Internet, Security, Privacy, and Techology

Google Strengthens Its Security Position

2007-07-10T15:14:00.000-07:00

Google has been known for its attention to keeping their user's information secure. Now Google has added a new security acquisition to their portfolio. Google purchased Postini for $625 million.

Postini, is a company that specializes in "protecting businesses worldwide from a wide range of email, instant messaging (IM) and web threats, and provides message archiving and encryption - all in one unified platform."

Postini has a client base of over 35,000 companies, with the likes of Hormel Foods Corporation, Johnson Controls, Jenny Craig, inc., LSI Logic, Circuit City, and Merrill Lynch just to name a few of their clients.

With their software, businesses rout email and other forms of online communications through Postini data centers. This helps filter out the spam and malicious content before it ever gets to a customer's network.

Google plans to make available the Postini products for use through the Google Apps. Enterprise customers will now have even more secure communications tools without the expense of having to support in-house solutions.

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Dateline NBC Goes Hunting For ID Thieves

2007-04-09T23:28:00.000-07:00

Dateline NBC aired a report on Tuesday, April 3, to catch an i.d. thief

This in-depth article goes into the details of how the Internet is used by thieves around the world. The crime is International in scope and is very difficult to track down the actual thieves. There are online chat rooms where stolen credit card information, bank account passwords, and personal information is sold for as little as $5.00 dollars apiece. Once the information is bought, the use of the information occurs in just a few minutes online.

Dateline did an investigation using bait cards provided by credit card companies and placing the card information for sale on underground chat rooms. The bait is taken in minutes. Then, the credit card monitoring firm shows actual charges with in minutes of the card information being sold. The thieves start out by seeing if the card will go through for a small charge donation at a charity. Once this is accomplished, then just a few minutes later the card is used at various places around the country with the $1000.00 limit maxed out in no time. Other cards were also used and maxed out around the globe in minutes and seconds.

This form of i.d. theft is estimated to cost the US economy to the tune of $5 billion dollars a year.

The surprising aspect of this crime is that it is being orchestrated by individuals or groups from outside the United States. This makes it extremely difficult to prosecute, let alone track down the thieves.

The thieves prey on single moms and people looking for love in all the wrong places. Many of the men and women become unsuspecting accomplices and are thinking that they are helping their future spouse set up a business in another country. These men and women seem to have fallen for the love connection. They collect the products that are shipped to them, and then re-ship the products to other countries including: Africa, Australia, and others. With the promise of love, these men and women are many times using their own money to ship the products out of the United States. The reason for the middle man operation is because many of the companies refuse to ship their products overseas.

Dateline was able to track down some of the places being shipped to in Africa. However, this did little in the way of being able to stop the thievery. Once the final destination drop spots were discovered, the authorities did nothing to shut down or prosecute the perpetrators. Many times the perpetrators would use an Internet Cafe in a downtown Africa nation and simply do their buying, selling, and communications online with their middle men right there.

So, what's the answer for this global crime? Many countries don't have any laws on the books to stop it, and the thieves know it. The International criminals take the attitude of so what if they are stealing, they know nothing will happen to them. The world lives in an ethical vacuum today.

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Can I Trust My Email Address With That Website?

2006-09-28T21:50:00.000-07:00

The Internet is like the Wild Wild West. It is the final frontier, with lots of hazards to watch out for.

Consumers are signing up for free information by email, downloading freeware programs, and buying products and services online. How do you know if a website is secure or going to release your email address to the spammers?

One of the ways in which people are fighting the online fraud is with disposable email address. When someone sees or reads something that they are interested in, a person may have one or several email addresses to use when they sign up for something online. However, many websites are requiring more information, or permanent email addresses, and herein lies the problem.

The trust issue is the main ingredient when dealing with any company. If a company's online privacy policy states that they share information with other advertising members or a conglomeration network has hundreds of other websites, will I then get tons of spam if I sign up for something? Then, even after reading privacy policies that supposedly do not share information, how can I be sure the company can be trusted?

