Hosting 365

I don’t think it comes as a surprise to anyone to hear that Irish SME’s find IT too complex, but the results of a survey commissioned by o2 are music to MY ears!

The results highlight that 21% of businesses are turned off by virus issues and 15% are fed up with spam.

Why is this good for us? Reference my last post about hosted anti-virus and anti-spam services taking this pain away for businesses. Of course an SME isn’t going to have IT resources in-house to maintain and update the security of employees desktops (unless it’s an IT SME of course) and therefore relying on an internal IT ‘handyman’ to manage this on top of his existing work is a process doomed to ‘delusions of adequacy’ from the start.

Why not outsource this pain? Give it to a company who invests in world-class systems and provides 24×7 support and uptime for your email … screening out viruses and spam? Of course I’m pimping our wares here, but the fundamental principle to mean is the logical choice. Aside from all the other benefits of on-site engineers, great infratructure and access-anywhere email services, the annoying spam and virus emails will be banished - and it’s likely a cost-benefit analysis would show massive savings over using internal email systems.

(Ken our financial guy might have something more numbersy to say about that!)

Hosted Anti-Virus is more secure and reliable than local machine software, because the virus never even gets to your PC and you are not responsible for regualr updates.

From Business and Finance

McAfee customers were left bewildered recently when their antivirus program began attacking legimate third-party applications as malware. The problem was caused by an update that McAfee issued for its popular antivirus software, with hundreds of executables wrongly flagged as W95/CTX, low-risk Windows 95 malware. Among the applications affected were Microsoft Excel, Flash, Google Toolbar and Adaptec drivers. McAfee published a list of about 330 programs known to have conflicts with the update, but experts have speculated that the true figure is much greater. Operating systems across the board were afftected by the mistake.

This is just one example of the many ways local Anti-Virus software can let you down. The primary issue of course is that unless you are in a highly controlled corporate IT environment, the responsibility for protecting your computer is actually yours - not the anti-virus software provider. This is because you must make sure the software is up to date with the latest definitions.

Hosted Anti-Virus is by no means perfect … since it really only protects your email … but the majority of incoming files to your PC do originate via email. If you protect your email service with a hosted anti-virus service, any infected mails will be detected and quarantined before they ever get to your machine, preventing any threat of an infection.

The auDA - Australian Domain Name Administrator - deregistered domain names matching the names of the two miners that were freed.

The auDA’s policy is similar to the IEDR except that it’s retroactive - as in, you can automatically register any domain, but as the policy states, you must be able to demonstrate a reasonable claim to it (trademark / registered business name).
Maybe this is a better model for the IEDR - let people register any .ie domain name, but if it looks suspicious, or if there is a compliant about it - request the relevant documentation from the registrant, and if they can’t provide it - delist the domain. This would allow the .ie system to be automated, making it a lot more efficient for purchasers and registrars, as well as reducing overhead work for the IEDR themselves (which in turn could help bring some price parity with the TLD’s, and grow .ie numbers)

So a system of ‘policing’ rather than micro-governance.

(From the Herald Sun)

Although called by many ‘arcane’ and ‘bureaucratic’, there are some benefits to the IEDR policies.

For example, a school rang our support line today wondering if there was anything she could do about an adult site with a domain name the same as the school she worked for. Realistically there’s not, as the name isn’t unique, although there’s no doubt the school had more right to it than a non-work-safe site.

Typically you can call your .com/net/org site anything you like. While some will argue that this is a right - you may not name your business with such freedom - it must pass the companies office screening procedure. Why should a domain name - which is essentially the same as a company name, trademark, or registered business name - be given unlimited leeway? At least the IEDR practice ensures some trademark and business name protection, and also assures against serious issues like adult sites taking names associated with schools. Aside from protecting business trademarks (since you have to prove ownership of the name you are trying to register), the policy also protects consumers from fraudulent people trying to capitalise on the brand value of other businesses.

Don’t take this post as a defence of all things IEDR, clearly there are other issues, and I’m sure they are working on these.