The science of anger management

How to keep your body from hijacking your brain when you most need it.

IZ THE WIZ candlelight memorial tonight in NYC

The flyer for the event reproduces a magazine article from 1998 in which IZ explains his illness and warns against the dangers of spray paint.

Thanks IZ.

Wear those respirators, kids.

Haven Arts Gallery, 7-10 pm ... bring a candle.

50 Bruckner Blvd, Bldg A
Bronx NY 10454
+1 718.585.5753

Susan

Where to get good information about swine flu

There is reason to be concerned, but there are a lot of ignorant people talking online about the flu outbreak. Here are some primary sources for scientific information.

The main reason this flu is different is that it seems to be killing a higher percentage of those infected, and it seems to be killing strong people in the prime of life. If that turns out to be the case, these are pandemic signs and we cannot ignore them. The good news is that some of our antiviral meds are effective, so if you or your children become ill, seek medical attention immediately. Avoid contact with sick people.

Mexico has closed all of its schools until the danger passes.

The main thing we can do to make ourselves safer is to buy and store extra food (and pet food) so that we can avoid contact with other people if a wave of sickness comes to our cities.

http://twitter.com/CDCemergency

http://blogs.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/swine-flu/

http://crofsblogs.typepad.com/h5n1/

http://scienceblogs.com/effectmeasure/

Google maps of swine flu cases

How to tell if your Windows computer is infected with Conficker

More info about the worm

Easy, non-invasive visual test to see what's up with your computer at a glance.

Mac and Linux computers are not in danger from this one.

Experts say it is the worst infection since the SQL Slammer. Estimates of the number of computers infected range from almost 9 million PCs to 15 million computers, however a conservative minimum estimate is more like 3 million which is more than enough to cause great harm.

Another anti-virus software vendor, Panda Security, reported that of the 2 million computers analyzed through ActiveScan, around 115,000 (6%) were infected with this malware.

Why you should care whether your computer has it or not:

* because nobody knows which bad things it will do to you, your networks, and the people you know

* because it could cause your computer to become part of a botnet, spamming everyone

* because infected computers could get locked out of internet access

* because in the past worms have exposed private information to bad guys who sell and exploit it for profit and fun

* because worms tend to open back doors to your computer, allowing bad guys in to steal your data or plant dangerous files on your computer

Surveillance Self-Defense

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has created this Surveillance Self-Defense site to educate the American public about the law and technology of government surveillance in the United States, providing the information and tools necessary to evaluate the threat of surveillance and take appropriate steps to defend against it.

Surveillance Self-Defense (SSD) exists to answer two main questions: What can the government legally do to spy on your computer data and communications? And what can you legally do to protect yourself against such spying?

Even though this is a US-centric site, you are surfing US sites, maybe storing your email on one or more of them, your MySpace and Facebook, chats, and so on are crossing borders constantly. So this article is applicable to almost everyone, at least technically, if not legally.

Miami Graffiti Artist Falls From Highway Sign, Dies

The 28-year-old man fell from a catwalk on a road sign hanging over the Palmetto Expressway at about 1 a.m. Friday.
Troopers said a pickup truck hit and killed the man on the roadway. The driver of the pickup truck did stop.
FHP troopers found a can of spray paint near the man's body.

The picture in the article is not the sign in question, which was on the 826, according to TV news reports.

RIP Merk TK KC aka Enrique Olivera.

Our deepest condolences to his friends and family.

10 privacy settings every Facebook user should know

A cautionary tale about Facebook, porn, extortion and punishment

Teenage guy poses as a girl online, collects nude photos of dozens of male, underage classmates. He blackmails some of them into having sex with him. Police bust him for a bomb threat and find his photos, etc. Sounds simple at first: he's up against nearly 300 years in jail, case closed, right? Wrong.

It will be awhile before we know how many of these victimized teens end up being prosecuted too. Clearly there's one bad guy and lots of victims, but the law is not completely on the victims' side, unfortunately.

The number of teens being prosecuted as sex offenders for trading nude photos of themselves with other kids is skyrocketing. In a better world, the law would discriminate between a little skin among friends and child porn, but it doesn't yet. Some teens have even been prosecuted for statutory rape for simply having consensual sex with their teen friends. Peeing in public is even a sex offense now. We're deep in Crazy Land here.

Sex offender penalties are awful and they are apparently forever, so if you have any photos of the naughty bits belonging to you or your friends, do yourself a big favor and delete them before they ruin your life. And ... of course ... never send racy photos of yourself to anybody. Never. Your friends today could be your enemies tomorrow, and photos on the Internet never die. Ever.

Plus you won't have encrypted them, so the NSA and all the sysadmins at your ISP and at school and at work will all have a chance to scoop your photos up in transit. Gmail and other webmail systems will save them (possibly forever). And as always, lots of the apparently teenage girls you may meet online are actually boys, sex offenders or FBI agents, so it really pays to be paranoid.

12 tips for managing your information footprint

What can people find out about you online? How can you try to control it? This list is a good place to start. The article it links to, "What the Web knows about you," is excellent further reading.

Legal walls worldwide: map

Everyone: Be careful not to post walls that will be ruined by tourist traffic. Unless you are intimate with a particular wall's situation, don't blow up the spot for the people who paint there!

Writers: No wall is arrest-proof, because some police are not very interested in permission walls, so please keep that in mind when you plan what to take with you and what to say if confronted. Be good guests and take your litter with you. If you tag nearby buildings, the wall will soon be ruined and everyone will know who ruined it.

Photographers: Graffiti is covered by copyright, so don't think you can go to a wall to do commercial photography and get away without obtaining the artists' permission. It's much cheaper to make advance arrangements.

How to remove data permanently from your hard drive

Most people I know have the opposite problem: their computer has somehow lost data and they had NO BACKUP. Don't let that happen to you. Hard drives are very cheap now, so maybe you can buy one just to use for backups. Also there are some online services that offer backup over the net for small annual fees. If you can't do either of those things, it pays to have a stack of blank CDs and DVDs, and every time you do significant work or add to your media collection, make a copy on disc. It wouldn't be the end of the world to have to reinstall your operating system, but it is a very sad day indeed when you lose all your photos, music, homework, and email. Hide the discs in case someone steals your comp.

But anyway, the article explains how to delete stuff you really want to never see again. Throwing it in the trash is not enough!

Photographers' rights, UK, US

BTP rail enthusiasts guidelines (UK)

A Downloadable Flyer Explaining Your Rights When Stopped or Confronted for Photography (US)

Amtrak photo contestant arrested by Amtrak police in NYC

The linked article shows what idiots some train company police can be (arresting a photographer during an Amtrak photo contest and then lying about why), but nonetheless it's legal to take photos in public places in the US unless a sign prohibits it.

