Nokia making money the old fashion way: suing Apple

Back in the early 1990s, when Apple saw the threat coming, but didn’t have a decent response, the only resort they had was to sue Microsoft in what became known as a “look and feel” lawsuit.  They lost, and their fall from grace continued like a lead balloon.  It was only when they came to terms with the fact that they really had no decent products that Steve Jobs was able to rescue the company.

courtesy: Yerson O

Today, the shoe is on the other foot.    Once again, there has been a fall from grace, but this time the one doing the falling is Apple’s disrupted competitor, Nokia.  Apple has taken huge swathes of market share away from Nokia because, quite frankly, Nokia phones aren’t what they used to be.  They suck in comparison to Apple, and the reason they suck is that they attempted to cater strictly to service providers and not to the people who use the phones.  Nokia’s Symbian O/S is slow and uninteresting in comparison to Apple’s OS/X.  Their integration with existing products such as the iPod is so limited compared to Apple’s ecosystem as to be entirely insignificant.  Nokia’s network functionality was so poor as to be unusable, except for specific applications like Good.  Their IMAP functionality was just broken for mailboxes of any size.

And so Nokia has announced that they are suing Apple for infringement of ten patents, since it seems that it is the only way they will make money.  I don’t know whether there is any merit to their suit, but I can say two things:

  • A lawsuit will not help consumers one bit; and
  • There is a special place in Hell for those who bring lawsuits involving technology that is standardized.

If Apple’s earlier experience is any indicator, Nokia has further to fall.  They must stop suing and start innovating and catering to consumers, who Apple rightly recognized were the real customers.  Apple has given Nokia a good kick in the pants, but Nokia has a long history of success.  They are down but not out.  To be out, they need to be thinking about new approaches to the consumer, new ways to attract developers, and it actually all has to work.

Nokia image courtesy of Yerson O

Poor Bank Executives Aren’t Getting Their Millions

I know it’s not American when the government limits pay for anyone, but that is precisely what they are doing for executives of banks that required bailouts.  After all, they only lost $1.2 trillion worldwide, bringing on the worst world recession since at least 1991. And really, why should the American people control wages of people who had to borrow from us in order to stay afloat?  Why don’t these people deserve their $10 mansions, yachts, and airplanes?  Oh wait.  They get to keep all of that?  And they get to keep their jobs?  Perhaps there are no qualified people to replace them, although one would think that with over 10% unemployment out there, someone would like to try.  Surely the American people would do this for my industry too, so I should be quiet, right?  Oh wait.  Our industry did have a downturn in 2001.  But unlike our industry that brought such hits as pets.com,  none of this was the banks’ fault, right?  Oh wait. didn’t this start with subprime loans that couldn’t be repaid because the banks were handing money to just about anyone?  And weren’t the banks offering housing loans for only 5% down payment where the mortgage didn’t pay back principle?  And these people still get to keep their jobs?  And they’re complaining about a salary limitation?

How about this: pay back the money we lent you and then you can choose your salaries.  Either that or let me buy your mansions and not pay for them.

WSJ: Let’s Differentiate!

As some may recall, I have had a love-hate relationship with the Wall Street Journal.  Over the years they have had some great news, but their editorials have often been nothing short of ridiculous.  I threatened some time ago to part ways with them, taking my money with me.  Three changes make me think I should go ahead and cancel. First, there are videos now on the Journal home page.  Here’s some news for the newspaper: if I wanted to watch the news, I could turn on CNN.

Today, however, the headline reads, “Dow Jones to Launch ‘Professional Edition’ of Wall Street Journal”.  That’s right, for $45 per month, one can get news for professionals.  To quote the article:

The targeted users are businesses and individuals who need more specialized information about energy or corporate bonds, for example, than is available from WSJ.com, but aren’t the large companies targeted for costlier services by Dow Jones Newswires or Bloomberg L.P.