McAfee is one company that has come out with a very cool automated tool that can give you a quick check of what is going on. The program is McAfee SiteAdvisor. The program can tell you before you even go to a website from the search engine results pages if a website is good or bad. With indicators of green, yellow, or red flag warnings of what to watch out for from each website.

It is an excellent program that works in tandem with your browser. It can be used for both Internet Explorer or Firefox.

The automated system for checking websites is very unique. The program checks for all types of Internet threats. "They built a system of automated testers which continually patrol the Web to browse sites, download files, and enter information on sign-up forms. They document all these results and supplement them with feedback from their users, comments from Web site owners, and analysis from their own employees."
Go to McAfee SiteAdvisor to download the software.

While you are at their website take the McAfee SiteAdvisor Spam Quiz. This quiz will test you to see if you can spot the websites that will produce the spam. They provide the privacy policies from the websites to read and you can analyze the privacy information. I have to say that I read lots of privacy policies on the Web. Many of these policies are opened ended invitations to share your email address with virtually everyone. So, I fully expected to get a 100% on my grade. I missed one. After you take the test look at the results for all of the people that have taken the test so far. I think you will be surprised at the numbers of people that got it wrong.

While reading a privacy policy is important for a consumer today, the legal mumbo jumbo, and the length of these policies can be difficult to overcome. That is where having this program can be a great benefit for everyone. Check out your favorite websites. Can you trust them?

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Glib On Privacy

2006-03-19T21:22:00.000-08:00

I have seen the Internet grow from its infancy to where it is today with billions of pages of information.

Many individuals, both older and younger take online privacy very lightly. The younger crowd is using the MySpace.com area for sharing way too much personal information in my opinion. This younger group of people haven't a clue how this could possibly affect them in the future when prospective employers will be doing background checks of individuals online. The older group of individuals also are unaware of the power of online search.

To really understand the implications of privacy online, one only has to do a Google , Yahoo, and MSN Search on themselves. To do this may require a little advanced search engine search techniques, especially if you have a common name like, Joe Smith.

Here are a few helpful insights into doing a search for yourself.

We will use Joe Smith as our example for Google Search.

First try just doing a search for Joe Smith. In this particular example it shows a large number of Joe Smiths. To filter it further try doing a search with "Joe Smith" in quotes as shown. This will bring up the exact results for the name in quotes. This produces less search engine results but does not exactly break it into just one particular individual. Try adding a middle initial or middle name to the search criteria. Then filter it down even further to the area of the country or world. For example, let's say that your are a Joe Smith, living in Washington. Then just add the word Washington after your name in the search box. "First I. Last" State

Most people are surprised by the number of online results for their names. This might be OK for individuals that understand the privacy aspect, but have chosen a high profile profession. Others on the other hand might not understand the implications of writing online, or having their company post an online directory, or being a member of a club in which their name is picked up by the search engines.

A little advice for those wishing to maintain as much privacy as they can. Consider carefully where you post your name online. If you are a member of a club or if your company has a directory ask that your name or even your email address be kept offline. Do regular background searches on yourself. Use all of the major search engines to double and triple check.

Writers and journalists, be careful of who you quote, even in newspaper reporting. Consider the privacy of individuals. News stories are picked up and published online. Consider the ethics aspect when reporting. Bloggers too should follow ethical standards when publishing information online.

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It Pays to Fight the Good Fight

2006-03-18T01:02:00.000-08:00

In a victory for Privacy, Google Stands Up To The Government

Google Wins Ruling on Turning Over Search Queries to Government

March 18 (Bloomberg) -- Google Inc. won a partial victory in a battle with the government when a federal judge ruled yesterday that the company didn't have to turn over customer search queries to the U.S. Justice Department.

As far as I am concerned, this is a major victory for everyone.

As time went on, the government's demands for search information had dwindled down from asking for billions of urls and a entire week's worth of search results, then "1 million Web addresses and a week's worth," then "50,000 Web sites indexed by Google and the text results of 5,000 random search requests," and finally they wanted "10,000 of the Web sites and 1,000 of the search requests." See Fed's Google Search Limited

In the ruling the only thing that Google has to give is a random sample of 50,000 web addresses.

