Question:

I am taking accounting at the tech center I am attending and I am not the greatest at it I was wondering if anyone could put me in the direction of some great tutorials.

Response:

watch the soprano’s seasons 1-3

Response:

I am taking accounting at the tech center I am attending and I am not the greatest at it I was wondering if anyone could put me in the direction of some great tutorials.

No tutorial but Schaum (sp?) books of  answered questions. Best Regards. Boycott list: Belgium, France, Germany, Finland, Sweden, Switzerland, PRC, Iran, Syria, Hollywood, San Francisco, Massachusetts, New York City, Sierra Club, ACLU, Movies of the first blacklist, Turner, Madonna, S. Crowe, Dixie Chicks, Cher, U2, rapp, Trudeau, W.Miller, Disney, ABC news, CBS news, NBC news, CNN, PBS, B&H Photo Video, Sometimes the only influence you have is to say, "No, I’m not buying." For those who are unclear about the situation, California is the Clinton – Davis model for the rest of the United States of America.

Response:

I am taking accounting at the tech center I am attending and I am not the greatest at it I was wondering if anyone could put me in the direction of some great tutorials.

What textbook are you using? I gather this is a general Principles of Accounting course. If you give me the name of your text I am pretty sure I can find some kind of tutorial site for you. I am pretty good at that sort of thing. Janice

Response:

I am taking accounting at the tech center I am attending and I am not the greatest at it I was wondering if anyone could put me in the direction of some great tutorials.

Welcome to the group! You might look for the book named "Accounting Made Simple" by Joseph Peter Simini published by Doubleday Made Simple Books. Wayne Brasch, CPA, M. S. Taxation

Response:

Question:

Well, Fred, let’s see. I can refute that I’m a buttface…

Let’s see if you can. What To Do When Encountering A Peace Activist Because of the war, many of us will encounter "Peace Activists" who will try and convince us that we must refrain from retaliating against the ones who terrorized us all on September 11, 2001, those who terrorize Israel regularly, those who fund such acts of terrorism and those who verbally support these terrorists.

Let’s see.  None of the above has anything to do with Iraq. Conclusion:  You are a buttface.

Response:

FBI sources have verified that "paul pouliot", in news message … 9. When you  properly stand trial in a court of law for assault and battery,

Hey, look!  You learned the lesson! Stupendous Man

Question:

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Webster has resigned Sounds like good news.  But GWBs SEC appointment policies appear to have come apart at the seams. And now he gets to sew them back up. Who will be the next appointees? Bush appointed Pitt.  He didn’t appoint Webster. Bush will appoint a new SEC Chairman to replace Pitt.  The SEC will replace Webster. Jim Hudspeth

In all likelihood, though, the SEC would never appoint an AOB chairman that Bush didn’t approve of. John

Response:

- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text –  PAGE ONE POLITICAL CAPITAL Webster Will Likely Quit As Oversight-Board Head By JOHN R. WILKE Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL WASHINGTON — William Webster said he probably will step aside as chairman of the new accounting-oversight board because of questions about his involvement in a failed Internet investment firm. In an interview, he said he hoped to resolve the matter quickly. "I am terribly concerned about my value to the board at this point," Mr. Webster said. Asked directly if he intended to withdraw, Mr. Webster said, "I think that’s about right." <snip Mr. Webster said he reached this conclusion over the weekend at a retreat near the Blue Ridge mountains in Virginia. He hadn’t been horseback riding for a couple of weeks, he said, and his horse, Brother Time, reared and threw him. "I hit my head and when the stars stopped, I said, ‘Is someone trying to tell me something?’ " he recalled. "I got back on the horse, to prove something to the horse, and to myself." During the ride, he said he thought hard about his role on the board and decided, "I don’t have to prove anything to myself. I just have to do what I think is right." <snip http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB1037054541849792788,00.html?mod=ho… (requires subscription) Jim Hudspeth

Webster has resigned per a Reuters story in the New York Times. [http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/12/business/12CND-ACCOUNT.html] (Free registration required.)

Response:

Webster has resigned per a Reuters story in the New York Times. [http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/12/business/12CND-ACCOUNT.html] (Free [registration required.)

It does appear he has.  The story is everywhere.  The following is the Washington Post link, which does not require a registration.  It also has the actual letter of resignation. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A43937-2002Nov12.html Jim Hudspeth

Response:

- Hide quoted text -- Show quoted text -  PAGE ONE POLITICAL CAPITAL Webster Will Likely Quit As Oversight-Board Head By JOHN R. WILKE Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL WASHINGTON -- William Webster said he probably will step aside as chairman of the new accounting-oversight board because of questions about his involvement in a failed Internet investment firm. In an interview, he said he hoped to resolve the matter quickly. "I am terribly concerned about my value to the board at this point," Mr. Webster said. Asked directly if he intended to withdraw, Mr. Webster said, "I think that's about right." <snip Mr. Webster said he reached this conclusion over the weekend at a retreat near the Blue Ridge mountains in Virginia. He hadn't been horseback riding for a couple of weeks, he said, and his horse, Brother Time, reared and threw him. "I hit my head and when the stars stopped, I said, 'Is someone trying to tell me something?' " he recalled. "I got back on the horse, to prove something to the horse, and to myself."  During the ride, he said he thought hard about his role on the board and decided, "I don't have to prove anything to myself. I just have to do what I think is right." <snip http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB1037054541849792788,00.html?mod=ho... (requires subscription) Jim Hudspeth Webster has resigned per a Reuters story in the New York Times. [http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/12/business/12CND-ACCOUNT.html] (Free registration required.)

Sounds like good news.  But GWBs SEC appointment policies appear to have come apart at the seams.  Who will be the next appointees? A. Lucien Meyers, CIA, CMA — If you receive this by error, please delete it and inform the sender. PGP Key fingerprint=F1C0 D9AE 1B18 1405 4DFA  B4CC 6DC7 FF78 C76E FB15 To Big Brother Echelon from "spook": Sharon $400 million in gold bullion FSF Uzi terrorist Peking Treasury

Response:

Webster has resigned Sounds like good news.  But GWBs SEC appointment policies appear to have come apart at the seams.  

And now he gets to sew them back up. Who will be the next appointees?

Bush appointed Pitt.  He didn’t appoint Webster.   Bush will appoint a new SEC Chairman to replace Pitt.  The SEC will replace Webster. Jim Hudspeth

Response:

 PAGE ONE POLITICAL CAPITAL Webster Will Likely Quit As Oversight-Board Head By JOHN R. WILKE Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL WASHINGTON — William Webster said he probably will step aside as chairman of the new accounting-oversight board because of questions about his involvement in a failed Internet investment firm. In an interview, he said he hoped to resolve the matter quickly. "I am terribly concerned about my value to the board at this point," Mr. Webster said. Asked directly if he intended to withdraw, Mr. Webster said, "I think that’s about right." <snip Mr. Webster said he reached this conclusion over the weekend at a retreat near the Blue Ridge mountains in Virginia. He hadn’t been horseback riding for a couple of weeks, he said, and his horse, Brother Time, reared and threw him. "I hit my head and when the stars stopped, I said, ‘Is someone trying to tell me something?’ " he recalled. "I got back on the horse, to prove something to the horse, and to myself." During the ride, he said he thought hard about his role on the board and decided, "I don’t have to prove anything to myself. I just have to do what I think is right." <snip http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB1037054541849792788,00.html?mod=ho… (requires subscription) Jim Hudspeth

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Question:

Anyone know his track record beyond his supposed tiff with Bishop over costs? What’s he like?

Response:

From Ninemsn News ….. "Businessmen behind the revived Ansett have announced the appointment of 45-year-old James Hogan, a Melbourne man with an impressive corporate record in Europe, as chief executive of the airline. Mr Hogan was formerly chief operating officer of BMI British Midland, Britain’s second-largest airline. Prior to BMI, Mr Hogan held senior positions with the Granada Group and Hertz Corporation. At Granada, he was Worldwide Sales Director for Forte Hotels Ltd, incorporating Le Meridian, Posthouse, Heritage and Signature hotels. At Hertz, Mr Hogan was vice-president marketing and sales for Europe, Middle East and Africa and, between 1984 and 1991, director of operations, sales and marketing, for Australia and the Asia-Pacific.  Mr Hogan commenced his career in the aviation/tourism industry 27 years ago as a customer service staff member for Ansett Australia at Melbourne Airport". "The Lew-Fox group also announced the appointment of 39-year-old Adam Moroney as Ansett’s new chief financial officer. Mr Moroney will join Ansett from Air New Zealand Ltd where he was senior vice-president finance and chief financial Officer. He was formerly deputy chief financial officer at Qantas, responsible for all aspects of accounting for the Qantas group and 100 subsidiary companies. Prior to Qantas, Mr Moroney was financial controller/financial accounting manager at Australian Airlines where he played a leading role in the sale of Qantas/Australia Airlines and subsequent listing of Qantas Airways Ltd".

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Anyone know his track record beyond his supposed tiff with Bishop over costs? What’s he like?

Response:

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – From Ninemsn News ….. "Businessmen behind the revived Ansett have announced the appointment of 45-year-old James Hogan, a Melbourne man with an impressive corporate record in Europe, as chief executive of the airline. Mr Hogan was formerly chief operating officer of BMI British Midland, Britain’s second-largest airline. Prior to BMI, Mr Hogan held senior positions with the Granada Group and Hertz Corporation. At Granada, he was Worldwide Sales Director for Forte Hotels Ltd, incorporating Le Meridian, Posthouse, Heritage and Signature hotels. At Hertz, Mr Hogan was vice-president marketing and sales for Europe, Middle East and Africa and, between 1984 and 1991, director of operations, sales and marketing, for Australia and the Asia-Pacific.  Mr Hogan commenced his career in the aviation/tourism industry 27 years ago as a customer service staff member for Ansett Australia at Melbourne Airport". "The Lew-Fox group also announced the appointment of 39-year-old Adam Moroney as Ansett’s new chief financial officer. Mr Moroney will join Ansett from Air New Zealand Ltd where he was senior vice-president finance and chief financial Officer. He was formerly deputy chief financial officer at Qantas, responsible for all aspects of accounting for the Qantas group and 100 subsidiary companies.

Thats a rather interesting plummet, employment history wise. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Prior to Qantas, Mr Moroney was financial controller/financial accounting manager at Australian Airlines where he played a leading role in the sale of Qantas/Australia Airlines and subsequent listing of Qantas Airways Ltd".

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Question:

$$$$$ WHAT GOES AROUND – COMES AROUND $$$$$ $$$$$ WHAT GOES AROUND – COMES AROUND $$$$$ A little while back, I was browsing through newsgroups, just like you are now, and came across an article similar to this that said you could make thousands of dollars within weeks with only an initial investment of $6.00! So I thought, " Yeah, right, this must be a scam", but like most of us, I was curious, so I kept reading. Anyway, it said that you send $1.00 to each of the 6 names and address stated in the article. You then place your own name and address in the bottom of the list at #6, and post the article in at least 200 newsgroups. (There are thousands) No catch, that was it. So after thinking it over, and talking to a few people first, I thought about trying it. I figured what have I got to lose except 6 stamps and $6.00, right? Like most of us I was a little skeptical and a little worried about the legal aspects of it all. So I checked it out with the U.S. Post Office (1-800-725-2161) and they confirmed that it is indeed legal! Then I invested the measly $6.00. Well GUESS WHAT!!… within 7 days, I started getting money in the mail! I was shocked! I figured it would end soon, but the money just kept coming in. In my first week, I made about $25.00. By the end of the second week I had made a total of over $1, 000.00! In the third week I had over $10, 000.00 and it’s still growing. This is now my fourth week and I have made a total of just over $42, 000.00 and it’s still coming in rapidly. It’s certainly worth $6.00, and 6 stamps, I have spent more than that on the lottery!! Let me tell you how this works and most importantly, why it works….also, make sure you print a copy of this article NOW, so you can get the information off of it as you need it. STEP 1: Get 6 separate pieces of paper and write the following on each piece of paper "PLEASE PUT ME ON YOUR MAILING LIST." Now get 6 US $1.00 bills and place ONE inside EACH of the 6 pieces of paper so the bill will not be seen through the envelope to prevent thievery. Next, place one paper in each of the 6 envelopes and seal them. You should now have 6 sealed envelopes, each with a piece of paper stating the above phrase, your name and address, and a $1.00 bill. What you are doing is creating a service by this. THIS IS ABSOLUTELY LEGAL! Mail the 6 envelopes to the following addresses: #1) P J Stone, PO Box 121824 Nashville TN 37212 #2) Justin Case PO Box 95 Fremont, Ohio 43420 #3) Richard Medina 15030 Ventura Blvd. #22-376 Sherman Oaks, CA 91403 #4) Tom Enock 24049 village road, unionville, VA 22567 #5) Jason Hilbert 115 1/2 W. 7TH ST. Claremore, OK. 74017 #6) Paul McPike     PO Box 502     Hillsboro, OR     97123-0502 STEP 2: Now take the #1 name off the list that you see above, move the other names up (6 becomes 5, 5 becomes 4, etc…) and add YOUR Name as number 6 on the list. STEP 3: Change anything you need to, but try to keep this article as close to original as possible. Now, post your amended article to at least 200 newsgroups. (I think there are close to 24,000 groups) All you need is 200, but remember, the more you post, the more money you make! —DIRECTIONS —–HOW TO POST TO letter to do your own posting. Simply put your cursor at the beginning of this letter and drag your cursor to the bottom of this document, and select ‘copy’ from the edit menu. This will copy the entire letter into the computers memory. Step 2) Open a blank ‘notepad’ file and place your cursor at the top of the blank page. From the ‘edit’ menu select ‘paste’. This will paste a copy of the letter into notepad so that you can add your name to the list. Step 3) Save your new notepad file as a txt file. If you want to do your postings in different settings, you’ll always have this file to go back to. Step 4) Use Netscape or Internet explorer and try searching for various newsgroups (on-line forums, message boards, chat sites, discussions.) Step 5) Visit these message boards and post this article as a new message by highlighting the text of this letter and selecting paste from the edit menu. Fill in the Subject, this will be the header that everyone sees as they scroll through the list of postings in a particular group, click the post message button. You’re done with your first one! ( WEBTV users: Utilize your cut and paste skills. Make any necessary changes and simply post to the Newsgroups.) Congratulations…THAT’S IT! All you have to do is jump to different newsgroups and post away, after you get the hang of it, it will take about 30 seconds for each newsgroup! *REMEMBER, THE MORE NEWSGROUPS YOU POST IN, THE MORE MONEY YOU WILL MAKE!! BUT YOU HAVE TO POST A MINIMUM OF 200** That’s it! You will begin receiving money from around the world within days! You may eventually want to rent a P.O.Box due to the large amount of mail you will receive. If you wish to stay anonymous, you can invent a name to use, as long as the postman will deliver it. **JUST MAKE SURE ALL THE ADDRESSES ARE CORRECT.** Now the WHY part: Out of 200 postings, say I receive only 5 replies (a very low example). So then I made $5.00 with my name at #6 on the letter. Now, each of the 5 persons who just sent me $1.00 make the MINIMUM 200 postings, each with my name at #5 and only 5 persons respond to each of the original 5, that is another $25.00 for me, now those 25 each make 200 MINIMUM posts with my name at #4 and only 5 replies each, I will bring in an additional $125.00! Now, those 125 persons turn around and post the MINIMUM 200 with my name at #3 and only receive 5 replies each, I will make an additional $626.00! OK, now here is the fun part, each of those 625 persons post a MINIMUM 200 letters with my name at #2 and they each only receive 5 replies, that just made me $3,125.00!!! Those 3,125 persons will all deliver this message to 200 newsgroups with my name at #1 and if still 5 persons per 200 newsgroups react I will receive $15,625,00! With a original investment of only $6.00! AMAZING! When your name is no longer on the list, you just take the latest posting in the newsgroups, and send out another $6.00 to names on the list, putting your name at number 6 again. And start posting again. The thing to remember is, do you realize that thousands of people all over the world are joining the Internet and reading these articles everyday, JUST LIKE YOU are now!! So can you afford $6.00 and see if it really works?? I think so… People have said, "what if the plan is played out and no one sends you the money? So what! What are the chances of that happening when there are tons of new honest users and new honest people who are joining the Internet and newsgroups everyday and are willing to give it a try? Estimates are at 20,000 to 50,000 new users, every day, with thousands of those joining the actual Internet. Think about this! If you gamble your money away in a casino or a race track, or maybe just the lottery…WHY? Because we all want more $$$! RIGHT? So we risk our money! Playing it against the odds! NEED MONEY? Well if you have any logic and 6$ You will! You think this is a gamble? maybe! But its not odds your up against; INSTEAD YOUR OWN INTEGRITY! You NEED MONEY? Play FAIRLY and HONESTLY, WITH FULL INTEGRITY! And you will be making some SERIOUS CASH!!! $GO FOR IT$ peace within …

