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finextra news: Banks wary of Basel II costs
28 June 2004 - Executives at the world's top banks are growing wary of the rising costs of implementing the risk management frameworks and capital systems required to comply with the Basel II regulations, according to research by Accenture, Mercer Oliver Wyman and SAP.
Publication of the research findings coincides with offical approval of the Basel II regulations by central bank governors and regulatory heads from the G10 countries.
The survey of executives responsible for Basel II compliance at 97 of the world's 200 largest banks in April and May found that more than 70% are planning to adopt the advanced regulatory approaches on both the credit risk and operational risk sides.
But, according to the research, uncertainty about the budgetary impact of compliance is broad, with nearly a third (31%) of respondents saying they remain unsure of the total cost of their Basel II programme. The level of uncertainty cited by respondents was highest among banks in the US (59%) and Asia (54%), more than twice the rate of European banks (20%).
Of those banks providing estimates, most banks with assets under US$100bn expect price tags of EUR50m or less while nearly two thirds of larger banks project costs of more than EUR50m.
Many banks surveyed are finding ways to lower compliance costs. While nearly 60% of banks surveyed plan to implement new solutions to meet the new operational risk requirements, nearly half plan to take lower-cost routes by developing systems internally or modifying existing technology. In addition, centralising credit data storage is on the agenda of 63% of banks.
However, the majority of banks said they see significant benefits from Basel II, especially in improved capital allocation (63%), better risk-based pricing (53%) and reduced regulatory capital requirements (37%).
The survey indicates that many banks still have "significant work" remaining to comply with two of the three major elements of Basel II - setting up a risk-based supervisory structure and increasing market discipline through expanded disclosure. Nearly two-thirds (63%) of banks described their enterprise-wide risk management framework as poor or average. Just over 60% described their economic capital systems as poor or average.
Paul Cartwright, a managing director at Accenture, says the survey confirms that a quick database and reporting fix was never going to work: "Many banks now clearly see the need for combined information technology (IT), organisational and process change. Although budgeting was hurt by the last two years of worldwide cost-containment, banks are finding they face significant compliance challenges."
The results also indicate that banks in US and Asia Pacific lag behind Europe in several key areas of preparation for Basel II. Three quarters of European banks have completed strategic assessments compared with only 12% of the banks surveyed in the US and 22% in Asia-Pacific. More than 60% of European banks have progressed to implementation, compared with only 12% in the US and 15% in Asia-Pacific.
Accenture says the disparity may reflect a lack of confidence among American bankers in existing credit-risk measurement systems. When asked about rating model performance, model validation and use-test compliance, US bankers responded that they do well in these areas at less than half the rates of their European counterparts. US banker evaluations on capability related to three other credit-risk tools were also lagging.
Finextra is conducting research into the business issues involved in regulatory compliance. To participate in the survey and receive a free report, fill in the questionnaire now: Finextra Compliance Survey
June 29, 2004 at 07:39 AM in Financial Services | Permalink | TrackBack (55) | Top of page | Blog Home
TheStar.com - Web is terror's tool — and trap
Internet spreads a motherlode of data for police
ANICK JESDANUN
ASSOCIATED PRESS
NEW YORK—Al-Qaida-linked terror groups and their sympathizers have in recent months made a big splash on the Internet, making it their communications channel of choice.
They're benefiting from free discussion boards, e-mail accounts and other online forums for propaganda, recruitment, fund-raising and even planning.
If law enforcement has done little to squelch these outlets, it's only in part because of the difficulty of catching moving targets. More importantly, these online soapboxes can provide investigators with crucial leads.
"It's a game of cat and mouse in which the cat is always going to be behind," said Michael Vatis, former cybersecurity director at the FBI. "It's a more effective strategy to actually use these sites for gathering intelligence rather than engaging in a futile effort to shut them down.''
Mark Rasch, a former U.S. justice department computer crimes prosecutor, said he wouldn't be surprised if law enforcement agencies set up some of these forums — much as undercover investigators create phony businesses to lure mobsters.
When such sites do get shut down, it's generally the work of hackers or the private Web hosting companies that unwittingly allow them to publish online, said Gabriel Weimann, who studies terrorism online at the U.S. Institute of Peace.
In recent weeks, sites and discussion boards carrying gruesome images and video of beheaded Americans quickly went offline. At one, a message from the kidnappers of Paul M. Johnson Jr. was replaced by a disclaimer saying the hosting company does not support terrorism and had removed the material for violating its use policies.
But it doesn't take long for word to spread through chat rooms and discussion boards about new locations. By the time an extremist venue closes, its messages have likely been duplicated at many other forums.
A discussion forum that went down shortly after the appearance of images of Johnson's beheading in Saudi Arabia re-emerged later with new links to the images as well as those of a slain Korean captive in Iraq.
FBI officials in Washington declined requests for interviews for this story, citing continuing investigations. Saudi authorities also would not talk about their efforts to monitor Internet discussions, including those connected to Johnson's kidnappers.
Separate research conducted by Weimann, Dartmouth College and The Associated Press found terrorists to be using the Internet in several ways:
Propaganda. Terrorists make demands, try to elicit sympathy, attempt to instill fear and chaos and to explain themselves. The Web lets them offer up gruesome video images that broadcasters would reject.
Recruitment. Chat rooms are monitored and questionnaires sent to prospects, though recruits must often pass many tests online and offline before they are accepted.
Fund-raising. Sites solicit donations to charities that may serve as fronts for terror groups, in many cases by providing mailing addresses and wire-transfer accounts.
Planning. Free e-mail accounts connect members around the world. Messages are often encrypted, and Dartmouth researchers say online manuals even discuss ways to avoid detection. Following a security crackdown in Saudi Arabia, one poster warned "fighters'' to avoid a certain geographical location.
"Politicians and, of course, commercial interests effectively use the Internet to convey their message, appeal for support and attract ... financial contributions," said Brian Jenkins, a terrorism expert at the Rand Corp. "These (terror) groups behave in the same way.''
It is difficult to tell when online extremists are active fighters or simply sympathizers but it's clear that many hitch on to free resources that anyone can sign up for and where legitimate discussions also take place.
Dia'a Rashwan, a Cairo-based expert on Islamic groups, said the mushrooming of extremist sites and forums indicates the vast pool of sympathizers that such groups have attracted, with some seeing technology as their contribution to the cause.
Rather than directly seeking to incite violence, many of the extremist postings online are general declarations that may be laced with hatred and anti-American slurs but are not in themselves illegal.
The U.S. justice department scrutinizes such sites but takes action only when one is directly linked to known terror groups or conducts money laundering or other illegal activities, said Marcus Sachs, a former White House counterterrorism official.
Jenkins said that rather than try to remove online links to fund-raising efforts by terrorist groups, law enforcement resources may be better spent trying to shut down such groups directly.
In Idaho, federal prosecutors recently went after the Webmaster of some forums, rather than individual posters. His lawyers argued that he was a Muslim volunteer who had little to do with the creation of postings, and a jury acquitted him June 10 of charges that he used his computer expertise to foster terrorism.
Allowing extremist forums to thrive may risk helping terror groups advance their goals.
"But again, there are so many ways for them to communicate,'' said Vatis, the former FBI official. "To try to shut down every Web site and e-mail address they might use is just futile. I can go to Yahoo! or Hotmail right now and create 10 new IDs in a minute.''
June 28, 2004 at 08:17 AM in Security | Permalink | TrackBack (3) | Top of page | Blog Home
Yahoo! News - Russian website spreading 'malicious' program shut down: Microsoft
Sun Jun 27, 2:18 PM ETAdd Technology - AFP to My Yahoo!
WASHINGTON (AFP) - A Russian website that spread a "malicious" Internet (news - web sites) program has been shut down, software giant Microsoft said, adding that users of Internet Explorer are no longer at risk.
"Internet service providers and law enforcement, working together with Microsoft, identified the origination point of the attack in Russia and shut it down on Thursday," Microsoft said in a statement released late Saturday.
The Download.Ject program was not a virus or computer worm, Microsoft said, describing it as a "targeted manual attack by individuals or entities towards a specific server."
Unlike viruses that spread by e-mail, this infection was propagated simply by visiting an infected website, which can install a so-called trojan or keystroke logger that allows hackers access to the PCs, security experts said Friday.
Security (news - web sites) experts warned that the program could be used to steal financial information and e-mail passwords.
The company, owned by billionaire founder Bill Gates (news - web sites), said the program "exploited a vulnerability in Internet Explorer to deliver malicious code to visitors of an affected Web site."
"Working (news - web sites) with customers and partners worldwide, Microsoft is unaware of any widespread customer impact based on Download.Ject," said the company based in the northwestern state of Washington.
"The originating Web site of attack has been taken offline," Microsoft said.
"Internet Explorer customers are no longer at risk from that particular attack source as of Thursday evening."
Users of Microsoft's "IIS 5.0 Servers (news - web sites) that have not been updated with security update MS04-011 are susceptible to this attack," the company said.
Microsoft recommended that customers go to www.microsoft.com/protect to shield their personal computers from infection.
