The Squid Zone

The earth (and water) move under your feet

Following a massive earthquake (magnitude 8.8) on the border of the Nazca and South America plates, just off the coast of Chile, a tsunami has been generated that is now propagating across the Pacific ocean.  The West Coast and Alaska Tsunami Warning Center has issued an advisory that includes the west coast of Canada.  The Hawaii warning centre has issued warnings for all islands in the Pacific Ocean and coastal countries.

If you are on the west coast in low-lying areas, please be alert to news from civil authorities.  The current estimated initial arrival time of the tsunami on the British Columbia coast is approximately 2 PM to 3 PM Pacific time.  Tsunamis continue for some hours after the initial arrival, and the first wave may not be the biggest.  Wave size depends largely on the terrain and ocean floor topography.

And it shouldn't need to be said, but just in case... don't be a nimrod and go down to the beach to see if you can catch it on video for YouTube... that's how you can end up dead, even if the odds are really good that this is not going to be a disaster-film-quality tsunami.  The biggest waves observed so far have been just shy of 3 metres.  Even that would be pretty unpleasant to be hit with, don't you think?

Of perverts and Facebook

If you're a Facebook user, you've probably seen this meme circulating, somewhat virally, among the various status files of people you know:

WARNING!!!!! Go in to your PRIVACY settings and click block list, type in AUTOMATIC BLOCK, there's 3 names there DELETE them they're apparantly taking pictures of our kids off our fb and there meant to be peadophiles, They were on mine and prob on yours too. 3 FOREIGN NAMES block them 1 at a time. PUT THIS ON YOUR STATUS TELL YOUR FAMILY AND FRIENDS

Now, aside from the general idea that anything that tells you to display it publicly and tell all your family and friends is almost assuredly bollocks, I'd like to look at the general claim that it makes: That there are perverts on Facebook looking for pictures of your kids.

There are really two parts to the claim.  The easier part is that there are people you don't know looking for pictures of your kids.  That's probably true, but only in the general sense.  There are over 350 million Facebook users (according to Facebook itself).  The odds of any one random user specifically targetting YOU for pictures of YOUR kids is vanishingly small.  Generally, people may stumble across pictures of your kids (and I'll deal with that in a minute), but the specific risk to you or your children is very, very, very, very small.

So the bigger question is how many perverts there are on Facebook.  Given that the population of Facebook is 14% greater than the population of the entire United States of America, it's fair to say that the number of pedophiles on Facebook is likely to be about 14% greater than the entire number of pedophiles in the United States of America.  Statistically speaking, pedophilia has a background level where not specifically encouraged by culture (like ancient Greece), so that's a reasoned guess.  Unfortunately, there are not good statistics on what that level is.  So let's give it the benefit of the doubt and say that 1 person in 10000 is a pedophile.  Pedophiles are overwhelmingly men, but there are women and we've seen a few get arrested in the news lately (usually female teachers boffing male students), so let's put the gender split at 95% men.

What does that mean?  With about 175 million women on Facebook, and using these estimated numbers, we can expect that there are 875 female pedophiles on Facebook right now, and over 16000 male pedophiles on Facebook right now.  Sounds scary doesn't it? 

But... like any population, there are other "undesirables" too.  For example, this site suggests that in the USA there are 25-50 active serial killers in the USA at any given time.  ACTIVE... that's not counting the ones whose crimes haven't been noticed/collated into being called a serial killer, and the ones who haven't quite flipped out yet.  It's very likely, therefore, that Facebook's similar sized population harbours 25-50 active serial killers at any given time, plus serial-killers-to-be!

So really, does the existence of these people on Facebook matter to you, the friendly Facebook user?  Personally, I don't worry about them.  You're no more likely to be targetted on Facebook by some pervert or nutjob than you are likely to be targetted by someone picking your name out of a huge phone book.  It's possible, sure, but very unlikely.  And best of all, Facebook gives you some options to help reduce the likelihood of these people targetting you.