Response:

Wow what a new and unique idea!!!!! Not.

et… : $$$$$ WHAT GOES AROUND – COMES AROUND $$$$$ $$$$$ WHAT GOES AROUND – : COMES AROUND $$$$$ A little while back, I was browsing through : newsgroups, just like you are now, and came across an article similar to : this that said you could make thousands of dollars within weeks with : only an initial investment of $6.00! So I thought, " Yeah, right, this : must be a scam", but like most of us, I was curious, so I kept reading. : Anyway, it said that you send $1.00 to each of the 6 names and address : stated in the article. You then place your own name and address in the : bottom of the list at #6, and post the article in at least 200 : newsgroups. (There are thousands) No catch, that was it. So after : thinking it over, and talking to a few people first, I thought about : trying it. I figured what have I got to lose except 6 stamps and $6.00, : right? Like most of us I was a little skeptical and a little worried : about the legal aspects of it all. So I checked it out with the U.S. : Post Office (1-800-725-2161) and they confirmed that it is indeed legal! : Then I invested the measly $6.00. Well GUESS WHAT!!… within 7 days, I : started getting money in the mail! I was shocked! I figured it would end : soon, but the money just kept coming in. In my first week, I made about : $25.00. By the end of the second week I had made a total of over $1, : 000.00! In the third week I had over $10, 000.00 and it’s still growing. : This is now my fourth week and I have made a total of just over $42, : 000.00 and it’s still coming in rapidly. It’s certainly worth $6.00, and : 6 stamps, I have spent more than that on the lottery!! Let me tell you : how this works and most importantly, why it works….also, make sure you : print a copy of this article NOW, so you can get the information off of : it as you need it. STEP 1: Get 6 separate pieces of paper and write the : following on each piece of paper "PLEASE PUT ME ON YOUR MAILING LIST." : Now get 6 US $1.00 bills and place ONE inside EACH of the 6 pieces of : paper so the bill will not be seen through the envelope to prevent : thievery. Next, place one paper in each of the 6 envelopes and seal : them. You should now have 6 sealed envelopes, each with a piece of paper : stating the above phrase, your name and address, and a $1.00 bill. What : you are doing is creating a service by this. THIS IS ABSOLUTELY LEGAL! : Mail the 6 envelopes to the following addresses: : #1) P J Stone, PO Box 121824 Nashville TN 37212 : #2) Justin Case PO Box 95 Fremont, Ohio 43420 : #3) Richard Medina 15030 Ventura Blvd. #22-376 Sherman Oaks, CA 91403 : #4) Tom Enock 24049 village road, unionville, VA 22567 : #5) Jason Hilbert 115 1/2 W. 7TH ST. Claremore, OK. 74017 : #6) Paul McPike     PO Box 502     Hillsboro, OR 97123-0502 : STEP 2: Now take the #1 name off the list that you see above, : move the other names up (6 becomes 5, 5 becomes 4, etc…) and add YOUR : Name as number 6 on the list. STEP 3: Change anything you need to, but : try to keep this article as close to original as possible. Now, post : your amended article to at least 200 newsgroups. (I think there are : close to 24,000 groups) All you need is 200, but remember, the more you : post, the more money you make! —DIRECTIONS —–HOW TO POST TO this entire : letter to do your own posting. Simply put your cursor at the beginning : of this letter and drag your cursor to the bottom of this document, and : select ‘copy’ from the edit menu. This will copy the entire letter into : the computers memory. Step 2) Open a blank ‘notepad’ file and place : your cursor at the top of the blank page. From the ‘edit’ menu select : ‘paste’. This will paste a copy of the letter into notepad so that you : can add your name to the list. Step 3) Save your new notepad file as a : txt file. If you want to do your postings in different settings, you’ll : always have this file to go back to. Step 4) Use Netscape or Internet : explorer and try searching for various newsgroups (on-line forums, : message boards, chat sites, discussions.) Step 5) Visit these message : boards and post this article as a new message by highlighting the text : of this letter and selecting paste from the edit menu. Fill in the : Subject, this will be the header that everyone sees as they scroll : through the list of postings in a particular group, click the post : message button. You’re done with your first one! ( WEBTV users: Utilize : your cut and paste skills. Make any necessary changes and simply post to : the Newsgroups.) Congratulations…THAT’S IT! All you have to do is jump : to different newsgroups and post away, after you get the hang of it, it : will take about 30 seconds for each newsgroup! *REMEMBER, THE MORE : NEWSGROUPS YOU POST IN, THE MORE MONEY YOU WILL MAKE!! BUT YOU HAVE TO : POST A MINIMUM OF 200** That’s it! You will begin receiving money from : around the world within days! You may eventually want to rent a P.O.Box : due to the large amount of mail you will receive. If you wish to stay : anonymous, you can invent a name to use, as long as the postman will : deliver it. **JUST MAKE SURE ALL THE ADDRESSES ARE CORRECT.** Now the : WHY part: Out of 200 postings, say I receive only 5 replies (a very low : example). So then I made $5.00 with my name at #6 on the letter. Now, : each of the 5 persons who just sent me $1.00 make the MINIMUM 200 : postings, each with my name at #5 and only 5 persons respond to each of : the original 5, that is another $25.00 for me, now those 25 each make : 200 MINIMUM posts with my name at #4 and only 5 replies each, I will : bring in an additional $125.00! Now, those 125 persons turn around and : post the MINIMUM 200 with my name at #3 and only receive 5 replies each, : I will make an additional $626.00! OK, now here is the fun part, each of : those 625 persons post a MINIMUM 200 letters with my name at #2 and they : each only receive 5 replies, that just made me $3,125.00!!! Those 3,125 : persons will all deliver this message to 200 newsgroups with my name at : #1 and if still 5 persons per 200 newsgroups react I will receive : $15,625,00! With a original investment of only $6.00! AMAZING! When your : name is no longer on the list, you just take the latest posting in the : newsgroups, and send out another $6.00 to names on the list, putting : your name at number 6 again. And start posting again. The thing to : remember is, do you realize that thousands of people all over the world : are joining the Internet and reading these articles everyday, JUST LIKE : YOU are now!! So can you afford $6.00 and see if it really works?? I : think so… People have said, "what if the plan is played out and no one : sends you the money? So what! What are the chances of that happening : when there are tons of new honest users and new honest people who are : joining the Internet and newsgroups everyday and are willing to give it : a try? Estimates are at 20,000 to 50,000 new users, every day, with : thousands of those joining the actual Internet. Think about this! If you : gamble your money away in a casino or a race track, or maybe just the : lottery…WHY? Because we all want more $$$! RIGHT? So we risk our : money! Playing it against the odds! NEED MONEY? Well if you have any : logic and 6$ You will! You think this is a gamble? maybe! But its not : odds your up against; INSTEAD YOUR OWN INTEGRITY! You NEED MONEY? Play : FAIRLY and HONESTLY, WITH FULL INTEGRITY! And you will be making some : SERIOUS CASH!!! $GO FOR IT$ peace within … : : : :

Response:

: $$$$$ WHAT GOES AROUND – COMES AROUND $$$$$ $$$$$ WHAT Wow what a new and unique idea!!!!!

So you decided to repeat the scam by quoting it in full.    All the best, Timo — Prof. Timo Salmi ftp & http://garbo.uwasa.fi/ archives 193.166.120.5 Department of Accounting and Business Finance  ; University of Vaasa Timo’s  FAQ  materials  at   http://www.uwasa.fi/~ts/http/tsfaq.html

Response:

Question:

Thank you, Mr. T. A better explanation of our position I have not seen. Joe

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – The Facts

Response:

Thank you, Mr. T. A better explanation of our position I have not seen. Joe

THANK YOU JOE The Facts

http://members.aol.com/TKONKLE/comedy.html

Response:

The Facts S.A.G./A.F.T.R.A. wants actors to receive "Pay-Per-Play" for broadcast network and cable network commercial usage. Pay-Per-Play means an advertiser pays an actor each time a commercial airs. Pay-Per-Play is the only system that fairly compensates actors in accordance to their actual exposure. When an advertiser chooses to use a commercial many times, the actor in the commercial becomes over-exposed, her image indelibly linked with the product being sold. Given the actor’s strong association with the product, other advertisers refuse to cast her. The greater the over-exposure, the longer the unemployment. Pay-Per-Play means advertisers only pay for actual usage of a commercial. Flat fees force smaller advertisers to pay a premium when a commercial only airs a few times. $4,200 for "one day’s work" is a lie. Under the advertisers’ last offer, an actor is only guaranteed $500, the amount paid to perform in a commercial. If the commercial does not play or is "held"-a common occurrence-the actor receives no additional money in the first cycle. The actor is also contractually barred from appearing in any other commercial selling a competing product. If the commercial does play on broadcast network television, the $500 already paid to the actor is applied to the $2,575 flat fee. This means the actor really only receives a $2,075 payment for unlimited use. If the commercial plays on a cable network, the maximum the actor can earn is $1,627. If commercial airs on a limited number of major cable networks, the actor would receive far less. The only people earning a guaranteed $4,202 a day are the attorneys negotiating on behalf of advertisers. Based upon data just released by McCann-Erickson Worldwide, Actor payments now make up less than 1 % of the total cost to produce and air commercials. Currently actors earn a maximum of $11 a day for unlimited use of a commercial on cable television. Advertisers claim the S.A.G./A.F.T.R.A. cable proposal amounts to a 350% increase. Even if the advertisers’ unproven allegation were true, an actor would earn $38.50 a day for unlimited cable usage of a commercial– Less than the minimum wage. Advertisers say they are offering a 60% increase in cable residual rates. Their latest offer is only an 11% increase. $29 million dollars of the "60% cable increase" comes from a $29 million decrease in broadcast network payments. S.A.G./A.F.T.R.A. wants Internet usage included in the commercial contract. Advertisers say they don’t have the authority to include Internet usage in the commercial contract even though they’ve already spent millions buying and creating Internet-only advertising agencies. Advertisers refuse to provide accurate monitoring records of commercial usage. They demand we trust them. A S.A.G. monitoring study of 38 commercials uncovered over $110,000 in unpaid wages. The study reveals actors can’t afford to trust advertisers. Advertisers say the pay-per-play system is flawed because networks are capturing only 50% of all television viewers as compared to 90% in 1970. They fail to mention that the number of total television viewers has grown by 66% in the last thirty years Network is just as valuable today as it ever was. And, since cable now delivers nearly the same share as the big six networks, it deserves the same payment system. Despite the notion that actors earn millions – 80% of S.A.G. members earn less than $5000 a year. Advertising revenues are up dramatically. According to Advertising Age, total gross income for the top 500 U.S. based ad agencies increased by over 22% in 1999. Additionally, an accounting by the Cabletelevision Advertising Bureau revealed a 33% gain in cable ad billings to over $10,000,000,000 ($10 billion.)

Response:

Question:

 at the minimum they   need to educate their staff on "good practice" and make   sure their systems make it clear to the user when Internet   accesses are happening. — Roger Barnett

This is a lot easier said than done.  Two recent additions to my collection of programs (QB 2000 & McAfee ActiveShield) have what I rather cynically refer to as an "ET call home" provision.  I’m not at all comfortable with this trend, but I’m not sure as to what I can / should do about it.  I suppose I could unplug the phone cord when I’m not online, however that only works with a dial up, and the coming thing appears to be continual access. Thoughts? — Jim Hudspeth, CPA – http://home.att.net/~jdhcpa/mainpage.html – Washington, USA Associate Member, Association of Certified Fraud Examiners

Response:

Warning: There’s a Unix/Linux version of this one out there as well. I got hit with it today and I have no idea how to go about recovering my system. Here it is: This is the Unix/Linux version of "I Love You". It works on the honor system. If you receive this mail, you should delete a bunch of GIFs, MP3s, and binaries from your home directory, then send a copy of this e-mail to everyone you know. Thanks for your cooperation, Malicious Coder

If you are more technical, try this one — you will need to have access to root . . . this one works on the honor system… 1. cd to /usr/bin 2. type ls -l and pick 3 or 4 files at random 3. type rm -f filename for each of the chosen files 4. forward this email to 50 friends also running linux.

Response:

I know this thread is poking fun at various PC issues, but it reminded me of something I had been meaning to ask. If you received the ILOVEYOU virus in another email package, such as Eudora, wouldn’t the virus still delete the multimedia files on your system without replicating itself? Mike.

Response:

I know this thread is poking fun at various PC issues, but it reminded me of something I had been meaning to ask. If you received the ILOVEYOU virus in another email package, such as Eudora, wouldn’t the virus still delete the multimedia files on your system without replicating itself? Mike.

I don’t know, but I suspect that it would. I use Eudora Pro for email, Netscape for browsing, and McAfee Active Shield for a bug screen.  I recently checked all our computers to be sure that Windows Scripting Host was turned off (it is in Windows, not Explorer – as I had previously thought) I DO NOT open attachments I am not sure of. I try to use reasonable precautions including the avoidance of  programs that make it easy for bugs to propagate.  So far I have not had a serious virus.  If I did get one, the chance of passing it on to others is pretty remote (I think). I am a lot more comfortable with programs that are not too tightly integrated – even if the overall scheme lacks a bit of "functionality". — Jim Hudspeth, CPA – http://home.att.net/~jdhcpa/mainpage.html – Washington, USA Associate Member, Association of Certified Fraud Examiners

Response:

If you received the ILOVEYOU virus in another email package, such as Eudora, wouldn’t the virus still delete the multimedia files on your system without replicating itself?

Only if you launched it, the program started up the *.vbs script and the script didn’t rely on Outlook being running.  But the damage would be a bit more contained, since the virus would not be able to replicate itself by invading the address book.