Microsoft said it is working with authorities and other companies to "bring those responsible for this criminal act to justice."
June 27, 2004 at 11:01 PM in Security | Permalink | TrackBack (14) | Top of page | Blog Home
Yahoo! News - Program Lets Users Share Slices of Web
Sun Jun 27, 3:05 PM ETAdd Technology - AP to My Yahoo!
By BRIAN BERGSTEIN, AP Technology Writer
NEW YORK - Trolling the Internet (news - web sites) often yields cool tidbits, but they aren't easy to share. If you're planning a trip with friends, for example, and find six good hotel deals, you're probably just going to e-mail them six separate links to check out.
But what if you could send them a single Web page that had pictures and price lists for all six hotels, arranged neatly in boxes, captioned by your personal, witty commentary?
A free Web service being launched Monday by a startup called Amplify LLC lets you do precisely that. Amplify users can create their own pages, called "amps," filled entirely with content of their choosing — pictures, text, audio or video clips — and links back to the source material.
The result combines the look-what-I-found quality of Web logs with the free-form creativity of collage.
The goal is to help users overcome information overload by letting them experience the Internet as they shape it, "not just the way the Web is set up for them," said Eric Goldstein, the head of New York-based Amplify.
Users can share their amps with anyone else, even non-users, simply by sending them a link to it. The company also hopes strangers will share their amps on the Amplify Web site, turning it into a hub for collages of material on topics ranging from news to games.
The ability to share bits of content in a centralized setting will be familiar to people who have used collaborative work software programs such as Groove Networks or Lotus Notes.
But privately funded Amplify believes its service will stand out for being free and easy to use with the help of a browser toolbar. Amplify expects to derive revenue solely from advertising.
June 27, 2004 at 07:17 PM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (17) | Top of page | Blog Home
The New York Times > Books > A Quiet Revolt Puts Costly Journals on Web
By PAMELA BURDMAN
Published: June 26, 2004
When Dr. Miguel Nicolelis, a neurobiologist at Duke University, decided to release a groundbreaking study in an upstart online journal, his colleagues were flabbergasted. The research, demonstrating how brain implants enabled monkeys to operate a robotic arm, was a shoo-in for acceptance in premier journals like Nature or Science.
"Usually you want to publish your best work in well-established journals to have the widest possible penetration," Dr. Nicolelis said. "My idea was the opposite. We need to open up the dissemination of scientific results." The journal Dr. Nicolelis chose — PLoS Biology, a publication of the Public Library of Science — aims to do just that by putting peer-reviewed scientific papers online free, at the Web site www.plosbiology.org.
The high subscription cost of prestigious peer-reviewed journals has been a running sore point with scholars, whose tenure and prominence depend on publishing in them. But since the Public Library of Science, which was started by a group of prominent scientists, began publishing last year, this new model has been gaining attention and currency within academia.
More than money and success is at stake. Free and widespread distribution of new research has the potential to redefine the way scientific and intellectual developments are recorded, circulated and preserved for years to come.
"Society pays for science," said Dr. Nicolelis, whose article in the October issue of PLoS got worldwide attention. "We have the technology, we have the expertise. Why is it that the only thing that has remained the same for 50 years is the way we publish our results? The whole system needs overhaul."
At the big-sticker end are publications like The Journal of Comparative Neurology, for which a one-year institutional subscription has a list price of $17,995. Access to Brain Research goes for $21,269, around the price of a Toyota Camry XLE.
According to the Association of Research Libraries, journal prices went up 215 percent from 1986 to 2003, while the consumer price index rose 63 percent.
Though the highest-priced journals are in the sciences, libraries have had to offset those price increases by buying fewer books, often in other disciplines like literature and the humanities, association officials and librarians at the University of California said.
For those plotting end runs around for-profit publishers, a prime target is the Amsterdam-based Elsevier, which publishes some 1,800 journals in science, medicine and technology, including Brain Research.
"Elsevier doesn't write a single article," said Dr. Lawrence H. Pitts, a neurosurgeon at the University of California at San Francisco and chairman of the faculty senate of the 10-campus system. "Faculty write the articles for them, faculty review the articles for them and faculty mostly edit the journals for them, and then we get to buy the journals back from a company that makes a very large profit."
Similar sentiments motivated the editors and entire editorial board, 27 people in all, of Elsevier's Journal of Algorithms to defect en masse recently to start a nonprofit competitor, ACM — Transactions on Algorithms — said David S. Johnson, one of the editors.
Elsevier's managing director, John Regazzi, says the problem is not Elsevier's prices, but tight university budgets that can't meet the increasing volume of research worthy of publication. "Very few of our customers pay list price across all of their collections," he said. "If you look at the full cost of what an institution pays and you look at the number of downloads by users of the system, you're basically looking at $2 to $3 articles. We have a wide range of options for how universities can decide to subscribe." The company's pretax profit for the last three years has been between 30 and 34 percent, Mr. Regazzi said.
But more and more academics are viewing traditional publishers as obstacles to wide dissemination of studies paid for by public monies. Several open access alternatives are being hotly debated in academic online discussion groups and in the mainstream science press. The criticism even extends to some nonprofit publications, like the journal Science, which nearly tripled prices for its largest subscribers over the last two years.
Late last year, two scientists at the University of California at San Francisco called for a global boycott by authors and editors of six molecular biology journals published by Elsevier. They timed the campaign to coincide with the moment that the the University of California system was renegotiating its contract with the company.
"The mission and mandate of scientific publishing is to provide a formal record of scientific discovery, not to make publishing companies rich or editors famous," said one of the organizers, Keith R. Yamamoto, a prominent microbiologist and the vice dean for research.
Since University of California professors write, vet and edit a significant portion of Elsevier's wares, a deal was struck. The public university system reduced its bulk cost for online and print access to about 1,200 journals from $10.3 million last year to just $7.7 million annually for the next five years, according to published reports confirmed by Daniel Greenstein, the librarian of the university system. Other prestigious, but smaller universities are pursuing a different strategy.
"We have been cutting Elsevier journals and other for-profit journals as their prices have risen higher than inflation," said Michael Keller, the university librarian at Stanford. "The result is a fairly limited list — 400 Elsevier subscriptions."
PLoS became a publisher last year following a failed campaign to persuade journals to open up articles within six months of publication, said Michael B. Eisen, a computational biologist at Berkeley. Mr. Eisen is a co-founder of PLoS, with the biologist Dr. Patrick O. Brown of Stanford and Dr. Harold E. Varmus, a Nobel laureate who is chief executive of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York and former director of the National Institutes of Health.
The editors of PLoS follow normal peer review procedures. For revenue, they rely on author fees of up to $1,500 per article (typically drawn from research monies), voluntary university memberships, and grants. Although these voluntary university memberships can run into the thousands, Mr. Eisen said, the advantage is unlimited public access to priceless intellectual heritage.
But Mr. Keller of the Stanford libraries, who produces the online versions of Science and about 360 other nonprofit journals through Stanford's HighWire Press, argues that the voluntary memberships are just subscriptions in disguise.
Dr. Nicolelis's appearance in PloS Biology's debut issue helped vindicate this new model. PLoS has since attracted papers from leading lights in science like Dr. Robert Sapolsky, a Stanford researcher and a winner of a MacArthur "genius" award. Wired magazine also favored the founders with an award in April for "cracking the spine of the science cartel."
Traditional publishers hint that despite their new cachet, open access publications aren't sustainable in the long run. PLoS Biology and the new PLoS Medicine, due out this fall, are heavily subsidized by grants.
Dr. Alan I. Leshner, chief executive of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, says his publication, Science, already coping with the loss of print subscribers and advertisers, would have to charge authors $10,000 an article to survive in the open access mode. He also noted that revenues from Science — which was started by Thomas Edison — support some of association's programs, including one to provide free access to scientists in the developing world.
"I agree with the motivation," Dr. Leshner said, but added, "We just can't throw away a business model developed by Thomas Edison in 1880 based on `Trust me, it will work.' "
But to others, old models are precisely the problem. "Surely the combination of uncertainty and hope associated with this unproved model is vastly superior to the certainty and hopelessness that surrounds the current and failed commercial one," Mr. Greenstein of the University of California system wrote as part of a running debate about open access publishing on nature.com.
The pressure is beginning to have an effect. More publishers have begun opening their archives 6 to 12 months after publication. Molecular Biology of the Cell, published by the American Society for Cell Biology, now opens up its archives after two months, and as its editor-in-chief, Mr. Yamamoto hopes to convert the journal to open access soon. Even Elsevier made a recent concession to university libraries that are moving into digital publishing and archiving, offering blanket permission for authors to post their journal articles on their own institutions' Web sites.
"We're watching open access very carefully," Mr. Regazzi said. "We're trying to learn from it."
June 26, 2004 at 04:00 PM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (50) | Top of page | Blog Home
6/23/2004 5:00:00 PM - Real-time information exchange with Microsoft EPM speeds task completion
by Robert Smol
The Liquor Control Board of Ontario is in the process of completing trials aimed at centralizing its project management environment.
