Blog Status

All latest updates on E-Commerce are now available at My E-Commerce Blog at http://ecommerze.blogspot.com

Posts related to personal will be available at http://henkaiwah.blogspot.com

Microsoft vs Cybersquatters

Microsoft is currently pursuing hundreds of cases of cybersquatting in US plus a few in UK.

Domain names involved are such as:

• www.exbox.com,
• www.windowsexp.com,
• winowlivemessenger.com,
• mikerowesoft.com
• WindowsLiveTutorial.com
  

Some of these domain names are working on the basis of typo-privacy which targeted on the typo mistakes made by the Internet surfers.

Related links:

1. Microsoft expands cybersquatting fight (CNet News.com)
2. Microsoft hits "cybersquatters" (BBC News)
3. Microsoft pus cybersquatters on notice (CNet News.com)

Related posts on Domain Names disputes:

1. Domain Names Dispute: Gmail vs G-mail
2. China: Gmail vs Gmail.cn
3. YouTube.com vs Utube.com
4. Rooney scored back his domain name

Model of e-Tourism website

Screencapture of Tourism Malaysia (www.tourism.gov.my)

This website is being described as the e-Tourism model by United Nations Conference Trade and Development (UNCTAD) - Tourism Malaysia.

The website is described being a model with superb display of marketing information, graphics and designs for consumers and business travels.

Comments on Thailand's, Cambodia's and Vietnam's websites were also mentioned.
Read here for more.

Source: TheStar Online, 14th March 2007.

www.gov.my

Screencaptured of www.gov.my

This is Malaysian one stop e-Government portal. Its comprises of 395 online services of Malaysian ministries, departments and agencies.

Current applications include:

• obtain information on payments, applications, filing complaints and others
• dealing with authorities
• update postal addresses with Employees Provident Fund (EPF)
• apply for foreign workers with Immigration Department

Future applications:

• sending completed downloaded application forms online directly to the relevant authorities
• sms services

Internet users: India, China and Russia Experience Highest Growth Rates

A study released by comScore Networks revealed the following interesting findings:

• There are 747 millions of Internet users worldwide.
• India, China and Russia experience the highest increase in 2006 with 33%, 21% and 20%.
• US has the largest Internet population - 153.4 million
• China has the 2nd largest Internet population - 86.8 million, followed by Japan at 53.7 million.
• Internet users outside of US is constituting 80%.
• Canada users spend 39.6 hours per month averagely, followed by Israel 37.4 hours and Korea 34 hours.

Related tables can be accessed here.

The rise of the identity theft

A study from the research firm Gartner suggested that there is a sharp increase of identity theft related incidents since 2003.

Facts:

• 15 millions Americans were identity theft victims in mid 2005 - mid2006.
• The average loss of a case of identity theft was US$ 3,257 (2006) and US$ 1,408 (2005).
• Only 61% of the loss fund was recovered in 2006.

Means of identity thefts:

• Internet auctions
• Non-regulated money transmittal systems
• Impersonate lottery contests
• Others.

Read more from here.

Spam - Firm ordered to pay £750

A firm in UK, Transcom Internet Services Ltd, is ordered by the Edinburgh's Sheriff Court to pay an Internet user, Mr Gordon Dick, a total of £750 plus £618.66 legal cost for sending unwanted marketing e-mails (spam mails). The chronological of the event can be read here.

Mr Dick won the case after Transcom failed to turn up at the court. However, Transcom denies that the firm is sending out any spam mails. Mr Dick has since established a website to advise others to sue the e-mail spamming firms at Scotch Spam.

Online Voting in Estonia

The world 1st national election featuring Internet voting was conducted in Estonia, a tiny ex-Soviet country located at the Northern Europe.

A total of 3.5% of registered voters or some 30,000 people casted their votes through the Internet-based polling system.

Electronic voting is gaining popularity throughout the world now. These are some examples of the electronic voting.

The main concern for e-voting will be the realiability and security of the Internet-based balloting systems in selecting the country's government.

Estonia is undergoing high-tech modernisation with high usage of online banking users as compared to the physical branches, universal availability of wireless connections in city cafes, parks and commuer trains.

The details of the e-voting process in Estonia is being discussed here.

National Museum to use RFID

National Museum of Malaysia will use RFID as part of its asset tracking management on its artifacts. The project will be completed by April this year. Some 1000 artifacts will tagged with RFID.