First and foremost, don't accept every friend request you get.  If you don't know the person, don't friend them.  If some random person walks up to your house and bangs on the door, you don't let them in to poke around your stuff do you?  Why would you friend someone you have no clue about?  Seriously, this simple, best way to increase your Facebook security actually requires that you NOT do something.  It's so easy to ignore friend requests from people you don't know.

Second... pictures.  I've talked about keeping your stuff visible to your friends only, and I'll reiterate it here.  Hit the photos tab and click "Album privacy", then set your photos to "Friends only".  You'll not only immediately prevent any pervert, non-friends from seeing your stuff, you'll also block people from your work from seeing your drunken, bra-on-head photos from last Friday's piss-up too (even though you should never post crap like that on the internet because The Internet Never Forgets... Ever).

Third, once you've set all your photos to "friends only" or something more appropriate, visit the Settings link and select Privacy.  Go through all the little bits of information and make sure you have them set the way you really want them... Do you really want your Contact Information, for example, visible to everyone?  how about friends of friends?  friends only?  Go through these settings and make sure they reflect your desires.

If you do this, you aren't going to have to worry about random weirdos trolling through your stuff, nor will you have to worry about Google picking up your info and blasting it to the world.  And more importantly, it's a lot easier than trying to find out who the current list of pedophiles contains and manually adding them to your blocked list every day.

Facebook indexing is hardly the problem... And the internet never forgets, part N^2

If you're a Facebook user, you've probably seen this viral warning popping up on your friends' status messages:

Facebook will automatically index all your info on Google, which allows everyone to view it. To change this option, go to Settings --> Privacy Settings --> Search --> then UN-CLICK the box that says 'Allow indexing'. Facebook kept this one quiet.

As a security professional unrelated to Facebook, I'd like to add to that a bit.

Doing that is probably a fair thing to do.  However, there are two major issues with doing this that aren't necessarily obvious to most people:

1. If the visibility of your information is set to "Everyone" it's probably already been indexed.  The internet never forgets, folks, so it's probably too late; and more importantly,
2. Why would you have your information visibility set to "Everyone" if you didn't expect it to be indexed and shown to the world?

If you go to Settings --> Privacy Settings --> Search you will see this option:

Public search results
Allow search engines to access your publicly available info and any information visible to Everyone

Notice that it says "publicly available info" and "any information available to Everyone".  Those are important caveats.  It means that the search feature only deals with information you have already said that anyone can see.

And why would they be loud about that?  Indexing has been going on since Facebook came out.  The real issue is that you probably shouldn't have anything set with visibility of "everyone".  Go to Settings --> Privacy Settings and put real restrictions on who sees your info (usually "Friends" only).  Don't set it to "Everyone" unless you REALLY want everyone to see it.  It's a very good idea to have your information locked down quite a bit more unless you're some kind of public figure or exhibitionist who is really interested in having the world see their info.  I would recommend the settings I have, so I'll go through the two most important sections.

Settings --> Privacy Settings --> Profile Information

This is the main privacy setting page.  On it, you set the visibility of pretty much all your information.  If you have never visited this page, you have truly done yourself a disservice.  Here is what mine looks like (click for full size version):

Notice that everything is set to "Only Friends", and even some of those have further restructions.  Photo albums have privacy restrictions set on each individual album.  Because of this, my information isn't being indexed anyway because it is not publicly available.

When you're adjusting the settings, you can preview how your profile will look by clicking the button on the upper-right.  That will show you what a random member of the public will see.  You can also type in the name of someone on your friends list and it will show you your profile as they would see it.

Notice, too, that if you've assigned your friends into groups, you can use the groups as part of the privacy features.  So even if you are one of my Facebook Friends, you might not get to see some of my information.  This is a very useful feature if you're the type of person who likes to post Notes and pictures about your weekend activities that are, perhaps, not suitable for your co-workers consumption.  You can, for example, put all your co-workers into a group and not allow them to see your photos and notes.  That could save your job.  A better idea is to not post that sort of material, but if you are going to post your exploits, think about who might see them.  Always, before you post, chant "The Internet Never Forgets" a few times to refresh your memory.

