| LED Digest 1763: Privacy Risks, Protecting Images, and more |
|
|
|
================================================== The LED Digest Moderated Discussion List "Effective Online Advertising, Since 1997" pair Networks: The LED's Web Host Hosting and Domain Reg. from a Trusted Leader pair.com for Hosting | pairNIC.com for Domains ================================================== List Moderator: Published by: Adam Audette LED Digest adam,led-digest.com http://www.led-digest.com ................................................ March 9, 2004 Issue #1763 ................................................ .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ==== CONTINUING ================= --== Chameleon Card Changes Stripes ==-- ~ Mike Banks Valentine "Chameleon-Card sounds interesting for credit card issuers, but it carries huge privacy risks..." ~ Douglas Lagos "I can see more and more card thieves at restaurants, gas stations and other locations popping up!" --== Unrelated, Unsavory & Unwanted Links ==-- ~ Lorelle Smith "Lazy webmasters who copy others' images for their sites often don't change the filename." --== Fraud ==-- ~ Tony Kitching "I suppose it's the old adage 'there's a sucker born every minute'..." ~ Becky Neilson "...after over 10 years I have not had any problems with fraud [from Australia]..." ==== BILLBOARD =================== --== CSS Problems ==-- ~ Becky Neilson --== Non-Deliverable Emails ==-- ~ Robert Ellis ===== CONTINUING ================================= From: Mike Banks Valentine Subject: Chameleon Card Adam, Your mention of "Chameleon-Card" sounds interesting for credit card issuers, but it carries huge privacy risks for those who would use them. As stated in the Wired News story you quoted, "Chameleon Card Changes Stripes" http://www.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,62545,00.html to follow on the Fraud discussion here, it should be noted that this card can't be used for online purchases and is not relevant to ONLINE fraud. It seems that the Chameleon card will certainly address fraud concerns and protect the Credit Card ISSUERS from unauthorized use of Chameleon Cards, but at the same time opens up huge potential for PRIVACY invading databases to be built on the USERS of the cards. Their usage history and record of travels is now available and accessible by a single device and a single company in a single database. Your fingerprints, your credit card numbers, your unique credit history and information and additional personal financial information is all in a single database now. Some concerns First the Chameleon company has built in a biometric ID feature that requires fingerprint ID from the owner of the credit cards represented by the device before using it to charge your credit card account for a purchase. As stated in the Wired News story, mentioned above, most "Consumers still associate biometrics with an invasion of their privacy" Regarding the RFID "Speedpass" feature that is to be included. The RFID tagging carries multiple additional privacy risks and concerns, such as the need to prevent the "reading" of the embedded RFID information by readers used by those businesses, (such as Mobil Oil, creator of the SpeedPass) relevant to any stored credit card data and usage history for connected credit cards represented in the device. More on RFID at http://PrivacyNotes.com/RFID/ The company offers an "Online Backup" of data encoded in their electronic "Wallet" device. Securing, encrypting and locking down that information during the upload to your personal computer and over the web will require some serious precautions by Chameleon. Then they'll have to protect that information from all hackers, virus writers and ne'er do wells. On top of all of that, the company wants us to PAY to use the device. It seems that convenience junkies who will 1) pay $200 for the device and, 2) don't have any privacy concerns at all, will be fair game for the thing. But I sure wouldn't want my financial data represented by a single company in a single database with potential for full and complete disclosure of my financial life to them and any bad guys that eventually work out how to "scan" stolen Chameleon card device or perhaps "read" the embedded RFID chips without it even needing to come out of your wallet as you walk by an RFID reader. The Patriot Act could not possibly ask for a more compliant and rich source of data on the financial life of users. Seems like too much risk simply to avoid carrying a couple more pieces of plastic to me. Mike Banks Valentine http://privacynotes.com -------- new post - same topic -------- From: Douglas Lagos Subject: Chameleon Card I can see more and more card thieves at restaurants, gas stations and other locations popping up! Credit card information is already being stolen from unbeknownst customers. We hear, read or see the news about credit card making boiler rooms, etc. Now all they need is the small Chameleon palm type device! Customers give their card to an unscrupulous waiter, waiter copies the info into their Chameleon, and they now have a full copy of your credit card. By the way, does the Chameleon do anything else than copy cards? Is it a Palm Pilot sort of device? If not, all my credit cards do not amount to the size and width of the device! Douglas Lagos -------- new post - new topic -------- From: Lorelle Smith Subject: Unsavory links > There is another possible reason for strange referrals > that I would like to add from my own experience. Occasionally > a web "master" will insert a picture on his own web site > that has been stolen from your web site... - Erik Perkins, LED 1762 Here's a heads-up to Erik Perkins and others who might try his so-called solution to unethical webmasters linking to an image on his site. (Erik replaced