If you actually resist arrest, though, train security might shoot you dead, like a BART officer in Oakland did to Oscar Grant, just days ago. Oscar was not taking photos, but there too, the train police confiscated cameras and phones from witnesses after one of the cops killed Oscar. Some youtube footage is surfacing anyway, because so many people witnessed the killing.

The right to take photos is one we must all continue to fight to keep, but take that fight to the courtroom for your own safety, and to benefit everyone.

Wade's Vagabond Journey

Wade is the best sort of wanderer: the kind who publish their photos, stories, and insights. He's got a blog where his 9 years of world travel (ongoing) are documented. He's going to Eastern Europe and the Middle East next, so give him a shout if you're over there. He writes good stuff about graffiti now and then too. Here's an interesting look at graffiti in Portugal with Odeith, Eskema, and Mr Dheo. And he tries to publish about 50 photos per day.

The Wholesale Sedation of America's Youth

Common population estimates include at least eight million children, ages two to eighteen, receiving prescriptions for ADD, ADHD, bipolar disorder, autism, simple depression, schizophrenia, and the dozens of other disorders now included in psychiatric classification manuals. Yet sixty years ago, it was virtually impossible for a child to be considered mentally ill.

[...]

In 1980, hyperactivity, which had been imprudently named “minimal brain dysfunction” in the 1960s, was renamed Attention Deficit Disorder in order to be more politic, but there was an unintended consequence of the move. Parents and teachers, familiar with the name but not always with the symptoms, frequently misidentified children who were shy, slow, or sad (introverted rather than inattentive) as suffering from ADD. Rather than correct the mistake, though, some enterprising physicians responded by prescribing the same drug for the opposite symptoms. This was justified on the grounds that stimulants, which were being offered because they slowed down hyperactive children, might very well have the predicted effect of speeding up under-active kids. In this way, a whole new population of children became eligible for medication. Later, the authors of DSM-III memorialized this practice by renaming ADD again, this time as ADHD, and redefining ADD as inattention. Psychiatry had reached a new level: they were now willing to invent an illness to justify a treatment. It would not be the last time this was done.

[...]

Once a medical illness has been identified, all unwanted behavior becomes fruit of the same tree. Even the children themselves are often at first relieved that their asocial or antisocial impulses reflect an underlying disease and not some flaw in their characters or personalities.

"Don't Talk to the Police" by Professor James Duane

Even if you're innocent and not under suspicion, you can be jailed for things you say to police. Just don't talk to them without a lawyer by your side. Even when you're just a witness, even when you are the one who called the cops, you can be arrested or prosecuted later for things you say.

Don't talk to the police without a lawyer, because [paraphrased]:

1. It can't help you. They can arrest you no matter what you say -- and probably will. What you tell police can't be used to help you at trial. Save it for court. Don't try to talk your way out of something after the police show up.

2. It's possible to admit you're guilty or say something incriminating, even by accident. Save it for court.

[It also doesn't help to admit guilt when the cops insist that they will go easier on you if you confess. So many kids fall for this one! It's just a lie they tell you in order to get you to self-incriminate so they won't have to prove anything. Cops can lie to you, but it's easy to get thrown in jail merely for lying to them (ask Martha Stewart). This is particularly true for the Feds. Some people would also get off on bad busts except for the fact that they admitted they were guilty to the police.]

3. Even if you are innocent, if you make a mistake when telling your story -- even by accident -- you could get convicted later as a result.

4. Even if you are innocent and tell the truth and only the truth, you might still give the cops information that could get you convicted in court. Prosecutors need to convict someone, so they look hard for someone no matter how far fetched the case may be. The 5th Amendment protects you from incriminating yourself, but only if you don't do it. Keeping your mouth shut is the only way to be sure. Innocent or guilty, the 5th protects you. Don't waste what little protection you have by talking.

5. If you talk to the police, regardless of what you say, they could easily remember what you said badly, exposing you to the possibility of being wrongfully convicted in court.

6. Even if you are videotaped.

7. Especially if the authorities then turn up someone with even mistaken or unreliable evidence that contradicts your statements.

[Tip: Television has nothing to do with real life and it may be entirely misleading about police and court procedures.]

[And last but not least, the big lie that will not die: Undercover police and informants can lie when you ask them if they are the police. There is no magic police deactivation phrase!]

: Thank you very much officer, but I can't talk to you without my lawyer here.

John McCain's Rage is a National Security Concern

Scary stories.

Sex Education online by Planned Parenthood

Good info by a trustworthy organization. Too bad that so many idiots will try to prevent you from seeing it. Sex education helps tremendously in preventing pregnancy and diseases. Fight for your right and your teen's right to know the truth. Support Planned Parenthood. Science over fear.

Mfone sentenced to 2.5 years in prison

Pittsburgh's so-called graffiti king was sentenced today to 2.5 years in prison and ordered to pay restitution and perform community service after pleading guilty to causing nearly $300,000 in property damage.

Daniel J. Montano, 22, of Highland Park pleaded guilty May 16 to 79 counts of criminal mischief for an 18-month graffiti vandalism spree that plagued Lawrenceville, East Liberty, Bloomfield, Shadyside and Oakland.

Montano also was sentenced to five years' probation, and ordered to perform 2,500 hours of community service in the city and pay $232,584 in restitution. Montano is best known by the tags "MFONE" and "MF."

City police have described Montano as the country's most prolific graffiti artist. They said he has caused nearly $750,000 in property damage from Pittsburgh to San Francisco, where his mother lives.

The claim that he's the city's or the country's most prolific graffiti writer is probably sensationalism designed to create a tougher sentence for him in court, but no doubt Mfone is up, and now he's up the river as well. This is a cruel and unusual sentence for a nonviolent property offender, so let's hope that he gets out on parole quickly or has an effective appeal down the road.

This is the latest in a series of big time jail sentences for writers in the US since GK set the pace. It would be a mistake to think at this point that a first offender would get off with a warning, so be careful out there, and pay for the lawyer if you get popped. The UK and Czech Republic also have a track record of putting writers away for years at a time. The Czech penalty is 5 years.

How posting online can get you busted UPDATE

UPDATE: Burning Black says that with a little work you can change your computer's MAC address as needed.

