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September 29, 2004
Hackers Deface Al-Qaeda Web Site
Security Pipeline | News | Hackers Deface Al-Qaeda Web Site
Courtesy of TechWeb News
A group of hackers calling themselves TeAmZ USA on Tuesday attacked the Web site of a Qaeda-linked group that has claimed responsibility for numerous kidnappings and beheadings of Westerners in Iraq.
The hackers shunted requests for the site of the Tawhid and Jihad Group of Al-Qaeda ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi to a page showing a machine-gun toting penguin, smashed monitor, and the warning, "Host them and your [sic] next."
The message refers to the free hosting firm that serves up the site. By early Wednesday, the Web site had returned to normal. Islamic militants have taken to using the Web for propaganda purposes, often closing sites and shifting providers on short notice.
al-Zarqawi's group beheaded two American captives, Eugene Armstrong and Jack Hensley, last week, and is threatening a third, a British citizen named Kenneth Bigley. The Web site has been used to post videos of the hostages pleading for their lives, and footage of the beheadings.
The TeAmZ USA group has hit the Tawhid and Jihad Group site before. In late August, it tagged the site with a graphic of a large American flag and a photo of Osama bin Laden in crosshairs.
An image of the TeAmZ USA penguin hack can be found on several bloggers' Web sites, including this one.
September 29, 2004 at 05:10 PM in Security | Permalink | TrackBack (60) | Top of page | Blog Home
EBPP in Western Europe and the US 2004
EBPP in Western Europe and the US 2004 - Computer Business Review
Published: 26 Feb 2004, Publisher: Datamonitor
Introduction
Early forecasts on adoption and growth of electronic bill presentment and payment solutions were optimistic. But despite the potential benefits of this new technology, the predicted growth in Europe has yet to appear, and even in the US providers have struggled to demonstrate healthy business. This briefing examines the reasons behind this and looks at the market's future prospects.
Scope
* Covers the EBPP markets (B2C only) in the US and Western Europe, particularly focusing on the UK
* Utilizes information from primary interviews with leading market players, such as CheckFree
* Estimates the current size of the EBPP markets in the US and the UK, and compares it with the market's potential size
* Assesses EBPP strategies of prominent market players in the US and Western Europe
Highlights
Out of the two main models, the biller-direct approach to EBPP has had much more success with consumers. However, industry experts agree that the future lies with the thin version of the consolidation model, as it allows billers to maintain close customer contact, while offering consumers the convenience of consolidated bill viewing.
Despite the competitive advantages EBPP can bring, growth of the market has been below expectations. Though the US is the global market leader, Datamonitor estimates that EBPP accounted for less than 10 per cent of all US bills. In the UK EBPP solutions have yet to catch on, with less than 1 per cent of all bills delivered and paid online.
One of the reasons for the indifferent EBPP growth in Europe are existing payment infrastructures. Direct debit, for example, demands minimum effort from consumers and is cheaper than online payment processing. However, online billing offers long-term advantages of targeted marketing and cross-selling which cannot be ignored.
Why you should buy this report
* Gain understanding of how different models of electronic bill presentment and payment work
* Identify competitive advantages EBPP solutions can bring to your business
* Develop successful EBPP strategy through the assessment of benchmarking examples
______________________________
Table of Contents
ABOUT DATAMONITOR
CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION
* What is this briefing about?
* Scope and definitions
* Who is the target reader?
* How to use this briefing
CHAPTER 2 EBPP EXPLAINED
* There are two main models of electronic bill presentment and payment
o The biller-direct approach establishes EBPP capabilities on a billler's own website
o The consolidator approach relies on a central aggregator
o The consolidator model of EBPP offers two different approaches: thick and thin consolidation
o So far, the biller-direct method has proved more popular, though the future momentum lies with the thin version of consolidation model
o The biller-direct model is popular with billers and consumers
o Billing direct ensures hands-on control of the customer by the service provider
o Despite apparent inconvenience, the biller-direct model has been popular with consumers
o But the lure of bill consolidation can ultimately prove too strong
o The 'thin' version of the consolidator model has the best chance for widespread EBPP acceptance
* Various types of players are currently contesting the market
o Traditional billers can benefit from the cost-saving aspect of EBPP
o Third party providers have established a strong position in the market
o FS companies have multiple roles in the EBPP process
o Retail banks are a major source of recurring bills to consumers
o Retail banks are also involved in the provison of payment services to billing companies
o Retail banks can also act as providers of consolidation services to consumers
CHAPTER 3 EBPP - STRUGGLING TO SUCCEED
* EBPP implementation can provide companies with a number of competitive advantages
o Cost-saving is one of the most compelling arguments for EBPP
o EBPP offers competitive advantages through delivery of superior customer service
o EBPP offers valuable opportunities for targeted marketing
o EBPP offers enhanced cross and up-selling opportunities
o EBPP helps in attracting more affluent customers
* Despite the potential advantages of EBPP implementation, the current market is struggling in terms of its size
o The US market is far more developed in terms of EBPP use and adoption
o While in the UK EBPP accounts for a fraction of all consumer bills
* If EBPP were implemented fully, the potential cost savings would be substantial
o Though the potential savings can be huge, only the most advanced EBPP models can offer them
o But the majority of European countries are far away from eliminating paper bills completely
CHAPTER 4 YET, TURNAROUND IS EXPECTED
* Introduction
* A number of obstacles has prevented the EBPP market from growing more rapidly
o Consumer attitudes towards EBPP have been lukewarm
o Customers are not there yet in terms of the e-adoption curve
o US customers have been put off by charges
o Security of online payments presents a worry for consumers
o European consumers can enjoy more convenient regional payment infrastructures
* A number of prominent players have been driving the US EBPP market forward
o CheckFree - the global leader in the provision of EBPP solutions
o CheckFree offers a choice of EBPP solutions to consumers and billing companies
o CheckFree enters European EBPP market
o Datamonitor Cards Team View
o Bank of America - the largest online customer base in the world
o Partnership with CheckFree has ensured a prominent presence in the EBPP market
o Datamonitor Cards Team View
o A number of other companies are also contesting the EBPP market in the US
* European companies have been slower in establishing a business case for EBPP
o Alliance & Leicester - giving UK consumers a taste of consolidation
o Datamonitor Cards Team View
o The UK Post Office - a less successful attempt at consolidation
o Bills Online( service was aimed at providing a one-stop-bill-shop
o Datamonitor Cards Team View
o Companies in different European countries are in various stages of EBPP development
CHAPTER 5 CONCLUSION
* Online bill presentment will drive the future growth of EBPP, but a lot will depend on consumer take-up
o The future EBPP growth will come through online bill presentment
o Online bill presentment offers a solution for European markets with existing non-electronic payment systems
o But the growth can only be achieved with the help of consumers
o Future generations will place less importance on paper bills
o Datamonitor Cards Team View
CHAPTER 6 APPENDIX
* Definitions
o EBPP
o The biller-direct model
o The thin consolidation model
o The thick consolidation model
o Direct Debit
* Research methodology
* Further information
o Relevant links
o Relevant reports
o Current reports and briefings
o Future reports and briefings
o Datamonitor Financial Services Consulting
* Datamonitor Retail Banking team
* How to contact experts in your industry
List of Tables
* Table 1: EBPP accounted for less than 10 per cent of all B2C bills in the US in 2002
* Table 2: EBPP accounted for 0.2 per cent of all B2C bills in the UK in 2002
* Table 3: Potential cost saving from EBPP implementation
* Table 4: Billing companies could save billions, if they were to implement a 100-per-cent switch to EBPP
* Table 5: Proportion of customers paying their bills online
* List of Figures
* Figure 1: The biller-direct model requires customers to view and pay their bills directly through their service provider's website
* Figure 2: The 'consolidator' model relies on central aggregator to present bills and provide payment capabilities for customers through its website
* Figure 3: Sweden is the most advanced country in terms of EBPP adoption, as it has the highest proportion of customers paying their bills online
* Figure 4: A number of other US companies are also active in the EBPP market
* Figure 5: A number of European companies are in different stages of EBPP development
September 29, 2004 at 07:50 AM in Financial Services | Permalink | TrackBack (7) | Top of page | Blog Home
Microsoft and Amazon take spam suits to "Head Operation"
Microsoft and Amazon take spam suits to Head Operation - Computer Business Review
Microsoft Corp and Amazon.com Inc have filed a number of lawsuits, including one jointly filed complaint, against people they accuse of spamming their users and spoofing email headers to resemble mail sent from the two companies.
29 Sep 2004, 09:43 GMT -
The companies highlighted a joint lawsuit against the Head family of Kitchener, Ontario, who have previously been successfully sued by Yahoo! Inc, which called them the "Head Operation". The Heads say they are no longer in business.
Microsoft and Amazon claim that Barry Head, his sons Eric and Matthew, and their company Gold Disk Canada Inc, sent millions of spams to their users, spoofing email headers to appear to come from Microsoft and Amazon domains.
The Heads "sent large volumes of e-mail messages advertising the sale of 'Human Growth Hormone,' cable descramblers, penis enlargement products, debt consolidation, merchant card processing services, and other goods and services of questionable value," the complaint claims.
"We've been collaborating for the past year," Microsoft senior attorney Tim Cranton said of the Amazon relationship. "We realized in the last few months we could probably get more bang for the buck by filing together."
According to their lawyer, the Heads went out of business after settling a March 2004 lawsuit filed by Yahoo. The settlement, for a reported six-figure sum, came after Yahoo accused the group of sending 94 million spams to Yahoo users.
