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| CyberArtisans Web Developers Newsletter |
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Our goal is to present information that will be useful to you as a website owner and as a user of the web. If these newsletters are useful, please forward this to a friend. To unsubscribe, follow the directions at the bottom of this email.
Have you noticed the amount of Spam being delivered to your Inbox lately that seems to have nothing but a series of unrelated normal English words or phrases? If you are curious enough, you may have taken one of these messages apart (carefully) and discovered that there is often no content behind the nonsense title and there usually isn't any "payload" -- a virus or trojan -- embedded in the message either. Ever wonder what's up with this? Have the Spammers lost their mind or is there method to their madness? Here's the answer: Sadly, the Spammers have not lost their mind. The purpose of these emails containing normal English phrases is to confuse the Spam filters. Many Spam filters "learn" when you classify messages as Spam. If you classify enough messages with normal words as Spam, the filter will begin to filter out legitimate messages, thus rendering the Spam filter useless. You (they hope) will then be motivated to turn off (or tone down) your Spam filter, allowing the real Spam in. There are a few Spam-preventive strategies that don't use filters. The one we use is Cloudmark Desktop ( http://www.cloudmark.com), which we find very effective. It only works with Outlook and Outlook Express, however. 
First we had to figure out that 802.11 meant wireless networking. Then we had to learn that 802.11g was faster than 802.11b. And now we're hearing about devices that use 802.11n-draft. Draft? In fact, the "draft" in n-draft means just what you might surmise -- it may change. The final protocol is expected in 2009. If the manufacturers who are selling n-draft devices bet correctly, everyone will be fine. If they bet wrong, the device you buy today may not work with the device you buy in 2009 (of course, one could argue that this would be better for the manufacturers...). So should you buy? If your 802.11g devices are really slow enough that they are constantly annoying you, buy a set of n-draft devices (you need one router for your network and one adapter for each computer using wireless on your network), with the understanding that you might be shelling out for a new set in a couple of years. Otherwise, stay with 'g' and wait for the final release of 'n.'
Scenario 1: You buy something on the Internet. A few weeks later you discover that the vendor "lost" your credit card and someone else is using it. Scenario 2: You buy a software product on the Internet. A year later you find that your credit card has been charged for the yearly update. You can't remember authorizing it and you really don't want it. Both of these scenarios can be prevented with a new feature some credit card companies are offering: Single-use credit card numbers, also known as VANs (Virtual Account Numbers). This number is generated for you from your credit card company's website. It can be used the same way you would use a regular credit card number online but it is good for only a single use. If someone steals it or if the same company tries to use it a year later, it will bounce. Citibank is offering this now and others may also offer it. Most will be forced to follow suit, especially if you ask them about it.
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