---

Recently, writers have been arrested for:

* showing throwups and tags on MySpace
* showing videos of their illegal actions on YouTube
* posting bombing photos to forums
* other people posting their trains on forums

The way this generally works is that everything you do online technically requires that the IP (internet protocol) address of your computer be recorded by the web servers at the sites you visit. Sometimes the IP address simply points at your ISP (internet service provider, for example: AOL, Comcast, BT etc.), but those companies can figure out who was doing what at a particular time, and web servers also record the time. So together, quite often, the webserver info and the ISP info lead straight to your bedroom. So if you have a local cop or reporter who hates you, s/he may do the work to track you down over the net.

Sites that care about your privacy, like Art Crimes, do not keep logs of user activity. Unfortunately most sites want to keep that information so they can count visitors and sell more advertising or simply have some way to ban some people temporarily from a forum. Some sites keep webserver logs forever and others dump them after some amount of time.

Google tracks everyone's search terms, for example, but now they say they will throw the IP addresses away after 18 months. But they have been forced to give massive amounts of YouTube logs to Viacom in a copyright dispute and this week won the right to anonymize them first. If those logs had been stored in an anonymized state they would not have posed the risk to millions of people that they did.

Posting copyrighted materials is illegal (expensively) and yet digging through everyone's records in order to find out who uploaded what is the wrong way to address it. Terrorism is terrible, but spying on everyone's phone calls in order to find the dirty dozen is not an acceptable solution either. Unfortunately the US Congress thinks this is fine and passed a law about that this month (FISA).)

My point here is that we all are being tracked by governments and media giants routinely, and that your favorite little forums can give you up by accident or through being forced to give up those logs they save. Your own equipment can leak information that's dangerous to you.

To get a bit more anonymity online, you need to use public computers or free wifi that you don't have to sign up for, but if you use your own computer or phone, it can still leave its own unique ID number behind (MAC address). Even your camera or camera phone can give up important info such as the exact location (GPS) and time and date you took the photo, camera type, etc., if you don't erase that info (EXIF) before you upload.

The best policy is not to incriminate yourself by posting your own illegal acts online, because technically, you may not be able to delete them, ever. Even then it's possible that someone else's posting of your illegal stuff will get you in trouble, so it's best to try to control what you've got out there and how it represents you, by restricting access to or usage of your photos. Same advice goes for those drunken orgy photos, of course.

New Orleans' Insane Anti-Graffiti Law

Interesting article in general, with lots of pictures ... Near the end it reveals this:

"In the recently ended session of the Legislature, state Rep. Anthony Ligi of Metairie successfully sponsored a bill that skyrockets the penalties for graffiti. Currently the maximum fine in New Orleans is $500, plus community service, restitution and a possible six months in jail. Beginning Aug. 15, the maximum fine increases to $10,000 with a prison term of up to 10 years. Ligi, a lawyer and real estate title insurance agent, said he believes that Louisiana judges will be able to apply looser local penalties or the more stringent state penalties as they see fit.

"If it's a kid who's written his girlfriend's name on a wall, a judge will see it one way," Ligi said. "If it's somebody who's marked up an office wall and done thousands (of dollars) in damage, it gives the judge more options."

So not only do they have a stupid law, but they plan to enforce it selectively depending on who does it and what's written? That sounds like poor, minority kids going to jail, as usual in the South. I hope some heroic lawyer and judge step up to strike this for the cruel and unusual - and potentially racist - punishment that it is. New Orleans needs community service and community art, not more young people in jail for nonviolent property crimes.

When will the government in Louisiana get a clue and join the civilized world? This is the same state that recently decided to teach wishful thinking instead of science.

Book publishing: the lowdown, by Mark Hurst

If you ever think about writing a book, know this first.

Philly cops charged in attack on graffiti artist

Cops break this guy's jaw, knock out some teeth, then try to cover it up. PD vows to stop the violence.

Most larger police depts in the USA seem to have a few bone breakers and shoot-first guys working for them, and those guys get most of the excessive force complaints, statistically. It would be great if these thugs could all be forced to find other jobs before they kill people. It would be REALLY GREAT if the police departments would fire them before they become front page news. When the courts have to step in to clean up the PD, the thugs should all go to jail.

If the goal is to have citizens obey the law, it's essential for the police and elected officials to toe that line and to be punished when they don't. Terrorizing citizens is not something civilized society should allow its police to do. Document, publish, and complain when you see it go down, because you could be saving lives.

Thanks to David Vernitsky for fighting this good fight in Philly. We sure hope he's recovering well from his awful injuries.

Kudos to the Philly PD for getting rid of the violent offenders on the force.

We hope the wedding-party-killing NYPD thugs don't go unpunished either. The courts really let the people down on that one, but the department is taking some internal action allegedly.

--from the article:

-AP

"Philly cops charged in attack on graffiti artist

By BOB LENTZ ? 9 hours ago

PHILADELPHIA (AP) ? Two Philadelphia police officers accused of beating a man they saw painting graffiti were charged Tuesday with assault and falsifying records.

[...]

Authorities say Officers Sheldon Fitzgerald and Howard Hill III broke the graffiti painter's jaw on one side and dislocated it on the other before throwing him head first into the back of a patrol car. The man was never charged with a crime.

'This is an unfortunate incident, but it is in no way a reflection on the entire department,' Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey said at a news conference Tuesday. 'I do think that it is another statement that excessive force just will not be tolerated in our department.'

District Attorney Lynne Abraham said her office completed its investigation into the attack on David Vernitsky earlier this month after receiving a complaint of excessive force in November.

Vernitsky had attended a wedding and was spray-painting congratulations to the couple on the wall of a beauty supply house in the city's Feltonville section when police saw him, officials said.

Vernitsky fled, but the officers caught up and beat him, kicking him in the groin, bruising his face and ribs, and knocking out three teeth, Abraham said at the news conference.

The officers released Vernitsky after they checked for outstanding warrants and found none, officials said. The 36-year-old Philadelphia man was taken by friends to a hospital, where he stayed a few days, Abraham said.

The officers didn't document their contact with Vernitsky. Instead, officials said, the pair made a false entry in their log showing they were elsewhere at the time of the beating.

Fitzgerald and Hill were suspended without pay pending trial, Ramsey said. The pair was notified of the charges Tuesday and have 72 hours to turn themselves in.

[...]

The officers, who have been on the force five years each, face charges of aggravated assault, simple assault, recklessly endangering another person, tampering with public records and conspiracy.

Earlier this month, a television news helicopter videotaped 18 city police officers and a transit officer kicking and beating three shooting suspects as they were dragged from their car. Ramsey said last week that four officers would be fired and four others disciplined for their roles in the beatings."

