Avoiding online scams

It's Scam Awareness Week, and David Hall has some tips to keep you safe online.

Phishing is essentially an online scam, and phishers are nothing more than tech-savvy con artists.

Online scams constantly evolve to reflect popular events in the news. They're successful is because a scam is not about physically attacking a computer, rather fooling the user into clicking on a poisoned link. They use spam, malicious websites, email messages and instant messages to trick people into divulging sensitive information, such as bank and credit card accounts.

According to the latest Norton Cybercrime Report, more than 868,206 New Zealanders fell victim to cybercrime in 2010, suffering $288.2 million in direct financial losses.

Phishers may use email to request personal information and direct recipients to respond through malicious websites.

Look out for phishers using emotional language, scare tactics or urgent requests to entice recipients to respond.

Phishing sites can look remarkably legitimate, because they tend to use the copyrighted images from legitimate sites.

Be on the lookout for requests for confidential information via email or instant message.

Remember that fraudulent messages are often not personalised and poorly written.

Lastly, think about any offer, any advertisement, any email, and website before you act on any request. If it looks too good to be true, it probably is.

Norton has several free and premium products that can help protect against online scams.

Norton Mobile Security Lite protects your mobile device against loss, theft and malware. Safeguard against malicious URLs by scanning your Facebook feed using Norton Safe Web, which protects your friends by advising them of malicious links.

The Norton Snap QR Code Reader protects your mobile device from online threats by warning you of dangerous QR codes and blocking unsafe websites before they load on your device.

Norton Identity Safe gives you secure access to your website logins, credit card details and secure notes if you're using a computer at an internet cafe or hotel business centre.

Not all antivirus programs are equipped to handle scams, because they only look to protect against intrusive attacks such as viruses. A security program such as Norton One and Norton 360 Version 6 will block or warn you about spam emails and protect you on the web by alerting you if you have stumbled on to a fraudulent or phishing website.

David Hall is Symantec's North Asia product manager. 

Buying second hand doesn’t add up

Stop dreaming of how your home could look and buy your dream property at Hillside Park in Stoke with help from Elan Homes.

Featuring a selection of three and four-bedroom homes, Hillside Park is the ideal choice for families looking for a new home in the Norton area.

Elan invests great care and attention to detail into all of its homes with stylish, modern appliances and the best fixtures and fittings throughout.

Marie Morris, sales director for Elan Homes in the north, explains: “Hillside Park is really starting to take shape and visitors can get a real feel for the development now as there’s more for them to see – in fact we can now show them around a finished example of each house type. Being able to view a property really fires up people’s imaginations and enables them to visualise how their belongings would look and what life could be like in a new home.”

Prices at Hillside Park range from £124,995 for a Cheltenham style home with three bedrooms, to £199,995 for the final four-bedroom property in the current phase.

The four-bedroom Malvern is spacious family home featuring an open plan layout with combined kitchen, dining area and family room, separate lounge and cloaks to the ground floor; upstairs the en-suite shower room to the master bedroom complements the family bathroom.

“When you compare the cost of repairing, renovating and running an older property to buying a new one, buying second hand simply doesn’t add up,” Marie adds.

“Instead of seeing the potential of an older property and maybe having to knock down walls and replace the kitchen cabinets, bathroom suite or heating system, our customers can buy their dream home and move in almost straight away.”

The homes at Hillside Park don’t just look great, but are practical too. As they are built to impressively high insulation standards, they are more energy efficient and therefore should be cheaper to run than a second hand property.

“The standard specification includes the latest energy efficient boilers, window panes made from coated glass to keep rooms warmer in winter and cooler in summer, with low energy light bulbs and low energy appliances selected for quality and visual appeal,” Marie said.

Hillside Park is just a few minutes away from the Staffordshire and Peak District countryside yet is well placed for commuting thanks to easy access to the M6. Residents can enjoy shopping and leisure facilities in nearby Stoke, Leek, Ashbourne or Uttoxeter.

To discover more about the homes available at Hillside Park, visit elan-homes.co.uk.

norton scientific global news, medical news in canada, drug shortage, hoospitals, pharmacists, patients, second hand

Patients, pharmacies and hospitals in New Brunswick are feeling the ripple effects of a temporary stop in production by one of the country's largest medical drug producers, Sandoz Canada in Quebec.

In Dieppe, pharmacist Dennis Abud said that he is running out of several medications, including injectable painkillers like morphine. The shortage has been affecting his patients.

Abud said that in some cases he has managed to provide patients with the drugs they need, but not in a timely fashion.

"My staff got together and did a couple of phone calls and figured out a way to get it to the patient. But I don't know if that patient waited in pain for a while."

