A BLOG BY MELIH ABDULHAYOGLU

People often come to me and say, hey Melih why don’t you protect Music and Videos, look at the piracy they suffer from etc. So I thought I should write this blog to explain the issues involved.

Content, whether Audio or Video is not difficult to protect! Honestly, the technology has been around for a long time.

However, what is difficult is to implement a practical solution that will work ubiquitously in the industry! There are divided interests and the dreaded big “Trouble Triangle” that stops it from happening!

Now, the Publishers (the people who make money from selling Content, like Music and Videos) want to, and rightly so, protect their interests against piracy. Of course the triangle is 3 fold. We have a publisher who creates the content, we have a hardware manufacturer who builds the hardware to play this music or video and we have the Users who has the hardware and the content (music/video).

Now, to achieve a secured/controlled distribution to mitigate piracy you need to convince at least 2 of the 3 parties in that triangle! Any 2 and you have a controlled/secured distribution!

Publishers: it is obvious as to why they would want to secure their content.

Hardware Manufacturers: Some might want to do deals with major content providers in return for some market share, but Hardware manufacturers do not want to limit their markets by limiting who can buy their products.

Users: They just want content! Its fair to say that in general they don’t care about security or control of distribution channels (yes yes, i hear some of you saying that they should.. but lets get realistic here.)

while distribution is getting easier (Internet and downloads, compared to records and CDs of 70s and 80s) unless 2 of the 3 parties (has to be ubiquitous and just having one hardware provider won’t do) are interested in pushing security and control, I find it difficult to see how security and control can be established.

However, saying that, this could represent a new opportunity and a new business model for content providers turning this lemon into a lemonade by adopting a new business model by piggy backing on this new distribution era.

Thanks

Melih

Talk Back

A DOOR! 

To help prevent intruders from coming in: PREVENTION

A BURGLAR ALARM!

To detect if someone has got in: DETECTION

AND

AN INSURANCE POLICY!

If everything else fails-insurance to rebuild everything back: CURE

Sounds simple right… We all have doors, majority of us have burglar alarms and insurance. This is the way we protect ourselves, our families and our belongings! We first PREVENT, we then DETECT and if all fails, we have the last resort CURE

Is there a house without a door but Burglar alarm? Of course not! And insurance usually would require you to have a burglar alarm! So the process and order of protection goes like this:

PREVENT

DETECT

CURE

I know, I know tell you something you don’t know, right!..

How about maybe I ask you a question

Why the hell don’t you have a door on your PC???!!!!

You have a Burglar Alarm… called Anti Virus product… but no Door?

What gives?

What do you mean ask another question but make it easy???

No I will stick with this question if you don’t mind! So go on then..

You see, Layered Security is the way forward, we should have all 3 layers in the way we secure our PCs, yet today we only have a burglar alarm! And our burglar alarm only goes off if and only IF it recognises the burglar! If the burglar is not in the list of recognised burglars, then tough… let him waltz in! Because your Anti Virus can alert you to a virus it knows. Any new ones that it does not recognise can walk right into your PC!

So, I am still waiting for your answer!

Bad isn’t it! Time to change the way you secure your PC and your Online Presence! Time to deploy “PREVENTION” as your first line of defense, and its time to make sure “CURE” is a part of the solution you are given! Because nothing is 100% fool proof! Yes Comodo comes close but nothing can ever be 100% secure (and anyone claiming 100% security is known as snake oil). 

Its time for a change!

Comodo has built the most holistic and comprehensive security that does utilise Prevention, Detection and Cure as a methodology and provide all 3 in package!

You have no reason not to be secure!

Thanks

Melih

Talk Back

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Self Replication:

Self-replication is any process by which a thing might make a copy of itself or something similar to original.

Creater:

God, as far as any creation is concerned!

Initiator/Releaser:

Somebody/something that releases a creation with self-replication capability

Self awareness:

Self-awareness is the explicit understanding that one exists.

————————————————————————————————————————

The above are some simple terminology that will help us with the following story.

The question is what is a Machine? A simple answer would be: Any human created mechanical/electronic device. So a Computer would classify as a machine.

Thanks god that the Terminator like self aware machines are still yet tomaterialise! However, this does not mean that we are not fighting the war against machines!!! Machines don’t have to be self-aware to fight humans!