-AP

Paint and sperm trouble

Some paint and solvent ingredients (some types of glycol ether) are reportedly responsible for low sperm quality (infertility) problems in men, according to a British study. Unfortunately the article doesn't seem to link to the study or name it, so it's hard to find out which glycol ethers are now known to be at fault. A quick search online for [MSDS spray paint glycol ether] seems to indicate that many spray paints also have forms of glycol ether in them, as apparently do the water-based paint (latex?) mentioned in the article. There's no indication whether the impairment is permanent or will wear off after exposure stops, so best to err on the side of safety. We've long known that spray paint is dangerous to the central nervous system over time, not to mention lungs of course, so the smart move is to wear good protection.

Definitely wear those respirators that can help protect you from paint. Dust masks are useless except for the largest droplets. They won't protect you from the solvents.

A British study suggests that men routinely exposed to chemicals found in paint may be more likely to experience fertility problems.

The research found that men, such as painters and decorators, who work with glycol solvents are two-and-a-half times more likely to produce lower levels of "normal" sperm.

The study, a joint research project between the Universities of Manchester and Sheffield, examined more than 2,000 men attending 14 fertility clinics. The research found identified a wide variety of other chemicals that did not impact fertility.

Teen falls through roof in Melbourne

"A TEENAGE boy suffered a broken jaw, smashed teeth and fractures to his legs and wrists when he fell through a fibre glass roof while out graffitiing property in Melbourne.

Police said the 14-year-old was seriously injured in the fall in Mentone, in Melbourne's southeast, about 2am (AEST) today.

The boy had been graffitiing the rear sections of buildings in Como Parade at the time, police said. He was walking across a section of fibre glass roofing when he fell through it, about six metres to the ground.

Police spokesman Senior Constable Wayne Wilson said another boy, 13, called an ambulance, and the injured teenager was taken to the Royal Children's Hospital.

Police are yet to speak to the boy and have not charged him. "

Another lucky rotten-roof survivor.

Be careful out there. Never trust a roof. Always have a lookout.

We sure hope he makes a speedy recovery.

Fotolog continues to delete writers' sites

I think I've said this before, but it is only getting worse, so I'll say it again: Fotolog seems to have a special hatred for graffiti artists, because it routinely closes their sites without warning (and we hope that's the worst thing they do). I suggest all you folks with fotologs go to Flickr instead.

Wherever you do it, make sure you keep copies of your photos, because most companies can't be trusted to keep them safe, and it's a hassle to download them one at a time too.

Copyright for artists, in a nutshell

I get a lot of questions about copyright. This blog article at emptyeasel.com explains the basics and links to the US gov site for copyright details and forms.

Copyrights are for individual expressions. Trademarks are for goods and corporate identity. Some copyright law is international and some is for your own country only. This info pertains to the US but might also apply somewhat to you if you live in another country.

Tip: If you are printing your name on products, you need a trademark also to protect against other people using your name or making counterfeits, but it's $$$$$ to do it, and you might need one trademark per country of interest. If you need a trademark, you probably need a trademark attorney, if only because they can do the big database searches for you.

Web cookies: what, how, where - and why you should delete them

All cookies are not evil, but bad people can hijack your good cookies, and bad websites can track you across the web.

Anonymous vs Scientology - video #3

Recently Anonymous called for people to show up at Scientology locations worldwide to protest this dangerous cult. See the link under the title to this article for a picture from this protest.

More info about the epic battle at Wikipedia

Surveillance cameras: the simple approach

Headband restores anonymity on the street.

Anonymous vs Scientology

Vigilante hacking crew goes after dangerous cult: awesome manifestos on YouTube. Plotting continues at Project Chanology.

Sydney graffiti writers drown in storm drain

Gone are Flaps and Banish from Sydney Australia. May they rest in peace. Their friend survived and was rescued from the ocean by surfers. We wish him strength to get through this terrible tragedy.

They were inside an underground storm drain structure that was a frequent playground for urban explorers, when it rained, killing the couple.

TJ and Baja Mexico: tourists are getting jacked

It seems masked and heavily armed banditos are running rampant in beach country these days, on the Mexican baja coast. Robbery, carjacking, rape ... everything you don't want on your vacation.

I hear good things about Lima and Peruvian beaches though. And airfare is really cheap right now. ... check out farecompare.com

Music sites that charge you money but sell you music that might not be legal

A list of these misleading sites that charge you money for music without protecting you from prosecution.

Why pay attention to the threat of climate change?

There's no debate among climatologists about whether or not global climate change is happening. It is. The only debate is between those who hope humans didn't cause it and those who hope humans can change it. That debate is meaningless. If we might be able to change it, we have to try, because it's our survival as a species that's at stake. The only smart thing to to is to try to curb the changes before life on Earth becomes difficult or impossible for humans.

We're the last generation of people who have a chance to try before it becomes too late, because the changes are not going to be gradual or incremental. Climate changes happen when conditions tip into a new dynamic and then become inevitable.

Don't let the wishful thinking of the anti-science people lull you into a false sense of security. Climate change is not something in the far future, it's something that will make our own lives and the lives of our children very different and difficult indeed. The earlier we act to curb human pollution the less expense and disastrous results we'll have.

The first step is to get everyone on board. Spread the word.

Thanks to Roger for the heads up on this video.

Ket speaks to Urb about his trial and tribulations

In part one "The Taking of Alan Ket," an interview by Michael Vazquez of URB magazine, graffiti veteran Ket discusses the nature of his prosecution; his regrets about storing and jeopardizing archives; the silence regarding his case from international museums and art organizations. In part two, he discusses the responses he'd received online about his case; his work with companies who have not taken an interest in graffiti prosecution despite their use of the aesthetic vernacular which is honed in the streets; his own hard lessons learned; the logical extension of what his prosecution means to others the world over. In part three he discusses his life-long immersion in graffiti culture, and the artists who meant the most to him when he was young.

You can comment on this at URB at the link above.

Ecko gained everything from Ket and the other graffiti artists that have made that company what it is today. Ket made their graffiti game happen. Ket was arrested because of fighting city hall for Ecko's NYC event. Where was Ecko when Ket needed help? Where is Ecko now that the NYC PD won't give the graffiti archives back to Ket? Time to stop supporting corporations that just want our money. Marc Ecko needs to put his money where his mouth is.

Mark Klein vs Big Brother

* US spooks tap the net illegally (not just tapping terrorists, they hoover as much as they can get of everybody's business into storage)

* Mark Klein blows the whistle

* Telecoms want immunity from prosecution

* Congress, White House, (spooks), and newspapers want the story to go away

If only the truth would set us free...

Meanwhile, there's no reason to think the tapping has stopped.
Every time you talk about bombing trains in email or in a forum, think of the fascinated audience you'll have.

Thanks, Mark! This is what heroes do.
If only we had people like him in office instead.

