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Inside this issue:
Is Your Connection Being Hacked?
More On Spam Control
White Lists
Disposable Email IDs
Anti-Spam Extortion
Merchant Accounts
Latest Info
More On Irresponsible Credit Card Processors
Baffled By Dazzle
Company Claims Copyright on Distributing Video Over the Net
Anti-Spyware Product Is Actually Spyware
Just For Fun
Software and Sites Section
From the Langa Newsletter
A reader wrote in to say that Zone Alarm running on his cable connection showed numerous attempts to access his PC. Fred Langa responded:
There are many possible reasons for the activity you're seeing, but one way to determine if you're somehow being singled out is to get a new numeric IP (internet protocol) address. It's usually easy:
Most dial-up and cable systems use what's called "dynamic" addressing, where your PC's online numeric address is assigned when you first make a connection. In some cases, you get a new address every time you make a connection with your ISP; in other cases, whatever address you first get is "leased" to you for some period of time, as determined by the service provider. If the "lease" is long, or if you're online for long periods (a cable modem may be online for days, weeks, or months at a time), you can end up with the same IP address for that extended period. The longer you're online at a given address, the greater the odds that some hacker will discover that there's a live PC at that address, and they then may try attacking some or all of the 65,000 online "ports" your PC has. (See http://www.langa.com/newsletters/2002/2002-08-01.htm#4 )
But it's relatively easy to change the IP address, when dynamic addressing is used. You usually can do this with the WinIPCfg or IPconfig tool built into Windows.
In Win9x, the tool is called "WinIPCfg," which stands for Windows IP Configuration. It lets you see lots of information about your internet connection; and to "release" and "renew" any dynamically-assigned address.
In other versions of Windows (XP, for example) the tool is called IPconfig; it's not as polished--- it's a text-based tool run from the command line--- but it also lets you explore information about your Internet connection and to release/renew your IP address.
In either case, if your ISP uses dynamic addressing, you usually get get a new IP address by running the WinIPCfg or IPconfig tool, selecting "Release all " or "/release" (depending on which tool you're using) to discard all currently active IP addresses. Then unplug your modem, reboot, plug the modem back in, and you'll probably have a new IP address. (If not, check with the ISP about how to force a new IP; it may involve leaving your modem off for several hours, or overnight, but usually can be done.)
If hackers were beating on your system at the old IP address, they'll now have to start over, and try to find you at the new address.
WinIPCfg:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;en-us;141698
http://www.google.com/search?q=WinIPCfg
IPconfig:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/winxppro/proddocs/ipconfig.asp
http://www.google.com/search?q=IPConfig
After last month's articles on Blacklists and Filters, (you can view back issues at http://www.ccs-digital.com/writing.html ) several people wrote in the let me know about other spam-fighting methods.
Bob Parker checked in all the way from Down Under to report his satisfaction with Bluebottle . The service works like this: Users sign up for an id from Bluebottle, such as Izzy@bluebottle.com (not a real ID, or if it is, it's not mine). They can then tell their friends about it. When an email is sent to this ID, the Bluebottle software checks to see if the sender's ID is on this users WhiteList of permitted senders. If not, it sends a message to the sender asking them to reply. If the sender replies, that email ID is added to the whitelist and mail from that ID will be passed on to the recipient. Since spammers often use fake email IDs and send out thousands to millions of spam messages, they will not receive or respond to the request for verification.
Justin Greene wrote in to tell me about Spamex. Spamex gives users a disposable email ID. This ID can be used to post messages on forums or respond to offers. When the ID receives too much spam, the user can dispose of the ID and get another one. You can also do this by getting a Yahoo, Hotmail or Bigfoot ID (the Bigfoot ID will even forward to your regular email.) Years ago, before I had my own domain, I had several Bigfoot IDs. They served me well for years. Now that I have my own domain, I noticed that the only email I get from these Bigfoot IDs is spam. So I shut down the two IDs and reduced my spam for a while, until my new IDs started getting it.