Response:

If you received the ILOVEYOU virus in another email package, such as Eudora, wouldn’t the virus still delete the multimedia files on your system without replicating itself? Only if you launched it, the program started up the *.vbs script and the script didn’t rely on Outlook being running.  But the damage would be a bit more contained, since the virus would not be able to replicate itself by invading the address book.

Ed, Do you know if it is possible to remove outlook without also removing MS Internet Explorer. I normally use Netscape, however I use some software (QB 2000 & MCAT) that insist on I.E.. I’m admittedly a bit paranoid about this, but I am fearful that someone will figure out a way to get these "high functionality" programs to self launch and do God only knows what while I’m totally unaware of it. Thanks — Jim Hudspeth, CPA – http://home.att.net/~jdhcpa/mainpage.html – Washington, USA Associate Member, Association of Certified Fraud Examiners

Response:

You are confusing Outlook and Outlook Express. Outlook is part of MS Office.  In addition to email, it includes contact management and calendar functions. Outlook Express is the email and news client that is bundled with Internet Explorer.  It is also the news client that is called by Outlook, which does not have its own news capabilities. Little wonder that you (and many others) find this confusing. Anyway, "yes", you can use IE without using either OL or OE. With IE open, click Tools, Internet Options, Programs to specify which mail and news software you wish to use.  (This doesn’t actually remove any software, but should prevent the unwanted programs from opening unintended.)  Outlook can be removed through the MS Office Set-Up.  Outlook Express can be removed through the Control Panel, Add/Remove Programs.

Do you know if it is possible to remove outlook without also

removing MS Internet – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Explorer.

Response:

I use Eudora Pro for email

I love Eudora Pro and if I had really understood what I was getting into with OutLook 98 I would not have changed from Eudora Pro. Be sure to keep yourself up to date on Eudora security patches. One of the things hackers love about Eudora is that it keeps the attachemnts as separate files in your attachment directory. They can send you any damned thing they want, Back Orifice, NetBUs or whatver, and it will certainly come into your inbox and be stored on your disk. They can give it any seductive name, for example, "Dear CPA here is a list of all CPE" and a file "CPEList.doc" which could even behave as a normal word doc. If you don’t delete the attachment file, and they can figure out a way to get into your machine (usually easy) *they* can execute the file they sent you even if *you* don’t, * Todd F. Boyle CPA    http://www.GLDialtone.com/ * XML accounting, WebLedgers, ASPs, GL dialtone, whatever it takes

Response:

- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – I use Eudora Pro for email I love Eudora Pro and if I had really understood what I was getting into with OutLook 98 I would not have changed from Eudora Pro. Be sure to keep yourself up to date on Eudora security patches. One of the things hackers love about Eudora is that it keeps the attachemnts as separate files in your attachment directory. They can send you any damned thing they want, Back Orifice, NetBUs or whatver, and it will certainly come into your inbox and be stored on your disk. They can give it any seductive name, for example, "Dear CPA here is a list of all CPE" and a file "CPEList.doc" which could even behave as a normal word doc. If you don’t delete the attachment file, and they can figure out a way to get into your machine (usually easy) *they* can execute the file they sent you even if *you* don’t,

Todd, Thanks for the heads up. If I am understanding this correctly, I need to delete unwanted attachments separately from the unwanted email to which they are attached. — Jim Hudspeth, CPA – http://home.att.net/~jdhcpa/mainpage.html – Washington, USA Associate Member, Association of Certified Fraud Examiners

Response:

- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – You are confusing Outlook and Outlook Express. Outlook is part of MS Office.  In addition to email, it includes contact management and calendar functions. Outlook Express is the email and news client that is bundled with Internet Explorer.  It is also the news client that is called by Outlook, which does not have its own news capabilities. Little wonder that you (and many others) find this confusing. Anyway, "yes", you can use IE without using either OL or OE. With IE open, click Tools, Internet Options, Programs to specify which mail and news software you wish to use.  (This doesn’t actually remove any software, but should prevent the unwanted programs from opening unintended.)  Outlook can be removed through the MS Office Set-Up.  Outlook Express can be removed through the Control Panel, Add/Remove Programs.

Vernon, Thanks. I just reset IE to use Eudora for email and tested same.  It seems to work as desired. I was not able to reset the newsreader function (to Netscape – Eudora doesn’t read news), however I’ve never heard of anyone getting a virus through a newsgroup. — Jim Hudspeth, CPA – http://home.att.net/~jdhcpa/mainpage.html – Washington, USA Associate Member, Association of Certified Fraud Examiners

Response:

If I am understanding this correctly, I need to delete unwanted attachments separately from the unwanted email to which they are attached.

I believe that is right.  I do know that Eudora has that "helpful" habit of saving its attachments automatically and requiring separate housekeeping to remove them. But, to be honest, the biggest advantage of Eudora is the fact that it isn’t the most used program.  So that means that even if there was a glaring security hole, only someone specifically interested in compromising your system would be interested.  The current set of worms (Melissa and I Love You) are set to create a huge overall effect rather than attack a single machine.

Response:

I am a lot more comfortable with programs that are not too tightly integrated – even if the overall scheme lacks a bit of "functionality".

While that’s true, it’s also true that merely using programs that aren’t the "most used" provides protection from the viruses that are being written in macro/scripting languages–because authors of those bugs are naturally drawn to the biggest audience.

Response:

- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – If I am understanding this correctly, I need to delete unwanted attachments separately from the unwanted email to which they are attached. I believe that is right.  I do know that Eudora has that "helpful" habit of saving its attachments automatically and requiring separate housekeeping to remove them. But, to be honest, the biggest advantage of Eudora is the fact that it isn’t the most used program.  So that means that even if there was a glaring security hole, only someone specifically interested in compromising your system would be interested.  The current set of worms (Melissa and I Love You) are set to create a huge overall effect rather than attack a single machine.

I just got a security alert from Eudora.  One of their suggestions was to set up a customized attachment folder, which I just did. They also recommended updating their "warning script" which I just did also. — Jim Hudspeth, CPA – http://home.att.net/~jdhcpa/mainpage.html – Washington, USA Associate Member, Association of Certified Fraud Examiners

Response:

Ha, how shallow to assume I am angry for my own sake and have done something wrong. Nope.  I was a CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocate) who protected the children removed from homes for abuse. Nothing in my past, just reality I witnessed in the courts, Child Services and Legal teams and their attitudes and actions. Also, I know a mother who smokes pot, we brought the policeman to our house and he talked to the child, recognized the descriptions he gave and did nothing other than going to her house and chastising her.  I guess it’s okay to smoke and drive. Uh huh, people do care even when they have nothing personal at stake.  Sorry you didn’t consider that option. Laws are laws.  I have my priorities and I have my time limits.  I was just stating the laws that are important to me.  That’s all. c. Cindy Fox Computer Training Solutions www.cindyfox.com (602) 692-8923 – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text —— Original Message —– Also, speaking of laws.  Let me know when we will pass laws to protect children instead of treating them as property and trying to reunite them with worthless parents.  This is higher on my list than monetary and computer related issues. c. — Cindy Fox Computer Training Solutions www.cindyfox.com (602) 692-8923 <snip Rather a non-sequitar isn’t it? You wouldn’t happen to be a mother who had her children taken from her and given to the father would you?  Too many times there is more to these stories than one wants to admit to. — Steve Thompson OSP LLC 330/335-9907 office 330/334-2097 fax Remove "_" in email address to contact me — anti-spam measures in use

Response:

Also, speaking of laws.  Let me know when we will pass laws to protect children instead of treating them as property and trying to reunite them with worthless parents.  This is higher on my list than monetary and computer related issues. c. — Cindy Fox Computer Training Solutions www.cindyfox.com (602) 692-8923

<snip Rather a non-sequitar isn’t it? You wouldn’t happen to be a mother who had her children taken from her and given to the father would you?  Too many times there is more to these stories than one wants to admit to. — Steve Thompson OSP LLC 330/335-9907 office 330/334-2097 fax Remove "_" in email address to contact me — anti-spam measures in use

Response:

One of the problems is that the underlying Internet technology is inherently insecure – remember that its basic design objective was to be resilient against damage to parts of the network. One consequence of this is that there is no control over the path taken by a message (or part of a message) to get from source to destination. IMO the problem is that business latched onto what looked like a free resource, i.e. the Internet infrastructure that then comprised mostly academic and research resources, and has subsequently been unwilling to invest in establishing and then paying for a commercial alternative (which I think is what Todd really wants – a parallel Internet with inherent support for the rules of doing business, such as no anonymity). Of course, if companies believe in the effectiveness of the Internet for advertising to individuals then they will insist on a single infrastructure, in which case IMO they have little comeback when the same infrastructure fails to protect them. With regard to the ILY trojan/worm, I see two problems: – any email reader which executes code in attachments   (as opposed to reading data from attachments, which can    still be dodgy but is probably reasonable with suitable    precautions) is deliberately broken;  claiming that it is   a configurable option is no excuse at all. – companies who think they can use the Internet as an   invisible extension to their office systems are misled   (often by others who know better); at the minimum they   need to educate their staff on "good practice" and make   sure their systems make it clear to the user when Internet   accesses are happening. — Roger Barnett

Response:

Unfortunately the Internet (which is world wide) cannot be regulated within national boundaries. The Australian Government has passed laws to outlaw pornography on the net, but all they have done is to drive the operators off shore.

Those are all good points. We certainly need to be able to implement some form of protection against criminal attacks on the net.  I would be interested to hear if you have some ideas on how this might be achieved.

I posted them.  The principle thrust is to stop treating the internet like citizens band radio — hell this is even worse!  Any dumb ass can setup a transmitter with unlimited speed, and unlimited bandwidth connection to the internet and spew out unlimited volumes of spam, port scans, viruses and hacker attacks and say, "Oh gee, I’m sorry, we don’t know where those packets came from!" Of course the "internet community" i.e. big infrastructure operators, actually DO have working arrangements in this case and the offending parties are subject to being blocked if they offend in certain ways.  This only proves the point that the industry is CAPABLE of policing itself, but doesn’t want to spend the money other than to the extent necessary to optimize its OWN profit.  Do you understand what I’m saying?  This is a classic tragedy of the commons, which calls for legislative remedy. Not many will agree with my ideas since after all, they are not fun, and are all business.  But the current lack of regulation makes it impossible for small business to get things we need very badly, in terms of payment and commerce capabilities, secure communications, non-repudiation, and authentication.   We are entitled to a reasonable degree of protection from criminal activity on the internet, and if the present profit-making operators of the routers and infrastructure don’t see fit to improve the situation, then the proper avenue for redress is thru our elected representatives, who are always eager to jump in and take over problems like this. There are many, many instances historically, of industries that ultimately failed to regulate themselves and are now being regulated very nicely by state and national laws.  So, it will not be the end of western civilization if the internet becomes regulated.   Todd * Todd F. Boyle CPA    http://www.GLDialtone.com/ * XML accounting, WebLedgers, ASPs, GL dialtone, whatever it takes

Response:

Haha.  :)  It’s not like anyone’s life is at risk.  And if you’re going to argue the old stalker stuff, if they are not bright enough or old enough to prevent their own harm, stay off. People want children to have net nannies and such.  I say, "Train your children."  Talk with them.  Understand what they are doing, who they are communicating with, at school, in the neighborhood, on the phone, on the net.  All is the same, only the method differs.  I know one woman who won’t allow her children to use the internet because she doesn’t understand it. Smart woman.  Risks outweigh the benefits in her mind and she is taking right action.  She will be taking an internet class this summer. Responsible. Property is property.  It is illegal to damage it.  If I knew of someone harming someone or trying to, I’d report it if there was a place, otherwise, whatever. I’m not so enamored with the police anyway as when I have tried to report things – speeding cars, angry drivers, child abuse, the red tape to get through or the lack of caring is enough to frustrate anyone. So far, I’ve not taken the law into my own hands, but it is darn tempting at times.   And all I want to do is enforce it!  But I can’t.  I have to obey it, watch others flaunt it, have no recourse and have people talking about making more useless laws.  Let’s get the ones we have right first.  Let’s get our priorities straight.  People, not products.  :) HA!  I can be a liberal AND a conservative at the same, exact time!   Help people, but keep government out of it!  :) c. — Cindy Fox Computer Training Solutions www.cindyfox.com (602) 692-8923

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Amen Cindy.  I have a real problem with people who see government intervention as the solution to everything.  They are all to willing to trade my freedom for what they perceive to be their sense of security even if it’s false.  The first question they ask is, what’s the government going to do to protect us.  The answer is, it can do nothing even though there are plenty of bureaucrats who are all too willing to take away everyone’s freedom.  The truth is the government can’t even protect itself let alone anyone else.  Thousands of government PC’s fell victim to the virus.  I agree, if the internet is too risky for you then stay the hell off. I have to strongly disagree with you here.  I am licensed as a ham operator and the main reason I accept the FCC regulating me is the "limited" bandwidth, so that it must be allocated or have chaos. The internet does not have a "real" limit, only a manufactured one.  In fact, there really aren’t limits as you can choose what you go look at, what newsgroups send things to you and in general what part of the ‘bandwidth’ you interact with. Criminals can just as easy broadcast illegally over the air waves, but it is extremely expensive and not much payback. REGULATION IS NOT THE ANSWER. Despite any regulation, it is still easy, cheap and has a high return (to ego or money). I obey streetlights because I want everyone else to.  If I didn’t care, NOTHING stops me from barreling down the street anywhere I want, until I crash or get arrested.  Hmm, then they take my license away.  I can drive without a license. My point is, that regulation puts burden on those that enforce it without really detracting from those who want to ignore it. Most of what people are doing now is illegal.  If you disrupt a business, it’s illegal.  If you share porn, it’s illegal. I can agree that countries should work towards supporting each other laws, but I love the internet being open as possible. You are not entitled to have someone else protect you on a medium that you have the option of not interacting with.  If you don’t like the internet’s many, many benefits, go away.     I don’t want you to go away, but I want you to choose, not have me regulated for your comfort. And by the way, the internet is NOT just for business.  Although that is 80% of my use, I love reading other people’s philosophies, learning about other cultures and geography and shopping for an RV, right now.  :) I’ll accept the risks and problems to support freedom any day!  :) Take care,  c. — Cindy Fox Computer Training Solutions www.cindyfox.com (602) 692-8923 Unfortunately the Internet (which is world wide) cannot be regulated within national boundaries. The Australian Government has passed laws to outlaw pornography on the net, but all they have done is to drive the operators off shore. Those are all good points. We certainly need to be able to implement some form of protection against criminal attacks on the net.  I would be interested to hear if you have some ideas on how this might be achieved. I posted them.  The principle thrust is to stop treating the internet like citizens band radio — hell this is even worse!  Any dumb ass can setup a transmitter with unlimited speed, and unlimited bandwidth connection to the internet and spew out unlimited volumes of spam, port scans, viruses and hacker attacks and say, "Oh gee, I’m sorry, we don’t know where those packets came from!" Of course the "internet community" i.e. big infrastructure operators, actually DO have working arrangements in this case and the offending parties are subject to being blocked if they offend in certain ways. This only proves the point that the industry is CAPABLE of policing itself, but doesn’t want to spend the money other than to the extent necessary to optimize its OWN profit.  Do you understand what I’m saying?  This is a classic tragedy of the commons, which calls for legislative remedy. Not many will agree with my ideas since after all, they are not fun, and are all business.  But the current lack of regulation makes it impossible for small business to get things we need very badly, in terms of payment and commerce capabilities, secure communications, non-repudiation, and authentication. We are entitled to a reasonable degree of protection from criminal activity on the internet, and if the present profit-making operators of the routers and infrastructure don’t see fit to improve the situation, then the proper avenue for redress is thru our elected representatives, who are always eager to jump in and take over problems like this. There are many, many instances historically, of industries that ultimately failed to regulate themselves and are now being regulated very nicely by state and national laws.  So, it will not be the end of western civilization if the internet becomes regulated. Todd * Todd F. Boyle CPA    http://www.GLDialtone.com/ * XML accounting, WebLedgers, ASPs, GL dialtone, whatever it takes

