Feed back

A lonely battle
I read with great interest the story regarding an attempt to defraud Barclays Bank customers (Barclays calls in cyber-police, September 15), by sending dummy Barclays forms (via email) to Barclays online banking customers to get them to reveal account information. The bank immediately assured customers that any loss would be refunded and it has moved quickly to trace the fraudsters and block their activities.

I am impressed by their response. In a similar case that affected me involving eBay and the online payment service PayPal, these companies' responses were quite different. I was a PayPal customer using this service to receive payments from all around the world for items sold on eBay (which also own PayPal).

Over the past four months, I have been receiving emails, purporting to be from PayPal, advising me to divulge my credit card details, including my Pin. While I recognised this to be a scam, not once did I receive a "warning" email from the company. Furthermore, the fact that these emails were arriving over a period of four months led me to conclude that PayPal's attempts to protect its customers are apparently non-existent.

EBay, the huge online auction site, seems no better at tackling fraud. Last week, I was unable to access my account for five days because it had been hacked into and my password and email address altered. The hacker then tried to use my account to sell (non-existent) luxury items to users bidding on similar items.

I emailed eBay who "returned" my account by allowing me to reset my password. This, however, was done via an automated email and no explanation or apology was given. Furthermore, having lost five days' worth of trading, I have not received a penny of compensation.

The ease with which fraud can be perpetrated online is no surprise. But with vigilance and targeted resources, companies can tackle the problem and help - and keep - customers. I, for one, cannot risk being exposed to online fraud and not receive any help from the companies in question.
Markus Holler
Sugarbush Records



Apple happy
Buying a portable PC (September 11), was informative in the way it made distinctions between notebooks, ultra-portables, tablets and desktop replacements - but faltered when it concluded by saying that Apple "only offers general purpose notebooks" with its G4 PowerBooks "edging towards the desktop replacement market". The entry-level Powerbook measures 28 x 22 x 3cm, weighs 2.1kg, has a 867 MHz G4 proccessor, a CD-RW/ DVD drive, built-in Bluetooth, respectable graphics card, full-sized keyboard and a five-hour battery life. Surely this makes it a notebook, an ultra-portable and a desktop replacement.
Dr Dennis Low
Hull



Content hosts
Simon Bisson's article on content management tools (No site too small, September 11) left out one of the best approaches for smaller business and local government websites: hosted services. Anyone who has used online banking facilities or web-based email will be familiar with the idea of using a hosted service and its many advantages, but they may not be aware that more complex applications (such as managing a website) can also be delivered entirely online. Web-based content management is taking off and not just at small companies.
Danny Sofer
kitsite.com

CD-con
I remember when the great new CD began its obliteration of the venerable LP. The things we were told: they never wear out (wrong); the price will come down when that factory in Scotland gets going! All lies, in hindsight.

My CD collection is on my hard drive (I never share) as none of the disks will play in any CD player I can find. I'm never buying a CD again. Internet radio is far superior. Why don't bands just sell themselves online and ignore record companies? I would prefer to buy direct from the artist. Maybe this is what the corporates are scared of.
C Morley



Not immune
Joseph Haig (Feedback, September 11) seems to suggest that Linux is immune from infection by viruses. This is not true, since all operating systems can be infected (by a virus or internet worm). Users of Linux regularly receive notices of potential security threats and updates are made freely available. GNU/Linux has nothing to hide. After all, the source code is there for everyone to see.
Gordon Joly
London



Rogue process
I'm sure if any Linux user looks for super user executable files that have write access, any of those can be overwritten, provided the user running a rogue process has the permission to access the file. That's just a simple starting point and only requires one accident from an unwary super user, let alone ordinary users.

As to how the file is overwritten; how much software do Linux users download, compile and run without checking a single line of the code? Anyone could change a "standard" version into a nasty version at the drop of a hat.
Richard Chandler