Tax Alert The Canada Revenue Agency warns Canadians of mail scam

Tax Alert
The Canada Revenue Agency warns Canadians of mail scam
The Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) is warning taxpayers to beware of a recent scam where some Canadians are receiving a letter fraudulently identified as coming from the CRA and asking for personal information. The letter is not from the CRA. A PDF version of the letter is available on the CRA Web site at http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/alert/index.html.
The letter claims that there is “insufficient information” for the individual’s tax return and that in order to receive any “claims,” they will have to update their records. The letter attaches a form specifically requesting the individual’s personal information in writing, via fax or email, including information on bank accounts and passports. This letter is not from the CRA and Canadians should not provide their personal information to the sender.
All taxpayers should be vigilant when divulging any confidential information to third parties. The CRA has well established practices to protect the confidentiality of taxpayers’ information.
The CRA has notified the proper law enforcement authorities of this scam.
For information about this and other similar scams, or to report deceptive telemarketing activity, visit http://www.phonebusters.com/, send an email to info@phonebusters.com, or call 1-888-495-8501.
This document is also available for download in PDF format.
To get notification by email when news releases, fact sheets, tax tips, and tax alerts are added to our Web site, subscribe to our electronic mailing list. You can also subscribe to the Media room RSS feed.

World AIDS Day.

Learn more about World AIDS Day.

Hotmail debugging oh how fun NOT!

[Update, November 25, 2008:] Check out this recent blog post for updates about the bug fixes we're making in repsonse to your comments.

Update on the new Hotmail

By the end of this week, all Windows Live Hotmail users will be upgraded to the new Hotmail. The rollout has been slow because we’ve been reading and listening to your comments. We’ve read all the comments, followed up with some of you, and changed the service as we went. Since our original announcement, we have read and analyzed several thousand comments, fixed several bugs, and released five updates to the code so far.

So, we want you to know that we’re listening, we’re making changes, and we want the service to be great.

Here are answers to a few of your frequently asked questions.

Q: Why did you change? I liked the old version the way it was.

When we asked our users how we could make Hotmail better, the majority of people said they wanted the experience to be cleaner and faster. The new experience was designed with this in mind.

Now, we understand that everyone has different tastes and computer configurations. Although the majority of people in our tests preferred the new look and themes, some people didn’t. So, while most of you have seen Hotmail improve, some of you have not, and we apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you.

Q: I find this hard to use. Was this tested with real users?

Yes, it was. We tested with several thousand people around the world and used their feedback to improve the design prior to releasing to all users. We interviewed hundreds of them to hear their opinions, measured their success rate accomplishing common tasks, and surveyed them to see how much they liked the new service compared to the old one. The data from our tests showed that most users found the new Hotmail to be faster, more reliable, and more usable.

Q: Can I opt out? Can I get the old version back?

A: We can’t provide two fast, secure, reliable experiences, so we have decided to just keep the new version. However, we will continue to improve the new version, based on many of your comments here, to make it work better for you.

And here are some specific concerns we’ve seen in your feedback, and what we’re doing to fix them:

Q: Where did my folders go? I can’t see enough of the page. The ad is too big. Can you give me more space?

A: We understand that the design isn’t optimal for many users who have smaller monitors, so we’re working on improvements to page layout that will give your inbox more space.

In the meantime, if you have a smaller display, you should maximize your browser window for best results (in Windows, look in the upper-left corner of the browser, click the Internet Explorer, Firefox, or Safari logo, and in the menu that appears, click Maximize).

Also, your folders are not gone — you may need to scroll the folder list to see them all.

Q: I can’t forward e-mail because I can’t find my contacts. I don’t know where my favorites went!

A: The new “contact picker” and “auto-complete” features were designed to save you time.

· While addressing an e-mail message, just type a couple letters of the name and we will show just the names that match those letters.

· Or, while addressing an e-mail message, click the To: button to see the full list of all of your contacts.

· To set up your favorites, go to the Contact list and click the yellow star next to each name that you want to be a favorite.