The system will comprise Microsoft Project Server 2003, Microsoft Office Project Professional 2003 and Windows SharePoint Services. Once implemented, it will significantly decrease the time and effort needed to pass project-related information between users and will allow easier tracking of project status by managers, according to the LCBO.
"We wanted greater efficiency and ease of access by centralizing our projects on a common location, a common server," said Ivor Davies systems analyst for the LCBO. "We wanted to have all our all our IT projects in one common location where everyone was using a standard template, a standard calendar."
Microsoft’s EPM (Enterprise Project Management Overview) technology will allow executives and other stakeholders access to project-specific information including real-time updates on project status.
"The executives and a lot of the people who were the stakeholders in charge of the projects weren’t really getting a lot of visibility into what was going on with the projects" said Joe Galati, product manager for Microsoft Office Project. "You might have to say, ‘OK, I want a report on these projects.’ Then people would have to go off and running, go to their reports, have their meetings, and, after a few weeks, come back and give an update."
Such a cumbersome system made it difficult for managers to assess whether or not projects were on track.
Heather Collins, manager of end-user computing at the LCBO said that Microsoft EPM technologies provides a single point of contact for all project-related information such as timelines, documentation, status reports, communiqués, and group collaboration. The features within Microsoft Enterprise Project Management will allow her company to put a document up, and have all parties put their input into the document.
"Everything is in a single point so that you know exactly where you are going to get it, and for documentation, it is not being passed back and forth between people via e-mail or hard copy," she said.
"There is a very easy to use and familiar interface to actually find out what tasks you have to work on, and update your tasks," said Galati.
Collins said the LCBO will be able to dispense with the long, laborious meetings where participants are required to go through a document section by section ensuring everyone has their input.
A 50-person pilot project will be completed by the end of this month. The LCBO plans to begin a full implementation in July.
June 25, 2004 at 09:54 PM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (12) | Top of page | Blog Home
By TERRY WEBER
Globe and Mail Update Four out of five Canadian households now have a personal computer, and while a disparity still exists, those with lower incomes are closing the ownership gap, a new survey suggested Wednesday.
The study, conducted by research firm ACNielsen, said 81 per cent of Canadian households now own at least one computer, up from 78 per cent in 2003.
The biggest gains, the survey said, were made by low-income and older households.
According to the findings, households with annual incomes below $20,000 saw a 5-per-cent increase in computer ownership from last year. Sixty-three of households in that bracket now have PCs, compared with 58 per cent year earlier.
On the other end of the spectrum, 93 per cent of households with incomes over $70,000 had computers, up from 91 per cent in 2003.
“While disparities in PC ownership still exist, decreasing prices are making computers much more affordable for those at even the lowest end of the income spectrum,” Sharon Skurnac, senior director of consumer marketing for ACNielsen Canada, said in the report.
By age, the biggest increase was seen in households headed by someone in the 5- to-64 bracket, with ownership rising 6 per cent to 81 per cent in 2004.
The highest overall ownership percentage, however, was in the 35-to-44 group. Eight-seven per cent of households headed by a person in that age range had a PC.
The findings were based on a survey of 10,000 households, conducted in the first quarter of this year.
The study also found that computer upgrades accounted for much of the PC purchase activity. About half of the households that own a computer said the PC they most recently purchased was a replacement for an older model.
Fifteen per cent said it was an additional PC for the home, and 25 per cent said it was a first-time purchase.
About 69 per cent of households also reported spending more time on the computer than they did a year earlier. More than three-quarters of PC-owning households use their computers mostly for e-mail.
June 24, 2004 at 01:49 PM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (15) | Top of page | Blog Home
6/22/2004 5:00:00 PM - The way public sector technology is currently being handled could result in the equivalent of another summer blackout. The Gowlings lawyer that authored the study provides a three-part remedy. Also: the SeaBoard Group and Q9 Networks on open source and disaster recovery
Faulty IT products and premature software releases, coupled with a lack of accountability on the part of the IT industry, put Canada’s critical information infrastructure (CII) at risk of a major meltdown within five years, says a recent report.
The report, which was commissioned by Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Canada, has not yet been published. Through a Freedom of Information request the report was provided to the National Post and shared with Technology in Government.
It suggests increasing the adoption rate of alternative (non-Microsoft) software such as open source, licensing or certifying software professionals, and giving software product liability laws more teeth as ways to reduce the risk of CII disasters.
Donald Johnston, national technology industry group leader at Toronto-based law firm Gowling Lafleur Henderson LLP, and the lead author of the report, said while the report doesn’t say a major CII failure is inevitable, it is probable.
"We have been told by some people in the industry there will be one or more cascade failures as we had the other summer with the electrical situation," said Johnston in reference to last summer’s blackout. "I’m not necessarily saying it’s true; I’m just reporting it."
Johnston said the report was commissioned because PSEPC -- which will not yet comment on it -- is in the process of looking at ways to protect Canada’s CII in the telecommunications arena.
"PSEPC is using it as an aide to current initiatives," said Johnston. "We actually don’t offer any recommendations. It’s really taking a snapshot, looking at risk factors and trying to show those who will look more closely into it the length and breadth of the problem."
According to the study, software vendors have long been allowed to get away with a sales model that gives them from immunity from the liability applied to most other industries.
The study also points to Microsoft’s dominance in the software market as increasing the risk of CII failure.
What that implies for public sector networks, said Johnston, is that "it would be healthy to have a lot of variety so they don’t all share the same DNA as far as their operating platforms are concerned. It said you need a judicious mix of different systems that are capable of talking to each other so you can get the best result with maximum functionality."
That, he said, "could be an endorsement of any open source type of approach."
But while telecommunications consultant Brian Sharwood, a principal with the Toronto-based SeaBoard Group, agrees that diversity of platforms increases the reliability and stability of the CII, he’s not advising everyone to rush out and adopt Linux.
Instead, he said, CII networks should use a number of alternate operating systems, including Apple and Unix.
"You have to remember that a lot of the core networks are not running the Microsoft operating system," he said. "A lot of the core networks are running on Unix, Linux and Cisco’s own hardware and software, so a lot of it’s not reliant on Microsoft. If it was we’d have a lot more trouble."
Sharwood, pointing to the recent vandalism that left thousands of residents in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland without phone and Internet services for a night, said he’s divided on whether the greatest dangers posed to Canada’s CII come from accidental or intentional harm.
But he disagrees that trying to hold the software industry more accountable would reduce the risk.
"The whole software industry is really a best efforts industry," he said. "You know when you buy a piece of software it’s not going to work all the time, and it’s not going to work in every situation, and to try to regulate that it has to work really forces an undue burden on the software industry that will end up stifling innovation rather than creating it and it costs a lot more."
According to Osama Arafat, CEO of Toronto-based Q9 Networks, which provides outsourced Internet infrastructure and managed hosting services, there might be many conditions that contribute to the risk to Canada’s information infrastructure, but a major meltdown is not inevitable — if the right steps are taken now.
"If people don’t put the right infrastructure in place this becomes more and more possible as we rely more and more on technology, but we’re hoping through .. proper planning this would not happen," he said.
First, he said, organizations that provide critical pieces of the infrastructure have to have the basics in place, such as fire suppression on their primary systems and backup power systems. But having a bullet-proof disaster recovery and business continuity plan is essential.
Arafat said more organizations are adopting a DR approach in which systems in one geographic area are replicated in another, providing seamless failover.
June 22, 2004 at 07:17 PM in Financial Services | Permalink | TrackBack (4) | Top of page | Blog Home
PKI Practices Are Maturing Says Study
ComputerWire Staff
Some signs of improved security practices are to be found in the results of a latest survey of Public Key Infrastructure deployment across Europe.
More organizations say they are issuing certificates to business partners and slightly more than two-thirds of organizations polled for the study were found to be using separate signing and encryption keys, a 20% rise against the situation back in 2002.
The status report stems from an annual audit of sentiment towards PKI carried out by the European Electronic Messaging Association, a group that includes businesses like AIB Bank, Cargill and Unilever, government bodies such as the European Commission and the UK Ministry of Defence, and a number of IT vendors including HP, MessageLabs, Siemens, and Utimaco.
Management attention for PKI has increased, the study suggests, with the number of organizations viewing PKI as a strategic requirement increasing from 74% to 92% during 2003. Of those organizations upgrading their own Certification Authority, most expect to move to the use of an external trust contractor. CA technology helps in the deployment of a PKI that will scale by automating and centralizing the management of cryptographic keys and digital certificates.
June 21, 2004 at 08:55 PM in Security | Permalink | TrackBack (4) | Top of page | Blog Home
Yahoo! News - Search Rivals Gun Their Engines
By Cynthia L. Webb, washingtonpost.com Staff Writer
With Google's public stock offering just about ready to roll, rivals Microsoft Corp. and Yahoo are doing whatever they can to keep the customers they have and pilfer the ones they don't. But Google also is upping the ante with new features of its own.
