Michael Gracie

Marketing maven Seth Godin thinks that projects of the like that he and his colleagues think about and work on daily can sometimes seem a little vague, and that applying some rigor to the process might produce better results. I couldn’t agree more.

I have a newfound appreciation for a lot of disciplines I previously ignored, including politics and marketing. I once cast them off because they were so hard to define in quantitative terms, but now think there must be measures outside my finance/accounting mindset that can be used.

Certainly, getting the I’s dotted and T’s crossed, and actually predefining the purpose, cannot hurt.

The battle continues in the fight for authentication standards. Microsoft recently made their “proprietary” offering, Sender ID, standard fare for Hotmail, but Sender ID’s sketchy beginnings made me question whether it would ever really take hold as a strategy for making it the norm everywhere. What starts bad rarely ends good.

Now, a proposal is being considered over at the Internet Engineering Task Force which may further douse the flames of Sender ID. Some engineers think Sender ID conflicts with SPF, another authentication standard in experimental mode right now, and that Sender ID should just be stopped.

My opinion is this: adopt an authentication standard that is royalty free forever, based on open standards, under a licensing scheme that requires 100% interoperability at all times. Enough said.

I guy produces a keylogging software package, and then sells it to a bunch of folks under the guise of keeping track of their loved ones online actions. This is an obvious violation of a ton of wiretap laws, and the auuthorities agreed. The “LoverSpy” creator AND his customers were indicted!

The good news is there are still thousands of copies of the software floating around for you jealous types.

Trout Unlimited Wild Trout Chapter’s benefit last night for the Eagle River Preserve was, in my opinion, a smashing success. Of course, my view was based on the number of folks with big smiles on their faces, sipping beers, and spewing good fishing stories. There were also lots of bids for the variety of items in the silent auction, so I suspect some good money was raised for the cause.
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As if we don’t already have enough threats to our internet security, with all the phishing, pharming, keylogging, viruses creating zombies, etc., now comes a threat to virtual world security. Sophos reports that a virus is lurking around that steals multi-player online game data.

The game is Priston’s Tale, and the virus steals usernames and passwords. The thieves can then log in as the user, and steal all their online bounty (currency, weapons, secret whatever, you name it), and sell it online to other gamers.

Crazy, but where there is a will (and cash to be made) there is a way.

While hundreds, or thousands or millions of new blogs are being created each day (I have heard all those numbers spewed), I never thought the crap would reach such a crecendo.

Google’s Blogger offering has been under extreme heat as of late. No sooner did Blogger released its MS Word to blog tool, then people cryed out that now it would be even easier to create spam blogs. And if a recent report is correct in saying that 60% of all Blogspot sites are spam blogs already, then maybe they have a point.

And the battle keeps raging.
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I was having dinner a few weeks back with an old friend, and the subject turned to the US economic situation. I’ve known this guy for roughly two decades and trust him like a brother; he is a very smart character who doesn’t pull punches. I was inclined to listen - the fact that he analyzes high-yield bonds for a big investment bank’s private client group certainly didn’t hurt his cause either.

I’ve believed that indebtedness at every level of our society, from federal, state and local government, right down to consumers’ credit cards, home equity lines and first mortgages, has reached epic proportions. But when this fellow said he thought we were headed for another depression, my sceptical nature reared its ugly head. I have a predilection for looking at the downside, as I started my career in restructuring situations, but I relish that downside for its opportunity and I also know that nobody likes a doomsayer. It wasn’t until I read about our nation’s savings rate hitting zero that I began to rethink his claim.
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Privacy advocates don’t like personal data warehouse businesses (like credit reporting agencies) to begin with. I believe that if it was up to them, there would be no data, and of course our consumer spending-based economy would grind to a halt. But the companies in question have fallen victim to a lot of data theft as of late (think Choicepoint, Bank of America), and the hows and whens of notifying the end consumer who is the subject of all that data is rearing its ugly head again.

I think quick notification must be the protocol, but I do not think that we need consumers running around suing companies for their ID theft - the two just don’t fit together. The average consumer barely knows what data is actually gathered on them to begin with. If you notify them of a breach, they are going to start suing for ridiculous sums, even if no damage is done. And, as things go with lawsuits, the only ones who stand to benefit are the attorneys in the middle.

Let legislate this issue straight, with some simple, common sense protocols which put the onus of notification and reparation on the data reporting agency, but not lock them down so far that consumer data can’t flow easily enough for me to get that Mercedes lease (not).

we have the largest rate of originating spam in the modern world. Now we can add spyware to the list as well.

And if that doesn’t pain you enough, the US also hosts more phishing sites than any other country with electricity.

So…it comes as no surprise to hear that there is a big spamware vendor down the street from AOL.

I know a lot of people have no idea what spyware is, or it wouldn’t be around (and all the anti-spyware software development companies would be as big as Microsoft). But when better than 1 in 10 folks polled reply that spyware is a Star Wars weapon, I get a sick feeling in my stomach.