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Spam has probably joined death and taxes as one of those things that just can’t be avoided. However, there are prudent steps that you can take to reduce spam or even prevent it, especially if you run or are thinking about running your own website.
One of the chief ways that your email ends up on a spammer’s list is because of the action of spambots. Spambots are robotic programs that systematically go through the world wide web collecting information, in much the same way that search engines crawl the web. However in the case of the spambots they are not seeking information to index in a publicly used search engine. They are collecting any email address that appears in the html code of the web pages they visit. These email addresses are then sold to advertisers.
If you are launching a brand new website and proudly put your email address info@yourdomain.com , then very soon you will start getting spam email to this virgin email address, due to the relentless searching of the spambots. It’s a dilemma; you want your web visitors to be able to contact you but you don’t need hundreds of spam emails adding to your burden of unsolicited mail.
Here are a few things that you can do.
1. Use a form to collect feedback from your site. If you use a form to collect information from your web visitors then you don’t have to publish your email address on your site. However, you have to be careful about which kind of form collection method you use. Some form systems require you to put your email address in the html code of your web page. Although your email address is not visible when looking at the page in a browser, it will be collected by the spambots. Remember, the spambots are not human beings, they are only collecting the information that appears in your html code. Choose a script where the email address is kept on your server.
2. Render your email address in the form of an image: Instead using text to show your email address, make a jpg or gif image with your email address. You can match the normal background and text that appears on your page so that the image looks like your normal text. Someone viewing the site can just copy the address down and use it in their email program. Don’t try to be clever and link your image link to your email address, because the spambots will find your address in your html. Once again, the spambot is a robot is “looking” not at your visible web page, but, “under the hood”, at your html code.
3. You can scramble your email using special software or through an online utility. If you go to http://natata.hn3.net/ you can download the Natata Anti-Spam Encoder. You will end up with clickable mailto links which are invisible to spambots.
You can also visit the site: http://www.proles.net/emailencoder/ and scramble your email (but make sure that the link text does not contain your actual email address.
So, it is possible to maintain the interactivity and usefulness of your website, but also to protect your email address from the ruthless spam merchants.
Copyright 2004
Donald Nelson is a web developer, editor, and social worker. He has been
working on the Internet since 1995 and is the proprietor of A1-Optimization,
http://www.a1-optimization.com, a firm providing search engine optimization,
copywriting, reciprocal linking, and other web promotion services. He
publishes a monthly ezine, A1-Web Promotion Tips, available at
http://www.a1-optimization.com/newsletter.html
Hey I thought the Federal Trade Commission was suppose to catch Identity Thieves not give out personal employee information to them? What gives this time? Well it appears that the mighty FTC had some laptops stolen in Scottsdale, AZ. But may I ask what they were doing in that area of prime real estate and luxury five star hotels with golf course when they should have been in Washington DC working for us the taxpayers? Were they screwing off using government credit cards again? Oh boy, and look what happen while they were? The lost personal data from 110 employees?
Gee, I thought these morons (opinion) were suppose to be curbing Identity Theft and taking a bite out of crime but no? Instead reports now say that; “The personal information was gathered in law enforcement investigations and included, variously, names, addresses, Social Security numbers, dates of birth, and in some instances, financial account numbers.” Heck the FTC or Federal Trade Commission cannot even protect their own teams identity information.
May I ask how in hell they are suppose to Protect the American People from Identity Theft if they cannot even protect themselves? Consider all this in 2006; it appears our government is now at an all time low and as for the FTC, they need to come clean and let’s just close that agency can we? What a waste of taxpayer’s money indeed.
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Lance Winslow |
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“Lawsuits primarily benefit the attorneys and nobody else.”
- Bryce’s Law
INTRODUCTION
The protection of intellectual property should be a significant concern to all Information Technology organizations. Without protection, commercial hardware/software vendors would quickly evaporate as others would inevitably steal their designs and programs. Corporate developers would also suffer if their ideas, inventions, and programs were misappropriated thereby causing them to lose their competitive advantage. In fact, our corporate landscape and standard of living would be radically different if we had no such protection. Fortunately, the framers of the U.S. Constitution were wise enough to implement legislation safeguarding the authorship and ownership of literature, art, and inventions, thus causing the United States to flourish in the arts and sciences. But the advent of the computer caused us to reconsider how we safeguard such property. For example, the concept of a computer program has been a bit nebulous to some people; should the source code be protected by copyright? What about the object code (executable)? Attorneys have been debating this subject over the last thirty years and there is still
general confusion in the field.