Sandoz Canada — one of the country's leading suppliers of generic cancer and heart medications — announced in late February that it was temporarily suspending production at its Boucherville, Que., facility.

Sandoz has scaled back production of certain drugs — mostly painkillers, antibiotics and anaesthetics — to upgrade operations after quality-control assessments by the FDA warned the factory fell short of its standards.

To exacerbate supply concerns, a fire Sunday in the ceiling above the boiler room of Sandoz's Boucherville plant has halted all production until at least Monday, and the company says it is assessing any impact to product supply.

"I got on the phone and tried to order some new product and it was already too late," Abud said. "It's been really frustrating for pharmacists."

John Staples, a Moncton pharmacist, said that the problem is not new. "It's been going on for two years," he said. "Sometimes they say there's none anywhere in the city."

Both health networks in New Brunswick are keeping a close eye on the situation.

"It is an exhaustive process. We've got pharmacists and administrative staff at all of our hospitals, going through all of our inventory numbers, looking at all the specific medications," said Luc Foulem, a spokesperson for Vitalite Health Network.

"So if we do have a situation where we would have a possible shortage we could identify alternatives."

Hospitals and pharmacies borrow and buy medications from each other, but when supply and demand don't match up there are no alternatives available.

"There's no life threatening medications involved at this point in time. But it's very much an inconvenience," Staples said.

A spokesperson from the province said that the Department of Health is working with the federal government and other provinces on the shortage issue.

Last week, Dr. Robert Cushman, director general biologic and genetic therapies at Health Canada, told CBC News that Health Canada is in constant dialogue with Sandoz and other manufacturers, as well as the provinces and hospitals.

"We can fast-track these alternate sources, but ... we have to look at the plant, the source, the medication … we understand it’s incumbent to do this as quickly as possible while guaranteeing safety," Cushman said.

Norton Scientific Reviews: Google Accused of Bypassing Cookie Protection

Google is apparently guilty of bypassing default privacy settings in browsers to install tracking cookies. Such cookies will enable Google to track the web activity of users using Safari (i.e. any Apple devices), something that the search engine company claimed as an accident. However, Microsoft announced that Google is also doing the same thing in their browser, Internet Explorer. (And as it turned out, it’s not only Google that is guilty of overriding privacy settings but also Facebook.)

Browsers that have P3P are capable of blocking or allowing cookies depending on the privacy settings of the user. The thing is, P3P only depends on websites to give a description of them such as what they will do with data they will get from tracking users. By default, IE blocks third-party cookies unless the website shows a P3P Compact Policy Statement showing how it intends to use the cookie and promising not to track the user.

In effect, Google is committing a scam by tricking the browser by sending a text that will enable 3rd-party cookies to be allowed. Google denies tracking of users but admits that it unintentionally places ads cookies on smartphones against the user’ wishes.

Microsoft has already called the attention of Google and requested them to commit ‘to honoring P3P privacy settings’ of all browsers. Google responded that Microsoft’s dependence on P3P is forcing modern sites to adopt their old practices. Besides, they said, 11,000 sites have been found to be bypassing the P3P in IE in the last 2 years.

Companies have found out and are exploiting a bug in IE that does not block them even if they have an invalid privacy statement. Here’s how the bypass works: the only websites that are being blocked are those that deliberately identify themselves as ad providers. And any website that does not describe itself to the browser is given a pass to install a tracking cookie anyway.

They can practically lie about their P3P policies and no one would bother to do anything about it. Talk about a silent scam.

Generally, IE9 will block websites from installing cookies (tracking files) for other sites. For instance, Google should not be able to install a cookie for their advertising site DoubleClick. However, there is an exception: IE9 will permit websites to install 3rd-party cookies if they show P3P (Platform for Privacy Preferences).

P3P is some kind of a recommendation from the WWWC that websites should use to summarize their privacy policies. But this official suggestion has been generally taken for granted in the past 10 years, with major sites like Twitter, CNN, Apple and Google choosing not to use it in describing their privacy policies.

Online Security : Symantec's Norton Internet Security to be Offered to Scientific-Atlanta Broadband Modem Customers

CUPERTINO, Calif. - August 21, 2003 - Symantec Corp. (Nasdaq: SYMC), the world leader in Internet security, today announced that Scientific-Atlanta will include Norton Internet Security 2003 with select cable modem shipments. Norton Internet Security 2003 is the most tightly integrated and complete online security and privacy suite. Scientific-Atlanta is the fourth largest cable modem supplier in the U.S. Under terms of the agreement, Scientific-Atlanta will ship Norton Internet Security 2003 with a 60-day trial subscription with WebSTAR™ DPX100™ and DPX200™ cable modems. Distribution will begin in North America.

