JimWorld Gazette Issue #26 10/24/1997

Gazette - Issue #26 - October 24, 1997

-- The All-Knowing Spider of the Web
-- Merchants Beware. Fraud Is Rampant!
-- Tips From The Hitman - Part XIV
-- Snippets
-- Need Some Hits?
-- Eudora Pro 4.0 Beta Released

Link to this issue of the Gazette as http://gazetteworld.com/go/to.cgi?l=g26

The All-Knowing Spider of the Web

The All-Knowing Spider of the Web has something stuck to the bottom of its shoe and it is foul and rancid. At first glance you would think that it could be scraped off with a stick. Unfortunately, a stick isn't going to get the job done. More drastic measures are needed before time runs out.

I don't want to join the leagues of doomsayers who constantly run about getting attention by predicting the end of the Web due to the shortcomings of technology. The end of the Web as we know it, if it comes, will be brought on by the legions of people from the shallow end of the gene pool who, for the first time in history, have a way to reach out to the world and screw things up.

A friend called to tell me about a recent event. Let's call this friend something nice like Bill. Bill ordered The Ultimate Secrets To The Search Engines And Destroying Your Competition, or something similar. You know, the reports that teach you to get to First Place on the search engines without hardly trying. Now, to Bill's credit, he did order this before discovering VirtualPROMOTE. We can overlook this one lapse.

When Bill ordered the report he sent the seller, shall we call him something generous like Scumbag? So Bill sends Scumbag $19.95 and receives his less than useful report. OK. No big loss. Only $19.95 down the drain, right? But wait. It continues. A couple of weeks later Bill is balancing his checkbook upon receipt of his canceled checks from the bank.

Guess what! Scumbag has printed out another check on his computer for another $19.95 and deposited it into his account as well. Banks do allow this you know. Somewhat more than curious, Bill calls Scumbag. Upon hearing of this 'error' Scumbag doesn't bat an eye. 'I'll send you back the $19.95 right away. It was just a bookkeeping mistake. Not my fault, but I'll take care of it.'

So Bill gets his $19.95 back and all he is out is his valuable time. No harm. No foul, right? Wrong!

First of all, Scumbag didn't even pretend to examine his 'books' to see what went wrong. He knew exactly what had happened. He is probably doing this to hundreds, or thousands, of people all over the world. He is just smart enough to know that he has to return the stolen money to anybody that calls if he wants to avoid having romantic dinners with people named 'Bubba' every night after a long day making license plates. So he sends the money back and keeps right on going.

What should Bill do? Is it his problem? Is it yours? Mine? Yes, it is our problem. If we let these various Scumbags do this, we will see the end of the Web as we know it. Rip-offs happen, but when confined to a local community it is easier to find authorities to investigate. Reporting someone hundreds of miles away takes a little more effort.

How many people will Scumbag terrorize into never doing business on the Web again? How many people have to reach that same level of fear before you and I can't make an honest living using the Web?

When the Web we know goes away, there will still be a Web. But it will belong to the large multi-national companies with the big budgets. The losers are all of the bright, honest, hard working people who could have reached new heights by having access to a semi-level playing field. People like some of us.

The government is not going to be the answer. They are too busy saving democracy from the global threat of unsolicited email. The press? They've learned to spell 'credit card fraud' and don't see any reason to figure out what is actually happening.

Who must stop it? We each must stand up and fight back against this hoard of low-forehead types that are not smart enough to make an honest living. Don't let inconvenience divert you from this task. Every time you stop one of these con artists, you help to ensure that the Web stays available to all of us. We don't have a lot of time, but we can do it if we get going NOW.

Life sure was easier when these people just sat at home on the couch, scratched themselves, drank beer and belched after coming home from their day job of stealing car stereos.

Wow. I feel much better now.