Both approaches have limitations which would make it nearly useless for most people. As an online businessman, I can not expect my customers to send me an email and then respond to a request to to validate themselves. I also have to post my email ID on my site. I don't have the luxury of posting a disposable ID and then deleting it. As long as my real ID is available on the site, I will continue to get spam. But for folks who use email just to communicate and surf the Net, whitelists and disposable IDs can be very useful tools.
I-Cop is the Internation Council Of Online Professionals, a group of Internet professionals which has banded together to create standards of professional conduct. They publish their own e-zine. In this issue, they discuss a disturbing situation. After groups I previously discussed, such as Spam Cop, set up email filters to block spam, complaints poured in about legitimate email that was being blocked. A company called Habeas created a special header which is supposed to identify "good" email from spam. A number of these companies then configured their software to allow email with these special headers to get through. According to this article, in what appears to be a possible conspiracy of extortion, vendors who use email may be required to purchase licenses from Habeas or face having their emails blocked and even being heavily fined for "spam." All this is an effort to prevent spam.
Will it work? The author of the article doesn't think so and I agree. First of all, it is ineffective against spammers. Nothing prevents spammers from forging the same headers and having their spam get past the filters. So what is the point? Second, Habeas' requirements for proving your email is not spam is just too difficult for most vendors. They will have to keep copies of every email received in order to prove that they were responding to a request. Newsletters will have to be double opt-in, which means a request is made, a confirmation is sent out and the subscriber has to respond again to the confirmation. Again, the vendor will have to keep all of this on file for a long period of time to prove this was the case if a complaint is made. Again, what is the point? Other than gouging legitimate vendors of even more of their income to fill the coffers of another connected company, I see no useful motive.
PayQuake and IntelliCollect saw the need for a no-minimum account, where sellers pay slightly higher per-transaction fees in return for low to no monthly minimums. This allows sellers to avoid the initial financial barrier to entry, and also allows new merchants the real opportunity to grow their business. Both companies have been in business for years and are reputable. Payquake's rates for their Pay4Play merchant account is $49 annualy and 3.75% plus 50 cents per transaction. payQuake allows merchants to get up and running, and get used to the payQuake system for 60 days before they bill their $49.00 fee. Intelli-collect's fees were $25 annualy and 3.5% plus 40 cents per transaction. Since Intelli-collect's rates were even lower than Payquake's, I signed up with them.
I-C told me up front that they were an ISO (this is a reseller of other companies' accounts) and that this new account was their brainchild. It was an experiment and I was actually the first person to sign up for one. I understood that there would be glitches as the details were ironed out. The actual company behind the account was United Bank Card. It seems that only two of UBC's directors were even aware of this type of account. I was charged $30 for an imprinter I had specifically indicated I didn't want, $59 for an annual fee which included "postage and maintenance of the imprinter" and a 2.50 monthly gateway fee. It took many attempts to get through to UBC. The email ID which is posted on their site for contact comes back as undeliverable. The phone is constantly busy. When you get someone on the line, they take a message and the call is rarely returned. I believe the only reason I got a call back was due to the efforts of Intelli-collect. Now UBC has decided that they aren't making enough money on these accounts and may therefore stop accepting applications. However, I have been told that I should not close mine and they will refund all the extra charges. I am still waiting for the $30 for the imprinter returned over a month ago, as well as the other extra charges.
One of the reasons that I want to keep the UBC account is because of the incredible support of Intelli-collect. Calls are always answered and emails returned, usually within minutes (even on Saturday night and Sunday). I-C has promised me that if UBC does not refund the overcharges, I-C will. They even sent me a check for 3.95 to cover my shipping on the imprinter, though I had already told them this was not necessary. UBC also has an excellent gateway, which I prefer to the one from Authorize.net (offered by most other merchant accounts, including Payquake). UBC also offers free shopping carts and a program which allows anyone with familiarity with HTML to create their own customized shopping cart and order forms. I wish UBC put in half the effort on their customer service as they do on their software. (The software is actually licensed from another company, which may explain it.)