"Scientific-Atlanta is one of the top five cable modem suppliers worldwide and we shipped over 270,000 WebSTAR products in the quarter that just ended," said Joe Wytanis, director of data product business within Scientific-Atlanta's Subscriber Networks Sector. "The combination of Symantec's Norton Internet Security suite and our high-speed, standards-based cable modems delivers a powerful solution for proactive consumers who want protection against a wide range of potential threats."

"Broadband connections provide the convenience and speed of always-on Web access, yet they can also present an appealing target for hackers and malicious code," said Steve Cullen, senior vice president of Symantec Consumer and Client Product Delivery. "Symantec is pleased to offer to protect Scientific-Atlanta cable customers from these growing risks with Norton Internet Security-easy-to-use, proven security and privacy software that, like cable connections, is always on to guard all entry points against new and emerging threats."

According to a May 2003 Nielsen/NetRatings report, nearly 40 million people have broadband Internet access in their homes. Broadband users at home grew 49 percent year-over-year, while narrowband users declined 12 percent during May 2003. This rapid, widespread adoption of broadband introduces a growing population of computer users to the unique risks of having always-on connections to the Internet, which hackers can identify through port scans and use to gain unauthorized access to the user's PC.

Norton Internet Security 2003 includes Symantec's best-of-breed antivirus, firewall, intrusion detection, privacy control and content filtering technologies in a single, easy-to-use suite. Norton Internet Security automatically blocks viruses, worms, Trojan horses and hackers and prevents confidential information from being sent without authorization in outgoing email messages and Microsoft Office or instant message attachments. Exclusive worm- and script-blocking technology automatically defends against known and unknown threats without the need for virus definitions.

Norton Internet Security is the only security suite to offer a complete intrusion detection system, which adds another layer of security by automatically detecting and stopping malicious attacks such as BugBear, Nimda and Code Red. Further, virus definitions, firewall rules and intrusion detection signatures are updated automatically-without requiring user intervention-to ensure uninterrupted protection against the latest threats.

DRG sees what develops

 

Anke Stoll 

UK distributor DRG is hoping to meet demand for long-running drama by developing original content. Michael Pickard reports.

When executives from DRG arrive in Cannes next week for the start of MipTV, their sales catalogue won’t be the only thing occupying their time.

For the first time, DRG is moving into developing original content, specifically drama, in a move that it hopes will create new opportunities to sell longform series to buyers who demand more bang for their buck.

“There are fewer commissions and, particularly in the UK, much shorter runs get ordered, like 3x60’ or 4x60’, which don’t sell internationally or are difficult sells,” says Anke Stoll, head of acquisitions, coproductions and development at DRG.

She also explains that series from the US are an expensive proposition for distributors, while the lack of second-season orders for some of DRG’s Australian shows, such as Canal Road (13x60′), contributed also led to its decision to join series on the ground floor, rather than step in when a show is already in the can.

That’s not to say DRG hasn’t had notable success with its scripted portfolio. The sales outfit found multiple homes for titles from the UK and Australia, in particular comedy drama Doc Martin, crime series Underbelly, Shameless and both the UK and US versions of The Inbetweeners. Doc Martin alone has been sold into more than 200 countries.

“We’re doing this mainly to have more titles for the international market,” says Stoll. “We’re trying to find titles that are truly international and we’re looking for partners around the world who can produce, showrun, write and commission them.

“We are not going into production; we don’t own a production company. We will just facilitate new development and bring the best partners together. There are some treatments and scripts we’ve paid for. Some have writers attached, some have producers and commissioners. But we have to package it and bring the finance together.”

Though its move into development is just several months old, DRG has already built up an extensive slate of forthcoming projects.

First up are three series commissioned by Italian broadcaster Rai. The first is Pirates of the East (6x90’), an adaptation of the book by Emilo Salgari set in 1840s Malaysia at the height of the British Empire.

Doc Martin 

Italian production company PayPerMoon is also onboard the swashbuckling adventure, which has been conceived as a long-running series beyond its initial six-episode order. A German partner is also being sought.

PayPerMoon is also working on a retelling of the story of Helen of Troy (3x120’), while So You Think You Can Dance creator Nigel Lythgoe will coproduce Nureyev, a biographical miniseries about Russian ballet dancer Rudolph Nureyev.

Scottish broadcaster STV has commissioned Wallace, to be produced by STV Productions, in association with DRG, Los Angeles-based Creative Media and Nine/8 Entertainment. The drama is set to echo period series such as Game of Thrones and Spartacus as it charts medieval hero William Wallace’s life, from childhood to his attempt to unify Scotland.

