An Internet Marketing Tutorial for the rest of us

Brazil Nuts and Phish - YUM!
Mood:  celebratory
Topic: Create + Promote Blogs
The latest international cyber-crime news, courtesy of our dear friend John Stith: Brazilian police broke up a phishing scam in which they arrested some 55 people, led by a 19-year-old and utilizing several minors. These "kids" allegedly stole some $4.6 million from several banks and numerous accounts.



Starting in May of 2005, this gang used Trojan horses to steal information from users of internet bank sites. Thankfully the international community at large is no longer tolerating cybercrime in any of its guises, as we have demonstrated here in the past several weeks. Many congratulations go to the Brazilian authorities on their fine police work.



CIAO for now,
Randy

Apples, Instant Messaging, Bluetooth and You
Mood:  surprised
Topic: Create + Promote Blogs
Sophos Labs announced the first-ever virus for the Mac. The virus, named OSX/Leap-A (or OSX/Oompa-A) spreads via instant messaging systems.

Store, access, share and use your digital documents. With complete privacy!

This worm spreads through the iChat IM system, forwarding itself as a file called latestpics.tgz to the infected users' buddy list. When the latestpics.tgz archive file is opened, it disguises its contents with a JPEG icon trying to convince people it is harmless.



A second worm targeting the Mac, called OSX/Inqtana A, has also been discovered. This worm exploits a Bluetooth vulnerability. Apple released a patch for this vulnerability in mid 2005, so it likely will not affect many. Keep your software updated and you should be fine.



CIAO for now,
Randy

AMCP Tech Blog
Mood:  celebratory
Topic: Create + Promote Blogs
Good Afternoon and welcome to our newest blog renter, the AMCP Tech Blog!!! Like An Internet Marketing Tutorial for the rest of us, this blog focuses on technology, computing, the Internet, business, consumers, spyware, adware, trojans, computers, viruses, and tech news! So glad to have them along for the next week! They are one year old! Please pay them a visit by clicking the box to the right!



As an additional note, the webmaster of AMCP Tech Blog, Morganis101, also runs Spyware Informer. Both sites are top-notch and worthy of a visit. Spyware Informer is hosted on Yahoo 360, so if you would like an invite, please visit and click the invite link.

CIAO for now,
Randy

2006 Cyberthreats and What to do about them!
Mood:  caffeinated
Topic: Create + Promote Blogs
Courtesy of our good friend John Stith, the Department of Homeland Security, and the National Cyber Security Alliance, here are the emerging threats for 2006 and what to do about them:

1) Instant Messaging used by hackers to spread viruses and worms

2) Phishing becomes even more prevalent

3) Cell phones and PDAs get attacked by viruses

4) Online brokerage accounts get hacked

5) Cybercrime goes unreported



What can you do about these emerging trends? There are five basic steps, which we have covered in more detail in earlier posts:

1) Install, configure, regularly update

2) Don't open emails from people you do not know

3) Don't open attachments in emails from people you do not know

4) Protect your mobile devices

5) Report cyber-crimes to authorities



Again, if you have any questions, feel free to drop me a line (randy@internetmaketing4.us). Please visit my blog tenant and some of my sponsors.

CIAO for now,
Randy

Unfriendly Google
I recently found the following FAQ on news.com.com (reprinted in its entirety):

Q: Does Google collect and record people's search terms whether they're logged in or not?
Yes. Google confirmed this week that it keeps and collates these results, which means the company can be forced to divulge them under court order. Whether Google does anything else with them is another issue.

Given the Department of Justice's recent subpoena to Google, it's likely the police or even lawyers in civil cases--divorce attorneys, employers in severance disputes--eventually will demand that Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, AOL, and other search engines cough up users' search histories.

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Q: Has this happened before?
Almost. A North Carolina man was found guilty of murder in November in part because he Googled the words "neck," "snap," "break" and "hold" before his wife was killed. But those search terms were found on Robert Petrick's computer, not obtained from Google directly.

Also, attorneys have already begun introducing searches conducted on Google, Yahoo and AltaVista as evidence.

