Computer Guru? Border Collie? Mentally Deficient?

Shoalanda learned something interesting today, and that's always welcome. And, no, you don't have to be a computer guru to learn this, folks. We learned of an Internet address we weren't previously aware of. Exciting, huh?

We made the statement earlier in the week that we knew an addy ending in "nl" was not from the U.S. It not only doesn't take a computer guru to know this, it doesn't take a border collie either. The following are addy extensions allowed in the U.S.:

COM - This domain is intended for commercial entities, that is
companies. This domain has grown very large and there is
concern about the administrative load and system performance if
the current growth pattern is continued. Consideration is
being taken to subdivide the COM domain and only allow future
commercial registrations in the subdomains.

EDU - This domain was originally intended for all educational
institutions. Many Universities, colleges, schools,
educational service organizations, and educational consortia
have registered here. More recently a decision has been taken
to limit further registrations to 4 year colleges and
universities. Schools and 2-year colleges will be registered
in the country domains (see US Domain, especially K12 and CC,
below).

NET - This domain is intended to hold only the computers of network
providers, that is the NIC and NOC computers, the
administrative computers, and the network node computers. The
customers of the network provider would have domain names of
their own (not in the NET TLD).

ORG - This domain is intended as the miscellaneous TLD for
organizations that didn't fit anywhere else. Some non-
government organizations may fit here.

INT - This domain is for organizations established by international
treaties, or international databases.

United States Only Generic Domains:

GOV - This domain was originally intended for any kind of government
office or agency. More recently a decision was taken to
register only agencies of the US Federal government in this
domain. State and local agencies are registered in the country

We had not been aware of the "int" extension before, so if we're ever on Jeopardy, we're all set.

So that's how we knew an addy ending in "nl" wasn't from the U.S. We surmised it might be from the Netherlands, but weren't positive until we Googled it. Google is your friend. We also understand 99.99% of the computer owning population knows how to use it.

That brings us to the mentally deficient...the whole point in 90% (our guesstimate) of hacking, and certainly the whole point in 100% of spam hacking it to obtain access to the hackee's e-mail address directory. If John or Jane Doe has 500 entries in his/her address book, that's 500 potential customers for spam artists selling generic Viagra, body part boosters, or Acme Widgets. No one is immune from a hacker attack and everyone is a potential target.

If someone (probably .01% of the 10% referenced above), just wants to irritate/incriminate you, they will set up a free e-mail account in your name or similar name to transfer your addresses to. News flash--their name doesn't have to be anywhere in the addy on an account probably registered originally from a local library, university, bookstore, etc., where the general public has access.

So the next time anyone wants you, the trusting public, to believe a middle-aged, conservative Republican lady from the Tuscumbia area has hacked her e-mail, perhaps you should just say in your best Daffy Duck voice, "Anhh, your mother wears arrrmy boots."





Shoalanda