Letter

Saving e-mail

The Between the Bytes column on phishing [EC, August 23] was informative. It is my belief that net phishers and spoofers are becoming more sophisticated at tricking people everyday with illusive fake websites that are hard to detect, and the cloning of legitimate websites. This is becoming the ever-present obstacle in thwarting those phishing attacks.

Spam, fraud, phishing and spoofing are just some of the annoyances that, some say, are putting e-mail in peril. E-mail arguably is a hacking tool; it enables the spread of malware or ID theft perpetration… Why? Because criminals can stay anonymous. That’s what we need to stop.

If we’re to count on legislation or law enforcement to save e-mail, we’re out of luck. Although industry leaders are talking about potential technology answers to the problem and vendors are scrambling to cobble together a product that they claim solves the problem, solutions have in fact been available for several years.

—Jason

Raising the barrier

The article on “Cisco’s latest: self defending networks” [EC, September 6] gives a good insight into emerging technologies in the security space. Any emerging technology has to be aligned with market reality and demand situation. Cisco’s tie-up with anti-virus vendors such as McAfee, Symantec and Trend Micro gives them a huge chunk of the market. This strategy works well for Cisco since the company already holds a significant share in the market for LAN and WAN-related hardware products. Other players, who are treading the same path, are likely to face stiff competition from this vendor.

–Rajesh Chaturvedi

Good products, poor marketing

This refers to the article “Apple rolls out cheaper iPods” [EC, August 2]. The list price mentioned in the article is about $300 (Rs 14,000) and I don’t agree with a one-price-anywhere-in-the-world strategy. Manufacturers should have country-specific plans for pushing their products as the ability to pay for a lifestyle product depends on the level of disposable incomes. In a scenario where component parts are commoditised and demand for finished goods (in this case digital music player) far exceeds capacity why can’t Apple Computer sub-licence its technology to regional players and benefit from volumes and royalties. Consumers in India have benefited from the low-priced editions of best-sellers and this strategy should be replicated across sectors.

—Jigisha Seth