June 2011
55 posts
Direct Marketing News: Epsilon beefs up email... →
(no synopsis necessary. -BoM)
Steve Atkins in CircleID: Bit.ly Gets You Blocked →
From the moment they were invented they’ve been used to trick people to click on links to pages they’d rather not visit, from musical classics to less tasteful content. And, in just the same way, spammers quickly found that they were a good way to avoid content-based filters or to hide a suspicious looking target URL.
Slate: How companies can turn privacy from threat... →
“In general, these companies see consumer data as something that they can use to target ads or offers, or perhaps that they can sell to third parties, but not as something that consumers themselves might want. Most pundits on both sides—privacy advocates and marketers—don’t realize that rather than protecting consumers or hiding from them, companies should be bringing them into...
New York Times: Internet Security Experts... →
“The technology is viewed by many computer security specialists as a ray of hope amid the recent cascade of data thefts, attacks, disruptions and scandals, including break-ins at Citibank, Sony, Lockheed Martin, RSA Security and elsewhere. It allows users to communicate via the Internet with high confidence that the identity of the person or organization they are communicating with is...
Gene Weingarten in The Washington Post: How... →
“The best way to build a brand is to take a three-foot length of malleable iron and get one end red-hot. Then, apply it vigorously to the buttocks of the instructor who gave you this question. You want a nice, meaty sizzle.”
Terry Zink: We’re getting new gTLD’s… does it... →
“People are already trained to understand that the language of the Internet is .com, it’s a meme that has permeated society. Yeah, a personalized domain might look cool, but the people who can afford it will probably have to revert back to the user experience, and users will continue to use and recognize the .com. If you want to make money, don’t confuse your users!”
Brian Solis: Is Your Business Antisocial? →
“…when we take a step back to examine many of the leading business examples in social media, it’s clear that many are in actuality, illustrations of traditional marketing masquerading as genuine engagement. Are brands acting as good citizens? Are they contributing to the customs of society or are they taking away from the experience?”
BusinessWeek: The Rise and Inglorious Fall of... →
“Mismanagement, a flawed merger, and countless strategic blunders have accelerated Myspace’s fall from being one of the most popular websites on earth—one that promised to redefine music, politics, dating, and pop culture—to an afterthought. But Myspace’s fate may not be an anomaly. It turns out that fast-moving technology, fickle user behavior, and swirling public...
Harvard Business Review: Secrets of Social Media... →
“It is amazing that the nearly forgotten theory and practice of word-of-mouth communication and influence from five decades and more ago can be so relevant today.”
The Faster Times: An AOL Content Slave Speaks Out →
“We — by which I mean me and my fellow employees — were all so grateful. Which allowed us to ignore — or willfully overlook — certain problems. Such as the fact that AOL editors forced us to work relentless hours. Or the fact that we were paid to lie, actually instructed to lie by our bosses.”
Reuters: Spam clogging Amazon's Kindle... →
“Thousands of digital books, called ebooks, are being published through Amazon’s self-publishing system each month. Many are not written in the traditional sense.
Instead, they are built using something known as Private Label Rights, or PLR content, which is information that can be bought very cheaply online then reformatted into a digital book.
These ebooks are listed for...
Digital Inspiration: What Happens When People Buy... →
“Here’s what will possibly happen when you buy something though a spam message….”
Nieman Journalism Lab: Are Americans becoming more... →
“The accusations are familiar: The Internet is making us sad. The Internet is making us lazy. The Internet is making us lonely.”
The Onion: World's Worst Person Decides To Go Into... →
‘“I think it’s the career path that will best utilize my networking skills and my ability to think outside the box…”’
New York Times: Thieves Found Citigroup Site an... →
“In the Citi breach, the data thieves were able to penetrate the bank’s defenses by first logging on to the site reserved for its credit card customers.
Once inside, they leapfrogged between the accounts of different Citi customers by inserting vari-ous account numbers into a string of text located in the browser’s address bar. The hackers’ code systems automatically repeated this...
All Spammed Up: Reports Building a False Sense of... →
“While there is plenty of data to back up the statements, is a bit irresponsible that journalists and bloggers use the fact that the number of unique malware samples has increased to over six million in the first quarter of 2011, to make appear that the risk posed by spam is increasingly insignificant. It’s like saying that since heart disease kills more people each year we no longer...
