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Video: 5 Conference Tips for PR Professionals

19 May 2012 in Business, Internet, Marketing by Stilgherrian | 2 comments

On the way back from the AusCERT 2012 information security conference this afternoon I found myself stranded at Gold Coast airport for a couple hours, exhausted. What better, then, than an impromptu video explaining how public relations operatives can improve the way they interact with journalists at these events.

This video was shot with a Nikon Coolpix S8100 compact digital camera, using the in-camera stereo microphone for the audio. The only post-production was to top and tail it, and compress it to a YouTube-optimised MP4 using iSkysoft Video Converter. Otherwise it’s exactly as it came out of the camera.

Should I list the tips themselves, here, in text form? Perhaps later. I simply couldn’t be arsed right now.

Security and the Cloud: Hype versus Reality

11 May 2012 in Business, Internet by Stilgherrian | No comments

My presentation from the Saasu Cloud Conference 2012, which I told you about previously, is now online: Security and the Cloud: Hype versus Reality.

I’ll leave the article to explain itself once you click through, but to provide some Googlejuice here are the words hacking, infosec, cybercrime, cyberwar, information security, malware and cows.

cPanel reconsiders EULA acceptance process

16 April 2012 in Business, Internet by Stilgherrian | No comments

Earlier this month I was less than impressed with cPanel, who sprung a new end user license agreement (EULA) on me and expected me to agree on the spot. I’m pleased with their response.

The other day I received a formal reply from their vice president of operations, Aaron Phillips, which I’m only posting today because I’ve been distracted:

I have been in discussions with our admin and legal teams today about your concerns. Currently, we are considering changes to the deployment procedures that should allow clients and owners of cPanel licenses more time to review updated agreements prior to their releases. The technical details have not been worked out, however, we are discussing solutions that will increase the amount of notice that will be given without a significant increase in administrative overhead for our customers.

We apologize if you have incurred any problems from cPanel’s procedures. While we do not have any immediate solutions to your particular situation, your comments and suggestions are taken very seriously and a new protocol will be developed to make the process easier for everyone in the future.

Please let us know if you have any additional questions or comments.

And my response to Mr Phillips is simple. Thank you very much. I completely understand that procedures and the software that implements them can’t be changed overnight, and it’s pleasing to see that the matter was taken seriously — rather than an angry rant from a crank.

If only more software vendors took the same attitude, rather than dictating terms to their users…

cPanel’s new EULA: more software industry arrogance?

04 April 2012 in Business, Internet by Stilgherrian | 5 comments

[Update 16 April 2012: Early communications with cPanel indicated that their EULA may in fact have been unchanged, just presented again as part of the license activation — which would put a very different perspective on things. I added a question mark at the end of the headline at that time. Either way, their eventual official response indicates that this process might well be changed. That's a win for us all.]

What is it with software companies that shove a multi-page contract in your face and expect you to click “I Agree” on the spot? Seriously, what level of ignorant arrogance does that require? cPanel Inc, creators of a popular web hosting management system, are just the latest in this conga line of suckholes.

(Note to fragile American readers: that’s a literary reference. Grow up and deal with it.)

This morning the shared web server I provide for clients had updated its cPanel/WHM software overnight. As it should. But I had to agree to a new end user license agreement (EULA) before I could even start to address an urgent maintenance matter.

I was far from impressed. If you want to change the rules, cPanel, you’ll bloody well give me the chance to consider those changes and decide whether I agree.

I just fired off this email. I await their reply.

Dear cPanel Inc,

I take serious issue with the way you have just handled the change to your end user license agreement (EULA) that came with the new version 11.30.6.7. of cPanel/WHM installed automatically overnight.

There is no warning of an impending change to the EULA that I can immediately see in either the news or blog sections of your website, nor was there any notice that I saw in the cPanel/WHM interface. You simply popped up the new EULA in front of people once the new software had been installed, giving them no choice but to agree or be unable to maintain their servers.

Forcing people to agree to a new contract on the spot?

This is appalling!

cPanel/WHM is not consumer entertainment software. This is operational internet-facing software used by businesses. The EULA sets out all manner of terms and conditions with operational, risk and security implications — not only for your direct customers but for their customers in turn.

To pick just two examples, you grant yourself the right to “access to any facilities in which the Software is used or stored, including without limitation the facilities which house the Licensed Server”, and to “copy, access, store, disclose and use cPanel Data indefinitely in its sole discretion”.

While there are phrases limiting those rights in some cases, you have not given your users a reasonable time in which to assess the changes, decide whether they will accept them and, if they are unhappy with them, to make other arrangements — let alone discuss them with their customers.

Maybe the changes are minimal. Maybe not. Did you provide us with a clear list of changes, explaining the implications? No, you did not.

