Unfiled

I wanted to let all of my friends and readers of this blog to know what’s been happening lately. I apologize about the lack of updates. I have been spending a majority of my time offline taking care of some family related issues.

I have been blogging on other sites. Most recently Louis Gray handed me the keys to his blog. If you have not been to Louisgray.com to read them, follow the two links below.

• 30 Different Uses for RSS

• How to Discover New Content

I also wrote a post for Mashable.com in mid October, titled “What Happens to Our Social Profiles After We Die?.”

I hope you enjoy these posts. I hope to resume with updates on this blog next week.

Thanks,

Mike

I have been traversing on the Internet for a little over a decade now. Throughout the years I have had a number of personal blogs on various blogging platforms that have come and gone. I have never taken any of these blogs seriously, nor have I updated with any frequency, because it was just that, a personal blog for the occasional journal thought and pictures from family outings. I decided earlier this year that I have no use for a personal blog anymore. My substitute is a private Twitter and Picasa account serving as a repository for all things personal.

The start of something:

In June of this year, I put my domain name online and started a blog. This was, and is going to be my creative outlet, a way for me to use a megaphone to broadcast my voice in the biggest stadium of them all, the Internet. My blog is about how I use social media, the technologies behind social media and how business and individuals can benefit from them. While some of my posts have been off subject, most of them have been about social content aggregation, more specifically FriendFeed. It’s no surprise to anyone reading this blog how much I love and support FriendFeed and it’s community. This blog has also provided me an outlet for my social media experiments, epiphanies, explorations and allowing me to “pay it forward ” on a virtual global scale.

Through FriendFeed, I have networked and made numerous new meaningful connections and relationships. FriendFeed has provided me a platform for my own personal growth, and the growth of others as well.

I guess by the definition of this post, I would be considered a blogger.I don’t have a background in Journalism, and don’t claim or consider myself to be a professional blogger. I’m just an average Joe who writes a few times a month about my thoughts on how we use social media. I consider the people who do this day in and day out to be the “real bloggers”. People like Sarah Perez, Steven Hodson, Svetlana Gladkova, Duncan Riley, Mark “Rizzn” Hopkins are the definition of professional blogger. The individuals I mentioned are just a handful of the people in the industry that I respect tremendously and that inspire me.

Then there is Louis Gray. It’s quite clear the admiration and respect I, and many others have for him. This man is taking on an iconic status, and is in a league of his own. Louis has blazed trails for himself and many others, including myself. Louis is the type of person that does onto others as others do onto him. Louis repeatedly gives the little person a chance to shine. He is not one to steal the spotlight. Louis was one of the first people I started to follow and get to know on FriendFeed. He was the core inspiration for me starting to blog. A turning point for me was when Louis gave my blog a notable mention in a thread titled, “Five Blogs For June on Your Summer Reading List.” This was, in a way my 15 minutes of fame. It was totally unexpected, and it caught me off guard. I was never prepared, at least in my mind, to be catapulted into the spotlight. Looking back, I see it as sign. Since then things in my life have not been the same. Louis has given me the ball, now it’s my turn to run with it as far as I can. Hopefully I can score a touchdown. Louis has also exposed me to countless new friends and networking opportunities. While I never met Louis in person, I look forward to the occasion sometime in the future.  So to Louis, I say thank you very much for all that you have done for me, I’m truly grateful.

State of the Blog: 06/01/2008 - 10/01/2008

• Total posts published to date, including this post: 50
• Total comments to date: 275
• FeedBurner subscribers: 188
• MyBlogLog Members: 27
• Twitter Followers:183
• FriendFeed Followers:611

Report: michaelfruchter.com
Report Name:Pageviews Graph
Date Range: 06/01/2008 - 10/01/2008

• 6/2008 28,288
• 7/2008 35,864
• 8/2008 42,127
• 9/2008 63,706

Most Popular Posts:

• 20 people you should follow on FriendFeed - Pageviews 3,904
• 10 people you should follow on Friendfeed - Pageviews 3,177
• My A,B,C’s of FriendFeed - Pageviews 3,177
• Paying it forward on FriendFeed - Pageviews 2,319
• 10 tools for listening in social media. - Pageviews 2,130

In closing:

I’m very optimistic about the future. I now have more of a clear head, and for the first time, focus. This blog will continue to be my outlet, and hopefully my road for new beginnings. I would also like to say thank you to everyone who has commented and subscribed to this blog. I would also like to say thank you to everyone who has ever shared, bookmarked or Twittered any of my posts. You are the reason why I continue to do this. Reflecting back on the last 120 days has really put a lot of things into perspective for me. It’s been a fast and wild learning experience. One that I have learned from and continue to do so.