"Google has unleashed two new features that are aimed at smaller Web sites and could change the search habits of millions of people," The San Jose Mercury News wrote on Saturday. On tap? The Mountain View, Calif.-based company has a new search engine tool that yields search hits based on the content of a particular Web site. "For instance, the owner of a computer Web site can place a Google search box on the site that returns only computer-hardware-related results. A search for the word 'mouse' would get results related to the computer device, not the animal," the Merc reported. Reuters wrote that "an astrology site could customize its results so that when searchers enter the query 'stars' they are more likely to see results about celestial bodies than Hollywood celebrities." Google's "Site-Flavored Google Search" service "is still an experiment at Google Labs, the company's research and development unit. It allows specialty publishers to customize Google search to reflect their own content," CNET's News.com reported.
• The San Jose Mercury News: Google Rolls Out Two New Features (Registration required)
• Reuters: Google Launches Tools To Boost Online Search, Ads
• CNET's News.com: Google To Publishers: Some Butter For Your Bread
Google's other new feature "lets owners of smaller Web sites put a Google search box on their site in return for a cut of advertising proceeds. Each time users click on ads running beside the search results from the box, the site operator gets a few cents. Until now, both Google and Yahoo have only allowed much larger Web sites to use this feature," the Mercury News reported. eWeek mentioned that "Google already was offering a similar program to large Web sites and portals from companies such as America Online Inc., EarthLink Inc. and BellSouth Corp. But the latest program extends the offering to the mass market."
"Both features aim to do the same thing -- give incentives to Web-site publishers to funnel traffic to Google. And by doing so, Google can make more money -- and users get easier searches," the Merc reported. "This is Google going out and leveraging the smaller network of sites...by saying, 'Help us get more searches, and we'll share in the revenue,'" Danny Sullivan, editor of the Search Engine Watch newsletter, told CNET's News.com. "The move comes as Google, Yahoo, MSN and others are in a vigorous race to capture the hearts--and clicks--of Web surfers worldwide. Because search is a popular activity for visitors, these companies are racing to be the most useful to surfers and inspire their loyalty. Search is also tied to the fast-growing sector of online advertising: search engine marketing--with an expected worth of US$2 billion to US$4 billion this year. To capitalize on the market, all of the major search providers are seeking to expand search-related advertising to various nooks and crannies across the Web," the news service reported.
"This is where the future of search is going to be fought," Forrester analyst Charlene Li told USA Today. It's about "who has the freshest information and presents it in a way that helps me find what I'm looking for."
• eWeek: Google Ad Program Gives Web Publishers Their Share
• USA Today: Search Engines' New Tools Hasten Info Hunt
As part of the search engine race, Yahoo is expanding its services in China, something Google has done too. The company has launched a Web site tailored for Internet Web searches in China. The move comes "less than a week after archrival Google Inc made its maiden investment in the country's biggest search engine firm. The new site called 'Yisou,', which translates into 'No. 1 search' in English, would differ from its Chinese-language portal in that it would focus solely on Web searches, a spokesman for Yahoo said," Reuters reported. "U.S.-based Google, which has no physical presence in China, dipped its toe into the market last week by buying a minority stake in Baidu.com Inc -- which calls itself China's top search engine and plans to list in New York. ... Google is most popular with wealthier, English-literate users in China, while Baidu does well among middle-class users." The Associated Press picked up on this factoid too. "Yahoo! China, a unit of Yahoo! Inc (Nasdaq:YHOO - news)., already has a Chinese search company, 3721, which it acquired last year for $120 million. Its Chinese Web site also offers a search function, though it appears to yield fewer results. Google has offered Chinese-language searches since 2000 and is hugely popular among China's more than 80 million Internet users - the world's second biggest Internet market after the United States."
• Reuters: Yahoo Unveils 'Yisou' Search Engine For China
• The Associated Press via The Washington Post: Yahoo Launches Chinese Language Site (Registration required)
And then there's MSN. Yusuf Mehdi, the Microsoft vice president who heads MSN, talked to The Los Angeles Times about the company's search initiatives. "Nearly a decade after the Netscape browser threatened Microsoft Corp.'s dominant Windows operating system, Google Inc. did the same with its search engine, which processes hundreds of millions of queries a day and helped the company generate $105.6 million in profit last year. But Microsoft has responded, spending some of its $56-billion cash hoard to build its own search engine, which it plans to release by the end of the year and incorporate in the next version of Windows, expected in 2006," the paper reported in an interview with Mehdi.
Here's Mehdi's thought on what's missing from Internet search: "Eighty percent of what's available out there you can't get. There's data behind private databases like Lexis-Nexis or Factiva. If you're a subscriber to a newspaper and you want to get the premium content, you can't even get that in your search results." And his thoughts on Yahoo's controversial plan to let companies pay to have their Web sites included in search results more often?: "We're looking at that model and trying to see if that works. But we think there's actually an incentive for people to want to give you all their content. The problem with that is it's hard to do." Despite Microsoft's plans to incorporate search into its next Windows operating system, this is not a move to dominate all other search engines, Mehdi insisted: "Windows is an open platform, from our perspective. For a long time, we've allowed people to choose the search engine they want, and we're going to continue to do that. If people have a great search engine, they can use it on Windows. We won't do anything to prevent it."
• The Los Angeles Times: Microsoft Building Search Power to Challenge Google (Registration required)
E-mail Battleground
Not all of the moves to gain pole position involve just search. E-mail storage has become a hot area to attract customers. "The Web mailbox wars escalated last week when Yahoo expanded its free e-mail accounts from 4 megabytes to 100 MB, and Microsoft confirmed that it, too, will raise storage limits soon on its free Hotmail accounts," Washington Post tech columnist Leslie Walker noted yesterday in her Web Watch column. "Both are reacting to Google's plan to offer 1 gigabyte of free storage with its new Gmail service, which is still in trial form with a limited number of users. 'What we are trying to do is take storage off the table as an issue,' said Brad Garlinghouse, a Yahoo vice president."
• The Washington Post: Hotmail, Yahoo Step Up The Mailbox Rivalry (Registration required)
Google's Gmail service is getting fresh press today from The New York Times, which wrote about the service's ad matching technology that offers up ads based on a computer analysis of an e-mail's contents. Those ads are what lets the company offer users a whole gigabyte of storage space for free. The New York Times said today "the service turns out to have some interesting self-imposed constraints. Google has created what is the electronic equivalent of a television network's standards and practices department to determine which e-mail messages are suitable for ads and which are not. Google will not display ads on e-mail messages with words related to sex, guns, drugs and other topics it considers off limits. 'We want the ads to be family friendly,' said Susan Wojcicki, Google's director of product management. 'There are some topics for ads we have decided that are not appropriate to be shown on e-mail.' Google will not show any ads on Gmail for dating sites, one of the most lucrative categories for other Web-based e-mail services. And it will not even show ads related to squirt guns. It also tries not to display ads next to messages that contain disparaging language about the products of its advertisers. So if your mother complains that her digital camera is a dud, the recipient is not likely to see a camera ad on that message."
• The New York Times: The Internet Ad You Are About to See Has Already Read Your E-Mail (Registration required)
IM Free!
Yahoo is ditching its paid business instant messaging service, which includes online meeting software and other tools not available in Yahoo's free IM service. The company said it "would instead focus on boosting the number of individuals who use its free IM service," The Associated Press reported, noting the program cost about $30 per person. "Research firm IDC estimated that as many as 255 million people will use IM at work in 2005, up from 65 million in 2002. But the vast majority of workers use free systems available from Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Yahoo! or rivals, including America Online Inc. and Microsoft Corp."
• The Associated Press via The Washington Post: Yahoo Scraps Business Instant Messenger (Registration required)
A Package Deal
Cablevision Systems Corp. has upped the ante in the telecommunication industry's efforts to attract customers with bundled phone and Internet service. The company "will announce today that it will offer unlimited local and long-distance phone calls, plus digital cable television and high-speed Internet access for $90 a month. Many consumers already pay $90 a month just for their cable television and high-speed Internet access bills, meaning Cablevision is effectively giving away phone service," The Wall Street Journal reported. "That can only be a headache for the regional Bell companies, which are already seeing demand for their traditional phone lines decline, in part, because Internet telephone services such as Cablevision's that charge far less. Goldman Sachs estimates that cable companies could take 7% of residential phone lines from the Bell companies by 2006 and nearly 20% over 10 years. Cable companies including Comcast Corp. and Cox Communications Inc. are planning big rollouts of phone service."
• The Wall Street Journal: Cablevision To Offer Internet Phone-Call Bundle (Subscription required)
Web Access, Not Always for the Masses
Spam is proving to be a bogeyman for disabled computer users, many of whom use voice-activated software to read e-mail and other Web content. The problem is just one of a slew of obstacles for blind or visually impaired computer users, The San Jose Mercury News reported today. "It's been more than five years since the federal government brought the issue to a forefront when it mandated that government Web sites and those of its suppliers must be accessible by people with disabilities. But many report the online world is still rife with digital roadblocks. The answer, activists say, is to universally implement consistent Web standards that ensure accessibility and usability." the article said. "There's a house full of good intent," Kenneth Frasse, executive director of Santa Clara Valley Blind Center, told the paper. "But progress hasn't been made."