Your customers face a true dilemma today. Do they roll back to the previous version of the software, knowing that it doubtless contains security flaws that have been patched in the new version? Or do they blindly accept your new EULA without being able to think through the implications for their business and their customers?

Your new EULA will not have been written overnight. Your lawyers will have taken time to consider it, and it will have gone through an approval process within your own company. Why did you not have the simple, basic courtesy to extend the same opportunity to your customers?

Not impressed.

I have pressed “I Agree” because I needed to perform an urgent maintenance task on my server. However I wish to make it clear that I have not, in fact, agreed to your new EULA because I have not been given a reasonable opportunity to consider it.

Your once-happy but now extremely unhappy customer,

Stilgherrian

Of course cPanel are far from the only example of this arsehattery. Who have you had to deal with lately?

Keynoting the Saasu Cloud Conference 2012 with security

26 March 2012 in Business, Internet, Personal by Stilgherrian | No comments

On 11 May I’ll be delivering one of the keynote presentations at Saasu’s inaugural conference, the Saasu Cloud Conference 2012 in Sydney.

The cloud is the enabler, it’s the medium that automation grows in. We want to focus on the value of online accounting automation, why it’s often undervalued and how you can get some for your own business or practice.

Saasu makes the online accounting system that I’ve been using since July 2007, and I know the chief executive officer and founder Marc Lehmann and chief happiness officer Tony Hollingsworth.

Good leadership and a good attitude continues to deliver a good product. Well, I think so anyway. At least it works for me.

My keynote will be something about security and the cloud, obviously enough, but I’ll lock down the details before the end of this week.

Mind you, I wrote the ZDNet Australia feature Cloud security? Better get a lawyer, Son! in October 2010, and since then I’ve written Cloud could be ‘privacy enhancing’: Pilgrim and Hybrid clouds the eventual reality for risk management and Today’s cloud winners: the cybercriminals and Want government cloud? Rethink security! so I’ve got plenty of material to start with.

Saasu has kept the price down to a reasonable $99 for a full-day event. You can register online.

[Update 11 May 2012: I've just posted notes and background material for my presentation, Security and the Cloud: Hype versus Reality.]

Talking Steve Jobs’ resignation on 3AW

28 August 2011 in Business, Conversations, Internet by Stilgherrian | 1 comment

As soon as I heard the news on Thursday of Steve Jobs’ resignation as CEO of Apple Inc, I knew it would re-shape my day.

Sure enough, it did. While I was already scheduled to write two stories for CSO Online, Crikey soon commissioned a Jobs piece. And in the afternoon I did two radio spots. This is one of them.

Tom Elliott was filling in for 3AW’s drive presenter Derryn Hinch, and did a perfectly competent job.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 6:31 — 2.6MB)

Patch Monday: Amazon’s Vogels: cloud, start-ups, treadmills

18 July 2011 in Business, Internet by Stilgherrian | No comments

The cloud has levelled the playing field for business, says Amazon’s chief technology officer Dr Werner Vogels. Ten years ago, a start-up needed $5 million. Now, Vogels says, it’s “just $50,000 and a coffee shop around the corner”.

Vogels was in Sydney last week for a promotional event for the cloud-based Amazon Web Services (AWS). In a wide-ranging interview for this week’s Patch Monday podcast he discussed the cloud from both a business and a technical perspective, and responded to reports that Amazon may soon open an Australian datacentre and that the Sony PlayStation Network hack was launched from AWS servers.

You can listen below. But it’s probably better for my stats if you listen at ZDNet Australia or subscribe to the RSS feed or subscribe in iTunes.

There is a slight audio problem for the first few minutes of the interview, but it’s worth persisting.

(The conference room tables were rubbing against each other as Vogels moved his hands, elbows on table. It wasn’t very noticeable in the room, but the sound was transmitted mechanically up into the recorder via the tripod it was sitting on. I did notice after a few minutes and fixed things, so you won’t have to endure it for long.)

Please let me know what you think. Comments below. We accept audio comments too. Either Skype to stilgherrian or phone Sydney +61 2 8011 3733.

Talking business information security on BTalk podcast

30 June 2011 in Business, Conversations, Internet by Stilgherrian | No comments

Yesterday I was the guest on Phil Dobbie’s BTalk podcast at BNet Australia, a CBS Interactive masthead. The topic? Information security for small business.

I covered quite a bit of stuff fairly quickly. The state of anti-banking malware. Virus protection for smartphones. Password management. Encrypting you hard drives. Mandatory data breach notification laws. And more.

