Tag: internet

Did you win One Million Euros in a Microsoft Lottery? Think again: it’s a phishing attempt

Post author By M3 Sweatt
Post date 16/01/2009
1 Comment on Did you win One Million Euros in a Microsoft Lottery? Think again: it’s a phishing attempt

In the last few weeks, I’ve noticed an increase in phishing and email fraud as I noted a few days ago in my post The new year rings in another bonus: a rise in bogus electronic greeting cards. (More on what a phishing scam looks like is available here on Microsoft.com.) Although one Microsoft study notes that phishing isn’t as profitable as originally thought, we still see it rampant on web pages and unsolicited emails.

As my associate Neil Holloway said, “Phishing is a crime. It undermines consumers’ trust in the Internet and is an impediment to European policy-makers’ and industries’ efforts to boost citizens’ use of innovative and valuable Internet services.”

And consumers are a significant target for these types of attacks, as my friend Adrienne Hall (in the Trustworthy Computing group) said to SecurityFocus: “For the broad swath of the consumer public, the attacks are fairly more simplistic, and yet, they are luring so many people, that they are still the largest threats.”

Well, today on the Microsoft section of getsatisfaction.com I saw this question on bogus Microsoft lottery winner notifications with customer Horváth asking…

“It is True?”

Let’s take a look (phone # redacted):

Microsoft Corporations:
Customer Service
Your Reference No: WA6FI-L/200-26937
Your Batch No: 20089SEPTL#22
OFFICIAL WINNING NOTIFICATION.
We are pleased to inform you of the release of the long awaited results of Sweepstakes promotion organized by Microsoft, in conjunction with the foundation for the promotion of software products, (F.P.S.) held this January 2009, in Espana. Where in your email address emerged as one of the online Winning emails in the 2nd category and therefore attracted a cash award of 1,000,000.00 Euros (One Million Euros).
To begin your claim, do file for the release of your winning by contacting our Foreign Service Manager:
Dr. Pedro Marios Ruben.
Tel: +34-634-###-###
Internet Fax: +1-831-###-####
Email: dr_pedromario*********@informaticos.com
The Microsoft Internet E-mail lottery Awards is sponsored by our CEO/Chairman, Bill Gates and a consortium of software promotion companies. The Intel Group, Toshiba, Dell Computers and other International Companies. The Microsoft internet E-mail draw is held periodically and is organized to encourage the use of the Internet and promote computer literacy worldwide.
Congratulations!!
Sincerely,
Mrs. Anna Marisa.
Promotions Manager.

Reminds me of the famous line: “one million dollars…”

Equally believable (not), email such as this one are likely fraudulent communications commonly referred to as a “phishing” email. We believe that the email is fraudulent and recommend that you do not respond. We take these reports very seriously and I forwarded this report to our security team.

This on the infamous Microsoft Lottery…

“You have won the lottery.”

The lottery scam is a common phishing scam known as advanced fee fraud. One of the most common forms of advanced fee fraud is a message that claims that you have won a large sum of money, or that a person will pay you a large sum of money for little or no work on your part. The lottery scam often includes references to big companies, such as Microsoft. There is no Microsoft lottery.

For more information on how to protect yourself from fraudulent emails, please see Microsoft’s Anti-Phishing Site, and my posts on Phishing: Don’t get caught and FYI: new scams featuring the IRS logo to get your PII.

Of interest: FastCompany’s Top 10 Web Sites You’ve Never Heard Of

Post author By M3 Sweatt
Post date 29/02/2008
4 Comments on Of interest: FastCompany’s Top 10 Web Sites You’ve Never Heard Of

Guarded nearly as well as the passcode to the Microsoft home of the future, and the details of the Inquisition were released this week (not to be confused with The Spanish Inquisition of Monty Python fame)… here are The Top 10 Web Sites You’ve Never Heard Of courtesy of Chris Dannen and April Joyner at FastCompany.com

“FastCompany.com has culled the most useful and entertaining sites from the far reaches of the Web so that when these sites go mainstream, you’ll be one step ahead of the crowd.

They are (with details excerpted from the site)…

CrazyBlindDate offers blind dates at public places in your neighborhood in New York; Austin, Texas; Boston; and San Francisco (with more cities coming soon). The authors said that this site is better than “pining over profile pictures on Facebook.”

DailyLit – The site offers both classic and contemporary titles, all provided in quick-reading installments that can be sent to you either via e-mail or RSS.

IWantSandy Not good at remembering to print out your flight confirmation code? Send a message to Sandy, and she’ll remind you in a daily digest, in a text message or as an event on your calendar.