• The San Jose Mercury News: Surfing In the Dark (Registration required)
A Great Wall to Keep out Information
Doing business in China often means playing by more stringent rules -- and here's the latest one. "The Chinese government is calling on Internet service providers to sign a 'self-discipline pact' meant to stop the spread of information that could harm national security as defined by Beijing," The Associated Press reported. "The country already requires Internet firms to police their online content and weed out any criticism of the central government. It also tries to block sites it deems politically sensitive or otherwise unacceptable. The new pact was initiated by the China Internet Association, a government-run industry group, the official Xinhua News Agency said over the weekend." From Xinhua: "Surveys have shown unhealthy online information has contributed to rising crime rate of China's youngsters. Many people, especially parents, have made appeals to the government to curb the spread of unhealthy information online."
• The Associated Press via The North County Times: China Urges Internet Firms To Sign Pact Promoting 'Patriotism'
• Xinhua: China Strives To Purify Internet Content
Consulting the Blogging Oracle
This might not make traditional bloggers happy, but it's a sign that Web logs are becoming powerful tools in corporate America too. Silicon Valley attorney Gary Reback, who represents Oracle rival (and takeover target) PeopleSoft, is attending Oracle's trial where the company is defending itself against antitrust charges brought by the Justice Department (news - web sites), and is writing a blog about the case. Just how much of a PR stunt is this? Well, the blog is on PeopleSoft's Web site. "The case Reback is chronicling will decide whether Oracle can go forward with its proposed hostile takeover of PeopleSoft, which is based in Pleasanton. Reback watches the Department of Justice (news - web sites) attorneys litigate the case and Oracle's defense, and then publishes his perspective online," The San Francisco Chronicle reported. (See my Filter column from last Thursday with more details on the trial). "What makes Reback's blog different is that he is an attorney representing a party with peripheral ties to the case. While not directly litigating the trial, his client has a lot riding on the outcome. Reback is also one of Silicon Valley's most well-regarded attorneys, having gained a national reputation in the 1990s during a variety of clashes with Microsoft Corp. His new role as a blogger is an unusual situation that some believe may become more common. 'I'm sure there will be more like the PeopleSoft (blog) in the future,' said Ernest Svenson, a corporate law attorney in New Orleans who writes the legal blog Ernie the Attorney."
San Jose Mercury News columnist Dan Gillmor mentioned Reback's blog in his own blog last week. "This is a smart PR move for PeopleSoft. Reback is a well-known antitrust lawyer (he was one of the major instigators of the original government action against Microsoft's monopoly abuses). This is his client's perspective, of course, but it's a fascinating one," Gillmor said.
• The San Francisco Chronicle: Legal Eagle's Blog View of Oracle Case
Filter is designed for hard-core techies, news junkies and technology professionals alike. Have suggestions, cool links or interesting tales to share? Send your tips and feedback to cindyDOTwebbATwashingtonpost.com. (Yes, those spammers have been having a lot of fun with my e-mail address lately.)
June 21, 2004 at 08:54 PM in Portals | Permalink | TrackBack (7) | Top of page | Blog Home
Of note, the following:
Every tax ought to be so contrived as both to take out and to keep out of the pockets of the people as little as possible over and above what it brings into the public treasury of the state.
The subjects of every state ought to contribute towards the support of the government, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their respective abilities; that is, in proportion to the revenue which they respectively enjoy under the protection of the state.
CHAPTER II
Of the Sources of the General or Public Revenue of the Society
PART 2
Of Taxes
THE private revenue of individuals, it has been shown in the first book of this Inquiry, arises ultimately from three different sources: Rent, Profit, and Wages. Every tax must finally be paid from some one or other of those three different sorts of revenue, or from all of them indifferently. I shall endeavour to give the best account I can, first, of those taxes which, it is intended, should fall upon rent; secondly, of those which, it is intended, should fall upon profit; thirdly, of those which, it is intended, should fall upon wages; and, fourthly, of those which, it is intended, should fall indifferently upon all those three different sources of private revenue. The particular consideration of each of these four different sorts of taxes will divide the second part of the present chapter into four articles, three of which will require several other subdivisions. Many of those taxes, it will appear from the following review, are not finally paid from the fund, or source of revenue, upon which it was intended they should fall.
Before I enter upon the examination of particular taxes, it is necessary to premise the four following maxims with regard to taxes in general.
I. The subjects of every state ought to contribute towards the support of the government, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their respective abilities; that is, in proportion to the revenue which they respectively enjoy under the protection of the state. The expense of government to the individuals of a great nation is like the expense of management to the joint tenants of a great estate, who are all obliged to contribute in proportion to their respective interests in the estate. In the observation or neglect of this maxim consists what is called the equality or inequality of taxation. Every tax, it must be observed once for all, which falls finally upon one only of the three sorts of revenue above mentioned, is necessarily unequal in so far as it does not affect the other two. In the following examination of different taxes I shall seldom take much further notice of this sort of inequality, but shall, in most cases, confine my observations to that inequality which is occasioned by a particular tax falling unequally even upon that particular sort of private revenue which is affected by it.
II. The tax which each individual is bound to pay ought to be certain, and not arbitrary. The time of payment, the manner of payment, the quantity to be paid, ought all to be clear and plain to the contributor, and to every other person. Where it is otherwise, every person subject to the tax is put more or less in the power of the tax-gathered, who can either aggravate the tax upon any obnoxious contributor, or extort, by the terror of such aggravation, some present or perquisite to himself. The uncertainty of taxation encourages the insolence and favours the corruption of an order of men who are naturally unpopular, even where they are neither insolent nor corrupt. The certainty of what each individual ought to pay is, in taxation, a matter of so great importance that a very considerable degree of inequality, it appears, I believe, from the experience of all nations, is not near so great an evil as a very small degree of uncertainty.
III. Every tax ought to be levied at the time, or in the manner, in which it is most likely to be convenient for the contributor to pay it. A tax upon the rent of land or of houses, payable at the same term at which such rents are usually paid, is levied at the time when it is most likely to be convenient for the contributor to pay; or, when he is most likely to have wherewithal to pay. Taxes upon such consumable goods as are articles of luxury are all finally paid by the consumer, and generally in a manner that is very convenient for him. He pays them by little and little, as he has occasion to buy the goods. As he is at liberty, too, either to buy, or not to buy, as he pleases, it must be his own fault if he ever suffers any considerable inconveniency from such taxes.
IV. Every tax ought to be so contrived as both to take out and to keep out of the pockets of the people as little as possible over and above what it brings into the public treasury of the state. A tax may either take out or keep out of the pockets of the people a great deal more than it brings into the public treasury, in the four following ways. First, the levying of it may require a great number of officers, whose salaries may eat up the greater part of the produce of the tax, and whose perquisites may impose another additional tax upon the people. Secondly, it may obstruct the industry the people, and discourage them from applying to certain branches of business which might give maintenance and unemployment to great multitudes. While it obliges the people to pay, it may thus diminish, or perhaps destroy, some of the funds which might enable them more easily to do so. Thirdly, by the forfeitures and other penalties which those unfortunate individuals incur who attempt unsuccessfully to evade the tax, it may frequently ruin them, and thereby put an end to the benefit which the community might have received from the employment of their capitals. An injudicious tax offers a great temptation to smuggling. But the penalties of smuggling must rise in proportion to the temptation. The law, contrary to all the ordinary principles of justice, first creates the temptation, and then punishes those who yield to it; and it commonly enhances the punishment, too, in proportion to the very circumstance which ought certainly to alleviate it, the temptation to commit the crime. Fourthly, by subjecting the people to the frequent visits and the odious examination of the tax-gatherers, it may expose them to much unnecessary trouble, vexation, and oppression; and though vexation is not, strictly speaking, expense, it is certainly equivalent to the expense at which every man would be willing to redeem himself from it. It is in some one or other of these four different ways that taxes are frequently so much more burdensome to the people than they are beneficial to the sovereign.
The evident justice and utility of the foregoing maxims have recommended them more or less to the attention of all nations. All nations have endeavoured, to the best of their judgment, to render their taxes as equal as they could contrive; as certain, as convenient to the contributor, both in the time and in the mode of payment, and, in proportion to the revenue which they brought to the prince, as little burdensome to the people. The following short review of some of the principal taxes which have taken place in different ages and countries will show that the endeavours of all nations have not in this respect been equally successful.
June 20, 2004 at 05:04 PM in eCommerce | Permalink | TrackBack (5) | Top of page | Blog Home
TheStar.com - Britain is light years ahead in fighting child porn
JENNIFER WELLS
A bilious sensation rises in the throat. Representatives of the business caste known as "Internet service providers" meet the media and say, well, hey, we're not the Internet police
Not much we can do about them there child porn pictures of the execrable type scrutinized by Michael Briere, say the ISPs. We are the "innocent carriers." The repulsive, illegal cargo? Not really our problem.