Source: TheStar Online InTech 1st March 2007

China: Gmail vs Gmail.cn

Seem like Google Mail (Gmail) is engaging in another battle for domain name. This time in China.
Gmail is trying to buy the domain name from Gmail.cn, owned by an ISP company in China. Beside China, Google Mail is also facing the same issue in other countries.

Sources for reading:
1. CNNMoney.com - Google fights for Gmail domain
2. CNet News.com - In China, Google grapples with Gmail domain dispute
3. Gmail.cn website (Chinese) - Google在中国受挫 购买Gmail.cn遭拒绝

Smallest RFID Chip: Made in Malaysia

Product: Smallest RFID chip with built-in antenna
Producer: Malaysia Microchip (MM) Project

Features:

• Multi-band frequencies
• Can be embedded on paper
• Has its own serial number

Applications:
1st government application - RFID-enabled B certificates (holographic security labels to verify the authenticity of film discs)

Future Applications:

• Marriage certificates
• Birth certificates
• Foreign workers' identification cards
• Malaysian passports (Its already contained the smartest chip in the world)
• Road Tax
• Bank Cheque
• Bank Notes (No more counterfeit notes in the market)
• University diploma and certificates (can counter forged or bogus university certificates)
• e-baggage management application in airports

RFID in Education:
Universiti Teknikal Melaka on Student IDs to monitor time and examination attendance as well as for asset management system.

Source: TheStar, 25th Feb 2007

Personal Opinion:
RFID proved to be a very versatile and useful identification tag which will lead to improvement on the effectiveness and efficiency of any work process and supply chain. However, the main concerns are still lingering on the two main issues namely COST and PRIVACY.

Cost - Will the manufacturers transfer the higher cost of using RFID to the consumers instead?
Privacy - Will the privacy of the document/certificate holders be intruded, where their location can be easily traced with the use of mobile handheld devices?

Domain Names Dispute - Gmail vs G-mail

Familiar with Gmail? It's Google Mail.
How about G-mail? Is it the same as above? NO. It is Giersch mail, an electronic postal delivery business in Germany and Switzerland run by Daniel Giersch.

This Domain Names dispute is happening in Switzerland. The funny part is that both Giersch and Google received Swiss rights to the name in 2005, although Giersch applied for his trademark several months before Google did, and both remain in possession of those marks.

Last year, Giersch has won in Germany court on the German trademark for G-mail , also against Google.

Google also involved in another legal battle in Poland for Gmail.pl. Why? GMAiL.pl is currently being used by Grupa Mlodych Artystow i Literatow (GMAiL), or Group of Young Artists and Writers.

An interesting fact from Wikipedia - gmail.com was belonged to Garfield.com. It was used as a free online e-mail services offered by Garfield.com. Now it has moved to e-garfield.com.

Personal opinion:
These issues of domain names disputes happen when Google going for localisation of its services. Is it a good idea for Google to go local rather than sticking to their own famous brand - gmail.com? How about gmail in Malaysia - gmail.my? Are we foreseeing any dispute on this in the future? Who will prevail in the end of these Goliath vs Davids? Enough questions for everyone to ponder here.

Software Piracy 2006 report on Malaysia

These are some statistics from the IIPA's (International Intellectual Property Alliance) 2006 report on piracy.

• Malaysian music piracy is down 4% last year from 49% to 45%.
• At the same time, the business software piracy is up 1% to 61% from 60% the previous year.
• Motion pictures piracy is high at 91%.
• Entertainment software decrease 1% from 91% to 90%.
• Estimated losses from the books piracy is US$9 million (RM31.5 million)

With these results, Malaysia remained in the Watch List (less critical from the Priority Watch List) of the US Trade Representative (USTR) Piracy Watch since 2001. Our country once occupied the list of the Priority Watch List before.

The current Priority Watch List consisted of:

• Asia - India, China & Thailand
• Europe - Russia, Ukraine
• America - Argentina, Canada, Chile, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Mexico, Venezuela
• Africa - Egypt, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Turkey

Seems like we are not too bad as compared to these countries.

IIPA also published a summary of its global initiatives in 2007.