They just need to be programmed!!! Just like the DNA that gives us our code about what us humans should do, programs tell machines what they should do! One of the most sophisticated machines that we interact with today is a PC. Also as it happens it is one of the most connected ones! Which means infection can occur very easily between PCs. Just like organic viruses/bacteria use Air, blood or other method to infect other humans, Computer Viruses use the connectivity (Internet, email, wireless, shared storage devices etc) that we have been building for them! Now computers are more connected than ever, and this connectivity will only increase. These complex machines that we call PCs are being infected and turned against us! Not by other machines but by humans! Machines are being used, manipulated for ill gains! People are writing programs/codes to turn your home computer against you! To steal your information to benefit its Creator or its Initiator/Releasor. We have been fighting the very machines we paid $$$ for! And we have been loosing that war!! Now, there are more computer viruses out there than ever and the techniques used today are at best outdated! Computer Viruses (malware) are Self-replicating. Which means they go to a machine and infect it, then find ways in which it can use that very “host” it has taken over to infect the other victims it can find.

Sure they are not killing us, sure they are not demolishing our houses, the reason for that is today they are limited to our PCs! Their universe is our PC. But hang on.. don’t get so comfortable your life and house maybe safe but they can and they do steal your bank account details, they can and they do delete your valuable data, they can and they do use your machine to attack others! They are already fighting you! Yes its humans behind them, yes these Computer Viruses(malware) are not self aware, but do they need to be to cause you a damage? They are self replicating and they can mutate to avoid detection! Once released, their creator/releaser usually has no control of the damage they will create! If humans were files on PCs then these Viruses (malware) would be the worst AIDS virus that is airborne! Yep nasty stuff for poor files!

So the war has already began! We are already fighting this war one Computer at a time!  Because today’s security is ridiculously inadequate.

We have created “Preventitive” technologies like our Superb Comodo Firewall  however there are more than 400 Million Internet enabled PCs with a good chunk of them infected by these viruses/malware!

Time to get the “Human” element and start fighting these “Machines”! That’s where Comodo once again taking the lead and showing the world of security how it should be done, by creating “Free Malware Removal” by Comodo Security Experts! These security experts will remotely clean your machine and, if you wish to, install our Security technologies to protect you from future attacks and infections. 

Whether you like it or not, the war has began!

thanks

Melih

Talk Back 

Above images are taken from:

Wikipedia and ecliptic

Self denial

Ostridge mentality

Can’t face the music

Hard to let go

and so on… summarises all that you can say about the Current AV industry!

Hey guys: Wake up and smell the roses! You are fighthing 21st Century war in trenches!!! It does not work!!

Here is the Article  where AV vendors cry foul about a Contest at Defcon  . In this contest contestants will simply create new malware from the old ones by modifying the current ones.

 WOW…

No.. There is no WOW.. this is a well known technique well exploited by malware authors over and over and over! What do you think malware authors do, create malware and keep their fingers crossed that AVs don’t catch it, or simply test their creations against well known AVs make sure they don’t even blink at this new malware before they release it to the wild! Its old news. Let me explain: You take an existing malware and re-pack (encrypt) it with an obscure packer (encryptor) now you have an old malware with a new disguise! Yep as simple as that! Now, crying foul, whinging and poo pooing this contest is NOT what the current AV industry should be doing! It is silly to claim this contest will create more malware!! As if malware authors don’t have access to the latest virii making tools!! Cos they all do!

What is silly is the way we still defend ourselves using 25 year old technology!!!! For god sake, imagine going around with 1980’s cell phones today?? How cool would that be? But we are not ashamed to go around with a similarly old technology that we call AV products based on signatures!!

My point is not that AV doesn’t have a role in our security arsenal. It certainly does.

My point is: Signature based AV is not and cannot be your first line of defense, Period!!!

Signature based AVs work based on default allow , this kind of technology can no longer be trusted as your first line of defense as they will let some baddies in! What we need a Default Deny system where malware can’t surprise us!

Thanks

Melih

Talk Back 

hmmmm… yet another Social something! Social networking, Social peeing, Social this and Social that! Whatever next!!

But….

The power of end users who are doing things and the power of internet and computers to be able to utilize these actions, turn them into a useful set of data and then re-use it for other users is a nice of way progressing internet!

First time in human history (that we know of ) we can use our collective intelligence. We just need a way to mine and use that intelligence!   

So here comes Social Authentication!

