The opened email looks like this:

_____________________________________________________

13450 Sunrise Valley Drive, Suite 100 Herndon, VA 20171 (703) 561-1100

2011 NACHA – The Electronic Payments Association

_____________________________________________________

The real NACHA has made a statement on their website stating:

‘NACHA – The Electronic Payments Association has received reports that individuals and/or companies have received a fraudulent email that has the appearance of having been sent from NACHA and signed by a non-existent NACHA employee. Specifically, this email claims to be from the “Electronic Payments Association” and appears to be coming from the email address “payments@nacha.org.” See a sample of the email below.

Read the rest of NACHA’s statement here.

For anyone who would like to know more about how the internet works but was afraid to ask there is a new shining light. It is a nifty interactive picture book titled 20 Things I Learned About Browsers and the Web. It is written in plain old English and adeptly explains how the web works, what cloud computing, cookies, phishing, malware and a host of other things are and why it is almost ok if a truck runs over your computer.By far the most important message it delivers though is this one -  ALWAYS UPGRADE TO THE LATEST VERSION OF YOUR BROWSER…words to live by.

If you give it a quick look through you might get an idea of what we do here at good old Asia Studio and why it is a bit more complicated than putting pretty pictures and words on a page.

Following Google’s announcement of Google Instant Preview last week, this week Yahoo announced that it is soon to introduce Yahoo Rich Search Assist. They are rolling out the beta version slowly and we don’t seem to be among the chosen who get to play with it in the early phases. So we will just have to wait and see. What we do know is these advancements in search are making the already slippery SEO slopes just a little bit slicker.

And last but not least Google is planning to change the way we shop for clothes. It has launched its very own fashion site Boutiques.com. It is at the intersection of sheek fashion geek super skill – a junction that rarely comes together.

On its blog Google explains, ‘The new website will be a personalized shopping experience that lets users to find and discover fashion goods, by creating their own curated boutique or through a collection of boutiques curated by taste-makers – celebrities, stylists, designers and fashion bloggers.’

In other words, as with all other things Google, they learn what you like and at least in theory they serve up results that match your preferences.

I’m sure Google is monetizing the heck out of this new offering. It is an interesting concept though, one that will be worth watching (probably a lot more worth watching for Google than for us ever so fashionable geeks.)

My west of the Missouri River thinking says reality is to blame. It says reality is a slippery slope. If I came face to face with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (other than willing myself into butter on an Iranian summer day) I would have nothing to say to him. He would have nothing to say to me either. Our realities are universes apart.

If I ran into Michael Vick and I told him I had a dog – half pit bull – that I love. My reality might allow me to ask, ‘Dude, you did what? Shocked them, beat them, starved them, isolated them?’ Bet your life, I wouldn’t understand his answers. He lives in another reality that made that ok.

So it goes with hackers, cracker and identity thieves. Folks, these guys make Michael Vick look like a saint. Heed these warnings:

• Don’t use the same password for everything. Twitter, the sparkling new go-to site just got hacked and embarrassed big time.
• Install security software and keep it up to date.
• Archive your email.
• Don’t be lulled into the, ‘I have nothing to hide’ mentality. You have a social security number, one or two or three bank accounts and an identity that is worth big bucks –valuable assets that deserve as much protection as the contents of your car when you park at the grocery store.

You see the folks who are in the business of cyber theft live in a different reality. Think about it! Just for a minute. Please.

Point is – protect your identity. Keep a password cheat sheet. But keep it private. Don’t be lazy. And please, be tolerant of pit bulls. They are the best dogs in the world.