Cocktail Party Physics is Jennifer Ouelette’s blog about science and technology come to life as effortlessly as everyday chatter about politics, celebrities and vacations.

Newsmap is an amazing graphical representation of the constantly changing headlines on Google News.

Run.com is a user-generated database of running routes all over the world, uses Google Maps mashups, allowing runners to look up routes in their area and choose them by length, difficulty, scenery and other user-rated criteria.

MakeUseOf – MakeUseOf is a tech blog that even laymen can understand…. in considerably de-geeked language.

5min — it’s a site featuring short videos that provide solutions or instructions for common and practical issues, like how to insulate your house or how to teach your dog to sit.

TryPhone – a fully functioning interactive phone-testing site where you walk through all the common features of the phone you’re considering buying in glorious, high-resolution interactivity.

Damn Interesting – a blog that writes long-form historical summaries of just about anything that’s, well … damn interesting.

Tags: Friday Link, humour, humor, websites.

Tags Friday Link, humour, internet, Web

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$2 per month and other reasons why I’m leaving Blockbuster for Netflix

Post author By M3 Sweatt
Post date 22/12/2007
6 Comments on $2 per month and other reasons why I’m leaving Blockbuster for Netflix

Thinking about a great last-minute gift that doesn’t require going to the mall or waiting for the FedEx driver to find your house? Give a subscription to a DVD-by-mail service.

Better, give a Netflix subscription. This from a for-the -moment Blockbuster Online subscriber.

Here’s the full story.

I like the ability to go online to the Blockbuster site and pick out movies for family viewing. When we first signed up, we considered the monthly fee on par with about what we spend on visits to the retail store, on top of the video game rentals and miscellaneous purchases we make. And we chose Blockbuster as we already have a local store that the kids enjoy carousing through as they make their selections for a weekend evening movie night.

But the proverbial straw has landed on my back, and I’m about to contribute to what the industry calls “subscription churn.”

Translation: I am leaving Blockbuster “Total Access” online, DVD-by-mail service for Netflix.

In case you missed the news, Blockbuster is raising prices for their online service, which will mean an increase in the monthly cost for many (MSNBC estimates that increases of up to 40 percent will impact current customers and all new customers). And the way the message was delivered to me was quite extraordinary:

“We know that during this busy time of year the convenience of BLOCKBUSTER Total Access is especially important to you. Have your movies delivered right to your door. If you want new movies right away, exchange in-store. And with free shipping both ways and no late fees, it’s easy to enjoy all the movies you want for as long as you want.

“To continue to bring you the unmatched convenience of both online and in-store DVD rentals, your monthly subscription fee will change slightly from $9.99 to $11.99.”

Uh, hello? Care to explain what I am getting for the 20 percent jump? No lament about the rise in processing and labour costs, postage increases or price of recycled paper in China? The only thing I see in the mail is that it’s the same service, it just costs more.

It will be funny to see what impact a two-dollar-a-month increase will have on customers.

If my cable bill rose by 20 percent in one month, I might be prompted to move to an alternative. If my mobile phone service rose by 20 percent, I might consider changing carriers.

I’m surprised by this move after learning that Blockbuster lost in the neighbourhood of 500,000 online customers last calendar quarter. I enjoyed the privilege of being able to return movies back to my local store for a free exchange, but the additional cost outweighs the benefit when I think of the few times we actually used the service.

Also, no note in the email to me from Blockbuster of the options I have as a Blockbuster customer to downgrade my subscription to subscription-by-mail only. On the blockbuster site, I found references to the current $8.99 per month fee for mail-only, and read in the above article that the “basic plan that lets subscribers keep one DVD but doesn’t entitle them to free in-store exchanges will drop from $4.99 to $3.99 per month.” (After posting this entry, I found on the Blockbuster customer service page has more info on the price restructuring in order to learn more about the price increase.)

One of those may be better for us. But I get a sense that this is a beginning of a slippery slope, and that the momentum and popularity of Netflix is added justification to make the move.

Not to mention that Netflix offers DVD by mail in addition to live customer service and movies over the Internet. And with the hiring of my previous boss, Anthony Wood of ReplayTV fame, I expect more great things as Netflix looks for more innovative ways to deliver movies via the Internet, with rumours recently that the company is considering a $50 set-top box.

“Netflix has all but said that it will introduce some type of set-top box to get video to the TV. The company hired Replay TV founder Anthony Wood as its VP of Internet TV in April and in May, CFO Barry McCarthy said the company has been working on a solution for the last two years but wouldn’t discuss it’s “box strategy” until later this year or next.”

