Phishing-Pharming Scams-The Facts

Phishing and Pharming. Everyone is somewhat familiar with phishing, but pharming -- maybe you need a little information. Anyway, that is what I thought for myself. We are need to be ever vigiliant in both areas online and offline.

Online -- If you are on the Internet a major part of the time, then you are aware that you need to protect yourself online. Those new to the Internet realm, may not be so aware-especially if their experience has been within a corporate setting.

Offline - maybe people are not as informed - but aware. Even though I did not elaborate in my article about how pharmers/phisher obtain your info and identity, let me enlighten you. Offline, it is wise to use a micro shredder to shred your important information that has your name, address, account information before throwing it out to the dumpsters. Unscrupulous individuals can pick through your trash looking for bank statements, credit card states, financial records, etc-purpose to sell or to steal your identity. And if you watched CNN lately, you would have seen an individual who is still trying to clean up her identify after seven years-after someone stole her identity.

Just to add, it's wise to get yourself a shredder-and preferably a micro shredder. Straight cut and cross-cut shredders can still be put back together.

So hopefully, this article will enlighten you to what phishing and pharming is, and how you can try to protect yourself online. One final thought, phishing and pharming protection has to be a collaborative effort between consumer and business -- working together we can be better informed and protected.


Phishing-Pharming Scams-The Facts?
By Vickie J. Scanlon


With the Internet becoming more of an intregal part of many people's busy lives, it is becoming more important to be aware of how you can and should protect yourself. Two different scams to acquaint yourself too is the pharming and phishing scams. They have been around for awhile, but both are becoming more prominent as times goes by. So it is wise to learn what you can about them, as well as, take appropriate action when needed.

Phishing Scams

Phishing Scams are scams in which you asked within an email to click on the provided link so that you can verify the information that they feel may have been compromised. It could be your online banking, paypal, investments accounts, etc. with the purpose of capturing your account number or password.

How do you protect yourself from Phishing Scams

With a Phishing Scam you have to always be on your toes. For example, if you receive an email requesting that you log-in to your PayPal account because they feel that it may have been compromised. They will supply you with a link to click on to get you to the site. The site may look authentic, but it is not. Some precautions can be taken. Such as:


1. Do not click on the link they provide.
2. Open up a session of the Internet and put in your stored link -NOT THE LINK provided within the email. And verify the information.
3. Contact the company that you are doing business with to make them aware of what is going on - this will allow them to notify other people that they do business with, with what is happening.


Pharming Scams

Pharming Scams is like phishing with a slight twist to the whole game. With the pharming scam, you are redirected from your legitimate site to that of the fake site.

How do they get in? They do it in several ways:

1) through an email virus- in which they install a small programs that will direct the user to the fake site. Once the small program is in place, they will use a Keylogger virus. The keylogger virus tracks the users passwords that they (the user) key in with.
2) The other methods involves the pharmer interfering with your DNS. When you type a Web site's name into your browser, your server will read the name, look up its numeric address and take you to the site. This is where the Pharmers interfere with that process. They change the real site's numeric address to the fake site's numeric address. The Pharmers can interfere with your DNS only when you use the "http" and not the "https" for your contacting url.


How to Protect Yourself

If you are on the internet often or do any financial transactions online, it is wise to incorporate as much security as possible. Here are some helpful tips:

1. Use adware/spyware software daily
2. Use anti-virus software
3. Use software that identifies the site, determines the length of time they have been online and allows you to look at their site report. Most software options check against an updated database of blacklisted phishing sites and IPs. One example is Netcraft- it's compatible with Firefox or Internet Explorer.
4. Internet security software
5. Use Firefox or Opera for added security
6. Password Management Software -- helps to eliminate keylogging-and encrypts your passwords. Example: Roboform - ten or less it will be free to use. If you have over 10 you will need to pay a one time charge after 30 days.
7. Always use a secure website. SSl encryption with beginnings like: https://
8. Make sure your browser is up-to-date and have all necessary up-to-date security patches.


What are Businesses Doing To Protect You?

Yes, businesses are concerned with your security. Why? They are on the losing end as well-through lose money and business. So what are some companies doing to protect you.

1. Some business only allow so many attempts into your site in a day. Then you have to wait for the next day to do business.
2. They monitor your IP address for safety.
3. Eliminate all pop-ups during sign-up and sign-in.
4. Some eliminated emailing together.
5. Server side software to protect their customers and employees who use internal or private web-based systems


What to Do If You Are A Victim of Phishing or Pharming

If you feel you are a victim of phishing or pharming don't ignore it, or think nothing will happen. Be pro-active and set things in motion to protect yourself. Such as:

1) Notify the company immediately. They will tell you how to proceed. And be prepared to create a new user-id and password.