I was thinking about all the data we lifestream. What does this data say about us?  How valuable is this data in the right corporation’s hands?  Bookmarks are very telling of a individuals mindset, habits, and interests. The same interpretations can be made about the data we lifestream.  A person’s digital fingerprint is a potential gold mine of data for various industries.

Upon analyzing my own lifestream on FriendFeed, you could tell the following things about me:

Music:

My digital music fingerprint shows that I stream classic rock and hip hop. While I like many types of music, I tend to listen to these two genres the most, at least when I’m online.  Music industries are you listening?

Twitter:

Tweets show that I’m a father. It also shows that there is at least one child in my household. Babies R Us are you listening?

Pictures:

These pictures show my beautiful daughter Kaylee. It pretty much echos the tweet. The visual just completes a potential new customer profile. What’s the latest and greatest in baby products for a now almost four month old infant?

RSS:

My profile reveals that I read and follow quite a few bloggers in the tech and social media space.  Technology and social media are the dominating factors on my lifestream.

Read my feeds. That should give you a good idea of the products I might be interested in. If you dug into my digital fingerprint further, you would easily find your hook.

Bookmarks:

My bookmarks are always a good primary indicator of my mindset at the moment. They chronicle my current interests, and also serve for future reading and exploration. As a side note, bookmarking can also be misleading.

My blog is titled  “My Thoughts On Social Media”. This is my main focus of interest.

Behavioral targeted advertising is nothing new in social media. Tracking and targeting can easily be done now with lifestreaming and rss, as opposed to traditional cookies.

What does your digital fingerprint say about you. More importantly, what information are you broadcasting to corporations?

One of my core responsibilities as a system admin is preventing credit card fraud on our network. I’m basically the primary gatekeeper who determines the validity and legitimacy of all new online orders. With the large amount of business we do on a daily basis, it’s impossible to completely eliminate credit card fraud. Even with the help of filters and automated systems, inevitably fraud gets through. I am realistic about the situation, all I can do is minimize, deter and stay one step ahead of them.

It’s a daunting task. These fraudsters are mostly international.  They often work in organized groups and are constantly adapting their tactics and testing our systems. These probes of our security, at the front door and inside are non stop. This continues around the clock, 365 days a year.

The company I work for  has been in the industry for over 10 years. The name is well known and established. The down side to that is the scammers caught on long ago, and word got around that we were the one stop shop for hosting accounts. That was 1997, fast forward to today and things have changed drastically. We have improved our systems, the cyber criminals have improved theirs. They are and always will be one step ahead of us. It’s a constant game of cat and mouse.  In 1997 the cyber criminals were mainly reeking havoc on networks by sending spam, and launching DDoS attacks. The Internet was young then and scammers were just learning to take advantage of this new medium.

It did not take them long, and we now have a cesspool of fraud on the Internet. What adds to the cesspool of fraud is globalization.

The majority of these cyber criminals are from, Africa, Romania, Russia, South East Asia. These global criminals often come from poverty and third world countries. They have nothing to lose and everything to gain, to the tune of $49.3 billion in 2007 in the United States for identity theft alone. Most of these countries simply don’t have the man power nor funding to arrest these cyber thugs. It certainly is not a priority for them or the FBI.

To understand a cyber criminals mind, you must think like them, essentially almost become one of them.  This is how I play the game everyday. Unfortunately at this point in the game, it’s often at some unknowingly random individuals expense. This persons credit card number, possibly social security number, drivers license info is floating around the net, being sold or traded in IRC rooms for instance. I often use social networking sites such as Friendster and Myspace as a tool for learning who our enemies are, their tactics, strengths and weaknesses. I have tracked a few individuals and groups down this way, I assume an alias and gain trust within there organizations. I use the necessary tools and translation software to extract what information of value I need. I randomly monitor IRC for activity.  IRC is social networking for cyber criminals.  Channels or rooms are used routinely to buy and sell breached consumer data. This data ranges from credit card numbers with or with out cvv2, social security numbers, bank account numbers and so forth.