Next question.
All right, here's one. How is that the United Kingdom is light years ahead of Canada on this issue?
How is it that the U.K.'s Internet Watch Foundation has been in the business of cracking down on Internet crap for more than seven years and we have yet to establish its comparator?
How is it that the same foundation is funded, in part, by proactive ISPs who loudly and publicly proclaim their desire to help stamp out kiddie porn on the Net?
The Internet Watch Foundation was established in 1996. The following year it reported that 18 per cent of potentially illegal Internet content was "hosted" by U.K. Internet service providers. Today the federation claims that the figure has been reduced to 1 per cent.
How did that happen?
The fast answer is a broad coalition of co-operation and a shared determination to stop the Net-fed sexual exploitation of children.
The specific tools include an Internet hot line of the type advocated recently by Ontario Attorney-General Michael Bryant. In its most recent annual report, released in March, the IWF says that in 2003 it processed 20,000 reports of potentially illegal content. It also reported the grim statistic that of the 99 per cent of child abuse images traced to outside the U.K., 55 per cent were sourced in the United States, where, it notes, "very few" Internet service providers have registered with the U.S. equivalent of the IWF.
Lucky for the Brits, the IWF's hotline works closely with a national high tech crime unit, created in 2001, trained specifically to shut down illegal Net activities, including the dissemination of criminally racist material.
Greater luck: a "receptive and amendable" ISP community offers swift response via an effective notice and "take-down" system.
The IWF is highly visible, and posts the names of newly joined funding members. A company called Telewest Communications joined in April. Those who fail to join will become notable by their absence. An astute public can now choose a service provider based on whether they're in or they're out.
Movements such as these grow organically. Earlier this month, British Telecom announced the pilot launch of its so-called Cleanfeed project. The IWF reports illegal sites to the communications giant, which in turn blocks users from accessing the blacklisted sites.
The test has further drawn the battle lines between the "freedom first" Net believers and the "safety first" proponents who believe in the greater good of working to keep our children safe.
It's not web censorship. For web censorship, see, oh, Iran, where Internet service providers block web sites that purvey material critical of that country's human rights record and/or its political agenda. To repeat, Cleanfeed blocks illegal sites.
In May, British Telecom released a report prepared for it by London-based Futerra, a communications firm that works with the largest U.K. companies on issues of sustainable development. A key recommendation of the report was that ISPs take a commanding role in fighting the spread of child pornography on the Internet.
There have been repeated government proclamations here at home to do, well, something about this cancer. Most recently, the speech from the throne in February made a pledge to implement a strategy to counter sexual exploitation on the Internet.
The template is already there in the form of the U.K. initiative. And there are localized initiatives here that could fit into a broad national strategy. Cybertip.ca is one such. Established by Child Find Manitoba, Cybertip.ca is a tip line for individuals reporting the online sexual exploitation of children.
An aggressive national strategy has to come next. And who better to lend their support to such a project than powerful national communications companies? Come on down, Bell Canada.
There is, by the way, an answer as to why the U.K. is light-years ahead on this issue. The Brits have done exceedingly well in setting the pace for corporate social responsibility. Sadly, Canadian companies too often take their cue from the American counterparts who, and let's be exceedingly polite here, have been laggards. Sadly, this issue has not proved the exception.
June 20, 2004 at 04:28 PM in Online crime | Permalink | TrackBack (63) | Top of page | Blog Home
ePaynews.com - the payment news and resource Center
Jul 25 2003 : Exactly half (50 per cent) of Canadian consumers using debit and credit cards are concerned that their financial information will be intercepted while in transit, according to a survey by Ipsos-Reid. Significantly, 52 per cent of respondents, had fears that credit card data could be intercepted at the POS, while 58 per cent were concerned about the storage of this data in a database. Fifty-four per cent had some concern about the presence of their debit card details in a database, but in general, the respondents had confidence in the security of the financial services industry.
In terms of identity theft and fraudulent use of payment cards, “Canadians are more likely to have issues with companies accepting cards rather than companies issuing the cards”, according to Ipsos-Reid. Sixty-five per cent of consumers with Internet access, are “very”, or “somewhat” confident in the ability of Canadian financial institutions to secure their information. By contrast, retailers and service providers offering credit or debit card payments “may not have the complete confidence of customers when it comes to financial transaction security”, Ipsos-Reid advises.
With 35 per cent of Canadian consumers having had personal information violated online, up from 21 per cent in June 2001, and 18 per cent in December 2000, an Ipsos-Reid SVP, Steve Mossop, believes perceptions of online security have dropped since the dot-com peak in 2000. Security concerns had deterred 49 per cent of prospective online consumers from eCommerce, while just 43 per cent of respondents were confident in retailers’ abilities to ensure the security of payments and personal data, and 33 per cent believed responsibility for security lay with retailers.
June 20, 2004 at 11:17 AM in Smart Cards | Permalink | TrackBack (4) | Top of page | Blog Home
ePaynews.com Newsletter | June 27, 2003 | Issue 220 |
Jun 25 2003 : Over the next seven years, Visa Canada will convert most Visa-branded cards to chip, and adapt POS terminals to accept chip-based payments, but will not set a deadline due to the current low fraud rate. Cards and terminals will be upgraded as part of the normal replacement cycle, said Visa Canada’s Derek Fry, who confirms, “Canada is going to [migrate to chip and PIN], … but we’re going to take our time and figure out how to do it smoothly”. Canadian consumers already use PINs to verify debit card payments on Interac, the national network, so the change to PIN-based payments is not insurmountable.
June 20, 2004 at 11:16 AM in Smart Cards | Permalink | TrackBack (7) | Top of page | Blog Home
Phishers reel in money / E-mail scammers get victims' checking account information
John Shinal, Chronicle Staff Writer
A growing number of Internet users have fallen prey to unauthorized checking account withdrawals, a new report says, costing upward of $2.4 billion during a recent 12-month period.
The report, published by the Internet research firm Gartner Inc., estimates that 1 in 5 Internet users has been defrauded online. Almost 2 million Americans may have experienced unauthorized transfers from their checking accounts, the report says.
The fastest-growing method of bilking unwary Internet users is called phishing -- scammers sending legitimate-looking e-mails asking users to verify their account information. If the recipient answers the e-mail -- Gartner found that 3 percent of targeted people do respond -- the senders can access online accounts.
"This is a wake-up call for consumers," said Avivah Litan, the Gartner analyst who wrote the report. "You can't get lazy."
The average loss from online checking account fraud was $1,200, and nearly half of the incidents found by the survey occurred during the 12 months ending in April. A Gartner report last month said the phishing problem has become so widespread that more than 50 million Americans have received such e- mails.
With that kind of volume, online checking account fraud is a growing problem for banks, which nearly always reimburse their account holders for such losses.
More than two-thirds of the victims of unauthorized account transfers were not aware how they occurred, said Litan, who has tracked online fraud for six years.
To protect themselves, consumers should check and balance their accounts frequently and refrain from giving out any personal account information.
Users of EBay Inc.'s PayPal service have been some of the most frequent targets of phishing e-mails.
The Gartner survey suggests that while phishing and checking account invasion are growing problems, overall online fraud has stabilized.
The research firm surveyed 5,000 Internet users earlier this year and asked if they had ever been victimized by any of five types of fraud: check forgery, fraudulent cash advances, illegal credit card purchases, new account fraud and unauthorized checking account access.
The survey found that 19 percent had been victimized by unauthorized account access. Given that 141 million Americans are online, that translates into 1.98 million likely victims, Gartner's Litan said.
Unauthorized checking account transfers, which weren't tracked in the last survey, are the fastest-growing type of fraud. Nearly half of the victims said they were victimized during the survey period, Litan said.
The numbers suggest that overall online fraud has stabilized. The number of people victimized by credit card theft fell to 5.7 million from 7 million a year earlier, according to the report.
June 20, 2004 at 11:11 AM in Phishing & identity theft | Permalink | TrackBack (0) | Top of page | Blog Home
Yahoo! News - Feds, Private Groups to Educate Consumers About 'Phishing' Scams
Thu Jun 17, 5:42 PM
By David McGuire, washingtonpost.com Staff Writer
The federal government and some of the nation's leading consumer organizations and financial institutions today kicked off a campaign to educate consumers about the growing threat posed by "phishing," a sophisticated form of identity theft conducted via e-mail and conterfeit Web sites.
Visa USA, the Federal Trade Commission, the Better Business Bureau and the other coalition members said they plan to work together to teach consumers how to avoid phishing scams and to report suspicious e-mail to authorities.
Phishing scams are designed to trick computer users into divulging sensitive personal and financial information. The Anti-Phishing Working Group reported recently that the number of unique phishing scams making their way around the Internet rose 180 percent from March to April of this year.
A typical phishing scam starts with an e-mail disguised to look like it's coming from a respected bank, credit card provider or online retailer. The message often warns the recipient that certain account information has lapsed and provides a link to an official-looking Web site where a user can "update" such information as Social Security (news - web sites) numbers, birth dates, and credit card accounts.