Two positives reports on Malaysian's effort in combating software piracy were also mentioned, namely:

• The closure of 11 CD plants, a commendable efforts to tackle the optical over-production problem (resulting in less supply)
  
• Sustained efforts against retail outlets that sell pirated software like raids on the shopping complexes such as Low Yat, Imbi Plaze and many more (resulting in less marketplaces)
  

IIPA concerns for Malaysia:

• Backlogs of IP (Intellectual Property) cases in court. (An IP Court will be most likely to be established this year in Malaysia by Malaysian Government)
• Clamp down on the export of pirated product from Malaysia (Made in Malaysia pirated software are well distributed worldwide)
• Increase in mobile music piracy (shopping complexes, night market etc)
  
• Emergence of more 'hard goods' websites distributing pirated movies.

Sources:
TheStar, 22 February 2007 (Malaysia to remain on piracy Watch List?)
IIPA website

Minister: Malaysian Telcos need to improve their services!

Energy, Water and Communications Minister Datuk Seri Dr Lim Keng Yaik highlighted that telecommunication companies in Malaysia need to improve on the following four key areas:

1. Extending coverage throughout the country - putting up more transmission towers and units to cover every town and village (achieving full coverage nationwide), providing uninterrupted services all the time at every location. No more excuses such as "no line la"...
   
2. Conducting audit checks on the authenticity of registered pre-paid line users - 17.8 million pre-paid users (90%) registered as at 16 December 2006 in an compulsory exercise. An additional 2 weeks extension was given for the remaining 10% to register.
   
3. Providing number portability - changing mobile operator will not be a major hassle for the users as they can retain their favourite number should this be implemented.
   
4. Better broadband connectivity - with more channels made available to the users such as 3G, Wimax and direct fiber optic connection. Hopefully with this, Internet connection speed can be further increased tremendously.
   

This is aimed to provide better mobile phone access and broadband services by the end of the year by translating the huge profits obtained each year.

(Source: TheStar InTech, 20 Feb 2007)

E-Filling in Malaysia - Taxpayers to receive PIN via mail

In the effort to encourage more citizens to use the e-fillilng, Malaysian's Inland Revenue Board (IRB) will send the PIN for online tax registration through mail to the taxpayers.

I believe this initiative come after the numerous feedbacks on the inconvenience of collecting the PIN from the IRB offices. Definitely, I am in support of this move as it helps to reduce the inconvenience caused last year and it will encourage more citizens to use the e-Filling.

Revolutionise the court proceeding in Malaysia

A few suggestions has been brought up to revolutionise the court proceedings in Malaysia. These include:

• using computers to take down notes of court proceedings
• the possibility of using video conferencing in all cases
• the court should records notes using audio or visual aids

(TheStar, 7 February 2007, pg 10)

China - Straight to 4G, instead of 3G

Instead of 3G, China launched the 1st world 4th generation mobile communication systems (4G) in Shanghai's Changning district on 28th Jan 2007.

Currently, there is no 3G services offered in China. The 4G offered in China can provides up to 100Mbps in wireless data communication. (The current 3G can only offer up to 2Mbps).

Another wonderful technology advancement achieved by the Chinese to showcase their supremacy in all areas.

For more reading, click here -China Skips 3G, Goes Straight to 4G (www.ecommercetimes.com)

IDC Prediction for Malaysian IT Market 2007

IDC has a few predictions in their crystal ball for us this year: (TheStar InTech, 16 January 2007, IT22)

• IT spending will grow 2%. (from 10% to 12%)
• Hardware will grow 2%. (from 8% to 10%)
• Packaged software will also grow 2%. (from 9% to 11%)
• Next generation network services and convergence between landline and mobile will evolving the telecommunication markets.
• Digitalisation of TV boardcasting services.
• Software vendors will focus on SME customers.
• Demand for notebook will grow about 14%.
• WIMAX wireless broadband adoption will be swift.
• Home users and businesses will focus on digital cameras and high-speed scanners.

BabiesConsult.com - Useful Website for new mothers

(Screen captured from http://www.babiesconsult.com/)

This is a very useful website for new mothers on baby care as well as post-natal tips. Established by a former nurse and midwife, Cecilia Koh, its also provide discussion forums where mothers can exchange information and sharing experiences. Worth a visit for all especially new parents!

Latest:
Hey, I received a comment from the author of this website, Ms Cecilia Koh today.

