Well, two of the three things that were supposed make me better did happen - for last thing, Pistons beating Nets, I might have to wait till Eastern Conference paly-offs. However, there were other things that made up for Pistons’ loss. A short photographic outing in the snow-melting grounds of McLain State Park (you must see the pictures - semi-molten Superior shoreline, chunks of snow floating around… and not so cold breeze - pure pleasure), then dinner with Dr. John Vail in The Library - topics of discussions this time hovered around computers, travel, big cities, purity of French Chocolate, sports, sports-statistics, and so on. I did learn quite a bit, as always.

Work week too got off to a decent start - I restarted the 231-step calculation, and wondering about how to force passwd not to accept stupid passwords (after a short discussion with Dave Kraus), then contrary to all my expectations, I receive an email from Google! AdSense Team - giving some information about appealing disabling of my account. I did send them all the required information they asked for, along with my guessed-explanation for so called invalid clicks. It remains to be seen as to what will happen to my appeal.

From xxxxx@google.com Mon Mar 27 13:26:39 2006
Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2006 09:11:19 -0800
From: Google AdSense
To: Gowtham S
Subject: Re: [#xxxxxxxx] *Google AdSense Account Disabled

Hello,

As you know, Google treats instances of invalid clicks very seriously. By disabling your account, we feel that we have taken the necessary measures to ensure that invalid clicks will not continue to occur on your site. Due to the proprietary nature of our monitoring system, we’re not able to disclose any specific details of these clicks.

Publishers disabled for invalid click activity are not allowed further participation in Google AdSense. However, if you can maintain in good faith that the invalid clicks we detected on your ads were not due to your actions or negligence, or the actions or negligence of others working for you, you may appeal the closing of your account.

Google reserves sole discretion in considering whether to take any action on an appeal. In order to appeal the disabling of your account, please email us at xxxxx@google.com with the details requested below. Please compose a new email and do not reply to this message. We’re unable to consider appeals that do not contain all of this information:

- Your name
- Your company’s name (if applicable)
- Your publisher ID number (located in the AdSense code on your website with the format, pub-################)
- Your website’s URL
- Date your account was disabled
- Your website’s audience
- The source of your website’s content
- Frequency of content updates
- The primary sources of your website’s traffic
- The number of people involved with the administration of the site
- Any relevant information that you believe would explain the invalid click activity we detected

If Google decides to evaluate your appeal, we will do our best to inform you quickly and will proceed with appropriate action as necessary. If we have reached a decision on your appeal, subsequent or duplicate appeals may not be considered.

Sincerely,

The Google AdSense Team

Continuing with research and school related work, I tried compiling ICECAP - as initial attempts failed, I re-wrote the makefile and compilation succeeded. However, the test calculation (which should have taken about 20-30 minutes) took just couple seconds. I am more than convinced that something went wrong with the compilation process. LUG members (Jon - the Security Hole and Kyle) helped me with my passwd problem and the procedure is given in Note2Self page - it will definitely make users’ life lot more difficult but importantly, it will keep the system secure by forcing stronger passwords. I will wait until tomorrow before implementing in our group’s beowulf cluster.