Security

Whole new appreciation for passwords

Colin Henderson

I learned a whole new appreciation for passwords tonight. A family member and 15 others included in an old (10 year old) yahoo account received an email ostensibly from me with a bunch of spam crap in it. The only way I can see that the combination of that account and those addresses can co-exist is if someone entered that account, possibly with a script banging away with potential hits. It was a low level password. Needless to say I have deleted all addresses from that account, and altered the password to an unguessable one. Also changed the passwords on … Continue reading Whole new appreciation for passwords

research

things I read yesterday … 06/25/2008

Colin Henderson

Canada Gazette tags: Canada gazette, deposit taking institution “regulated deposit-taking institution” means an entity that is supervised or regulated by a Canadian or foreign financial services or banking regulator and is authorized to accept deposits from the public. (institution de dépôt réglementée) NYSBD Staff Interpretations 2002 memo in connection with an assertion that Paypal were illegally conducting banking activity. Result was no action taken. tags: nysbd, paypal certain of PayPal’s services constituted illegal banking activity and that those services should not be provided to New York customers Continue reading things I read yesterday … 06/25/2008

Uncategorized2 Comments

How not to be customer focussed | Microsoft example

Colin Henderson

What strikes me about this email initiated by Bill Gates over 5 years ago is not a techie issue. The important email is not Gates words … its the two emails right after that begin a thread that is classic internally focussed, and just wrong. If you see your Bank here, then start cringing. Look for: no reply all to Gates – so we have to assume Poole sent a separate email to Gates profusely apologising, then wrote the cool, no problem email to Amir & Chris. Amir’s email refusing to acknowledge there is an issue. Note he says that … Continue reading How not to be customer focussed | Microsoft example

AI10 Comments

Dishonest old style marketing from BMO Mosaik MasterCard

Colin Henderson

The last time I saw this style of marketing was the telecoms back years ago when they were slamming customers; that involved automatically giving people new services, and if the customer did not cancel, they then continued with the new service and the new fee structure. Today a family member got something in the mail from BMO Mosaik Master card that read: Complete and return this form today to continue benefitting from the BMO Mosaik MasterCard CardAssist Plus Service without interruption Note the key words ‘continue‘ and ‘without interruption‘. Also note the entire package was in a pull apart envelope … Continue reading Dishonest old style marketing from BMO Mosaik MasterCard

research

things I read yesterday … 06/23/2008

Colin Henderson

Yahoo’s Ymail: Don’t really get it » mathewingram.com/work | Anyone younger than about 30 doesn’t seem interested in having an email address period, let alone caring whether it’s hermanzweibel@rocketmail.com or whatever. My teenaged daughters and their friends never use email anyway — they text message (in which case all you need is a phone number) or they use Facebook messages as a way of communicating. I send them email and they never get it. Do they have email addresses? Yes, and they are a combination of their names, underscores, numbers and nicknames, and so on — and they couldn’t care … Continue reading things I read yesterday … 06/23/2008

EU

EU to break down e-commerce borders

Colin Henderson

In a reversal of usual government tendencies, the EU is planning to force companies to take a global perspective within the EU borders. Finextra: EU to break down e-commerce borders In a speech given in London, Kuneva said she will propose new legislation this autumn for creating an EU-wide set of rules governing online and in-store transactions. The “single, simple set of core rights and obligations” will make it easier to buy and sell across borders and bring down costs for shoppers.….. … will crack down on e-commerce companies that conduct business across member states but force customers to make … Continue reading EU to break down e-commerce borders

AI

Ranking of Canadian online banking sites

Colin Henderson

Google have a cool new feature that I predict will dominate the currenty confused website measurement space. trends.google.com/ and select websites. I put in 4 of the 5 Canadian Banks online banking log in pages, and got this result.  TD are first with RBC second.  BMO and Scotia are third equal.  It would not let me include a 5th, CIBC, but they should be around same or slightly lower than BMO and Scotia. Note I also tried the public sites of all the 5 banks, and intestingly they came in very similar suggesting (to me) that few people look at … Continue reading Ranking of Canadian online banking sites

Social Lending1 Comment

“The proceeds we receive from the sale of each series of Notes will be designated by the lender members who purchased the Notes of that series to fund an unsecured consumer loan” | Lending Club

Colin Henderson

With that lengthy statement, we now see how Lending Club intend to operate their business as defined in their SEC S-1 filing today. Some more detail here. sv1 Lending Club S-1 filing The proceeds we receive from the sale of each series of Notes will be designated by the lender members who purchased the Notes of that series to fund an unsecured consumer loan originated through our platform to an individual consumer who is one of our borrower members.… … A series of Notes will be issued only if and when the corresponding member loan closes and is funded. A … Continue reading “The proceeds we receive from the sale of each series of Notes will be designated by the lender members who purchased the Notes of that series to fund an unsecured consumer loan” | Lending Club

research

things I read yesterday … 06/20/2008

Colin Henderson

FT.com / Columnists / Martin Wolf – How imbalances led to credit crunch and inflation tags: inflation, ft.com, big picture Inflation is a sustained rise in the price level: the result of too much money (or purchasing power) chasing too few goods and services. A one-off jump in commodity prices is not inflation. Nor need such a jump cause inflation. But a continuous rise in the relative price of commodities is a symptom of an inflationary process. FT.com / Credit bubble – FBI eyes big business in mortgage fraud probe Federal investigators are homing in on 19 “large corporations” – … Continue reading things I read yesterday … 06/20/2008