Globalize Networks blog

There have been many articles over the past year about hackers using “Automated Clearing House” fraud to steal money from small and medium sized businesses. The basic premise is that a hacker will compromise the machine that handles bank transactions for your company and steal money directly from your business account.

ACH Fraud digram

This graphic is from “Fraud Advisory for Businesses: Corporate Account Take Over” created as part of a joint effort between the United States Secret Service, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) and the Financial Services Information Sharing and Analysis Center (FS?ISAC).

This document has some great recommendations, and everyone involved with corporate online bank transactions should check it out.

I would distill the advice down to one key step:  Designate a secure machine to do bank transactions that isn’t used for anything else. Don’t use this machine to browse the internet, check e-mail, or open any documents  not necessary to complete transactions.  When we talk about a secure machine, it should of course have all updates, anti-virus, etc.   It would also be preferable to have this machine on an isolated network.  Putting it behind a simple broadband router would provide a lot of benefit for little cost.   Even internal networks should be considered suspect in this sort of situation.

Here is another article for further reading:

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9205562/Hackers_steal_150_000_with_malicious_job_application

Google and Verizon have stirred the ire of Net Neutrality proponents by working on a deal to prioritize certain web content.

At issue for consumers is how the companies that provide the pipeline to the Internet will ultimately direct traffic on their system, and how quickly consumers are able to gain access to certain Web content. Consumers could also see continually rising bills for Internet service, much as they have for cable television.

The prospect of a Google-Verizon agreement infuriates many consumer advocates, who feel that it would concentrate in a few corporations control of what to date has been a free and open Internet system in which consumers decide which companies are successful.

“The point of a network neutrality rule is to prevent big companies from dividing the Internet between them,” said Gigi B. Sohn, president and a founder of Public Knowledge, a consumer advocacy group. “The fate of the Internet is too large a matter to be decided by negotiations involving two companies, even companies as big as Verizon and Google.”

The FCC’s meetings with big internet providers were recently called off, so it’s unclear how Net Neutrality legislation will move forward.

I am somewhat divided on this issue. Currently, the more resources a content provider has, the better experience it can provide to end-users (more servers, etc.). So the internet playing field isn’t really level right now. However, in cases where ISPs are also content providers or have exclusive deals with content providers there does seem to be a risk that competing content could be restricted or even blocked. So that’s bad for competition and innovation. I had previously thought that the content companies like Google would have a vested interest in preventing ISPs from blocking content, but now I am not so sure.

The sad truth is that competition is great for society and thus business in general but bad for any specific business. The best outcome might be for the FCC to re-assert the authority over ISPs that they gave up under the Bush administration.

What do you think?

Ernest Hemingway at his standing desk

Stand up desks have been used to counteract back pain and improve productivity for years, but there might be a more important reason to consider changing the way you work.  A recent study suggests that more time spent sitting increases mortality risk regardless of physical activity.  So even you exercise a lot, your health may be negatively impacted by sitting at a desk all day.

“Several factors could explain the positive association between time spent sitting and higher all cause death rates,” said Dr. Patel. “Prolonged time spent sitting, independent of physical activity, has been shown to have important metabolic consequences and may influence things like triglycerides, high density lipoprotein, cholesterol, fasting plasma glucose, resting blood pressure, and leptin, which are biomarkers of obesity and cardiovascular and other chronic diseases.”

I can’t say that I have ever noticed much back pain from sitting all day myself.  However, I tend to prefer decreasing my risk of death.  When I heard about this study, my stomach dropped thinking about how much time I spend sitting each day.

I decided to look into standing desks and explore some alternatives.  Some of them were fairly expensive, but I feel that it’s foolish for me to not spend a little money to improve my health and possibly improve the experience that consumes most of my day.

Here is a gorgeous desk from Stilvoll that I haven’t found the price for yet.  I have a feeling that if you need to ask, you might as well not.

StilVoll Crescendo C2

An uglier but utilitarian desk is available from GeekDesk.com for $799.

Geek Desk

And if you are really on a budget, Lifehacker has a $20 solution.   I showed this to my girlfriend and she nearly strangled me.

Stand up desk on the cheap

Finally, don’t forget the ergonomic mat to stand on.

It’s hard to picture changing the way you work, but I for one am going to give it a try by assembling a trial version using some inexpensive cabinets and a desk top.