Settings --> Privacy Settings --> Contact Information

On this page you can set individual settings for your various contact information.  This allows people to find you in Facebook, and if you have the privacy set to "Everyone", you can bet that it has been or will be indexed.  Once again, you should get in here and set appropriate restrictions.  Here is a picture of my settings (click for full size):

Again, you can preview your profile to ensure you're getting the correct results.  Notice also that once again, most of my information is set to "Only Friends" and often with some restrictions.  However, since I do wish to be found on Facebook, I allow anyone to try to add me as a friend or send me a message.

It's not just about indexing

Although the index checkbox is new, don't forget that information with visibility of "Everyone" is also shared when you use applications and Facebook-enabled web sites.   Turning off the index box does little to enhance your privacy if your information is all set to "Everyone" and you use a lot of Facebook applications and web sites.

So if you want to really spread around the love, instead of copying and pasting that viral status message, copy and past the URL to this post into your Notes! 

A message for Steven Harper and the Conservative Party of Canada

Today I received this in the mail:

click to embiggen

It's nothing really unusual, I get them on a regular basis because I have been a financial supporter of the Conservative Party for many years.  If you look in the yellow circle, there is a suggested amount that is in line with what my donations have been like in the past.  It's fair to say that, while I am not the contributor with the deepest pockets, I contribute more than many members do.

But with the Conservatives bringing forward the abominable legislation comprising bills C-46 and C-47, I am taking a new direction:

click to embiggen

You see, I don't want a dime of my money going to anyone who would support the kind of police-state legislation that those bills bring to this country.  I've written about C-47 before, and I want to reiterate my position:  warrantless access to internet subscriber information and to internet wiretapping is wholly unnecessary in a free and democratic society, just as such information and wiretapping is not freely given for telephones.  The legislation is a slap in the face of all Canadians and to democracy in general, it places an unnecessary burden on service providers, and is wide open to abuse.  I mean, sure, we know the police never abuse their authority, but still, do they really need this kind of power ADDED? As a citizen, I'm shocked.  As a security professional, I'm disgusted.

And if it's not clear why this is so bad, then think of it this way.  Your postal mail has about the same general level of privacy as your internet traffic.  So imagine the government proposes legislation that permits them, without warrant, to require Canada Post, Federal Express, UPS, DHL, and so forth to provide customer information whenever someone claiming to be a peace officer asks for it.  Furthermore, they require those companies to install the equipment and procedures to allow them to intercept your mail and packages at a moments notice when requested, without a warrant.  Further still, they retain the right to OPEN and READ all the packages and mail, without warrant, just because they want to.  Unacceptable?  I should think so.  There's a reason we have a process that involves warrants and the police explaining themselves to a judge.

So, as long as the Conservatives continue to support such initiatives, I will be putting my money where my mouth is... or more correctly keeping my money where my wallet is.  The Conservative Party doesn't get a dime.  Perhaps, at some point in the future, when the Conservatives want to start respecting the people who elect them, I'll be inclined to help them out.  Until that day, they'll be down my financial support.

Don't trust anyone you meet online, you could regret it!

Here's a public service announcement...

By way of Wil Wheaton's blog, by way of Ken.

Bill C-47 is bad legislation

Much talk is in the media right now about the bastard lawyer's child, Bill C-47, otherwise known as the Technical Assistance for Law Enforcement in the 21st Century Act.  It is an unnecessary, and indeed terrible piece of legislation for a number of reasons.  As citizens of a free and democratic society we should not permit this kind of legislation to be passed by our elected representatives.

What is wrong with it?

It is an anti-democratic expansion of powers for law enforcement.  If this bill should pass, law enforcement representatives would be able, without warrant, request subscriber and traffic information from internet service providers.  Worse, ISPs would be required not only to turn over this information but to install in advance, the necessary tools and equipment to make this kind of warrantless snooping possible.  This also includes, where possible, the decryption of encrypted traffic (such as HTTPS).