Ebay users beware, especially when buying cars

There's a new Trojan that has been helping thieves steal from innocent ebay users. It makes fake websites on your infected computer that make the thieves look legit. All you have to do is click on an attachment that looks like it came from ebay and your computer is theirs.

The Trojan installs a scaled-down webserver on an infected machine that masquerades as eBay and several third-party destinations frequently used to sniff out fraudulent offerings, including Carfax.com, Autocheck.com and Escrow.com.
When a victim browses to one of these sites, the webserver creates a parallel universe of sorts, in which the victim sees counterfeit pages designed to counter fraud protection mechanisms offered by eBay and third-party sites.

"To think that somehow they got software on their system that managed to spoof all the validation sites - that's a shit-scary story," said Roger Thompson, a researcher at Exploit Prevention Labs who specializes in web-based attacks. "It's fiendishly clever."

If you really want to read a scary story, though, it's all about Storm Worm.

Martin Lee Anderson's killers go free

This is insanely wrong. I hope there's an appeal, quickly. The people who beat Martin to death should go directly to jail, all of them. And their pet doctors too. The worst irony is that if his parents had beaten him themselves instead of paying someone else to do it, the parents would go to jail.

Just say no to booting out your children.

Flee children, flee.

Martin Anderson, RIP.

Blade Runner Art Contest

The PR firm for the movie just contacted me and suggested that you and yours might want to submit some inspired ideas. See the link for details.

"In celebration of the 25th Anniversary of the Blade Runner, we are seeking artists of all mediums (film, photography, painters, designers, writers, etc.) to submit a personal piece that has been inspired by the film."

UPDATE: Logan Hicks says not so fast, read the fine print.

Dang. Another artist-unfriendly rule set.

Sorries.

Another good reason to buy condoms ... a new artist series

Ron English, Winston Smith, Robert Williams, SubGenius and more.

via boingboing.net

40 million have HIV-AIDS (SIDA) + 4 million more this year alone

Teenagers and young adults (and their babies) worldwide are being killed by this incurable disease even though it's preventable.

We must each save ourselves, our friends and our loved ones, because the world can't afford to save us. Even if someone makes a vaccine (and no one knows if this is even possible yet), it wouldn't help you if you're already infected.

Our governments, churches, families and schools are afraid to give us any information that involves sex and drugs. In many countries where the number of infected people is rising most rapidly, the governments won't even alert the public to the threat! They would rather let you die than admit you are having sex.

So it's up to us to bring the news to the kids who need it.

Here's the bottom line: Use condoms and don't share needles. That's what works best.

Condoms show you care about yourself and your partner. Condoms are about germs and sperm, not about morality. Let's be practical. They are not a perfect solution, but this is what we all must do if we're to stop this global pandemic and avoid killing ourselves, our lovers, and our children. We need to get creative about making them more available too, such as providing them at parties and clubs.

Spread the word, please, on your blogs and personal pages ... and on the walls.

Here's a good place to buy them online (in business since 1994) and they ship worldwide: Condom.com

I'd like to show more paintings on AIDS prevention too.
[email protected]

NYC prohibits unlocked paint, markers for under-21

"The law, authored by City Councilmember Peter F. Vallone Jr., outlaws the possession of graffiti instruments in public places by people under the age 21. Under the new bill, it will be a criminal violation to carry spray paint, broad-tipped markers or etching acid unless it is enclosed in a locked container, or if the tools are needed for educational or professional purposes."

Jailhouse Lawyer's Manual 7th ed. - Columbia University

Hope you never need this, but it looks like a handy reference.

Flickr Graffiti Geotagging

As promised.

From the article:

"For example, fans of graffiti can search the word, "graffiti," and "New York City" at Flickr.com/map, and pull up photos of freshly painted tags, all plotted with pushpins on a clickable Yahoo map. A search for "Dumbo Brooklyn graffiti," for example, finds some 99 photos, including the infamous "Neck Face" tag, spray-painted on a brick warehouse at Jay and Front Streets in Brooklyn. Try finding that in a guidebook."

www.flickr.com/map

It's a bit fiddly so far. Search at the bottom, then click on the dots on the map to zoom in until they are at a meaninful level of detail. Or you can watch the slide show anytime.

Some cameras do the GPS/geotagging automatically (it's embedded in the information in the image files), so if you upload your photos to flickr, you might blow up your spot, or someone else's.

Be very careful what you upload anywhere if your camera has GPS.

I'm hoping Graphic Converter (Macintosh only) will have editing access to the GPS stuff as it already does to the camera info, however. If you have a clue about a Windows tool for removing image metadata, please send it to [email protected] and I'll add that here too.

Problem: Dangerous Chinese Food - Solution: Stop Buying It

From dead pets to poisonous toothpaste, the horror stories of deadly Chinese imports continue to pile up. People are furious, business looks the other way, Congress wrings its hands, FDA says it's not really their job, and Wal-Mart plays into Chinese corruption by working against inspections.

The only really effective thing we can do is to buy something else until China -- and Wal-Mart -- care about the problem. China has unhelpfully decided to kill the guy at the head of their food inspection and quality organization for taking bribes, but that's just barbaric political scapegoating. It will take an army of inspectors who care on both sides of the ocean to stop this blatant profiteering from unsafe foodstuffs. Meanwhile Wal-Mart tries to diguise its products' origins.

"As the world?s largest retailer, it distributes massive quantities of imported goods. Wal-Mart should use its significant clout with China and other importers to demand higher quality standards and more product testing. On the home front, Wal-Mart should stop fighting additional inspections and country-of-origin labeling, which would allow customers to know whether they are buying beef from Iowa or China. Wal-Mart should also consider returning to its abandoned 'Buy American' campaign and support U.S. manufacturers and local farmers rather than shifting jobs and purchases overseas."

"... American consumers we can use our purchasing power to influence how business responds to the challenge. Without assurances that imported goods are subject to rigorous inspections to ensure their safety, we can opt to buy locally grown and American-made products when we shop for groceries and other items each week. We can also decide that if we don?t know where a product comes from, maybe we don?t need it. Purchasing in such a manner not only supports local farmers and U.S. manufacturers, it protects consumers. It also provides the opportunity to strengthen our farm economy while protecting our food supply."

Someone should clue the Department of Homeland Security that weapons of mass destruction could be in those containers they don't inspect from China: E. coli, botulism, and lysteria, for starters. Instead, we have phone taps and shampoo confiscation, go figure. Let's bring the National Guard home from Iraq and put them back on the job, hmm? We could pay for it with the money that's now going to Blackwater and black-hole budgets.