Hi Kai Wah
Thank you so much for your kind words. I sincerely hope that my site will be a good place for new, 'old' and prospective parents to find all the information to make parenting a joyful event.

Cecilia Koh
Babiesconsult.com

Thanks Cecilia.

My dear students,
Let's introduce this website to more people, be it your brothers & sisters, uncles & aunts, friends, etc.

InPictures - Online Tutorial using Pictures

(Screen Captured from http://inpics.net/)

Introducing a new website that enable users to learn new software based on pictures for free. Worth visiting if you want to learn more but without reading text, pictures can be a good substitute. Just visit http://inpics.net/

2 Malaysian Bloggers sued by NSTP (New Straits Times Press)

A landmark case in Malaysia where for the 1st time, 2 bloggers who specialise on socio-politic topics were sued by New Straits Times Press (NSTP) over postings in their blogs that were deemed defamatory.

Who are these tow bloggers?
1. Jeff Ooi (Screenshot) - The 1st blog that I encountered and I'm still reading his blog on a daily basis.
2. Ahirudin bin Attan (rocky's bru) - a retired journalist from Malay Mail.

Our Prime Minister responsed:
"Bloggers must be responsible for what they write on the Internet as there are laws on defamation and sedition. These laws were enforceable and bloggers must bear in mind that they could not hide or take advantage of the Internet to do something that was against the law.

They cannot hope to cover themselves or hide from the laws.

Bloggers, just like newspaper journalists, must be responsible for what they wrote or risk facing legal action from others." (TheStar, 24 Jan 2007)


The bloggers' community responses:

• Setting up a blogger legal fund to provide financial assistance for bloggers who face legal action
• Setting up WalkWithUs blog which provide more news and updates on this issue.

Let's view the issue from both sides - the bloggers and NSTP before we make our own judgement.

e-Filling = No Form B

Previously, all taxpayers in Malaysia need to fill up the Form B and submit it to Lembaga Hasil Dalam Negara (LHDN).

Now, only a protion of it will have to do that. Why?

Reason:
Taxpayers who used the e-Filing system last year to file their tax returns will not receive the B and BE forms in the post this year. They will have to continue using the e-filling systems for this year tax submission. This is to encourage the existing users to continue with the e-filling systems.

Form B will be only sent to those non-user of e-filling now.

E-Judiciary launched in Malaysia

An online system of Malaysian Judiciary (e-Judiciary) was launched today as to facilitate Internet registration of cases and easy access to court records and past cases.

Among the applications are Case Management System (CMS), Court Recording and Transcription System (CRT), and Common IT Infrastructure (CIT) to be implemented in 11 courts involved in a pilot project in Kuala Lumpur and Putrajaya.

This will help to ease some backlog of cases in the current situation. A total of RM27 million was spent on this project so far.

RFID in Malaysia - Coming soon: ePlate

What is ePlate? It is one of the latest IT application of e-government in Malaysia - electronic registration system for new cars. Yes, it means that in the future all new cars in Malaysia will bear the e-plate, which uses a microchip equiped with RFID technology.

Transport Minister Datuk Seri Chan Kong Choy:
“The number plates will contain a microchip with the car chassis and engine numbers and the design will be standardised." (TheStar, 10 Jan 2007)

“Use of the e-plate is expected to significantly reduce the number of stolen cars being smuggled across our border points into neighbouring countries as well as help the Government to better enforce road rules under our camera surveillance system." (TheStar, 10 Jan 2007)

For more information, read TheStar, 10 Jan 2007.

Welcome and Happy New Year 2007

The teaching team would like to take this opportunity to welcome new batch of students for this semester.

We would also like to wish all of you Happy New Year 2007.

Thank you.

Do you want to pay e-auction tax?

Would you want to sell your products in the e-auction if the government is going to tax you for the profit on the product sold?
How government is going to monitor the collection of the tax on the e-auction sale?

What is your opinion?