Even the authors of this bill are aware that it is anti-democratic.  It is not once, but twice stated within the text of the bill:

Nothing in this Act derogates from any other authority under law to obtain the information referred to in subsection 16(1) from a telecommunications service provider.

That's right - the authors of this bill know damn well that they already have the powers to get this information by getting a warrant.  That want to skip that little bit of oversight... an oversight that prevents arbitrary tapping of telephones and such.

There is a reason we have laws that require our law enforcement to run their little intrusions past a judge before implementing them: so they aren't abused.  And even then, a certain amount of abuse gets through.  I feel somewhat comfortable knowing that a random cop can't just wake up one day and ask for my ISP for my personal information and internet traffic - like he can if this bill passes:

17. (1) A police officer may request a telecommunications service provider to provide the officer with the information referred to in subsection 16(1) in the following circumstances:

• (a) the officer believes on reasonable grounds that the urgency of the situation is such that the request cannot, with reasonable diligence, be made under that subsection;
• (b) the officer believes on reasonable grounds that the information requested is immediately necessary to prevent an unlawful act that would cause serious harm to any person or to property; and
• (c) the information directly concerns either the person who would perform the act that is likely to cause the harm or is the victim, or intended victim, of the harm.

The police officer shall inform the telecommunications service provider of his or her name, rank, badge number and the agency in which he or she is employed and state that the request is being made in exceptional circumstances and under the authority of this subsection.

On the surface, that may seem OK, but there's very little to prevent malicious claims from, shall we say exhuberant, law enforcement officials.  All someone needs to do is call up, say "Hi, I'm Officer Soandso from the police, badge number 12345, and I want all the dirt, er information on Squid."  That's frightening when you think about it... it's not like we can actually trust these people not to abuse such powers.  Let's face the facts here: within 5 years, should this bill pass, there is going to be an abuse scandal.  Anyone who has lived in Canada long enough and who has read the bill can see that coming like lights in the tunnel.

In fact, lest we forget, it was abuse of power by the RCMP that led to the formation of CSIS in the first place.  Now it is proposed to give both of those organizations expanded powers of search without warrant.  This bill is a slap in the face to all Canadians.

The best part of this bill is Section 21, which requires that ISPs be paid for providing the information.  Perhaps the fee will be 30 silver dollars?

Please note here that I'm not droning on about "internet freedom" or any of that New Age bollocks that so many people erroneously consider to be rights or properties of the internet.  I don't believe there is such a thing as internet freedom and I consider people who do to be more than a little deluded - certainly they are unknowledgeable about the origins and purpose of the internet.  The problem with this bill is that is goes contrary to what Canadians have historically considered appropriate powers of law enforcement.  It's bad because it puts an onus for enforcing that abuse of power on internet service providers.  It's bad because it grants law enforcement the ability to act abusively with little or no immediate oversight.  We do not need to be giving our law enforcement more warrantless powers.

I want to make this absolutely clear to the Conservative Party of Canada, the Liberal Party of Canada, the New Democratic Party of Canada, and the Bloc Québecois:  If you vote for this legislation, you are insulting Canadians.  You will be demonstrating your contempt for the people of Canada.  In short, you will be showing that you are UNWORTHY of representing Canadians at the federal government level.  The Conservative Party has already lost my financial support for even tabling this ill-conceived bill.  Any party that supports this bill will gain my opposition in word, deed, and financially... even if, dare I say it, that means supporting Green or NDP because I'd rather live in a bankrupted country than a police state.

On this day, 65 years ago...

... my grandfather, Keith Enright, hit the beaches at Normandy.  He was wounded in the battle, but survived.  Many of his friends did not.  But they fought the good fight and WW II would end little more than a year later.

