But web has at least 40 bazillion channels, each uploading its own show every five nanosecond - each viewable at any time of day. Which means that even members of a well-defined demographic group pursue their own individual interests, whenever and wherever they choose. What it means is that real strategy for marketing on web is psychographics.

Psychographics are way cooler than demos, because psychos toss out all that fake number stuff that's really only meant to justify people's jobs. When you go psycho, you don't worry about how many girls in Wisconsin are between ages of 18 and 24. You get much, much more closer to your audience's brains, by murmuring to yourself, for example, "Hmmm, if I want to reach people who enjoy eating chocolate in bed, where would I find them?"

Then you start sponsoring and crosspromoting on chocolate sites. Bed sites. Maybe even toffee and pillow sites. The point is that because web is so niched, its users flock to their own interests, making them much easier to target and sell.

Don't forget, too, that being interactive, psychographically matched people are far more likely to exchange referrals and interact with each other. That's reason why I almost always recommend choosing psychographics over demographics on web. Oh, Number Nuts will still try to dazzle you with all sorts of data. But believe me, only one number that really counts: your ad-to-sales ratio. My advice is to go psycho. It's one sure way to preserve your sanity.

A real hacker would not carry out this type of foolishness, this is realm of gutless, immature Script Kiddie. It's a bit like that mindless graffitti you see sprayed all over our towns and cities.

In case of web site owner, it is imperative that you immediately contact your hosting service as security of your site has been breached (and therefore probably whole server). The server's logs record all activity on your site, and Script Kiddies are notorious for leaving "footprints" behind.

Don't just shrug your shoulders and re-publish your site. What has just occurred to you is cyber-terrorism. There are a number of laws currently being introduced world-wide that will punish cyber-terrorists severely. It is unfortunate offences are termed cyber-terrorism. In case of Script Kiddies it should be called cyber-idiocy. It should carry death penalty, castration or at least they should be sentenced to a life of using a 386DX40 running Windows 95 rev. A! ;0)

Some other points of contact if your site is attacked are:

National Infrastructure Protection Center. The NIPC are a part of FBI. On its site, there are forms that you can submit to report any incidents. It also contains up to date information on security threats and advice for ecommerce merchants.

http://www.nipc.gov/ For a more detailed listing of U.S points of contact, The Cybercrime site will have what you need:

http://www.cybercrime.gov/reporting.htm

In Australia, intrusions should be reported to Australian Federal Police via your local Police Station. Hmmm.....we're a little behind times methinks!

In UK, well, I give up....couldn't find a thing except for a lot of talk. Once again, your friendly local bobby could probably help you out. If anyone does have any law enforcement reporting links for UK or Australia, I'd be grateful for information and would republish this article with it included.

In most countries, probably best second point of call after your contacting your hosting service would be Police.

The Internet community, either surfers, website owners or ecommerce merchants will only stamp out this problem if we actually do something about it. Don't let those valuable firewall logs go to waste. But if you are going to send them, ensure that what you send shows an established pattern of scans originating from same source - at least 5 entries in a session. Random scans are very hard to track. A topic for another article.

Make it a national sport.....Grill a Kiddie!

*ping - Ping is a basic Internet program that lets you verify that a particular IP address (a set of unique identifier numbers, e.g 192.168.0.1) exists and can accept requests

**traceroute - Traceroute is a utility that records path stops through Internet between your computer and a specified destination computer

Michael Bloch  michael@tamingthebeast.net  http://www.tamingthebeast.net Tutorials, web content and tools, software and community. Web Marketing, eCommerce & Development solutions. _____________________________________________ 

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