Insights For Success

Strategy, Innovation, Leadership and Security

Amazon

Hackers are targeting your kindle

GeneralEdward Kiledjian

Consumers can easily become complacent when they see so much media coverage of large enterprise hacks. After all, what could a hacker gain by compromising your pc? Well it happens and it's not just your PC you should be worried about.

Hackers are capable of compromising anything that is connected to a network (think cameras, baby monitors, printers, etc). One thing you need not worry about is your reliable Amazon Kindle. It's just an e-reader, after all.

Kindle devices may have a flaw that could allow remote attackers to gain control of them, according to Checkpoint Research. It works by using a specially designed malicious ebook, which, when opened, will compromise the device.

An attacker can extract information from a compromised device including your Amazon credentials, billing information and more. Checkpoint believes that this technique could be used to target specific groups (such as the population of a country, speakers of a particular language, etc).

Amazon promptly patched the kindle after Checkpoint responsibly disclosed the vulnerability. It has been said before and I will say it again: update your devices regularly.

Ensure that your Kindle is up-to-date. Navigate to Menu > Settings > Menu > Device Info

Compare your version with the latest version of the firmware listed here.

You can force an update when your kindle is connected to WIFI by navigating to Menu > Settings > Menu > Update Your Kindle and click ok.

2 secrets you need to know for Amazon Prime Day

GeneralEdward Kiledjian

Amazon Prime Day is here and expect millions of customers to go crazy buying things they don't need. At least those unneeded items are deeply discounted, right? Maybe! Thousands of items will be sold at their lowest price ever, but that isn't the case for everything.

The internet is here to save the day again. A free online tool called CamelCamelCamel will show you the truth.

You paste an Amazon link into the search bar at CamelCamelCamel and it will show you the item's price over time.

You copy the Amazon URL into the CamelCamelCamel search bar

Then you scroll midway down the results page and notice that the current promo is actually a good deal.

CamelCamelCamel covers Amazon sites for Canada, USA, Australia, China, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain and the United Kingdom.

Do you want an example of a not so good deal? Here is one for you:

Looks like a good lightning deal...

CamelCamelCamel says this item was sold December 2017 for $53.82, a full $6.48 cheaper. This means that if you don't need this item right away, you may want to wait a bit or find an alternative that may actually be a deal. 

And one more thing

I'll sweeten the pot with one more tip for Amazon Prime Day (PrimeDay) and this one is related to the product reviews. You will notice that those Bluedio headphones seem to have a good user review rating of 4/5 stars (with 273 customer reviews). Can you trust those reviews?

Enter Fakespot! Like CamelCamelCamel you copy the Amazon product URL into the Fakespot search bar and you are presented with a review reliability score

Fakespot isn't perfect but it is a great way to quickly determine how much trust you should put in the user reviews. Notice above the analysis is old. if you see that button, press the ReAnalyze button and wait until you get a new rating.

When I tested Fakespot with these on-special headphones, the user review rating improved from an F to a D. 

The moral of the story is that you will probably find hundreds of great deals worth the asking price but make sure to perform your own due diligence using CamelCamelCamel and Fakespot. 

Quebec to change tax collection rules for foreign tech companies

GeneralEdward Kiledjian

Montreal's La Presse newspaper is reporting that "two high-level government sources" have confirmed that the upcoming Quebec budget (March 27, 2018) will include new sales taxes levied on foreign tech companies like Netflix, Amazon, Google, and Apple, that do not have a Quebec presence. 

As it currently stands, these non-resident foreign companies are not expected to collect sales taxes from consumers. Under current regulations, the government expects consumers to auto-report these purchases and submit the necessary taxes. 

Based on a November report, the Quebec government believes it lost 270M$ during the previous fiscal year because of this collection model. 

Additionally, the government believes local merchants selling online are disadvantaged by the extra tax burden

The intent will be to:

  • collect sales tax on products and services (intangible) coming from outside of Canada
  • collect sales tax on physical goods physical goods coming from outside of  Canada
  • collect sales tax on goods (tangible or intangible) coming from the rest of Canada

La Presse reports that these new tax rules will be implemented regardless of Ottawa's position or opinion. 

Google Home forced me to switch to Spotify

GeneralEdward Kiledjian


Tech titans Google and Amazon chose Christmas 2017 to battle it out for your love and money. These smart speakers are designed to quickly provide access to each company's ecosystem and make your life easier. At least that is the promise. 

I am heavily invested in the Google ecosystem and have been for over ten years. In addition to using their free services, I pay for Google Music, storage, have an android phone (so I buy apps), etc. 

I signed up for the free Google Apps service in 2007 (predecessor to GSuite) when each domain was given 100 free user accounts. This was a great way to provide essential internet services to my family for my kiledjian.com domain (emails, calendar, etc.)

The Google home

These devices can answer questions about science, history and everything in between. Most buyers use these smart speakers as intelligent modern voice-controlled boomboxes. 

I have owned a Google home almost from its original release date and picked up a Google home mini for my bedroom. 

In addition to making money from the sale of these devices, companies like Amazon and Google hope to lock users into the ecosystem. Except...

The Google Home and Google's account issues forced me to move from Google Music to Spotify.

The music problem GSuite accounts

With an individual music subscription, I can only stream to a single device at a time. I can't listen to music on my smartphone in the gym while my kids listen to music at home. 

I tried to upgrade to a family account, only to be told by a support agent that GSuite accounts are not eligible. So if I wanted to enable on-demand commercial-free music on my multiple devices, I needed to move to Spotify, which I begrudgingly did.

Rant

There have always been irritants when using Gsuite (Google Apps) accounts with some Google services. Until now, all of my issues have been irritants for me, but have not affected Google, which may be why they have never solved this issue. 

This is a situation where their complacency has cost them subscription dollars (steady recurring income). I know that only a small minority of Google's millions of users are affected by this issue, but I receive a constant flow of complaints from my readers about it. 

This is the issue when dealing with giant faceless internet companies like Google. No matter how annoying some of their actions may be, there is nothing you can do as a customer. Your only option is to pick up and spend your money elsewhere. 

Amazon Music Unlimited expands to 28 more countries. So what?

GeneralEdward Kiledjian

Amazon Music Unlimited is (in my opinion) just another streaming music service, but since it's Amazon, it's worth mentioning. 

It is expanding to 28 additional countries, so the world a little more inclusive today. Similar to another (nameless) streaming service, Amazon Music Unlimited stresses the fact that its playlists are "human curated". 

The requisite PR created launch statement can be found here. 

“Customers can choose from content hand-curated by Amazon Music experts, build their own playlists, or find new favorites through Amazon’s personalized recommendations either on the Amazon Music app or Web Player.”

The new countries being shown some love by Amazon are:

  • Belgium
  • Iceland
  • Bolivia
  • Latvia
  • Bulgaria
  • Liechtenstein
  • Chile
  • Lithuania
  • Colombia
  • Luxembourg
  • Costa Rica
  • Malta
  • Cyprus
  • Netherlands
  • Czech Republic
  • Panama
  • Ecuador
  • Peru
  • El Salvador
  • Poland
  • Estonia
  • Portugal
  • Finland
  • Slovakia
  • Greece
  • Sweden
  • Hungary
  • Uruguay

I live in Canada, and the Echo product line just launched here. Chances are the country you are in (if not the US) either doesn't have or just received the Amazon Echo line of products. For those of us not yet invested in the Amazon voice assistant product line, there is little to get excited here. 

Not very exciting for most of you but news worthy since its Amazon.