|
At last,
the contents of Aardvark's "million-dollar ideas" notebook
are revealed for all to see!
|
|
I gather that Sky TV is preparing for the roll-out of email and other interactive
services to be offered as part of its digital TV offering -- but if recent
experience with the company's Net-savvy is anything to go by, don't
expect much.
A couple of months ago I emailed them with a question -- and they replied
by sending me an MS Word file.
I replied, advising that I don't accept MS Word attachments and asking if
they could re-send the message as plain old text in the body of an email.
I don't know what their reply to this request was because it too arrived
as an MS Word document attachment. Subsequent requests for the information
were ignored by them -- how clever is that?
And then, yesterday, I received this email:
|
From: | "Anthony Blomfield" <Skydigital@24hour.co.nz>
| |
To: | <bhavika18@yahoo.com> |
|
Subject: | Sky digital for only $99 |
|
Date sent: | Mon, 25 Jun 2001 11:08:20 +1200 |
Hi guys, Hope your well.- sorry to spam ya. . Just to let you know I am a
sales contractor for Sky Digital. So if you know anyone who wants Sky
digital I can get it for only $99 dollars rather than $495.
The best deal Sky directly offers it for is $199.
So spread the word please
Only takes a day to get installed.
ph xxxxxxx
mob xxxxxxxxx
or just email me.
Cheers Anthony.
|
|
Clearly Anthony realises that what he's doing is wrong when he says
"sorry to spam ya" -- but he does it anyway.
No doubt Sky will deny responsibility for this -- but Anthony does
appear to claim to be an agent of the company and he is acting on their
behalf -- so the mud will stick.
I emailed Sky and AsiaOnline (as Anthony used an AsiaOnline account to send
his spam) and I trust that both parties will drop him like a hot spud -- after
all, that old excuse "but I didn't know it was wrong" holds no
water here does it?
Come on Sky -- wake up your ideas.
If you want people to take your Internet intentions seriously then it's about
time you started training your staff on the proper way to use email and educating
your agents as to the dangers of spamming.
More on "Forever Ads"
I guess I'm going to have to spend less time using unix and more time tinkering
with MS Windows because yesterday I received a pile of emails kindly advising
me that I could kill a window by right clicking on the taskbar icon and
selecting "close."
Thanks to tall those who passed on that information, it was appreciated.
Microsoft Admits "Our Security Skills Stink"
It's good to see that Microsoft has finally woken up to something that we've
all known for years: when it comes to online security they really don't have
a clue.
In
this story
from IDG today, Microsoft's CEO Steve Ballmer has said that the software giant
won't be trusting it's own developers to provide the security components
on which its Hailstorm services.
So how can they continue to ship browsers, operating systems and webservers
to the market after making this acknowledgement?
Surely Microsoft should now implement an immediate third-party security
review of all its products and engage independent security companies to
assist in ensuring that the products continue to provide protection from
malevolent forces on the Net.
At the very least, they ought to run Windows XP and its associated
applications through a very thorough third-party testing regime that
extends far beyond the beta-testing that's gone on so far.
Beta testing is an absolutely essential element of testing new software, and
it certainly catches a the vast majority of bugs which were missed by
the developers -- but such testing seldom includes steps such as external
code audits and other strategies that can help uncover hidden dangers.
When you compare the security history of Microsoft's "closed" code products
with that of the equivalent "open-source" software such as FreeBSD -- the
benefits of having 3rd-parties pawing over your code becomes immediately apparent.
Come on Microsoft -- or doesn't the security of your customer's data and
websites matter to you?
Aardvark also makes a summary of this daily column available via XML using
the RSS format. More details can be found
here.
= open in new window