Response:

Also, speaking of laws.  Let me know when we will pass laws to protect children instead of treating them as property and trying to reunite them with worthless parents.  This is higher on my list than monetary and computer related issues. c. — Cindy Fox Computer Training Solutions www.cindyfox.com (602) 692-8923

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – I have to strongly disagree with you here.  I am licensed as a ham operator and the main reason I accept the FCC regulating me is the "limited" bandwidth, so that it must be allocated or have chaos. Hi Cindy, I was a ham for a number of years, WA7DGZ… expired now, though. The internet does not have a "real" limit, only a manufactured one.  In fact, there really aren’t limits as you can choose what you go look at, what newsgroups send things to you and in general what part of the ‘bandwidth’ you interact with. The question isn’t whether the network’s limits are real.  There can be no doubt, that misbehaving citizens on the network cause damage to the ability of other peoples’ servers, data and connectivity. Criminals can just as easy broadcast illegally over the air waves, but it is extremely expensive and not much payback. REGULATION IS NOT THE ANSWER. You still haven’t made any coherent argument as to the reasons for your position. Despite any regulation, it is still easy, cheap and has a high return (to ego or money). I obey streetlights because I want everyone else to.  If I didn’t care, NOTHING stops me from barreling down the street anywhere I want, until I crash or get arrested.  Hmm, then they take my license away.  I can drive without a license. I agree that effective mechanisms making crime impossible are preferred over regulations that end with the result "… and then you go to jail". Anything that requires human monitoring and enforcement, or after-the-fact remedy is an inferior solution.  Here are the choices  1. components that make it mechanically difficult or impossible to spoof,     hack, intrude, etc. such as IPV6, 1024 bit encryption, smartcards,     biological authentication  2. components or practices that make it impossible to commit crimes without     being recorded or detected, such as logging and monitoring systems, but     which are easy for clerks of low intelligence to trace the individual an     prosecute, and which have high percentage of prosecution e.g. the IRS’     reporting of income at source, stuff like that.  3. components that make it impossible to get away with crimes without leaving     some kind of evidence but which require expensive investigation an evidence     gathering, and can only be enforced on small percentage of violations. So we are in agreement, number one is the preferred form of regulation? My point is, that regulation puts burden on those that enforce it without really detracting from those who want to ignore it. I agree that any regulations should actually be effective enough at some particular objective that they would unquestionably yield net economic gain to the internet community at large.  If such regulations were proposed, and gains could be demonstrated, would you then support them? Most of what people are doing now is illegal.  If you disrupt a business, it’s illegal.  If you share porn, it’s illegal. I can agree that countries should work towards supporting each other laws, but I love the internet being open as possible. Porn is legal.  Theft, child abuse, etc are illegal and the internet community should pull their heads out of their irresponsible asses and help enforce the laws, instead of protecting criminals in their ranks. You are not entitled to have someone else protect you on a medium that you have the option of not interacting with.  If you don’t like the internet’s many, many benefits, go away.     I don’t want you to go away, but I want you to choose, not have me regulated for your comfort. And by the way, the internet is NOT just for business.  Although that is 80% of my use, I love reading other people’s philosophies, learning about other cultures and geography and shopping for an RV, right now.  :) I’ll accept the risks and problems to support freedom any day!  :) Thanks for your post.  I hope that you will also support the freedoms that are provided by a lawful society.  Most of the people who argue the loudest for unregulated internet actually want the benefits of a lawful society — but want to hold in reserve, their ability to break the law when it suits them.   Now look– I am a radical, I am a Vietnam era protester and have been a freedom fighter my whole life.  But if you don’t want to obey the law, get involved in the democratic process and speak out to protect your rights and your interests. It is insane for a civilized society to put laws on the books and then allow them to be broken, and refuse to enforce them, on the internet.  That is just stupid. Todd BOyle CPA

Response:

Amen Cindy.  I have a real problem with people who see government intervention as the solution to everything.  They are all to willing to trade my freedom for what they perceive to be their sense of security even if it’s false.  The first question they ask is, what’s the government going to do to protect us.  The answer is, it can do nothing even though there are plenty of bureaucrats who are all too willing to take away everyone’s freedom.  The truth is the government can’t even protect itself let alone anyone else.  Thousands of government PC’s fell victim to the virus.  I agree, if the internet is too risky for you then stay the hell off. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – I have to strongly disagree with you here.  I am licensed as a ham operator and the main reason I accept the FCC regulating me is the "limited" bandwidth, so that it must be allocated or have chaos. The internet does not have a "real" limit, only a manufactured one.  In fact, there really aren’t limits as you can choose what you go look at, what newsgroups send things to you and in general what part of the ‘bandwidth’ you interact with. Criminals can just as easy broadcast illegally over the air waves, but it is extremely expensive and not much payback. REGULATION IS NOT THE ANSWER. Despite any regulation, it is still easy, cheap and has a high return (to ego or money). I obey streetlights because I want everyone else to.  If I didn’t care, NOTHING stops me from barreling down the street anywhere I want, until I crash or get arrested.  Hmm, then they take my license away.  I can drive without a license. My point is, that regulation puts burden on those that enforce it without really detracting from those who want to ignore it. Most of what people are doing now is illegal.  If you disrupt a business, it’s illegal.  If you share porn, it’s illegal. I can agree that countries should work towards supporting each other laws, but I love the internet being open as possible. You are not entitled to have someone else protect you on a medium that you have the option of not interacting with.  If you don’t like the internet’s many, many benefits, go away.     I don’t want you to go away, but I want you to choose, not have me regulated for your comfort. And by the way, the internet is NOT just for business.  Although that is 80% of my use, I love reading other people’s philosophies, learning about other cultures and geography and shopping for an RV, right now.  :) I’ll accept the risks and problems to support freedom any day!  :) Take care,  c. — Cindy Fox Computer Training Solutions www.cindyfox.com (602) 692-8923 Unfortunately the Internet (which is world wide) cannot be regulated within national boundaries. The Australian Government has passed laws to outlaw pornography on the net, but all they have done is to drive the operators off shore. Those are all good points. We certainly need to be able to implement some form of protection against criminal attacks on the net.  I would be interested to hear if you have some ideas on how this might be achieved. I posted them.  The principle thrust is to stop treating the internet like citizens band radio — hell this is even worse!  Any dumb ass can setup a transmitter with unlimited speed, and unlimited bandwidth connection to the internet and spew out unlimited volumes of spam, port scans, viruses and hacker attacks and say, "Oh gee, I’m sorry, we don’t know where those packets came from!" Of course the "internet community" i.e. big infrastructure operators, actually DO have working arrangements in this case and the offending parties are subject to being blocked if they offend in certain ways.  This only proves the point that the industry is CAPABLE of policing itself, but doesn’t want to spend the money other than to the extent necessary to optimize its OWN profit.  Do you understand what I’m saying?  This is a classic tragedy of the commons, which calls for legislative remedy. Not many will agree with my ideas since after all, they are not fun, and are all business.  But the current lack of regulation makes it impossible for small business to get things we need very badly, in terms of payment and commerce capabilities, secure communications, non-repudiation, and authentication. We are entitled to a reasonable degree of protection from criminal activity on the internet, and if the present profit-making operators of the routers and infrastructure don’t see fit to improve the situation, then the proper avenue for redress is thru our elected representatives, who are always eager to jump in and take over problems like this. There are many, many instances historically, of industries that ultimately failed to regulate themselves and are now being regulated very nicely by state and national laws.  So, it will not be the end of western civilization if the internet becomes regulated. Todd * Todd F. Boyle CPA    http://www.GLDialtone.com/ * XML accounting, WebLedgers, ASPs, GL dialtone, whatever it takes

Response:

I have to strongly disagree with you here.  I am licensed as a ham operator and the main reason I accept the FCC regulating me is the "limited" bandwidth, so that it must be allocated or have chaos. Hi Cindy, I was a ham for a number of years, WA7DGZ… expired now, though.

Cool.  :) The internet does not have a "real" limit, only a manufactured one.  In fact, there really aren’t limits as you can choose what you go look at, what newsgroups send things to you and in general what part of the ‘bandwidth’ you interact with. The question isn’t whether the network’s limits are real.  There can be no doubt, that misbehaving citizens on the network cause damage to the ability of other peoples’ servers, data and connectivity.

Damage, yes. But causing damage is already against the law.  My point is that people shouldn’t regulate one medium differently than other mediums. In example, making laws agains unsolicited emails or faxes, but not against unsolicited phone calls, paper mail or knocks on the door. I support laws against activites, but not against the method of the activity. Criminals can just as easy broadcast illegally over the air waves, but it is extremely expensive and not much payback. REGULATION IS NOT THE ANSWER. You still haven’t made any coherent argument as to the reasons for your position.

See above and below.  :) – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Despite any regulation, it is still easy, cheap and has a high return (to ego or money). I obey streetlights because I want everyone else to.  If I didn’t care, NOTHING stops me from barreling down the street anywhere I want, until I crash or get arrested.  Hmm, then they take my license away.  I can drive without a license. I agree that effective mechanisms making crime impossible are preferred over regulations that end with the result "… and then you go to jail". Anything that requires human monitoring and enforcement, or after-the-fact remedy is an inferior solution.  Here are the choices  1. components that make it mechanically difficult or impossible to spoof,     hack, intrude, etc. such as IPV6, 1024 bit encryption, smartcards,     biological authentication

Okay, where do you propose placing these and who pays?  2. components or practices that make it impossible to commit crimes without     being recorded or detected, such as logging and monitoring systems, but     which are easy for clerks of low intelligence to trace the individual an     prosecute, and which have high percentage of prosecution e.g. the IRS’     reporting of income at source, stuff like that.

So, what about the protection of this tracing for people who don’t want to be monitored and while are not doing anything wrong, could have trouble with people twisting things.  ie  I read anything and everything.  I am a philosopher and curious about other people and why they do what they do. Because I go to a site, does not mean I will do anything. Good example – if I read about the bomb that went off in Oklahoma City and said, hmmm,  I wonder how easy it was for them to make that bomb and then went to a site that descibed that and other activities, even if the things they describe are illegal, my looking at or reading about them is not and should not be illegal or tracked.  I like to understand and what I do in my head is my business.  If I then do something illegal, the act should be punished, but not the potential for the act. I don’t want people tracking my income.  It’s my business and no one else’s. I gladly pay taxes, although SIDE NOTE I don’t see why we can’t electronically register what it should be spent on – ie direct representation.  3. components that make it impossible to get away with crimes without leaving     some kind of evidence but which require expensive investigation an evidence     gathering, and can only be enforced on small percentage of violations.

Like what? So we are in agreement, number one is the preferred form of regulation?

Not really.  Who pays?  I’d rather say put in place whatever you want to pay for.  Protect your information in whatever way you feel safe.  My info is important, but not enough to pay for protection.  I’ll risk the loss and restore via backups.  I’ll risk someone stealing my info and publishing it or whatever, because there’s nothing that would hurt me enough to pay for protecting it. It’s all a matter of perspective, but I feel that people who have something to protect want us that don’t to pay for them.  Nope!  Pay for your own protection.  Free for all.  Don’t lock people out because they can’t afford to pay for your protection. My point is, that regulation puts burden on those that enforce it without really detracting from those who want to ignore it. I agree that any regulations should actually be effective enough at some particular objective that they would unquestionably yield net economic gain to the internet community at large.  If such regulations were proposed, and gains could be demonstrated, would you then support

them? See above comments.  I feel that the answer would be no.  How would it benefit ME and others like me?  It benefits big business and big govt.  They can pay for it themselves.  I don’t want to pay for it. Give me the particular objective and "net" economic gain, although I have to ask to whom is the gain given to. I tend to be against any regulation because of cost and incompetence. Anything can be weasled around.  Why waste money trying to fix a world wide issue.  It would be a lot harder for a hacker to deal with a million different security systems than one universal one which would then become a prime target for admiration of who could break in and then share the info with other hackers. Give me specifics and I’ll give you my opinions on pros and cons, but until then, no to regulation as a general principle.  :) Most of what people are doing now is illegal.  If you disrupt a business, it’s illegal.  If you share porn, it’s illegal. I can agree that countries should work towards supporting each other laws, but I love the internet being open as possible. Porn is legal.  Theft, child abuse, etc are illegal and the internet community should pull their heads out of their irresponsible asses and help enforce the laws, instead of protecting criminals in their ranks.

How are they protecting criminals in their ranks? – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – You are not entitled to have someone else protect you on a medium that you have the option of not interacting with.  If you don’t like the internet’s many, many benefits, go away.     I don’t want you to go away, but I want you to choose, not have me regulated for your comfort. And by the way, the internet is NOT just for business.  Although that is 80% of my use, I love reading other people’s philosophies, learning about other cultures and geography and shopping for an RV, right now.  :) I’ll accept the risks and problems to support freedom any day!  :) Thanks for your post.  I hope that you will also support the freedoms that are provided by a lawful society.  Most of the people who argue the loudest for unregulated internet actually want the benefits of a lawful society — but want to hold in reserve, their ability to break the law when it suits them.   Now look– I am a radical, I am a Vietnam era protester and have been a freedom fighter my whole life.  But if you don’t want to obey the law, get involved in the democratic process and speak out to protect your rights and your interests.

I do get involved.  :)  I vote on every issue after research and discussion. I talk and discuss issues that are important to me.  I respect everyone’s right to vote on everything and respect the decision when made, whether I agree or not. I live in a city where it is against the law to smoke – whoo hoo for me!  :) I like that.  But it is legal to smoke in other cities and I respect that. I don’t go there, but if I can’t avoid it, I accept and deal with smoke.  :) As far as wanting to be protected and do what I want, it is very simple: I obey laws that make sense and accept consequences if I break a law. It is insane for a civilized society to put laws on the books and then allow them to be broken, and refuse to enforce them, on the internet.  That is just stupid.

