No Bull, Just Honest Opinions

This just in.

I have been notified by several of our clients who were victimized when STRATFOR was hacked that the hackers are still testing out the credit cards by making small donations to obscure charities and other organizations around the country. Most of these amounts are $1 or less, so they are easy to slip by. How many of us have iPhones and Android phones that we use to purchase apps for $1 - $4?

By now most of you have read about how a Massachusetts school board has denied Sonya Lomax’s request for three paid days off to welcome home her soldier stepson (23-year-old Army Spc. Todd Lomax) who was seriously injured while serving in Afghanistan. Do you think politics has a play in this?

Today George Friedman of STRATFOR sent an update to all members about the status of its website as well as apologized once again for the intrusion.

By now, we have all seen TV and print ads by hosting company giants, 1nd1, Go Daddy and Network Solutions that offer easy point and click websites for small businesses. Most of these allow a business owner to create either a free website or perhaps at a small initial fee but ongoing rate of less than $50/month.

I just love it when I see how they twist things in their commercials. For example, in one advertisement, they give an example of a business website, say, Suzie's Flower Shop. The ad goes on to show that now that they have a website, potential customers can find them easily when they search for 'Suzie's Flower Shop'. Really? If the potential customers already know the company name, and they've already decided to buy if from this company, why would they be searching for it by the exact name, unless they want to look at the products or perhaps look up the address.

The ongoing saga with STRATFOR indicates that the computer security breach may have been more extensive than previously knows, because their website is still down 10 days after the attack.

One would think that a respected, global security company should have been better able to keep their data secure, UNFORTUNATELY, this problem is more pervasive than one would admit.