Regular features from March 2004 99th Issue

The Digital Doctor - Bird Flu and Computer Colds

Many of the top stories so far this year have been concerned with infections of some form or other. Although the powers that be play down the severity of any 'chicken fever' in a feeble attempt to brush it under their political carpets. The fact remains that its there and affecting everyone. Not being a 'bird expert' or political analyst I am going to continue with the other kind of infection and that's the one that affects all computer users, which now days is pretty much everyone.
Late January witnessed the emergence of another two new computer viruses, namely "Beagle" and "MyDoom". After 2003 was officially declared the worst year ever for computer viruses (who can forget the Blaster?) we didn't have much to look forward to as we entered 2004, and yet before the end of the first month we had 2 new nasties to deal with. Appearing on January 18th the W32.Beagle.A@mm virus had all the traits of another mass mailing worm that arrives with an attachment and attempts to send itself to all of the contacts in your address book. Usually an email with the subject header "Hi" or "Hello" arrives with a random letter executable attachment. When run, the attachment drops the worm and attempts to open ports to enable external access. By the time you read this though, the virus will have expired and is no longer a threat.
A more sinister virus appeared on January 26th and spread so fast that it made international news. W32.Novarg.A@mm or "MyDoom" as it's more commonly known was a little more cunning in its methods of infection and distribution. Being of the format that we've all seen before - email with executable attachment - we must ask the question why it spread so quick and how did so many machines become infected? Again this virus attempts to mail itself to everyone in your address book, opens several ports (TCP 3127 to 3198) on your machine and send a Denial of Service to certain corporate websites (yes, Microsoft was one of them!). The backdoor function allows the creator of the worm to gain full access to your system. You may have experienced a slowing up of the internet (as I did) between the 1st and 12th of February when the worm was attacking websites (so don't blame it on your ISP or those crappy phone lines this time!).
The main difference with this one was the way it 'tricked' people into opening the attachment. Firstly it was able to spoof email addresses making it look like the message came from someone you know and secondly the title of the message was somewhat clever:
"Mail Delivery System",
"Mail Transaction Failed",
"Server Report",
"Error"
This makes it look like a mail you have sent has been rejected and returned so you go in and open the attachment to see what it was and Wham! You're infected! Removal was relatively painless once the Antivirus companies had their definitions and fix tools available online but by then the damage was done.
The bottom line and I can't emphasize this any more is: DON'T OPEN ANY UNKNOWN ATTACHMENTS. Personally I would avoid any attachment that isn't a .doc (Word) .xls (Excel) .pdf (Acrobat) .jpg or .gif (Graphic) as anything else can be potentially harmful (of course there are hundreds of other file types but I only have this little space to write in!). Dangerous ones are .exe .bat .pif .scr .cmd .zip, unless you know exactly what it is and are expecting it, fire it off to the trash. Equally as important is your antivirus software which is about as useful as a tuxedo on Songkran day UNLESS YOU KEEP THE SIGNATURE FILES UPDATED. You should run the liveupdate at least every two weeks if you receive a lot of emails. These viruses would not spread as quick if people were a little less trigger happy with their mice when it came to email attachments.
New virus variants MyDoom.B and MyDoom.C will have already emerged by the time you're reading this, the same applies as above; stay updated! If you're thinking you may be infected you can download the fix tool from www.symantec.com (the makers of Norton Antivirus) or any of the other popular Antivirus vendors (Trend Micro, McAfee or Sophos). The difference with this virus though is that you probably wont know you are infected, as it doesn't have and major adverse effects on your computer. It will generally slow your email down and block your mail server preventing you sending and receiving emails. There's not much you can do about incoming attachments apart from continually deleting them off the server. Corporate users may have had a bigger problem; I have been actively managing several Resort reservations accounts, some of which have had over 400 infected emails per day. The bad news is that the situation is unlikely to improve as new viruses, worms and Trojans are constantly emerging, all we can do as computer users is stay on our toes.
If you have any virus worries, computer conundrums or internet issues don't hesitate to call the Doc on 01-1911742. Email info@digitalmetrix.net Back issues of the Digital Doctor can be found on www.digitalmetrix.net