2) Depending on the severity of the breach-Report an Initial Security Alert to one of the three consumer agencies listed below:
a) Equifax-www.equifax.com
b) Experian-www.experian.com
c) TransUnion - www.transunion.com

Upon contacting one of the agencies, they will notify the other two. The Initial Security Alert puts an alert on your credit file, as well as, alert creditors to follow certain procedures to protect you. This is protecting your identity.

To conclude, if you work on the Internet or utilize the Internet a lot on a daily basis, do not ignore your security. Swallow hard, get the software you need to protect yourself, your family and online business. And as always, be ever vigilant.



Vickie J Scanlon -- Visit her site at: My Affiliate Place for tools, how to info of affiliate and internet marketing, Report Your Scams, tech accessories, security software and computers for the online business.

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Inserting AdSense Code in Posts

I've taught you to Parse the HTML of the AdSense code. Now I'm going to give example of placement.

This first tutorial of placement is to put the code in the post below the Post Title and above the post body. This will show the Adsense code in the first post on your blog page, but when when a specific post is opened up on its own page, the code will always show up in that post.

You will notice the placement in the image to the left. I took a picture just in case I had chosen to change my Adsense placement by the time you were reading this post.

You will notice that for this application I chose the small banner, 468 X 60 so that it would take up most of the width of the posting area.

To accomplish this place go Dashboard>>>Layout>>>Edit HTML...click on "Expand widget templates". It is in the right corner at the top of the Edit box.

Scroll down in the template code until you find this line:

<div class='post-header-line-1'/>

Below that line insert your parsed HTML for the Adsense code that I taught you how to make in the last post, and hit SAVE!

Always remember to keep a copy of your template safely stored on your own computer in a NotePad file....just in case!

In the next tutorial I will teach you how to wrap the AdSense code in a post!
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Parsing AdSense HTML For Posts

I am going to teach you to add AdSense code to your posts. Since it can be an overwhelming process, I'm going to break it down into several posts.

This post will teach you how to make the code compatable. To use AdSense code inside a post it is necessary to "escape" the AdSense code. The reason: If you put the code into your template just as it is written when you display the source code for the page, the Google data is invisible...that does not make Google happy and it is a TOS violation of AdSense...and they will pull your account for that!

Adsense does not allow you to alter their code other than "minor" edits. what we are going to do is considered a "minor" edit.

I contacted AdSense with the following question:

Subject: Wrapping Adsense code in blog post
Date: Wed, 18 Apr 2007 09:12:15 -0700

I would like to put the adsense ads inside of a blog post. To make it look EXACTLY like you give it to me (when viewed as a Page source code) it is necessary for a minor alteration. For Blogger to parse the Adsense Code in XML template, the Javascript has to be escaped, using html entities...It looks EXACTLY like you gave it out when viewed by Page source, so is this permissable?

Adsense answered my email with this:

Hi Bonnie,

We do permit minor edits to the AdSense code to place inside the blog posts. Please keep in mind publisher may not alter any portion of the code or manually change the layout of the ads. For instance, publishers may not alter the ad height variable to mask the Ads by Google moniker.

Thanks for your cooperation.

Sincerely,

Sean
The Google AdSense Team

So here is how we are going to parse the HTML to make it compatable and when viewed by using the Page Source code, it will look exactly as given to you by Adsense.

This is an example of a piece of Adsense code as given out by Adsense:

<script type="text/javascript"><!--
google_ad_client = "pub-XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX";
google_ad_width = 468;
google_ad_height = 60;
google_ad_format = "468x60_as";
google_ad_type = "text_image";
google_ad_channel = "";
//-->
</script>
<script type="text/javascript"
src="http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js">
</script>

You are going to change the (<) to (&lt;) and the (>) to (&gt;) and the quote marks ( " ) to (&quot;) They will all be HTML entities. The code will then look like this:

&lt;script type=&quot;text/javascript&quot;&gt;&lt;!--
google_ad_client = "pub-XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX";
google_ad_width = 468;
google_ad_height = 60;
google_ad_format = "468x60_as&quot;;
google_ad_type = "text_image";
google_ad_channel = "";
//--&gt;
&lt;/script&gt;
&lt;script type=&quot;text/javascript&quot;
src=&quot;http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js&quot;&gt;
&lt;/script&gt;

The next post will show you how to place this in your template!
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Được tin cậy...dẫu thế nào cũng hay!

