Collaboration Spammers

As we all embrace Web 2.0 and find more and more ways to collaborate both personally as well as professionally, there seems to have also been an evolution in the spamming community and they now feel they have an open invitation to progress from email spamming to cold calling. 

 

A day does not pass for me or my team where we are cold called from vendors using the data on various open collaboration sites to try and hawk various Services under the pretence that they have been recommended by a colleague which they surprisingly cannot remember the name.

 

Luckily these spammers have not grasped the concept that if you call individuals with the same job title in the same organisation there is a high probably that they will be sitting near each other and be aware of the call their colleague took minutes previously.  They also seem surprised when they ask if you have heard of their company and you say yes and are not interested, bizarre….

 

Let’s hope that this current trend of collaboration spammers does not increase, and they actually research their market properly and target individuals rather than believing that collaboration sites are a replacement for a phone book cold calling list.

 

Collaboration is becoming an important part of everyone’s life and it would be a shame if openness is constrained for the fear of misuse.    

Geo (Geographical) Web

As our technological world advances the boundaries between the virtual and physical are beginning to merge.  You may have used or at least seen Sat Navs in cars and possibly GPS within our mobiles however are you aware that the crossover to the Internet has started?

There are many web tools and applications, which are now using the GeoWeb and I will discuss a few of them and some of the possible advantages.

iPhoto 09: Places: Within the latest version of the Apple iPhoto application you can GeoTag your photos by either using data from a GPS enabled camera, the camera from an iPhone  or even by typing the name of a place and entering an address, or dropping a pin on a map. Then, when you want to find photos you shot in New York City or London, just type the place name in the search field. Also if you feel like exploring, use the Places column browser to navigate your photos by clicking a country, state, city or point of interest.

Geocaching:  Many years ago as a child you may have spent a cold gym class running through the woods orienteering, however even this has evolved. Geocaching is an entertaining outdoor adventure where you use your GPS, or map, to search for hidden containers, called Geocaches, that are hidden around the world by other participants in the activity. When you have located your GeoTag you then go online and can register your find.  This technology can either be used like a treasure map or even to move items around the world.  http://www.geocaching.com/about

Google Street Map:  The latest application from the stables at Google is Street Map.  There are still only a limited amount of places, which currently have street map, however this new mapping offering allows you to view street level photographs, take virtual walks; pan, rotate and zoom through cities around the world and by using your position find shops, restaurants, parks, hotels. You can either use this from home or if you have an Internet enabled phone you can use this interactively and turn your phone into a map and compass. http://maps.google.com/help/maps/streetview/

Flixster Movies: This iPhone application enables you to look up the nearest cinemas from your position and tell you what films are showing and at what times.

There are also companies working on technology, which if enabled you could receive direct marketing i.e. how would you feel if you walked past an institution and received a text offering you a discount that was valid for the next few hours.

Also how would you feel if you could transmit your location to your social networking site so your friends could see you location and you theirs?

So with the GeoWeb becoming a reality how long will it be before businesses start using this?? Could you see yourself walking past a Bank and getting a text offering you an extra % off insurance or a loan?  How about locating your colleagues or even a Branch or ATM.  Well the answer is today, ING has launched an ATM locator on the Android platform.

Dutch bank ING has launched a new application for T-Mobile’s G1 Google phone that combines the built-in GPS technology with the handset’s compass and camera to ‘point’ users in the direction of the nearest bank ATM.

Users have merely to open the application, point the camera in the direction they’re facing and a superimposed label appears on the screen pointing to the nearest building in view that houses an ATM.

http://www.finextra.com/fullstory.asp?id=19593

 

How safe is your Wifi?

 

 As Innovation increases at a tremendous pace have you will have noticed that cabled networks are becoming a thing of the past and nearly all technologies live within the WIFI space.  Even at home I am sure that most of you will have wireless routers with multiple devices able to contact it; ranging from work PCs, home PCs and even internet enabled devices like Radios, Games Consoles, iPods etc, however how safe is your setup?

 

Let me guess, unless you use apple you probably have an antivirus running on your PCs to protect them and believe this is enough? however what about the wireless router you connect to?. When you set up your router you probably unboxed the device, connected your main PC via a cable and then set up the wireless network whilst hopefully enabling its WPA encryption (This is better than WEP).  However did you think to change the logon password (if there was one) to the actual router? 

Did you realise that if someone got hold of your routers ip address they could actually log straight on and take control?  Most routers are shipped with identical passwords (if any are set up) so if you don’t change your network name from Sky, Belkin, Zoom etc etc it is very easy to guess what the routers password is. 

 

In a recent study on “WiFi networks and malware epidemiology” published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) it showed that in densely populated urban areas WiFi routers form a tightly interconnected proximity network that can be exploited as a substrate for the spreading of malware able to launch massive fraudulent attacks by botnets.  These attacks could range from spam to denial of service and in certain simulated scenarios show tens of thousands of routers could be infected in as little as 2 weeks, with the majority of the infections occurring in the first 24–48 h. This scenario however would be greatly reduced if router encryption is used.

 

Thankfully this scenario is very easy to counteract, so next time you use your wireless network why not ensure that you are not using the standard shipped password for the router and for added security some routers also allow you to hide the device from public view.