The scammer is now armed with a fresh credit card. Their shopping spree might start off buying Skype credits and maybe some fresh Itunes. They then come to us to start their fraudulent activities off for the day. They are usually armed with numerous stolen credit cards, including cvv2, full name, billing address, telephone etc. In some cases they take over email accounts, or create new ones assuming the persons identity along with email passwords and personal information.  The smarter and more sophisticated criminals almost go undetected, these are the true challenge for me. The majority of the cyber thugs I have encountered are sloppy. They do not  attempt to use a proxy to hide their IP or use any other means to disguise themselves. They often test the system to see what will get through. The smarter ones can do it first time around, usually one or two fresh credit cards and correlating information is needed along with a good proxy.

Once they are in the door, it’s a race against time.

• Phishing
• Fraudulent escrow sites
• Fraudulent shipping sites
• Identity theft
• SQL Injection
• Spam
• DDoS attacks

This will be a continuing piece. More of the hosting underbelly will be upcoming in the days and weeks to follow. Stay tuned.

Looking to establish a presence on the Internet?  Whether a corporate/personal website, e-commerce site or blog, the two basic fundamentals that are needed and never change, are a domain name and a good web host. The former needs no explanation, the latter is a different story. We are a society currently living in the Wal-Mart era, where the lowest price wins. In the world of web hosting this mentality is generally the same. The sheep blindly follow the herd. Great brand marketing has not hurt the industry either i.e Godaddy. This leads me to the topic of budget hosting. Budget hosting is great for small, mom and pop type businesses which want to establish a web presence for very little investment. In other words, “You get what you pay for.”

The average “cheapo” budget hosting plan is $4.29/per month at Godaddy. That’s about the average price of a happy meal Godaddy is like the McDonalds of the internet, an affordable quick fix. There is nothing wrong with that if you are just starting out, but as your online presence grows, you will need to get more serious. As someone who works in the industry, I see and hear of these horrible experiences on a daily basis. Don’t be fooled by the myths and marketing.

Marketing - Marketing is betting on you being uneducated about your choice and glorifying an idea.

If you do nothing else, before you sign up for any unlimited plan, read the Terms of Service (TOS) or Acceptable Use Policy (AUP). Here you will find the limits. Typically there are limits on RAM usage or CPU usage. This is sensible for shared hosting. If you are on a shared host and one of your neighbors sites is getting hammered, you don’t want your site to suffer as a result. Most of the time this becomes a rude awakening right at the moment when you begin to reach success

24/7 Support - For approx four dollars a month, don’t expect 24/7 support. Can you afford for your business to be down for 24 hours+, waiting for an email response?

Disadvantages of budget and in general shared web hosting.

Slow over loaded servers: Given that a physical web server is shared, the amount of customers on one box can be any where from 500-1000+. Websites on a shared server will usually have slower server response times, then compared to a virtual private server or dedicated.

Reliability Issues: In most cases, web hosting providers may take care of the security and performance of the shared server. However, it may happen that some of websites hosted on the shared server run a malicious program or script or over-utilize the resources, can bring down the web server. Your website would suffer downtime and inaccessibility as a result.

Sharing Issues: You just need one “bad” website on your shared web server to get your website banned in a search engine due to shared IP address.

Security: Shared web hosting is more risky and opens up potential security issues and risks, as other web masters having an account on the same web server could possibly lead to your account being breached.

Processes/Ram: Usage are very real limits and you would be wise to investigate what these limits are before signing up.

What would YOU expect for four dollars a month? You would expect a promise or commitment made to be kept. Is it unrealistic to expect the best service at a bargain basement price? If you are told you are getting 24/7 support, and  have paid what the host deems fair,then  they had better deliver.

I have had some issues with my rss feed. By trying to correct them i wiped my feed clean. I would ask the 20 subscribers that subscribed to my feed in the past few days to resubscribe.

Please unsubscribe in your reader and resubscribe.

Here i made it easy.

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Thank you and truly appreciated,

Mike Fruchter