Derek Harding in ClickZ: Why Is Deliverability... →
“Marketing email makes up such a small proportion of what mailbox providers are dealing with on a daily basis that it’s a wonder it receives the level of focus that it does. The implementation and support of authentication systems, whitelists, and feedback loops probably constitutes an over-investment on their part, and hopes for more unified standards are at best wishful...
MailChimp: Spam Lawsuits →
“Spam is serious business. If you send email marketing, you need to be aware of the rules, because breaking them can get expensive. In addition to CAN-SPAM’s guidelines, specific ISPs and even different geographic locations have their own rules. This guide provides a brief overview of those rules, plus some examples of what’s happened when companies have broken them.”
threatpost: Time to Focus on Results-Oriented... →
“The security industry is full of pernicious problems with no easy solutions. Take spam, for example. The current best defense is filtering out the obvious spam messages. Yet, the countermeasure is not a solution: As anti-spam technology gets better, spammers merely churn out more spam and achieve the same results.”
Paul Vixie in CircleID: Two Stage Filtering for... →
‘There are more “bad” hosts sending unwanted e-mail than there are “good” hosts sending wanted e-mail, and if we had a clean slate (no installed base) then engineering economics would favour a “default deny” model whereby we’d maintain a list of “good” hosts and then reject traffic from everywhere else. This is because such a list...
Krebs on Security: Naming & Shaming Sources of... →
“SpamRankings.net is a project launched by the Center for Research in Electronic Commerce at the University of Texas at Austin. Its goal is to identify and call attention to organizations with networks that have been infiltrated by spammers.”
Return Path: Filtering Mail the Old-Fashioned Way →
“Before Getting Things Done and Inbox Zero, before graphical email programs were common — before web browsers were common, if you can imagine that — the average internet user actually had more control over their email environment than most do now. That level of control is only now beginning to reappear, with smart automated filters and so forth — but we would do well to learn from...
Christian Science Monitor: How Estonians became... →
“A reaction to Estonia experiencing a major cyberattack in 2007 – unofficially traced to Russian hackers – the volunteer cyberforce is an effort to get Estonians to participate in a societal, not just a military, task. Now, the tiny Baltic nation’s e-defenses have captured the world’s attention as hacker strikes grow in intensity – and the threat of cyberwar becomes...
Risky Business: Why we secretly love LulzSec →
‘Security types like LulzSec because they’re proving what a mess we’re in. They’re pointing at the elephant in the room and saying “LOOK AT THE GIGANTIC FUCKING ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM ZOMG WHY CAN’T YOU SEE IT??? ITS TRUNK IS IN YR COFFEE FFS!!!”’
The Globe and Mail: Nations grapple with how to... →
“Increasingly worried about criminal hacking and state-on-state electronic warfare, governments are rushing to come up with cyber security strategies.
But with the Internet crossing borders and empowering non-state groups from criminals to activists, nation states appear to be inherently stuck behind the curve.”
The Guardian: One in four US hackers 'is an FBI... →
“Cyber policing units have had such success in forcing online criminals to co-operate with their investigations through the threat of long prison sentences that they have managed to create an army of informants deep inside the hacking community.”
The Atlantic Wire: The Severity of Citigroup's... →
“Here’s what we know about the attack thus far and how Citigroup has reacted.”
Bacon Ipsum: A Meatier Lorem Ipsum Generator →
Forbes: Social Media Connects Us to Friends – Not... →
“The social network is a place where people gather who already know each other, or decide they want to know someone (a person). It is not primarily a place to transact business. It may be someday, but the impulse of those who spend a lot of time on social networking sites is still to connect with friends socially.”
Knewton: Groupon Is a Straight-Up Ponzi Scheme →
“I would love to be wrong about this. Especially given the fallout in the tech economy if Groupon blows up. But isn’t it really pretty obvious that Groupon is a massive Ponzi scheme?”
Gawker: How do I use geek humor to my advantage? →
“Hey, Mister Marketing Whiz: The office techies don’t get your Seinfeld references. They didn’t see that Bud Light ad with that one guy. If you seek the Holy Grail of nerdery, toss your copy of The Da Vinci Code and watch some Monty Python instead. No need to sit through all 46 episodes — after the jump, we’ve got instant instructions on how to make Python jokes at work....