MERCHANTS BEWARE! FRAUD IS RAMPANT

--Jim here: When we started planning the roll out of the WebSuite Personal Web Server, one of my most difficult tasks was to locate a master distributor for the product that not only had the skills and contacts to create a market for a new category of product, but also the online business savvy to keep us from being constantly ripped-off as so many software companies are experiencing. TJ was the final choice as master distributor.

I first met TJ when he was busy building the market for the Web Promotion Spider. He got me to try it out and write a review. I was impressed with his marketing and public relations skills. As time went by I began to realize just how skilled he was at e-commerce, which is not an easy skill to find. I've twisted his arm to start writing for you on e-commerce. Welcome TJ. --

The press is having a hay day with stories about Internet fraud. Newspapers, news shows and especially the Web related magazines love to share stories of how consumers are getting ripped off by Internet scams. To be sure, those scams exist and consumers must be cautious. However, there is a sinister flip side of this situation that has received little, if any press.

Unfortunately, the Internet is also the perfect environment for every crook, thief, and pickpocket to ply their trade with almost complete anonymity. Being in the online software business, I have seen a tremendous increase in fraudulent purchases made with stolen credit card information. In many cases, the thief has more complete and current information about the actual cardholder than the credit card company. In some cases, the credit card numbers provided pass through verification, are given an approval number and turn out to be totally fictitious numbers based on the algorithm used to produce authentic numbers.

I recently formed an alliance with a large merchant account provider specializing in providing credit card merchant accounts for Internet and Home-Based businesses. Through working closely with the credit card companies and other online merchants, I know the bottom line is this: You, as a merchant, are the one going to get it in the end (pun intended)! The cardholder is not responsible for more than $50 of fraudulent purchases. The issuing bank of a stolen credit card really doesn't care because they will simply charge the merchant back for any fraudulent purchases, plus a $10-$15 charge back fee. In fact, the issuing banks actually make $50 on these situations. They get the $50 from the cardholder (the cardholder's obligation), then they charge back each and every merchant for all the fraudulent charges.

So why is this situation getting so bad? Technology! Yes, the very same technology that allows us to have a profitable online business also allows those so inclined to rip us off. With the advent of free, web-based, non-ISP Email addresses such as @hotmail.com, @usa.net, @juno.com and the 150 or so new ones being offered by www.inames.com -- it affords a credit card thief a perfect veil to hide behind. These free Email addresses can't be traced back to the real owner. For those of us in the software business, the Email address is the only point of contact we have. That address is where our products are shipped.

To make matters worse, there are now software programs available that can generate an unlimited number of valid, yet fictitious credit card numbers. Combine that with complete anonymity and it spells big trouble for any business conducting online commerce. In addition, there are newsgroups out there that actually post stolen credit card data. So someone picks your pocket now and ten minutes later all your data is available world-wide.

So, what can you, as a merchant, do to protect yourself -- short of not accepting online credit card orders? Over the last month, my company has had to establish certain procedures for all online orders:

No credit card order is accepted unless complete information is provided including full address and phone numbers.
We no longer accept any order originating from a free, web-based Email address. The customer must provide an ISP or domain based address. One that can be traced back to a "real" person.
Since the list of free Email addresses is growing daily, we check every Email address by going to a browser and putting a www. in front of the domain. Try this with joesmith@cyberdude.com. You will see that www.cyberdude.com puts you on I-names (150+ free Email domains) homepage. We don't accept orders unless the Email/domain is a legitimate website or ISP -- something that can provide definitive identification of the Email address in question.
If in doubt, we call the phone number listed on the order. We have alerted many cardholders that their card information was being used by making this phone call. On the other hand, the party on the other end may have never heard of the "customer." This results in a call to the issuing bank of the credit card to alert their fraud department.
We use the HTTP_USER_AGENT code on all our order forms. This line works with most form handlers such as FormMail, cgiemail and others. The exact syntax varies with the form handler, but it provides information on the computer used to send the order, including the IP address. This can sometimes be used to trace the origin of a fraudulent order. Check the documentation for your particular form handler or cgi script for implementation of this input field.
Virtual Checks -- we receive a great number of orders via online virtual checks. Having been burnt a few times, we now call the account holder's bank and verify the account number, account holder's name and current funds to clear the check before processing the order.