You can see the podcast in its written context as a BNet blog post, A Security Breach is Only a Matter of Time. Or you can just listen below.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 19:29 — 9.0MB)

PayPal’s incompetent compliance arsehattery

21 May 2011 in Business, Internet by Stilgherrian | 21 comments

You really have to wonder about PayPal. Every day they seamlessly process a squillion pissy little transactions from countless innumerate trailer-trash. Nice work. Then they ruin their reputation with Kafkaesque requests and oddly incompetent “service”. Like now.

“We need your help resolving an issue with your PayPal account,” they emailed me on 9 May. “We need a little more information regarding your organisation, since your PayPal account is registered as a charity or non-profit.” Huh?

As Gary Stark tweeted just now, “You, a non-profit? While that might not be your intention, it’s probably just about right.” That’s true enough. But I’m certainly not a charity or non-profit, I’m certainly not tax-exempt, and I’ve never claimed to be. I’m not even an “organisation”. And have never claimed to be.

By “a little more information” PayPal means photo ID, another document showing my address, a bank statement linking me to my bank account, confirmation that I’m not not a “politically exposed person”, and “organisation and payment information”, whatever that might be. But I’ve been travelling for the last fortnight and I’m not carrying all this stuff.

They’re also asking for one item I’m going to have trouble with. Proof of my tax-exempt status. For no such thing exists. As Leslie Nassar tweeted, “If you can’t prove you’re not who you’re not saying you aren’t, then no Internet Money for you.”

Back on 10 May I emailed service@paypal.com.au to ask why all this was happening. I told them that I’m an individual doing business as a sole trader, and have never claimed to be anything different. I received no response. Typical. My PayPal account is now “limited”. Which means frozen.

This morning I’ve contacted PayPal’s compliance team by both email and fax.

You are asking me to prove my tax-exempt charitable or non-profit status. Why? I am not tax-exempt, non-profit or charitable, and have never claimed to be. Never. An email to service@paypal.com.au on this matter dated 10 May went unanswered. Why? Your demand for proof of tax-exempt status does not include the option “But I am not!” Why? I do expect written answers to these “Why?” questions.

I’ll let you know what happens next. Meanwhile, do feel free to vent your own frustration at PayPal in the comments. I daresay I’m not alone here.

Priority Club: so far, a frustrating loyalty scheme

25 April 2011 in Business, Marketing by Stilgherrian | 3 comments

Priority Club is a loyalty scheme for hotels including InterContinental, Crowne Plaza, Holiday Inn and others. So far, my experience has been frustrating.

I joined around a year ago because I sometimes stay at Holiday Inn properties. The other day I finally got around to making sure all my previous stays were listed on my account and earning loyalty points. It turns out that most of my stays aren’t eligible. Some loyalty.

First of all, they rejected one stay because it was back in July 2010. “The Terms and Conditions of the Priority Club® program states that adjustments to accounts will not be made more than 60 days after the statement date,” they emailed. Yet their website allows you to go to the effort of entering claims going back a year. And then have them rejected.

“As an additional courtesy to our members, we will try to research stays up to six months past the current date (rather than the statement date) for possible credit,” their email also said. “Unfortunately, the stay in Potts Point, Australia in July 2010 does not fall within these guidelines and is ineligible for credit.”

So it’s either 60 days or 6 months, depending on their… mood? I’m confused.

I emailed Priority Club to say this was… Well, I said, “Gee thanks. That really makes me feel welcome and that it was worth my time doing the paperwork.” Their reply said that the reason the July 2010 stay wasn’t eligible because it was too cheap. “You did not earn credits from the said stay as the room rate was steeply discounted,” the wrote. Indeed, it was a cheap lastminute.com.au Secret Hotel deal, where you only find out the name of the hotel once you’ve booked so their brand doesn’t get publicly associated with cheapness.

In order to get credit for your stay in any of our hotel chains, you must pay a qualifying rate. Qualifying rates include the Corporate Rate/Flex Rate, Best Breaks, Great Rates, AAA Rate, AARP Rate, Government Rates. The rates (including the 21-day advance purchase, weekend web savers and internet saver rate) offer a discount of up to 60% but also carry coding which automatically earns Priority Club credit.

On the other hand, the non-qualifying rates include the Industry Discount, Employee Discount, Internet Rate (third party website or pre-paid channel), Entertainment Rate, etc. Priority Club® Rewards does not issue credit for room rates that are discounted more than 30% off the hotel’s regular room rate.

So there you have it. Now I’m both disappointed and confused. Like who the hell pays full rates for hotels?

A final irritation was the mismatch between Priority Club’s friendly application form and the clumsy bureaucratese of their emails. That’s hardly unique to them, of course. So many businesses only apply the Magic Make-It-Clear-And-Interesting Communications Stick to marketing materials, not their routine workflow communications that customers end up seeing far more frequently. But it didn’t help.

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