In 1974, MBA embarked on our own lawsuit to protect the “PRIDE” methodology. This was a lengthy legal battle which took the courts into unchartered waters. At the time, “PRIDE” was nothing more than a methodology implemented with printed manuals and forms (no software support at the time). To safeguard our
product, our lawyers drafted a standard nondisclosure agreement which all prospective buyers would sign prior to our sales presentation. Further, our contracts included similar verbiage instructing the customer to safeguard the physical embodiment of the product and not to divulge it to unauthorized third parties.
We were contacted by Arthur Young & Company in 1974 to conduct a “PRIDE” sales presentation for one of their consulting clients in Milwaukee, Wisconsin; the Harley Davidson Motorcycle Company (then a division of AMF). The attendees signed the nondisclosure agreement and the presentation was conducted as usual. Following the presentation, MBA was informed that Harley wouldn’t be
purchasing our product, and that Arthur Young would be developing a similar methodology for Harley instead. This made MBA suspicious, particularly since one of Young’s consultants was a former “PRIDE” user. Consequently, MBA initiated a lawsuit over misappropriation of trade secrets.
This turned into a long and ugly legal battle which lasted eight years. Basically, the lawyers for the opposition contended that since the “PRIDE” materials had copyright notation printed on them, they were in the public domain. In contrast, it was our contention that “PRIDE” was a trade secret, In the end, we won the lawsuit and “PRIDE” was proven to be a trade secret in a court of law. This litigation established many precedents and is often referenced in similar cases; for additional information, see:
Chicago-Kent College of Law
http://www.kentlaw.edu/perritt/honorsseminar/honorssemts2.htm
Library Law
http://www.librarylaw.com/ip-kirschner3.html
Many years have gone by since the verdict was passed. In 1989, Arthur Young & Company merged with Ernst and Ernst (now called Ernst & Young), the principals of the case have moved on and we no longer bear any ill-will towards the company. Further, “PRIDE” was placed on the Internet in 2004 (with copyright notation).
As a result of the lawsuit, MBA learned a lot about the protection of intellectual property. I may not be an attorney, but you may look upon this as a convenient primer to protect yourself.
COPYRIGHTS
Copyright is primarily concerned with the authorized reproduction of such things as text, graphics, music, and audio/video recordings. As such, it protects publishers, authors, artists, and designers from unauthorized republication or redistribution of their work. Not too long ago, in order for a copyright to be enforceable, it had to be registered with the copyright office. However, the laws were somewhat loosened in 1976 whereby copyright protection is now effective from the moment the work is first created in fixed form. Although the use of copyright notation is no longer mandatory, it is highly beneficial to include it whenever possible to indicate your work is protected by copyright. Notation typically appears as:
“Copyright © 2002 ABC Company”
Since computer program source code is written as text, it is a wise idea to add such notation in the source code. But understand this, copyright only protects the work from unauthorized reproduction, it does not protect the author’s ideas (which is how the lawyers of Arthur Young argued against us). Although the exact source code cannot be reused, it does not protect the logic of the program. To illustrate, suppose a new
employee brings with him some source code from his last place of employment. Copyright protection would prohibit him from reusing the source code, but it wouldn’t stop him from using the ideas contained in the program. Unfortunately, most programmers do not like to reinvent the wheel and, as such, frequently reuse source code over and over again. From this perspective, probably every company with an I.T. department is guilty of some form of copyright infringement.
TRADE SECRETS
A trade secret is much different than a copyright. Basically, it represents some unique formula, design or idea. Perhaps the best known example of a trade secret is the Coca-Cola syrup formula which is strictly protected in a vault. There are essentially two elements for establishing a trade secret; first, that it is a “unique” idea or formula, that it has distinguishable characteristics or properties to differentiate it from others, and; second, that you can demonstrate you are taking effective safeguards to protect it from unauthorized use (hence, making it a “secret”). In the lawsuit over “PRIDE”, we were able to successfully demonstrate that “PRIDE” was unique and that we had taken adequate steps to safeguard unauthorized use (our nondisclosure agreement).