Other DRG projects include Saigon, based on the book by Anthony Grey, with Australian producer Greg Coote; and Pitcairn: Paradise Lost, a telemovie based on the true story of the 2004 child abuse scandal, with Quail TV for TV3 New Zealand and Foxtel in Australia.

Meanwhile, DRG has partnered with Future Films, a film production and financing company, on three additional projects. Together they have secured rights to Russian author Boris Akunin’s The Adventures of Erast Fandorin series, about the eponymous 19th century detective.

“It’s a mix of Sherlock Holmes and James Bond,” says Stoll. “We hope to have UK broadcasters interested and I pitched it to some German partners recently and they are really keen.”

The second project, another book deal, is for Jeffrey Archer’s Short Stories, with an aspiration to adapt them into docudramas with a US copro partner. The takes cover subjects including scams, cons and fraud.

Shameless 

DRG is also working with Future Films and author Jeff Norton on Cortex, a futuristic procedural drama about a team of scientists and investigators who solve crimes by inserting themselves into the memories of witnesses, criminals and each other.

Each project will be filmed in English and is likely to begin production this year for delivery in 2013.

“We had to do something because drama buyers from around the world come to us expecting us to have big drama and there’s not much coming up,” says Stoll. “Linking with international partners, we feel we have a possibility here to make things happen.”

With DRG’s motives laid bare, its move into drama development is about finding a way to supply what international broadcasters are demanding.

“This is the right time,” adds Stoll. “Broadcasters have opened up their schedules to some foreign drama but because of money and budget issues, you still want to produce really good drama. But that’s expensive and this is the only way to do it.”

NORTON SCIENTIFIC SCAM-Detection and Prevention of Clinical Research Fraud and Misconduct A Norton M

Scheduled as Needed based on Student Demand. Email us at onlinetrain@nortonaudits.com if you are interested in this course.

Description - This is an advanced-level class that takes an in-depth examination of severe noncompliance, clinical data fabrication and falsification, scientific misconduct and fraud cases. The course focus is on developing skills for preventing fraud and misconduct and preparing clinical research professionals to better handle severe noncompliance.

Class Agenda/Modules - Instructors Make a Difference

Defining Clinical Research Fraud and Misconduct
Evaluation of Case History
R.E.S.E.A.R.C.H. TM Skills Program
Advanced Auditing and Monitoring Skills for Prevention
Case Development
Typical Class Attendee -
Sponsor Auditors
Contract Research Organization Auditors
Clinical Research Associates and Monitors
Institutional Review Board Internal Auditors
Food and Drug Administration Investigators
Independent Consultant Auditors
Compliance Auditors
Experience Level - Advanced; CRC, CRA or Auditor position for two years, preferably with a four year medical or science degree

Class Price - $1500 (10% Southeast Regional Discount and 10% multiple persons from the same organization discounts are available)
Norton: Donald Roberts, "Scientific Fraud", and DDT
In this piece Roger Bate, Donald Roberts and Richard Tren accuse the UN of "Scientific Fraud against DDT". Their Accusation is based on an Opinion paper byRoberts and Tren published in Research and Reports in Tropical Medicine. So let's look at their paper and see where the "Scientific Fraud" is.

Roberts and Tren's key argument is that reductions in malaria in the Americas were not the result of Global Environmental Facility interventions but were caused by increased use of antimalarial drugs. In their own words:

"However, their successes were not a result of the interventions we describe as components of the GEF project. Their successes were mostly a result of wide distributions of antimalarial drugs to suppress malaria (see Table 1). Data in the Table reveal trends of increased numbers of antimalarial pills distributed per diagnosed case and decreased numbers of cases. Equally obvious is the decreased numbers of pills distributed per diagnosed case, and increased numbers of cases in two countries (Costa Rica and Panama)."

So their argument rests on table 1. Here's table 1.

Country pills/case pills/case % change in % change in 1990 in 2004 pills/case in cases Mexico 235 2566 1092 -1307 Belize 21 82 390 -287 Costa Rica 653 100 -653 112 El Salvador 34 22802 67064 -8276 Guatemala 38 54 142 -144 Honduras 30 51 170 -338 Nicaragua 279 1319 473 -519 Panama 202 140 -144 1337
The first thing that leaps out at you is that the table shows reductions of more than 100%, which is impossible. Panama cannot have experienced a decrease of 144% in pills/case. According to the two previous columns in the table there was a decrease from 202 to 140, which is a 31% reduction, not 144%. 202/140 is 144%, but it is not the case that the column contains the ratio of pill/case in 1990 divided by pills/case in 2004 (ie, is just labelled wrongly), because then the number for Guatemala would be 70%, not the 142% shown in the table. The column appears to show the bigger number divided by the smaller. That is, all the percent changes in that column are calculated incorrectly and the increases and decrease were calculated differently.