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Q: When I use search engines, I type in a lot of search terms I consider private. What does this mean?
We go into all the details below. But the short answer is that when private companies collect reams of data all the time on nearly every American, and the government and curious attorneys can get to that with few obstacles, this becomes a problem. Search engines provide a look into people's personal lives, and privacy awareness has not kept pace.



Q: Aren't there any privacy laws that protect us?
Not really. There is a federal law called the Electronic Communications Privacy Act. But it was enacted in 1986, long before politicians knew about the Internet, and the wording doesn't prevent police and attorneys from targeting search engines.

Politicians wrote that law in a way that is technology-specific--one key part revolves around the meaning of the pre-Internet term "processing services"--instead of adopting a more flexible approach that would grow with technology. Some states may have laws that are more applicable.
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The fate of search engine privacy, at least in the near future, could hinge on an antique and nearly indecipherable legal term: "processing services."

In general, attorneys can use a subpoena to obtain records from a company if the data would be relevant to a lawsuit. But a 1986 law called the Electronic Communications Privacy Act offers additional protections to users of remote computers that provide "processing services."

Google's language-translation service may do that. But what about the search engine? It's not exactly clear, and the courts have been little help in applying that language to the Internet.

Orin Kerr, a former prosecutor who is now a law professor at George Washington University, said Congress meant for the language to apply to outsourcing.

"Does eBay provide 'processing services' for its customers?" he asks in a 2004 law review article. "I think the better answer is 'no.' The legislative history indicates that 'processing services' refer to outsourcing functions. In the era before spreadsheets, a company might send raw data to a remote computing service and ask the service to crunch numbers to calculate its payroll."

But let's assume for the sake of argument that Google does offer "processing services." Here's what could happen when:

• Prosecutors seek Internet addresses.

An unusual twist in federal law (18 U.S.C. 2703) makes it easier for prosecutors to obtain Internet addresses from search terms than the other way around.

The law is remarkably permissive. It allows a "governmental entity" to demand "information pertaining to" search engine users by firing off a mere administrative subpoena--simply a piece of paper not even reviewed in advance by a judge. Information that can be requested includes name, address, Internet address, when connections were made, and credit card numbers if available.

Prosecutors are allowed to demand such information as long as it is "relevant and material to an ongoing criminal investigation." If the search company objects, however, a judge has the leeway to narrow the request if it is "unusually voluminous in nature or compliance with such order otherwise would cause an undue burden."

• Prosecutors seek search terms.

If the Justice Department already happens to have someone's Internet address and is seeking their search history, a slightly different procedure exists.

In that case, prosecutors must ask a judge in advance for an actual court order and claim that the results are "relevant and material to an ongoing criminal investigation."

In practice, of course, that's not terribly difficult to do.

An aside: This distinction assumes that search terms are "content," which federal law defines as information about the "substance, purport, or meaning of that communication." If they're not, only a subpoena--and no court order--is required.

• Attorneys seek records in civil suits.

A different set of rules applies to attorneys in a civil suit who aren't working for the government.

However, the rules almost certainly do not apply to search engines. They were aimed at preventing e-mail and similar providers (remember, this law was written in the era of CompuServe, BIX, and The Source) from sharing their customers' personal data with third parties.

Translation: A curious divorce attorney simply needs to send a subpoena to Google.

"These laws were written some time ago," says Lee Tien, a staff attorney at digital rights group Electronic Frontier Foundation in San Francisco. "They were careful in some places and not in others."

--Declan McCullagh



Q: Why does Google store that information about me, anyway?
No law requires Google to delete it, and there are some business justifications for keeping it.

For instance, keeping detailed records can help in identifying click fraud (faking clicks on Web ads to drive up a rival's cost), and in optimizing search results for different geographic areas. Compiling a user profile can aid in tailoring search results in products like Google Personalized Search. Also, disk storage is cheap, and engineers tend to prefer to keep data rather than delete it.

Scary, huh? Leave me a comment and visit our friendly sponsors!

CIAO for now,
Randy

7 Common Marketing Mistakes
Mood:  a-ok
Topic: Create + Promote Blogs
No matter what your approach to marketing, be sure to avoid these common pitfalls. They are mostly self-explanatorary. Email me with any questions, randy@internetmarketing4.us.

