Technology Futures

I seem to have crossed some kind of spam tipping point over the weekend, with more spam hitting my Inbox than is being filtered out by two levels of spam filters (one on the server, one on my mail client). There was a time when as much as 90% of the spam was being caught by this two-level approach, but no more. I'm now getting only about 50% of spam trapped by the filters.

Spammers are using two techniques to foil the filters. The first is the relentless use of zombie machines that have been infected to send out email from apparently legitimate source email addresses; they do this so the filters can't "learn" origination email addresses and block them. The second is equally pernicious; they are using increasingly sophisticated phishing techniques to create emails that look exactly like the messages we get routinely from legitimate companies. For example, over the past several weeks, I have apparently ordered at least one thousand large screen TVs from Amazon. The order confirmation message looks EXACTLY like the legitimate order confirmation messages I receive from Amazon. So I can't mark these emails as spam, or the occasional real message will be blocked. I get these phishing emails from US Air, from American Express, from Verizon, from AT&T, and many other companies.

This is a slow motion catastrophe. I would estimate I am now spending as much as 45 to 60 minutes per work day just reviewing and deleting spam from my Inbox. I can typically tell from the subject heading, but it takes me as much as thirty minutes in the morning to delete some 300-600 spams, and then additional time every time I check my email during the day.

Susan Crawford, writing as a Fellow of the Roosevelt Institute, argues eloquently for paying more attention to broadband capacity and affordability, especially in rural areas of the U.S. She argues that well-provisioned, modern broadband connectivity is essential to economic growth.

Via Slashdot, here is a link to a new book that talks about why Internet and broadband in the U.S. is so poor. It's worth a read....basically, all the money has been spent on mobile cellular networks and not on local fiber infrastructure. And adding to the problem, in most markets, there is cartel pricing via the telco/cableco duopoly. Residents and businesses have only two choices: marginal DSL or cable modem service that won't support now-common business services and applications.

Amazon has released its new Kindle HD, and it is really something. It's nice to see someone giving Apple some real competition, rather than just copying what Apple does (cough, cough, Samsung...).

The original Kindle Fire was a bit underpowered, and seemed to be primarily a conduit for selling Amazon content (as well as being a decent book reader). But the Kindle HD, while still a conduit for Amazon content, has a more refined interface, improved graphics, improved processor, and better connectivity (better WiFi, 4G cellular support). But the new Kindle also supports Skype, better email, a very interesting set of parental controls, and an improved Web browser. Finally, Amazon is touting support for college textbooks, a direct swipe at Apple's similar iBook initiative.

This is great for consumers. The Kindle HD now appears to be a much more capable tablet device that can go head to head with the iPad. And it is no accident that Amazon released it just days before the rumored iPad mini.