it with "a brand new image that was about a thousand pixels wide and displayed a message regarding web designers who were too lazy to steal properly"): The trouble with doing this is that 1) if the "img src" tag contains height / width specifications, it won't display as a 1,000-pixel-wide image as Erik intended (presumably to cause the image to load very slowly), and 2) such a large image is undoubtedly a larger file size, which means that Erik is now paying for the increase in bandwidth every time the image is viewed. Also, Erik, please let's *not* educate web designers to "steal properly." :-) (And don't forget to be grateful for their ignorance -- you would never have known your image was stolen otherwise!) I use the solution others have mentioned here -- replace the image with a graphic which publicly shames the webmaster for stealing not only the image, but the bandwidth (which will hopefully cause people to think twice about patronizing the site). After that, you might want to 1) send the webmaster a cease-and-desist copyright violation notice, with copies to the web host service, and 2) regularly monitor the site to make sure the webmaster doesn't simply copy the image and upload it to the server like s/he should have done in the first place. If you have an image which is likely to be stolen, you can protect it somewhat by giving it an unusual name. Then you can do a Google search for the image name. Lazy webmasters who copy others' images for their sites often don't bother to change the filename. Then, set up a robots.txt file on the server if you don't already have one. In it put: User-agent: Googlebot-Image Disallow: /foldername/filename.jpg [note: replace /foldername/filename.jpg with the applicable names, of course] [more info re: robots.txt file here: http://www.robotstxt.org/wc/norobots.html ] This and more info can be found under the heading "Remove an image from Google's Image Search" at http://images.google.com/remove.html#images. Google is not the only engine with a public image archive -- there is also AltaVista, which advises webmasters to use one of these metatag exclusion options to prevent images from winding up in its index: --------------------- "NOINDEX prevents anything on the page from being indexed; NOFOLLOW prevents the crawler from following the links on the page and indexing the linked pages; NOIMAGEINDEX prevents the images on the page from being indexed, but the text on the page can still be indexed." --------------------- (from #16 on http://www.altavista.com/help/search/faq_web ) Hope this helps! Lorelle Smith http://www.keywordsmith.com ------- new post - new topic -------- From: Tony Kitching Subject: Fraud > ... many of you probably have experience dealing > with those large, enticing international orders which > are to be rushed to Nigeria, Indonesia or Australia... - Sandi Dettman, LED 1760 > Do you consider Australia to be a common source > of fraudulent orders, much the same as Nigeria or > Indonesia? Do you have any evidence to support this? - Steve Pronger, LED 1762 I am with you Steve. I was offended by this comment and would like to know just how many fraudulent orders Sandi gets from Australia ( Gods backyard !! ). I have received and continue to get, order requests form so called reputable businessmen from various Asian countries. The solution is simple, I just ask for a direct deposit into my bank account. So far I have had only one from Taiwan who actually came through with the money. I cannot believe that there are people out there who are so gullible as to get stung by these morons. I suppose its the old adage "there's a sucker born every minute" . The internet just makes them more accessible to the scum bags who prey on them. Tony Kitching ------- new post - same topic ------- From: Becky Neilson Subject: Fraud I have a number of customers in Australia and after over 10 years I have not had any problems with fraud with that country. I have customers that use credit cards and Pay Pal with 100% success. Becky Neilson H.L. Supply Co. www.hansons.net ==== BILLBOARD ==================================== From: Becky Neilson Subject: CSS > Usability note to all: making fonts smaller > than -1 or 10 pts. can make them display > in an unreadable size on some computers. - Kathy Wilson Anderson, LED 1762 Font size can be a problem. I used to have a 15 monitor and switched to 17" monitor so I can read things better. As we age are eyesight seems to go and I found colored background or light colored text to make it even more difficult to read many websites. If the potential customer can't easily ready your sight they will look somewhere else no matter how good a deal you are offering. Becky Neilson H.L. Supply Co. ------- new post - new topic ------- From: Robert Ellis Subject: Is it only me? Hi LEDers, In recent weeks I have been notified by automated systems that some of my emails have not been delivered. In each case, the message is only one or two words, (usually "hello") I do not recognise the address and have not sent any mail there. During the last four weeks, some of my emails to regular contacts have not been arriving, I now always ask for a receipt and these are usually returned. I have the usual protections and update and scan my system frequently for bugs and Windows problems. Does anyone have any ideas please? Kind regards, Robert Ellis. www.ballistol.co.uk ------------------------------------------------------- The LED Digest is sponsored by pair Networks: pair.com for Hosting | pairNIC.com for Domains Copyright 1995-2004 Adam Audette. All Rights Reserved. ----------------------------------------------------------------- "But men must know, that in this theatre of man's life it is reserved only for God and angels to be lookers on." - Francis Bacon |