Okay.  What’s different about this than what I say.  I just don’t want certain laws on the books and I will speak out against them. Do remember that part of inter net means inter national.  :)  Would you support the laws of Iran if they support our laws?  Who will you support being extridited and on what grounds?  If a woman or child is considered property there, would you have us return them or protect them? While we’re wandering, what was your opinion on the Elian Gonzalas situation? Todd BOyle CPA

Thanks so much for your opinions.  :)  I’m enjoying our discussion.  :)   I invite others to join.  I support everyone’s right to an opinion and I will defend to the death, your right to have it, no matter what I think about it.  But I’ll also support the action I think is right.  Two different things.  :) Take care,   c. — Cindy Fox Computer Training Solutions www.cindyfox.com (602) 692-8923

Response:

I have to strongly disagree with you here.  I am licensed as a ham operator and the main reason I accept the FCC regulating me is the "limited" bandwidth, so that it must be allocated or have chaos. The internet does not have a "real" limit, only a manufactured one.  In fact, there really aren’t limits as you can choose what you go look at, what newsgroups send things to you and in general what part of the ‘bandwidth’ you interact with. Criminals can just as easy broadcast illegally over the air waves, but it is extremely expensive and not much payback. REGULATION IS NOT THE ANSWER. Despite any regulation, it is still easy, cheap and has a high return (to ego or money). I obey streetlights because I want everyone else to.  If I didn’t care, NOTHING stops me from barreling down the street anywhere I want, until I crash or get arrested.  Hmm, then they take my license away.  I can drive without a license. My point is, that regulation puts burden on those that enforce it without really detracting from those who want to ignore it. Most of what people are doing now is illegal.  If you disrupt a business, it’s illegal.  If you share porn, it’s illegal. I can agree that countries should work towards supporting each other laws, but I love the internet being open as possible. You are not entitled to have someone else protect you on a medium that you have the option of not interacting with.  If you don’t like the internet’s many, many benefits, go away.     I don’t want you to go away, but I want you to choose, not have me regulated for your comfort. And by the way, the internet is NOT just for business.  Although that is 80% of my use, I love reading other people’s philosophies, learning about other cultures and geography and shopping for an RV, right now.  :) I’ll accept the risks and problems to support freedom any day!  :) Take care,  c. — Cindy Fox Computer Training Solutions www.cindyfox.com (602) 692-8923

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Unfortunately the Internet (which is world wide) cannot be regulated within national boundaries. The Australian Government has passed laws to outlaw pornography on the net, but all they have done is to drive the operators off shore. Those are all good points. We certainly need to be able to implement some form of protection against criminal attacks on the net.  I would be interested to hear if you have some ideas on how this might be achieved. I posted them.  The principle thrust is to stop treating the internet like citizens band radio — hell this is even worse!  Any dumb ass can setup a transmitter with unlimited speed, and unlimited bandwidth connection to the internet and spew out unlimited volumes of spam, port scans, viruses and hacker attacks and say, "Oh gee, I’m sorry, we don’t know where those packets came from!" Of course the "internet community" i.e. big infrastructure operators, actually DO have working arrangements in this case and the offending parties are subject to being blocked if they offend in certain ways.  This only proves the point that the industry is CAPABLE of policing itself, but doesn’t want to spend the money other than to the extent necessary to optimize its OWN profit.  Do you understand what I’m saying?  This is a classic tragedy of the commons, which calls for legislative remedy. Not many will agree with my ideas since after all, they are not fun, and are all business.  But the current lack of regulation makes it impossible for small business to get things we need very badly, in terms of payment and commerce capabilities, secure communications, non-repudiation, and authentication. We are entitled to a reasonable degree of protection from criminal activity on the internet, and if the present profit-making operators of the routers and infrastructure don’t see fit to improve the situation, then the proper avenue for redress is thru our elected representatives, who are always eager to jump in and take over problems like this. There are many, many instances historically, of industries that ultimately failed to regulate themselves and are now being regulated very nicely by state and national laws.  So, it will not be the end of western civilization if the internet becomes regulated. Todd * Todd F. Boyle CPA    http://www.GLDialtone.com/ * XML accounting, WebLedgers, ASPs, GL dialtone, whatever it takes

Response:

I have to strongly disagree with you here.  I am licensed as a ham operator and the main reason I accept the FCC regulating me is the "limited" bandwidth, so that it must be allocated or have chaos.

Hi Cindy, I was a ham for a number of years, WA7DGZ… expired now, though. The internet does not have a "real" limit, only a manufactured one.  In fact, there really aren’t limits as you can choose what you go look at, what newsgroups send things to you and in general what part of the ‘bandwidth’ you interact with.

The question isn’t whether the network’s limits are real.  There can be no doubt, that misbehaving citizens on the network cause damage to the ability of other peoples’ servers, data and connectivity. Criminals can just as easy broadcast illegally over the air waves, but it is extremely expensive and not much payback. REGULATION IS NOT THE ANSWER.

You still haven’t made any coherent argument as to the reasons for your position. Despite any regulation, it is still easy, cheap and has a high return (to ego or money). I obey streetlights because I want everyone else to.  If I didn’t care, NOTHING stops me from barreling down the street anywhere I want, until I crash or get arrested.  Hmm, then they take my license away.  I can drive without a license.

I agree that effective mechanisms making crime impossible are preferred over regulations that end with the result "… and then you go to jail". Anything that requires human monitoring and enforcement, or after-the-fact remedy is an inferior solution.  Here are the choices  1. components that make it mechanically difficult or impossible to spoof,     hack, intrude, etc. such as IPV6, 1024 bit encryption, smartcards,     biological authentication  2. components or practices that make it impossible to commit crimes without     being recorded or detected, such as logging and monitoring systems, but     which are easy for clerks of low intelligence to trace the individual an     prosecute, and which have high percentage of prosecution e.g. the IRS’     reporting of income at source, stuff like that.  3. components that make it impossible to get away with crimes without leaving     some kind of evidence but which require expensive investigation an evidence     gathering, and can only be enforced on small percentage of violations. So we are in agreement, number one is the preferred form of regulation? My point is, that regulation puts burden on those that enforce it without really detracting from those who want to ignore it.

I agree that any regulations should actually be effective enough at some particular objective that they would unquestionably yield net economic gain to the internet community at large.  If such regulations were proposed, and gains could be demonstrated, would you then support them? Most of what people are doing now is illegal.  If you disrupt a business, it’s illegal.  If you share porn, it’s illegal. I can agree that countries should work towards supporting each other laws, but I love the internet being open as possible.

Porn is legal.  Theft, child abuse, etc are illegal and the internet community should pull their heads out of their irresponsible asses and help enforce the laws, instead of protecting criminals in their ranks. You are not entitled to have someone else protect you on a medium that you have the option of not interacting with.  If you don’t like the internet’s many, many benefits, go away.     I don’t want you to go away, but I want you to choose, not have me regulated for your comfort. And by the way, the internet is NOT just for business.  Although that is 80% of my use, I love reading other people’s philosophies, learning about other cultures and geography and shopping for an RV, right now.  :) I’ll accept the risks and problems to support freedom any day!  :)

Thanks for your post.  I hope that you will also support the freedoms that are provided by a lawful society.  Most of the people who argue the loudest for unregulated internet actually want the benefits of a lawful society — but want to hold in reserve, their ability to break the law when it suits them.   Now look– I am a radical, I am a Vietnam era protester and have been a freedom fighter my whole life.  But if you don’t want to obey the law, get involved in the democratic process and speak out to protect your rights and your interests.   It is insane for a civilized society to put laws on the books and then allow them to be broken, and refuse to enforce them, on the internet.  That is just stupid. Todd BOyle CPA

Response:

Todd, You say "Federal regulation of Internet services is overdue." Unfortunately the Internet (which is world wide) cannot be regulated within national boundaries. The Australian Government has passed laws to outlaw pornography on the net, but all they have done is to drive the operators off shore. We certainly need to be able to implement some form of protection against criminal attacks on the net.  I would be interested to hear if you have some ideas on how this might be achieved. — Ken Russell Sydney Australia

Now that ILoveYOu is over with, and my computer is still working, I been researching how to prevent the next one. Here is a deja news search with the latest/greatest technical discussion

+2000&todate=Dec+31+2000&LNG=ALL&format=threaded&DBS=1&showsort=score&maxhi t – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – s=100&defaultOp=AND The root of the problem seems to be Windows Scripting Host.  As long as you have that on your computer, it’s only a matter of time until more viruses come along to use it.  Granted, there are plenty of other executables an intruder can use to hurt you, but WSH appears to be a bigger risk than others. There are scripts you can run in linux that increase the security of the computer by going around tightening up fifty things… I wonder if there are any scripts like that for WinNT4? That would be the only good use of WSH or vbscript I can think of <G Another problem is the lack of regulation of the internet.  The security of the internet could be greatly improved by expenditures by ISPs and infrastructure providers on better security. Many good and worthy things would result from a more secure internet. Since self regulation has not emerged, the security situation on internet today is a "tragedy of the commons".  The industry’s savings of $1 on security is costing the rest of society $5. Federal regulation of internet services is overdue.  Cost of bandwidth would increase modestly, for all carriers, equally, and the benefits to the economy will exceed the costs. Federal regulation of the internet should include the following: 1. ISPs prohibited from routing packets from their zone or subnets containing source address not in their subnet. This would have prevented the DDoS attack that took place against Yahoo in February. 2. Know your Customer regulations, making ISPs and carriers liable for damages for acts by their subscribers if they do not document minimal compliance to know their customer and control their nets. 3. Some minimal logging of IP traffic. 4. Some minimal monitoring for obvious hacker activity like repeated port scanning of multiple remote addresses. 5. Mandatory adoption dates for IPv6 soon, like within 24 months, and sunset date for IPV4 for large carriers first, followed in stages by smaller carriers. Telcos have no incentive to improve security of the free internet. Their incentive is to drive businesses to secure private links. Likewise they have no interest in a well-performing internet, that would provide clear IP telephony. At this late date it is crystal clear that large telecomms companies, mass media content providers actively want to screw the small business sector from participating in e-commerce.  The software companies who are beholden to enterprise clients also have little interest in a secure internet. If the internet were secure we could all have a static IP address and run our entire home or business marvelously, with it.  You could run a webserver, FTP server or online commerce from your home.  You could run an open telephone or videoconference connection, which anybody could call, anytime just as they can now connect with a telephone.  These things are impractical today because the firewall is 100 times more expensive and complex than the application itself. When big business is bitten by hackers, Pres. Clinton and all his cronies in the telecoms and banking biz. pretend concern.  Meanwhile, nothing is being done to fundamentally fix the internet. Let’s talk about why the government sector wants the internet to be insecure: to maintain their absolute grip on the banking system and commerce in this country, which is the key to easy collection of taxes.   If citizens could conduct business over the internet, we might stop driving to the bank and exchanging pretty pieces of paper.  That might result in the government sector shrinking below the present 35% of the GNP.  So, they need hordes of thieves and vandals, keeping the internet insecure. Read about digital cash http://www.philodox.com * Todd F. Boyle CPA    http://www.GLDialtone.com/ * 9745-128th Av NE, Kirkland WA 98033      (425) 827-3107

Response:

Now that ILoveYOu is over with, and my computer is still working, I been researching how to prevent the next one. Here is a deja news search with the latest/greatest technical discussion +2000&todate=Dec+31+2000&LNG=ALL&format=threaded&DBS=1&showsort=score&maxhi t s=100&defaultOp=AND The root of the problem seems to be Windows Scripting Host.  As long as you have that on your computer, it’s only a matter of time until more viruses come along to use it.  Granted, there are plenty of other executables an intruder can use to hurt you, but WSH appears to be a bigger risk than others. There are scripts you can run in linux that increase the security of the computer by going around tightening up fifty things… I wonder if there are any scripts like that for WinNT4? That would be the only good use of WSH or vbscript I can think of <G Another problem is the lack of regulation of the internet.  The security of the internet could be greatly improved by expenditures by ISPs and infrastructure providers on better security. Many good and worthy things would result from a more secure internet. Since self regulation has not emerged, the security situation on internet today is a "tragedy of the commons".  The industry’s savings of $1 on security is costing the rest of society $5. Federal regulation of internet services is overdue.  Cost of bandwidth would increase modestly, for all carriers, equally, and the benefits to the economy will exceed the costs. Federal regulation of the internet should include the following: 1. ISPs prohibited from routing packets from their zone or subnets containing source address not in their subnet. This would have prevented the DDoS attack that took place against Yahoo in February. 2. Know your Customer regulations, making ISPs and carriers liable for damages for acts by their subscribers if they do not document minimal compliance to know their customer and control their nets. 3. Some minimal logging of IP traffic. 4. Some minimal monitoring for obvious hacker activity like repeated port scanning of multiple remote addresses. 5. Mandatory adoption dates for IPv6 soon, like within 24 months, and sunset date for IPV4 for large carriers first, followed in stages by smaller carriers. Telcos have no incentive to improve security of the free internet. Their incentive is to drive businesses to secure private links. Likewise they have no interest in a well-performing internet, that would provide clear IP telephony. At this late date it is crystal clear that large telecomms companies, mass media content providers actively want to screw the small business sector from participating in e-commerce.  The software companies who are beholden to enterprise clients also have little interest in a secure internet. If the internet were secure we could all have a static IP address and run our entire home or business marvelously, with it.  You could run a webserver, FTP server or online commerce from your home.  You could run an open telephone or videoconference connection, which anybody could call, anytime just as they can now connect with a telephone.  These things are impractical today because the firewall is 100 times more expensive and complex than the application itself. When big business is bitten by hackers, Pres. Clinton and all his cronies in the telecoms and banking biz. pretend concern.  Meanwhile, nothing is being done to fundamentally fix the internet. Let’s talk about why the government sector wants the internet to be insecure: to maintain their absolute grip on the banking system and commerce in this country, which is the key to easy collection of taxes.   If citizens could conduct business over the internet, we might stop driving to the bank and exchanging pretty pieces of paper.  That might result in the government sector shrinking below the present 35% of the GNP.  So, they need hordes of thieves and vandals, keeping the internet insecure. Read about digital cash http://www.philodox.com * Todd F. Boyle CPA    http://www.GLDialtone.com/ * 9745-128th Av NE, Kirkland WA 98033      (425) 827-3107

Response:

Question:

I still haven’t gotten a good answer, but I’m thinking that they mean specifically for scheduled or unscheduled transfers that are initiated at the bank, not from the outside.  That would explain my lack of having ever seen such a charge – the only things I initiate at sfnb are considered by them to be "electronic payments".  Now what the difference between an electronic payment and an ACH transfer is, I’m still not certain either.  I’ve asked for further clarification but haven’t yet heard anything.

So the epays are done with CheckFree, which sets itself up as a creditor to various billing people around the country.  They generally send a paper check with a list of account numbers attached to each vendor.  Pay yourself a dollar someday and you’ll see. ACH transfers are done over the national check clearing network (or some close sibling), between banks.  SFNB probably handles these directly. Oh: FWIW, the SFNB credit card is not of any great worth.  I got one last year because I was pleased with SFNB service in general, I never had any interest in it.  The "secure miles" looked no better than any of the other non-airline-afiliated miles programs (ie. clickmiles, etc).  If I want miles, I’ll get them through Amex and Delta, or as I’ve been, through Chase and Continental.  There are some excellent no-annual-fee rebate programs, too, such as the REI card.