"Eric Head and his related companies have been out of business for some time. We will address the new allegations in the appropriate forum," Huey Cotton of the law firm Cozen O'Connor, who represents the Heads, told ComputerWire yesterday.
In June, the Toronto Star reported that Eric Head had quit spamming following the Yahoo settlement to become a drummer in a band. He also reportedly vowed to use his knowledge to help young people be safer on the internet.
"I urge everyone who is involved in the commercial bulk email business to cease all operations unless and until they are completely compliant with the requirements of the new US anti-spam laws," Head reportedly said.
Microsoft's Cranton said: "We want to hold spammers responsible for all their spam activity, not just for the acts covered in another lawsuit." He said the suing companies want an injunction preventing the Heads from spamming.
Amazon has also filed three John Doe suits against alleged phishing attackers that try to trick Amazon customers out of their credit card information. Microsoft also filed another spam suit against a defendant Amazon has previously sued.
September 29, 2004 at 07:49 AM in Microsoft | Permalink | TrackBack (1) | Top of page | Blog Home
September 28, 2004
Firefox Tops Two Million Downloads
NewsFactor Network - - Firefox Tops Two Million Downloads
By Kimberly Hill
NewsFactor Network
September 28, 2004 3:52PM
The Mozilla Foundation says its open-source browser, Firefox, was downloaded more than one million times in its first four days of preview release -- and more than two million times after 10 days of release. Open source browsers are chipping away at Internet Explorer's dominance, researchers say.
In its first four days of preview release, the Mozilla Foundation's open-source browser, Firefox, was downloaded over one million times.
That was six days sooner than the group had hoped: Mozilla had targeted one million downloads in the first 10 days of release.
In fact, by the 10-day point, at just before 4 a.m. Friday, over two million downloads of Firefox had taken place, Bart Decrem, Mozilla's head of marketing, told NewsFactor. The downloads were going faster than any previous release of the foundation's applications.
Assailing the Unassailable
Microsoft Explorer's lead in the browser market once seemed unassailable, but open source-browsers from the Mozilla Foundation recently have been showing some gains. According to Webanalytics Latest News about Analytics company WebSideStory, the users of top-ranked e-commerce sites are using Explorer less and Mozilla more.
A D V E R T I S E M E N T
In June, 95.6 percent of Web-site visitors used Explorer. This month, 93.7 percent do. By contrast, the percentage of visitors using Mozilla grew from 3.5 percent to 5.2 percent in the same period.
Open-Source Evangelism
The open-source community tends toward evangelism, and it is grabbing the chance to point out the flaws in proprietary software used to access the Web.
Mozilla has launched a security-bug bounty program, which pays US$500 to developers and securityRelevant Products/Services from Microsoft experts who identify critical flaws in the Mozilla source code that could expose users to security breaches Latest News about security breaches.
Many in the open-source community are quick to compare this approach to Microsoft's somewhat-guarded stance on security issues with its software.
Fact of Life
Security flaws are a "fact of life" with any software package, Decrem said. However, the "security culture" of the open-source community is much different than that of vendors making and marketing proprietary software. "We invite people to scrutinize our code," he said, which increases the number of minds working on solutions.
In fact, security is one of the most-frequently quoted reasons that people are switching to Firefox. As hackers have gotten more creative, Internet users are becoming more concerned abut their exposure through browsing software. Recent high-profile breaches have influenced many users to switch, said Decrem.
September 28, 2004 at 09:10 PM in Browsers | Permalink | TrackBack (53) | Top of page | Blog Home
HFC e-mail error leaves customers fuming
Finextra: HFC e-mail error leaves customers fuming
HFC Bank, a consumer lending business owned by HSBC, has admitted violating data protection laws when it revealed personal customer details in an e-mail, according to a report by the BBC.
According to the report, HFC sent urgent e-mails to 2600 customers, but an error meant that each address was visible to every customer on the list. The problem was made worse when customers' out of office messages began to respond, many containing telephone numbers.
The bank's corporate director Martin Rutland has apologised for the error, but the BBC says many customers are still unhappy and are considering taking legal action.
The bank has since credited affected customer accounts with Ł50 in compensation.
HFC says a member of staff made the mistake last Tuesday, when three e-mails were sent to groups of more than 800 customers asking them to call a helpline number.
The Information Commissioner told the BBC that HFC has broken the law, but it would not be taking action against the bank on this occasion.
September 28, 2004 at 07:34 AM in Financial Services | Permalink | TrackBack (6) | Top of page | Blog Home
September 27, 2004
Ed Taekema - Road Warrior Collaboration - Distributed Teams and Democratic Communication Patterns - Part I
Weblog: Ed Taekema - Road Warrior Collaboration
Source: Distributed Teams and Democratic Communication Patterns - Part I
''Knowledge on the road'' is partly about how a highly distributed organization like the one I work for, can use community software to enhance both service delivery as well as make life better for people on the road. By ''highly distributed'' I basically mean a professional services organization whose members by and large work on their own at client sites. This is especially common in post sales consulting organizations. The premise of this post is that this kind of organization faces a simple but huge learning / knowledge management hurdle: distance. This is hardly necessary to say but I think that the distance's impact on a learning organization hasn't been highlighted.
My experience tells me that one of the effects that distance has on us ist that is changes the way we communicate. I have observed that distance changes the principal direction that communication takes. Instead of being mostly horizontal (peer to peer) as it is for a non-distributed group, a highly distributed group mostly communicates vertically to management and administration. It is just too hard to do peer communication. We already get enough email, and email blasts are instrusive and tend to degenerate quickly and are headache, we're in different timezones so we don't often chat over the phone. There just isn't a lot of opportunity for peer to peer interaction.
For this reason, communication patterns emerge that focus on communication back to head office and admin but not to each other as peers. Personal publishing/weblogging/RSS provides some fundamental tools to spark the peer to peer conversation while still not being instrusive. It provides an opportunity to collaborate in ways that might not be possible otherwise. It also is an incredibly good tool for making knowledge contagious ... and Blogging has gone corporate. This is a good thing.
Going corporate basically means it is being used in two main ways. First, type A marketing folks are all over this. Its is an opporunity for Microsoft, Google, Apple, Disney, you name them, to put a human face on the company. So, unofficial / official blogs have sprung up where company employees can give the world their perspective on life inside these organizations. These are incredibly popular. Here is an article about this happening at Microsoft (http://dijest.com/aka/2003/10/08.html). Here is a further link to someone advocating this angle (http://weblog.siliconvalley.com/column/dangillmor/archives/001437.shtml#comments). That article has a lot of jumping off spots regarding using bloggin in this way.
OK, so thats the marketing angle, the other is the intranet & knoweldge management angle or weblogs behind the firewall, free from the public's prying eyes. In order to understand why this is so significant, we need to review a couple of things about how blogging works.
A person much smarter than me (http://www.mcgeesmusings.net/2003/10/18.html#a3735) said:
''Blogging in organizations = lowering the barriers to expression + lowering the barriers to attention.''
What they are talking about is the interaction between two technologies:
*
Weblogging software.
This is essentially personal publishing software. It very often has an offline element to it, in other words you can write when you feel the urge and sync it when you have a good connection. Which is to say it has a server portion, usually plugged into either IIS or Apache and a client portion where the source for the blog lives. When you post to your blog, you run a process on your laptop and the post is pushed up to the server.
*
Aggregation via RSS.
RSS stands for Rich Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication ... depending on who you talk to. The idea is that I can "subscribe" to a website (blog) and then as the author posts to it, I receive those articles, usually the full text, in a piece of software called an Aggregator. Its called an Aggregator because it brings all the content of all the website you care about into one view or tool. Webloggers use their aggregators to find much of the content for their own blogs ... ie so and so said x about y and here is why I agree or disagree etc. To get an idea about what aggregators are all about look here (http://www.ojr.org/ojr/lasica/1043362624.php) for a list of the available aggregators look here (http://www.hebig.org/blogs/archives/main/000877.php).
I think that this combination of publish and subscribe technologies starts to restore some of the missing 'watercooler talk' that is so important to establishing peer to peer communication channels in a highly distributed group. The impact is that slowly the direction that communication channels take slowly becomes more democratized, more peer to peer as everyone becomes both a publisher and a subscriber. It doesn't have to up the ladder and then down, it is available across the organization. I think that it is the direction angle where weblogging and RSS can really have a tremendous impact for a distributed organization.
http://www.pycs.net/users/0000177/weblog/
Friday, October 24, 2003 1:25:20 AM
September 27, 2004 at 09:22 PM in Blogging & feeds | Permalink | TrackBack (22) | Top of page | Blog Home
'Wikis' Offer Knowledge-Sharing Online
Yahoo! News - 'Wikis' Offer Knowledge-Sharing Online
Mon Sep 27,11:08 AM ET
Add Technology - AP to My Yahoo!
By ANICK JESDANUN, AP Internet Writer
NEW YORK - Taran Rampersad didn't complain when he failed to find anything on his hometown in the online encyclopedia Wikipedia. Instead, he simply wrote his own entry for San Fernando, Trinidad and Tobago. Wikipedia is unique for an encyclopedia because anybody can add, edit and even erase. And the Wikipedia is just one — albeit the best known — of a growing breed of Internet knowledge-sharing communities called Wikis.
There are Wiki cookbooks, a compendium of quotations and a repository on guitar players. College professors use Wikis to spur discussion. Software developers create online manuals. Small teams within businesses track projects, exchange ideas and list good places for lunch.
