Gullible

Is gullible in the dictionary?

There are lots of companies that are making lots of money based on the gullibility of the US public. Examples abound – one of them being the nine million folks who have signed up for a $14.95 a month credit reporting service after visiting freecreditreport.com. For the vast majority of these people it's a complete waste of $180 per year for a service that they didn't know that they were requesting.

Then there are the ones hooked on credit card debt at unbelievable interest rates, with payment due dates on weekends to encourage non-observant customers to incur a late-payment fee. Or perhaps they're signed up for a cash advance if they exceed the balance in their checking account, but at an exorbitant fee.

At what point do we cross the line where these practices become illegal? The FTC has released their own catchy videos
in response to the site that is leaching business from the web site that's really free. Should the FTC do more? They've fined the fake site, but it's still raking in money.

How much should we expect Uncle Sam to protect us, and how much should we be responsible for watching out for ourselves?

<waving> Hi, Big Brother

A moderately interesting article in Wired describes another "Big Brother is watching" facility. The emphasis of this article is on the CIA, but the concept is that companies need to tap into "open source intelligence" to see what their customers are saying about them.

This serves to highlight what anyone who blogs already knows – anyone could read what you say. But it's not just random . . . many companies spend a fair amount of effort searching out comments about the company, its products, or its policies. When I posted the article on online backup a few days ago, I received "comments" on the article from companies that provide online backup service. I didn't approve them because the purpose of my blog is not to be a platform for advertisements, but it illustrates how companies monitor what's being said about them and about their industry.

I'm not criticizing these companies, or the CIA, for harvesting the information created continually by bloggers and other on the Internet as long as they limit their perusal to material that is intended to be public. It's a cost/benefit decision like any other – how much does it cost versus how valuable the information is. But it's yet another reminder that what is posted in blogs is a little more public than we sometimes wish.

Backup via the Internet

I have babbled many times here about data backup, most recently on Monday. As an update to the Microsoft/Danger issue mentioned in that post, the latest news is that Microsoft claims to have figured out how to recover the data. They haven't actually recovered any yet, but T-Mobile is telling their users Real Soon Now.

One of the options available to home computer users for backing up their data is doing it via the Internet using services provided by companies like mozy.com. I ran into mozy.com in some other work, had a reasonably good experience with them, and considered using them for my own backup.

To me, there is one huge problem with this method of backup – who in their right mind would willingly provide all of their personal data to a company that they don't really know? Or even to a company that they know very well? In spite of all the encryption and security safeguards in place, the bottom line is that your data is stored on someone else's servers, and they can do with it what they wish. You have to trust that they won't misuse it (or that some bored technician fresh out of high school won't snoop into your data) and that they will safeguard it against hackers. Then there's the issue that the Microsoft/Danger fiasco brought into focus – what if they are simply incomptent and your data goes <poof> in the night?

But there is also a huge benefit. Unless you're in a position to actually own and run an offsite server, how else are you going to achieve effective off site backup of your data? If your house burns down or your backup disk fails, your backups are gone. Sure you can cut DVDs and store them in another location, but that doesn't provide nearly as effective backup as having your data backed up pseudo-realtime via a network.

Like everything esle in life, it's a tradeoff. Which is more important to you – privacy or backup? In a sense both are molehills, not mountains; the chance of the backup company losing or misusing your data is tiny, and the chance of needing offsite backups is tiny. Nonetheless, it's something that is worth thinking about.

So after having success backing someone else's data up via mozy.com, I signed up for their free service that provides 2 GB of space. That worked for me for a couple of weeks, so I decided to bite the bullet and subscribe. It took a week to upload the 20 GB that I decided I wanted to back up.

Two days later, Mozy lost all my data. I say "lost" because the system was asking me to upload the 20 GB again. No one at the company knew why, and I lost faith in the whole process and abandoned it. (Now I have to hope that they will remove my data from their servers, but there's nothing I can do about that beyond what I've already done.)

I think that the problem that I experienced was a bug in Mozy's client for the Mac. It's new and I'm sure they don't have many Mac users. But my personal faith in backup via the Internet has been effectively shattered based on this experience and the Microsoft/Danger one.

That doesn't mean it isn't the right decision for you. I still don't have an effective off site backup. I should cut a DVD more often and store it someplace other than my home . . . but there are any number of things that I should do that I know aren't going to happen. This is just one more little issue that serves to keep me thinking.

Which do you prefer?

Here are two versions of a classic tourist photo from my recent trip. Both have their redeeming qualities. Which do you prefer? Leave a comment or send email if you have an opinion. (Click on the thumbnail for a larger version.)

PS: Both are Photoshopped to remove an ugly foreground object. Extra points if you can identify where in the photo this was done.

Don't judge an article by its headline

There was a short paragraph in a financial news summary that stated that the Obama administration has abandoned a proposed revision to the tax laws on offshore profits. The idea of the proposal was that the current tax treatment encourages companies to move production offshore; the companies retort that they need this preferential treatment to remain competitive in the world market.

When I decided to read a bit more on the topic, I was amused by the disparity in headlines. The Wall Street Journal's headline is "Business Fends Off Tax Hit". The Irish Times reports the same story, using almost the same words, with a headline of "Obama pledge to close corporate tax loopholes still core objective".