I think UBC is being very short-sighted. Paypal PAID people to open accounts and today they have over 20 MILLION users and were purchased by eBay for a fortune. UBC seems to have the attitude that they want to make money from day one. They are not looking at future possibilities.
Payquake started out as a division of US Merchant Systems, but because of its market acceptance and burgeoning growth over the past year, has incorporated as Dynamic Merchant Services, but is still known to the public as payQuake. They are not an ISO but an actual division of US Merchant Systems. This plan was carefully thought out by USMS and was not some sort of experiment, but a genuine attempt by USMS and payQuake to create a new, innovative spectrum of merchant controlled payment technology that encourages new and existing small businesses to join them. payQuake offers 3 types of merchant accounts with rates as low as 1.59% with a total monthly investment ranging from $9.95 to $19.95 per month for both the merchant account and secure payment gateway. Their goal is to get new and existing merchants to join payQuake and give the merchant a real chance to build their business. As the business grows, the rates decrease in return for a higher monthly commitment. The monthly statement will show what the rates would have been for all three tiers. At any time a merchant can choose to switch to the next tier. This patent pending unique concept is called the dynamic merchant account and is exclusive to Payquake.
My conclusion: If you are a small merchant, or first starting out, PayQuake offers you the opportunity to get a real merchant account while keeping your costs low and allows you to grow your merchant account along with your business. If you are already established and looking for a standard merchant account with the lowest rates in the industry and unsurpassed customer service, I highly recommend IntelliCollect .
According to this story, which is making the rounds, a credit card processor sat back and watched as hackers used their services to validate about 8,000 credit cards. To access the gateway, you need a merchant account ID. For each transaction (even failed ones) the merchant account is charged 27 cents. Instead of sending a warning signal when one merchant account was used to test 8,000 cards, the system simply added up the charges and billed the owner of the hacked account $2,600 for these attempts.
When choosing a merchant account, you want the security of knowing that your processor is responsible. In my opinion, allowing 8,000 attempts from one account constitutes gross negligence. Billing the account for the consequences of poor security on the site is the height of chutzpa. I think we would all agree that this not the processor we would want handling our transactions.
I have sold numerous Dazzle products over the years. They are known for card readers and devices which allow you to copy video to your PC. Since I have been getting emails asking how to edit video on a PC and create CD and DVD shows from home movies, I decided that it was time I explored this growing area. I recently purchased the excellent Sharp VL-AX1U digital camcorder. It has a digital output that can connect to a PC via a firewire port. I then purchased the Dazzle DV Editor package which consists of a firewire card and video editing software. Since then, rather than being Dazzled, I have been baffled.
I am baffled by a package which promises to do so much but actually does so little. Dazzle claims that the software allows you to create AVI and MPEG files in a variety of formats. The only format which works was AVI that created a 200 meg file for every minute of video. This means that each CD would hold under 4 minutes of video. I am baffled by a box that claims it contains a program called Moviestar 5 but actually contains Ulead VideoStudio 4, a progam that its own creators state is an old package and known to have many problems. Ulead recommends that folks shell out $90 for version 6. If this isn't bait-and-switch tactic, I don't know what is. The package also says that FlipAlbum 3 is included but it was nowhere to be found.
I am baffled by Dazzle's site where no email ID is listed to contact. I tried a few common ones such as Support@dazzle.com but they all came back undeliverable. Dazzle has an 800 number for tech support but they immediately ask for a serial number and charge you $16 before they even talk to you. They have a message center where you can post your message and check back to see if it was answered. I saw many questions and few answers. (Dazzle explained that answers are emailed to the customer and do not appear on the site. If so, why are the questions posted?) They have a long distance number for free tech support where I sat on hold for an hour, periodically being reminded that I was free to go to the site and post a question. It seems that Dazzle considers tech support and customer service a cash cow to be used to further milk their customers.