We travel so infrequently that we don’t want to be stuck with a particular airline, blackout periods, etc.  I was mainly interested in getting a deal more or less equivalent to the old sunoco mastercard I’d had, which was fine until they stopped just not charging you for Sunoco purchases but instead halved the rebate and started sending you paper cupons to redeem at gas stations.  That made it into an ongoing hassle, so I just looked for something that would theoretically have the same rebate value.  The SFNB card has the exact same user interface as our other accounts, so I broke my rule of one account per company and went with it… I actually just got a call from the woman at SFNB I asked to fix my account.  As always, once you get an actual human (as opposed to a front-line "trained" monkey) involved, they fix the problem quickly and properly. I’d also be perfectly happy, in fact I’d prefer it, if I’d gotten a standard ATM card from SFNB instead of a dang debit card.  There’s just no reason in my universe for debit cards.

Just ask for one.  That’s what I have; every time they send a debit card, I call and bitch, and they send me a proper ATM card. —  Linux Printing HOWTO:  http://www.picante.com/~gtaylor/pht/

Response:

I wonder what their plans are for better notifying customers of such changes. Well, traditionally they’ve put up a banner in the corner of the login page.  Perhaps they just forgot.

Still no notice from them.  I suspect I’ll get a note in the mail from them, as I did with the promo-interest extension. I’m guessing that the reimbursement will take place at about the same time as they credit me with my lovely interest. Mine appear in the register shortly after the transaction – it looks like that they run the numbers and do the credits every week.  It’s

They’ve not creditted me for any of the ATM fees yet.  I’m guessing now that so long as I’m getting the promo-interest, they won’t give me the atm fee credits.  If that’s the case, I need to figure out if the 3-6 bucks a month credits are worth more to me than the 2% annual interest.  Probably are – if I keep, say, an average of $3k there, the monthly interest difference is five bucks.  Ok, it’s close and depends on how much my balance tends to be. I read the fine print for that back when it started, and it turned out that they only paid the fun interest on the first $10,000 in the account.  Since they kept explaining it as a short-term promotion, I never saw a need to actually keep any money with them, since there are any number of perfectly liquid places to stow money in the 5% ballpark.

I keep a couple of thousand more there than I would without the 6% interest.  My plan has always been to move the excess to an MMF as soon as the promo ran out.  So far it hasn’t, and my MMFs are still not paying more than 6%.  - Cirrus/NYCE/etc bills SFNB 60 cents or so, and pays the ATM owner    something like 35 cents (which, incidentally, covers all the costs    and then some, unless you’re a laughably inefficient ATM operator    like, say, Fleet/BankBoston or Citizens).  The Cirrus-SFNB billing    is the first.

And as far as I know, SFNB has _never_ charged for that.  - The ATM owner often bills you a fee from 75 cents to $2.  This is    the second billing.

This is the one I am looking forward to reimbursements on. If, on top of all that, your bank charged you $1 or whatever, then they have some nerve; the whole point of banking is for the bank to

Far as I know, the places which have charged that $1 or so was to cover them for the cirrus/nyce/whatever.  Again, none of the net banks has charged for that, and neither do most regular banks either. Yes, that would be interesting to understand.  I had assumed that it was the one-off setup with SFNB that would cost, but those set up elsewhere would be free.  If they charge for random Vanguard ACH transfers, then I’ll be annoyed.

I still haven’t gotten a good answer, but I’m thinking that they mean specifically for scheduled or unscheduled transfers that are initiated at the bank, not from the outside. That would explain my lack of having ever seen such a charge – the only things I initiate at sfnb are considered by them to be "electronic payments".  Now what the difference between an electronic payment and an ACH transfer is, I’m still not certain either.  I’ve asked for further clarification but haven’t yet heard anything. Oh: FWIW, the SFNB credit card is not of any great worth.  I got one last year because I was pleased with SFNB service in general, but it’s

I never had any interest in it.  The "secure miles" looked no better than any of the other non-airline-afiliated miles programs (ie. clickmiles, etc).  If I want miles, I’ll get them through Amex and Delta, or as I’ve been, through Chase and Continental. There are some excellent no-annual-fee rebate programs, too, such as the REI card. I’d also be perfectly happy, in fact I’d prefer it, if I’d gotten a standard ATM card from SFNB instead of a dang debit card.  There’s just no reason in my universe for debit cards. –d

Response:

I wonder what their plans are for better notifying customers of such changes.

Well, traditionally they’ve put up a banner in the corner of the login page.  Perhaps they just forgot. I’m guessing that the reimbursement will take place at about the same time as they credit me with my lovely interest.

Mine appear in the register shortly after the transaction – it looks like that they run the numbers and do the credits every week.  It’s possible, though, that they put them all in at the end of the month; I haven’t payed enough attention to say.  In fact I’d bet they go to some trouble to do that for interest accounts; this way they can avoid interest on thousands of dollars. Which, by the way, reminds me of a similar policy issue — they’d been extending the promotional 6% interest.  

I read the fine print for that back when it started, and it turned out that they only paid the fun interest on the first $10,000 in the account.  Since they kept explaining it as a short-term promotion, I never saw a need to actually keep any money with them, since there are any number of perfectly liquid places to stow money in the 5% ballpark. I, for one, refuse to go to double-billing ATMs on principle Double-billing?  The ATM may charge something but SFNB, at least, never charged again.  Some other banks do charge foreign-atm fees, in addition to whatever surcharges the atm assessed.  It’s getting much harder these days to find atms with no surcharges and that’s what I’m expecting those new credits to help with.

This is not what I mean by double-billing.  The two bills are:  - Cirrus/NYCE/etc bills SFNB 60 cents or so, and pays the ATM owner    something like 35 cents (which, incidentally, covers all the costs    and then some, unless you’re a laughably inefficient ATM operator    like, say, Fleet/BankBoston or Citizens).  The Cirrus-SFNB billing    is the first.  - The ATM owner often bills you a fee from 75 cents to $2.  This is    the second billing. If, on top of all that, your bank charged you $1 or whatever, then they have some nerve; the whole point of banking is for the bank to invest wisely and offer you services from a portion of the investment profits.  It’s a bit silly for them to both invest and nickle and dime you for services—just keeping track of whom to charge the 75 cents probably eats up half the fees. SFNB does charge for one-off SFNB-initiated ACH debits.  AFAIK, they do not charge for SFNB-initiated regularly schedule debits or for externally-initiated ACH transactions. I’ve sent SFNB a note asking for some clarification of the "scheduled" vs. "on-demand" ACH thing.  If you folks like, I’ll forward to the newsgroup anything useful that they tell me.

Yes, that would be interesting to understand.  I had assumed that it was the one-off setup with SFNB that would cost, but those set up elsewhere would be free.  If they charge for random Vanguard ACH transfers, then I’ll be annoyed. Oh: FWIW, the SFNB credit card is not of any great worth.  I got one last year because I was pleased with SFNB service in general, but it’s been nothing but trouble ever since: it took them forever (and three tries) to just issue a card for my wife, and the limit is unusably low.  I just wrote them a nasty letter; hopefully some progress will be made.  SFNB appears to outsorce most of the VISA operations… —  Linux Printing HOWTO:  http://www.picante.com/~gtaylor/pht/

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Hmmm… I just checked sfnb.com, they do offer $6 in refunds if the balance is kept above $1000 each month. If that’s so, it’s a new policy and I’ll be looking forward to said reimbursements on my next statement.  However, I believe you are mistaken.  Or, perhaps, those remibursements are only available for something other than the interest bearing checking account.

No, it is a new policy; go look at SFNB’s "What’s New".  The policy reads that they only reimburse interest checking customers, but I’m a non-interest customer and have been reimbursed as of last month, so it looks like they’re doing all accounts. Note that you do have to maintain a minimum balance of $1000 to get the credit; perhaps this is why you haven’t noticed? I, for one, refuse to go to double-billing ATMs on principle, but my wife doesn’t pass by many of these in her routine, so the evaporation of her usual $3 of fees is a good thing.  It will also be useful when I travel to lands of consumer-hostile banking like New Jersey and Florida. Still, though both sfnb.com and firstib.com looked the best of all the banks I looked at [...] both these banks charge $5 for every ACH Transaction Debit – so much for free electronic banking! I make those transactions regularly and without any such $5 charge. I can’t imagine what details you saw.

SFNB does charge for one-off SFNB-initiated ACH debits.  AFAIK, they do not charge for SFNB-initiated regularly schedule debits or for externally-initiated ACH transactions. —  Linux Printing HOWTO:  http://www.picante.com/~gtaylor/pht/

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[re: reimbursements for foreign atm charges] If that’s so, it’s a new policy and I’ll be looking forward to said No, it is a new policy; go look at SFNB’s "What’s New".  The policy reads that they only reimburse interest checking customers, but I’m a non-interest customer and have been reimbursed as of last month, so it looks like they’re doing all accounts.

So I see.  I hadn’t looked at the what’s new page in quite a while and I’m surprised I’d not seen any other notice of this change in policy.  I wonder what their plans are for better notifying customers of such changes.  However, I note that the new policy is as of 4/15, and I’ve made a couple of withdrawals and I’ll look closely at my upcoming statement.  I’m guessing that the reimbursement will take place at about the same time as they credit me with my lovely interest. Which, by the way, reminds me of a similar policy issue — they’d been extending the promotional 6% interest.  When I first got the account the promo was supposed to end, iirc, last october.  Then they extended it to 4/15 (and sent a snail-mail letter to that effect).  Then, again, the extended it to, iirc, sept or oct 2000, same thing – another letter.  That’s why I was surprised about this other change in policy with no such letter.  Could just be that it’s very new and I’ve simply not received such a letter yet. Note that you do have to maintain a minimum balance of $1000 to get the credit; perhaps this is why you haven’t noticed?

Oh, no.  Long as they are paying me 6%, I don’t have a problem keeping more than that there.  Soon as it goes down to non-promo levels, though, I’ll still keep a bit over $1k there, but not much, I figure. I, for one, refuse to go to double-billing ATMs on principle, but my wife doesn’t pass by many of these in her routine, so the evaporation of her usual $3 of fees is a good thing.  It will also be useful when I travel to lands of consumer-hostile banking like New Jersey and Florida.

Double-billing?  The ATM may charge something but SFNB, at least, never charged again.  Some other banks do charge foreign-atm fees, in addition to whatever surcharges the atm assessed.  It’s getting much harder these days to find atms with no surcharges and that’s what I’m expecting those new credits to help with. SFNB does charge for one-off SFNB-initiated ACH debits.  AFAIK, they do not charge for SFNB-initiated regularly schedule debits or for externally-initiated ACH transactions.

I’ve sent SFNB a note asking for some clarification of the "scheduled" vs. "on-demand" ACH thing.  If you folks like, I’ll forward to the newsgroup anything useful that they tell me. –d

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Hmmm… I just checked sfnb.com, they do offer $6 in refunds if the balance is kept above $1000 each month. However, I believe you are mistaken.

Nope, it is right in front at this page, for interest-checking: http://www.sfnb.com/infodesk/interest_checking_info.html http://www.bankrate.com/ust/news/rev/rev1.asp ) – but – deep down in the details – both these banks charge $5 for every ACH Transaction Debit – so much for free electronic banking! I make those transactions regularly and without any such $5 charge.  I can’t imagine what details you saw.

Here’s that info for SFNB (scroll down the page a lot for fees): http://www.sfnb.com/infodesk/ratepage.html But even though it states $5 for on-demand ACH transactions, I sent off an email to customer support, and they said that applies only to debits from non-SFNB accounts (??) – the case of having a utility company debit a SFNB account directly will incur no charges… So, am still confused what a "on-demand ACH transaction" (SFNB) or what a Outgoing (Debit) Transaction (FirstIB) is exactly … — Avinash Chopde   home page: http://www.aczone.com/

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Hmmm… I just checked sfnb.com, they do offer $6 in refunds if the balance is kept above $1000 each month. However, I believe you are mistaken. Nope, it is right in front at this page, for interest-checking: http://www.sfnb.com/infodesk/interest_checking_info.html

Thanks.  Looks like a change in policy and I’ll be contacting them about getting a few reimbursements. They have been extending a promotional 6% interest on the checking, and had, until I saw the page you posted, a much lower non-promotional rate (on the order of 3%). Apparently, they’ve raised their non-promo rate to 4% on balances over $1000. http://www.bankrate.com/ust/news/rev/rev1.asp ) – but – deep down in the details – both these banks charge $5 for every ACH Transaction Debit – so much for free electronic banking! I make those transactions regularly and without any such $5 charge.  I can’t imagine what details you saw. Here’s that info for SFNB (scroll down the page a lot for fees): http://www.sfnb.com/infodesk/ratepage.html But even though it states $5 for on-demand ACH transactions, I sent off an email to customer support, and they said that applies only to debits from non-SFNB accounts (??) – the case of having a utility company debit a SFNB account directly will incur no charges…

I don’t think I understand this.  Apparently, there are multiple variations of the electronic transactions.  First, of course, the "electronic bill payment" – 20 free per statement.  I never make anywhere near that many.  Second and third, though, are "scheduled" and "on-demand" ACH transactions.  I don’t know what they mean by the distinction.  I make one every month (scheduled? It goes when I tell it to, not automatically), and have never been charged extra for it.  Periodically, I also do more than one a month.  Still, never a charge. Anyway, this all seems to be news to me.  The day I see a charge to my account for one of these transactions I’ve been engaging in for free is the day the account is closed. I’m going to drop them a note and ask for a more detailed explanation of what that "scheduled" vs. "on-demand" means. If the transaction is initiated by the other party, how can sfnb have any idea whether it’s automated or not? –d

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Hmmm… I just checked sfnb.com, they do offer $6 in refunds if the balance is kept above $1000 each month.

If that’s so, it’s a new policy and I’ll be looking forward to said reimbursements on my next statement.  However, I believe you are mistaken.  Or, perhaps, those remibursements are only available for something other than the interest bearing checking account. Still, though both sfnb.com and firstib.com looked the best of all the banks I looked at (list from http://www.bankrate.com/ust/news/rev/rev1.asp ) – but – deep down in the details – both these banks charge $5 for every ACH Transaction Debit – so much for free electronic banking!

I make those transactions regularly and without any such $5 charge.  I can’t imagine what details you saw. So, my search still goes on… still haven’t found a bank with no fees, interest above 1%, no surcharges for using the ATM card in other countries, truly free electronic banking –  free online payment and no charges for all ACH transcation, for atleast 20 transactions per month.

I couldn’t say anything with respect to activities in other countries, but for all the rest, almost all of the internet-only banks meet all your requirements. –d

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For what it’s worth, I’ve been consistently pleased with SFNB..but unlike some of the other online banks, don’t reimburse you for ATM surcharges. Hmmm… I just checked sfnb.com, they do offer $6 in refunds if the balance is kept above $1000 each month.– but – deep down in the details – both these banks charge $5 for every ACH Transaction Debit – so much for free electronic banking!

After spending about half a day researching I tried to sign up for an X.COM bank account.  They rejected my application, and said the reason was something from their credit agencies, Experian, or ChexSystems.   I went on a whole goosechase with those companies and found out they don’t have any negative report on me, in fact, they are so lame they don’t have any positive information either.  They just know my name, address, and a smattering of perfectly irrelevant data such as a motel I slept at 3 years ago, being listed as one of my "residences".  Sheesh. Neither of those lousy credit companies knew my present bank, or anything about my corporation or personal accounts, or the fact that I own my home free and clear, etc.  I have no overdue bills or liabilities, and have never gone bankrupt or welched on any account payable in my life. Basically, ChexSystems and Experian are a bunch of losers, with big computers, and too much power.  I wrote to them and to X.COM but of course haven’t received any reply. So, I am still looking for an internet bank and my esteem for X.COM has diminished somewhat. * Todd F. Boyle CPA    http://www.GLDialtone.com/ * XML accounting, WebLedgers, ASPs, GL dialtone, whatever it takes

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… For what it’s worth, I’ve been consistently pleased with SFNB. … Hard to beat, except for the one single complaint I have — that they, unlike some of the other online banks, don’t reimburse you for ATM surcharges.