Though their openness can encourage mischief — spammers have been known to add porn links, Wikis have the power to change how we live and work, replacing e-mail as a tool of collaboration and spanning hierarchies.
"Anyone can post to a Wiki in real time," said John Bobowicz, who created several for the Java programming community. "You can go to a Wiki and you can feel like your voice is just as loud and your opinion is worth as much as everyone else. It levels the playing field."
Wikis, based on the Hawaiian word "wiki wiki" for "quick," grew out of programmer Ward Cunningham's desire for a new way to discuss software design. He launched the first Wiki in 1995. Thousands more followed, including Wikipedia in 2001.
Though for now largely the domain of techies, Wikis are poised to become what blogs have turned into — still in the Internet avant garde yet widespread enough to be influential.
At its core, a Wiki is an empty room, devoid of furniture and decoration, said Sunir Shah, founder of an online community called Meatball. Visitors bring the personality and mission, turning the Wiki into a library, a party or a conference room.
Wikis are also described as online whiteboards, shared notebooks or group memory. They are forums for sharing knowledge and control — and fostering trust in the process.
At Wikipedia, any visitor can make changes without needing to first prove expertise. This month, it surpassed 1 million articles, including 350,000 in English — three times that of the online Encyclopedia Britannica. More than 25,000 people have written or edited at least 10 articles.
As a contributor, Rampersad believes he can add insights on the Caribbean region beyond what outsiders can. He also likes the ability to update articles with news developments more quickly than a traditional encyclopedia can.
Other knowledge repositories work on the same premise. Stockepedia is a reference on the stock market created by and for the investment community. Wikitravel is a collaborative travel guide.
Where Wikis can truly take off are in corporate and organizational settings.
The Association of Internet Researchers used a Wiki to craft guidelines on research ethics, while Bowdoin College professor Mark Phillipson had his students annotate and discuss poems.
On an internal Wiki at Net Integration Technologies Inc., workers keep their calendars and managers can rearrange priorities (employees could also change their bosses' appointments, though were they to do so they might not remain employees for long).
Technically, a Wiki's attraction is in its efficiency.
Unlike e-mail and discussion boards, which tend to involve back-and-forth exchanges and lots of attachments, Wikis permit changes directly to the main document.
"Not everything maps that well to chronological discussions," said David Conner, a Web developer at software maker SAS. "How to do something, for instance, is the same now as next week and three years from now. If it's in an e-mail from three years ago, I'm not going to remember that or find it."
But editing a Wiki document can be cumbersome.
Internet security company SecureWorks Inc. has decided to abandon Wikis because its sales and marketing employees didn't have the patience to learn. The few who did ended up burdened with having to make all the changes, said Nathan McNabb, the marketing manager.
And setting up a Wiki typically means running a Web server and installing such software as TWiki or MediaWiki, though companies like Socialtext Inc. offer hosted services and are developing easier-to-use software aimed at businesses.
Perhaps the biggest hurdle is cultural. Corporations are accustomed to hierarchy and control.
"For any company or professional organization that has to worry about things like legal liability, brand protection, reputation, those can be scary things," said Bobowicz, who had to get special approval from his bosses at Sun Microsystems Inc.
Gary Boone, research manager at Accenture Technology Labs, said employees typically bring Wikis into the workplace informally, with central infotech managers taking longer to recognize their value.
Because of their openness, Wikis face unique challenges.
Some Wikipedia readers recently tried to test the site's credibility by introducing errors on purpose. And some contributors have attempted to impose their personal viewpoints; an article on abortion was briefly replaced by "murder" written 143 times.
That's why contributors police Wikipedia. All changes are recorded, so reversions are easy. Though vandals aren't easily banished — they can reconnect anonymously from another computer — a single troublemaker cannot keep up with 100 users set on preserving the community.
Contributors say the potential for vandalism is outweighed by the speed and breadth of the end product. Wikipedia's entries reflect the collective interests of its readers; there's even an article on "Survivor: All-Stars" winner Amber Brkich.
Try finding that in the Britannica.
___
Anick Jesdanun can be reached at netwriter(at)ap.org.
___
On the Net:
Wikipedia: http://wikipedia.org
Wiki directory: http://www.worldwidewiki.net/wiki/SwitchWiki
September 27, 2004 at 09:03 PM in Internet evolution | Permalink | TrackBack (12) | Top of page | Blog Home
Dubai Int'l Financial Centre opens for business
Sept 22: The Gulf emirate of Dubai took a major step this week towards achieving its goal of becoming a financial hub between European and Far Eastern markets by declaring its international financial centre open for business.
Standard Chartered Bank was one of three institutions granted a licence Monday following the formal establishment last week of the Dubai International Financial Centre, its regulatory authority, the DIFC Financial Services Authority (DFSA) and other bodies.
"Dubai is at the centre of major emerging markets ... Throughout the region you're talking about 1.8 trillion dollars of wealth and yet there's no financial centre to serve this area, except those in the West, Hong Kong or Singapore.
So the DIFC is here to fill that gap," DFSA chairman Habib al-Mulla said. "For the first time ever in the region we find a regulatory scheme which is parallel to what exists in the major financial centres in the world ... And that's something the region has lacked until now. There hasn't been any legislative regime equal to what the DIFC has created in the past few months," Mulla said.
The DIFC laws cover the full range of commercial and civil activities, he added.
DIFC entails a multi-billion-dollar real estate development on a 110- acre (445,000-square-metre) swathe of desert, or 150 per cent of London's Canary Wharf, and will comprise up to 40 buildings and an estimated 50,000 employees.
The main premises will be the virtually completed Gate Building into which the main DIFC bodies will move in December.
The end of 2006 should see the completion of about 40 per cent of the site, which will also hold the world's largest car park, able to accommodate 37,000 vehicles.
Some 50 applications for licences are currently in various stages of being processed, said DFSA Chief Executive David King. Up to 20 more are expected to be issued by the end of this year.
"From today, Dubai will supply the missing link in the global economy," King said.
"Now at last, we have a market with the world class legal framework, transparent operations and independent regulation that will attract the attention and confidence of the global investment and business community."
DIFC, which King said will generate money for the region and is likely to raise its standards, plans to cover asset management, wholesale banking, securities trading and reinsurance. It will also set up an international financial exchange.
"But additionally, in the heart of one of the world's largest Muslim communities, we've designed an Islamic financial business law, crafted ... to meet the needs of the region," he said.
This is intended to attract participants wishing to invest in accordance with Islamic law "in an environment on their doorstep," King said.
Asked about possible concerns of institutions about the credibility of the United Arab Emirates, from where much of the cash used by terrorists to finance the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States was reportedly transferred, King stressed that "very strict procedures" had been put in place.
The standards set will "reduce the potential for adverse activities and crime to take place," he said.
Post 9/11, he said, "a lot of money that was in the States is being repatriated to the region," and Dubai is attracting that money "because it's a very stable environment."
DIFC is one of a raft of pioneering schemes the government of Dubai, one of the seven city states that make up the UAE federation, has launched in a bid to establish itself as the Gulf's business and leisure hub, as oil resources run out.
September 27, 2004 at 07:46 AM in Financial Services | Permalink | TrackBack (9) | Top of page | Blog Home
September 26, 2004
Bridging the gaps
Banker Middle East - Your Indispensable Guide to the Regional Banking Industry
Saad Abdul Razak, Executive VP for Retail and Corporate Banking at Dubai Islamic Bank, talks to Will McSheehy about channels, technology, and the need to develop services that really meet customer needs
Dubai Islamic Bank (DIB) was the first bank in the world to adopt Islamic Shariah law as its founding principle when it opened for business in 1975. Since then, the bank’s structuring teams and scholars have been credited with the development of tools such as Murabaha, Istisna, Musharaka and Mudaraba that are in use today at Islamic financial institutions across the globe. In conversation with Saad Abdul Razak, it becomes clear that the bank still sees its place as being at the forefront of innovation in Islamic products and services.
During the last year, the pace of DIB’s retail channel development has been frenetic, with the launch of the Al Islami Mubasher call centre rapidly followed by the launch of the Al Islami Online e-banking service in June. In October the purchase of a suite of NCR automated deposit systems and kiosks enabled DIB to create automated self-service branches, and even a mobile ATM system service was instigated to take ATMs to any strategic location where a temporary deployment would benefit customers. At the beginning of 2003, the bank launched the UAE’s first Arabic language SMS mobile banking service, Al Islami Mobile, which it claims offers 36 unique features for the convenience of customers. Speaking at the recent announcement of Q1 2003 results, UAE Minister of State for Financial and Industrial Affairs and DIB Chairman, HE Dr Mohammed Khalfan bin Kharbash, said that the bank’s efforts have now ensured it enjoys the highest deposit levels of any bank in the UAE. He also promised four new branches during 2003; one them to be exclusive to female customers.
In April, DIB restructured itself to divide the bank into four segments: UAE business (retail, corporate and real estate), international business and treasury, support functions (such as IT and HR), and finance. It was against this backdrop of rapid growth and change that BME sat down to talk to Saad Abdul Razak, the head of all UAE business following the restructure, to find out whether he thinks DIB can keep up with its own targets, and how he sees the shape of the retail market changing.
Source: Bankscope from Bureau van Dijk. www.bvdep.com
What sets DIB apart from the pack now that you are no longer the only Islamic financial institution in the marketplace?
DIB was the first Islamic bank in the world, and I think we’re still the most innovative in product design. We have strong Shariah credibility, which is our greatest asset, and we also have a wide product range. You see that a lot of the Islamic banks in the region still have quite limited product ranges, whereas we’re operational in retail, real estate, corporate, treasury and so on – the entire spectrum of Islamic banking.