Antifraud.com:
I am in the process of establishing a new domain at http://antifraud.com (not active at this time). The sole purpose of this domain will be a front line of defense for online merchants. This site will have up to the minute lists of Email addresses used for fraudulent purchases and information provided by credit card processors and banks. If you would like additional information about either using this site or providing data for the site, please contact me.

T.J. Walker mailto:tjwalker@softwaresolutions.net
303-722-5240 http://softwaresolutions.net

TIPS FROM THE HITMAN - PART XIV

Last time out I started an article on the use of high end email software as a tool for managing the ever increasing amount of email that is inevitable if you start a business on the Internet. I was talking about using Eudora Pro in particular, as that is my email program of choice and one of the best available in my opinion. Now, I do get mail regarding my articles on a regular basis, but this particular article generated more email response than any I have done to date, go figure. I would like to point out, or actually Don Morris pointed out that there are other options. Don is Big Mac fan, and the word from the Golden Arches is that Claris Emailer for the Mac is every bit as good as Eudora and is preferred by many Mac users over Eudora. I told Don I can only talk from personal experience so this disclaimer as suggested by Don, "this is for PC weenies only." :-) Not totally true, as Eudora is available for Mac.

I might also mention that I was told that the mail client in the Microsoft Office 97 also supports filters. I am sorry to say I just do not even try to obtain every upgrade of Office from Microsoft. It is expensive, and uses more memory with every version. I do use it and I upgrade grudgingly about every other edition. I may move up from Office 95 to Office 98 next year as I might have a computer with a 20 gig hard drive that has room for it at that time!

I am sure there is other email software out there that does a good job, but the real intent of this series of articles is to point out that high end email software can do a lot more for you than that free copy of Eudora Light or the browser email client you may be using. I hear that even the browser email clients may soon have many of these features, and that is good for everyone. That said, on with the show.

OK, by now I hope you have some idea just what filters can do for you as far as pigeon holing the incoming email, or just sending spam to the dumpster! What else can you do now? Well there are a number of other great features for organizing mail on Eudora. The other two that are my personal favorites both are used to bring attention to a message and or prioritize it so email of a that is important does not sit and rot, or orders do not get skipped or remain unfilled for longer than I or the customer would like.

The first of these options is the mail priority option. This is gives you the ability to mark any message that has come in with one of five priorities from very low to very high. The priority can be selected from the right mouse button. It goes in the box to the left of any message in the same box that indicates if a message is unread, read, forwarded or has been replied to. (by the way this is also a life saver, you know if you have replied to a message at a glance) I use the priority option on many emails, but I will give one example. I use this priority option to track a job status. I mark it very high if it has come in and has not been logged to my data base or confirmed, high when it has been confirmed normal if it is recorded and confirmed, low when the job is done, lowest means done and confirmed. I know the status of any order by looking at the job orders email box. If I see a high priority that is days old, I take a look and find out if I have just overlooked changing the priority, or I have let a job age more than it should without my attention.

Next there is an option to tag messages with a color code. This is also available from right mouse click and lets me assign a color to a message, when I chose this option, the message can be highlighted hot pink for Action needed, Red for Urgent, etc. etc. These colors and what the color means are all user definable. There are a total of 7 label that can be used and the meaning and color for each can be selected. These labels change the color of the text in the inbox who, date and subject to the color of that label from the default black text that is normal. This is particularly useful for handling items that end up in any of the larger mailboxes or the main mailbox where they have a good chance of being buried by messages that follow. For instance, I have a message from Jim asking where this article is that he sent today marked URGENT in Red as I once again am typing at deadline because the week just got away from me once more.