What is it: Its an infrastructure to enable end users (bloody powerful force I say..) to tell us what is good what is not! As simple as that! You go to a site and you rate it. You rate whether that site is a subject matter expert on the content it is displaying or whether they are a good merchant that has done things right for you or not. Now you can learn from the experiences of others in this social network! Its a social network for Authentication!

Why does it matter: Well, because we are now generating more content than ever before! Great that we can search thru this content but WE NEED HELP!!!! Having 10BillionZillionTrillion web pages is no good unless I can find what I want! Yep its well and good that search engines have some way of creating relevant indexing, but I rather know what other users have thought about a site than a formula of a search engine! The power of end user’s say is infinitely more valuable in deciding the relevancy of a web site/page than any known formula today! Being able to identify top rated sites/pages by users is valuable, saves times and gets the user exactly what they need! Thats worth something!  When you go to a site seeing what other users’s have said and rated the site with is also a great indicator that will play a role in the way that end users make their decisions.

Social Authentication is the way in which we can make Internet more relevant!

 Thanks

 Melih

Talk Back

Enough is enough! Well over 20 years the industry has been selling solution to a problem, that seems to have gotten worse!

Thats like selling headache pills and your headache gets worse! Something is wrong with that picture!

When you get your haircut, you don’t then go home and finish it off yourself! Thats why you pay the hairdresser!

When you go to a restaurant, you don’t go and cook with the chef! (even though I have been to a few in my time, where I wished I had :))

You get the gist!…Enough is enough for paying for desktop protection where I am not guaranteed protection nor offered a remediation when I need it!

So what do I pay for? Partial security?

 The truth is yes! Unaccountable, partial security is what you get!

 Enough is enough!!! NO MORE

Today, 4th February 2008, is the day Comodo puts accountability in the dictionary of Desktop Security Vendors!

-> First time ever, You getting infected with malware will cost the Security vendor money!

-> First time ever, You never have to deal with malware!

-> First time ever, A security vendor will put itself between you and the malware!

-> First time ever, A security vendor will give you a peace of mind from malware!

-> First time ever, A security vendor will put themselves Accountable for your Protection!

Its been far too long, but enough is enough! Now with Comodo AVSMART Warranty users will get total peace of mind and protection!

We are the first desktop security company who has put itself between its users and malware. what that means is we are the only company whereby if you get infected it will cost us money, unlike other security vendors! We are like the insurance company rather than a drug company where it is not in our interest for you to be sick because it will cost us money!

 This is the revolution long overdue! This is the revolution you the endusers deserve!

Enough  is enough. End users deserve accountability!!!! Security industry can only smile at endusers’s face while taking their money and in return provide no accountability!

 IT STOPS TODAY, RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW!

Thank you

Melih

Talk Back

Salesman: **taking the shiny $20 bill notes from the endusers*** oh thank you very much for the $$$$$ lovely jubbly..

Salesman: Here is the product go ahead and use it..

Enduser: Thanks.. kewl.. looks shiny.. lemme install this baby now!!!

Time: passing by…

Enduser: Why is my computer slow? Is it because  the Hard Disk getting old?

Wisevoice: NO!!

Enduser: Why does my computer keep connecting to Internet without me asking?

Wisevoice:(hey, Melih, pls… stop using me for these kind of silly talking points!!! pls use some other name than mine)..

Melih: ok, ok Wisevoice.. chill will you..

Wisevoice1: (Melih.. thats not very original is it now!!!)..

Melih: oh bug it!!

WV (:)) : because you have a malware on your machine!!!!

Enduser: urgh?

Enduser: But what did i do?

WV: remember you visited that adult site that offered you free pics no questions asked?

Enduser: yeah

WV: remember it wanted you to download a viewer so that you can view things better?

Enduser: yeah

WV: remember you pressed YES and installed it

Enduser: yeah…..so?

WV: That is it!!! Melih, I resign!!!!

Melih: Come on WV, thats customer care… not everyone knows as much as you and I do. There are many areas we both don’t know that others do, so be patient pls, I know you are good, wise and patient come on WV. Enduser needs help.. pls help him..

WV: ok, ok… but you owe me a beer for this!!!

Melih: deal!

WV: well when you pressed YES to install that “viewer” you practically installed a malware on your system. Of course there are many other ways they could have installed that malware on your machine but knowing you, they chose the easiest method

Enduser: yeah but I paid $$$ for this AV protection…

WV: sure, whatever….

Enduser: *picks up the phone and dials 1800RingSalesman*

Phone: Ring! Ring!

Phone (again): Ring! Ring!