1. Bad Timing

2. Untested Headlines

3. Untested Offers

4. Bad Lists

5. Using A Single Communication

6. Unmeasured Effectiveness of Campaigns

7. Not Continuing the Dialogue



Once again, if you need any assistance, feel free to email me with any questions or concerns. Also, please check out my blog tenant - they're doing a great job!

CIAO for now,
Randy

Cheney's Got a Gun!
Mood:  don't ask
Topic: Biking
OOOPS! For those of you who might not have yet heard (even we in the states didn't hear about it for 24 hours), US Vice President Dick Cheney was out quail (or is that Quayle?) hunting and shot his shooting buddy in the face and chest. OOOPS!



I know I don't normally get political here, but I couldn't pass this one up! The number 2 guy at the helm of one of the world's most powerful nations almost offs a guy and he receives no consequences...what's up with that? If the victim wasn't a multimillionaire, we probably wouldn't have heard anything about it. I almost think Cheney should step down, what with this and all his health issues.



Let me know what you think. I welcome some healthy dialogue. Also, be sure to pay a visit to my blog tenant and my generous advertisers. Thanx!

CIAO for now,
Randy

Google Update
Mood:  a-ok
Topic: Create + Promote Blogs
Today is a kind-of good news/bad news day for Google. On the negative side is a follow-up to our latest series on cyber-crime and ID fraud. According to John Leyden of The Register, Google is introducing a new version of its desktop tool that lets users search the contents of another computer. "Search Across Computers" stores text copies of searchable items on Google's own servers for 30 days.



The Electronic Frontier Foundation urges consumers not to use the "Search Across Computers" feature and we agree that it provides a "one-stop shop" for hackers who get your Google password.



The EFF further states:
The Electronic Communication Privacy Act of 1986, or ECPA, gives only limited privacy protection to emails and other files that are stored with online service providers—much less privacy than the legal protections for the same information when it's on your computer at home. And even that lower level of legal protection could disappear if Google uses your data for marketing purposes. Google says it is not yet scanning the files it copies from your hard drive in order to serve targeted advertising, but it hasn't ruled out the possibility, and Google's current privacy policy appears to allow it.



On the heels of that news, you might be wondering what could possibly be the good news with Google? Jason Lee Miller, of WebProNews, tells us that Google has teamed up with VolksWagen to create a top-notch 3-D navigation system for cars using Google Earth technology. It includes a 3-D bird's-eye view of the surrounding area, 3-D maps off a touchscreen, and traffic updates. We can only concur with WebProNews: Cool.

CIAO for now,
Randy

Stormpay and 12 Daily Pro
Mood:  crushed out
Topic: Make Money with Your Blog
A while ago, we had posted a plan to make money with your blog using Stormpay and 12 Daily Pro. We used $6 we had made from Stormclix to invest in 12 Daily Pro and reinvested the returns in our Stormpay account. After about a month, we had made about $24 and had our sites set on even bigger profits.



'Course if you are at all informed about Stormpay, they decided that 12 Daily Pro was an illegal Ponzi sceme. Stormpay also took our $24 and, according to 12 Daily Pro's rambling discourses, several other people's. Furthermore, Stormpay's main site has been down for over a week, so no one can investigate what happened either.



Long story short, we thought it might be a fun way to make a little extra money, but we didn't really lose anything but some time online. We sincerely hope none of our readers put any large amount of cash in either Stormpay or 12 Daily Pro. 12 Daily pro doesn't appear to have done anything wrong, but then again, they have disabled the ability to use their service with any payment processors.



In the future, we will utilize Paypal as a payment processor for online purchases. Also, buyer beware any HYIP's. Don't invest more than you can stand to lose and don't make any life decisions based on anticipated returns. They are a gamble, just like the stock market.

CIAO for now,
Randy

Our Latest Tenant is Kitchen Fun
Mood:  a-ok
Topic: Make Money with Your Blog
We just accepted a new tenant! Please check out "Kitchen Fun with Donna and Friends" to the left. She has a number of delicious and nutritious recipes available. According to BlogExplosion stats, her site has an 85% approval rating and most readers call it "Well Designed" and "Useful." We're sure you'll agree. They'll be with us for a week so please be sure to come back and visit often!

Here's another great online cookbook!


CIAO for now,
Randy