Top Spammer Arrested!
Gene Johnson reports that Robert Alan Soloway, the world’s most prolific spammer was arrested yesterday in Seattle.
Robert Alan Soloway is accused of using networks of compromised “zombie” computers to send out millions upon millions of spam e-mails.
“He’s one of the top 10 spammers in the world,” said Tim Cranton, a Microsoft Corp. lawyer who is senior director of the company’s Worldwide Internet Safety Programs. “He’s a huge problem for our customers. This is a very good day.”
A federal grand jury last week returned a 35-count indictment against Soloway charging him with mail fraud, wire fraud, e-mail fraud, aggravated identity theft and money laundering.
What does this mean to you? Hopefully, less spam!
We Suck Less?
Brad Feld, a fairly well known venture capitalist, reminded me of a post he wrote back in 2004 titled, “We Suck Less.” Back in the day (1992), Brad ran a computer consulting company somewhat like Architel, called Feld Technologies. You should read the entire post, but his inspiration was interesting and applicable to Architel:
Inspired - I called a 9 AM company meeting and announced our new motto - “We Suck Less.” I explained to my bewildered team that computer consulting (well - actualy - anything having to do with computers) is difficult, most people suck at it, and we can succeed simply by sucking less than everyone else. This was a lot more palatable, interesting, and achievable then some idealistic and corny mission like “We’ll be the best computer consulting firm on planet earth.” (C’mon - there is no such thing.) Over the next few years, we often set our prospects back on their heals when we told them “Our goal in working with you is to suck less than the last guy that was here” - but after we explained it, had a collective laugh, and re-affirmed that we intended to do our best for them, we often won their business while setting a much more achievable goal and tone.
Duplicate Records in Outlook?
Wow, aren’t they annoying? Many Outlook users experience this problem: duplicate records in your Inbox, Contacts, Calendar – it seems like they happen anywhere and everywhere. Not only are they annoying, but it can take a lot of crucial time out of your day to comb through and scan all your folders, often searching through hundreds of records. Don’t have the time to manually delete Outlook duplicate records? Anti-Dupe for Microsoft Outlook might just be the solution you’re looking for.
Anti-Dupe for Microsoft Outlook is a free add-in that becomes part of your Outlook. In just a few clicks and seconds later, all those annoying duplicate records can be eliminated.
Microsoft goes nuclear on Linux
CNN is reporting in an article titled, “Microsoft takes on the free world” that Microsoft claims Linux violates 235 of its patents. It wants royalties from EVERYONE who uses the free operating system. Ouch.
How to: Dispose of your hard drive
If you have a MAC you can simply use the secure wipe function of OSX, but if you have a Microsoft operating system you will need a third-party application to wipe your drive. Or… If you are like me, you can take it outside and use a sledgehammer. Before:
After:
You also get to blow off a little steam!
Architel joins the Microsoft Family
Architel has been supporting businesses throughout the Dallas Fort Worth Metroplex since 2001, but we never signed up as a Microsoft Partner. Why? We don’t resell hardware or software so it didn’t seem that important. Christopher Lloyd joined our team and explained that there were lots of ways we could work with Microsoft despite our business model. He has been working on the partnership since January and we are now a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner. We got a big box of stuff, including this banner we hung in the break room:
Sending out large email-blasts from your URL?
Think twice before you do it again. Why? Here at Architel we spend a lot of our time getting our client’s URLs (i.e. our URL is architel.com) removed from blacklists. Sometimes their domains are added in error, but more often than not someone who works for our client has sent out a large email blast to 100+ or even 1000+ email addresses. More and more spam filters are able to identify ‘email blasts’ as SPAM and more and more often these filters are adding the source URL to real time blacklists. More than 80% of the email blasts our clients send violate Federal law (specifically the CAN-SPAM Act) and put the business owner at risk of a five year prison sentence (don’t worry, I don’t think anyone has gone to jail yet). Finally, these email blasts can crash the company’s Exchange server or get sent in error over and over filling your client’s email boxes. Trust me, this is a not something you want to do!
How can you send messages to your massive 100+ list of email addresses? If you must, you should use a service that specializes in handling email blasts. What should you look for? Pick a service that:
- Mail-merge personalization
- Message Scheduling
- Forward-to-a-friend
- Assure CAN-SPAM compliance
- Open and Click-through tracking and statistics
- Bounce-back Handling
- Subscription Management
- Online Newsletter Editor (and or templates included)
- List segmentation
- Multiple message autoresponder
- Integrated surveying
- RSS feeds
- Event Management
- Public Newsletter Archiving
Before we started blogging we sent out a periodic newsletter to around 4,000 people using a service owned by Microsoft called ListBuilder. Microsoft discontinued the service soon after we made the decision to stop sending out newsletters. There are lots of companies that offer ‘email marketing’ services, but if you are lazy and just want to take my word for it I would try Intellicontact (it is free to try).
How secure is our online backup service?
Very. The connection is SSL between the server and our facility. Additionally, all files are compressed on the server before being sent to our facility, if anyone intercepted them they would not be able to decompress the files without our software and key. Finally, the compressed files are encrypted with two-fish, triple-DES, 128-bit keys making them almost impossible to open without the ’secret’ key.
Architel’s Confidentiality Policy
We take the confidentiality of our client’s data very seriously. Our standard contract includes the following confidentiality language:
Each party, for itself, its agents, employees, and representatives, agrees that it will not divulge any confidential or proprietary information it receives from the other party, except as may be required by law; provided, however, that no liability shall arise hereunder as a result of the dissemination of any information which (i) was in the possession or control of one party prior to the date of disclosure to that party by the other party hereunder, or (ii) was in the public domain or enters the public domain through no improper act by the party to which such information was disclosed or any of that party’s agents or employees, or (iii) was rightfully given to a party by a source independent of the other party. Any report or other document prepared by Architel in the performance of the Services for use by Customer shall be deemed to be confidential information hereunder.
Ironport Status Update
Last year we began using Ironport to protect our client’s from SPAM. The solution has been overwhelmingly popular and effective. Each week FedEx drops off one or more of the units. They each come with a t-shirt (I could wear an Ironport t-shirt everyday of the month without running out). Since we began working with Ironport Cisco bought the company (kudos to both of us for picking a winner). Read more about Ironport here.