This day should give everyone pause to think.  Think about whether or not we, as a species, have really learned the lessons of 65 years ago.  I look around the world right now, and I'm not sure we have.  And that makes me sad, because if we haven't learned from their sacrifice, if we haven't got the message about ideology and killing, then all those people died for nothing.

Good Riddance

I was very pleased, today, to see that Hasibullah Sadiqi will be rotting in prison for the rest of his life.

If you don't want to click the link, and aren't up on Ottawa news, Mr. Sadiqi shot his sister and her fiancé with a .44 magnum because the sister besmirched the family honour by moving in with her fiancé's family before getting married, and not permitting her estranged father (who had divorced their mother and dumped the family) to participate in the wedding plans.  So horrible was this affront that the woman and her groom-to-be had to die to save face.  Mr. Sadiqi shot his sister in the head at point-blank range in a parking lot at a local shopping mall, but took two shots to put down her fiancé.

The judge said it best, I think:

“You put your own self-esteem over those of your own sister and the young man she had chosen to become her life partner,” Ontario Superior Court Justice Douglas Rutherford told an expressionless Hasibullah Sadiqi. “And consigning them to partnership in death has shocked and bewildered every community in the nation’s capital. The forfeiture of your liberty for the rest of your life seems only just.”

Barring some kind of appeal, Mr. Sadiqi will be behind bars for not less than 25 years... which, in my opinion is excessively kind.  This piece of dog shit will be able to be walking the streets when he's only 48, assuming he makes parole.

I have a better idea.  Since he wants to live the Afghan culture, including all the bloodthirsty bullshit like "it's OK to kill your sister if she's not subservient to your misogynistic culture", then he should be shipped directly from our jail to Afghanistan and banned from ever entering this country again.

Canada is a multi-cultural country.  That's supposed to mean that we are rather tolerant of other customs and cultures that differ from the standard WASP culture on which the country is, more-or-less, run.  It *SHOULD* permit everyone in Canada to bask in the good things from other cultures: the food, the languages, the entertainment, and so on.  However, when immigrants come to Canada they must not, and we absolutely must not tolerate, the importation of cultural baggage that completely violates our way of life.  Canada and Canadians must have ZERO TOLERANCE for honour killings, Sharia, wife-beating, female genital mutilation, subjugation of women, tribal bickering and any other civilization-killing  crap that immigrants (or anyone else) tries to import from their home culture.

One might expect that people who come to Canada do so to obtain a better life, not to give the rest of us a life of the same bronze-age bullshit that they had back in the old country.  In fact, it's not a matter of expecting.  We who are already here - all of us - must not just expect but must DEMAND that the people we take in bring us only their good and leave their bad at the door.

Mr. Sadiqi can rot in prison.  He'll get 3 squares and a job for at least 25 years, which is a lot more than he deserves.

A chuckle for Wednesday

There's a reason why criminals seldom turn out to be rocket scientists.  For a Wednesday morning chuckle, have a look at this story about a scumbag who tried to rob a retired police officer...

... at a police convention.

"The convention was a gathering of 300 narcotics officers from Pennsylvania and Ohio."

Dear Advertisers... here's something to think about.

Over at Tech Life Post today, they have a couple of articles regarding Google Ad Sense.  If you don't deliberately block ads, you've probably seen it in action and don't even realize it.  Google makes its money, if you didn't know this, by selling advertising.  They use their search engine technology first and foremost to target advertising to web users.  So if you use the free GMail service, for example, look at your ads (or turn them on if you have them blocked) and you'll see that the ads you get often are vaguely related to keywords in the mail you are reading.  And you don't think for a second that the Chrome browser isn't feeding information regarding your surfing habits, do you?

Personally, I find that a bit creepy, so no important mail of mine goes to GMail.  In fact, my GMail address is used for internet subscriptions and such, so it is the primary recipient of the bulk of the spam that I receive.  GMail has top-notch spam filters to deal with that (unlike, say, Hotmail).  I don't use Chrome.