One last feature I would like to mention is one that is not supported by all email clients, but I find highly useful if you are mailing to one that does support it. This is return receipt requested. Basically this is a button you push before sending the email that marks it so the person reading it will get a message box saying something like "the person sending this mail has requested that you reply that this mail has been received and read, would you like to reply now?" It then gives them the option to reply now, reply later or disable the return reply so it does not appear again. This is great for really important mail to people who are too busy and might otherwise accidentally let your message rot! Too bad it is not supported as a standard on all email programs.

This is by no means all the features available on Eudora Pro, I tried to touch on the ones I use the most in my daily attempts to keep up with a mountain of mail. I do not get as much as some people but I typically have 50 first thing each day and get another 100 in the course of the day. I try to answer mail as it comes in, but sometimes I am trying to actually fill the order or what not and I have to use the features of the program to assist me in keeping up with, and handling my mail in a professional manner.

As I said at the start, Eudora is not the only game in town, but now maybe you know better what features to look for when you are trying to decide if you should move up from that free email program to something that may make your life a little easier.

Eudora Web Site: http://www.eudora.com/

Until next time,

Hayden Mitchell
Web Themes

SNIPPETS

Font foundries and designers have been vocal in their fear of font embedding on the web, and now it seems their fears were well-founded, at least in the case of Microsoft's new browser, Internet Explorer 4. The browser's new OpenType font embedding feature has a fatal security flaw that makes it easy for any user, even those without technical knowledge, to capture embedded fonts from a web site and install them into their system for use with all their software. You don't have to be a hacker to accomplish this. See the complete story at http://news.i-us.com/wire/

If you are having trouble getting people to visit your site when you send them the URL in an email message, you may be making one of the most common mistakes: using punctuation. If you type 'Please visit my site at http//www.anywhere.com. Thank you.' people will not be able to click on that URL and visit. URLs don't end with a period or a comma. It is a hard habit to break. We have it drilled into us to use good punctuation in our communications. In this case, it is counter-productive. When I get these, I have the choice of moving on to another message, or take the time to copy and paste the address into my browser. Guess which I usually take? It just takes too much time. So make sure you try hard not to do this. You'll get much better results from your efforts. BTW - About 20% of the mail I get has this problem, so when you do it, you are not alone.

NEED SOME HITS?

Time to head over to National Direct Internet Yellow Pages at http://www.ndiyp.com/ for a free listing. They claim 4.2 million hits in September. That's enough traffic potential to get me over there. How about you?

EUDORA PRO 4.0 BETA IS RELEASED

If you're already a Eudora Pro 3.0 owner, this is great news for you. If you are using some other email client for some reason, this is even more important news. I won't go over the reasons you can't get by with a stripped down email client. That has been well covered by Hayden. Whatever your situation, you should go get the beta version of the new release. It will make your web life much easier.

The new release has a long awaited feature: a three pane display! Now you can see your folders, Inbox and a message all at the same time. No longer do you have to open a new window to read a message.

To balance that great new feature, it was apparently important to the Eudora development team to add a truly useless feature as well. Enter the Eudora Browser. They don't call it that, but they should. Being able to send HTML email is like sending your girlfriend a ham in a flower box for Valentine's Day. Not very effective. I already have enough browsers. I don't need high-bandwidth hype to now invade my email box. The first thing I plan to do is turn that feature off. I already have filters installed looking for HTML tags and immediately trashing any message that contains them. Banner ads in my email. What a joy that would be.

A new, streamlined method for creating filters is a big plus to 4.0. Much faster and more flexible. 4.0 also delivers a whole new arsenal of view customization features. You can make this one look exactly the way you want with new user defined toolbars and several different data views.

The biggest feature we didn't get is background downloading of messages from the server. I really expected them to fix this big hole in the product, but they didn't call to ask me what I thought they should do with their business. They should have. I could have helped them.

There is a free beta version available for download (PC only. Mac is coming in about 30 days) at http://www.eudora.com/. I strongly suggest you give it a try.