Read this for more information - The Online Auction Tax Debate (www.ecommercetimes.com)

RFID - Latest applications and success stories

This article provides a list of applications of RFID in various fields namely:

• Supply chain management - used in the tracking of assets and production pallets along the manufacturing supply chain
  
• Manufacturing and warehousing - tracking usage and location of materials and equipments during the manufacturing process
  
• Retail operations - helps retailers reduce labor and manual costs beside curbs shoplifting and boosts store productivity.
• Food industry
• Livestock - identification of the animals
  
• Healthcare - used in hospitals and on patients
  
• Security tracking
• Parcel and parts monitoring - DHL and airport baggage handling
  
• Pharmaceutical industry - Drug industry in US need to deploy RFID label in 2007
  
• Gaming Industries - used to prevent cheating on the gambling table by putting RFID on the chips
• Libraries - helps the books loan and providing real time inventory information
  

Read more here - Emerging Signs of an RFID Payoff (www.ecommercetimes.com, 18th Nov 2006)

An ethical issue - LAWYER Blogging & get customers

The marketing potential from blogging which may helps to generate income/potential clients to the blogging lawyers may cause some ethical discussion.

• Should lawyer be prohibited from blogging due to the nature of blogging which may contain some elements of marketing?
• Can we stop lawyers from expressing their personal opinion on the blog?

Putting up comments and blog can be translated into advice or advertising. These can be considered as breaching of the professional code of ethics. This is a dilemma faced by lawyers in this new tech-internet environment.

This long article can be obtained here - Blogging Lawyers: The Ethics Debate (www.ecommercetimes.com, 19th Nov 2006)

Selling four pirated DVD online - fined RM8,000.

TheStar online reported that an IT expert was fined RM8,000 under the Copyright Act 1987 for selling four pirated DVDs in the Internet.

I believe this also apply to the selling of photocopied books over the Internet. This is one of the legal issue related to e-commerce.

IT expert fined RM8,000 for offering to sell four pirated DVDs
Friday November 17, 2006

By ANTHONY TAN

PENANG: An IT expert was fined RM8,000 after he pleaded guilty in the Sessions Court here to three counts of offering to sell four pirated DVDs over the Internet.

Poh Wee Leng, 30, from Petaling Jaya, was fined RM2,000 for each infringing copy while his friend, Huan Su Ling, 25, who was jointly charged with him, was freed after the prosecution withdrew the charges against her.

Poh, who is currently pursuing a Masters Degree in Business Administration, admitted on Friday to committing the offences at a house at Solok Tembaga Dua in Island Park here at about 1pm on Oct 12.

He and Huan had claimed trial when they were first charged on Oct 17.

The four titles of the pirated DVDs were Garfield: Tale of Two Kitties, Garfield, The Da Vinci Code and Mean Girl.

The two Garfield titles were stated in the first charge.

The offence under the Copyright Act 1987 carries a fine of RM2,000 to RM20,000 per copy or maximum five years jail or both.

Judge Hadhariah Syed Ismail ordered Poh to serve a total jail term of 18 months if he failed to pay the fine.

Poh, who was represented by R.S.N. Rayer, paid up.

Poh was funded by Malaysia Venture Capital Management Bhd (MAVCAP) in 2004 to develop a portal for ROOMMART that allowed users to find roommates and accommodation.

MAVCAP is wholly owned by the Ministry of Finance Inc.

Huan, who is pursuing a Masters in Computer Science at Universiti Sains Malaysia here, was given a discharge not amounting to an acquittal after the prosecution withdrew the charges against her.

She had represented Malaysia at the Imagine Cup in Brazil in 2004 which was organised by Microsoft.

Imagine Cup is the world’s premier student technology competition with more than 65,000 students from 100 countries entering this year’s event.

4 seconds - That is what I need ........

4 seconds - That's what I need to wait for a website to load.

I will stay if the website can be downloaded within 4 seconds. If it takes more than 4 seconds, I will leave. So, it is important for website designers and owners to ensure that their website can be downloaded within this time frame.

This is a finding disclosed in a recent survey conducted by Akamai.

• This is the outcome from 75% of the 1058 web shopper surveyed.
• 4 seconds is half of the previous surveyed time in the early days of online shopping.
• 30% of the respondents, beside leaving the website, will at the same time spread and share the negative experiences through viral marketing - words of mouth.

Reading link is available here - Websites face four-second cut-off (news.bbc.co.uk)

Unauthorised tapping into home WIFI - Teenager is facing a jail term

Imagine tapping into the other's home wireless network (WiFi) connection using your laptop to access Internet. You may end up in the jail.