(Hmmm… CES is just around the corner… perfect timing for a Vudu-Netflix acquisition announcement.)

As much as I would rather see Xbox Live be the set-top box in our living room that provides over-the-Internet movies, I think that this will continue to be first and foremost a gaming platform, leaving a breadth of broadband movies to Vudu and companies like Tivo, DirecTV and Echostar.

Nearly two years ago I predicted that as consumer broadband installations increase, subscription music packages (Rhapsody, Zune) would increase at a faster rate than online music sales (iTunes). In that vein, I would like to see a monthly subscription video programme from Xbox Live, perhaps in combination with a company such as Netflix. Full disclosure: Reed Hastings is on Microsoft’s board, and ‘though I have no insider knowledge of any such deal, it would be super to have a Netflix page on Xbox Live. 😉

It appears that the article in the Times was right: Netflix customer service is a strategic weapon against your DVD-mailing service…

“Netflix’s decision to eliminate the e-mail feature was made after a great deal of research, Mr. Osier said. He looked at two other companies with reputations for superb phone-based customer service, Southwest Airlines and American Express, and saw that customers preferred human interaction over e-mail messages. “My assessment was that a world-class e-mail program was still going to be consistently lower in quality and effectiveness than a phone program,” he said.”

… And now, so is the price.

(A side bar: Netflix chose Oregon as the location for the customer service call centre as one exec “found Oregonians to be polite.”)

In defense, I should say that I have found the representatives at my local Blockbuster to be super helpful, once calling and holding for us a new, popular movie once it was returned by another customer. But unlike Netflix, you can’t talk to a Blockbuster customer service agent, just send them an email through the Blockbuster online customer service web page.)

I agree with Thomas Hawk who wrote on his blog…

“Blockbuster has been in liquidation mode…

“For every store that goes out of business, it creates a big opportunity for Netflix to expand into their market. Blockbuster might be able to move some of these customers online, but the loss of the higher transaction revenue will certainly be felt as Antioco & Co. continue to dismantle the company piece by piece.”

Another sign of this: Shane Evangelist left Blockbuster Online for U.S. Auto Parts Network as Chief Executive Officer (as reported in this PR). Mr. Evangelist previously served as Senior Vice President and General Manager of Blockbuster Online until this past October. The role for managing the online business now falls to CIO Keith Morrow (as noted here), so he understands why a previously enthusiastic customer (one who also rented and purchased product in your retail stores) is leaving Blockbuster for Netflix.

BTW, interesting to note that Mr. Morrow is on Facebook (as am I). Care to poke him with your opinion of the price increase? 😉

Tags: Microsoft, Customer Service, Customer Support.

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Tags articles, customer service, internet, music, Zune

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Net Neutrality: will it help spur improvements for customers, or slow infrastructure and development?

Post author By M3 Sweatt
Post date 17/09/2007
1 Comment on Net Neutrality: will it help spur improvements for customers, or slow infrastructure and development?

The kids are asleep and I’m catching up on my Sunday reading, mail and a few bills. I noticed as I paid the cable bill online that I received a link to a Seattle Times editorial this weekend, tackling the challenge in DC around a network neutrality bill that Congress could pass later this year. (See also this companion piece that calls attention to issues around the current level of service.)

“Free the Internet …

“Democracy is meaningless without structure. It requires support and infrastructure to become a word capable of giving entire nations voice and freedom.”

The concept is that the Internet is, in the US, owned by the people. Given that the Internet was a started by DARPA and funded by the US government (read “taxpayers”), the basic framework of the Internet in the States (and now, around the world) is “free” — it’s essentially the last mile (or a couple of DSL to the CO) and the network management I pay for in a monthly fee to my cable and telco providers.

Now, I (along with several hundred million folks in this country) may own the airwaves, but I pay for the pipes to get television into our household. It’s the same story for a majority of people who live in this country (as well as many others), paying a premium so our kids can get their fill of Hannah Montana and the Discovery Channel.

The NCTA estimates that of the 111.3M television households in the States, 65.5M are basic cable subscribers: that’s almost 60%. About half of those households (33.5M) are cable broadband subscribers. And to keep the Internet flowing to and from my home, connecting me to the world, cable companies spent more than $12 billion last year on construction and upgrades.

Given all that investment, I would like to see my basic connection speeds rise in tandem with my monthly cable bill, especially when you compare access speed/price around the world. But even as milk and eggs get more expensive with each passing year, I see the same amount in the carton: why should the Internet be any different? As a consumer, I expect to see certain prices for other “free” bandwidth fall, such as telephony. We’ve seen competition in basic mobile phone offerings increase, and correspondingly costs drop year over year; of course, mobile carriers offer more and more value-added services to keep my monthly bills up.

