Another business, Access Health Insurance Services, shares the same address, including the "Suite" 330, of the mail drop we've been talking about. I called the number on their "about us" page twice and got two different people both times, a good sign, actually. Apparently the company sells health insurance and related things via their site, http://www.2hsa.com. However, they also told me no one there had heard of Ask Dr. Tech. Later, I got a call back from John Becker, listed as the agent who sells insurance through 2HSA.com, and who, contrary to what I was told, also is the CEO of Ask Dr. Tech. Becker said he would put me in touch with Max Pavlov, who is now running Ask Dr. Tech, and I got this note shortly after. I've edited it slightly.

"I am the person who is trying to get the LiveRepair and AskDrTech back on line to provide quality support... I have experts that still provide support to customers, even extending to support for (Microsoft Vista). Unfortunately it appears to be not that easy...at the beginning of the year the former manager, for an unknown reason, fired the sales department that used to provide customer care.
"I agree, since then not all e-mails were answered and none of the phone calls were returned. I have refunded about 10 people for the last two weeks and canceled 3 accounts. I can assure you that all the customers' requests are being processed since the middle of May. We provide support from 8 a.m to midnight NY time...by the 1st of July we will get back to 24/7 support. I will do everything possible from my side to get rid of any bad opinion on the above mentioned services."
So after reading this, I'll let you make up your own minds. The 2HSA site has some problems, notably a number of broken links, a link to a survey that no longer works, and other things you should normally consider as warning signs. We've already discussed Ask Dr. Tech and Live Repair. However, the people at 2HSA and Ask Dr. Tech did get in touch with us to tell their side of the story.
Let's hope they put some time and effort into their respective sites.

Posted by Beau Brendler at 03:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Employing a little basic shoeleather reporting, we went to the "physical address" of Ask Dr. Tech and its parent company, LiveRepair.com, 980 Broadway, Suite 330, Thornwood, New York, 10594. It's a mail drop -- 980 Broadway is a UPS mail services store. Maybe "Suite" 330 is mailbox number 330?
There are plenty of small businesses that use P.O. boxes -- just as there are reasons why FedEx won't deliver to P.O. boxes -- but in this case, it seems odd a company that promises 24/7 PC repair help would call a mail drop its "corporate office." Where's the "100 percent certified helpdesk staff" sitting? At the bagel shop five doors down? And where does LiveRepair.com keep all that presumably still shrink-wrapped software?

Posted by Beau Brendler at 03:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Has anyone ever heard of "The World's Best Sites" seal program? See the previous posting and note that Ask Dr. Tech displays one of its seals prominently on its home page. It's a little tough to find identity information on "The World's Best Sites" site (check under the privacy/terms of use link), but I think it's a fair question to ask what qualifies the "international information technology consultancy of B.C. Scott," based at 509 Creek Street, Copperas Cove, Texas, to give out site certificates and seals. (Google Maps shows 509 Creek Street, Copperas Cove, Texas, 76522 to be, well, somebody's house, in the middle of a subdivision not too far north of Austin, off I-35). I've got nothing against legitimate home-based businesses, but I would recommend B.C. Scott take a look at Ask Dr. Tech and LiveRepair. They might want to reconsider that seal.
That's not the only problem, here, though.

Click on the BBB seal displayed at the top of "The World's Best Sites" home page -- it's expired for non-payment of dues and other problems. Search the BBB and you'll see two separate listings for the business at two different addresses. Both list an unsatisfactory record due to "failure to discontinue the use of the BBB's federally registered trademark when demands have been made to do so."
"The World's Best Sites" lists some pretty big names as stores in its mall -- Cingular, Office Depot, Netflix -- and what appear to be some big-name advertisers. Wonder if they are aware of this seal program's BBB status?
By the way, the site doesn't list a phone number. However, the BBB reports page does list a phone number, which I called. Got a generic voice message and am awaiting a call back.

Posted by Beau Brendler at 12:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Anybody ever tried the services offered by this site?
There's a "contact us" page with a phone number, but when I call it I get a message saying the subscriber's mailbox is full and not accepting any more messages. Red flag! A Web site that purports to sell 24/7 PC care services for $89 a year, and I can't get anyone on the phone at 11:29 a.m. on a Wednesday morning?
There's a physical address listed in Thornwood, N.Y., about a 15-minute drive from where I'm sitting -- but take a look at their corporate HQ. Google Maps places it in the middle of a street, a soccer field on one side, a parking lot on the other.
I found another phone number on the site, of Julia Udovyk, Senior Sales and Marketing Manager at LiveRepair.com, Inc. (Ask Dr. Tech bills itself as a service of Live Repair.com -- the number is (914) 729 6641 if you want to try it.) Different company, apparently, but same message: mailbox won't accept any more messages. Red flag number 2. Senior sales and marketing managers make their living being accessible. The more successful among them don't have full voicemail boxes.