A Warehouse for your investments

Many wealthy people have a jewel box, or a safe deposit box in a bank, where they hold their trinkets, cash, share certificates, stocks and securities. Safe deposit boxes have been the subject of a few decent Hollywood movies.
There are myriad reasons why people have them but whatever they are the can not compare with the advantages of holding all your assets in an offshore Executive Investment Bond. (EIB) sometimes called a Portfolio Bonds (PB)
An EIB is like a big warehouse which can hold all your investments, wherever you purchased them. It can hold or purchase on your behalf fixed interest securities, stocks and shares on a regulated stock exchange, bonds gilts and currency deposits, unit trusts, mutual funds and cash deposits.
Your name is not painted all over this warehouse. You see all of your assets are transferred and legally owned by the EIB Provider and held on their behalf by a custodian trustee. Many wealthy investors especially American expats use the EIB as a tax shelter.
But it has much more to offer than just that.
The ability to structure an investment portfolio requires careful planning, prudent stock selection and a knowledge of the world's investment markets. Your EIB provider can appoint a professional fund advisor to do all this for you. Normal stock broker's fees for this service are 1.5% of your portfolio. The EIB can offer a discount of 1.2% so actual cost is 0.3%
Initial discounts from fund management groups are a big feature also. For example if you requested the warehouse manager to purchase say an offshore HSBC fund he would have to pay 0.25%. If you were to purchase it directly it would cost 5% a saving of 4.75%
Similarly he could purchase a Fidelity fund at 0.0% charge where you would pay 5%
This gives you the flexibility to change your investment portfolio at any time: especially convenient if the market crashes, when you can liquidate with little cost.
So how can your EIB provider offer these discounts?
There are many EIB providers like Zurich, Friends Provident, Generali and a few private client providers but I prefer Royal Skandia (More later) because of their huge buying power. They are for instance the largest corporate client of Fidelity and that's why they can pass on huge discounts to their EIB holders.
In addition to almost total investment freedom you can transfer in any existing quoted shareholding you possess.
You can then forget about distribution of dividends spending hours calculating your net worth and never being sure and wondering about currency calculations. Each quarter you will receive an in depth valuation statement. It will provide full information on asset movement, income accrual, cash withdrawal and charges. It will also state the total valuation in the currency of your choice.
So the EIB in summary offers administrative simplicity, worldwide dealing, no CGT or income tax, corporate discounts, bank account facility, bank loan/leverage and denomination in any major world currency All you need is Stg50,000 or currency equivalent to open the door to investment freedom.
So why choose Royal Skandia?. Here are a few reasons. They are not owned by a bank:
They were the pioneers in portfolio bonds 20 years ago:. They have more EIB's than any other provider and they have the largest offshore EIB dept with over 100 staff. There are many more reasons but space prevents me from listing them.
Just a cautionary note. PB's cannot hold everything. Exclusions may include works of art, coins, precious metals, property and derivatives. So keep your Safety deposit box: you might need to deposit the precious jewelry that nice tuk tuk driver helped you purchase in Bangkok.
For further information on EIB's or any area of personal finance, please contact
Jerry McMenamin at
jerry@swissinvestcenter.net

Rotary Round-Up

The Rotary Club of Hua Hin held a family night this month: Rtn.PD. Dr. Danai Adoolyasak, Rtn. PP. Darunee Rattanopas, Rtn. Surasak Homnean all celebrated their birthdays, and the and two new Rotarians were introduced this month they are Rtn. Dr. Samart Thirasak and Rtn. Payao Klayaksorn

The Rotary Club meet every Thursday 08.00 pm, at the Grand Hotel.

 
Jungle Juice Richard takes over as chief sponsor of our local football team, he really enjoyed the public speaking and is available if anyone needs an M.C ! ! Fun and games at the end of season party (right)

David and his sister (actually it’s his mum but no one would believe us) at Billy’s Bar

 
Party in full swing at P & P Bar (Poolsuk Road) with Bob (above) surprising a few people with his raunchy voice

Mick and his mate, who was having a good time!

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