W3C responsible for junk emails and pop-ups!

[#1]

http://labs.pcw.co.uk/2009/08/dont-blame-the.html

Quote

It's not their fault when you receive spam, or when you receive annoying pop-up adverts. You might think that's self evident. But not, apparently, to some internet users, according to a friend I know who works for the W3C. He's recently found that he's been spending time fielding comments and complaints from slightly annoyed internet users who've received junk emails, or unwanted pop-ups. They look at the source code of the page, and right at the beginning, they see the Document Type Definition, or DTD line, with it's reference to W3C and a w3.org URL. And then they leap to the conclusion that because there's a URL from w3.org in the spam, or pop-up, then they must be the people who made it appear. Some are particularly insistent, and one only relented when it was suggested he look at the source of his own website, and ponder whether or not the W3C had created it for him. So, before you look for URLs to complain to in spam and pop-ups, think and don't vent your spleen at the wrong people.

[#2]

Indeed  - but then not every webmaster puts that DTD line in the site code !  even though W3C advises that you should !

[#3]

I'm actually surprised that some internet users would check the source code, just because I assume that most internet users fall into the two camps, the newbie and then the techie type. Those that had the savvy to check the source code I would have assumed they would have known about W3C. Just goes to show that more and more internet users are gaining knowledge, even though it is incomplete.

[#4]

Quote from: mal0z

Indeed  - but then not every webmaster puts that DTD line in the site code !  even though W3C advises that you should !

Personally I've never used it myself!
@mentalist: You're quite right. Looking at the source isn't really going to achieve much unless there's a wacking great comment in there saying "SENT BY..." kinda thing.
Typically I'll hit nic.com and perform a whois and run some more tests on dnsstuff.com until I get to the bottom of it all.

[#5]

The problem is more and more people these days consider themselves to be experts, and know everything about computers, when in reality they only actually know slightly more than a noob.  The problem with this is they can be quite dangerous with what they sometimes break!
Phil

[#6]

Also a problem is that some IT guys also consider themselves to be expert radio and line transmission engineers - which they patently may not be  -
unless they also studied and qualified in radio and line telecommunication engineering 

[#7]

Quote from: pjmarsh

The problem is more and more people these days consider themselves to be experts, and know everything about computers, when in reality they only actually know slightly more than a noob.  The problem with this is they can be quite dangerous with what they sometimes break! Phil

I'd agree with that. I've come across loads of people like that and when you realise how little they know its scary how they've got so far!
I had to explain once to a qualified IT tech what a system tattoo was. He hadn't got a clue.. then he asked why I wasn't working in his dept. The worrying thing was that not many of his colleagues were much better either.
In my last job one of our computers went down. IT took it away... a week later it came back. I asked what they did to repair it that took so long. She said "We just replaced the hard drive with another one that had the same windows setup already installed on it"  - A week to do that?! I'd of done it in situ and saved everyone the hassle.

[#8]

Minds me when I had a problem with my computer restarting automatically every time I shut it down. The techy wanted to strip my PC down to remove dust that might be collected on the drives, as the source of the error (apparently the dust could be affecting the contacts or something and stopping the PC shutting down correctly). Since I couldn't afford the time the PC would be away for, I searched Google and different forums for solutions and finally narrowed the cause down. It turned out my BIOS was set to Wake on LAN and is now fixed, much simpler than stripping down the PC and removing any dust collected.