Back to ‘net access. The US is not at the top of the stack rank when it comes to Internet access as compared with Asia, where I noted last year that you could get 100Mbps access for less than the average cost of 6Mbps in the States…

“Hong Kong’s City Telecom offers 100Mbps service for about US$25 a month… [and] for the same price as 1Gbit access in HK, you can have up to 30Mbps in New Jersey and other major markets. .”

.. and 100 Mbps FTTH for $36 a month in Japan. Population density certainly helps, but even in major North American downtown metropolitan areas you don’t see that sort of offer from your local ISP.

Counterpoint is this commentary from Randolph J. May in the The National Law Journal last year, Net Neutrality Would Violate the First Amendment Rights of ISPs. In it, May says…

“As a matter of policy, Congress should be very hesitant to pass a law in anticipation of conjectured harms that may never materialize. As the Internet continues to evolve, such a law almost certainly would turn out to be overly broad in application, restricting efficient business arrangements that otherwise would allow ISPs to make available services demanded by consumers at lower costs. Moreover, the vague terms of the mandates would be grist for the litigation mills for years to come.

AT&T (in their merger with SBC) agreed not to sell premium access Internet to customers for two years. But that’s not what concerns me as a customer: even past that short moratorium, IMHO ISP’s shouldn’t have the option to degrade any third-party service over my connection. With a multitude of offerings from cable and telco providers, I trust that I won’t see the equivalent of a gas or electric meter attached to the side of my cable hookup — data is data and should be treated equally.

There are ISP services and offerings that may help win my future business as a consumer, including IPTV, with network DVR and HDTV. And higher network bandwidth, especially as the boys spend more and more time on the net doing their homework 😉

Yes, there is $10 DSL… but “the user experience is not… really state of the art”

Post author By M3 Sweatt
Post date 11/08/2007
1 Comment on Yes, there is $10 DSL… but “the user experience is not… really state of the art”

An interesting article at on Web Pro News and how nobody wants AT&T’ $10 DSL. (The low-priced DSL offer was required by the FCC Federal Communications Commission when Cingular.) Nearly the same price as a high-speed dial-up (an oxymoron these days), AT&T offers a low priced package that many find hard to find, says the author Jason Lee Miller.

“When the Atlanta Journal-Constitution asked Randall Stephenson about criticism that the company’s $10 DSL offering, the one required under government conditions to approve AT&T’s merger with BellSouth, was difficult to find and not promoted, Stephenson responded like you might expect a CEO to:

“Deny, Downplay, Redirect.

“He answered:

“We haven’t made it difficult to find. To be honest with you, that’s not a product that our customers have clamored for. We still have $15 offers out there in the marketplace, even $20 offers, for 1.5 megabit speeds. Those are really kind of the minimum speeds that give a good user experience. So I don’t want to necessarily offer up a product where the user experience is not what I would consider really state of the art. That $10 product is kind of in that mode.”

So, I tried to see if it’s even available in the area, as we have DSL and cable modems). I found that AT&T Yahoo! High Speed Internet Request for [my home phone #] was in vain…

We’re sorry. AT&T Yahoo! High Speed Internet is not available in your area. However, SBC is now joined with AT&T and we invite you to check availability for other services. Learn More.

If you believe you received this message in error, please verify the number and try again.

If you continue to receive this message in error, please contact our customer service center at 1-877-722-3755 Monday through Friday, 7 am to 9 pm and on Saturday, 8 am to 5 pm, closed on Sunday.

Thank you for your interest in AT&T Yahoo! High Speed Internet.

If you are unable to find AT&T’s $10 DSL, and to see if you are in a covered service area, go to https://swot.sbc.com/swot/promoLanding.do

As I said in a prior post, Bill Gates said that it would broadband adoption should grow faster than it has. So would I, and I’d like to see the base upload/download speed go up esp as I regularly use my home connection to sync my mail and files in the evenings. It’s frustrating when customers abroad enjoy (comparable) 200Mbps for around $40…

“So, for the same price as 1Gbit access in HK, you can have up to 30Mbps in New Jersey and other major markets. In Japan, you can find Ethernet and FTTH up to 30Mbps of bandwidth: last year, analysts estimated that these high-speed lines are used by 22% of subscribers.”

Tags: AT&T, DSL, consumers, ISP, Internet.

Tags articles, internet, Web