In your 2002 results, assets grew by 28%, the investment portfolio grew by 24%, and total income rose to Dhs882 million although net income dropped by 2%. Are these growth rates sustainable for the foreseeable future?
The Islamic banking industry in general has been showing excellent growth in terms of deposits. That said, it’s not easy to deploy depositors’ money and maintain 30% business growth. We’ve shown over 25% deposit growth last year and strong revenue growth. We had an issue with costs, as we were heavily investing in our distribution channels, branch banking technology and so on, and that did take a chunk of our revenue. We’re still seeing good growth though.
Your distribution channel investment I think came as part of DIB’s ‘integrated technology development plan’. Can you explain what this initiative comprised?
We look at technology investment in terms of the added benefits that it can bring to our customers, rather than focusing on internal improvements. Technology has obviously become an integral component of almost every industry, but I feel that in the banking sector technology has not delivered to the customer the services that they really want. We’ve worked hard on all our distribution channels, as we relied on our branches 100% until as recently as 2001. Then, in 2002, we started with 24/7 phone banking, which I think is still the most popular ‘new’ channel. After that we launched Internet banking. We also felt that SMS/mobile banking was important, and we launched the first such service that had Arabic language functionality. We also opened our first 24-hour automated branch on Sheikh Zayed Road in Dubai, and here you can deposit cash and cheques, access Internet banking and so on at any time.
In fact we’ve been surprised by just how keen our customers are to adopt new channels, even though branch banking is still very popular in this region. Looking back now over 2002, we feel extremely proud that we managed to launch four channels in just one year! No bank in the UAE offers as many options as us, taking into account all our Arabic language functionality.
Are you planning any enhancements to these channels this year?
We’re always looking to make ongoing enhancements. In five years I think that people will be far less reliant on the branch. We’ll still have branches, and we’ll be expanding the network, but the branch model will have changed significantly. You cannot keep operations in one area, sales in another, and keep all the different components of the retail service in different places. That just won’t work. Banks will be like a supermarket, and in every corner there will be products for the customers to take. We want to see DIB where the customer wants us to be.
Our thinking is that when you come to a bank you’d really like to get everything done at the same time. You don’t want to have to go to the bank and then to go to the traffic department to renew you licence, and to the post office to get your letters, and to the school to pay the fees etc. You’d like one relationship manager who will cover all such issues for you, and DIB’s vision is to help you with your entire lifestyle. Banking now just covers financial requirements, but I think the future lies in offering a full range of life-assisting services.
H.E. Dr. Mohammed Khalfan Bin Kharbash, UAE Minister of State for Financial and Industrial Affairs and Chairman of Dubai Islamic Bank
You mention a relationship manager, but would you have a relationship manager for every customer?
By relationship manager I don’t necessarily mean a person. The manager could be a PC, a window through which you see services and can shop around. In fact we launched our technology vision at Gitex 2002 and showed people that in three years time there won’t be any ATM cards. We believe that ATMs will be operated through mobile phones, where the customer puts their PIN into the phone, which communicates with the ATM, which distributes the cash. It’s impractical to have lots of plastic cards in your pocket when you could perform transactions using just one tool, the mobile phone. Banking services will have to be open and available 24/7, whether virtual or physical. I just don’t see these new technologies not coming to our markets within three years. Remember that we delivered four channels in just one year, and our strategy is to provide the most convenient banking options in the market. We’re not just here to be an Islamic bank, and although our Shariah credentials are very important, people come to us for products and services that meet their needs.
Does DIB have ambitions beyond the UAE?
Our focus now is the UAE, but I think the Islamic finance industry is growing and that in a year or two we might think about expanding regionally; then in two to three years looking internationally beyond the Gulf region. Islamic banks in countries like the UAE and Bahrain are well entrenched, but there is definitely scope for expansion. We don’t fear competition from other Islamic banks as competition is healthy and we also think there is plenty of business for Islamic banks out there. Certainly more than just two or three Islamic banks could handle. DIB has actually helped other banks to convert to Islamic banking, such as the National Bank of Sharjah here in the UAE. Our Shariah board is the same as theirs. The fact that international banks are opening Islamic windows is also a good thing, as through these windows they are expanding the scope of the Islamic banking market internationally. Even if you look closer to home at Saudi Arabia, a few years ago there were no Islamic banks and now every bank has an Islamic window.
With so many banks entering the Islamic finance market, what is the secret to success?
I think the key think is to have something to add in terms of products and services. The number of Muslims in the market will mean nothing unless you offer the products and services that will attract them to bank with you. There are still gaps between customer needs and the products made available by Islamic financial institutions. I think we’d all agree that there are still more improvements to be made. DIB is trying to narrow these gaps, and for example just this April we have launched our new Ijarah service. We see this personal finance product as a value-adding service that customers really want.
What is the Ijarah service?
It is basically a very simple concept where we at DIB buy services from an external party and then resell those services to our customers with an agreed profit margin. Obviously we need to forge alliances with suitable external parties to enable this Ijarah service to grow, and we have now covered several key sectors such as education, where we have school and university partners. In travel, we will tie up with the leading travel agents to be able to provide our customers with the very best travel packages available. We’ve also agreed several partnerships in the healthcare sector.
I can see how education and healthcare expenditure could involve long term financing, but why would customers need DIB for smaller travel ticket purchases for example?
If you go to the travel agent then you have to pay in one lump, whereas we can spread the cost of the trip or holiday. It may be a smaller amount than school fee payments, but customers still need to spread their expenditure. Also, because DIB is buying the travel services in bulk, we are getting discounted rates from the travel operators that might not be available to the individual. Finally, it’s the convenience factor where you can buy your holiday and arrange the payment in your one visit to the bank. We’re now aggressively growing the numbers of service providers included in the Ijarah scheme and we intend to expand from our current education, healthcare and travel services to other service areas.
DIB has an established pedigree of structuring expertise. What do you see as the greatest conceptual challenges remaining in the industry?
I think the clearest area in which Islamic retail banks are challenged is the development of credit cards. We offer what we call credit cards, though they’re not credit cards in the conventional sense, as you have a 45 day grace period to repay 100% of the balance. That is different to an instant debit card. We are working hard on a credit card solution now, but we will be absolutely sure it is Shariah-compliant before we launch anything. For corporate bankers, there are still gaps in the design of trade finance products to be filled.
In June last year you launched the Johara banking service exclusively for women. What does this service entail?
Ladies banking, I believe, is a sector that is mistakenly ignored by most other banks. Some banks have windows for ladies, but we have decided to take the ladies’ service much further. We have developed a whole suite of products designed specifically for ladies in business, finance and real estate. In the case of business products, we have seen that when opening businesses our female customers are frequently launching in the services sector, such as interior design. Now the cycle of such businesses is often different from the cycle of general trade, so they have different needs. We can then offer specific financing packages and business advice. On the retail level, we offer ladies a dedicated Johara branch in Jumeira, value-adding extras such as discount cards, and special property investment programmes. The Johara branch provides our female customers with a very relaxing environment to bank in, and I think it may be the only such ladies branch in the Middle East.
What will the rest of 2003 hold for you?
Our efforts for this year fall into three main categories. Firstly, continuing enhancements to our distribution channels. Secondly, new product development - and we have between two and three new products for launch this year in the retail and corporate markets. We intend these products to further close the gaps that we were talking about earlier. Finally, we’ll also look at regional opportunities for the potential expansion of our physical footprint.
September 26, 2004 at 10:15 PM in Financial Services | Permalink | TrackBack (10) | Top of page | Blog Home
FeedDemon Selects Moreover Technologies for RSS News Feeds and Search
XMLMania.com - NEWS - FeedDemon Selects Moreover Technologies for RSS News Feeds and Search
Users to Benefit From Comprehensive View Into Breaking Online News Stories
SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 21 -- Moreover Technologies, the premier provider of aggregated online current awareness and business information, today announced that Bradbury Software will integrate Moreover RSS (Rich Site Summary) news feeds and news search within its FeedDemon RSS reader application.
"The explosive growth of RSS has provided a wealth of information, but it's becoming increasingly difficult to filter out the noise and find news that interests you," said Nick Bradbury, founder of Bradbury Software. "Moreover's aggregated RSS news feeds and news search will help FeedDemon users to quickly and conveniently get the exact news they need."
FeedDemon will include pre-configured Moreover aggregated RSS news feeds as part of the application's default configuration. As opposed to feeds consisting of content from a single site, Moreover RSS feeds deliver a more complete view into breaking news as they are based on topics-specific categories with articles aggregated from thousands of the most relevant and reliable online sources.
Moreover news search functionality integrated into FeedDemon will enable users to quickly find relevant news articles pulled from current awareness contained in the consumer version of the Moreover CI-Metabase. Unlike search functionality built into many RSS readers that searches only over the RSS headlines, Moreover powered searches return far more relevant results because searches are run across the headline and complete article content.
"As a pioneer in XML and co-author of the RSS 1.0 standard, Moreover is the behind-the-scenes leader in aggregated news delivery, powering billions of aggregated headlines each month through our distribution network," said Jim Pitkow, chief executive officer and president of Moreover Technologies. "We're proud that our experience will help FeedDemon users gain a more comprehensive and complete view into breaking online news."
About Bradbury Software
Bradbury Software, LLC was founded in 1999 by Nick Bradbury. Nick, a former cartoonist, is the creator of the HTML editor HomeSite, which was acquired by Allaire in 1996 and is now owned by Macromedia. After leaving Allaire in 1998, Nick created the CSS/xHTML editor TopStyle and the RSS/Atom reader FeedDemon.
