Is some hacking justified?

Jonathan Bowers, March 6th 2007, 10:24AM

A former judge in California has been sentenced to 27 months in jail on Internet child abuse charges. The ground breaking thing about the case is that some of the evidence was provided by a Canadian hacker who planted a Trojan Horse on an Internet newsgroup visited by paedophiles that was then downloaded by 66-year-old Ronald C Kline.

In following the case, Sophos ran a poll to see whether the public thought that it was justified to use hacking in this circumstance.

The results of 233 votes show that almost two thirds believe that hacking is unacceptable in any circumstance. I wonder however what the results would be if another website ran the poll. We have to remember that people using the Sophos website are likely to have cyber crime on the mind and this could create a negative bias.

In order to catch a thief you often have to think like a thief and even behave like one. So should the laws be black and white when it comes to hacking. Could there be an acceptable use policy?

Tags: cybercrime, internetlaw
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Trojan attackers focus on eBay

Jonathan Bowers, March 6th 2007, 10:07AM

I think the popular perception is that email viruses are the most popular form of attack for cyber criminals - no doubt because they invade our own privacy in a tangible way. However, according to Sophos, the number of such viral attacks is by far outweighed by Trojan threats.

Eighty per cent of all malware detected in 2006 came in the form of Trojans and eBay is currently facing its own problems. Malware is now very sophisticated and many hackers have graduated from attempting generalised attacks to being very targeted indeed. In this instance people bidding on car auctions are being directed to fake sites that mimic the functionality and look of eBay.

There are still hundreds of fake pop-ups out there that tell you about the free laptop you have won but most of us are wise to them now. The ones we need to be wary of are those taking on organisations like eBay and creating versions of the site that are both cosmetically convincing and dynamically similar.

As consumers we have to be constantly vigilant about which links we click on and where they are taking us, especially before we give away any private data.

Tags: ebay, online fraud
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Back tracking on YouTube

Jonathan Bowers, March 2nd 2007, 12:44PM

Literally moments after I posted the last blog, I noticed a story on the UKFast website which reveals another big content provider deal for YouTube. The BBC has signed a deal to create at least 2 dedicated channels on the site.

They plan to show short clips from top rated programmes such as Dr Who and Life on Mars but also create dedicated content such as tours of the Dr Who set by star actor David Tennant.

I'm interested to see who opts in and who opts out over the next few months as in many ways this could dictate both the fortunes and direction of YouTube.

Tags: broadcasters, youtube
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YouTube a short term phenomenon?

Jonathan Bowers, March 2nd 2007, 12:23PM

Viacom's announcement that traffic is substantially up on its various video content sites is dangerous news for YouTube, which was instructed to remove all content belonging to the media producer just over a month ago.

According to Google Trends it's less than a year since YouTube's traffic overtook that of MTV, Viacom's most successful website.

The big question is, how long would it be before the trend reversed back again if all content providers demanded their content be pulled, leaving only user generated video on the site. There's obviously a huge mix of content on the site but a quick glance at the most viewed videos on there at the moment indicates that seven out of the top ten are big studio music videos, broadcasted animations or televised content. Two of the remaining three are adverts, most likely posted by the brand themselves and only one of the top ten is user generated.

A worst case scenario would be a YouTube where 66% of the viewed content is adverts. How long would YouTube last?

Obviously, YouTube has put some deals in place to make sure this is not so, but would it be such a bad thing if YouTube were to revert back to user generated content as its mainstay? Afterall, that's what made its name.

Tags: viacom, video, youtube
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Power of social networking for businesses

Jonathan Bowers, March 1st 2007, 4:04PM

Heather Hopkins at Hitwise has an excellent piece of research on her blog about the strength of MySpace within TopShop's marketing strategy.

It seems that MySpace is now sending more traffic to TopShop than MSN and Yahoo Search combined. If you ever needed a sign that social networking could lead to dramatic traffic generation, this is a clear indicator.

Hitwise is a very useful tool, which doesn't come cheap but the competitive advantage you can have with their statistics behind you is considerable. At the very least, I would recommend subscribing to Heather's blog.

Heather was one of the panellists on last years Optimising Your Online Presence seminar which we also spoke at along with others including Yahoo.

Tags: marketing
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