But it's easy to take shots at Google because they're big.  Google isn't the problem.  The problem is advertising in general.

Advertising does serve a purpose in society.  Without advertising it would be nearly impossible to sell a product in anything but a very small local market.  That's a simple fact.  However, it is my opinion that the original purpose of advertising has been perverted.  It's not just about selling product any more... advertising has become an Orwellian parody of its former self.  Advertisers are going out of their way to insinuate themselves into every aspect of your life.  We are literally inundated with advertising, and it's getting worse as technology advances.

Sure, Google kibo-izes* the entire internet to serve up ad content that is, for the most part, generally relevant on web pages.  That's creepy.  They want to expand that empire to uniquely track web users and serve up ads based on the interests of that web user no matter where they are.  That's creepy and intrusive.

But it's more than just Google.  Advertisers want to gain access to your cellular phone - not just the number so they can telemarket, but also to your 3G networking package and your SMS package so they can hit you with their begs at their convenience and YOUR expense.

Advertising has made its way into movie theatres.  You pay $12-ish for a ticket, and what do you get besides a (usually bad) movie and a bunch of (usually worse) previews?  10 minutes of advertising.  DVD and Blu-ray disks are coming with advertising on them as well, often made unskippable. 

The percentage of advertising on television has grown markedly.  An episode of Star Trek from 1968 is 48 minutes long when you count the credits.  That meant 12 minutes of advertising.   A modern 1-hour time slot in Canada has only has 45 minutes of actual programming, and that limit is set to be removed on 1 September, 2009 - so expect advertising on Canadian TV to climb to US levels (often over 20 minutes of ads per hour, or more).

We see ads on every flat surface when we're out in public.  Every web site flings ads at us.  People even sell their own bodies for advertising.  Some places even put ads on barf bags... oddly appropriate I guess.

In fact, we're so inundated with advertising, that I'm pretty sure it's having an effect.  The effect is that we don't pay attention to it.  It's like the air - we ignore it unless it's disgusting, and then we cough and complain and move away.  That's what over-advertising has done.  I think advertisers even know this, although they probably won't admit it.  It is the failure of advertising to be highly effective that is causing advertisers to be more inventive in getting more ads in front of people.  Unfortunately, this causes people to become more inventive in ignoring the ads, which causes the advertisers to be still more aggressive.

It's time we, the public, put advertisers in their place.  Not only will doing this reduce the amount of advertising we all see, but it makes sense from a personal finance point of view.  It costs nothing and only takes a bit of personal discipline:  Stop buying shit just because you see it advertised.

That's right, grow a spine and don't buy something just because you see it advertised.  Did you really need an iPhone - there are lots of better telephones on the market?  Is a ShamWow really better than a rag from your husband's old shirt and did you need one?  Are you really cooler because you drink Coor's Light?  Advertisers win every time you cave in and buy something that you didn't need just because you saw it on TV or the web or wherever.  This, incidentally, is exactly what keeps spam email going.  Every time a person buys something from a spammer, it effectively generates about 12.5 million more spam emails.  Think about that the next time you put in your order for herbal viagra, or christian singles or whatever-the-hell-else they're flogging today.  Restricting your impulse purchases is difficult, but it's something that all of us could probably stand to do, and not just to stick it to advertisers.

There are other things you can do as well.