About Moreover Technologies
Moreover Technologies is the premier provider of current awareness solutions that enable organizations to make informed decisions based on real-time online news and information. The company's Connected Intelligence(TM) solutions harvest news from thousands of the most reliable online sources, including premium international and regional publications, corporate and government press pages, Weblogs and discussion boards. Content is intelligently categorized, fortified with descriptive metadata, ranked for quality by an experienced editorial staff and then delivered for use in custom applications, Websites, corporate intranets and enterprise portals.
Moreover solutions are trusted by hundreds of leading organizations including Ask Jeeves, Citigroup, Hill & Knowlton, Library of Congress, McCann Eriksson, Microsoft, MSN, NASA, Saatchi & Saatchi, the U.S. Air Force, the U.S. Department of Energy, the U.S. Navy and Yahoo!. Moreover is a privately held company with offices in London and San Francisco, with funding led by Advance Publications, Atlas Venture, Reuters Venture Capital and Dawntreader Ventures. Moreover can be reached at 415-989-0600 or http://www.moreover.com.
Posted September 21, 2004 at 12:19:24 PM
September 26, 2004 at 08:16 PM in Blogging & feeds | Permalink | TrackBack (10) | Top of page | Blog Home
September 24, 2004
HP services 'bank-in-a-box' sets new standards in Dubai
HP services 'bank-in-a-box' sets new standards in Dubai
Starting a new bank from scratch is a challenging task in any environment. This is particularly true in the United Arab Emirates, where one of the most competitive banking industries in the Middle East includes 48 banks with 400 branches serving three million people.
When Dubai's largest real estate company, EMAAR Properties, decided to open a new bank, it realised that success would depend on its ability to establish an innovative, world-class financial institution that would introduce new and different products backed by quality customer service.
Technology was key to this strategy so the choice of a technology partner was crucial. For EMAAR and the newly formed Dubai Bank, that choice was HP and in particular HP Services, who masterminded the entire IT infrastructure.
End-to-end solution
"Information technology forms the backbone of the bank's customer centric strategy," said Mr. Ahmed Bin Brek, chief executive officer, Dubai Bank. "HP was one of the very few companies that was able to demonstrate its ability to provide us with a complete end-toend solution tailored to our needs. It also understood our business and what we were trying to do."
Putting together an integrated 'bank in a box' infrastructure in just four months presented many logistical and managerial challenges. Dubai Bank therefore, relied heavily on the expertise of HP Services, which was responsible for the design, project management and implementation of all the bank's architecture and applications, and its consultants also offered guidance and technical leadership to the bank's own technology and business teams.
Integrated infrastructure
Included in the turnkey solution provided by HP was the Misys-IBS core banking system, branch automation and a stateof-the-art customer contact centre. The technology infrastructure included highly available clustered servers, rack optimised storage devices, PCs, printers, enterprise management and Automatic Teller Machines (ATMs).
The tightly integrated IT infrastructure now allows Dubai Bank to deliver on-the-spot services to customers who can visit the bank, select a product, sign up and have a cash card and chequebook in their hands in under 20 minutes.
"One of the key differentiators of Dubai Bank is this ability to form instant customer relationships," said Mr Ahmed Kalim, head of operations & technology, Dubai Bank. "The customer fulfilment experience has been drastically improved. The benefits are minimum paperwork and an instant result - all of which is enabled through the kind of technology supplied to us by HP Services."
For more information on how working with HP can benefit you, please contact your local HP sales representative or reseller, or visit: http://www.hp.com/
Challenge
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Dubai Bank needed to set new and innovative standards if it was to succeed in the highly competitive Middle East banking sector
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Starting from scratch, a fully integrated IT infrastructure had to be put together in just four months
Solution
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HP services was responsible for the design, project management and implementation of all the bank's architecture and applications
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HP consultants offered guidance and technical leadership to the bank's own technology and business teams
Result
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Dubai Bank is considered to have set new standards in Middle East banking with a breakaway brand that is seen as a catalyst for change
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The bank succeeds because of the speed with which technology enables it to forge close customer relationships
Why HP
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HP was able to demonstrate its ability to provide a complete end-to-end banking solution
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HP understood Dubai Bank's business and appreciated what it was trying to do
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HP had the technological expertise and products which were able to meet Dubai Bank's needs
September 24, 2004 at 11:06 AM in Financial Services | Permalink | TrackBack (12) | Top of page | Blog Home
US payments firm hit by online attack
Finextra: US payments firm hit by online attack
Authorize.net, a US provider of online payments processing services, is struggling to remain online after being repeatedly hit by distributed denial of service attacks.
According to press reports, Authorize.net has been pounded by malicious online attacks since last week. Glen Zimmerman, a spokesman for Authorize.net's parent company Lightbridge, told the Boston Globe that the company had received an extortion letter from hackers and was now working with law enforcement agencies to track the attackers.
In a statement Authorize.Net says it continues to experience intermittent distributed denial of service attacks, adding that its system engineers have minimised the impact of each attack and have restored services to affected merchants.
The firm says its is working with industry experts to restore and maintain the transaction processing service.
UK-based online merchant payments operator WorldPay was hit by a malicious denial of service attack last November when vandals bombarded its payments and administration networks with computer-generated requests.
September 24, 2004 at 06:40 AM in Security | Permalink | TrackBack (11) | Top of page | Blog Home
September 23, 2004
A Blogger's Creed
TIME Magazine: A Blogger's Creed
A member of the blogging class tells why they deserve your thanks
By ANDREW SULLIVAN
Posted Sunday, September 27, 2004
"Bloggers have no checks and balances. [It's] a guy sitting in his living room in his pajamas."
—JONATHAN KLEIN, former senior executive of 60 Minutes, on Fox News
Well, last week, the insurrectionary pajama people—dubbed "pajamahadeen" by some Web nuts—successfully scaled one more citadel of the mainstream media, CBS News. One of the biggest, baddest media stars, Dan Rather, is now clinging, white-knuckled, to his job. Not bad for a bunch of slackers in their nightclothes.
You have to ask: Is this a media revolution? In some respects, sure. The Web has done one revolutionary thing to journalism: it has made the price of entry into the media market minimal. In days gone by, you needed a small fortune to start up a simple magazine or newspaper. Now you need a laptop and a modem.
Ten years ago I edited a money-losing magazine, The New Republic, which had 100,000 subscribers. Two weeks ago on my four-year-old blog, AndrewSullivan.com, I had 100,000 readers in one day alone. After four years of blogging, I haven't lost a cent and have eked out a small salary. And I don't even have an editor! Technology did this. And it's a big deal most people have yet to understand.
The results, however, are in. Without blogs, there wouldn't have been a Drudge Report to help speed the impeachment of a sitting President. Trent Lott, hounded by bloggers for a racist remark originally ignored by the big media, would still be Senate majority leader. Blogs played a critical part in the downfall of Howell Raines, former executive editor of the New York Times, in the Jayson Blair scandal. Blogs created a forum where Times insiders could leak and vent, where critics could ridicule and where Raines' editorship could be rattled until it was scuttled by one wayward reporter. The same kind of Web scrutiny added to the forces that brought down the BBC's leadership in the aftermath of a disputed story alleging that Tony Blair's government had "sexed up" evidence of Iraqi WMD. I still wonder if Raines and Rather knew what hit them.
The critics of blogs cite their lack of professionalism. Piffle. The dirty little secret of journalism is that it isn't really a profession. It's a craft. All you need is a telephone and a conscience, and you're all set. You get better at it merely by doing it—which is why fancy journalism schools are, to my mind, such a waste of time.
Blogs prove this. One of the best is a site started by a law professor in Tennessee, Instapundit.com. This "amateur" has earned the trust of his readers simply by his track record—just as the New York Times did a century ago. And after a couple of years, his readership rivals and often eclipses those of the traditional political magazines. Does he screw up? Of course he does sometimes. I've done so many times myself. But the beauty of the blogosphere is that if you make a mistake, someone will soon let you know. And if you don't correct immediately, someone will let you know again. And again. Like Internet Jack Russell terriers, readers grab ahold of your pants and don't let go until you have made amends. Blogs that ignore critics will lose credibility and readers. It's the market at its purest. And readers may have more and better information at their fingertips than the best researcher in the world.
Take the CBS document story. The clues to the alleged forgery were not discovered by the bloggers themselves—but by their readers. While CBS had a handful of experts look at the dubious memos (and failed to heed their concerns), the blogosphere enlisted hundreds within hours. Debates ensued, with different blogs challenging others over various abstruse points. Yes, some of this was fueled by raw partisanship and bias. The blogosphere is not morally pure. But the result was that the facts were flushed out more effectively and swiftly than the old media could ever have hoped. The collective mind also turns out to be a corrective one.
Does this mean the old media is dead? Not at all. Blogs depend on the journalistic resources of big media to do the bulk of reporting and analysis. What blogs do is provide the best scrutiny of big media imaginable—ratcheting up the standards of the professionals, adding new voices, new perspectives and new facts every minute. The genius lies not so much in the bloggers themselves but in the transparent system they have created. In an era of polarized debate, the truth has never been more available. Thank the guys in the pajamas. And read them.
