Monthly Archive for October, 2006

Our customers are the perverts, not us

Published on October 30, 2006 in internet. 6 Comments

Cain Ransbottyn, de opperpooier van het InternetIn the newspaper De Morgen this weekend, there was a full page article about a successful Belgian internet entrepreneur: Cain Ransbottyn.

Cain is the founder and CEO of Realroot, hoster of a large collection of high-bandwidth, and often NSFW, websites – including Zattevrienden, Zattemadammen, Wijfzonderlijf, Gallerygalore and Thisislife. He is known for being a shrewd business man and not the most subtle of conversationalists. But the way he speaks about his pr0n-consuming users in this article sets a new high for self-confessed customer contempt.
Continue reading ‘Our customers are the perverts, not us’

Brussels statistics: Atlas 2006

Published on October 26, 2006 in Brussel. Closed

Kaart Brussel: namen van gemeentesThe “Observatorium voor Gezondheid en Welzijn” institute of Brussels has just published a 160-page report full of statistics and Graphics about Brussels: The 2006 Atlas. It is full of interesting data about Brussels, its internal diversity and the differences with Flanders / Wallonia.

Some highlights:

Population

Take a good look at the northern white spot, that’s the Royal Palace of Laken: 58 hectare for a handful of royalty.
Kaart Brussel: bevolking per gemeente

Housing

At your left: rent prices, at your right: comfort of housing (which indicates: private toilet, central heating, separate kitchen …). As one would expected, they correlate very well. Ukkel is a fancy neighbourhood, ain’t it, Bruno?
Kaart Brussel: huurprijs Kaart Brussel: comfort van huizen
Continue reading ‘Brussels statistics: Atlas 2006′

MySpace: bulletin and other spam

Published on October 25, 2006 in spam. 19 Comments Tags: , , .

MySpace spam

MySpace is a vast collection of web real estate begging to be spammed. I keep receiving spam bulletins from some of my MySpace friends, so this is a little explanation of what MySpace spam is and how it can be fixed:

Tricks used by MySpace spammers

Trick #1: hidden bulletin post form
As described by ericis.com, MySpace did not protect the bulletin submission page enough. Bulletins could be sent by an unsuspecting logged-in user through a hidden form, instead of only through the official submission form. So you might click on what seems to be just a link to a site/profile, but you are really sending a bulletin to all your friends. This mail might invite them to click on a link which hides another hidden form and …
STATUS: This vulnerability has been addressed by MySpace, but whether it is completely fixed is another question.

Trick #2: man-in-the-middle password theft

Continue reading ‘MySpace: bulletin and other spam’

Le Web 3 in Paris

Published on October 23, 2006 in Web2.0. 2 Comments

Le Web 3
Based on the excellent experience of last year’s Les Blogs, I just registered for the conference “Le Web 3” in Paris on Dec 11th and 12th, organised by SixApart/Vox.

Clo and me are the first two Belgians on the attendee list, but I’m sure we will be joined by a bigger Belgian crowd soon. If you’re interested in hearing some high-level speakers and mingle with a bunch of web entrepreneurs and enthusiasts, don’t hesitate: if you register before Nov 11th, the price is € 300 instead of € 500. I’m sure Loic will make this edition even better than the previous (like: bigger food, more parties).