A Singaporean teenager is the first person to be charged in Singapore under the new law - Computer Misuse Act - for tapping to gain unauthorise access) into other's home WiFi. The affected neighbour has made a police report on the incident against him.

If convicted, he can go to the jail up to 3 years and fined up to S$10,000. This is indeed very expensive as compare to applying and install your own Internet access.

For more reading, refer to TheStar (12th November 2006) and NST (12th November 2006)

Question:
Who's responsibility to secure the home WIFI systems? Owner or Service Provider?

UTAR most visited page - wble.utar.edu.my

Screenshot from www.alexa.com

As displayed in the www.alexa.com, a website that provide traffic ranking for online websites, the most visited page of UTAR is wble.utar.edu.my (41%) instead of the www.utar.edu.my (28%) as voted by students.

Screenshot from www.alexa.com

Screenshot from YahooGroups Poll (UTAR Students votes)

This is mainly due to the extensiveness of the wble (Web-based learning environment) application in some of the faculties in UTAR. Another popular page visited is mail.utar.edu.my (27%) which is the e-mail page for staff which also indicating high usage of email in communication among the staff and students.

You can try this Alexa.com services to search on other websites' traffic rank.

100 million websites

Since a humble beginning of 18,000 websites in August 1995, the Web now has 100 million websites. This milestone was achieved in October this year, according to Netcraft, an Internet monitoring company that has tracked Web growth since 1995.

Here are some interesting facts:

• 54.6 million websites are in US
• 15 million in Germany
• 6 million in UK
• 2.8 million in Canada
• 2.55 million in France

• 47 or 48 million of them are active websites.
• The number increase dramatically for the last 2 years thanks to blogging.
• The United States, Germany, China, South Korea and Japan show the greatest Web site growing spurts.
• When the Web was started in 1989, it was started as a mechanism for sharing high energy particle physics data.
• Web "explosion" took place when businesses realized they could use the Internet to make money.
• In both the business world and the social scene, a Web site is now an identifier almost as common as a phone number or an e-mail address.

Moer reading can be obtained here - Web reaches new milestone: 100 million sites (www.cnn.com) 1st Nov 2006

For more resources on Internet History and evolution, click this link - Online Evolution

Enemies of the Internet

Ever heard of "Enemies of the Internet"?

Its refer to the countries that suppressing the freedom of expression over the Internet (also known as web censorship) especially blogging. For example,

• being prevented from posting news online or writing a blog.
• censor and block online content.
• arrest and detain bloggers.

13 countries has been listed as the enemies of the Internet:

• Belarus
• China
• Cuba
• Egypt
• Iran
• Myanmar
• North Korea
• Saudi Arabia
• Syria
• Tunisia,
  
• Turkmenistan,
  
• Uzbekistan and
  
• Vietnam.

Worldwide, 61 people, 52 in China, are in prison for posting what the countries claimed was "subversive" content.

This news come from 2 sources namely BBC News Technology - 'Enemies of the internet' named and Yahoo!News Tech -13 nations denounced for Web censorship. (Nov 8)

IBM to produce Privacy-Friendly RFID Tags

The current application and usage of RFID tag has generated various concern among the users mainly concentrated on the privacy issues. Why?

• Tagged items carried by the buyers can tracked within 30 feets away, enabled its whereabout to be located.
• This will create the opportunity for thieves with RFID scanners to rob the expensive items and its owners.
• If the tag is removed, then the retailers will find difficult when the product is being returned, will all the data already missing.

With the introduction of clipped tag, the antenna can be easily teared off. This leave only the data in the remaining tag without being tracked.

Though this product is able to address the privacy concern, another area to be looked into will be the cost - cost for item-level tagging is still very high.

Detailed reading is avalable at Yahoo!News - Tech: IBM's Privacy-Friendly RFID Tag Ready For Production

Which page of UTAR website is the most popular?

Want to know which of the following pages of the UTAR website is the most visited page for the past 6 months? What is your guess?

• wble.utar.edu.my
• utar.edu.my
• mail.utar.edu.my
• library.utar.edu.my
• mail2.utar.edu.my
• web2.utar.edu.my

Click here for the voting: YahooGroup Poll http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ubai3013-oct2006/surveys?id=12460402

Polling will be closed on the 12th Nov 2006. Hurry! I will disclose and compare the finding with the polling on the 13th Nov 2006.