US District Judge, James Ware, San Jose, California ordered Google and the Justice Department to come up with a method to randomly select the 50,000 Web addresses in a way that would not force Google to disclose any confidential information. He gave both sides until April 3 to raise any problems with the confidentiality requirement.

This is a win for Google and online privacy rights. No other search engine even considered standing up to the government and say No. The other Search Engines simply handed over all the data requested by the government a long time ago.

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Internet Privacy Concerns

2006-02-27T23:44:00.000-08:00

ID Privacy Concerns

No matter what your take is on the ACLU, I think they certainly have a point with this one. As Internet technology continues to expand, the reverse occurs with a decrease in our privacy. Click the Privacy Concerns above for a Web look at the amount of ID information that is at the government's fingertips.

Privacy must be protected. So, you think you have nothing to hide, think again.

Defense of Controversial Internet Law Does Not Justify "Fishing Expedition," ACLU Says

Plaintiffs' Response to Motion to Compel Google

Privacy & Technology:
The tremendous explosion in surveillance-enabling technologies, combined with the ongoing weakening in legal restraints that protect our privacy have us drifting toward a surveillance society. The ACLU's Technology and Liberty Project fights this trend and works to preserve the American tradition that the government not track individuals or violate privacy unless it has evidence of wrongdoing.

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Google For The People, Government Against The People

2006-01-23T22:25:00.000-08:00

In a follow-up story from E-Commerce News: Portals and Search: Google Playing for High Stakes in Fight With Feds are some additional insights involving privacy, security, and business privacy.

First off, we should all be backing Google in this fight. I don't care what the reasons for Google standing up to the government. I honestly believe that there are numerous reasons why Google is taking this stance.

First, for the government to say that no personal information would be reveled is ridiculous. For example, the government could look up how many times someone has searched on the name "James A. Warholic". What if by some strange situation that my name were to fall into another website that was not even related to what it is that I do. This happens more often than people would imagine. People steal information online simply by copying whole texts in order to try and get their websites to the top of the search results. This in turn gets copied, and copied again to hundreds and in some cases thousands of websites all over the world. What if one of these websites were on the government's list of potential problem areas for anything at all. Would you want your name showing up on some government list? What if in the process of Googling yourself or your friends, and your name, or their name is in one of those questionable web pages through no fault of their own, and you click on that website page, are you now a marked target by the US Government?

The government is saying that it is not asking for individual names or searches. But, with the right algorithm built to extract certain key data, the government could match up certain patterns for just about everything. Details of your lives, details of your business, what patterns are searched for and when, along with a myriad of various possibilities. They could extract what Christian sites are visited and when. The government could even group searches by conservative and liberal. They could determine how many times the word gun or other keywords are used online along with what websites have that keyword in it. Think about your friends and relatives that have written blogs about all types of personal data with a keyword here or there, that might trigger the "Red Flag". Even accidently clicking a spam email could hyperlink to an off-limits site. Additionally, individual IP addresses do show up in searched for results. Many times bloggers and other websites are displaying their search results online and these would certainly get cataloged by all the search engines. These could be traced back if the government chose to demand the IP records from the ISP, Internet Service Providers.

From E-Commerce News article

"Companies are at risk too. Think about what employees search for in the course of the day. That information can reveal a lot about what is going on at a particular company -- whether it is preparing for a product launch, or researching a new demographic, or preparing for a lawsuit," said Andrew Krcik, vice president of marketing for PGP.

Global Passwords And Online Security At Risk

This type of action could even reveal security passwords and other private information such as your personal and business email addresses, or banking, and securities, and investments. The Google Search bar has been used more and more by people doing all types of actions. Actions such as typing in phone numbers, addresses, and sometimes even typing a password in by accident to the search bar as opposed to another area of the web browser.

I for one am backing Google 100% on this one. The other search engines have already given in to this without even a fight. I think it is in the best interest of everyone in the country, no matter if you are a conservative or liberal, Republican or Democrat, to seriously think about the implications of this latest government action. Talk about it with family and friends, write about it online, send an email or FAX to your congressman. Do what ever it takes to support Google with your privacy.