GPS, Graffiti, and Self-Incrimination

The article above describes a system of graffiti surveillance involving police using Global Positioning System (GPS) tagging of photos, etc. We could worry about that, but consider this bigger picture:

GPS is a system that involves a satellite and a ground receiver. The satellite tells the receiver on the ground where the receiver is located, to within a few feet. This system is very handy indeed when, for example, you happen to be lost.

Problem is when your devices report your location without telling you. Your phone might already be GPS-enabled. If not, your next one likely will be. It's not something you can turn off in most cases, because it's used by the emergency services, for example when you dial 911 for an ambulance, in the USA. You have to be tracked for your own good, see?

Your car might already be GPS-enabled. Maybe it has a map or direction finder, very handy. Or maybe it has an antitheft system like OnStar that keeps track of where your car is without telling you. Or maybe your rental car, company car or truck tells the company where you are all the time and your route, again without your knowledge or permission.

Your camera is next, and of course your phone camera. They will have GPS and it will be a "feature." Your photos will automatically contain where and when you took them and with what device, and when you upload to Flickr or whatever, the websites could display that info on a map. Cute, right? Except when the buffers come to the wall hours later or your secret bridge turns into a tourist area, or when the cops need a quick list of every place you hit this year.

GPS is only one of these passive-surveillance technologies of concern. There is also RFID, unencrypted wireless (email, texting, web browsing, pagers, keyboards, cordless phones, most cell phones), surveillance cameras, outdoor listening devices, and cell-phone triangulation, just to hit the high spots.

Clearly, humans need to be more in control of the kind of info their devices are sharing without their permsission. Nothing else will do. Try to buy stuff that has controls that put you in charge and features that are not hidden or automatic. Be aware that your devices can create big security problems for you.

And let's not forget the most dangerous form of self-incrimination: running your mouth. What you say in chatrooms, on phones, on Myspace, in email, to reporters, and to the nice policeman who promised to let you off easy if you just showed him every piece of graffiti you ever painted -- are the most dangerous kinds of self-incrimination available.

Facebook Intelligence Gathering

Thanks to Air33 for the link.

This is not surprising, and it's not just Facebook -- MySpace is also being datamined by Big Brother, as are lots of other public forums. And of course, there's nothing to be done to prevent this except not participating, which also sucks. Creating fake profile info is a good idea, as is making sure your real name is not associated with your pages. The info may be around for the rest of our lives in some database or another, and many people are already finding out the hard way that their party preferences are costing them job opportunities.

In the pre-Web days, the cops used to have to snatch your phone book to find out who you knew. Now they need only your public friend list and maybe your phone. So it's not just yourself you put at risk when you publish your life online, it's everyone you know.

Man severely burned while painting electrical substation

We sure hope for a speedy recovery for this unfortunate guy.

US wants free image hosting sites to give up records whenever

As usual, they are waving the child porn flag, but you know they will go after writers with this too, if they can get the power. Of course, most companies already track who uses their services (with IP numbers) so the only really safe thing to do is to use a proxy server or another anonymous account not related to your home or credit card, etc.

Thanks to 12-oz for posting about this.

Of course, this applies to sites like flickr, image shack, and fotolog, etc etc, not sites like Art Crimes, since nobody directly uploads images themselves here. We also don't keep logs of user activity.

Learn more about proxies and anonymous internet use here (constantly updated proxy list): proxy.org

Please write to your congresscritters about this and other Bush regime violations of privacy and civil liberties, and to support those who fight the good fight such as EPIC and EFF and ACLU.

Track tragedy ruled accidental

Thanks to Deal for the sad news.

Islington Tribune [London] - by PAUL KEILTHY
Published: 23 February 2007
Graffiti artist died on tracks

A graphic designer was electrocuted when he slipped on train tracks after drunkenly reverting to the graffiti lifestyle he had abandoned since the birth of his child, an inquest heard yesterday (Thursday). George Andrew King, 22, was hit by 750 volts of electricity when he fell on the live rail near Caledonian Road and Barnsbury railway station during a graffiti spree in the early hours of Saturday September 16 last year.

After a night at a media party, he had gone on to the rails with friend and fellow spray-canner Jason Edwards, who ended up trying to prise his convulsing body from the line with a plank of wood before calling for an ambulance.

Mr Edwards said he had been walking ahead of Mr King as they returned to the station after tagging a bridge.

He said: "I just turned round and he was lying on the rail. I know from before - it's instant death on that track."

Though they risked their lives and broke their own safety protocols by rushing to the still-live line, the paramedics could see instantly that Mr King was dead, Coroner Dr Andrew Reid was told. Katherine Ketchaev, Mr King's partner and the mother of his young son, said he had given up graffiti on the railways since she had become concerned for his safety - but had given in to temptation after a few drinks while she slept.

Police experts said there were no suspicious circumstances surrounding the death.

Verdict: accidental death.

Atlanta injustice strikes again

Men arrested for graffiti on interstate signs

Published on: 02/12/07

Two men were arrested Monday and charged with spray painting graffiti on overhead exit signs along the Downtown Connector last fall.

Officials with the state Department of Transportation said xxxxx, 20, of Atlanta, and yyyyy 22, of Smyrna, face felony charges in connection with the Oct. 10, 2006 vandalism of the exit signs for the Peachtree and Pine street exits.

xxx is also charged with a similar graffiti incident on the I-85 southbound exit sign to I-285 westbound in DeKalb County, said DOT spokesman David Spear.

Spear said xxxx could be sentenced to up to 21 years in prison if convicted, while yyyy faces a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison if convicted.

Spear said that the state spends more than $150,000 annually to repair and replace road signs defaced by graffiti.

---------end of article-----

Can I be the first to say WTF? These guys need a super lawyer, because they sure don't have a justice system.

Police make fake MUL site

NYPD have apparently set up a fake MUL website to trap the unwary.

The bogus site is http://www.madeulooknyc.com

How many cops does it take to arrest a jaywalker?

They arrest jaywalkers? (Jargon tip: "jaywalking" is simply crossing the street while not at a designated crosswalk.)

Actually, this visiting historian and conference attendee in Atlanta (Georgia) made the common mistake of asking Officer Friendly for his ID while being accosted for jaywalking ... between the Hyatt and Hilton hotels. Maybe the APD were trying to show equal treatment to rich people for once, but still. Dude spent all day in jail before charges were dropped. Safety first! Serve and protect!

Conferences are one of the biggest sources of income for Atlanta too, so go figure why the cops are bothering the cash cows ... or is it the irresistable ticket opportunity? That's penny wise and pound foolish for the city, if so.