YouTube vs Utube.com

Different spelling.......same pronunciation.

YouTube - Online Video Sharing site. Also the Time Invention of the Year 2006. Established since 2004.
Utube.com - Universal Tube & Rollform Equipment, industry equipment maker - website established since 1996.

Due to the popularity of YouTube, some users mistakenly treated Utube.com as YouTube.com resulted in dramatic increase of web page request and visits, from 1500 hits per months to as high as 2 million hits per month. This caused the company server to crash a few times.

Now, Utube.com is suing YouTube.com for causing its server to crash as well as causing it losing business and the need to invest in more reliable server. It requested YouTube to change its name or to finance its new rebranding process.

From www.ecommercetimes.com - "Domain-name confusion has been around as long as the World Wide Web. Some have tried to capitalize on the element of human error and confusion, by snatching up like-sounding domains and establishing ad-filled outposts."

More reading can be obtained here - YouTube sued over domain use. (www.ecommercetimes.com)

What do you think? Share you comment:
Who is making the mistake here? Users or YouTube?

Accessing Internet from your CAR

Now, we can access Internet from our mobile phone from anywhere including while we are driving.
In the near future, we can suft Internet directly from PCs install in our cars.

Imagine doing this while on the road...of course not while you are driving!

• Checking e-mails
• Downloading songs or files
• Placing reservation for restaurant or movie
• Checking road map
• MSN or Skyping
• Doing online banking and lots more.....

PCs are connected through the mobile phone connection or signal.........and WIMAX in the near future.

More reading can be available here (www.ecommercetimes.com) - Web Access in Cars Hits the Road

Online Brokerage Fraud - Millions of dollars loss

2 largest e-brokerage companies in US, namely E-Trade Financial and Ameritrade, reported on a shocking online brokerage fraud through computer criminal hacking which caused millions of dollars losses.

Some of the interesting facts:

• Estimated losses are $4 and $18 million for Ameritrade and E-Trade Financial respectively.
• Much of the fraud occurred overseas while clients were using public computers infected with spyware or wireless connections. User IDs and passwords were stolen.
• Fraud committed against E-Trade customers appeared to be concentrated in Thailand and eastern Europe
• Hackers are increasingly turning their attention to financial services firms.
• Identity theft

Read more here from www.ecommercetimes.com 25th Oct 2006.

Internet Security Threats - Its Changing Faces (Part 2)

This is the part 2 of the Internet Security article from www.ecommercetimes.com

Among the facts:
New Threats:

• New malicious programs increased by 8% with more Trojan applications aims to steal information and e-login.
• The use of rootkit malware that allow a person to hide their malicious activities and programs is also in the rise.
• Another threat is holding data hostage - a program used to modify data on a victim machine and then blackmail the user.

Preventions:

• The need for fast, efficient and unobtrusive protection has led some security systems developers to become managed security service providers (MSSPs) which has broader security management services besides delivering patches and system updates.
• Services are such as internal and external scanning for vulnerabilities; threat intelligence to identify emerging exploits; richer correlation of asset data with vulnerabilities, threats and attacks; and blocking or shielding capabilities to stop attacks

Read more on this article - The Changing Faces of Internet Security Threats, Part 2

Previous entry on Part 1 is available here.

PhishTank .....all the Phish go to the Tank

Introducing a new website PhishTank which is a collaborative clearing house for data and information about phishing on the Internet. It also provides an open API for developers and researchers to integrate anti-phishing data into their applications at no charge.

You can submit the suspected phishing links as well as verify these links in the database too.

If you receive any email or link, well this is the service that you can use to verify it before you continue with the transaction.

Besides, there are also latest news on phishing in this website.

I like their theme - Out of the Net, Into the Tank!

Visit PhishTank at www.phishtank.com

29,549 video files were deleted from YouTube

A total of 29, 549 video files were deleted from YouTube due to the copyright infridgement. Most of these copyrighted files were posted by individual users.

Files involved were copyrighted Japanese television shows, music videos and movies.

Suggestion has been made to introduce a preliminary screening process acting as a filtering systems of the copyrighted material.

At the same time, copyrighted materials with the approval from the copyright holders will be posted in exchange with the advertisment revenue sharing by YouTube.

Source: YouTube Purges Nearly 30,000 Files on Japanese Demand (www.ecommercetimes.com)