September 23, 2004 at 11:15 PM in Blogging & feeds | Permalink | TrackBack (2) | Top of page | Blog Home
Canada Payments system
psac1.pdf (application/pdf Object)
Brief from Bank of Canada - 1997
September 23, 2004 at 08:05 AM in Financial Services | Permalink | TrackBack (2) | Top of page | Blog Home
Visa - transaction flow
Visa Canada | About Visa Canada | Media Centre
In more than 150 countries, the customers of 21,000 Visa Member financial institutions world-wide engage in approximately 100 million transactions per day, in dozens of currencies, using thousands of different VISA® products from cards to mobile devices. These transactions involve more than one billion VISA cards world-wide initiating US$2.4 trillion in payments annually. Most of these transactions are carried electronically over the Visa processing network, known as VisaNet System.
A Transaction in Two Stages
There are two parts to every transaction. First, a customer presents a VISA product, usually a credit card, to a merchant, who needs immediate authorization of the transaction. Second, at the end of the day, the merchant needs to receive the funds for the transaction via its acquiring financial institution and ultimately from the customer’s issuing financial institution. The specifics will vary depending on transaction type, complexity, technology, and processing services - but the typical flow is illustrated below.
How a Typical Purchase is Made: Authorization at the Point-of-Sale
1. A customer presents a VISA card at ABC Store.
2. ABC uses an electronic terminal or the telephone to request an authorization from its financial institution (DEF Merchant Services).
3. DEF must verify to see if the account is valid and has sufficient funds. It sends an authorization request message, including account and transaction details, through VisaNet to GHI Bank, the bank that issued the VISA card to the customer (the issuer).
4. GHI reviews the request and makes a decision to approve or decline the request. GHI’s response message is sent back through VisaNet via DEF Merchant Services to ABC Store.
The entire purchase process typically takes less than two seconds to complete. And, during the first half of 2003 approximately 3,500 worldwide transactions were processed by VisaNet, per second.
To further enhance this already very efficient network, VisaNet offers a Stand-In Processing service where it processes transactions when the cardholder’s bank is unavailable to process the transaction.
How the Merchant Gets Paid: Clearing and Settlement
1. At the end of the day, ABC Store delivers all its sales draft information to DEF Merchant Services.
2. DEF credits the account to ABC Store for the net amount of all its sales. This is how ABC Store obtains its funds from a customer’s purchase.
3. Next, DEF's processing center creates an electronic version of all drafts for all the merchants it supports, including ABC Store. The electronic drafts, which may include transactions from numerous VISA accountholders in various countries, are sent through VisaNet to one of Visa's data centers.
4. Visa routes these drafts to the financial institutions of the VISA accountholders-for instance, this customer’s transaction is sent to the issuer, GHI Bank. Visa consolidates all transactions for each issuer into an electronic file that includes currency conversions, fees, net settlement amounts, and required reporting information.
5. GHI's processing center receives the file and prepares the transactions for posting to its cardholders’ accounts.
6. GHI Bank transfers all the funds owed that day by its cardholders to a settlement bank, which is responsible for delivering the funds to the merchant acquirers such as DEF Merchant Services. This is how DEF gets paid for the amount it paid ABC Store in step #2.
At the end of the billing period, GHI Bank produces a statement for the customer. This is how GHI settles with the customer.
The benefits that Visa brings to its Member financial institutions, buyers and sellers through the convenience and speed of electronic transactions can be attributed to the highly reliable VisaNet System. VisaNet is the world's leading processing system, deliveriing secure, reliable payments – anytime, anywhere, any way, on any type of device.
September 23, 2004 at 08:02 AM in Financial Services | Permalink | TrackBack (25) | Top of page | Blog Home
TRM buys eFunds ATM network for $150m
EFunds has entered into a definitive agreement to sell its network of 17,200 ATMs in the US and Canada to Oregon-based TRM Corporation for $150 million.
The ATM portfolio is comprised of approximately 2200 full placement and 15,000 merchant owned units.
Commenting on the acquisition, Paul Walsh, chairman and CEO, eFunds, says: "Selling our ATM deployment business and expanding our management services operations is part of eFunds strategy to focus on higher growth, higher margin opportunities, while augmenting our global footprint in our core outsourcing, processing and risk management businesses."
TRM says as a result of the transaction, it will operate the single largest international ATM network, with 21,800 deployed units in North America and the UK.
In connection with the deal, Arizona-based eFunds has secured a five-year contract to provide ATM driving, processing and management services to TRM's combined network of Acash machines.
September 23, 2004 at 07:52 AM in Financial Services | Permalink | TrackBack (5) | Top of page | Blog Home
September 22, 2004
After Blogs Got Hits, CBS Got a Black Eye
Yahoo! News - After Blogs Got Hits, CBS Got a Black Eye
Sep 20,11:34 AM ET
By Howard Kurtz, Washington Post Staff Writer
Scott Johnson, a lawyer in Mendota Heights, Minn., put up his first post at 7:51 a.m. on Sept. 9. By the time he got to his Minneapolis office, he had dozens of e-mail responses.
One of them was from Charles Johnson, a Web designer in Los Angeles, who promptly posted his own thoughts on the subject.
Scott Johnson, 53, writes for a Web site called Power Line. Charles Johnson, 51, posts on Little Green Footballs. They were among the bloggers who blew the cyber-whistle by charging that the documents used by "60 Minutes" in its report on President Bush (news - web sites)'s Air National Guard service appeared bogus.
It was like throwing a match on kerosene-soaked wood. The ensuing blaze ripped through the media establishment as previously obscure bloggers managed to put the network of Murrow and Cronkite firmly on the defensive.
The secret, says Charles Johnson, is "open-source intelligence gathering." Meaning: "We've got a huge pool of highly motivated people who go out there and use the tools to find stuff. We've got an army of citizen journalists out there."
With Bush telling the Manchester, N.H., Union Leader that "there are a lot of questions" about the documents "and they need to be answered," the pressure has intensified on CBS. The network hopes to finish its investigation early this week of whether the memos said to be from Bush's Guard commander 30 years ago are forgeries -- a debate that has been driven by America's e-mailers.
In the last two years, the blogosphere -- a vast, free-floating, often quirky club open to anyone with a modem and some opinions -- has been growing in influence, with some one-man operations boasting followings larger than those of small newspapers.
Many sites are seething with partisan passion, often directed at the media. But they are also two-way portals for retired military officers, computer techies, former IBM Selectric salespeople and just about anyone else to challenge and fact-check media claims.
Not everyone is a fan. Former CBS executive Jonathan Klein complained on Fox News that "these bloggers have no checks and balances. . . . You couldn't have a starker contrast between the multiple layers of checks and balances and a guy sitting in his living room in his pajamas writing."
The pajama brigade pounced. After all, they had found problems that CBS had missed or minimized -- and had done it by downloading the memos from the network's Web site. "One of the things about a blog is we sometimes act as a clearinghouse for information from readers with an interest in an esoteric area," says Scott Johnson.
Bloggers also have the advantage of speed. Several major newspapers quickly began questioning the Guard documents, but they lagged behind the online critiques.
The first known posting came on the hotly conservative Free Republic site at 11:59 p.m. on Sept. 8 -- less than four hours after the story aired -- from a man dubbed Buckhead. The Los Angeles Times says he is Harry MacDougald, an Atlanta lawyer with GOP connections.
Conservative Web commentators are overjoyed. "I don't want to overstate the extent of my glee over the Dan Rather imbroglio now known as 'Memogate,' " wrote National Review's Jonah Goldberg. "But it may well be the Greatest Story Ever."
Blogger Andrew Sullivan now calls for Rather to be canned. "This is the blogs' breakthrough moment," he says. "Dan Rather is a much bigger deal than Howell Raines," who resigned as the New York Times's top editor after the Jayson Blair debacle. Some liberal columnists and editorial pages have ripped CBS as well.
Anonymous attacks thrive on the Net. The Chicago Tribune reports that the site Rathergate.com is run by Mike Krempasky, political director of a Virginia advertising firm run by conservative direct-mail king Richard Viguerie.
Were the bloggers politically motivated? Charles Johnson says he's a lifelong Democrat who plans to vote for Bush. Scott Johnson is a Republican activist who views Rather as an "intensely partisan liberal" and "quit listening to CBS News 20 years ago."
Picking and Choosing
So how exactly can Vice President Cheney keep selected news organizations off Air Force Two?
While national candidates generally allow any accredited reporter to fly along (the press pays for the privilege), the vice president's plane is an invitation-only affair. And the New York Times has been stiffed for weeks, even when there are empty seats.
Asked why the campaign is mad at the Times, Cheney spokeswoman Anne Womack says the staff decides "what is the most strategic use of those seats." She says that only six to 10 are available and that "sometimes we invite regional folks. We try to give preference to people who travel with us consistently." But the Times covers Cheney more extensively than most news outlets.
"I'm puzzled by what's been happening," says Times Washington bureau chief Philip Taubman, who plans to press the case with Cheney's staff. "We've given a fair amount of business to commercial airlines trying to keep up with him."
Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry (news - web sites), meanwhile, hasn't taken questions from the traveling press since Aug. 9, and President Bush has given no interviews since the GOP convention. "The commander in chief must meet a higher standard" of accessibility than a challenger, says Kerry senior adviser Joe Lockhart, who insists that when he was at the Clinton White House, there were more press briefings while the president was traveling. Lockhart doesn't dispute his candidate's recent unavailability.
Responds White House communications director Dan Bartlett: "There is no ambiguity with the American people where President Bush stands on the big issues of the day. . . . He'll be taking more questions from the press. I can understand why they don't want their candidate to take questions. He has a hard time answering."
Sharp Claws
Is Kitty Kelley, who needles the famous for a living, a bit thin-skinned?