I called my distributor and asked if I could send the useless package back. He gave me the master distributor's number. They in turn gave me a customer service number at SCM (the company which makes the card that comes with the Dazzle package. SCM has purchased Dazzle.). A pleasant, efficient woman named Angela sent me the CD of Moviestar 5. When I tried to install it, I was asked for a serial number. I had to call Angela back. She gave me a serial number. I then installed the program. Though it detected the camera, the video screen remained blank. I know that the card, cable and driver work because the camera is recognized by VideoStudio 4. I called Angela back. She forwarded my call to the tech support department who immediately asked for my credit card and would not answer questions unless I paid for it.
I contacted Angela and told her I would be writing a review of the product. Someone from SCM's PR department then called me to discuss it. Next, someone from the tech support department arranged for me to get free tech support. Yesterday, a pleasant tech support person spent about an hour with me. We discovered that even though Moviestar 5 showed me a blank screen, the video was being captured in some form of AVI that only Moviestar 5 could decode. I could export the file to standard AVI and obtain a viewable video. We got stuck during the debugging because it asked for the Windows CD (I a using 98 SE) and I could not locate it.
I was also told that the reason there were only questions on the site and no answers was because the answers were emailed to the person who posed the question. I don't understand the purpose of posting a support site that only features questions without answers. As for why my email was not answered, Dazzle explained that when creating my ID on the site, I had entered my question in the comment box. It seems that no one reads the comment box. I was supposed to go back after creating my ID and post the question separately. Dazzle recognizes that there are problems with their tech support and plan to correct these.
In the meantime, a friend with a lot of experience using PC Video Editing software borrowed the card and software. He installed it on his XP machine and told me that it worked flawlessly and was the best package he had seen so far. So I have decided to bite the bullet and upgrade my Windows 98SE to XP.
I consider myself an experienced user of computer products and perhaps a bit more technical than the "average" home user. As my clients sometimes point out, "if you can't fix it, then who can?" If I hadn't been so persistent, if I hadn't been a dealer and if I hadn't been able to mention that I was writing a review of the product, would I have received technical support? In the next issue I will let you know if I ever got the Dazzle working and what package, if any, I chose to replace it.
A company claims to hold the patent on the technology that lets web sites transmit video over the Internet. At the moment, they are targeting adult sites and demanding royalty payments but plan to go after any site which transmits music or video over the Internet. ExtremeTech Article
We have added some new and interesting items on our site. Have you ever heard a DVD playing in 3D surround sound? You don't just hear the sound, you feel
it. You'll have to learn not to grab the phone when one rings in the show and not to duck when you hear glass shatter. Due to a special purchase, this amazing
device is only $10. Protect your computer and modem from spikes. The GE Power Center sits under your monitor and controls 4 separate devices with
individual power switches from spikes, surges and EMI noise. It also protects your modem. GE backs up this protection with $5,000 insurance if your
equipment is damaged by a surge. This $39.95 device is only $18 with free shipping. We also have name brand stereo headphones for $5, a 6-in-1 USB media
card reader for $25, a lamp that works off the USB port for $10, a charger for AA, AAA, C, D and 9 volt batteries for $18, optical mice, a 4-port USB hub,
multi-colored CD cases and a USB/Firewire external enclosure for hard drives and CDRWs that works with PCs and MACs.
Items on Special
According to a website, a product called Spyware Nuker may actually be spyware written by an advertising company. While pretending to rid your computer of spyware, it installs its own and sends information about you to its affiliates.
A father was explaining to his daughter that when he was her age, computers were the size of a house. Her eyes grew wide as she asked, "and how big was the mouse?" I told this joke to my family and my 8-year-old laughed. I asked her to explain the joke and she said, "The father was joking. Computers weren't really that big." I explained that yes, they were. She thought a moment and then said, "Even so, the mouse was still the same size." I told her that they didn't have mice. She asked, "then how did you move the cursor?" I explained that you did everything with the keyboard. She asked, "then how did you move the cursor to a corner of the screen?" I started to explain that we worked in text mode, line-by-line without fonts, graphics, color. I'm not sure she believed me.
