WolfDaddy on May 3, 2002 - 47 comments

Mail servers down, Yahoo denies all All my buddies have bouncing Yahoo mail and no one knows what's going on. This, unfortunately for Yahoo, coincides with the launching of their pay for mail service. Does anyone have a scoop on this?
posted by djacobs on Apr 25, 2002 - 49 comments

The California Public Utilities Commission says it can regulate DSL In what is being hailed as a victory by the California ISP Association, the CPUC has ruled that it will regulate DSL providers similar in manner to the state's power and telephone utilities. While this move could certainly curtail the big boys like PacBell from running roughshod over their smaller competitors, it seems like small, locally-owned ISP's may not have the resources to withstand state scrutiny. Of course, the CPUC could handle this issue as well as they handled the so-called power 'crisis' in the state last year. Is more regulation better than less?
posted by WolfDaddy on Apr 3, 2002 - 8 comments

GeoCities was once the darling of the online world to every-man wanted to post his own web site. Free space for all, and all were happy. Then Yahoo! bought it, and the dot-com collapse occurred. Now, GeoCities offers new premium packages, offering more features. But at $19.95 before you can even having scripting, traditional web hosts greatly undercut Yahoo!'s offering, and offer more in terms of features still.
posted by benjh on Mar 11, 2002 - 13 comments

The Morning News Gets Hosed. Due to a server meltdown (and probable incompetence by their webhosting provider) the guys at Morning News lost all kinds of data. Now on a new server, their old host is looking into the possibility of coughing up a decent backup. As a website designer who relies on the kindness of server farms, I know I've been hosed this way before. Since they can't be relied on to provide good backups, when was the last time you backed up your site yourself? Better make one today!
posted by crunchland on Jan 9, 2002 - 11 comments

Cringely's insight deepens with this new article on Excite@Home's troubles. Is broadband here to stay? If so, is it going to go anywhere? Three years from now, what will the options be and what kind of performance can be expected?
posted by bloggboy on Aug 31, 2001 - 6 comments

PacBell seeks to secure a monopoly Californians urged to contact the PUC to put the brakes on PacBell's plan to kill the independent ISP. Should they be allowed to take their toys and go home or be forced to share? And, what effect will this have on the future of tech companies if PacBell is able to lock out DSL competition?
posted by sillygit on Jul 31, 2001 - 6 comments

If you tried to switch hosting services only to have your domain held hostage, and if no one else can help, maybe you can hire DomainRescue.
posted by jjg on Dec 5, 2000 - 8 comments

Web Tapestry, Cheap Names, Areti Internet Ltd. ... These are just a few of the UK based web hosts I have discovered while trying to find one for myself.

My question to any UK residents is: which UK web host do you use/would you recommend? The well known ISPs (Direct Connection for example) are extortionate.
posted by James Bachman on Nov 16, 2000 - 7 comments

Loudon Cty needs an AOL detective (via WP.com)
Confirming my suspicions that AOL users are all criminals. It seems that the only thing about AOl I hear nowadays is this-or-that criminal, or this-or-that victim, a.k.a. "sexiecxique129" or "discostude09" in the AOL chatrooms, was brutally defrauded of identity by someone calling themselves "When_This_Story_Breaks_Everyone_will_Judge_me_by_my_ridiculous_AOL_Handle56171:)"
posted by rschram on Aug 28, 2000 - 3 comments

So you think you can do better? June 15 sees the start of a new game of Fantasy ISP, where you can be your customers' worst nightmare.
posted by prolific on Jun 7, 2000 - 2 comments

Lycos Sells Out To Those Dastardly Spaniards; W.R. Hearst Rises From Grave To Stop Takeover. Spanish ISP Terra Networks SA is now the proud owner of Suck, Hotwired, and Jeff Veen. Oh yeah, and a fairly useless portal. Now we just have to wait for the Sucksters to publicly deride their new owners...start your stopwatches.
posted by solistrato on May 16, 2000 - 8 comments

Northpoint blows chunks - how they can prepare for new technologies is beyond me. forgive me if i'm bring up a dead or overtired subject but i'm new here... I'm on a personal campaign to let the world know how crappy Northpoint DSL is... I'll try to keep this as short as possible but basically we run a small business out of our house. We're developers. Working via modem isn't really an option (especially when you've got ancient, multiplexed phone lines). When our 1-up/1-down sDSL finally started working my roommate and I didn't leave the house for a week.

Anyway, to make a long story a tad shorter, it's been down for three weeks now. we've lost several days and several thousand dollars worth of billable hours sitting on our butts waiting for technicians to show up whenever they please. I am NOT pleased, and what also really irks me is the fact that basically, Northpoint runs the DSL monopoly in my brooklyn neighborhood. We have no other choice. I'm also taking this to dsl reports. I just really don't think DSL technology is that ready for the masses.
posted by cadence on May 10, 2000 - 12 comments