Keeping scammers off online dating sites

Mark Brooks, my former co-worker, did an interview with Nelson Rodriguez of LoveAccess regarding keeping scammers off online dating sites. Nelson is a great guy, and from our past-discussions I consider him an expert in this area.

The idea of the online dating industry sharing resources to fight scammers was discussed at the iDate 2006 conference in Miami; Mark and I were on that panel. I publicly stated that I would support that effort, and suggested Mark be a good person to spearhead the effort. Seems like his recent interviews are a step in that direction. Kudos, Mark!

I'll include here my comments on Mark's interview with Nelson:

We talked about shared effort at iDate Miami 06. I still think it has merit -- somethings are easy to share and don't get into proprietary info.

At Cupid.com, we only advertise in the US and Canada, so we block IPs known to be from any other foreign country. We use http://ip-to-country.webhosting.info/node/view/6
for this data.

Also, I have no need to allow anyone who wants IP anonymity on my site, so we also block all IPs known to be associated with TOR, The Onion Router.

Commercial anonymizing services will gladly block their members from access your web site if you send them a request.

IPs are easy to change. MAC addresses can be spoofed but that is a good idea I hadn't thought of. But as soon as you block someone, you alert them of the need to change. The only thing that seems to limit scammers is time. So when considering a scammer strategy, devise methods that let them waste time without letting them know that they've been identified. They will learn that your site doesn't convert for them, and they will be motivated to try elsewhere.

Netgear router = impossible to configure

I wasted another couple prime Friday evening hours this week at my brother's office trying to configure his Internet connection. I set it up once months back but he lost connectivity and called Verizon instead of me. The tech had him wipe out my configuration, and then couldn't help him get back online. Grrrr.

The hassle is his DSL router and his Netgear Wireless router both want to be a DHCP server, and both want to be IP 192.168.1.1. I can configure the DSL router however I want, it's got a nice interface. So I disabled its DHCP and gave it a different IP. So far so good.

The Netgear router has a "configuration wizard" that you cannot escape. After a hard reset, it redirects all requests to 192.168.1.1, and writes a route aliasing the domain "routerconfig" or whatever to that adress. Then it tries to sense the Internet connectivity. If it doesn't have a upstream link, you can't proceed any further in the wizard. Nor can you bypass the wizard, Grrrrr! If it's plugged into the DSL router, it detects that it'll get a dynamic IP and beckons you to continue. But "poof!" it doesn't work. 404 for the next screen in the wizard.

I've concluded that the best way to "solve" the problem is to replace the Netgear wireless router with a different one, form *anyone but Netgear.* I talked to Jeremy, my Senior Systems Administrator, and he said that about a year ago Netgear switched their interface around and now they are total crap spo he's stayed clear.

I recently replaced my Netgear MR814 Wireless Router at home because it no longer allowed wireless connections. Most often it wouln't broadcast anything, not even its SSID. Most I could get out of it was 5 minutes uptime wirelessly. It guess that's a "security feature" since it couldn't do WAP either.

The replacement is a Belkin Wireless G Plus router. WAP, plus an interface I can do anything with. I sense I'll be buying one in the near future for my bro. Much better than losing yet another Friday evening.

Tragic follow up: High school poets

Last Friday I blogged about listening to high school students recite poetry at Barnes & Noble; their teacher is another parent from my daughters soccer team. Our daughters played together while I listened to her students' poems.

This week when I arrived for the end of soccer practice, the eight year old girls were all gathered around a picnic table working on a group sympathy card for a team mate. I learned that, tragically, her father had died suddenly over the weekend of a heart attack. He had been at work. This was the same family who I had run into at the book store.

I was flabbergasted. I cannot imagine. This is a young family; he was not an old man. He was my peer.

It made me assess: am I doing everything I can do the keep my heart healthy? I made it to the gym this week twice, I need to go more. I've been eating healthy. What would my family do? I cannot imagine.

Highschool poets

My 7 year old daughter -- D'oh!: 8 year old daughter! -- Meg and I both had birthday money burning a whole in my pocket tonight, and it needed to get spent at Barnes and Noble. While I was paging new paperbacks Meg's soccer coach asked if I'd come over and listen to her high school students present poetry. I applaud, no: snap, their willingness to stand up in public -- the closest thing we have now to a town square -- and read their own work.

It reminded me of a poem I wrote in college, especially appropriate for the young audience of tonight. I wish them all well.

"Bite Big"

Bite big!
Grow, puppy, grow!
Don't be afraid to choke.
Show canine smile around raw red meat.
Aggressively chew, aggressively eat
and Grow!

"The Diamond Age" by Neal Stephenson

Neal Stephenson must really hate glass. In "Snow Crash" (yeah, I know book titles are supposed to be underlined, not quoted like an article, but Blogger doesn't allow for underline because now underline = link).... (Begin again:) In "Snow Crash" he has skateboards equipped with sonic glass-destruction blasts. And in "The Diamond Age" nano-extruded diamond has replaced glass because its cheaper and stronger. He highlights the quaint distortion of perspective through glass. Ok, Neal, we get it: glass is bad. (I'll need to re-read Cryptonomicon to see if it contains glass bashing.)

This isn't a review, just some of my thoughts after reading the book. I loved the book and will continue to read everything Neal Stephenson writes. Without going through his trash, I mean.

In "The Diamond Age" Neal explores the possibilities of nanotechnology. My brain is stuck on Neal's (can I call you Neal? Thanks.) posit that things built in a vacuum can be hollow, thereby contain a vacuum, yet be strong enough to maintain integrity when exposed to normal atmospheric pressure, and thus are lighter than air. I love the premise. Its elegantly simple but my brain rejects it. I want to see if it really works. I don't get to; thats why its called fiction.

Diamond is pure carbon, simple. But doesn't it take enormous pressure to get carbon to align itself in a crystal lattice? Neal, I wanted you to explain where all that energy comes from. Just a paragraph or two lay that piece out, please. Energy is everything, really. Once energy is solved, all physical things like starvation go away.

I enjoyed the node logic of the drummers. It fits my world-view. All are nodes, all have a value. The whole exists as nodes add and delete. The equation never completes.