Archive for the ‘privacy & security’ Category

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Web 3.0 Thinking is In the Clouds

Monday, May 11th, 2009

Although pretty heady stuff for a simple blog like this, the Aspen Institute recently released an eBook on cloud computing and the affects it may have on society in the coming years.

daybreak_miami

Arguably the ultimate expression of the web, “the cloud” is defined by A.I. as “a vast, always on, accessible, broadband-enabled next-generation Internet that is fast approaching.”

It will be a time where applications and data become a shared and distributed cyber-sea of information, communications and services, and with this evolution comes a huge set of issues around the idea of “identity.” Defining identity, validating it, preserving it, making it hack-proof and building reputation around it are just a few of the issues examined in the report.

You can read the report for yourself, here.

The report concludes by saying, “The cloud will usher in a seismic shift in the locus of control in our culture, and it will have ripple effects in all walks of life—energy, the environment, national security, learning, health care, business processes, emerging markets and much more. The cloud is about open access, rapid delivery of services, the ability to scale quickly and the power of networks. Ultimately, though, the cloud story is not just about computing, communication or information but about empowering citizens.”

A pretty worthwhile read, I guess….

KidWithMatches is the personal blog of Pete Eberbach, VP Director of Online Marketing & Technology with St. John + Partners.

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Posted in bandwidth, blogs, browsers, crowdsourcing, customer experience, innovation, legal issues, mobile, online marketing, privacy & security, search stuff, social networks | No Comments »

The World is Being Backed Up 200′ Underground

Tuesday, April 21st, 2009

This is pretty amazing.

6 square miles of underground storage in Pennsylvania where 400,000 pc’s and 20,000 servers are backed up each day.

It’s the Iron Mountain storage center in Boyers. You can read all about it in the Times Online.

iron_mountain

KidWithMatches is the personal blog of Pete Eberbach, VP Director of Online Marketing & Technology with St. John + Partners.

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Posted in bandwidth, online marketing, privacy & security | No Comments »

Google Street View Part of Cops 2.0

Friday, January 9th, 2009

I know a lot of people hate the invasion of privacy of Google’s Street View. They don’t like the idea of someone driving by filming their neighborhood, or the ease of accessibility of scoping out your property.

On the other hand, here’s a pretty interesting upside of Street View from an article yesterday in Search Engine Land.

Apparently a girl was kidnapped by a family member, and police in Massachusetts tracked the girl via cell phone GPS, and then verified her location and setting via Google Street View.

Very Web 2.0 meets CIS. Nice job, Officer Neale!

Here’s the original article.

KidWithMatches is the personal blog of Pete Eberbach, VP Director of Online Marketing & Technology with St. John + Partners.

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Norton Security Deserves Root Canal

Monday, January 5th, 2009

I don’t profess to be an IT guy, in spite of working in technology, although I help my wife’s home business in this capacity.

Over the holiday she asked me to check out one of her computers because it was spawning messages that looked suspicious to her and she wanted to make sure the computer hadn’t picked up a virus.

It turned out to be messaging from a trial installation of Norton Security Scan that must have come with the computer. Because Trend Micro is installed, running and paid for a year, I told her I would erase the installation of Norton so she wouldn’t be further bothered.

Wishful thinking.

Norton has apparently installed this in such a way that it’s re-spawning outside the Windows XP environment, because I deleted it through control panel twice, only to have it re-load itself during the reboot process. Also, after the THIRD DELETION, I searched and deleted every file incidence of “symantec” and “norton” in both the directory structure and registry….and again it re-spawned. Evil. Pure evil.

Once I searched the web for “can’t delete Norton Security Scan” I found a bunch of posts about this problem, most of whom share my opinion of the malicious nature of Norton’s trial installation.

I downloaded a program designed to erase the Norton installation (symNRT.exe), ran the delete routine through XP and then ran the delete software, and FINALLY the trial installation of Norton was gone.

Needless to say, Norton is on my “do not buy” list after this. Try Trend Micro if you’re searching for a good firewall/security suite for your computer or home network.

Here’s a couple links if you’re having the same issue:

MajorGeeks.com

BleepingComputer.com

KidWithMatches is the personal blog of Pete Eberbach, VP Director of Online Marketing & Technology with St. John + Partners.

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Posted in SPAM, customer experience, online marketing, privacy & security | No Comments »

2/3 of All SPAM Killed Yesterday (temporarily)

Thursday, November 13th, 2008

Amazingly, and unfortunately only temporary, a group of ISP’s effectively killed 2/3 of US email spam yesterday by closing down unscrupulous California hosting provider, McColo. Here’s the original release in CrunchGear.

Apparently a similar phenomenon occurred some weeks ago with the blocking of Intercage, but within about a week, the spammers relocated, largely to McColo, and re-established themselves.

It’s a bit mind-numbing that so much obnoxious SPAM could be concentrated in one hosting solution. The somewhat vigilante solution provided by this group of ISP’s is the only effective anti-SPAM activity, as the courts are bogged down in where SPAM falls in the grand scheme of free speech.

Certainly the CAN-SPAM Act (Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing) was a partial solution. However, it only provides that:

  • False and misleading header information is banned
  • Deceptive subject lines are prohibited
  • Opt-out methods must be provided
  • Commercial email must be identified as an advertisement and it must include the sender’s valid physical postal address
  • Receivers must be warned of sexually explicit material

We need a “do not email” registry that has law enforcement behind it, so that these companies can effectively be neutralized. It certainly won’t be the end of SPAM, but it will greatly reduce it and the cloud cover it provides for all of the malwear and viruses hidden in the email assault.

KidWithMatches is the personal blog of Pete Eberbach, VP Director of Online Marketing & Technology with St. John + Partners.