"The advice to consumers is simple: Don't click on the link. If you do, you may be the catch of the day," said Howard Beales, director of the Federal Trade Commission's Bureau of Consumer Protection. Beales joined other coalition members today at a press conference in Washington.
The FTC today also announced that it had settled cases against a pair of identity thieves -- Zachary Hill, 20, of Houston and an unnamed minor from New York -- who had colluded to send phishing spam. Hill also faces a possible 46 months in prison under criminal charges brought by the Justice Department (news - web sites).
The combination of law enforcement and public outreach is needed to tackle phishing, said Wayne Abernathy, the assistant secretary for financial institutions at the Treasury Department (news - web sites). "We cannot solve this problem with education alone, but we cannot fight this problem without education."
As part of the new campaign, Visa will be providing brochures about phishing and other forms of identity theft to the banks that issue its cards and recommend that the banks include the information in monthly bills sent to their customers. All of the members of the coalition will also provide links to anti-phishing information on their Web sites. Call for Action, an international clearinghouse for consumer information, is also providing a free identity theft hotline (1-866-ID-HOTLINE) partially funded by a grant from Visa.
Beales encouraged Americans to forward any suspicious e-mail messages to the FTC at uce@ftc.gov. Such information is valuable, he said, because it helps investigators track scam artists, many of whom change their Web site locations and e-mail addresses frequently in an effort to frustrate law enforcement officials. Consumers can also send suspicious mail relating to their visa cards to phishing@visa.com.
Neither the FTC nor Visa keep statistics on how much money consumers have lost to phishing scams, but identity theft topped the list of consumer complaints to the FTC in 2003 and Internet scams accounted for more than half of all fraud complaints. In a 2003 study, the FTC found that 9.9 million Americans had fallen victim to identity theft in 2002 at a collective cost of nearly $53 million.
Visa USA Executive Vice President Doug Michelman said the company spends more than $100 million a year on anti-fraud efforts, with the anti-phishing campaign representing only a small fraction of that amount. He would not say how much the company had invested in the program.
Beales stressed that legitimate companies rarely if ever send e-mail asking customers for sensitive data. Customers who have any question about such a request should go directly to the company's Web site by typing the company's Internet address into a browser window, rather than by clicking on a link in a suspicious e-mail.
Earlier this week, a number of private-sector firms announced the formation of a new group -- the Trusted Electronic Communications Forum -- that will work to design technical solutions to the growing phishing problem.
June 20, 2004 at 11:00 AM in Phishing & identity theft | Permalink | TrackBack (1) | Top of page | Blog Home
Yahoo! News - Hotmail, Yahoo Step Up The Mailbox Rivalry
Sun Jun 20, 2:08 AM
By Leslie Walker, The Washington Post
The Web mailbox wars escalated last week when Yahoo expanded its free e-mail accounts from 4 megabytes to 100 MB, and Microsoft confirmed that it, too, will raise storage limits soon on its free Hotmail accounts.
Both are reacting to Google's plan to offer 1 gigabyte of free storage with its new Gmail service, which is still in trial form with a limited number of users.
"What we are trying to do is take storage off the table as an issue," said Brad Garlinghouse, a Yahoo vice president.
Just a few months ago, Yahoo charged $60 a year for 100 MB of storage. Starting last Tuesday, that much storage comes free with every account (and the maximum size of any one attached file is now 10 MB instead of 3 MB). The company also consolidated its various extra-cost mail services into one $20-per-year plan, with no graphical ads and with a hefty 2 GB of mail storage.
That's twice what Google is planning. Yahoo said its paid version contains more features than Gmail, including tighter spam filtering and the ability to download messages with standard e-mail programs.
Yahoo also streamlined its mail service's interface and search features.
Microsoft, meanwhile, has quietly been expanding the storage it offers to at least some users of its free Hotmail service to 25 megabytes, up from the 2 that were available before. Users of these expanded accounts can buy still more room with two new "extra storage" plans: a $40-per-year service that includes 50 MB, and a $60-per-year option that allows 100 MB.
But other users continue to get only 2 MB of storage, and an "All About Hotmail" page at the site shows the old amount as well. A new account opened on Friday afternoon also was limited to 2 MB.
Microsoft spokeswoman Kathleen Callaghan said she had not heard of any free accounts getting more storage.
But she did confirm that the company has plans in the works to beef up Hotmail: "Part of that will ensure that storage won't be an issue," she said. And a Microsoft vice president, Yusuf Mehdi, said last week that users will see a ton of innovation from Hotmail and Microsoft's other communication services over the next year.
June 20, 2004 at 10:49 AM in Portals | Permalink | TrackBack (11) | Top of page | Blog Home
Study Ranks Nation’s Top Banks by Online Adoption, Engagement and Loyalty
RESTON, Va., June 17, 2004 – comScore Networks, industry leader in the measurement and analysis of consumer behavior and attitudes, today released an analysis of the state of online banking in the U.S. comScore found that more than 22 million users logged into accounts at the nation’s top ten banks in the first quarter of 2004, representing growth of 29 percent versus Q1 2003. During this same period, usage of online bank bill payment services has grown by 37 percent.
“Online banking and bill payment continue to be among the fastest growing applications on the Internet,” said Jim Larrison, vice president of comScore Financial Services Solutions. “The continued proliferation of broadband access, coupled with heavy online and offline promotion, have helped the nation’s largest banks bring more than 5 million customers online in the past year.”
More than 4.6 million consumers, or about 20 percent of the online banking population, actively used online bill payment services offered by the top ten banks. These consumers paid an average of 14 bills online during the quarter, with an average value of approximately $250. The total value of bills paid by consumers though the top ten banks in Q1 alone was nearly $17 billion.
“Previous comScore research has shown that consumer use of online bill payment is correlated with greater loyalty to a bank and higher account balances,” continued Mr. Larrison. “These benefits, along with the significant cost savings that come with processing transactions online instead of on paper, have led top banks to offer their customers compelling incentives to use such services.”
“Offering our customers free and innovative online bill payment services continues to be an important area of focus for Bank of America," said Sanjay Gupta, e-Commerce executive for Bank of America. "The adoption rate among our customer base is a clear indication that consumers value the convenience and security of online bill payment."
In addition to its assessment of online banking, bill payment and customer acquisition growth in the past year, comScore’s Q1 2004 Online Banking Report also includes an analysis of the competitive landscape. With the Q1 report, comScore launched the Online Banking Development IndexTM (BDI) to serve as a composite benchmark of a bank’s performance in engaging its customers online. The Index is comprised of ten components across three major categories: Adoption, Engagement and Loyalty.
In Q1 2004, Bank of America led the top ten banks with a BDI of 118, followed by Citibank (115) and Fleet (114). While Bank of America is strong across the board, its greatest strengths were in the Adoption and Engagement categories. Bank of America continues to grow its online customer base at impressive rates, despite an already large foundation of users. Moreover, Bank of America is second only to Citibank in the percentage of its online customers who use bill pay services.
comScore Online Banking Development Index (BDI)
Source: comScore Networks
Q1 2004
BDI
Bank of America**
118
Citibank*
115
Fleet
114
Washington Mutual
97
Bank One
97
Wachovia***
96
Wells Fargo
93
Chase
92
Sun Trust
91
USBank
89
*Leader in Adoption category
**Leader in Engagement category
***Leader in Loyalty category
comScore’s Q1 2004 Online Banking Report includes:
· Quarterly online banking growth statistics
· Online banking usage profile (top activities, average number of logins, time spent, etc.)
· Demographic analysis of online banking users
· Quarterly online bill payment statistics
· New account acquisition statistics
· Online Banking Development Index rankings
Banking industry professionals and members of the media may request the comScore Networks Online Banking Report by sending an e-mail to banking@comscore.com.
About comScore Networks
comScore Networks provides unparalleled insight into consumer behavior and attitudes. This capability is based on a massive, global cross-section of more than 1.5 million consumers who have given comScore explicit permission to confidentially capture their browsing and transaction behavior, including online and offline purchasing. comScore panelists also participate in survey research that captures and integrates their attitudes and intentions. Through its patent-pending technology comScore measures what matters across a broad spectrum of behavior and attitudes. comScore consultants apply this deep knowledge of customers and competitors to help clients design powerful marketing strategies and tactics that deliver superior ROI. comScore services are used by global leaders such as Microsoft, Verizon, Best Buy, The Newspaper Association of America, Knight Ridder Digital, Nestlé, Wells Fargo & Company, GlaxoSmithKline, and Orbitz. For more information, please visit www.comscore.com.
Contact:
Graham Mudd
comScore Networks
(312) 775-6539
press@comscore.com
June 18, 2004 at 11:12 AM in Financial Services | Permalink | TrackBack (1) | Top of page | Blog Home
Yahoo scraps enterprise IM | CNET News.com
Yahoo confirmed on Thursday that it is no longer selling a version of its popular instant-messaging service for corporations, ending the Web portal's attempt to sell IM as a software package.