Columbus (Ohio) and Oakland (California) police are also obsessed with you crossing at crosswalks, and there are probably many more places that micromanage foot traffic in the USA as well. Fines can be $75-150, and if you complain, that's resisting arrest and generally results in a beating then jail. It's for your own good, kids.

With that kind of tourist outreach plus the fingerprinting at the airports, it's a wonder anyone bothers visiting the US armed camp anymore.

If only all this security theater were making anyone safer.

Pretending to be writers, police bust 27 MySpace users

The Associated Press reported today that "Undercover police posed as taggers [sic] on the Web site during the four-month investigation, befriending vandals who bragged about their work .... Some of the alleged vandals even shared photos of their work with the officers on the site."

[Same old story. Beware also of people online pretending to be YOU, because they want to trick you into proving who you are.]

Security expert advises renewing passports before RFID rolls out

Too late for UK, NZ, NL, and Germany, but Americans may still have a small window of opportunity to get a chip-free document. Read the article to find out why chips are bad news for you.

Update: It seems it's also too late if you send your passport to Colorado for renewal: Notice from State Dept.

But what if explosives could be triggered when a US passport is detected? It seems the shielding on the passports is flawed. There's a YouTube video with this eecue.com post that explains the problem

Great. Another half-baked idea that doesn't increase safety or security. Just what we need.

Update2: Someone told me that he applied for a passport recently and the form said he would get a chipped passport but that when it arrived it was still the old style, so you can't tell just by reading the form.

Search logs show what people are thinking

Some AOL search records were published this week, in violation of their privacy policy. Although users' names were not released, it is obvious that many people could be identified by what they searched for.

News agencies, marketeers, voyeurs, and law enforcement can't help but want to dig around in it because it is so revealing -- like reading someone's diary, or their mind.

We are all potential victims of this kind of exposure. There is no reason to trust the search engines. They want to spy on us so they can sell us stuff, and privacy invasions like this are inevitable, because they keep the records around for some unkown amount of time.

Only one service is safe to use if you want your most private searches to stay private. scroogle.org, which anonymizes Google searching. Remember to donate some cash to keep them going now and then.

Of course, your Internet service provider can intercept anything you do online, but at least with Scroogle you're not giving up your secrets to a company run by advertising dollars, and they don't keep the search records.

More stories about the problem:

Google sees privacy threats

The Register points out the 600,000 AOL users' data were released intentionally for research purposes

"The only solution to the problem of data abuse - and it's only an inadequate, and very partial answer - is to ensure the data isn't there to abuse in the first place. If search engines were required to delete their users' queries as soon as they were made, and to leave no trace, this would greatly diminish the dangers of false inference by law enforcement officials, health companies, banks, HMOs, and anyone else seduced by the lure of a faulty algorithm."

This Firefox extension is aimed toward putting the privacy back into your Google searching: Customize Google

Fish oil better than Ritalin says UK study

It needs to be high-quality fish oil (see comments on article) but hey, worth a try for you guys on ADD treatment, right? Why take something dangerous if you can take something good for you.

Why Myspace is bad for you

1. Rupert Murdock bought MySpace, which means your information is no longer yours. (Lots of free sites pull this crap, even Flickr.)

When you use the site you "grant to Myspace.com a non-exclusive, fully-paid and royalty-free, worldwide licence (with the rights to sublicense through unlimited levels of sub licensees) to use, copy, modify, adapt, translate, publicly perform, publicly display, store, reproduce, transmit and distribute such content on and through the services."

You wouldn't sell these kinds of broad rights to your record company, so why give them away to a website? And of course, it's not just music, it's whatever content you provide there.

Billy Bragg is out of there as a result

2. US gov spy agencies are slurping up all your personal info from MySpace. They want to build information about who knows whom.

3. Employers are looking at MySpace pages for reasons not to hire you.

4. Graffiti writers are being arrested after cops find their MySpace pages.

5. MySpace messages and chat are not private and they don't belong to you.

I am hopeful that as people wake up to the dangers of using MySpace that other, better alternatives will spring up. In the meantime, be very careful what you reveal about yourself on this heavily surveilled site.

No Glove No Love

"Since June 5, 1981, HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, has killed more than 25 million people, infected 40 million others and left a legacy of unspeakable loss, hardship, fear and despair."

[...]

"AIDS could kill 31 million people in India and 18 million in China by 2025, according to projections by U.N. population researchers. By then in Africa, where AIDS likely began and where the virus has wrought the most devastation, researchers said the toll could reach 100 million."

[See full article at the link above, at Yahoo news.

Please protect yourself, people. Nobody else is going to do it for you. Condoms are not perfect, but they are absolutely necessary. Don't leave home without one. In the US, you can get condoms for cheap at the public health family planning and planned parenthood clinics. (If you can't afford condoms, imagine how you're going to afford kids!) Do what it takes to take care of yourself, please. We need you, and you need you. HIV takes out young, healthy, good people just like you from Iowa to the Ukraine. It's way more likely to get you than terrorists are. Plus condoms can protect you from herpes and chlamidia, which are both also rampant in the world population of young people now.

On the good-news front for STDs, scientists have recently succeeded in making a vaccine that prevents HPV infection (warts) which causes most of the cervical cancers in women and can be fatal when not treated early. Make sure all the women you know get vaccinnated as soon as it's available, especially your pre-teen girls, because it won't work if you've got the virus already.]

Not Your Soldier - Anti-recruitment camps for youth

Young people are being tricked, lured, and pushed into the military in order to fight unjust wars for dishonest politicians. Especially the poor kids. Not Your Soldier offers information, tools, and tactics to those who want to resist recruitment.
From the site:

"Why Counter Recruitment?

When we organize against military recruitment, we are not only getting involved in our communities and working to stop this war - we are also questioning the whole system that the military is built on.

We are fighting the way that recruiters prey on the lack of affordable housing, healthcare, and the decrepit state of our schools.

We are refusing to fight in an unjust war.

But most importantly, we are building skills and resources within our generation of youth leadership for justice.

Want to do something in your community to stop recruiters and fight the war?

Take back your school! Check out the War Resister's League book, "Demilitarized Zone: A Guide to Taking Your School Back from the Military." You'll get a lot of ideas about organizing to keep military recruiters out of your school, including detailed legal information, concrete campaign suggestions, and up-to-date statistics.

Protect your privacy! Make it hard for recruiters to get your home number by joining Military Free Zone's Opt Out campaign. If you "opt out", your school can't give your information to the military.