Let's take a closer look at that parent company, LiveRepair.com. Not a bad-looking site, with a pretty complete "contact us" page. Let's dial the phone number. Red flag number 3...at 11:38 a.m. I get a recording saying "this number is temporarily unavailable." I get the same recording dialing the toll-free number.
More bad news for the Doctor: The Silicon Valley branch of the Better Business Bureau has a listing for an "Ask Dr. Tech," incorporated in San Jose, Calif., in 1999, naming William Lam as CEO and principal. The Ask Dr. Tech Web site lists a William Lam as its founder. The Silicon Valley BBB says Ask Dr. Tech has an unsatisfactory record for unresolved service complaints. The phone numbers listed as contacts for the company have been disconnected.

Posted by Beau Brendler at 11:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

ICANN is working to make some decisions about WHOIS, which you may have used as a sort of yellow pages to look up ownership data about a Web site, or possibly to investigate it. If not, you should add "WHOIS lookup" to your list of precautions to take when dealing with a Web site you don't know. There are several sources for the information -- here's one. If you need a bit of a refresher, the Wikipedia article on WHOIS is actually not that bad.
There's an ICANN working group discussing aspects of WHOIS now, with the idea of possible reform, at least in areas within ICANN's reach.
In essence, as you know, the issues at stake are privacy and (or vs.) accountability, and to a lesser degree, in my opinion, free speech. One argument is that WHOIS is harmful to privacy because the databases make a fair amount of information about domain ownership public and available, exposing people to spam, etc. Conversely, without WHOIS, law enforcement and others would have a tough time tracking down criminals and other Web fraudsters. (A secondary issue is that a lot of the WHOIS data is somewhat useless anyway, or needs to be organized better, though new Web client applications have helped).

My argument for consumers would be rather reductive, saying that though the privacy of Web site operators and domain owners is important, the need for consumers at large (and law enforcement working on their behalf) to have means to investigate wrongdoing outweighs the privacy concern. In the course of WebWatch's work, we have used WHOIS to make determinations about whether Web sites are possibly fraudulent or operate offshore and outside basic redress mechanisms. WHOIS data isn't all that great, but it's better than nothing.

We want to hear from you. Tell us what you think. Post here or email me.

Posted by Beau Brendler at 04:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Per what we've been writing about botnets, check this out. The tensions between Estonia and Russia over the little Baltic country's excavation of a Red Army grave from World War II lead to massive denial of service attacks against Estonia's banks and financial services communities. You should also know more about haxdoor and Corpse. There's no reason to believe there are anything but geographic relationships going on here, but the more you know how the blackhat economy works, the more you may be motivated to take appropriate security steps to protect your home PCs.

Posted by Beau Brendler at 10:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Just so you know, WebWatch is in the process of joining or has joined the following Internet governance organizations, where we will be advocating on your behalf:
ICANN
W3C
Internet Society (ISOC)
Our membership in ICANN would be as an at-large structure, when and if approved.
Membership in the W3C costs about $7 K for a nonprofit over 3 years.
The Internet Society has been around for a while. Membership is $75.
In our involvement with these organizations, we'll pass on information on consumer issues to you here.

Posted by Beau Brendler at 12:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Got back last week from the APEC-TEL conference in Manila, Philippines, where we were presenting information on problems badware creates for consumers. You can read the powerpoint here -- please forgive the attempt on the title page at trying to coin a word in Tagalog for "spyware." I'm told this actually translates as "to secretly watch an engine" -- not quite the point. One of the main topics of conversation at the APEC-TEL conference was botnets. Should consumers be concerned about them? Yes.

What are they? Basically, there are untold numbers of botnets out there on the Internet. Their creator-administrators, or "bot-herders," put together networks of computers (PCs in homes, offices, companies, even governments) that run tasks without their owners knowing it -- often, sending spam, or marshaling denial-of-service attacks, sometimes nastier things. Bot-herders recruit their networks often by way of a trojan horse badware item sent via spam e-mail or some other means. Once a PC is infected, it logs into a central server where it can be administrated, similar in principle to an office network with a shared server.

Why would you care? If your home PC is part of a botnet, then its security has been breached and you're exposed to whatever else the bot-herder might want to do with your machine -- steal your identity, personal data off your machine, etc. Also, you probably don't want your home computer being used by some black-hat operator in Romania to create a massive denial-of-service attack on some hapless bank or ICANN server or something.

The good news is, standard good-security procedures can help you avoid being bot-netted (remember that if you have a broadband connection, security problems can be somewhat more acute):
1. Don't open e-mails from people, companies, and other sources whom you don't know, and for heaven's sake don't click on animations or graphics or files inside those e-mails.
2. Make sure your PC software is up to date. Suffer the pain of going to Microsoft Update. Get the CD version of Service Pack 2 for XP.
3. Download Spybot Search and Destroy for free and consider making a donation.
4. Download AVAST! or some other free anti-virus program.
5. Maybe enable your firewall. Or maybe not.
6. See if your ISP has some security tools and updates to download.

Posted by Beau Brendler at 12:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)