Sponsor's Message

Yes, the Aussie domain name scammers are reportedly back to their old tricks.

But wait -- this isn't a new bunch of slick-willies trying to part naive domain name holders from their hard-earned cash -- it's our old friends at Domain Names NZ.

Yes, despite the fact that they're under investigation by the ACCC and were the subject of numerous complaints to the Commerce Commission, these people are once again deluging Kiwi's mailboxes with deceptive proforma invoices for domains we don't need or want. And at outrageous prices I might add.

With any luck, most NZers will recognise the scam for what it is this time around - but with the massive $237 charge for a two-year registration, these rip-off merchants won't have to find many ignorant souls before they're rolling in cash.

So what are our authorities doing about this blatant scam?

Well they can't say (this time) that they've been caught unawares or that this was unexpected can they?

No, of course not. This is just the latest in a long line of similar scams that have targeted domain name holders here in NZ.

But what can be done to deal to these scammers?

Well nothing actually -- hence we might as well hang up that "kick-me" sign all over again.

It seems that if you're a spammer, a scammer pitching fake invoices out of Aussie, a porno-peddler sending solicitations to 8-year-olds, or a shyster selling unregistered medications by email then NZ is the perfect place to pitch your wares. Because our legislators (still) appear to be totally uninterested in dealing with these problems.

But if you think we're alone in having a parliament that contains more than its fair share of idiots you might be wrong.

According to reports on the wires today, one UK MP has come up with a devilishly cunning plan to eliminate spam. Yes, he's going to make everyone change their email addresses. Good grief -- why didn't *I* think of that?

And finally, on a day when I'm bitching because my arm still hurts like hell, allow me to hurl another brickbat at the folks who came up with JetStream the DSL option you use when you have no other DSL options.

Last night, before I went to bed, I started a 500MB HTTP download which, my browser estimated, would probably take around 12 hours -- although as time passed and throughput began to fall, it then extended to 15 hours.

So, when I got up this morning, I figured it would be well towards completion.

No, sorry -- what a dreamer I was.

It had crapped out at 186MB and, since it's a file only available via HTTP, I'll have to start from scratch all over again.

Okay, so these things happen on the Net right -- connections get lost, things drop out for a minute or two occasionally -- Telecom can't be blamed for that.

However -- the longer it takes to download a file, the more likely that download is to be interrupted by one of these "events". If *real* broadband were affordable then I might have been able to download that file in just an hour or so. As it is, I'll have to go through the whole process again and hope (prey?) that this time it completes. All the time I'm eating into my monthly data cap allowance too.

At least I'm not on one of those 265Kbps plans with a 500MB cap. If I were, then I'd likely have consumed over half my monthly allowance for nothing and have no alternative but to try again and blow past that cap -- paying as much as $50 in over-cap data charges just to get that one file.

How crazy is a DSL service that makes it cheaper to have a disk sent half way around the world by express international courier than to download it? Bah, Humbug!

If any Aardvark readers want to share an opinion on today's column or add something, you're invited to chip in and have your say in The Aardvark Forums or, if you prefer, you can contact me directly.

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