1. Complain every time you buy a DVD or Blu-Ray that comes with advertising.  This one REALLY pisses me off.  I've already dropped $15-$35 for a disk, and STILL it comes with ads.  I've paid the damn price, do I really need unskippable previews, advertisements and general bollocks?  Just give me the menu so I can watch the video I paid for.  Paying to see advertisements makes me furious.  I complain in writing, and I go out of my way not to buy things I see in this intrusive type of advertising... although I see very little because when I encounter an unskippable ad, I hit mute and leave the room - I know the disk will eventually stop at the menu.
2. Complain loudly every time you see non-movie-related ads at the theatre.  I can understand previews at a theatre, even though I don't tend to pay attention to them.  But Asuna, Coca Cola, and other ads for various products are an insult.  I've just paid $25 for tickets for me and my wife and another $25 for a chocolate bar, a beverage, and a popcorn... haven't I earned the right to sit there and not have some slimy salesman crawl over me like some kind of gigantic gastropod?  If movies were cheaper, I'd walk out, but when I'm already $25 to $50 downrange, I feel trapped - imprisoned might be a betterword.  Advertisers take note: these kinds of ads really do piss people off.  Theatre operators take note: Ads at the beginning are part of the reason less people are coming to your theatre.  Making people pay top dollar to see advertising means they take their dollars elsewhere (which leads to the previous situation).
3. Block cookies and advertising when you surf the net.  Install a cookie manager, or use a browser like Firefox that allows you a modicum of control over the cookies you accept (IE does to if you dig around in the internet options).  And by "a modicum of control over" I mean "to block".  Cookies can be useful.  If you're doing some kind of online exam or survey, or maybe visit a site regularly and set some preferences, you may need or want to have information remembered from one visit or page to the next.  Fine - that's what cookies were originally intended for.  Accept the cookie and be happy.  But most sites set cookies so they can track what you do and feed that information to advertisers.  You should never accept third-party cookies, for example.  If you visit XYZ.com, and it tries to set a doubleclick.net cookie, who do you think is using the information?  You can bet it's not XYZ.com.  I've blocked nearly all cookies for the last 7 years and I have to say, the number of sites I've been prevented from viewing is vanishingly small, and those few that did tell me to take a cookie or take a hike didn't have information that I couldn't get elsewhere.  In that same vein, you can use tools like Ad Block Plus to block advertisements in your web surfing.  They won't even come up.  When you do this, you will notice how little content a lot of web sites have.  You may be shocked.  Here's a simple example... CBC as you see it with ads, and without ads.  Heh, notice the Christian singles ad from Google.
4. Don't install those stupid toolbars:  Yahoo, Google, whatever.  Those toolbars are almost always spyware that sends information about your surfing habits to advertisers.  You don't need a Google toolbar: IE and Firefox allow you to set a default search engine anyway, if you're really too lazy to type www.google.com into the URL bar.
5. Don't click through ads.  If, off the odd chance, you do see something that interests you in an ad, go directly to their site by typing it into the URL bar.  The site you're coming from will still get a "referrer" link, but won't have to pay for an ad click-through, AND you won't be encouraging banner and other ads.
6. Make sure your government and your telephone providers know you won't tolerate advertising on your telephone, and certainly won't PAY to receive telemarketing calls, advertising SMS, and other bollocks.  File complaints when you get junk fax (you're paying for the faxer to give you that advertising).  Folks, this one is an issue right now.  Jump on it while you still can.
7. Don't sign up for free crap.  Whether it's a free Senators jersey for taking a credit card, or a free laptop if you'll just accept ads all around the outside, anywhere you sign up for something free means you're handing over your personal information to advertisers to use and abuse.  You are contributing to the problem.

Accept that the places you're going to want to be, and the things you want to do are going to cost money.  That money can be paid by advertisers to clutter up your life and waste your time, or it can be paid by you the consumer.  You have to decide which you prefer.  Me, I'd rather pay for the stuff I like and tell advertisers to hit the road.  I don't want to live in a carnival of hawkers flogging their snake-oil on my toilet paper and barf bags.  It's time to take a stand now before it gets worse.

As an aside, I can put ads on this blog, and I've had a number of offers to buy advertising space on this blog over the years - for a blog by a nobody, I have a decent Google page ranking and I (barely) get enough hits to justify it.  But I put my money where my mouth is - I don't put commercial ads here.

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* "Kibo" was a usenet user back in the early 90's who searched every post on usenet for specific words and sent out stupid emails and posts in response.  If you knew that, you're probably over 30 years old.  Google is, in essence, a commercialization of his insanity.  He should have patented the methodology, he'd be a zillionaire now.