Recently we had a client of one of our customers call wanting to claim the $1,000 prize they had just won on our Residentlist.com mapping website. You can imagine my dismay when I heard this, since we have specific places on our site that we reserve for advertising purposes and our Residentlist.com mapping site is not one of them. So I went to the site to check out what they were referring too, and didn’t find anything out of the ordinary. Then I had the customer send me a screenshot of what they were seeing (see below).

On first sight this looked perfectly legitimate, but in fact the “advertisement” was illicitly placed on top of the mapping tool in our site by some deviant code written by an unethical source. We call this Banner Spam.

Further digging revealed the following.

We found the company responsible for this hijacking was a rather unscrupulous spam marketer. This company is known for getting people to unwittingly signup for promotional ads from many unsavory characters on the internet.

So, how do you save yourself from becoming a victim of banner spam? The answers are simpler than you think. Below I’ve outlined several steps you can take to protect yourself from ad attacks like this one. By no means are these meant to encompass all the possible ways to secure your computers, but it will give you a general starting point.

1. Always keep your browser up-to-date with the latest manufacturer approved and prompted updates.

2. Run an industry recognized Anti-Virus software that has built in anti-phishing and cross-browser script protection. Remember, these products are only good when they are kept up-to-date against the latest threats.

3. Be careful when responding to any email asking you to signup for some sort of third-party ads, especially when they don’t specify who those third-parties might be.

4. Pay close attention when installing software that prompts you to install shortcuts in your browser. These tools are usually referred to as Browser Helper Objects or (BHO’s) and they add toolbars to your browser to assist you in performing tasks associated with software from specific companies. They can also be employed by hackers to put unwanted items on browser pages that fool unsuspecting users into downloading their hacking tools onto their computers.

5. Lastly, my standard rule of thumb is, “When in doubt, DON’T”. I mean don’t click, answer or respond to any ads or emails you are not 100% sure of their origins.

I don’t need to tell you that hackers and unscrupulous advertisers abound on the Internet and we must be vigilant when it comes to securing our systems from fraud. You can rest assured that we here at Compact are doing everything to keep you safe when using our compactlists.com.

Randy Kienzle
VP Tech

With the ever changing array of application platforms available for the internet, it is nice to have an in-house staff that is able to adapt to these changes. Compact has always taken pride in being a leader in the technology arena by bring our customers powerful web-based applications for resident, consumer and business list ordering.

One of the greatest tools available to our customers is our mapping technology. Through the years Compact has been hard at work bringing advances to our mapping technology such as county, zip and carrier route polygons, and advanced radii functions which allow customers to better visualize their mailing areas and better target the best clients to advance the growth of their businesses. In addition to programming websites and applications, we have a team of data experts that continuously monitor our databases to ensure we have the most accurate and targeted resident, consumer and business lists on the market today.

It you haven’t connected with Compact Information Systems head over to www.CompactLists.com today. You will find the experience second to none and our data is the best in the business.

Randy Kienzle

Just when you thought it couldn’t get any better, our new servers have arrived. From a technology guy’s perspective let me just say, “Impressive”! We ran the servers through their paces and there were nothing but smiles on everyone’s faces. Now that the new servers are loaded on the rack and serving up data in record time you all will be smiling too. If you haven’t already tried out the new sites and servers you should browse right over to www.compactlists.com and give them a run. As always customer satisfaction is our key concern here at Compact and these new servers will continue to make that possible.

Randy Kienzle, VP Tech

Yes folks we are approaching the end of another year here at Compact. With the changing of the year we too will be making changes on our Consumer List and Business List sites. We will be adding new servers and streamlining code to better serve your needs. As with all things, we here at Compact strive to make your ordering experience the best in the business. I hope as you are working with our technology throughout the coming year you can feel the pride we have put into each and every site.

May 2010 be a banner year for us all.

Randy Kienzle
VP of Technology

In the coming months you will be seeing a lot of changes here at Compact. You may have already noticed the changes to our main portal site www.compactlists.com. Soon, all of our sites will be modified to fit with this theme making it easier to navigate from one list ordering site to another, such as www.residentlists.com, www.consumerlists.com and www.businesslists.biz. In addition, to the changes in the look and feel of our site we are making major improvements in our mapping applications.

Our current mapping technology is based on Adobe’s Flash webpage plug-in, soon we will be converting to a Java based platform. This change will help us to bring new and more powerful mapping capabilities to all our list ordering websites. Some of the new features will include advanced polygon selection tools and enhanced radius functionality.

Together these changes will make your experience at Compact more user friendly and allow you to do more to target your direct mail list buying needs.

Randy – VP Tech

Compact’s revolutionary drive time radius technology can save you hundreds of dollars on your mailing campaigns by reducing the amount of improperly mailed pieces because of old radius technologies that would allow you to send mail pieces to customers well beyond your targeted mailing area. With our state-of-the-art drive time radius feature you can now pinpoint your exact customer base within a specified driving distance. Our drive time radii are based on the industry standard Navtech average drive time database, resulting in highly accurate radius results. A good example is a pizza delivery business that knows it can only deliver a piping hot, fresh pizza to its customers within 10 minutes of the pizza coming out of the oven. With drive time, the pizza business owner can perform a radius around their specific stores using minutes instead of miles resulting in a much more targeted list of customers and specifically those that are within the 10 minute delivery window, see example images below. With this technology the customer is happy they have a hot fresh product delivered to their door, and the pizza owner is happy with another satisfied customer. Better yet, you have a lower cost of goods sold and have targeted the customer that is most likely to buy your product. So give our drive time radius feature a try today, at ResidentLists.com.

- Randy Kienzle, Vice President of Technology