The Weekly Round-Up: 11.06.04

We all have mountains to climb in our lives... and last weekend the Round-Up did three of the blighters.

As many of you will be aware (from the constant sponsorship appeals in this newsletter over past weeks) the Round-Up took part in the gruelling 3-Peaks Challenge - scaling Ben Nevis, Scafell Pike and Snowdon in the space of one weekend.

The good news is that the challenge was completed safely and successfully by Team Round-Up and better yet in an impressive time of 13 hrs 11 mins for the three mountains, which put us in fourth place over all, out of 28 teams. Along the way we also raised more than £7,000 for Shelter. So a big thank you to everybody who sponsored the Round-Up to complete this challenge.

(Over the years people have often asked who the Round-Up is. It's an identity more closely guarded than World Of Sport's 80s wrestling legend Kendo Nagasaki. But now it's time to reveal all. For those of you who are interested, and for those of you who want proof the challenge was completed, follow the link for a picture of the Round-Up at 1,400 metres on the summit approach of Ben Nevis – click here.)

Also climbing his own personal mountain these days is Oracle boss Larry Ellison who continues to doggedly pursue his aggressive takeover of PeopleSoft.

For some time now Larry has been stuck at base camp unable to even approach his mountain due to the unfavourable conditions. This week Oracle lawyers were in court imploring the DoJ to blow the clouds away and let Larry race to the summit.

Also on the acquisition trail is Bill Gates' Microsoft empire which this week, it was revealed, last year walked into a popular IT A-list night spot called 'Acquisition' and started making eyes at a nice looking SAP sat at the end of the bar. Gates wrote his number (thought to be something along the lines of $50bn) on a napkin and handed it to the object of his desire. Cue much fluttering of eyelashes.

And of course there's a twist - and we're not talking about a twist of lemon in the vodka martini that Gates was (probably not) sipping as he made 'sell-to-me' eyes at SAP.

The German software giant is of course critical to the aforementioned PeopleSoft acquisition favoured by Oracle and Microsoft's flirtations could be critical to the success of Ellison's bid. For the record Gates and Ellison already have 'history' and this latest twist is unlikely to bring them any closer. Don't expect to see them playing tennis together any time soon.

The Department of Justice wants to block Oracle's bid over monopoly concerns. The deal would leave just Oracle and SAP 'bossing' their market but Oracle this week also pointed out that any bid for SAP by Microsoft is surely not only similarly impractical but shows the endgame isn't necessarily an Oracle-dominated market at all.

Oracle's lawyers really have picked up the biggest spanner in the shop and hurled it aggressively into the room marked 'works'.

At one point Oracle's attorney Dan Wall said the whole thing was leaving him rather "befuddled" - which is firstly an excellent use of an underappreciated word and secondly a very welcome admission from somebody who should have the clearest idea of what is going on. You and the Round-Up both Dan, you and the Round-Up both! (Read this and this for more on this story.)

Also baffling the Round-Up this week is the lax approach companies take to ensuring their laptops are secure and in safe hands.

Research from security vendor Pointsec has revealed 70 per cent of laptops which are sold at auction - often as a result of being lost or in some instances stolen - have recoverable, sensitive data on them. (See here for more.)

One laptop, which had formerly belonged to a major insurance firm, even had 77 Excel spreadsheets which could be opened and viewed to obtain customers' names, addresses, pension plans, payroll details, login details and passwords. Which isn't good.

Wouldn't you like to know if you were one of those customers? And more to the point, wouldn't you like to think that companies taking your money and handling sensitive financial details are a bit more clued up about the need to secure their data and the need to keep it safe.

Many of the laptops bought by Pointsec were acquired on auction sites such as eBay. Others were bought at public auctions, such as those held by airport and train station lost property offices.

This latter detail of course betrays the fact that many people are just wandering off without their laptops or leaving them on the train.

It also betrays the fact that despite the laptop containing sensitive information people aren't even bothering to put in a call to ask whether it has been handed in, perhaps assuming it will be stolen or 'taken care of' by a helpful member of staff at the airport, station or sidings.

The Round-Up can understand not putting in a call over an umbrella, book or pair gloves, but a laptop? Has society really bred such a culture of disposability that we write off a lost laptop with an 'oh well, I'll get another one...'?

Hopefully talk of 'losing' anything is far from the minds of the England team currently out in Portugal preparing for Euro 2004 - which if you've been on the moon for the past month or so is nearly upon us.

But while the England team are being put through their paces ahead of this weekend's crunch group match against France (come on England!) internet betting sites are also trying to ensure they are 'match fit' for the big competition.

Teams of cyber-criminals are running blackmail scams targeting online bookies, threatening to cripple their sites with a distributed denial of service attack if they don't stump up a $30,000 ransom.

Ahead of a summer of sport, next week looks like being a critical time for bookies, with Euro 2004 kicking off and Ascot taking place. Lengthy downtime could cost the bookies serious amounts of revenue - not to mention the long-term loss of customers who may take their money elsewhere.

