Have your say at computerweekly.com.
On finding a way to report phishing
scams
In response to Malcolm Frary, who wanted to know how to report
banking phishing scams (Letters, 26 October)
The banking industry launched a website, www.banksafeonline.
org.uk, on 1 October to help online banking users feel more secure
about making transactions online. The site provides information on
phishing scams.
If people receive any suspicious messages, these can be reported by
forwarding the message by e-mail to banksafeonline.org.uk.
Tom Salmond, consultant, Bank Safe Online
I recently received a credit card statement for a card I had not
used for six months. A spate of high-value purchases had apparently
been made from companies in several different countries.
I assumed they were online transactions and that they had probably
originated in the US, as dollar exchanges were included on the
bill.
The credit card company asked me to supply a police crime number. I
contacted my local police who told me that the crime had to be
reported to and the crime number issued by the police force in
whose area the crime had been committed.
My suggestion that the crime had been committed against me and was
therefore in their area was not accepted. They suggested that I
treat each transaction as a separate crime and report each one to
the police force in whose area the purchase had been made (even
though these companies were spread around the globe).
I understand that such credit card crime is widespread, yet neither
the police nor the credit card company seemed equipped to deal with
it.
Kim Smith, advanced product development, TRW
Conekt
On charging for e-mails to deter
spammers
In response to Russell Ellis, who asked why spam companies
cannot be traced and fined (Letters, 26 October)
If I understand it correctly, companies send spam because they
actually receive enough respondents for their (mostly) unsavoury
wares to make it worthwhile. The margin is very close, but
sustainable at present.
Could not all the service providers make a simple charge of 0.0001p
for each e-mail to everybody they serve, just enough to make most
spamming uneconomical?
For the vast majority of us, including medium to large companies,
this would be a drop in the ocean. For spammers, it would be the
end of their profitability. The sheer immensity of the volume of
e-mails would make this meagre cost significant.
It might also persuade smaller scale spammers to focus their
legitimate mailing activity more appropriately.
Ralph Little, Tribal Data Solutions
On sacrificing training for roll-out
costs
In response to Tony Collins, who claimed that the national plan
for IT in the NHS would potentially run over budget, leaving little
cash to train GPs in new systems (Computer Weekly, 18
October)
The actual figure involved for the NHS IT programme is very much a
wet finger in the air, but the idea that NHS Department of Health
mandarins have not considered training just seems incredible.
I have an agreed budget to install Microsoft Office on all my
company's PCs instead of Lotus Smartsuite, but I cannot roll it out
because the staff training budget has not been agreed. To apply the
migration without training is a complete non-starter. There also
seems to be a huge potential variation in final costs.
Perhaps there is a competition in government departments as to who
can have greater inflation in their project than the Scottish
Parliament building?
Alan Stewart, senior IT engineer, Colchester and East Essex
Co-operative Society
LETTERS
Real challenge of the Act is cultural
change
Your article on the impending Freedom of Information Act (Computer
Weekly, 26 October) quite rightly threw doubt on the ability of
many organisations to comply with its requirements in time for the
1 January deadline.
It is impossible to predict what the demand for information will be
until next year. Although it is difficult to foresee the full
extent of the impact of this change, most organisations will be
telling staff to assume that all the documents and e-mails they
write will be disclosable.
The installation of archive and search and retrieval systems that
are freedom of information compliant could make a tremendous
difference to an organisation's capacity to handle the full force
of this legislation.
It is true that in the commercial world the Act is a huge issue for
anyone sending information to a public body as it may be accessed
by the public at large and by anyone in the world, whether that is
a lobby group, a campaigner, the press or a competitor.
The Freedom of Information Act's real challenge is changing the
mindset from one of non-disclosure to total transparency as the
public monitor what civil servants, council officials and others
are doing on their behalf.
In the long term, as decision-making processes are made clearer to
the public, the goal of developing more accountable and responsive
public sector services will be realised. The time and expense of
ensuring compliance through the right systems for the task will be
worth the final result.
Ian Quanstrom, Zylab UK
Computing degrees are broad for good reason
I am writing in response to Robert Chapman, who said IT teaching
should be more interesting and relevant (Letters, 26
October).
I graduated from university this summer with a degree in computer
science. Students pick courses based on the content and are more
likely to choose a course if they think the content will help them
get a job.
As with most courses, my degree featured several mandatory modules,
including Java, project management and systems engineering, along
with optional modules that were the result of the research streams
of the department.
In my opinion, the optional modules on offer were extremely
interesting and definitely not "dull", and included geographical
information systems, mobile communications, computer vision, image
processing, artificial intelligence and computer security.
The idea of a degree is to give a student a broad knowledge of many
areas in that discipline and not concentrate on a single one.
Consequently, graduates are not suitable for most IT jobs because
of their lack of experience in any one area. The best way for
employers to capitalise on a graduate is to find out their
interests and modules and find a job that builds on the knowledge
they gained during their degree.
Andy Mitchell, Office for National Statistics
College courses may be IT history
lessons
I have been following the letters regarding ageism (Letters, 26
October). Robert Chapman seems to have hit the nail on the head
regarding training. I am aged over 40 I found myself having to find
a career and return to full-time work.
I studied computing at a local college in 2002 writing DOS batch
files and learning DOS-based Pascal. Our high-level networking
project was then carried out on a Windows 3.11 platform - quite an
experience for the other students who had no idea this was more a
history lesson than modern IT.
Now I am over 50 and enjoying life in a busy IT department. But for
how long?
Pauline Budworth
Why most software is of unknown
origin
In Gary Barnett's article about the dangers of paying SCO without a
refund guarantee (Computer Weekly, 19 October), he mentioned that
the case "serves as an important warning about the potential
dangers of downloading software with unknown origins". Surely this
should read "the dangers of using any software with unknown
origins".
Doesn't most software have unknown origins? Microsoft has bought
out enough companies for their code, why does that make them immune
from this kind of problem?
Several companies have taken Microsoft to court for patent
infringement and most have failed. I do not see anyone worrying
when this happens to Microsoft (except Microsoft, obviously).
The only difference with the SCO case is that the code in question
is available for everyone to see (at least from the IBM side).
Chris Clemson, Software AG