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A few weeks ago Scottish Developers was heavily featured at the Microsoft MSDN/Technet Roadshow in Edinburgh. The two days were a completely new format for Microsoft UK - three tracks per day, focussing on different disciplines and technologies. They had a really nice post day one pizza and beer party until 7pm.
Come 7pm and Microsoft were kind enough to pay for a post event meal for the core members of Scottish Developers. You can see our very own John Thomson sitting back right.
Thank you Microsoft for an excellent few days, a brilliant evening and a fabulous meal.
Photographs courtesy of Barry Carr of Ixian Software.
There must be something in the air today! It would appear that the world has gone SPAM crazy - well that’s big news! You may already have read the Fife SPAMMERS story. Well I also had to do more I.T. policing this morning: I found myself having to delete a user from Scottish Developers only minutes after they had registered.
The individual represents a “company” who have in the past abused the terms and conditions, ignored request from the support team and generally been totally unprofessional in their SPAM like activities. We even gave them opportunities and options to get their product featured on Scottish Developers, but they didn’t seem to want to take us up. Perhaps their product is junk and would be found out under more intensive scrutiny of real world developers. Perhaps they don’t want developers to have a real review of the product. Perhaps … perhaps …
On this occasion they posted their usual advertisement onto the forums for it to be immediately removed before anyone could read it, the account was deleted, the IP address banned, the company name banned from being used as an account name in the future and a word censoring rule defined so their company name will be featured as #XOOPS#! But I doubt this will be enough. They will just find another computer with a different IP address, re-register and attempt to post the same advertisement again and again, all in the vain hope of reaching a few developers.
However, the team at Scottish Developers are vigilant and will continue to stop their immoral business practices.
I’m absolutely furious with this Unsolicited Commercial Email (SPAM), which after some investigation has been found to have been made possible through a distribution list sourced from Fife Chamber of Commerce. The image of the email has been blurred to protect the innocent. Don’t want other SPAMMERS to have access to email addresses from an image on this blog!
Initially, I had no idea that the information came via information supplied by Fife Chamber of Commerce, but felt so compelled to do something about it that I spent 20 minutes trying to remove myself from the SPAMMER’s distribution list. After all other avenues and mechanisms of complaint and/or removal were exhausted, I eventually picked up the telephone and spoke with someone from Forth Active - the SPAMMERS. They were kind enough to offer me the information about the source of my email address information and to offer an assurance that my details would be removed from their mailing lists. Technology is great but real human beings are much better at dealing with complaints!
There were a number of things wrong with the message:
A wide distribution list which can easily be abused by anyone on the list
The email addresses can easily be farmed from the message
It also now presents a new security risk to my own business. If even one person on this list was to be compromised then we could all be compromised
The mailing list removal mechanism didn’t work. Looks like their mail server is down
I had previously indicated to Fife Chamber that I didn’t wish to receive any UCE (SPAM) from third parties. I’m more than happy to see the occasional email from the Chamber but don’t want every individual with a marketing budget to have access to my personal email address
I find SPAM offensive, even if it is meant as proper commerical advertising. SPAMMERS don’t get any business from me, so don’t waste your time!
The technological issues are easily addressed using software freely available on the net, so there isn’t really an excuse for the mistakes made. The ethics of using SPAM as a mechanism for advertising and marketing are another issues, but I suspect the feedback going to the company under question may make them rethink this strategy.
In all fairness, the person I spoke with at Forth Active was extremely professional and sincerely apologetic about the issues I raised, especially the wide distribution list. They even went so far as to say they won’t be repeating the exercise or “mistake” as he called it. I suspect I wasn’t the first or last one to complain this morning. I won’t be doing any business with them in the near future, which is a real shame since they are a Fife company and I’d rather see the business being kept locally.
I even sent off an email to the Chief Executive of Fife Chamber of Commerce to complain at the (ab)use of my personal email address but alas this was bounced due to their email server being unavailable. The Fife Chamber website is also offline at the moment.
Some may view my approach to security as OTT, but I’d like to think that I’m just a bit ahead of where most organisations are heading. I know many of my I.T. colleagues have a similar approach, business is just lagging a bit behind us. Let us now hope that businesses and other organisations catch up fast!
Just received a “Final Demand” from Data Protection Agency Enforcement Services. They are offering to charge £135 to register RSL with the Information Commissioner, a service that anyone can do for themselves at £35 per annum. However, a quick check on the Information Commissioner site reveals them to be a bogus agency.
On the front of the envelope, the words “This is not a circular” were stamped in bold black writing. The text on the front page, although factually correct was alarming and the last page could be easily construed into making people think they had to act swiftly. Many businesses could well rush into signing up for this service thinking it came from an official government body.
On this occasion they have picked on the wrong company. RSL will be reporting them to the Information Commissioner, the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) and our local Trading Standards. They will be passed the envelope and all printed documentation within the “Final Demand” pack, something they may be very interested in.
A good guide on what to do if you receive similar can be found HERE.
Hope this information is useful to other individuals, companies and organisations out there.
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