Hmmm… I just checked sfnb.com, they do offer $6 in refunds if the balance is kept above $1000 each month. Still, though both sfnb.com and firstib.com looked the best of all the banks I looked at (list from http://www.bankrate.com/ust/news/rev/rev1.asp ) – but – deep down in the details – both these banks charge $5 for every ACH Transaction Debit – so much for free electronic banking! Even Fleet is better in this regard, they do not charge anything for automatic debit transactions – which can be used to have Mass Electric, Gas, Credit Cards, etc withdraw desginated amounts automatically. So, my search still goes on… still haven’t found a bank with no fees, interest above 1%, no surcharges for using the ATM card in other countries, truly free electronic banking –  free online payment and no charges for all ACH transcation, for atleast 20 transactions per month. — Avinash Chopde   home page: http://www.aczone.com/

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  imagine, you pull up accounts payable in the accounting system and instead of printing a check, the money just goes to the vendor.  Wow.  or when somebody pays you, it automatically gets credited to their account receivable and posted to your cash?  This I gotta see.   That’s what webledgers are theoretically supposed to do, and this will be the first one that ever did it…. afaics.

Todd, I’m not an accountant or bookeeper, so maybe I am naive on this subject, but I thought that it was critical (in America) for the person dispersing the funds and the person keeping the books to be two separate people, to prevent theft.  Do you know if a second approval (w/password) could be required if desireable for such a transaction?  Bigger businesses would probably require it. I understand that Japan has a different sort of ethic on this kind of issue and they are able to trust a single employee not to abuse full priviledges.  In Japan, an insider thief would be permanantly jobless as opposed to getting a slap on the hand and perhaps getting fired without fanfare. I guess I am also a little uncomfortable with another company making accounting decisions as to which of my accounts would participate in a transaction.  Doesn’t such a decision require some internal discretion and approval? I am all for this technology, but it must be safe and foolproof before I sign my company up. knid Before you buy.

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- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text –  imagine, you pull up accounts payable in the accounting system and instead of printing a check, the money just goes to the vendor…That’s what webledgers are theoretically supposed to do, and this will be the first one that ever did it…. afaics. Todd, I’m not an accountant or bookeeper, so maybe I am naive on this subject, but I thought that it was critical (in America) for the person dispersing the funds and the person keeping the books to be two separate people, to prevent theft.  Do you know if a second approval (w/password) could be required if desireable for such a transaction?  Bigger businesses would probably require it.

I see two major points of risk. One, is that your own employee would get ahold of the accounting system and start buying stuff for him/herself.   Well, any webledger that doesn’t have separate permissions for the payments approvals needs to go back and work on their system a little.  <grin   I completely agree with you on that point.  Every webledger I have reviewed has separate user logins.  (NetLedger is particularly strong, they keep a permanent audit log of every entry made to the data, and this audit log is on the server where it cannot be forged.) The harder issue is trusting the online bank or webledger company themselves. Even if they really have good controls within their own shop, the risks multiply when they integrate with other Business SErvice Providers. One of the economic engines powering BSPs’ growth into SME markets is cost savings. Printing, postage, trips to the bank, and most of all, bookkeeping and accounting busywork is being automated out of the system. It is becoming clear that ASPs and BSPs are developing XML interfaces among and between themselves (A2A Application to Application integration) as well as B2B interfaces which exchange purchase and sales with third parties. These interfaces are designed to execute every type of transaction as expeditiously as possible. Each step in these business processes is coming under widespread scrutiny by web developers in each of the respective horizontal platforms. The BSPs are exerting considerable will and resources to systematically mine and extract the labor and financial savings by efficient, tight integrations. However, most BSPs do not realize the gravity or scope of the internal control risks that will emerge from this whole transaction fabric. For example, consider the case of three BSPs: — a purchasing website where subscribers incur Accounts Payable, for example, within some type of supply chain or vertical portal, — a general ledger (webledger) provider who maintains accounts payable and other basic infrastructure for subscribers, and — a financial institution who provides payment execution among other things. You can see that *any* support tech. at *any* of the providers could potentially get ahold of a password and have more power than a bank clerk would have, knowing your ATM PIN. Obviously, it is a big objective of everybody in the BSP marketplace to somehow create solutions that empower the subscriber to conduct business efficiently among scenarios like the above. Bear in mind that the subscriber will have several other BSPs such as payroll on the liability side, and others on the revenue side. Any auditor can, within an afternoons’ work, identify dozens and perhaps hundreds, of separate points in this architecture, where a bewildering variety of players could potentially steal money. Each of those points will require a systematic evaluation of existing internal controls. The controls will include numerous security and technology reviews, including many which extend outside the website to encryption keys and providers, network providers etc. The controls will include careful consideration of the actual permissions and powers of every employee in each of the BSPs. The controls would be further complicated by privacy requirements. When a webledger provider provides banking services, in effect there will not be any difference between books and bank. When a webledger provider provides integration between subscribers’ Accounts Payable and their trading partners’ Accounts Receivable, there will never be any differnces between those systems. Do you see why this is categorically different from the internal control systems of the past? Accountants have no experience other than segregation of duties within the company. Even the decades of system experience by banking regulators leaves them unprepared for a situation where customers would be literally helpless to *detect* balance fraud because the subscribers’ general ledger is automatically kept equal to the bank. There is no businessman in the world who runs a calculator over their bank statement nor should they: their general ledger will reveal differences. sheesh. there are too many scenarios to list. There is an intrinsic, inverse relationship between greater integration, and internal control. Every point of excess labor, duplication or separation that is removed from a business process, usually removes certain components of internal control. (It also might remove certain risks.) Any webledger that doesn’t have payments-grade security should not be in business. Full, payments-grade security is a baseline requirement for a general ledger, because any thief who can get into your general ledger, AR, AP or inventory accounts, can convert some of it to cash. There is far too little discussion and academic consideration of this problem between BSPs. You want efficiency, and you can save 10 million man-years every year by eliminating redudancy and duplication. To reach these savings, however, you need to develop a whole new set of internal control practices and methods. Those internal controls can be very largely automated and in any case will cost no more than 10 cents on the dollar, compared with the present brute force, manual reconciliation and standalone ledgers. But these new controls will definitely cost money. The internet is so different that it requires a whole new intellectual effort. These internal control mechanisms will probably have to be achieved by yet another set of BSPs on the internet because they span enterprises. There are a number of ways the BSPs themselves could contract for internal control services thus segregating them completely out of their organizations. Remember this is not just a matter of TCP/IP and routers. Telcos and software companies are not going to be able to go into the XML traffic itself and apply a professional level of internal control logic. What’s required is an intricate system for modelling the permissions of various parties, the presentments that have been verified via the subscribers’ and reviewers’ interface, etc. You need continual reviews, both detailed and aggregate totals. Establishing a comprehensive conceptual framework for this security challenge will apparently take many years, if the present behavior of ASPs, BSPs and DotComs are any indication. The employees in the DotComs who understand this problem cannot speak. They are all locked up by nondisclosures and forced by their CEOs to work on their own, or in tight partnerships. That’s why the ASP consortium and the IBSI have been silent, since birth. Most e-commerce sites won’t contribute to a conceptual framework much less populate it with solutions because A) cost of articulating the framework, B) once built the framework would be a roadmap for newcomers into the market, C) CEOs know their security isn’t ideal and don’t want to provide a roadmap for crackers, D) developers know their security skills are not up to par, and don’t want to discuss it at least until their options vest, and E) the large established providers have economic incentives not to assist internal control initiatives which empower the smaller BSP and DotCom providers. Security failures at the DotComs drive consumers back to closed, turnkey systems on private networks, systems which simply ignore open commerce or are locked into verticals, or back to standalone Midrange software maintained by VARs. The intellectual and legal challenge of inter-ASP internal control will probably have to be addressed by the academic community or perhaps, government regulation. What follows, is just some of my own ideas. If they’re wrong nobody has ever bothered to respond and correct them (you can be the first). The CPA industry has completely failed to address the need, within an acceptable value proposition. I point to the near zero market acceptance of the WebTrust services, for example. The cause of this failure is that AICPA is the only body that blesses CPAs and grants credibility, and it is run by the Big 5 firms. The Big 5 have the primary purpose of maximizing revenue within a constraint of small headcount. Since they cannot possibly deploy or manage large scale services to small business, their challenge is how to skim the top 5% of lucrative business that can be done by their few thousand professionals. Accordingly, all the rules in AICPA are tailored to that constraint. Thus, there will never be any common-sense web security certification from the CPA profession. The CPA industry is anyways, lacking in systems or security skills, or the personnel management skills to build up these resources. I still hope the ASP Consortium or IBSI will rise to the challenge, at least with some white papers and some basic tests and certifications. Perhaps IBSI could provide a meta-framework declaring the criteria for separate certifications, i.e. the IBSI Certificate will be issued if the BSP has 3 certifications: – system security certifications, from Sun, HP, Cisco, or … read more »

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http://www.onecore.com seems like the one to beat. They are competitive with the other online banks fee-by-fee, task-by-task but the time you could save on bookkeeping would predominate. They’re serious about integrating with accounting systems.  They already integrate to a limited extent with Peachtree

Seems like it’s more geared towards business banking, which is fine.  I suspect that most of us are looking for consumer banking, though. http://www.X.com seems pretty good.  Free unlimited checking, deposits, etc. and no catches – except that you have to mail your deposits to

No electronic transactions.  Customer service was clueless, and they refuse to deal with PO Boxes.  I cancelled my account and had them send me a check for the $20 they’d credited me for opening the account. One interesting twist that they’ve got that I thought was pretty cool, though, was the integration of a couple of no-minimum mutual funds into the accounts, as well as a line of credit (at a not horrendous rate) as an automatic overdraft protection.  Their web pages are not great and perhaps if they ever figure out customer service, they might be viable, but in the meantime, I’d stay away.  OTOH, I’ve heard many positive things from folks who’ve used PayPal, which as you pointed out, is now merged with x.com. Oh, and lastly, x.com will probably never get over their horrible reputation for the spam they encouraged folks to send out.  To their credit, they apparently cancelled the accounts of the spammers-on-their-behalf, but it was a very ugly scene for a little while. Wingspan bank – lookin gooood But theres that danged fee again, $7.50 month

I’ve heard a couple of customer-service nightmares from folks with respect to them, too. NetBank seems real similar to Wingspan.

One friend is using them quite happily.  They’ve got among the better interest rates on their checking accounts. Hey – this is hard work!  Anybody else have online banking experiences out there? Let’s figure out which bank is the best for small businesses,

Thanks for your efforts! For what it’s worth, I’ve been consistently pleased with SFNB.  They keep extending their 6% checking deal – it was supposed to expire last year, they extended it to April of this year and again to, I think, sept or oct. Their web pages are very clean and fast, and I’ve had no problems with them whatsoever.  Entirely free account, plus substantial interest.  Hard to beat, except for the one single complaint I have — that they, unlike some of the other online banks, don’t reimburse you for ATM surcharges. One of the magazines recently published their reviews of some 15 online banks and they rated CompuBank the highest.  For whatever reason, I cannot reach compubank’s web site from my office at all. Oh, and almost all the online banks have some sort of referral program, even though it may not be heavily advertised.  If you plan on opening an account at one of them and know of someone who’s got an account there, contact the person you know – both you and your referrer may get a bonus. Next up — has anyone had any experiences with any of the online bill-payment systems?  (ie. paytrust, yahoo billpay, etc).  Apparently, you have your bills sent to them instead of your home and you can review and pay them directly online.  Should be interesting. –d

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What are the best online banks these days? http://www.onecore.com seems like the one to beat. They are competitive with the other online banks fee-by-fee, task-by-task but the time you could save on bookkeeping would predominate. They’re serious about integrating with accounting systems.  They already integrate to a limited extent with Peachtree andother desktop accounting packages.  Netledger says they will integrate transparently any day now <G    THAT is going to be a thing of beauty, when they ever get it working…  imagine, you pull up accounts payable in the accounting system and instead of printing a check, the money just goes to the vendor.  Wow.  or when somebody pays you, it automatically gets credited to their account receivable and posted to your cash?  This I gotta see.   That’s what webledgers are theoretically supposed to do, and this will be the first one that ever did it…. afaics. But Onecore costs $10/month   ohhh, it can be free, but only if you use some of the other services, loans, payroll, 401k etc etc.  Or you can leave $5000 minimum balance. If I had a lot of transactions I would do it, to get the accounting integration.  The costs are immaterial once you get beyond 20 or 30 items a month because you save a lot of time.. and the fee is cheap. (My local bank charges me $10 month for nothing, just out of meanness. They will waive the $10/month if I leave $3000 on deposit; hmm that’s $15/month in lost interest.  hmmm.   So OneCore is definitely cheaper than KeyBank.  And strangely enough you can make physical deposits into OneCore, at a large number of local banks,even if you don’t have an account there.  Weird!   http://www.X.com seems pretty good.  Free unlimited checking, deposits, etc. and no catches – except that you have to mail your deposits to Pittsburg and you don’t get credit in your account for 5 business days AFTER RECEIPT..  But no fee.  no minimum balance.  nothing. This is the holy grail, free checking account and even gives you a debit card. Nothing in life is free and if you can live without your deposit for nearly 2 weeks mail and clearing, well, for my particular needs (small consultant) it seems the best right now. Naturally one of the big attractions of X.com is PayPal payments.  You can pay anybody anytime by email alone.   This outfit is serious about sending and receiving payments.  X.COM went from zero to 1 million users in their first 4 months (including the PayPal merger) … There are of course some real reviews out there, you don’t have to read me, http://www.gomez.com/channels/index.cfm?topcat_id=1 http://www.smallbizmanager.com/page14.html http://www.bankrate.com/brm/archive_online_banking.asp http://www.investorguide.com/Banking.htm http://4netbanks.4anything.com/ etc Wingspan bank – lookin gooood But theres that danged fee again, $7.50 month if you dip below $1000.  And bill payment is freeeeeeeee…. hmmmm.  Maybe I should go with WingSpan, and plan on keeping $1000 in there.  That’s cheap. $60/year of lost interest?   ok.   Wingspan is like x.com, if your main income is checks from clients you have to mail them to… hmmm.  Delaware.  Ohhh jeeez.  They make you wait 5 business days to get your money, too, except for small local checks.  So, you have a "two weeks" penalty again.  Oh well. NetBank seems real similar to Wingspan. And if I read correctly there is no rebate on ATM fees so you’re lookin at $1.50 every time you pull down some cash.  whew.  That adds up.  And like WingSpan this is not too practical for companies that deposit cash… Hey – this is hard work!  Anybody else have online banking experiences out there? Let’s figure out which bank is the best for small businesses, * Todd F. Boyle CPA    http://www.GLDialtone.com/ * XML accounting, WebLedgers, ASPs, GL dialtone, whatever it takes – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – interest-bearing checking account (which had a $300 min and $8 maintenance if under min and earned about 1/2%), then the account we’ve been converted to claims no fees only until April of this year. Yech.  I can’t figure it being worth any kind of an effort to maintain a minimum balance and avoid fees to get 1/2% interest.  At that miserable level, you’re probably better off with a no-interest checking account and a money-market fund elsewhere to and from which you can do electronic fund transfers as necessary, and keeping as little as you can in the checking account. Even the online banks, which seem to have the best deals in checking (downside being no branches, and likely ATM charges, sometimes) only give on the order of 2.5 to 3% interest.  (SFNB is giving 6, but only until 4/15, then it goes down to their regular rate of 2.5 or so). Telebank is giving over 3%, but they have a $1k min. and $5 fee if you go below it. Netbank pays 3%.  They’ve got a 4% program, but that has a $4.50 monthly fee — unless you are keeping heaps of cash in your checking account, that 4.50 cancels out that 1%/year difference and then some. What I find amazing in all of this is how crappy the deals at the bricks and mortar banks really are and that they aren’t feeling enough pressure to improve. –d

Response:

Question:

…….is much easier than you think. Cayman is a tax free offshore jurisdiction committed to subjecting its financial services sector to stringent confidentiality laws.  It is the fifth largest financial center in the world. WE CAN OPEN AN OFFSHORE ACCOUNT FOR YOU WHILE MINIMIZING CORRESPONDENCE TO YOUR HOME. We can arrange for mail to be forwarded to our address in the Cayman Islands. We can correspond with you using PGP-encrypted Internet web postings or EMail. Our rates are competitive, and our turnaround times are excellent. http://www.aginternational.com (Visit our client correspondence Internet web post page by clicking on the "pi" symbol located at the very bottom of our page!)

