Archive for May 2005

Apple has a recall of iBook and PowerBook computer batteries. If you have any of the three following models:

* 12-inch iBook G4
* 12-inch PowerBook G4
* 15-inch PowerBook G4)

Contact Apple at 800-275-2273 between 8am and 8pm CT Monday through Sunday or log into Apple’s Web site and check your battery’s serial number.

The recall is a result of an internal short that could cause the battery cells to overheat, which makes it a risk for a fire. So far, there have been only two reports have this incident in the US out of the 128,000 units sold in the US.

May’s The Remediator Security Digest has an enjoyable article that shows you how you can have fun with coworkers and learn a security lesson. Don’t worry, these donuts don’t have any calories!

I used to do monthly metrics. I liked doing the work, but coming up with better metrics was a whole ‘nother animal. I couldn’t get my mind to get in gear to do that. A reader asked about coming up with stats for management. Many came to his rescue.

Do you know anything about IDS or IPS? Someone needs information about it without the sales speak.

The software formerly known as Windows Mobile 2005 has a new name: Windows Mobile 5.0. Mr. Gates announced the new release last week. Microsoft wisely changed the name as I have Windows Mobile 2003 on my Pocket PC and it sounds old, doesn’t it? A whole two years! But I got it late last year.

I’m disappointed that I won’t be able to upgrade the Windows Mobile device to 5.0 unless I get a new device. Gee, I wonder who came up with the brilliant idea so it means more sales? Dell’s Axim x50 is exempt from this as the upgrade will be available.

Guess what? I’ve got a Dell x30. I had no reason to shell out extra bucks for the x50 when this isn’t my primary handheld device (use it to write my column in PC Today.). That would be the Tungsten T3. Prefer PalmOne devices over Windows Mobile. Why didn’t I get a reviewer’s PDA? Not that easy plus most hardware used in reviews have to be returned. I need to keep it for as long as I am writing for the column.

I was passed the musical baton by Krista Stevens.

Total volume of music files on my computer (just got an iPod, so it will change soon!):
159 songs – 274 MB

Last CD bought (I think!):
Mink Car – They Might Be Giants

Song playing:
“Everybody’s Got the Right” from Assassins

Five songs I listen to a lot (on a kick especially to block out speakerphone noise):
* “Everybody’s Got the Right” – Assassins

* “Ballad of Czolgosz” – Assassins

* “Unworthy of Your Love” – Assassins

* “Another National Anthem” – Assassins

* “All That Jazz” – Chicago

Stop laughing.

Five people to whom become the next victims… er… I’m passing this baton:

* Christine

* Robyn: busy prepping for big things… or rather, little things. But she loves Weezer.

* Dori

* Eric

* Jersey Meryl

* Pirillo

Feed the Kids Break

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I barely recall a life without the Internet. Partly due to my involvement with BBSes (bulletin board systems) prior to the Internet hitting the public scene. I have mentioned this before—I got my first modem (300 bps!) when I was 15. I didn’t use it much because I couldn’t find anything interesting.

I tried again at 16 and slowly started hanging out online more often. It was the first time I could communicate with people without being in person. Eventually, I met Paul (we celebrate our anniversary in June).

Yahoo and OMD, a media agency, commissioned a “cruel” study to see what happens when Internet users turn off the Internet for two weeks. Participants kept a diary of what they did and how they felt.

The Atlantic Monthly reported, “The diary entries were almost uniformly miserable: The subjects discovered—doubtless to Yahoo’s delight—that the Internet was more deeply embedded in their daily lives than they had realized. Activities such as checking box scores, e-mailing friends, booking travel, paying bills, and shopping were profoundly disrupted. Across the board, participants reported withdrawal-like feelings of loss, frustration, and disconnectedness after the plug was pulled.”

The article says, “The temptation to go online was so great that the participants were offered ‘life lines’—one-time, one-task forays onto the Web—to ease their pain.”

The research involved 28 participants who received $950 for their pain (it’d cost ‘em a lot more to get me on such a study). It took 750 people to find 28 willing participants. I’m pitiful. One of the reasons I am reluctant to go on vacation is because I’d fall too far behind on Web-related stuff. [ Resource: ETR ]

Present 1,000 Miles Away – Without Leaving Your Desk

You’re on the phone with your client, going through an RFP that you emailed them. You hear them flip through the pages. Suddenly, they ask: “How much will this cost?” This happens every day, right? Not with GoToMeeting, the easiest way to hold online meetings. You can present, share, and field questions – right from your desk. So you stop the “skip ahead syndrome” before it starts. Try it FREE now.