Educate your friends! Show AFSC's video "Before You Enlist." Invite a local veteran from Iraq Vets Against War to speak to your class or club. Get copies of the comic book, "Addicted to War" and pass it around. "

ifilm

Video Bomb

$c13nt0l0g

Oh, and free online South Park episode just banned in the UK is too funny.

MySpace info helps cops arrest Boston kids

This is really dog-bites-man news. Who didn't expect this sort of thing?

People on MySpace and other photo sites need to realize they reveal a lot of info about their location (IP address) automatically when they upload. To say nothing of posting additional personal info. And read the fine print. All your photos, music, and info may belong to the site after you upload them.

Technology, like money, can be used for good or for evil

It's not just in the USA that spying on citizens is fashionable. Google filters out dangerous ideas for the big C government. Yahoo reveals the identity of a C news reporter who is then jailed for 10 years. Maybe if I don't use the C word, they won't censor this site too. If ethicalcorp.com disappears, WORRY.

Facebook at universities used for intelligence gathering?

Australian gov threatens graffiti sites there, again

CLAMP on graffiti - Advertiser Adelaide
"SOUTH Australia has asked state and federal censorship ministers to examine internet websites promoting such illegal activity as graffiti. ..."

Federal censorship ministers? What's up with that? I thought Australia was a free speech zone. At any rate, they've had a long tradition of wiping Australian graffiti sites off the Internet from time to time, so apparently they think some information is just too dangerous for their citizens to see. How sad. Maybe these censors should go after hate speech instead, hmm? Perhaps Australians who care could write to their newspapers and explain the difference between art and hate while the Oz graffiti sites find safer places for their archives, such as Canada and Germany. And please keep those backups in a safe and remote location. Your history depends on it.

Does anyone know the URL for the "website that appeared to highlight the activities of a graffiti gang in Adelaide's north-east" aka K2K? The gov did shut them down but they moved to a new domain.

Flu pandemic + our governments, killers of millions?

The US government is doing nothing about the potential avian flu pandemic that may almost be upon us. Doing nothing is the same as condemning millions, if not billions to death. We need a worldwide coordinated response to Avian Flu and any pandemic. We're overdue for one and still the world leaders are not acting.

Wake some politicians up; your life may depend on it. Ask your representatives what they are doing to stave off economic collapse in the event of a flu pandemic that kills a substantial proportion of your area's citizens, since the national government isn't planning a credible national vaccination effort.

We need vaccine-making infrastructure and megabucks from the rich countries to fund it. Big pharma doesn't care because they can't make a killing on vaccines. So last year, there was not enough flu vaccine for those who wanted it. Imagine how many of us will want vaccine when a flu strain goes pandemic again. It takes a couple of years to make enough vaccine to make a difference, so the time to start demanding action is immediately.

Educate, activate.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandemic
The most previous flu pandemic killed 50m people worldwide, in 1918-19. Usually they kill 25% of the population apparently. So far this candidate bird flu has killed 60% of the people who've caught it from birds.

New hope for HIV vaccine

New discovery of a bacterium native to the human body that eats the coating of HIV viruses.

"Soon the majority of HIV-infected individuals will be women, according to the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative."


Did you Know ...

* At least half of all new HIV infections in the U.S. are among people under 25.

* Most young people are not concerned about getting AIDS. 1

* HIV, for least one NY man, apparently has become resistant to three classes of anti-retroviral medication, and its transition to AIDS isvery short -- less than one year. This man may be the first of many. 2

* African Americans are more affected by HIV and AIDS than any other race.3

* More women are getting HIV and AIDS than ever before. 4

* Most men who get HIV have sex with other men.5

* Most people don?t know their HIV status. 6

* The hardest hit group of Americans is young African American men who have sex with men. One third are infected with HIV; most do not know.7

Notes:
1. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation's Survey of Americans on HIV/AIDS (2004), 58% of young Americans are ?not concerned? about becoming infected with HIV. Only 24% are "very concerned." Numbers for older Americans are much lower.

2. This man's case may not actually be quite so newsworthy. According to one study published last year in the journal AIDS, about 13 percent of 17,300 people with HIV have developed resistance to all three classes of drugs.

3. More than half of AIDS deaths are African Americans. The proportion of African Americans with AIDS is 10 times that of whites. 65% of teens who get HIV are African American. AIDS is the number one cause of death for African Americans between the ages of 25 and 44.

4. 27% of HIV cases in 2003 were women. In 1985, the proportion was only 8%.

5. 57% of HIV diagnoses among men in 2003 were "men who have sex with men."

6. Less than half of Americans say they have been tested for HIV. Only 20% say they have been tested in the past year.

7. 32% of African American men who have sex with men, ages 23-29, living in major cities, are HIV+.

* 200,000 New Yorkers are HIV+
* 40,000 don't know

Spyware detection and Removal from Microsoft

For Windows only, of course (Macs have almost no spyware/virus/worm problems.)

How to Blog safely

EFF's article on how to blog and surf anonymously.

Reminder for AOL users - parental controls block email

I get a lot of mail from AOL users that I am unable to reply to. The problem seems to be that the parental controls on the AOL account are set to not accept email from the internet or something similar. So all my replies bounce back to me and you never see them. Maybe your mom does, I dunno. So if you have an AOL account and you wonder why I'm not replying to your mail, that's the most likely reason.

Clean software for Windows machines

First, clean the machine with one, or better yet two, adware cleaners. Ad Aware is a good place to start. (google for it)

How to practice safer computing

Then make sure you don't install known adware/spyware.
wikipedia's list

Don Davidson's list with links to removal tools

Then go get some clean, free and cheap sofware at cleansoftware.org

Don't forget to pick up the free antivirus software while you're there, install it and turn it on.

Why do I post so much about spyware and antivirus tools? Because I know many of you are using computers that are slowed to a crawl by it and that others have a computer that's been completely crippled to the point it won't work anymore.

Computer / Net

NCSA Beginner's Guide to HTML

ABCs of HTML - lessons from NCSA

Frequently Asked Questions and Very Handy References
about HTML

John December's excellent guide to everything about Web development

webmonkey
Quick lessons on just about any web-tech topic, especially helpful on
advanced subjects. Code samples, browser feature compatibility chart.

EchoEcho
Lessons on just about anything web-related, more complete and in-depth than above (but beware of JavaScript
tricks in general because they often have negative effects)

Blooberry
Best reference all around after you've gotten started making a site

http://www.websiteoptimization.com/services/analyze/
Free Web Page Analyzer - speed up your site

Fastmail
Tired of your webmail provider? Get your mail from other accounts (even APOP, IMAP, hotmail accounts), wherever you are, with Fastmail.
Try it for free. Even the paid modes are cheap enough to be worth it.

Recycle your old computers