Posts filed under 'Communications'
Virus-Warriors in Chennai
Oftentimes, Americans talking about outsourcing offshoring have stories of clueless youngsters with incomprehensible accents. I’ll admit that I’ve encountered inefficiencies and poor training; my experience as a consumer hasn’t been all good. One airline managed to give me four mutually exclusive answers to the same question…
But that’s not what I want to write about today. Today, it’s kudos to the Microsoft security people based in Chennai.
My computer had been colonized by the Alureon CT trojan, or actually rootkit . I didn’t even know: Norton Internet Security, (which is what I had) doesn’t see it, let alone block it. Then one day, someone suggested downloading Microsoft Security Essentials. It found Alureon CT, cleaned the computer, and then suggested I restart the machine. I did. And within minutes, Alureon was back. (Norton still showed nothing amiss.)
Rinse and repeat.
The infection explained some weird things that had been happening – like search hijackings, where clicking on a link took me someother-place.com. I’d attributed it to my computer aging and becoming incompatible with updated search engines. The thing is insidious; it keeps very quiet, but it can steal passwords and make your computer part of a network outside your control.
I also found that getting rid of Alureon was Not Easy. Someone on one forum opined “formatting and reinstallation of the operating system is the only sure way…“
Someone else suggested opening a support file with Microsoft. “Start here – https://support.microsoftsecurityessentials.com/ and select the link that says I think my computer is infected and then select the support option for phone (or email if phone is not offered for your region).”
6 comments January 8, 2010
Does Haagen Dazs Head Office Know?
There’s an update at the bottom of this post.
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When Haagen Dazs, the super-premium ice-cream company owned by the US corporation General Mills, recently announced it would be opening its first store in India in New Delhi, they probably weren’t ready for the internet sh*tstorm that was about to descend.
Someone sent me an article from a Times of India blog. The Haagen Dazs ice-cream franchisee in Delhi decided on a grand opening that involved a special preview for international travelers: “Access restricted only to holders of international passports.” Those international passports did not apparently include Indian ones; when the blogger’s friend “Ramit” tried to enter, he was turned away.
It’s already up on Boing Boing, one of the internet’s most influential blogs.
Foreign companies do sometimes make mistakes in their assessment of Indian markets and consumers. It’s usually carelessness or cultural obtuseness. This time, though, the problem seems to be home-grown. The franchisee is Indian; the location is Indian; and the man reportedly denied entry is Indian.
The embarrassment is truly multinational. The internet knows no borders.
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For companies, it suggests that apart from avoiding self-inflicted wounds like this one, it also makes sense to have a corporate policy for dealing with any issue that is likely to capture the public eye. There’s no such thing as far away.
Between blogs, social media, and people willing to “boost the signal”, it is impossible to *contain* such problems. They have to be responded to, and defused.
Right now, apologies would be good. And maybe some explanation: What was the man thinking?
There isn’t anything on the websites of Haagen Dazs, or of General Mills, as of Dec 15th, anyway.
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Followup: An article in India’s Economic Times, says the local manager claims it was all a mistake. The banner was supposed to imply that the ice-cream would be bringing a European flavor to India (though the brand is a US one.) And apparently Ramit was excluded not because he was Indian, but because the store was too crowded. Tempest in a teacup or frantic damage control? Difficult to tell, but better than nothing.
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2nd Followup: Anu Bhatia, of General Mills India, sent us this response (click on “read more”)…
4 comments December 16, 2009
India, disconnected? VoIP
Okay, that’s an exaggeration. No one is planning to disconnect India from the rest of the world. However, with fears of terrorism saturating the atmosphere, the Intelligence Bureau ( in the Ministry of Home Affairs, Department of Internal Security) would like a mechanism to track all calls into and out of India. As long as the calls are made by telephone, that’s possible.
They have no way to track where Voice over Internet (VoIP) calls originate.
So, according to a report in the Times of India, they’re asking the Department of Telecommunications to block international VoIP calls until they figure it out, (if they ever do). What this means is that for India, the era of nearly cost-free communication by internet telephony may be over. The same article cites a report that said there were 130 million minutes of such calls in a single quarter, Jan-March 2009.
Personal communications will probably be impacted more than corporate ones, since most VoIP users are presumably individuals rather than companies, and companies can respond by increasing communication budgets. Still it’s difficult to imagine that companies will be unaffected. For some, it may raise the cost of doing business.
2 comments September 15, 2009