That all sounds great, except isn’t that why I was already paying $149 per year?  While the reporting on the Journal is good, it’s certainly not as good as it used to be.  And indeed the New York Times has been doing a better job for all but financial news.  I wonder where all the money to start up the new service is coming from?  Might some of it be some of my subscription dues?  Why should I believe this is anything other than a clumsy attempt to create differentiation?  Sort of like when airlines added Business Class.

What’s your source for financial news?  Maybe I should move my money.

Ole asks a great question

[not unusual for Ole, by the way.]

Why does security have to be so complicated?

Now knowing Ole as I do, this is of course rhetorical, but it does remind me of two conversations I’ve  had.  One was a long time ago.  A friend of mine was part of a cable start-up team.  Some of you will know who this was.  He showed up at a conference with his big financial backer, and then told me, “Eliot, I’ve created the perfect parental control system.”

My response was simply, “Are you now – are you now or have you ever a child?”  Nearly any child who is motivated enough will get around just about any parental block.  Kids are smart.

The same is largely true with security.  A former boss of mine once put it succinctly, that it’s either sex or money that motivate people, and that bad guys tend to use the former to get the latter.  A great example are the miscreants who give away free porn by typing in CAPTCHA text, so they can get around some site’s security.  I think it’s a little more than just those two motivations, but the point is that computers didn’t create crime.  Crime has existed since Eve gave Adam the apple.  The FaceBook scam occurs every day in the physical world without computers when eldery are taken advantage of in person.  Computers simply provide a new attack vector for the same types of crimes.

Bad guys are as smart as good guys, but their best is probably no better than our best.

Paypal follow-up

Some people wonder whether the situation with PayPal is that bad.  Well, at least the phishing part is.  Today’s mail included this little gem from points unknown pretending to be PayPal:

Attention! Your PayPal account has been limited!

[…]

[Link to a phishing site]

This is the Last reminder to log in to PayPal as soon as possible. Once you log in, you will be provided with steps to restore your account access.

[…]

How did I know this was a forgery?  Let’s take a look at the email headers:

Return-Path: <paypal@service.com>
Received: from mail.realinterface.com (mail.cecreal.com [66.101.212.157])
	by upstairs.ofcourseimright.com with ESMTP id n9GAJ9h3022332
	for <lear@ofcourseimright.com>; Fri, 16 Oct 2009 12:19:31 +0200
Received: from dynamic.casa1-15-233-12-196.wanamaroc.com ([196.12.233.14]) by
         mail.realinterface.com with Microsoft SMTPSVC(5.0.2195.6713);
	 Fri, 16 Oct 2009 06:32:45 -0400
From: "PayPal Services" <paypal@service.com>
To: "lear" <lear@ofcourseimright.com>
Subject: Your PayPal account has been Limited
Date: Fri, 16 Oct 2009 10:18:53 +0000
Organization: PayPal
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
        boundary="----=_NextPart_000_0000_01C6527E.AE8904D0"
Message-ID: <RI1BvDvIMYk5XYA4IyF00002a42@mail.realinterface.com>
X-OriginalArrivalTime: 16 Oct 2009 10:32:45.0859 (UTC) FILETIME=[00099730:01CA4E4C]

The first thing we note is the From: line.  While this line can be easily forged, in this case, the miscreant forged not paypal’s domain but service.com‘s.  Well, that’s not PayPal.  This one was easy to establish as a fraud.  But had we any doubts we would need look no further than the previous two lines (the last Received: header).  If we look at the address 196.12.233.14, which is claimed to be dynamic.casa1-15-233-12-196.wanamaroc.com, we note that the name it has begins with “dynamic”.  That name, and the numbers that follow in it, indicate that this is probably someone’s house or office PC, and not paypal’s email server.  Note I’ve highlighted to “To” line, with the address lear@ofcourseimright.com.  But that is not the address I’ve given PayPal.