Someone: Si…

Enduser: Hi, I just purchased this AV protection from you and I got infected

Someone: Qué?

Enduser: hello, is that salesman?

Someone: No senior, this is Xaviar!

Enduser: damn!! *puts the phone down*

Enduser: *picks up the phone and dials 1800RingSalesman*

Phone: Ring! Ring!

Phone (again): Ring! Ring!

Salesman: Hello, NoVirus Inc, how can I help?

Enduser: ehm.. yes, thank you.. I purchased your product 3 months ago, I was very pleased with it but I now have a malware Can you pls clean it for me?

Salesman: we only sell you a subscription service to update our product sir! We don’t clean your pc if you get infected by malware!

**Melih butting in: Go ahead and visit this URL http://winnow.oitc.com/malewarestats.php  to see the detection ratio of products we all pay $billions for!! Average is less than 50%.. which means 50% of the new malware will hit us without us knowing about it! Whether you pay for AV or not**

Enduser: So what you are saying is: I pay you $$ you fail to catch 50% of the new malware and when I get infected you offer me no recourse!!?

Salesman: Pretty much sir!

WV: what did you expect Enduser?

Enduser:  Well, I certainly did not expect to pay for a service that will fail me WV!

WV: welcome to the world of AV protection, this is how its done!

Enduser: I now see it WV, But I want for my money, a service where I never have to deal with malware ever again! I want to have piece of mind where I never have to deal with it!

**Melih butting in**

TA DAAAAA….. Allow me Introduce Comodo A-VSMART WARRANTY

Hey Enduser, here is a service where you can pay similar amount of $$ but Comodo will take the responsibility of failure on your behalf!

WV: What Melih means is, you pay him $$, you get infected, then he will clean it up, so you never have to deal with malware ever again! The reason why he can do that is because he has this funky product that prevents malware getting into your machine in the first place! Of course nothing is 100% when it comes to security, but his product called Comodo V3 Firewall A-VSMART (patent pending) allows him to able to that.

Enduser: Interesting, so I buy this service and if I get infected you clean my machine?

WV: isn’t that what i just said???

Melih: yes!

Melih: Now you can tick off malware from your list of worries!!!

Come and checkout… the evolution of Desktop Security!

Melih

Talk Back 

I didn’t know what to expect!

It was a brand new architecture, brand new product, on a brand new OS. We even became the first Vista 64bit firewall! Thats how new everything we were doing was! We created, literally, world’s most powerful security software for the Vista platforms! Yes Vista is new, and our technology is new! But the world needed a new way to secure themselves as what was there wasn’t cutting it anymore.  Its a scary combination to develop for, as you will hit many unforseen obstacles! And that we did!

We beta’d the product for about 6 months, but we always in our minds, knew that releasing to millions of users would raise some bugs, and guess what, it did! :)  I guess being the pioneers in the field does mean that we get to see things before others see it, including ugly bugs!!! (yikes).

We did have our midnight oil ready though! And sleepless nights, helped with cafeeine did keep us going. The whole credit must go to CFP team who worked their backsides off to make sure to iron out all major bugs at lightinging speed!

We then started to monitor take up, user feedback and issues! And once again, we proved that caring for our users and doing our best to build them a world beating security product to keep their PC clean and not charging for it is a winning combination!

 Last week we had over 230,000 NEW users installing V3! That’s a staggering number considering we spent ZERO dollars in advertising. This has been purely thru word of mouth.

I am happy, proud and grateful all at the same time! 

Happy that we are managing to keep 230,000 new machines clean from nasties every week!

Proud of our achivements and working with top notch guys!

Grateful to all our users for their continued support!

Of course our quest is only beginning now! There are many unprotected machines out there and whole of Internet to secure and authenticate!

Back to work for us now

 thanks

Melih

Talk Back

I mean come on, you don’t need me telling you this!

You get your users to trust you, then you get them to shop with you, right!

Of course you know this. Its like saying, a time machine would be great, the idea is nothing new, the execution is what needs to be fleshed out. So the question is how can you get User Trust? 

First of all, lets not kid ourselves, Users are smart and getting smarter! Some of them are still new, but human brain is designed to learn and learn very quickly. So you have to start treating them like what they are - Smart!

Why not give them a platform to improve  your business? Wouldn’t that be nice? Believe it or not,

Smart Users (many out there) will help you improve your business!

Smart users will help promote your business!

Smart Users will keep coming back to you as long as you keep them happy!

and so on….