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Posted in ISP's, SPAM, customer experience, email marketing, legal issues, online marketing, privacy & security | No Comments »

You May Already be Hijacked

Thursday, June 19th, 2008

I missed this article in January, but happened upon a link to it in reading this article about the recent spate of SPAM.

If you read the January article, you may become as alarmed as me about the influx of botnets, and the estimated 10% of all computers infected by such malware. We all know we’re being attacked by viruses and spyware all the time, but this percentage of computers under someone else’s control, especially when users don’t realize they’ve been hacked, is pretty alarming.

Granted, the information is coming from spyware and security companies who have a vested interest in scaring us into upgraded purchases of their products, but the prognosis is pretty dire and the solutions temporary.

Suffice it to say, if you haven’t already scrubbed and sanitized your online behavior, this should be your wake-up call.

clipped from www.nytimes.com

Attack of the Zombie Computers Is Growing Threat

blog it

KidWithMatches is the personal blog of Pete Eberbach, VP Director of Online Marketing & Technology with St. John + Partners.

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Virtual Crime Begets Habbo Time

Tuesday, November 27th, 2007

OK. The line’s starting to blur.

The headline in Ananova reads: “Teen Arrested for Virtual Theft”, and goes on to briefly describe the virtual world of Habbo Hotel, and a 17-year old who stole furniture valued at 2,500 pounds from members of the community.

Call it “Grand Theft Furniture.”

The furniture was originally purchased for game credits, but the credits are first paid for in cash, so it’s real theft. But the benefit to the thief is merely to spruce up their virtual hotel room and have a little more stroke in the virtual community.

I get it, but I don’t get it. Know what I mean?

I understand that peer esteem can be a powerful motivator, and might cause people to steal.

But for a virtual world to have this same influence, such that the kid in question would be motivated to build fake Habbo web sites and pfish identity information to then invade community members’ accounts and steal furniture is a bit tough to understand.

Maybe because the money is only pseudo-real, “coins” in the nomenclature of the game (that, in real money, cost about $.20 apiece), it doesn’t seem real. So then, it’s more of a prank than a theft.

But when you can’t outfit your hotel room the way you dream of because you don’t have enough real money to buy the game coins to in turn buy the furniture, you KNOW you’re commiting a crime.

So fine, it’s crime and should be prosecuted. My real conundrum, is how anyone can get so caught up in a virtual world to the point that they resort to real crime, make that FELONY crime, with nothing more than a “virtual” reward.

I think I may need to take a pill or something.

Here’s the article.

KidWithMatches is the personal blog of Pete Eberbach, VP Director of Online Marketing & Technology with St. John + Partners.

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Posted in gaming, online marketing, privacy & security, social networks, viral campaigns | No Comments »

MineKey Monkey on Your Back?

Friday, August 3rd, 2007

Personalization and stickiness. Great attributes for any web site. People get what they want and your site builds brand equity and sales. Perfect.

In these continuing pursuits, MineKey offers a “better” web experience by logging online behavior and using this insight as a determinant of what a particular web site will serve a visitor on various pages of the site. Unlike many other behavioral tracking tools, MineKey combines a particular site visitor’s past behavior, with those of other visitors to that particular site, and then serves whatever content that site offers that MineKey thinks you most want to consume.

You can read all about it, including some interesting comments here.

OK so far, and pretty cool, although I would argue that an astute webmaster will know which content is most compelling, and how best to tell their own story, versus relying on the algorithm to do it. But that’s beside the point.

What concerns me is the privacy policy MindKey offers, which says, in part: “Minekey anonymously tracks the individual user’s browsing history and does not capture personally identifiable information without your user’s consent.”

Although it’s not being discussed much, this is triggering a loud buzzer in the privacy alert center (PAC) in my brain. Obviously, they are tracking this information, but only sharing it occasionally. “With consent.”

OK, show of hands. Who among us would willingly allow a behavioral tracking tool to also log our personal information and share it? Anyone?…….anyone?……Bueller?

Why would it ever be in our best interests to have our personal information logged by a behavioral tracking tool and associated with our online activities?

As we continue to try to define best practices and make the web a safer place to spend time, anything that potentially documents personal information should be first under the microscope.

While MineKey looks like an excellent tool to help understand how our sites are working and better matching content to guest interests, there is no consumer benefit to having personal information even occasionally logged, so this should simply never be under consideration.

KidWithMatches is the personal blog of Pete Eberbach, VP Director of Online Marketing & Technology with St. John & Partners.

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Google Plays Both Ends and the Middle

Thursday, August 2nd, 2007

Google’s interest in the wireless space continues to draw press, and today another mini-milestone in this pursuit was reported.

As discussed last week, Google has shown strong interest in the upcoming auctions of both radio spectrum and UHF television spectrum, both due to become available over the next 18-24 months.

Now, there is confirmation of the rumors about Google developing its own web browsing cell phone, and talking to cell carriers about bringing it to market. As reported in the Wall St. Journal, Google is having discussions with many of the major cell phone operators to integrate Google Search with their web services.

What’s at stake? A major piece of the estimated $14B worldwide wireless ad revenue (by 2011). A piece of the more than $110B in worldwide phone equipment sales, and a potential piece of carrier service revenue if Google offers its own ad-supported cell service.

The surround-sound potential of advertising on a combined internet-wireless network of Google’s is fairly incredible, particularly as IPTV and other entertainment services pour online. The day could soon come when all significant advertising channels, with the exception of outdoor display, are possible to implement via Google.

KidWithMatches is the personal blog of Pete Eberbach, VP Director of Online Marketing & Technology with St. John & Partners.

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Posted in ISP's, bandwidth, browsers, innovation, legal issues, mobile, online marketing, privacy & security, search stuff, social networks | No Comments »

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