Someone must’ve spiked my coffee. I found two hats and decided to wear ‘em both. Mickey Mouse on Rx, no?

Happy 9th Birthday, Digital Web Magazine! This magazine is one of the best high quality resources for Web designers. I’ve had the honor of contributing a few articles and working as an editor. I wish I had more time on my hands, so I could do it again. Thanks to the magazine, I’ve met amazing and talented folks.

I remember when I first crossed paths with Nick Finck, its founder. I wrote the process article for A List Apart and somehow it led me to his Web site four years ago. Not long after, I fond myself contributing my first article followed by a few more. Anyhoo, congratulations, Nick!

How to protect your business

by Meryl K. Evans and Tamara Halbritter

Spam is not just an inconvenience. For legitimate businesses, it steals productivity, may erode your brand and rob you of revenue. Consider the following: In 2001, a European Commission study found the average worker spent 10 minutes a day sorting through unwanted solicitations. This figure could be quadrupled twice over by now.

According to this same study, the world’s Internet subscribers fork over $8.8 billion dollars a year just to glimpse these box cloggers with nauseating headlines like, “Get Rich Quick,” “Tired of your current job?” or “Free offer for (your name).” Not to mention the plethora of porn, useless items and limited time vacation packages.

The Business Software Alliance estimates that worldwide piracy-related losses to software industry were about $11 billion in 2001. That’s just software alone.

Many companies have no idea their products are being sold on the black market or their customers are tangled in credit card frauds thinking they ordered something from their organization and are about to receive zip. These shifty sales schemes cost companies billions of dollars each year in lost customers and sales of products and services.

In this article, William Plante, ASP director for Symantec Corporation, and Robert Alberti, CISSP, president of Sanction, Inc., provide information about how spam crimes are perpetrated. They explain what you need to know about spam and how to protect your organization against this persistent threat.

The ever-increasing spam scam

While Aunt Margaret may have served Hormel canned pork (SPiced hAM referred to as Spam), Robert Alberti, a security expert, says, “Like it or not, you knew what was in it. With Internet spam (unsolicited bulk email or unsolicited multiple postings to one or more Usenet newsgroups), you don’t always know what you’re getting. Some spam messages are convincing. Some are plain annoying. Whether spicy or not, many of them result in criminal offenses on a worldwide level.”

Producers of a popular product, a drug like Retin-A, a best-selling software program or a service such as a vacation package, are all economically affected by spammers. When people buy these knock-offs, legitimate companies lose money. Alberti continues, “When people order something and don’t receive it, your company gets a bad name.”

Two ways spam costs billions of dollars annually

William Plante, who formed and chaired Symantec’s Brand Protection Taskforce, classifies the costly effects of spam on businesses as: 1) brand erosion and 2) revenue erosion.

Brand erosion. When someone receives spam for a particular product, repeatedly, they get irritated with a deluge of “buy, buy, buy.” Unfortunately, this person usually doesn’t realize the messages are coming from people not authorized to sell these products. A company’s brand name can be tarnished when its customers pay for a transaction, believing it’s legitimate and then receive nothing. Eventually, they may find out you were not the responsible party, but their image of you has already changed for the worse.

Revenue erosion. When customers buy imitations or illegitimate versions of your product, this decreases the revenue flow to your organization. Spammers make their money through revenue erosions. Spam Filter Review published figures stating an estimated 12.4 billion spam e-mails are sent each day and spam comprises 40 percent of all email. Obviously, their return on investment is high. Once they get hooked, most spammers continue scamming until they’re booked for fraud.

The bad taste of e-organized crime

Most spammers are calculated members of organized crime and continue to spread it. Besides sending missives under aliases (the FTC calls this false representation, which is a crime), two of the other crimes related to spam are felonies and fall in these categories: 1) pirating or bootlegging software or other products (people think they are buying a legitimate copy, but the one they receive is illegitimate); and 2) credit card fraud (never shipping the item). Information, such as credit card numbers, is sometimes transmitted over an unsecured network during these transactions. The numbers can be easily stolen and later sold to other criminals on the black market.