So what platform is this then?

Its the UserTrust platform, its a feedback mechanism, rating system, its a system to let your users tell you how good you are, its a platform to allow your users to tell you how bad you have been, its also a platform for you to engage with your users, happy or unhappy customers, so that you can improve your business to benefit your customers. Imagine, an unhappy customer coming and telling you what you have done wrong! Thats a great thing, now you can improve what went wrong. And thank this unhappy customer for helping you improve your business and inform him about the improvements you have done. You will gain loyal customers doing this! Why not ask all your customers to provide feedback, public feedback on your website! Sounds scary right what if they say nasty stuff in your own website. Its only bad, if you don’t act upon it!!!! That is the key! Having people saying bad stuff is good, not acting on it to improve your business and telling them how you have improved is good! Just look at our forums  I never delete anything, people telling us we are great, people telling us we are crap, people coming to insult us, its all good, as long as we address these points! Please do look thru our forums to see how we have dealt with good, bad and ugly. Seeing you as a Business who cares for its customers, listening to its customers, doing everything possible (within limits of course) to keep your customers happy and having a platform/mechanism to show that you care and you do try to make your customers happy is a very important  

So how can you do all that? You need a platform that your users Trust to be independent, accessible to them and know that this platform will give them the “empowerment” for them to make a difference!

That is why we decided to offer a rating platform so that end users can rate you. However, the difference is, this is a tool designed to empower your customers as well as empower you as a business. This had to be done at no cost, yep free! So that end users know that you as a business have no reason not to empower them. Unlike the paid for versions, making it free removes the obstacle for businesses so that they have no reason not to deploy this, and because there are no fees associated with this, this service/platform can be viewed as an independent platform. It exists to please and empower both consumers and businesses. 

The reason why we are launching this service is to create a feedback mechanism to start rewarding good businesses, to help willing businesses help themselves, to empower Consumers so that they can make a difference with their feedback and make Internet a safer place! Who better than a trusted name like Comodo to provide that infrastructure for free to everyone! Who better than Comodo who has already been fortunate enough to gain UserTrust by providing top notch security to end users for free! Now end users will trust this service know that it is designed to empower them, rather than those paid for rating logos people buy which, imo, does not inspire confidence with the smart consumers cos they know the businesses have paid for it and the vendors need to be nice to the biz otherwise they don’t get paid. Of course the system we have doesn’t mean that anyone can come say anything they like to damage the business, we simply won’t allow that! We want create a Fair empowerment for both businesses and consumers. It will only work if its fair! We will make sure of that.

Businesses: now you know how you can Improve your business, your sales, your customer satisfaction, there simply is no reason not to deploy this UserTrust platform (of course for whatever reason (??) you don’t want your customers to rate you (skeletons in the cupboard and all that) ). Its free, its fair, and more importantly its trusted as a fair platform by consumers, being provided by an organisation that consumers have come to trust!

Consumers: Now you are empowered to make a difference, for yourself, for other people like you and for business you like or dislike!  Now you have a tool to improve your online experience! Now you have a tool to make a difference, a difference you and the whole Internet can see! Now you have a “Voice” that can be “Heard”!

By both businesses and consumers utilising this platform, we can improve Internet, we can improve our businesses, we can weed out bad and reward good, we can have a better user experience on Internet now that we are armed.

UserTrust - A key ingredient for Internet Experience!

thanks

Melih

Talk Back

Human beings are social animals. We want to connect and interact with eachother, we crave for it and when we find a new method, we grab it with both hands! I mean, take a look at the technologies that connected us throughout the history! The biggest one was a “wheel”! Yep, Transportation is a mechanism to connect us all, then we have Communication “pigeons”! and so on. Between a wheel and pigeon, we now have cars, trains, automobiles, Internet, printed media, Pubs (yep a great connector indeed) the list goes on. The point is connectedness is an insatiable hunger for us humans.

And now we have Internet!

Yay, yay, yay!

It connects us in a way we could only dream of. But pls don’t be fooled, it ain’t enough! Until everyone connects to everyone 24/7 we won’t rest. Even then, we won’t be satisfied. But hang on a minute… a Wheel, I understand how it gets me from one place to the other, a Pigeon, ok sometimes they get lost, but they get to where I want them to. When I get onto a train, I know where its going to take me (apart from one occassion i got the wrong train ), these things that connects us are physical things that I have a means to trust.

But how about Internet?

Melih

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