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Technology Stocks : MessageMedia Inc. (MESG) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Gutterball who wrote (419)	11/18/1999 11:29:00 PM
From: Gutterball	Respond to of 553

SEC Targets Investment Fraud on Net WASHINGTON (APBnews.com) -- In an effort to root out online investment fraud, the Securities and Exchange Commission is considering using a software program that would monitor Web sites and discussion groups and red-flag unusual activity. The SEC is seeking software and network application developers and vendors to create the so-called "sniffer" that would monitor public areas of the Net. In addition to Web sites and Usenet newsgroups, other areas of surveillance include listservs, a software program that administers mailing lists, and public discussion areas. The monitoring system would be created "off-site" so as not to lead back to the SEC. "We are considering automating some of the searching of the Internet that the staff currently does manually," stated John Heine, an SEC spokesman. The announcement to secure the services of a software vendor was made Nov. 2 through a procurement advertisement in Commerce Business Daily, a newspaper published by the Department of Commerce, which lists notices of proposed government procurement actions, contract awards, sales of government property and other procurement information. Internet is public information What the SEC is proposing to do is not that much different from what popular Internet search engines and services such as Yahoo!, AltaVista and Dejanews already do by sending out a robot or spider to snag Web sites or discussions that include certain keywords and other patterns of activity. The National Association of Securities Dealers, a trading regulatory organization, also looks out for suspicious investment information and activity with a project called NetWatch. Jim Dempsey, senior staff attorney for the Center for Democracy and Technology in Washington, said that for the most part there is no privacy on the Net. "People need to realize that what they say on the Internet is treated legally as public information," Dempsey said. Will program break passwords? Dempsey said the surveillance program is a variation of existing search robots, spiders and Web crawlers. "They are looking for certain words in certain combinations," Dempsey said. "It's a form of search engine in some respects. My guess is that they will look at certain newsgroups or build off whatever complaints they have, follow links; you follow those links, and each site you get to you look around, see what's there." He pondered whether conducting such a wide sweep of investment-related activity would result in more violations and frauds being uncovered. "An interesting question is whether their program is intended to break passwords. That, to me, is a critical question," said Dempsey, referring to the possibility of entering password-protected areas. 'We need to do something better' William McDonald, assistant commissioner of enforcement for the California Department of Corporations, whose office deals with investment fraud cases, said that he and other states have been working with the National White Collar Crimes Center and the Los Alamos Laboratory in New Mexico to come up with software to automate the monitoring process. "We need to do something better than what we are doing," McDonald said. "About half the states do Internet surveillance, and they are all basically looking at the same territory, and the consequence is that they are duplicating each other's efforts." He questioned whether communications on the Internet should be about privacy or disclosure. "While you're making it easy to engage in Internet commerce, don't make it easy to engage in Internet fraud. ... I want to see as much transparency as possible. ... What Los Alamos is doing is they're trying to develop a virtual reality search engine, that will look for patterns of speech and follow the thread," said McDonald. Spike in investment fraud cases The need for securities regulations and organizations to monitor online investment activity is tied to an increase in the number of Internet investing fraud cases. The SEC gets between 200 to 300 complaints daily. As online trading continues to become more commonplace, there are more stories where users are being taken. In testimony before a U.S. Senate subcommittee in March, Peter C. Hildreth, New Hampshire director of securities regulation and past president of the North American Securities Administrators Association, said that since launching an e-mail address last October to report suspected trading fraud, they've received more than 4,700 messages. "There will never be enough regulators to keep the online world free from fraud and abuse. Even if the state security regulators, SEC and the National Association of Securities Dealers all put aside their other tasks in a massive bid to shut down online investment scams, it is doubtful that fraud on the Internet could be stamped out altogether," Hildreth said. By David Noack, an APBnews.com staff writer mailto:david.noack@apbnews.com

To: Gutterball who wrote (419)	11/19/1999 12:04:00 AM
From: Gutterball	Respond to of 553

Coverage was initiated today on UPS by the following eight firms. Only two issued a Buy rating. Moral: the higher you go, the less likely it is anyone will rate you a Buy or Strong Buy. Considering MESG's close today at $20 represents almost a 100% gain for those institutions fortunate to be in that last bit of financing #reply-11699808, I submit the impact of the analyst coverage the Yahooeys are waiting for will be inversely proportional to the time it takes them to break wind. Banc of America Sec - Buy DLJ - Market Perform Deutsche Bc Alex. Br - Mkt Perform Scott & Stringfellow - Hold Merrill Lynch - NT Accum/LT Accum Mrgn Stnly Dn Wttr - Outperform UPS Salomon Smth Brny - Outperform Warburg Dillon Read - Buy UPS shares slipped 1 3/8 to 66 5/16 today (11/18/99). UPS wasn't subject to the usual quiet-period restrictions following its IPO because it previously had publicly held debt outstanding. The lead underwriter was Morgan Stanley Dean Witter and could not bring itself to rate UPS a Buy. This says someting.

To: Gutterball who wrote (419)	11/19/1999 12:23:00 AM
From: Gutterball	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 553

Note to all Yahoos! Take a deep look at this week. If you were in-and-out of MESG, what did you accomplish? Sure you might have made a little extra but chances are you didn't. Smart investors are setting on a double and now have a cushion between them and the market price. The trouble with the ole in-out (SLAP! No, I'm not talking Clockwork Orange, here), is that in the end all you have accomplished is move your cost basis higher. This will make you more vulnerable to the volatility that lies ahead and could lead you to the receiving end of the Clockwork Orange definition you were thinking about above before I slapped you to your senses.