Plante draws on his own company’s experience for his diligence in helping stop spam. In 2002, $41 million or nearly 600,000 boxes of quality counterfeit Symantec software such as Norton AntiVirus, Norton Personal Firewall and pcAnywhere were seized. Regarding the biggest software incident in the industry, Plant says, “That was a turning point for us. We didn’t want to ever be that blind or vulnerable to that problem again.” Since that time, his company has taken many steps toward putting spammers where they belong.

Putting spammers in the can

In legal circles, much time and attention have been spent on eradicating spam by going to the source of the spam itself, whether the message was sent from an individual disguised as another source or from a large mail group list through yahoo.com, excite.com or hotmail.com.

Instead of trying to legislate after the spam has been received, however, Plante recommends going to the end of the line, where the spammer gets paid. He describes the Internet as, “a wild frontier without much regulation.” He continues, “As soon as one e-commerce site closes down, another one opens up within hours. Because there are very few rules on the Internet, there are many ways spam can proliferate. Instead of stopping the spread of spam at the recipient, it’s much more effective to turn it back on the spammer.”

The Federal Trade Commission has passed laws strengthening criminal apprehension rather than regulating the actual sending of spam. This supports ending spam by following the money trail and hitting criminals hard in their money belts. If a spammer receives money, you can take legal action to stop the fraud, be it black market products or credit card fraud. Plant advises, “Once you stop their revenue stream, the spam will stop.”

Yet, while stopping one spammer is great, there are thousands out there. Due to the huge expense for businesses around the world, we urge organizations, whether small or large, to take action. One way to get started is by creating a task force.

Take action: Create a brand protection task force

A brand protection task force lets you fight back by protecting your brand and monitoring all spam-related activity. This involves setting up a process to handle spam complaints and organizing a team to tackle the spam problem.

A desirability assessment is one tool useful to a brand protection task force. The assessment asks your team these questions: Are you are household name? Has your product or services hit the level where spammers will want to steal them from you? How high is your risk for spam-related brand or revenue erosion?

Regarding determining your risk level, Plant says, “If your company is small and you don’t have a popular commodity, the chance of being affected by spam is less. You may want to put some things in place, but not create a full program.”

Once you assess the need for this kind of a task force, you can clarify your focus. This includes how you want to be set up organizationally, how involved each task member will be, and how much money you want to spend on the process.

With your task force in place, you’ll be ready to stop spammers in their tracks. Read the next article in this series from these security experts for five more strategies that will help you prevent brand and revenue erosion. You’ll even find out how your e-newsletter can help your campaign against spam. Watch for the article in the next issue of eNewsletter Journal.

William Plante is ASP director, Worldwide Security and Brand Protection for Symantec Corporation, the world leader in Internet security technology with a broad range of content and network security software and appliance solutions. In 2002, Plante formed and chaired Symantec’s Brand Protection Taskforce. In this role, he was responsible for developing Symantec’s strategy for identifying, assessing and countering counterfeit and piracy threats to the company.

Robert Alberti, CISSP, is the president of Sanction Inc., a team of highly-skilled business and technical experts who provide strategic, tactical and operational guidance for all levels of an organization. Alberti’s team keeps operations safer, more secure and working efficiently. Currently, he is writing a book about protecting the bottom line with business-driven security practices.

Meryl K. Evans is an editor, wordsmith and writer for InternetVIZ and other resources. The content maven is available for editing, writing and jazzing up articles and copy. Tamara Halbritter is a writer for InternetVIZ and other clients, an article and book editor for publishers, and is available to help you say what you mean. InternetVIZ is a custom publisher for companies wishing to find, acquire and retain customers through Internet newsletters.

It’s so cool to see your words translated into another language as my A List Apart article has been translated to Spanish at Manual de Diseño Digital. Here’s the first paragraph:

“Proceso, Metodología, Ciclo de vida: no importa cómo llames el proceso de gestionar tu proyecto de diseño desde comienzo a fin, te puede salvar el pellejo. Te encuentras con un cliente que quiere que le diseñes un sitio web. Ningún problema, eso es lo que tú haces. ¿Has experimentado lo siguiente?”

If you own the first edition, you won’t experience déjà vu while reading the second edition. The new one has many changes that you won’t recognize it. Whether you’re a power PC user or a casual one, you will benefit from the book. Because of the wide array of topics covered, I can’t imagine many geeks who know all of these tips. Sure, you can find ‘em all someplace on the Internet, but finding time for that kind of searching would prove challenging. [ Read review ]