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A Threat To Privacy On The Internet

2006-01-19T22:07:00.000-08:00

RED FLAG: The Government Wants Your Searches

A story came out today from the San Jose Mercury News via Techdirt about the government having subpoenaed Google and other Search Engines to turn over a week's worth of records to see what is being searched for online. This all in the name of a Web fishing trip from US government lawyers trying to make a point about the Child Online Protection Act (COPA) being necessary. The law was struck down in 2004 because of it being too broad, but the courts gave the government another shot at trying to prove their case.

To date, Google has initially refused to comply with the government subpoena; vigorously defending its position. Techdirt has reported that, "Google is defending its decision by saying that it's both a violation of the privacy of its users and that turning over the data would reveal trade secrets."

Additionally, the Techdirt report also stated, "It's now been confirmed that Yahoo, MSN and AOL were all asked and complied, though it appears that some (such as Yahoo) simply gave search terms with no identification information."

These reports are very troubling for a number of issues. Certainly the first of which is Internet privacy concerns. The other major issue which quite frankly is a potential for more problems is the ease at which the other search engines have complied with the subpoena. It appears as though there was very little opposition given by Yahoo, MSN, and AOL. If this is true, then this is extremely troubling because they are not defending the privacy issues at all. Yahoo, MSN, and AOL should all be making the same bold moves for defending the privacy of their users.

Google has done the right thing in fighting against this government move. While the information that the government wants at the moment is not each individual's search results, they are attempting to get the details of the totality of the searched for keywords. This all in their Web eFishing trip to try and give the courts the information to pass a law. The government has in essence made a supposition and is trying to use Google, Yahoo, MSN, and AOL to try and prove it.

These steps taken by the government are also very troubling. It seems as thought the government is using its powers to subpoena other companies for information that is not directly related to a problem. After all, none of the search engine companies are directly involved in the legal action.

Nicole Wong, an associate general counsel for Google, said the company will fight the government's effort "vigorously."

"Google is not a party to this lawsuit, and the demand for the information is overreaching," Wong said.

This will certainly be an interesting story to watch.

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The Internet Can Be A Landmine

2006-01-17T14:43:00.000-08:00

The Internet is a dangerous place for those unaware of the landmines that exist.

Internet technology is a wonderful thing but placed in the hands of the enemy can wreck havoc on a business or individual. To be sure that the enemy does exist is to just look in your email box today and most people would have at least one or more forward looking scouts called the unsolicited email just waiting to report back to headquarters about the state of affairs of your computer domain. Many of these spam emails are disguised as Trojan Horses. They look wonderful on the outside but it is what is on the inside that counts.

Once a computer domain has been compromised through these forward looking scouts it is only a matter of time to another campaign is waged against individuals or corporations through hundreds of scams that try to rob an individual or business from just a few dollars to sometimes thousands of dollars. Other times there is more than money at stake. It is a person's identity and in some cases it is even the business identity at risk.

Staying informed of the online perils is not an option any more. The Internet is going to become more prevalent in our world. Business owners and individuals need to be aware of the risks and have an understanding of the landmine areas online. Many of these Internet issues involve all types of unethical SEO marketing, advertising strategies, and sales activities all designed with the idea of preying on the unaware with grandiose Internet marketing promises and online advertising strategies to magically place you, with very little work on anyone's part, at the top of the keywords search engine results for keywords related to your business. Don't believe it! Or, don't you believe it? See the Keywords Online Advertising Scam. Read how thousands of businesses have been taken in by this particular scam.

Getting to the Top of The Search Engine Results

There are no shortcuts on this path for any business to the top of the search engine results. All require lots of hard work in ethical Internet marketing and other areas related to SEO, search engine optimization. To be sure, it requires a much more strategic partnership arrangement with outside services, Webmasters, and through close confidential communications with the principals, top insider corporate individuals. This will require a strategic marketing approach to all aspects of a business; from not only the sales, marketing, and advertising but also to brand, customer and corporate communications, business planning, market research, public relations, and even investor relations. All are uniquely intertwined in developing a successful online web presence with a key understanding of where revenue growth will likely occur in the future. Capturing that revenue growth will be key to the success of a business.

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