After she appeared Friday on CNBC's "Capital Report" to push her book on the Bush dynasty, "The Family," author Ron Kessler challenged some of her claims in a follow-up segment. Kessler, whose book "A Matter of Character" looks at the Bush White House, said his sources say it is absurd to suggest that George W. Bush used drugs at Camp David when his father was president, and that Kelley's publishing standard seemed to be "as long as they don't successfully sue, then it's okay."
When he returned to the greenroom, Kessler says, Kelley yelled at him: "You may not slander me! You may not slander my book! Do you understand me? I'm putting you on notice."
Suzanne Herz, a spokeswoman for Kelley's publisher, Doubleday, says: "We fully support Kitty Kelley's actions in confronting Mr. Kessler in connection with his baseless and irresponsible on-air remarks about 'The Family.' His attack was clearly another attempt to discredit Ms. Kelley and attack the messenger because he did not agree with the message."
But can't guests disagree with her findings? Says Kessler: "It's rather ironic that someone who trashes everyone else is threatening me, another journalist."
Anonymous Accuser
Geneva Overholser has given up her column for the Poynter Institute after its media Web site refused to allow her to name the accuser in the Kobe Bryant sexual assault case.
"What's the point of having a blog if I can't say what I think?" said Overholser, whose former paper, the Des Moines Register, won a 1991 Pulitzer for stories that named a rape victim with the woman's permission. Overholser says there is "a different standard" for naming an accuser when she files a civil suit, as the woman in the Bryant case recently did. Poynter editors say that "the journalistic purpose to be achieved by naming the accuser is outweighed by the potential harm that could result from doing so."
September 22, 2004 at 01:22 PM in Blogging & feeds | Permalink | TrackBack (17) | Top of page | Blog Home
September 20, 2004
Intuit Pits Its Customers Against Its Partners
The Gripe Line Weblog by Ed Foster
In a way, you have to give Intuit credit. Who else could figure out how to "sunset" both their customers and their financial institution partners at the same time?
Intuit's decision to disable its older technology for importing most types of bank account information in Quicken 2005 for Windows is causing quite a stir. "I remembered reading your story about Intuit no longer supporting on-line banking with older versions of Quicken, so I thought I should bite the bullet this year and upgrade to Quicken 2005 when it came out," a reader wrote. "So guess what -- with the new Quicken I can no longer download checking account info from my bank, something I could do perfectly well with Quicken 2002."
The reader's bank informed her it had refused to pay Intuit's fees for implementing the OFX (Open Financial Exchange) download technology that is now mandatory for most online banking in Quicken 2005. "If I want to access my accounts, I have to revert to an older version of Quicken that still uses the .QIF file format," the reader wrote. "It's either that or type my data in by hand. Otherwise, my bank would have to charge an astronomical monthly fee to make up for extortion payments they'd be making to Intuit. What incredible greed!"
You can read Intuit's explanation for all this in detail on its QIF FAQ page. Among the things they point out is that the .QIF format is aging technology, that Quicken has supported the OFX standard for a number of years, that Quicken 2004 displayed warnings that Intuit was going to do this in the next version, and that Quicken 2005 customers have 60 days to return the product if they don't like it. In other words, Intuit is saying that sooner or later they were going to have to cut off use of the .QIF format, so why not just have a clean break now?
OK, but readers found some other things on Intuit's FAQ page that were disturbing. "If you upgrade to the new version of Quicken and your financial institution doesn't, they suggest you 'call or write to your Financial Institution to let them know you would like to download into Quicken via OFX...' or that you should '...consider moving to a Financial Institution that supports direct download via OFX,'" wrote another reader. "While I admit that .QIF format is not very user friendly and OFX will bring benefits, Quicken management has clearly taken the Microsoft approach of modifying an essential element of the underlying format on a new version and NOT providing any overlap -- to assure that you must get in lock-step with them. It would cost them essentially nothing in code to keep .QIF available. Instead, they are creating this 'crisis' to force sales both in their new products for people whose financial institutions do change and to force a crisis on the financial institutions by double-barreling the attack to get them to migrate to OFX."
Actually, it would cost Intuit nothing at all code-wise to keep supporting .QIF, because the code is still there. Intuit is only blocking .QIF imports for checking, savings, 401(k), and brokerage accounts in Quicken 2005 for Windows, and export of .QIF data is still allowed. Asset, liability, cash and other types of accounts can still use .QIF imports because OFX apparently doesn't handle them. Credit card account data will not be imported via .QIF in Quicken 2006 for Windows, but it's OK now. And, interestingly enough, Quicken 2005 for the Mac can still use .QIF for all types of accounts, and as of yet Intuit has no announced plans to change that. So while some users must leave this old technology behind right now, Intuit thinks it's perfectly fine for others.
A clear illustration of how Intuit is playing its Quicken customers off against its financial partners is provided on the company's QIF information page for financial institutions. It shows a screenshot of the warning message that is displayed to Quicken 2004 users during .QIF import sessions if their financial institution has not signed up to use OFX. QIF Imports will no longer be available in the next release of Quicken, the message pronounces ominously, because it "appears that this Financial Institution does not support the better method of direct download." A link is then provided for the user to go find a bank that does support Intuit's chosen method.
Of course, the warning screenshot in Quicken 2004 doesn't mention the possibility of the user's bank charging a hefty monthly fee for this spiffy service, and neither does the warning that Quicken 2005 displays about .QIF credit card data imports not working in the next release. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the current consternation over .QIF imports is but a taste of what we'll be hearing from credit card companies and their customers next year. We'll see how much credit Intuit gets then.
September 20, 2004 at 11:26 PM in Financial Services | Permalink | TrackBack (0) | Top of page | Blog Home
Scammers target banks with website spoofing
from the August, 2003 Security Briefing e-mail newsletter
by Megan Golding, Editor
Often, the most dangerous Internet attacks prey on human, rather than technical, weaknesses. Case-in-point is a rash of scams that use e-mail and spoofed websites to convince banking customers that their online banking has undergone a recent upgrade.
It all starts with a convincing e-mail message. The scammer's goal is to get your customers to a look-alike spoofed website and give up their on-line account information. Spoofed messages often come from some variation on support@yourbank.com or admin@bigbank.com.
For example, Bank of America was spoofed in May with the following poorly-worded message:
Dear Valued Customer,
- Our new security system will help you to avoid frequently fraud transactions and to keep your deposited funds in safety.
- Due to technical update we recommend you to reactivate your account. Click on the link below to login and begin using your updated Bank of America account. To log into your account, please visit the Bank of America website at:
https://www.bankofamerica.com/index.html
To review your statement, log into your Bank of America account and click the eStatements & eNotices button in the left navigation of your Account Summary page. Your new statement is listed in the left navigation of the page.
After following the supplied link, unsuspecting victims find themselves not looking at their bank's logon screen, but at a spoofed facade, known as a microsite.
Spoofed websites are convincing. The microsite often uses the target bank's logo, the same font, and colors. Some scammers actually get domain names similar to the legit site -- different by only one or two letters. In one case, scammers bought a domain name with "the" prefixing the bank's name.
At the spoofed website, victims are asked for their name, account number, password, and other personal details.
Be a hero to your customers and pass along these three tips for protecting their private information:
Be wary of messages saying your account has been frozen sent by e-mail. Resist the urge to respond to e-mail that claims your account has been frozen or is suspected of fraud use. Legitimate banks will contact customers by phone or postal mail.
Don't follow links to your banking web site if they're sent in e-mail messages. Type the address yourself. If this email is legit, the site should have info about it right there on the front page.
Call your bank's customer service number to verify they sent the e-mail out. Notify the bank any time you get suspicious e-mail or phone inquiries.
September 20, 2004 at 10:58 PM in Financial Services | Permalink | TrackBack (1) | Top of page | Blog Home
Stomping Out Spyware
Yahoo! News - Stomping Out Spyware
Wed Sep 15, 5:30 PM ET
Patrick Norton - ExtremeTech
An insidious stranger lurks hidden inside your computer, tracking everything you do and telling advertisers -- or worse! Spyware is still a problem. Here's a look at the latest tricks, and how to keep yourself safe.
Not too long ago, I played doctor and made a house call on a friend's computer. The computer was a wreck. It took forever to start up, could barely run once it did, and wouldn't connect to the Internet. Mostly, once it finally booted up, it ran pop-up ads. A few weeks before the PC collapsed, Internet Explorer's home page had been hijacked and wouldn't stay set. Spyware infestation had nearly reduced the new PC to a pricey paperweight.
If my friend had read PC Magazine's excellent roundup of anti-spyware tools, Spy Stoppers and run one of these programs regularly, that system might never have gotten so run-down.
Luckily, I had a copy of my favorite spyware-removal software on a CD with me. Half an hour of churning turned up 247 bits and pieces of spyware rooted inside the machine. One more click, and I removed the dreck. I restarted the system, ran the anti-spyware tool one more time to search for lurking nasties, and the machine was back to normal.
That's an extreme example, but chances are if you don't run anti-spyware tools on your PC, you have a few programs running that you don't know about. Spyware generally runs quietly in the background, and often doesn't show up as an application or even as a process in the Windows Task Manager. That's the control panel that should list everything running on your machine; you reach it by hitting the Control, Alt and Delete keys simultaneously. (Don't hit those keys twice, or you'll reboot your machine!)
Why is spyware so hidden, so bent on being secretive? Most people consider it sleazy. At best, spyware gathers information about you while you browse the Web, feeds that information back out over the Internet to the firm collecting it, and customizes advertisements to pop up on your machine. And, almost always, it does this without your knowledge or active permission.