Chẳng biết là người ta tin tưởng hay là mình may mắn khi hai lớp Toán 2A và 2B được giao cho tổ chức một cuộc thi trong khoa: Kiến thức Toán học.
Chẳng biết là sẽ được gì nhưng tui và Sửu vẫn lao vào thức đêm + đói bụng để cố gắng hoàn thành một khối công việc đồ sộ mà hai đứa đã...lỡ gánh.
Chẳng biết là cuộc thi có mang lại nhiều niềm vui và hứng khởi cho mọi người không nhưng tôi đã cảm thấy rất vui và hài lòng trong lúc bế mạc vì mình đã cố gắng nhìu rồi.
Chắc rằng cả tập thể: từ các thầy, MC, ban nội dung và kĩ thuật đều cảm thấy vui!
Cuối cùng, chẳng biết trong tương lai mình còn được tin cậy như thế nữa không, nhưng tôi đã nói với bản thân phải luôn cố gắng và hứớng đến một cái đích khác (tốt hơn)!


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Content-SEO-SEM-Target Market -How Do They Relate

Content has been said to be king. But many don't know, or have a complete picture of how it can relate to SEO and SEM and thus, your target market.

If you write your content correctly for your niche you will reach your targeted market. And isn't that the direction that you want to go. As with anything you must keep the quality of your content in mind-or lose visitors and return visitors for that matter. There are some people that say they put out 50+ articles a month. That's great, but I wonder how many of those writers -- may have below par writing and low readership? However, if you can crank out quality articles at 50 a month -- I applaud you, and keep up the good work. If not, it might be to your benefit to cut back a bit and go for quality.

Anyway, here is an article that I have written, just to give you a total picture of the marketing process between SEO,SEM, Content and your target market. It's called: "Content-SEO-Target Market-What Comes First?".


Content-SEO-SEM-Target Market-What Comes First?
By Vickie J. Scanlon

Content, SEO, SEM, Target Market -- What comes first? I would say content. Even though many say that content is King on the Internet, many may not realize the interrelationship of content to SEO, SEM and your target market. How does content influence your target market and the search engines? Let's see how it translates into your website health and success.


Content and SEO

First, left's define SEO. Search Engine Optimization is the process of designing a webpage/website so that the search engines can easily find you. The process of optimizing your page or website is through the placement of chosen keywords within your content --(your text copy), as well as, within your meta tags.

When you choose your keywords, and weave them expertly within your content -- without sacrificing readability or interest, you will have created a quality, optimized page for search engines and for your target market. If the content is useless or not of quality, expect a quick click away from your site.

If you are a newbie, it is important that you have quality content just to make the search engines take notice of your site and to begin indexing you. And if you've been online for awhile, quality content is essential to your website continued success-SEO speaking. If the quality of your content begins to slip you will see lost revenue, lower page ranking, and fewer clicks on your website. Ouch!

Content and SEM

SEM (Search Engine Marketing) is the submitting, researching and positioning of your website within the search engines to maximize your website to the masses. This includes, PPC (pay-per-click), paid listings and search engine submissions to increase your website's exposure for all to see.

Where does content come into play with SEM. Google has stricter rules for it's PPC -and landing page criteria. Landing pages must have keywords that are relevant to the PPC ad they are using. If your landing page does not have the relevant keywords associated with your ad, you may be finding that you are paying more for a keyword than others. If you don't realize it, let me tell you --you have just been penalized.



Quality Content and your Target Market

So what is quality content? Quality content should be interesting, relevant and useful to your target market. And yes, if the quality of your content is useful, people will come. Without it, people will leave and search elsewhere for the content they seek.

Quality Content will also lead to websites linking to your site. If the websites are relevant or complimentary to your website, you can see an increased importance of your site with the search engines. And yes, that translates in a higher page rankings and better positioning in the search engines.

To conclude, even though the Internet is evolving - Social Bookmarking, YouTube, MySpace-- they still require one thing - Content. Content-be it written,audio or video- content must come first. For with it, it will give you the targeted traffic that you need to prosper on the Internet.


About The Author:
Vickie J Scanlon -- Visit her site at: My Affiliate Place for tools, how to info of SEO and marketing/internet marketing, tech accessories, software and computers -- all geared to help the affiliate/small businessperson online.
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Improving AdSense Performance

In the real estate industry, there are three things that are the most important about a property...location, location, and...location!

1.) So the very first thing that I want you to pay attention to when working to increase your AdSense performance is location! We'll start with the HEAT MAP to the left. The dark spots are the page locations where readers spend the most time looking. Utilize as many of these spots as possible.