At least two bookies have fallen foul of these organised criminals after they refused to meet the $30,000 demand.

Blue Square and Capital Sports both lost their online presence for some time this week and experts are warning of a wave of similar attacks in the run up to tomorrow's kick-off, unless companies either put in place major safeguards or pay-up. (See here for more.)

A spokesman for Blue Square said: "This is the third successful attack. As soon as we put one solution in place they come up with another method, although there are a few other attacks we've managed to repel."

The fact we haven't seen many more such attacks suggests other companies may already have paid up. After all, in the grand scheme of betting revenues the $30,000 is a drop in the ocean, even if it only buys some more time to prepare their defences until more – or the same scammers - come knocking again.

But there's an obvious cautionary tale here. One US bookie who paid up, to the tune of $50,000, was targeted again two weeks later, to the surprise of nobody but the company itself. Another bookie told silicon.com it had this week put in place £100,000-worth of security measures to prevent such attacks due to the frequency of the threats now coming in. A representative said he expects every bookie to be targeted this weekend ahead of the big match.

And how do these gangs choose which bookies to attack?

The Blue Square spokesman said: "It looks like it is done alphabetically. Last time it was Total Bet and William Hill, and this time it is us and Capital Sports. If I was Coral I'd be worried."

Which all sounds a little bit Sesame Street but if the Round-Up ran an online bookie (rather than just supported them with foolish punts... come on Latvia!) it would choose a name which began with a number - that would fox their system.

"OK Dmitry have we targeted all the As, Bs, Cs, Ds, Es, Fs and Gs?"
"Yes."
"What about the Hs, Is, Js, Ks, Ls, Ms, Ns, Os and Ps?"
"Yes"
"And the Rs, Ss, Ts, Us, Vs, Ws, Ys and Zs?"
"Yes"
"Well that is everybody then... I cannot believe these people only have 26 letters in their alphabet - no wonder even a big yellow bird can learn them!"

Foolproof! 1Bet, or 2Sports - or whatever name the Round-Up opted for - would forever be safe from their malicious attacks, unless they happen to catch an episode of Sesame Street which features 'the Count' as that may alert them to the potential of targeting numbers as well. (And thinking about it, the Count is also from Eastern Europe... hmmm...)

(While we're on the subject, why not take our latest poll here and let us know who you think will really win Euro 2004. Or why not be blindly patriotic - like 38 per cent of those who have already taken the poll - and vote for 'England'.) Also attempting to shamelessly cash-in on football fever was a French spammer who was up in court this week for flooding the internet with emails advertising football merchandise.

A joint investigation by AOL and Microsoft found he had sent around one million emails - landing him a fine in the region of €22,000, plus costs.

That'll teach him - and hat's off to those two giants of the internet for pursuing the case. Now let's see some more.

Also getting on the wrong side of consumers recently is Appleimports.co.uk which promised shoppers eager to get their hands on the iPod mini that it could import the must-have gadgets from the US.

The site was clearly inundated with orders but subsequently silicon.com has been inundated with complaints about the company which to date has apparently failed to fulfil any of the orders it has taken, despite taking full payment.

Some people had placed orders as far back as March but told silicon.com they were still waiting for their sexy little MP3 player to arrive. Readers were strung along with promises of delivery but the dates kept changing and still there was no sign of an iPod mini in the post.

Request for refunds proved similarly fruitless (as did silicon.com's attempts to contact Appleimports.co.uk). Many silicon.com readers told us they were again strung along with 'the cheque is in the mail'-style empty promises.

A number of readers have subsequently been successful in getting their money back through their credit card companies and silicon.com would recommend others try the same approach.

When the heat started to get a little too hot for Appleimports.co.uk to handle the company apparently set up a sister site iPodimports.com to continue its operations.

iPodimports.com boasts a Kelkoo logo suggesting a legitimate status as an e-tailer... but that came as news to Kelkoo. A spokeswoman told silicon.com neither site is listed on Kelkoo and the use of its logo is entirely bogus.

Trading Standards told silicon.com that if it receives enough complaints it will investigate. A spokesman for ISPA (the Internet Service Providers Association) said that until it is confirmed whether or not Appleimports and iPodimports has done anything wrong, the site will remain up.

So until either Trading Standards, the police or Customs and Excise prove whether or not the site is doing anything wrong, it seems Appleimports.co.uk and iPodimports.com will remain live. All silicon.com can suggest is that consumers give them a wide berth. (Read this for more on this story.)

Until next week, the Round-Up is now off to get feverishly excited about 22 men running around a foreign field kicking a ball about.

But if you've still time on your hands and it's too early to knock off for the weekend, read some news - it will make you a better person and impress your friends:

IT salaries vary greatly by country

Linux supporters waging a "jihad", says Microsoft exec

University laptop theft leaves patients exposed to ID theft

Orange offers 'world's smallest smart phone'

BT to pay up after missing NHS deadlines