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Archive for March, 2004

TechFest: Stuff you didn’t know you need (2004)

March 5th, 2004
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Seems Microsoft is dreaming about being in your pockets and around your neck, among other places. As if they’re not already? But MS means in a new and different way.

SenseCam, touted as a visual diary of sorts, is designed to be worn around the neck and can take up to 2,000 images in a 12-hour day without the wearer doing a thing. …

Some technology on display at TechFest could soon be available to the public. For example, Microsoft is looking to license technology for identification cards touted as “unforgeable” because they combine a regular picture ID with another, multicolored box that includes a compressed facial image. A card reader makes sure both the regular picture and the multicolored box match before granting access, meaning people couldn’t just simply swap out the photograph on an ID card.

Another project, developed by Microsoft Research’s Beijing office, converts a regular facial image into a low-resolution, cartoonish image. That animation can then be used with instant messaging, to convey whether the person typing a message is laughing, frowning or nodding. It could help solve the problem of understanding the nuance of people’s typed conversations, without requiring the computer and telecommunications power needed to use a Web cam.

Coaching moment: Sometimes it’s helpful to see (or hear) ourselves as others do. A recording of everything we do and say can be very revealing. However, I doubt that anyone wants to play back every moment of a day. We have “downtime” when we’re not at our best. Those may not be the best moments to share, even though they are part of who we are.

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Latest phishing scam “most devious ever” (2004)

March 4th, 2004
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Heard from your bank lately? The mail really, really looks like it’s from the bank. But do you think for one moment that the bank will feel responsible if you click on the scam email and confirm your bank details, then loose all of your funds to an outside trickster?

Typically, phishing scam e-mails appear to have been sent from the victim’s bank, and contain a link to a fake version of the bank’s Web site and instructions to log on to the site to verify their credentials with the bank.

Rob Forsyth, managing director at anti-virus vendor Sophos, believes that the techniques used by online confidence tricksters in the latest Westpac e-mail indicate the scheme is reaching new heights of sophistication.

According to Sophos the scammers have become better impostors, incorporating phrasing and wording into the email that the bank’s customers would be familiar with from previous authentic advisories it had issued such as: ‘Westpac will never ask for your personal or login details by e-mail’ — even though it then proceeds to direct the reader to do just that.

Coaching moment: Trust is also part of your identity. Do not hurry into trust. If you don’t know if an email or phone call is really from your bank, call your bank and ask. Tricksters will not leave their real email address or phone number so you can get back to them later.

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