PATENTS
A patent is similar to a trade secret in that the inventor has a unique idea or device he wishes to prevent others from producing. To implement a patent, the idea or device must be registered with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. A registration process is required which includes a fee. For an invention to be patented, it must be proven to be unique, useful, and not of an obvious nature. If a patent is granted, the inventor is protected from others producing a similar invention for a limited period of time (20 years). The patent is renewable at the end of this period.
The computer field makes active use of patents to establish unique inventions and protect them from others For example, IBM typically registers the most patents each year, both hardware and software.
TRADE MARKS/SERVICE MARKS
A trademark is an arbitrary word, name, symbol, or device used to distinguish a particular product. A service mark is similar except it is used to distinguish a particular service. For example, “PRIDE” is the registered trademark of M. Bryce & Associates.
Like a patent, the trade/service mark has to be registered with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. And, Yes, a registration fee is required. Notation normally accompanies the trademark
to indicate it is registered ®. Use of such notation should be encouraged so that others know your product or service is a trademark.
A trade/service mark means no other company can use it to offer a competing product or service unless authorized by the company holding its title. As such, it is closely related to the integrity of the title company. If a competitor uses it, the public will assume they are somehow aligned with your business and, as customers of your competitor, are entitled to the same level of service or quality your business offers. If the competitor fails in this regards, it is a reflection of both your product/service and your company which could damage your business.
CONCLUSION
When MBA was founded, we were very lucky to get good, sound legal advice for protecting our intellectual property. Because of this, I encourage anyone concerned in this regard to seek such advice from a qualified attorney.
Another way to assist in the protection of your intellectual property is to enact some form of employee agreement, whereby the employee agrees not to misappropriate your products (such as designs and software), or use other intellectual property without expressed authorization. This puts your employees on notice.
Devices such as copyrights, trade secrets, patents, trade/service marks are very helpful for preventing the unauthorized use or distribution of your products. However, if someone really wants to pirate your products, they will. When you catch someone in the act though, try to give them a way out. I always recommend that you try to avoid litigation whenever possible. I find such
lawsuits primarily benefit the attorneys and nobody else. But if your livelihood is genuinely threatened, as ours was, then you have no alternative but to use the full force of the law.
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Tim Bryce is the Managing Director of M. Bryce & Associates (MBA) Copyright © 2006 MBA. All rights reserved. |
Identity theft crimes are not new, but they have become more persuasive in the past decade. One of the most insidious forms of white-collar crime, identity theft is a federal offense under the Identity Theft and Assumption Deterrence Act. It occurs when someone deliberately assumes an individual’s personal identity to impersonate that person in a legal sense. Stealing someone’s identity enables the thief to make a frightening number of financial and personal transactions in someone else’s name, leaving the victim responsible for what might turn out to be a mind-boggling turmoil in his or her life.
Someone once said, “The devil is in the details, and the truth lies somewhere in between”. Details such as your name, age, sex, physical description, mailing address, Social Security, and driver license number are everything a swindler needs to create your shadow identity, enabling him to buy merchandise, take loans and make other financial transactions, while you get stuck with the bad credit. The old X-Files motto “Trust No One” is especially meaningful for identity theft protection on the web. You must learn to depend on yourself for identity theft protection and minimize your risk by performing the following tasks:
a) Memorize your passwords. This is the most basic requirement for identity theft protection. Never write down personal identification numbers (PINs) or passwords. Do not use your Social Security number or any such easy-to-guess combinations. Avoid using the same password for different accounts.
b) Effective identity theft protection is now a necessary part of doing business on the web. Therefore, when ordering online, it is preferable to use PayPal, instead of credit or debit cards, because of the propinquity with which these cards give an imposter access to the cash in your bank account.
c) Another good practice for identity theft protection delineates that before purchasing online make sure that the site has a secure server. Secure pages begin with https instead of http, with a picture of a lock appearing in the lower right status bar. To verify the name of the server that appears on the digital certificate, double-click the lock icon, and then check the name that appears next to “Issued to”, if the name appearing next to “Issued to” is different from the name of the site that you thought provides the page, close the browser to leave the site.
d) Be sure to shred all documents that have important information on them such as account numbers, social security numbers, etc. Do not simply discard this information into the trash.
Keith Londrie II is a well known author. For more information on Identity Theft, please visit Identity Theft for a wealth of information. You may also want to visit keith’s own web site at http://keithlondrie.com/