At its worst, spyware can open wide a door to your system for outright theft. One classic example: A particularly nasty bit of spyware downloaded by AOL employees was used to raid its customer database. Identity thieves use keyloggers to steal passwords for online banking.
It's considered a serious enough threat to personal privacy that Congress is working on an anti-spyware bill. If it passes, it could mean huge fines on spyware purveyors who collect your personal data, divert your browser or commit other annoyances without gathering your permission, and it could offer you the ability to remove the program. For more on that, read Congress Set to Crack Down on Spyware. And think about writing your local Congressperson a letter.
IT'S EVERYWHERE
Compared with viruses, spyware hasn't been around for nearly as long. Such programs picked up the name spyware in 1999, and the first anti-spyware tool was released in 2000. Today, according to Pest Patrol, more than 78,000 spyware programs are loose on the Web.
That doesn't mean spyware can't be sophisticated. Simply visiting a Web site or clicking on an advertisement can install such an application. Such a hi-tech maneuver is called a "drive-by download."
You don't remember giving the Web site permission to load such an application? Check the fine print on a Web page that tries to load software like that onto your system. Chances are it says that visiting the site is tantamount to giving the site permission to load the software on your system. You should make sure your browser's security settings are set to at least medium. (For information on keeping spyware out of your system, see our sidebar, "Avoiding Spyware.") That will help cut back on the "drive-by" installs.
You also should read the fine print when you're installing free applications, especially free peer-to-peer clients. Many come bundled with forms of spyware; by selling your information, they can give you the software for free. You can learn how to avoid common P2P clients that install spyware on your system in PC Magazine's Spyware-Free P2P for Free.
If you think you might have spyware on your system, you probably do. Wondering what spyware looks like when you're using your system? Read 11 Signs of Spyware for a list of common spyware behaviors. It's part of PC Magazine's comprehensive roundup, Spy Stoppers.
ADVERTISING IS THE BEST OF IT
Even if you don't think giving up personal information is such a bad thing, even without your permission, spyware can suck up performance from your PC by stealing CPU cycles from your legitimate applications, along with soaking up memory and clogging your Internet connection. In extreme cases of spyware infestation, it can make the system unstable, make your Internet connection seem appallingly slow, or even so overload a machine that it becomes useless. That's what happened to my friend's machine.
Still, marketing and advertising spyware are just the tip of the iceberg for secret software installed on your machine. Along with spyware, spyware removers also seek out malware and adware. Some adware, or at least software that spyware removers identify as adware, isn't so nefarious. Those are applications that cost you nothing in exchange for displaying advertisements when the application is running. They do have to connect to an external Web site to update the advertisements, and deleting the ad service may disable the program.
And for the record, PC Magazine receives tons of e-mail and letters from companies that don't consider their adware to be spyware. PC Magazine says that "any application that tracks your behavior without your knowledge and consent is spyware. And no, a clause buried in a privacy policy that 99 percent of users never read isn't enough to avoid the spyware appellation."
The nastiest forms of spyware skip advertising and head for much more threatening territory. Often called malware, for "malicious software," these are applications that can monitor your keystrokes, scan files on your hard drive or install additional programs. Spammers install such programs on the systems of unsuspecting users. By infecting thousands of systems, they can spread loads of spam around to evade detection. (Though they might get you in trouble with your ISP.) Hackers, after tricking users into installing their programs now have a wide base of systems they can use to attack Web sites, or host Web sites with material they don't want to share from their own systems.
Some malware gets installed when you visit Web sites, some through security holes in the browser or operating system, and some in the form of Trojan horses -- programs secretly installed while you install other software applications. Trojans have been around long before the Internet, but the popularity of swapping applications over P2P sites has made it easier than ever for hackers to trick you into installing one on your system. If you've installed something such as Back Orifice or Netbus, a hacker can take over your PC, just for the thrill of doing so.
YOU MUST FIGHT SPYWARE
Are you nervous about spyware trashing your system? Good. You should be. Fortunately, there are many ways to fight spyware. Check out our sidebar on "Avoiding Spyware" for information on fighting it. If you're not running at least one anti-spyware tool, you should start right now. PC Magazine's latest Editors' Choice is Ad-Aware SE Plus 1.02, which costs $26.95. Of those recently tested for its Spyware Spotters and Stoppers, it performed the best.
If you don't have the money, you still can run an excellent spyware fighter on your system. Spybot Search & Destroy 1.2 is available as a free download. If you're on the Internet without spyware protection, I have some advice for you: Install it and run it immediately.
And once that's finished, think about writing your Congressperson a letter supporting the bill to block spyware, as it's too widespread to disappear on its own.
Patrick Norton has written more than 500 product reviews for print and online media and loves off-road racing. Patrick is best known for answering the toughest tech questions, giving product-purchasing advice and smashing dead PCs with a sledgehammer during a four-year stint when he co-hosted "The Screen Savers" on TechTV (now G4techTV), an hour-long, live TV show for geeks.
September 20, 2004 at 10:36 PM in Smart Cards | Permalink | TrackBack (1) | Top of page | Blog Home
Rogers Wireless hatches GSM plan with $1.4B Fido bid
by Shane Schick
9/20/2004 5:00:00 PM - Microcell's white knight says it will create an improved wireless network if its move to stop a hostile takeover by Telus is successful. Executives discuss the dog-eat-dog nature of industry consolidation.
The $1.4-billion bid to take over Microcell Communications by Rogers Wireless announced Monday would create Canada's most powerful GSM network without disrupting existing Fido users, executives promised.
Days after confirming it was in talks to buy Microcell, which has been subject to a hostile takeover bid by Telus Corp. since May, Rogers said it would finance the deal with a combination of cash on hand and a loan from its parent, Rogers Communications. The combined firm would have 5.1 million customers, the companies said.
Rogers Wireless recently spent $1.8-billion to buy back a stake owned by AT&T Wireless Services Inc.
Microcell is the country's smallest cell-phone provider but also one of its most competitive. Earlier this year, for example, it announced plans to expand a low-cost service called CityFido -- which offers unlimited local talk time for $45 a month -- to Toronto. Since its launch in Vancouver, CityFido has prompted fierce countermarketing efforts from other wireless carriers.
In a teleconference Monday, Rogers Wireless president Nadir Mohamed would not confirm the company's plans for CityFido, saying it was too early to speculate.
"I'll tell you what I like about CityFido," he said. "It really attacks the premise of the wireline local business and allows customers to take advantage of wireless for all of their needs."
Apart from its presence in Quebec, Rogers Communications chief executive Ted Rogers said Microcell's most attractive asset is its network, which like Rogers operates on the popular global system for mobile (GSM) standard.
A takeover would mean Rogers would be able to quickly expand its GPRS and EDGE services to Microcell customers without asking them to get new phones or numbers, said Rogers.
"That would be done by just turning on a switch -- it's not that hard," he said. "I would say it would take about an hour, but we'll say a day just to be safe."
Microcell chief executive Andre Tremblay noted that its network already has interoperability between Nortel and Ericsson products, which would make the transition easier. "I don't believe that there will be any major issues," he said. "I think it's clear that we have been upgrading our network a lot in the last year. Everything that was installed for the launch of CityFido in different cities was state-of-the-art equipment."
A Telus Mobility spokesman said the company was examining Rogers' bid and would comment shortly. The deadline for its most recent $29 per share offer was set to expire Monday. Telus had said a recent CRTC decision to lift the spectrum cap would clear the way for its takeover of Microcell.
Iain Grant, managing director of research firm the Seaboard Group, said if the deal from Rogers is successful, it would vault from the No. 2 position in the Canadian wireless market into first place.
"This is bragging rights. This is huge," he said. "Wireless is really important to the financial analyst community. (Ted Rogers) is now the largest player in Canada. GSM is the largest standard in Europe. He's the only one who has it here."
Rogers was opposed to a program like CityFido principally because its network was engineered without a lot of overhead, said Grant, and it couldn't handle the potential surge in usage.
"(Ted) Rogers could see that if that was to happen on his network, it would crash and burn -- you'd see the smoke coming off of these cell sites and they would burst into flames."
Microcell, in contrast, built a brand-new network with empty lanes, and its job was to fill them, Grant added.
Besides its network equipment, Mohamed said Microcell would bring Rogers an increased number of cell sites and increased density of signals. Microcell is a partner in a joint venture called Inukshuk Internet with NR Communications and Allstream, providing fixed wireless service to remote communities like Yellowknife. The future of Inukshuk has not been decided, but Mohamed said Rogers supports the notion of wireless portability and recently acquired spectrum in the 2.7 and 3.5 range for the purpose of offering fixed wireless.
"Contextually, (Inukshuk) is something that I think fits in."
Ted Rogers said there were obvious benefits to what his company is proposing than what Telus would do with Microcell.
"We're talking about merging two GSM networks -- keeping what we have and building on it instead of someone coming in and tearing everything down, closing it up and firing the people," he said, though he noted Telus could still make a play for the company. "We're here reporting (the proposal), but we're not celebrating."
Even if it loses Microcell, Grant said Telus may have gotten what it needed from the process.
"Microcell has been looking at selling the company and defending its turf when it really ought to have been focused on its day job," he said. "All it really cost you, if you're Telus, is a couple of stamps."
Comment: info@itbusiness.ca
September 20, 2004 at 06:10 PM in Telecommunications | Permalink | TrackBack (11) | Top of page | Blog Home