Gizmodo: Hackers Spill over 1,000,000 Sony... →
“Sony getting its ass handed to it by hackers is becoming about as newsworthy as a netbook release, but this one is particularly brutal: Lulz Security just released a file containing over a million user logins. Home addresses included.”
The Globe and Mail: Memo suggests classified data... →
“Hackers broke into government computer networks, starting at the Treasury Board; they also hit computers at the Finance Department, just weeks before the federal budget was tabled.”
Forbes: Sony Goes Silent As Its Hacking Spree... →
“…now that Sony’s apology cards have been played and the hacks and breaches continue, the company has resorted to its only remaining tactic: silence. The Japanese giant hasn’t responded publicly or answered my requests for comment on the five security incidents that have occurred in just the last week.”
GovInfoSecurity: Sony, Epsilon Testify Before... →
“In the wake of recent data breaches at Sony and e-mail marketing provider Epsilon, Congress is asking serious questions about data security and measures companies take to protect consumer information.”
Return Path: Keep Calm and Carry On. “Gmail” Was... →
“…and neither was Google…at least not this time.”
The Tech Herald: Three military contractors linked... →
“So far this week, the news has focused on Lockheed Martin and L-3, two military contractors who appear to have suffered targeted attack attempts in the wake of the massive breach at RSA earlier this year. Now, a third contractor has emerged, as insiders place Northrop Grumman on the list.”
Infosec Island: Governments Escalate Cyber Warfare... →
“Amid growing concerns over state-sponsored attacks reportedly emanating from China, Iran, Russia and other nations, western governments have begun to seriously step-up the cyber offensive rhetoric in recent months, with the U.K issuing some of the boldest assertions.”
The Magill Report: Boss Wants you to Spam? Put Me... →
“I’m making every single Magill Report reader an offer.
If someone in management is trying to get you to send email to non-permission based addresses and they’re willing to get on the phone with me, I will explain to them why it’s a bad idea.”
Word to the Wise: Marketing or spamming? →
‘I interact with a lot of online marketers and I have a huge amount of respect for many of them. I know how difficult it can be to run a good email marketing program and that sometimes it feels like ISPs are a sender’s worst nightmare. Then I look at marketers like this and I understand why ISPs block so much “legitimate” mail.’
Forbes: Here’s The Fake Gmail Site Chinese Hackers... →
“On Tuesday, Google revealed…that it had been the target of a phishing campaign seemingly originating in Jinan, China, and aimed at gaining access to the accounts of senior officials in the U.S., Korea and other governments, as well as those of Chinese activists.”
Word to the Wise: Did Company Leak? →
“DidCompanyLeak.com is a social-media-savvy tool to determine whether an ESP or a company has been compromised and is leaking email addresses to spammers.”
Cornell University Law School Legal Information... →
‘The Inbox Project is a collection of materials related to anti-spam law, developed as a joint project of the Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial Email (“CAUCE”) and the LII.
…This Inbox Project collection will seek to answer important questions about the law governing commercial email….”
The Atlantic Wire: Twitter Apparently Makes... →
“But some lawmakers are not as scared of hackers as they are of themselves—one false tweet and their careers could be finished.”
Naked Security: Apple releases update to protect... →
“A good reaction from Apple in a short amount of time. They are making the best of what is available in the OS X platform at this time. Unfortunately it falls short in many respects.”
John Mark Ivey in Infosec Island: Ten Steps To A... →
“Below are some tips that’ll make your passwords a hundred times harder to hack whether you’re protecting your email, your work computer, your World of Warcraft account, or just your online banking access.”
threatpost: It's Time to Start Sharing Attack... →
“In the wake of public attacks like the ones on RSA, Google, Epsilon, Lockheed and others, the default reaction is to turn inward, fix the problem that led to the compromise and keep your head down until the media firestorm passes. But these companies could learn a valuable lesson from organizations such as the Apache Software Foundation and others that, after being attacked, released...
John Levine in CircleID: The gTLD Boondoggle →
“I’ve been watching at the excitement build in the domain community, where a lot of people seem to believe that at next month’s Singapore meeting, by golly, this time ICANN will really truly open the floodgates and start adding lots of new Top-Level Domains (TLDs).
I have my doubts, because there’s still significant issues….”
“NOT ALL “EMAIL EXPERTS” ARE ACTUALLY EXPERTS. NOT KNOW DIFFERENCE...”
– Delivery Hulk on Twitter