2.) Place your ads above the FOLD...in newspaper language, this is the face location, or what you see on the page when it opens. Depending on your screen size it could be a little more or a little less than what you see here. But rule of thumb is that ads below the FOLD are seldom seen or clicked!

3.) As indicated in the HEAT MAP, the left side of the page is a premiere location. Readers are accustomed to seeing the navigational menu on this side of the page, so move your menu to the right side, like I did, and use the left for your ads!

Now the next section of performance enhancement has to do with the Ads themselves.

1.) Use lots of Ads! Google gives you ad allowances per page, utilize all that you can. But you must keep track of what you are using and what methods work best. You can keep track of this by...

2.) Utilizing the CUSTOM CHANNELS. AdSense gives you the ability to put a name tag on each ad that you make. This will help you to find out which ads work best, according to the fonts, colors, size and placement on the page.

A.) Match the FONTS to those on your page, especially if you are wrapping the AdSense in a blog post!
B.) Match the COLORS of your Ads to the colors of your website. Visitors will look at them more, especially BLUE LINKS. Blue links have a higher CTR than other color links because people are just used to clicking on blue links!
C.) Use Large Ads where possible. The Large Rectangle (336x280) is the best performing ad unit.
D.) And get rid of any borders, so your readers eye can wander around the page unimpeded.
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Adsense Arbitrage-Can You Make Money?

Many people talk about Adsense Arbitrage-but don't explain it. I've written an article that explains what Adsense Arbitrage is, how it works, and the pros and cons you need to know about Adsense Arbitrage. Currently it is legal, but as you will see, or already know, working completely within Google's confines, in most cases, will create small profits.

You definitely need to know what you are doing within Adsense, Adwords, as well as, keeping an eye on the Stats side. If you lose site of your daily stats, you could lose. With that being said, I hope you enjoy this informative read called-"Adsense Arbitrage-Explained".


Adsense Arbitrage Explained
By Vickie J. Scanlon


Adsense Arbitrage has been around for a while, but many don't know what it is or how it works. Though I have not ventured into this area, through my research, it has been said that many can make money in this arena. However, you do need a good handle on Adsense and Adwords and have the tools to make it work. So, what is Adsense arbitrage and it's advantages and pitfalls?



What is Adsense Arbitrage

Adsense Arbitrage is paying a low price for a keyword in an advertising program like Yahoo Search Marketing, MSN AdCenter and Adwords(more on Adwords) and then directing the users who read your ads to a page with Adsense or some contextual advertising program on it that has a higher payout. For example: You bid $.50 for a keyword and direct your traffic
to a landing page with ads that pay $1.00. Sounds easy, but it isn't.

Is Adsense Arbitrage Legal?

Yes, it is legal, but this is where the problem arises. There are some people that use this process to bring people to a page with just ads on it, without any quality content. I don't know about you but I find it a little aggravating to find only Adsense ads or ads from another PPC search engine program with no content? No, I don't click on the ads, I just click away and do another search.

This aggravating dilemma has been addressed by Google with new pricing features. They now adjust the cost of a keyword-targeted content click if they feel that the page will not result in a sale, or action that the page is suppose to generate. The payout of the click would be less. Then on the Adwords side, Google can penalize you by placing a higher cost on your keywords -- thus, making it very unprofitable for you and very profitable for Google.


You Can Make Money and You Can Lose Money?

Yes, you can make some money, but you should be confident in your knowledge of Adense and Adwords and have the tools to monitor the ups and downs of your Ads.

And yes, you can lose money. If you don't stay on top of your stats--seeing what is coming in versus what is going out-- you could find your pocketbook a lot lighter.

In addition, with the many changes that Google has put into place, many who have utilized Adsense arbitrage through Google only have found their business profits dwindle or worse yet, dwindle to a loss. So what have they done?

Many have went across several search engines- placing Adsense on their content pages and then utilize different PPC search engines to direct their users to the pages. In some cases they have seen good returns and in others, just enough to have a good dinner.

As you can see, Adsense Arbitrage is a way to make money, but it is not for everyone. Why? It's time consuming, you need the tools to monitor your stats, the know how of analysis, a strong knowledge of Adsense and Adwords and the know how to creating good ad copy.

Even though I find Adsense Arbitrage interesting -- I believe I will leave it to those who have the time, money and knowledge and the gambling spirit. For me, I'll stay with affiliate marketing and try to build a strong business that will last a while. As to your choice, that's up to you.


About the Author:

Vickie J Scanlon -- Visit her site at: My Affiliate Place for free tools, articles, how to info of affiliate marketing/internet marketing, adsense tutorial, travel and tech accessories, software and computers -- all geared to help the affiliate/small businessperson online.

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