Response:

…….is much easier than you think. Cayman is a tax free offshore jurisdiction committed to subjecting its financial services sector to stringent confidentiality laws.  It is the fifth largest financial center in the world. WE CAN OPEN AN OFFSHORE ACCOUNT FOR YOU WHILE MINIMIZING

** SCAM ALERT **** SCAM ALERT **** SCAM ALERT **** SCAM ALERT **

Response:

We are a legitimate business, incorporated in the Cayman Islands.  We consist of several Chartered Accountants who are quite adept at structuring complex tax vehicles for individuals and companies utilizing effective tax planning strategies.  Frankly, I’m a bit surprised by your comments. If you have any specific questions or concerns, rather than defaming my good name, please Email me. John DosSantos, on behalf of AG International Limited …….is much easier than you think. Cayman is a tax free offshore

jurisdiction committed to subjecting its financial services sector to stringent confidentiality laws.  It is the fifth largest financial center in the world. WE CAN OPEN AN OFFSHORE ACCOUNT FOR YOU WHILE MINIMIZING ** SCAM ALERT **** SCAM ALERT **** SCAM ALERT **** SCAM ALERT **

Response:

Notice that the posting domain of all the SCAM ALERT crap is none other than the armpit internet provider of the US named prime.net, and from bogus accounts there as well.   PRIME.NET is a censorious internet provider which tries to control content. Prime.net is run by asswipes Jim J. Lippard and Nathan Raciborski, of which see:         http://www.spambusters.dyn.ml.org/www.netscum.net/lipparj0.html Got to hell Lippard, RAciborski, and prime.net.   – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text –  We are a legitimate business, incorporated in the Cayman Islands.  We  consist of several Chartered Accountants who are quite adept at structuring  complex tax vehicles for individuals and companies utilizing effective tax  planning strategies.  Frankly, I’m a bit surprised by your comments.  If you have any specific questions or concerns, rather than defaming my good  name, please Email me.  John DosSantos, on behalf of  AG International Limited   …….is much easier than you think. Cayman is a tax free offshore  jurisdiction committed to subjecting its financial services sector to  stringent confidentiality laws.  It is the fifth largest financial center in  the world. WE CAN OPEN AN OFFSHORE ACCOUNT FOR YOU WHILE MINIMIZING  ** SCAM ALERT **** SCAM ALERT **** SCAM ALERT **** SCAM ALERT **

Notice that the posting domain of all the SCAM ALERT stuff is none other than the armpit internet provider of the US named prime.net, and from bogus account there as well.  PRIME.NET is a censorious internet provider which tries to control content.  Got to hell prime.net.  

Response:

Notice that the posting domain of all the SCAM ALERT crap is none other than the armpit internet provider of the US named prime.net, and from bogus accounts there as well.   PRIME.NET is a censorious internet provider which tries to control content. Prime.net [should be primenet.com] is run by asswipes Jim J. Lippard and Nathan Raciborski, of which see:         http://www.spambusters.dyn.ml.org/www.netscum.net/lipparj0.html Got to hell Lippard, RAciborski, and prime.net [should be primenet.com].   [added later]  The actual domain being used on closer reading is prime.net (not primenet.com described above). However, the same comments apply.  Prime.net is a primenet.com wannabe.  Nics listing for prime.net is: M. Stenzel PRIME7-DOM   9727 NE Sandy Blvd.   Portland, OR 97220   US    Domain Name: PRIME.NET   Administrative Contact:       (510) 724-4421 (FAX) (510) 724 4031   Technical Contact, Zone Contact: Fax- – - – - 707 256-1997   Billing Contact:       (510) 724-4421 (FAX) (510) 724 4031   Record last updated on 19-Jun-97.    Record created on 19-Jun-97.    Database last updated on 12-Dec-97 05:57:16 EDT.    Domain servers in listed order:   NSB.NTX.NET                        209.24.1.216    NSX.NTX.NET                  206.79.254.150 – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text –  We are a legitimate business, incorporated in the Cayman Islands.  We  consist of several Chartered Accountants who are quite adept at structuring  complex tax vehicles for individuals and companies utilizing effective tax  planning strategies.  Frankly, I’m a bit surprised by your comments.  If you have any specific questions or concerns, rather than defaming my good  name, please Email me.  John DosSantos, on behalf of  AG International Limited   …….is much easier than you think. Cayman is a tax free offshore  jurisdiction committed to subjecting its financial services sector to  stringent confidentiality laws.  It is the fifth largest financial center in  the world. WE CAN OPEN AN OFFSHORE ACCOUNT FOR YOU WHILE MINIMIZING  ** SCAM ALERT **** SCAM ALERT **** SCAM ALERT **** SCAM ALERT **

Notice that the posting domain of all the SCAM ALERT stuff is none other than the armpit internet provider of the US named prime.net, and from bogus accounts there as well.  PRIME.NET is a censorious internet provider which tries to control content.  Got to hell prime.net.   [added later]  Copycat SCAM alert stuff is coming from bogus accounts at erols.com and posting host cyberstar-141.vabch.com. Here are the internic’s listings for those two shops: Erol’s Internet Service EROLS-DOM    7921 Woodruff Court    Springfield, VA 22151    US    Domain Name: EROLS.COM    Administrative Contact:       tel.: 703-321-8000  fax.: 703-321-8316  http://www.erols.com    Technical Contact, Zone Contact:       tel.: 703-321-8000  fax.: 703-321-8316  http://www.erols.com    Record last updated on 01-Aug-97.    Record created on 30-Apr-95.    Database last updated on 12-Dec-97 05:57:16 EDT.    Domain servers in listed order:    DOMAIN01.DNS.EROLS.NET       207.172.3.20    DOMAIN02.DNS.EROLS.NET       207.172.3.21    OFFSITE01.DNS.EROLS.NET      206.138.112.20 and Cyberstar Technologies VABCH-DOM    P.O. Box 64141    Virginia Beach, VA 23467    US    Domain Name: VABCH.COM    Administrative Contact, Technical Contact, Zone Contact:       757-420-2356    Billing Contact:       757-420-2356    Record last updated on 16-Jul-97.    Record created on 27-Oct-95.    Database last updated on 12-Dec-97 05:57:16 EDT.    Domain servers in listed order:    NS1.VABCH.COM                209.96.152.11    NS1.VISI.NET                 206.246.194.7    NS1.EXIS.NET                 205.252.72.102

Response:

Question:

The truth is YOU CAN make fantastic money in 900…

… make fantastic money FOR US, that is!  You’ll go broke for sure! This is the usual 900-number scam, folks.  Read on. Years ago there was money to be made in the 900 business.  But today there is no market except that of selling, "renting" or "giving away" 900 numbers.  This is why you see infomercials and other advertisements touting how to "get rich quick" using them.  Whenever any product is promoted in this way, you know all of the possible money-making potential has long since gone. Why would anyone advertise for competition?  The FTC is now beginning to crack down on these frauds, freezing assets of companies in California and elsewhere who have used the likes of Bob Eubanks and Latoya Jackson to promote the schemes. This is why the 900 business is a money loser today: Advertising is about the only expense associated with operating a 900 line. Most media refuse any advertisement associated with calling a 900 number.  The few that do are aware of this and charge 900-number advertisers exhorbitant rates, frequently several times the open rate even on a contract. In addition, the payment people make for calling 900 numbers is virtually entirely voluntary.  Federal and state tarrifs say that any telephone subscriber may "contest" any 900 call charges on their bill without fear of losing their phone service.  This is so widely known that today, people routinely call 900 numbers at will despite their cost and then, when the bill comes, they say "my son did it" and the calls are removed from their bill. The operator of the 900 number is required to pay for all of these calls. This chargeback factor is well over 50%, meaning that far fewer than half the calls are ever paid for by the caller.   The combined effect of this is that it is impossible to make enough profit from the few people who do pay for their calls to even pay for the exorbitant advertising expense.  So, enter the final phase of the business: The Scam. Here’s how the scam works:  Set up a "service bureau" which has operating programs and 900 numbers connected to them.  Approach starry-eyed would- be millionaires and tell them that you will sell them a 900 number (or even give it to them "free") and "all you have to do is advertise and buy more deposit slips!"  The poor sucker takes the bait and depletes his savings account buying advertising.  As the money comes dribbling in, the service bureau takes its cut right off the top.  Their profit is guaranteed since they have no overhead (you are paying for the advertising).  What is left, if anything, is given to you. Unfortunately, it amounts to about 10% of what you pay for advertising. You go broke, give up the 900 number, and the service bureau sells it to the next mark. No, the only way to make any money from the 900 business today is if you don’t have to pay to advertise for calls.  There are only two ways to accomplish this.  One is to operate a scam like I’ve described above. The second is if you own a newspaper, magazine, television or radio station where you can run ads for free.

Response:

DO NOT be fooled by companies offering "Free" 900 numbers or "Leased turn-key extension" programs that promise $10,000 a week or more. It’s a scam, plain and simple. They make the money, you don’t! Why?, Because 1000,s of other people will get the very same number as you do! With a 900 extension the bottom line is YOU HAVE NO CONTROL.

Whether or not a number uses extention numbers has no effect whatsoever on on the profitability of a 900 number.  The fact is that all of them are money losers, including your scam offering!  Read on. Years ago there was money to be made in the 900 business.  But today there is no market except that of selling, "renting" or "giving away" 900 numbers.  This is why you see infomercials and other advertisements touting how to "get rich quick" using them.  Whenever any product is promoted in this way, you know all of the possible money-making potential has long since gone. Why would anyone advertise for competition?  The FTC is now beginning to crack down on these frauds, freezing assets of companies in California and elsewhere who have used the likes of Bob Eubanks and Latoya Jackson to promote the schemes. This is why the 900 business is a money loser today: Advertising is about the only expense associated with operating a 900 line. Most media refuse any advertisement associated with calling a 900 number.  The few that do are aware of this and charge 900-number advertisers exhorbitant rates, frequently several times the open rate even on a contract. In addition, the payment people make for calling 900 numbers is virtually entirely voluntary.  Federal and state tarrifs say that any telephone subscriber may "contest" any 900 call charges on their bill without fear of losing their phone service.  This is so widely known that today, people routinely call 900 numbers at will despite their cost and then, when the bill comes, they say "my son did it" and the calls are removed from their bill. The operator of the 900 number is required to pay for all of these calls. This chargeback factor is well over 50%, meaning that far fewer than half the calls are ever paid for by the caller.   The combined effect of this is that it is impossible to make enough profit from the few people who do pay for their calls to even pay for the exorbitant advertising expense.  So, enter the final phase of the business: The Scam. Here’s how the scam works:  Set up a "service bureau" which has operating programs and 900 numbers connected to them.  Approach starry-eyed would- be millionaires and tell them that you will sell them a 900 number (or even give it to them "free") and "all you have to do is advertise and buy more deposit slips!"  The poor sucker takes the bait and depletes his savings account buying advertising.  As the money comes dribbling in, the service bureau takes its cut right off the top.  Their profit is guaranteed since they have no overhead (you are paying for the advertising).  What is left, if anything, is given to you. Unfortunately, it amounts to about 10% of what you pay for advertising. You go broke, give up the 900 number, and the service bureau sells it to the next mark. No, the only way to make any money from the 900 business today is if you don’t have to pay to advertise for calls.  There are only two ways to accomplish this.  One is to operate a scam like I’ve described above. The second is if you own a newspaper, magazine, television or radio station where you can run ads for free.

Response:

Corporate Logo allows you to do that plus it has several movement styles for the logo, it’s also very easy to use. Their download page is at: http://www.xnet.com/~cmbdmm99/download.htm

Response:

IMPORTANT CONSUMER WARNING FROM NOVA COMMUNICATIONS Fact: The Federal Government has stated that Turn Key programs and the earnings claims made by (many) service bureaus that sell Turn-Key programs are fraudulent. DO NOT be fooled by companies offering "Free" 900 numbers or "Leased turn-key extension" programs that promise $10,000 a week or more. It’s a scam, plain and simple. They make the money, you don’t! Why?, Because 1000,s of other people will get the very same number as you do! With a 900 extension the bottom line is YOU HAVE NO CONTROL.  It might be said that the Service Bureaus or Resellers who offer these numbers don’t have their customers best interest in mind. What do you think? Here’s what’s wrong with an Extensions Leases, and so called "Free 900" numbers:   * The biggest problem with extension lines is that it only takes one individual sharing the main 900 line to violate one of the many FCC laws now in force, and the whole T-1 gets shut down. When the main 900 line gets terminated, so does every other extension on the offending line – even yours. We see this happen all the time. Worse yet the companies who sell this junk will not replace your number either, most often they will try and sell you another one. * SOMEONE else using the SAME 900 number as you, but with ONE of the 1000s of different extensions on that line, could generate thousands of minutes worth of chargebacks on their extension, and YOU have to help repay those chargebacks; even if ALL of  YOUR callers pay! If the service bureau "pools" your money with ANYONE else’s to guard against chargebacks – look out because you’re going to end up losing a portion of your revenues to pay for someone else’s mistakes. * You have NO CONTROL how much you can charge on your 900 line! The service bureau who truly owns your line dictates the charge. * Often you get NO accounting of the calls or CHARGEBACKS to your extension from the LONG DISTANCE company. This makes it VERY easy for the bureau to "trim a little off the top" if they wanted to, and you would never know! * You DO NOT truly own your own 900 number, merely an extension. If the bureau goes under, you