Senator Ted "Series of Tubes" Stevens (Alaska) along with Senator Olympia Snowe (Maine) introduced the Anti-Phishing Consumer Protection Act this week. The problem is they are honestly in need of phishing education.

The APCPA just doesn't make much sense. First, phishing is already illegal. Second, phishing is going to continue happening no matter how many laws there are. The root of the problem has to be addressed. Blanketing more laws over existing ones is not helping. Third, there is a section in this bill about domain name Whois privacy. This has nothing to do with stopping phishing either. From the pages of the act:

(9) Phishing operators utilize deceptive domain names for their schemes. They routinely register domain names that mimic the addresses of well-known online merchants, and then set up websites that can fool consumers into releasing personal and financial information.

That is hardly the most popular method of phishing. Phishing most often happens within "cracked" directories on existing websites owned by innocent people. If a phish is reported, the data center which hosts the website is notified. This is because IP addresses do not lie. The person who owns the domain name has nothing to do with the phish (at least in a direct way) and they have every right to keep their details private if they want. Phishers are not in a habit of registering "bankofamericaaccountlogin.com" and buying hosting every day, that opens them up to being found easily. So the idea of possibly disallowing private domain registration is a foolish and definitely unfair to domain owners. (Disclaimer: I do believe businesses should have their details listed, but private citizens should have a choice.)

With all of the phish attention lately, I am ready to start a website with the real story of how the series of tubes is really being compromised. 

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I received what you might call unsolicited mail from the post office. It arrived addressed to Postal Customer and in bold was the title "Identity theft prevention tips."

If the majority of receivers do open these letters, this project will have very good results. Educating the public about phishing and identity theft online is hard enough so any outside help is really a good idea. The letter inside reads:

 "Enclosed is a brochure that provides you with helpful tips, phone numbers, websites, and steps you can take to deter, detect and defend yourself against identity theft. Please take the time to read through it and follow the advice. Sincerely, John E. Potter, Postmaster General."

The brochure itself is produced by the FTC and is actually the best brochure I've read yet. Most organizations are definitely becoming more savvy about these issues so explanations and solutions are more detailed than ever.

The problem with phishing is still rampant but ever since we implemented our anti-phishing redirect page a lot of other companies are following with the same. Our page had 4,083 visits in January alone due to the scams we have had to disable, mainly on dedicated servers. This is a huge improvement since my last post about the redirection page. I think this is because I continue to believe that the key to solving phishing really lies in educating dedicated server customers. The freedom we allow them should really be considered a danger and treated as such. Dedicated server hosts can still give customers the control they seek but they have to give them guidelines with it.

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It's the first month of 2008 and you know what that means. Instead of naming off goals to lose weight, stop smoking, eat organic, and run every morning at 6:30 A.M. what about our tech resolutions? Here's my list for you.

10.  Organize: If you never clean out old directories and files from your servers, what better time than now to get started? Go through your website error logs to clean up files which no longer exist but are still requested, change graphics that may have old dates or other inaccuracies, give your web presence an overall spot check and you will be amazed at how inspired you'll become during the process. As you go along you'll get new ideas of what new features should be added to your site. Do a spot check and brainstorm each month this year and you'll have the most organized and easy to use website ever for your customers. (And how about cleaning up your own desktop? Sheesh... look at all of those icons.)

9.  Apologize: Let's admit that we made mistakes last year. Did you not announce a few things that happened with your company? Did you postpone a feature for too long? If your hosting company has a blog, why not make a post that simply says you are sorry for the downfalls of the previous year and you are committed to setting everything right in 2008. 

8.  Ask: Through polls, blogs, forums and newsletters, ask your customers more questions. Get to know them and see what they think is missing from your services. In this process you will see what they do value the most already and you can work on completing the picture this year. 

7. Give: You do not have to give an iPod away with each dedicated server order, but give back to your customers more this year and show them that you appreciate them. Have contests and giveaways to connect your customers and reward them at the same time. 

6.  Focus: As the day goes by, it's easy to lose track of your ideas, especially when issues pop up with servers or customer situations. Even though we proclaim to be the geekiest of the geeks, it is not a bad idea to keep a notebook or organizer around and actually use a pen sometimes! I have personally found that writing down notes on paper and crossing them off is better than a text file. It's easy for a little text file to get lost behind thirty other windows (which seem to get all of the attention). The paper is always there by your mousepad and you will constantly be reminded it's there. Or, maybe get one of these:

ubergizmo.com/15/archives/2008/01/iriver_ebook... 5.  Listen: This goes along with "Ask" but sometimes you have to focus more on hearing what people have to say instead of injecting your own comments. You may miss something important if you are too immediately concerned with what you think about it. Let's say a customer is upset and has sent you a long ticket which makes you feel terrible, do not think of the ways they may be wrong, think of the ways in which they are truly right. Act upon it patiently and in the future, proactively.

4. Progress: Take a look at the features you offer. What have you changed or added in the past two years? In the past year? If you cannot make a list of at least 10 major changes/additions, then it is time to rethink your offerings and create excitement this year.

3. Help: Do you ever find yourself sending a customer a link to a blog post or tutorials site for help with a question? Sure that's the great part about the wealth of information the Internet makes available to us, but you should also create a massive amount of resources on your own site. Not only would this help your customers in-house,  it can also improve your own search engine rankings.

2. Lead: Your customers largely depend on you so this year become your own tech warrior. Be on the lookout for the next big thing, the next best applications, and your customers will benefit like never before. And they'll appreciate your hard work and dedication for bringing them the best new services and features.

1. Relax: It is hard to pull ourselves away from the computer (or stop carrying the laptop everywhere) but if you do not take the time to sit and read a book, take a walk in the park, all to have some quiet time in your mind, you may miss a revolutionary thought. You know, they can pop up at the strangest times! Let all of your experience quietly guide the way into something wonderful for your company in 2008. 

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There is a new world of do-it-yourself hosting on the horizon. I have noticed that new homes built in the past few years nearly always have a particular feature: structured wiring. This separate "foundation" which centralizes different cabling in your home is now standard in blueprints. This will become the norm and finding a data panel in the closet will become as normal as finding a television in the living room. But now we are not only limited to high definition television, being spoiled with higher speeds while surfing the web, remote controls that master everything from the lights to lawn sprinklers, or refrigerators that can order more groceries. Now we can host sites from our living room.In the past two weeks there has been a lot of talk about the new Windows Home Server. Will this finally begin to crack open the once hard shell of hosting from home? Do you think hosting from home will remain at its current lull or will this trend actually speed up in the next few years? Will the "do-it-yourselfers" continue to find ways to remain independent or will they miss the customer service aspect of web hosting and the ideas they can gain from industry knowledge? And with Fiber To The Home (FTTH) service expanding rapidly, should old-fashioned web hosts be afraid?

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Lately all of the top news stories are about security breaches, hacking, and "net terrorism" in general. Many cases that even revolve around intellectual property rights have security and legal flavors mixed in. In fact, I am enrolled in an online cybersecurity course which is demanding a lot of my time alongside mandatory duties with work. I want to be the best I can be in this field and not let any of you (or theWHIR) down so I thank you all so much for your patience with me. I promise that I have a lot of juicy conversations from this field up my sleeve. So again, thank you and I'll be blogging soon. More About Kayla

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