While this may require an extra click for some of you, our research shows that typing a few letters of the name is usually a faster way to find an address than scrolling through a list. Once you get used to it, we hope you’ll find auto-complete useful, too. We also have some cool ideas about how to use the space where the favorites list used to be. We’ll keep listening to your feedback on this one.

Q: I don’t like the themes. What are you doing about this?

A: We agree that more themes are needed. Additional themes are being designed now, and will be coming soon.

Q: There aren’t as many messages on the page. I want to see more!

A: We hear you, so we’ll be increasing the default number of messages per screen, and providing the option for power users to see many more. Look for these changes in an upcoming release.

Q: Where is the spell checker?

A: For users of Internet Explorer, there is a Check Spelling button; clicking this button draws red underlines below misspelled words, and then clicking the underlined words shows you suggestions. For users of Firefox and Safari, you can just use the built-in spell checker in your browser, so misspelled words will be underlined automatically.

We are constantly reading your feedback, so please let us know what you think. We want you to love the new Hotmail!

- Mike Schackwitz, Lead program manager, Windows Live Hotmail

Vista kernel is vulnerable oh my

Vista kernel is vulnerable

By Egan Orion
Nov 25, 2008 9:55 AM
Tags: Vista | kernel | vulnerable | Windows | Microsoft

A flaw has been discovered in Microsoft's flagship Windows Vista operating system, but the company has said it won't fix the glitch until its next, as-yet unannounced, service pack.

Discovered by Austrian researcher Thomas Unterleitner of the insecurity company Phion and announced last Friday, the buffer overflow flaw reportedly exists in Vista's networking I/O subsystem.

It can cause a blue screen of death system crash, allow denial of service attacks, or enable injection of rootkits or other malware such as viruses, trojans, bots or keyloggers.

Unterleitner told ZDnet UK that Phion had notified Microsoft of the vulnerability in October.

Phion successfully tested an exploit of the vulnerability against Vista Enterprise and Vista Ultimate and believes that other versions of Windows Vista are "very likely" also vulnerable. It says that both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of the operating system contain the flawed code.

Windows XP reportedly doesn't contain the vulnerability.

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See story here

Hotmail trying to be funny?

1Based on Microsoft testing over broadband. Results were up to 54% for narrowband connections.

2We've designed Windows Live Hotmail storage to grow with you, but at a reasonable pace. That means you should have plenty of storage unless you suddenly want to store the planet Jupiter on Hotmail, in which case we'll send you a nice e-mail asking you to please not try to store planets on Windows Live Hotmail (although gradual storage of moons and asteroids is ok).

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HMMMM are thay trying to be Gmail???

we have a Lawyer running Finance hmmm!

The Honourable James Michael Flaherty PC, BA, LLB, MP
Member of the Canadian Parliament for Whitby—Oshawa
Incumbent
Assumed office 2006 federal election
Preceded by	Judi Longfield
Born	December 30, 1949 (1949-12-30) (age 58) Lachine, Quebec
Political party	Conservative
Spouse	Christine Elliott
Residence	Whitby, Ontario
Alma mater	Princeton University: BA Osgoode Hall Law School: LLB
Profession	Lawyer
Portfolio	Minister of Finance The PM is an economist & he has a Lawyer running Finance. Now i know why he looks like a Deere in headlights Lawyers don't know Finance at all!!!!!

Bank of Montreal - what were they thinking?

I saw a commercial recently for Bank of Montreal which is a national bank in Canada. The particular product it was advertising was its "Home Essentials Package". Basically, it is a package of things to know and bank services people should be aware of when buying their first house. I nearly fell off the couch when I saw this commercial. Just like in the US, Canadian mortgage and credit markets are a little leery of taking risks. That being said, you have the Bank of Montreal advertising this product which is strange because not many are in the market to buy a house unless they are rich. What were they thinking? The bank itself has been exposed to the sub-prime mortgage melt down although due to Canadian banking regulations, not as exposed as their American cousins. I know of no one who wants to buy a house right now so they just spent millions of dollars on a commercial for a product that almost nobody will be using for the next 2 to 3 years. So, whats the point?