What’s more, I happen to have an actual paypal.com set of headers to compare against.  Here is what it looks like:

Return-Path: <payment@paypal.com>
Received: from mx1.phx.paypal.com (mx1.phx.paypal.com [66.211.168.231])
	by upstairs.ofcourseimright.com (8.14.3/8.14.3/Debian-6) with ESMTP id n9E8KIwI026171
	for <xxx@ofcourseimright.com>; Wed, 14 Oct 2009 10:20:39 +0200
Authentication-Results: upstairs.ofcourseimright.com; dkim=pass
	(1024-bit key; insecure key) header.i=service@paypal.ch;
	dkim-adsp=none (insecure policy)
DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed;
  d=paypal.ch; i=service@paypal.ch; q=dns/txt; s=dkim;
  t=1255508439; x=1287044439;
  h=from:sender:reply-to:subject:date:message-id:to:cc:
   mime-version:content-transfer-encoding:content-id:
   content-description:resent-date:resent-from:resent-sender:
   resent-to:resent-cc:resent-message-id:in-reply-to:
   references:list-id:list-help:list-unsubscribe:
   list-subscribe:list-post:list-owner:list-archive;
  z=From:=20"service@paypal.ch"=20<service@paypal.ch>
   |Subject:=20Receipt=20for=20Your=20Payment=20to=XXX
   |Date:=20Wed,=2014=20Oct=202009=2001:20:17=20-0700|
   |Message-Id:=20<1255508417.22290@paypal.co
   m>|To:=20Eliot=20Lear=20<paypal@ofcourseimright.com>
   |MIME-Version:=201.0;
  bh=q82fwVBPBq26WHflKsNcdbCIf3Vcc5wRznZ9tfI8+8k=;
  b=OPyR7evc/VcnTZyDZSlYCh9oLm+vmKt8qsocqMrAr7y/kg3P5+DhO3mB
   UDbhkCvqu+owm45X1te+PxoREXR9aMEuuD20ltP2B5f5JWf/MjICk6zc6
   gYv6pY6ZRFKclXFGvtViJwv0LsW8N7uaoiZCAh5mxrjfuJaF+SmNyX23c
   I=;
Received: (qmail 22290 invoked by uid 99); 14 Oct 2009 08:20:17 -0000
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 2009 01:20:17 -0700
Message-Id: <1255508417.22290@paypal.com>
Subject: Receipt for Your Payment to XXXX
X-MaxCode-Template: email-receipt-xclick-payment
To: Eliot Lear <xxx@ofcourseimright.com>
From: "service@paypal.ch" <service@paypal.ch>
X-Email-Type-Id: PP120
X-XPT-XSL-Name: email_pimp/CH/en_US/xclick/ReceiptXClickPayment.xsl
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
  boundary=--NextPart_048F8BC8A2197DE2036A
MIME-Version: 1.0

A few things to note: first, there my own mailer adds an Authentication-Results header, and in this case you see dkim=pass.  It’s done that by looking at the DKIM-Signature header to determine if Paypal really did send the email.  This is a strong authoritative check.  Knowing that PayPal does this makes me feel comfortable to discard just about any email from paypal.com that lacks this header.  Also, this email was addressed to the correct address (I’m not actually showing the address that I use).  Not every site uses dkim and that’s a pity.  One has to know in advance when to expect dkim=pass and one has to look at the headers to check.

Just by comparing email headers we can see that this is a poor forgery.  And yet it takes time and effort for people to determine just that.  And this is the risk that we consumers face.  If one decides that any email one wasn’t expecting from PayPal is in fact a forgery, then should someone break into one’s account, one may not notice that there is a problem.

Summarizing, here are the things that I’ve done to limit the chances of something bad happening:

  1. I use a single email address for PayPal that forgers are unlikely to know about.
  2. I look for the Authentication-Results header.
  3. Even if I think this is an authentic email, I will not click on links, but instead go to PayPal.com.

But it’s not all that easy for me.  It certainly isn’t easy for those who haven’t been paying attention to all of this stuff as part of their job.