It seems that there is a virus out there called the Senile Virus that even the most advanced programs from Norton or McAfee cannot take care of -- so be warned. It appears to mostly affect those of us who were born before 1952! Symptoms of Senile Virus 1. Causes you to send same e-mail twice. 2. Causes you to send blank e-mail. 3. Causes you to send to wrong person. 4. Causes you to send back to person who sent it to you. 5. Causes you to forget to attach the attachment. 6. Causes you to hit "SEND" before you've finished the
Spam- and content blacklists and filters continue to cause trouble, but they also sometimes provide unintentional comic relief. For example, the public library in Piqua, Ohio recently installed content filters to keep its patrons safe from bad words and sites. There was one small glitch: The filter banned the library's own web site. Turns out the library's founding patron was a local businessman named Leo Flesh; the library is officially known as the "Flesh Public Library." But to the simple minds that created the web filter, "flesh" has only prurient meanings, so the library's own web site was banned.
Ad-aware has not released a new version in months. Since it is a free program, I can guess that the author has decided to concentrate on things that pay the bills. The best free spyware blocker is Spyware Search and Destroy. The author requests a voluntary $5 donation. Spyware Search and Destroy .
Know when email you sent has been read. The following program looks very interesting. Unfortuately, it does not work with MS Exchange, which is what we use in the office and it does not work with web-based mail services such as Hotmail and Yahoo (which is what I use out of the office), so I can't test it.
MSGTAG alerts you the moment an email you've sent is opened. You'll know when the message was sent, when it was viewed, and the elapsed time in between. You don't have to change anything about the way you write or send your email. In fact you'll hardly even know it's there. It works with almost all desktop email clients including Outlook, Outlook Express, Eudora and Pegasus Mail. MSGTAG runs in the background while you send your email as usual. Recipients don't need to do anything different either. There are no annoying pop-up windows asking them to send a notification back to you - all they see is a small MSGTAG footer stating that you've been notified of them having received the message.
When using MSGTAG your privacy is respected. Our technology guarantees that your messages remain just as private as usual. At no stage do we ever have access to your messages - your email goes straight from you to the intended recipient, without passing through our servers. No storing. No peeping. No handing your email address out to anyone. For more information you can check out our comprehensive privacy policy.
www.definitivesolutions.com This site has several nifty utilities for displaying different types of graphic files including AVIs, creating film clips and slide shows. BHODemon is a free program which checks your system for Browser Helper Objects. These are subprograms which work with your browser. Some of them can be helpful but others are Spyware, which watch what you do and report back or feed you ads. BHODemon will show you a list of the BHOs on your system so you can decide if you want to remove them.
Bootdisk.com This site is crammed with utilities for every operating system - even the old DOS. It has programs which create boot disks for many operating systems, recovery tools, anti-virus, etc.
Get over 500 megs of photo editing software, utilities and games on CD. We have been posting links to free utilities for well over a year. If you go to our back issues, you will find that some of these links no longer work. Some of these files are large and downloading them over a modem can be time-consuming. Some readers have asked if there is a way to get these on CD. The answer is Yes. We have downloaded and used the utilities mentioned here as well as many others. We have compiled a CD with over 500 megabytes of utilities and games, including several full-featured photo editing suites. Since we did not create this software, we do not sell it. We do however provide the CD for free with any purchase.
Most of the software is fully-functioning freeware. Some of it is shareware, which means it will either run for a limited amount of time or some of the features will be missing or it will nag you to register by sending the author a few dollars. Shareware is a great way to get good software out to the public without spending a fortune on packaging and marketing. Before shareware came along, there were a limited number of word processors and they all cost a few hundred dollars. Now there are products available on the Net free for private use and at low cost for business use that rival those sold by Microsoft and others for hundreds of dollars. Shareware lets you try a product before purchasing it. Support the shareware concept. If you download a product that you find useful, send the author the fee he or she deserves.
There are many times when you want to grab a snapshot of a screen or a portion of it and print it. You can do it the Microsoft way - hit the print screen button, bring up Word, paste it in as a graphic, resize it and then print it. Of course you can only grab the entire screen. With Gadwin Print Screen, you can grab any portion, save it as a file or print it in several sizes. The program is free for personal use. Gadwin Print Screen .