The dropping of Yahoo Messenger Enterprise Edition marks the end of the Web portal's now-defunct enterprise software division. The unit was created in 2000 to sell customized Web portals and video conferencing services for internal use in corporations. But in October 2003, Yahoo scrapped the division and melded its businesses with their consumer counterparts.
In an informal interview earlier this week, Yahoo's Chief Information Officer Lars Rabbe said the enterprise instant messenger was shelved, because Yahoo is largely a consumer company and not structured to take on the kind of support tasks and other responsibilities that come with selling corporate software.
The move will consolidate Yahoo's consumer and enterprise products into one product package.
"We have reorganized our instant-messaging business to optimize our ability to leverage the Yahoo network, whether our customers are at work or at home," Lisa Pollock Mann, senior director of Yahoo Messenger, said in a statement.
A Yahoo representative declined to comment Thursday on when the company had stopped selling the service.
To the Big Three Web portals--Yahoo, Microsoft's MSN and America Online--selling IM to companies has sounded like a good idea. The companies all offer popular, free IM clients that millions of Internet users have downloaded. IM technology lets people exchange messages in real time, and it has evolved features that let users play games, make phone calls and hold video conferences.
Instant messaging has made its way into companies as well. Some 85 percent of all enterprises in North America use a form of IM in their networks, according to a survey by research firm The Radicati Group. This penetration was mainly spurred by employees downloading Yahoo, AOL or MSN software to keep in touch with personal and professional contacts.
However, IM flourished in businesses without the oversight of corporate information technology departments, leaving many system administrators concerned about IM's safety against viruses. Some industries regulated by the federal government, such as the financial services and health care industries, are concerned that the use of IM in their offices might violate compliance or privacy laws.
The Big Three saw in this an opportunity to sell adapted versions of their free service to companies. The revamped software included features such as conversation logging, authentication and identity management. The companies also partnered with third parties such as IMLogic and Facetime Communications to add these applications to their IM products.
But consumer Web companies often have a hard time becoming enterprise software vendors, some industry watchers have noted.
"The market has shown that you cannot bring continuity from the consumer market to the enterprise market," said David Gurle, an executive vice president of Reuters Messaging. "You need to think about the enterprise market very differently than the consumer market, which doesn't pay you directly."
In addition, experienced vendors such as IBM and Sun Microsystems have begun offering their own IM products through their established sales channels.
Like Yahoo, AOL has retrenched its enterprise IM division. It has opted instead to sell add-ons such as video conferencing for a fee. Microsoft has focused less on MSN Messenger and more on its Live Communications Server--which combines IM, Net phone calling and video conferencing--as its enterprise communications product.
CNET News.com's Michael Kanellos contributed to this report.
June 18, 2004 at 11:04 AM in Portals | Permalink | TrackBack (16) | Top of page | Blog Home
TheStar.com - Fledgling Gmail hits the geek spot
Enthusiasts barter to get in now
Pilot offers flight over CN Tower
DANA FLAVELLE
BUSINESS REPORTER
Some people will do anything to be among the first on their block with a Gmail account.
The new Internet e-mail service from Google Inc. is so popular people are paying to get in on the limited test version now of what will be a free, unlimited service later this year.
Since Google, an Internet search engine specialist, announced April 1 it was expanding into the e-mail business, some people have paid as much as $70 U.S. through the Internet auction site eBay to buy Gmail accounts from people who got them for free from the company.
Others are offering to swap an intriguing mix of products and services in exchange for a Gmail account, from personally re-enacting an episode from Star Trek to a first edition copy of the sci-fi novel Dune.
Toronto's Stephen Thomson, a student pilot and accomplished pianist, made one of the most valuable pitches: A free flight over the CN Tower (or landmark of your choice) plus a musical performance at your wedding (or any other occasion), a combination worth $300, in his estimation.
Within five hours of posting his bid on gmailswap.com, a free swap site not affiliated with Google, Thomson had received a Gmail invite from "an incredibly trusting person" named Lisa. It was unclear when or if Lisa planned to collect from him, Thomson said in a telephone interview yesterday.
But why the frantic rush to join a potentially "buggy" test version of a service that will be easier to access — and presumably smoother to use — after the public version launches later this year?
Thomson said he was motivated by the desire to beat out his buddy, a committed computer user who'd let him in on the cool factor attached to owning an early Gmail account.
Plus, he wanted an e-mail address free of the underscores, backslashes and numbers later adopters get stuck with because the good names have all been taken by then.
Sean Michaels, a 22-year-old university student who created gmailswap.com, says there are two other factors at work. Google has a cult-like following in the tech community, where it's seen as the anti-monopolist, and a lot of devotees want to support its efforts to dethrone Microsoft Corp.'s Hotmail as the leading e-mail service.
"People think Gmail is going to be the e-mail standard of the future, that it's going to become what Hotmail is now, and they want to have a good address, one that shows they got in early," Michaels said.
Plus, Gmail comes with a staggering 1 gigabyte of storage space, more than 100 times what other free e-mail services offer. So much the average user would never have to delete another e-mail in a lifetime.
Michaels created gmailswap.com, where people can trade anything they want for a Gmail account, after noticing that limited access to the test version of the service was creating a black market for the accounts.
As is common in computer industry circles, Google was ironing out the remaining bugs in its new service by inviting a select group of users to test it out.
Michaels wasn't among them but says he received a Gmail invitation from a reader.
Since mid-May, when he created the site, more than 20,000 people have posted requests for Gmail accounts, he says. He doesn't know how many have actually succeeded in getting one.
But he is seeing signs that Google, already the Web's leading search engine company, knows another good thing when it sees one. The company has lately been issuing many more Gmail invitations through existing account holders.
Michaels has seen the impact on the value of Gmail accounts available for sale on eBay, he said. They've dropped to about $10 this week from $70 three weeks ago.
June 18, 2004 at 08:48 AM in Portals | Permalink | TrackBack (4) | Top of page | Blog Home
finextra news: NTT DoCoMo to pilot mobile shopping and payment service
03 June 2003 - Japanese wireless operator NTT DoCoMo is to begin live trials of a mobile shopping portal which presents users with bills for purchases alongside their monthly handset rental charges.
The six-month trial of the service, which is available to customers using Mova 2G and Foma 3G handsets, is scheduled to commence at the end of the month.
Initially, three virtual shops will be offering GPS services, such as tracking and emergency-related services, with an additional five stores joining from September. In total, about 20 virtual shops selling such items as fashion goods, groceries and flowers will be participating in the trial.
Users are required to register in advance via the official i-mode portal site. The service is free and users are only required to pay packet transmission charges. During the trial, purchases between a minimum Y1000 and Y10,000 per month will be accepted.
NTT DoCoMo expects the new system, available to over 38 million i-mode users, to help stimulate mobile e-commerce growth.
A similar scheme, dubbed Premium EZ Payment, is to be launched in July by KDDI and Okinawa Cellular Telephone over the 'au de okaimo' on-line shopping portal. Thirty-three companies, including Rakuten Inc., and a wide variety of retailers, content providers, and ASPs, are planning to participate in this new service.
KDDI has also sealed agreements with eCash Corporation and Yamato System Development to provide e-commerce and logistics packages for merchants moving to the portal.
June 18, 2004 at 08:24 AM in eCommerce | Permalink | TrackBack (13) | Top of page | Blog Home
Yahoo! News - Blogger Criticized for Pulling Service
Thu Jun 17, 8:57 AM ETAdd Technology - AP to My Yahoo!
By BRIAN BERGSTEIN, AP Technology Writer
NEW YORK - Dave Winer, a pioneer of an online journal format known as Web logs, thought he was doing people a favor by hosting 3,000 of such blogs for free.
So he was taken aback this week when he endured a barrage of criticism for deciding to stop the free service — an episode that reveals deep passions about blogging.
Winer launched his first Web log in 1997 and began hosting other people's blogs in 2000, when he headed UserLand Software, a Web publishing company.
After UserLand dropped the service to focus on selling blogging-related tools, Winer bought some servers and offered free hosting on Weblogs.com, a site that also tracks blogs hosted elsewhere, making it an important blogging hub.
Eventually Winer, now a research fellow at Harvard University's Berkman Center for Internet and Society, found that running the free service took too much time and energy, especially because he has health problems that he declined to discuss. He closed the free blogs Sunday.
"I can't have 3,000 people who depend on me for free stuff yelling and screaming at me, saying, `I need this now,'" he said Wednesday. "I gave and I gave, and I paid a great price."
Winer says bloggers who want their archived material can have it in a few weeks. He also hopes to connect them with other volunteers who will host blogs for free.
Still, bloggers who relied on Weblogs.com were furious, saying they should have been warned about the cutoff. Their anger spread to other bloggers, too, including Elisabeth Riba of Melrose, Mass., who called Winer "an egomaniacal blowhard with his head in the clouds. So much for his vision of blogtopia."
Such slams had Winer shaking his head.
"This thing has been blown so far out of proportion," he said. "It's just unbelievable to me."
June 17, 2004 at 10:08 PM in Blogging & feeds | Permalink | TrackBack (10) | Top of page | Blog Home