Ethics

Terminating contracts with IT vendors

donmc — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 16:05:04 +0000

Terminating contracts with IT vendors donmc Thu, 07/10/2008 - 12:05

Topic

What is going on these days ?

In the last week I have entered into projects with two separate customers who have been terrorized (the customer's wording, in one case) by their existing IT vendor, and want to find a new provider who won't attack them...

I find it hard to think with.

I have been told stories that demonstrate extremely poor character being played out in cases where the IT vendor has had a long-term (more than 1 year) relationship in place. One customer put it this way: "familiarity breeds contempt".

In one example recently, I found what can only have been a deliberate act of sabotage in the customer's computer equipment, leaving one of his machines inoperable. Perhaps it was a mistake, but then that implies simple incompetence as the only other possibility.

Either way, there is clearly a need to maintain a civilized and amenable relationship, customer to IT contractor, or just find another vendor.

The really scary part of this is how much damage an out-of-control IT guy armed with ALL the passwords for your IT infrastructure [really the "keys to the kingdom"] can do in a very short space of time. Can you imagine ? All your data GONE.

When You Rely On A Single Source For All Your Business, You're In Trouble

donmc — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 14:22:07 +0000

When You Rely On A Single Source For All Your Business, You're In Trouble donmc Thu, 03/20/2008 - 10:22

Topic

Technology

Ethics

From: http://techdirt.com/articles/20080319/020719583.shtml
from the it's-that-simple dept
TechCrunch points us to a story that I had to triple-check wasn't an early April Fool's release, concerning a Canadian internet company named GeoSign that supposedly raised $160 million a year ago to fuel its Google ad arbitrage play, only to have it all collapse in a year, in part due to Google finally hitting back against arbitragers. The story is fascinating on a number of points -- from the idea of putting $160 million into what was clearly a fluke (though, it sounds like the VC probably pulled most of that money out of the company) to the fact that the company's collapse (and massive layoffs) happened just months after the $160 million was closed. However, the key point was that all of the company's revenue came from a single arbitrage play: buying Google keywords and sending people to landing pages with Yahoo ads on them. When Google pulled the plug (as it should have), the entire revenue line disappeared. While there are plenty of firms that rely solely on Google for traffic (and even sue when that traffic goes away), this should be a clear reminder to anyone: if you are totally reliant on a single company for your business to work out, you're probably in trouble. No good business is built entirely off a single supplier or revenue source.

Hired Hackers...

donmc — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 18:08:28 +0000

Hired Hackers... donmc Mon, 01/28/2008 - 13:08

Topic

Technology

Ethics

The Case of the Hired Hacker

From: http://www.mcafee.com/us/research/criminology_report/default.html

A businessman hired a sixteen-year-old New Jersey hacker to disable the Web sites of his competitors. The hacker launched a program that placed bots on 2,000 unprotected computers that he then used for a distributed denial of service attack.

The attacks were repeated over five months and damaged not only the target companies, but also their Internet service providers (ISP) and, in a cascading effect, hundreds of other unrelated companies that used the same ISP. The FBI estimated that the attacks cost all the companies over $2 million, and arrested both hacker and businessman in March 2005.

“This is an example of a growing trend: that is, denial of service attacks being used for either extortionate reasons, or to disable or impair the competition. It’s a growing problem and one that we take very seriously, and one that we think has a very destructive impact and potential.”
—FBI Supervisory Special Agent Frank Harrill