Security Tips

Lately, I read often terror stories about people getting their autosurfing or egold accounts hacked. If you don't think this can happen to you, please acknowledge that there are many specific tools today that target the less-careful user or the browsers exploits.

There are many measures you can take to remedy this situation; no matter what, always make sure you have an antivirus or/and spyware/keylogger detector and you do not use the same password on all sites.

However, my main method of protecting my system is based on a machine virtualization system called VMWare. This program creates a virtual machine inside your own machine where you can install any program you like and treat as another machine - no settings are common between the two machines. VMWare player is a special free version of VMWare, go get it at: http://www.vmware.com/products/player/

VMWare offers a prebuilt vitrual machine based on the UBUNTU linux system that creates a secure environment for web browsing based on FireFox. You can download it from: http://www.vmware.com/vmtn/vm/browserapp.html

Use this configuration to run all your surfing sites inside this new system and avoid exposing your main system to spywares.

Diversify, Yes.... but HOW?

Diversification is a needed tool if you want to avoid unpleasant suprises. If you put all your eggs in one basket then the risk is to high. However, diversification is a controversial topic as well because of a well known side-effect.... it reduces the potential maximum amount of money you can gain.

So, here is my simple advice. If you want to invest only a small amount of money then DO NOT diversify. Pick up the highest paying site with the best paying record and put all your eggs to that one. You may loose your small investment but it is the only way to get at a satisfactory level during this lifetime. As soon as you have enough money then start picking more sites and put money on them as well. Along the way, the more money you have invested the less risky you owe to be.

Summing up my investment status

Here is my investment status and my current feeling of each program I use.
First of all let me say that during the last two months that I am actively participating in HYIPs and AutoSurfers I already had some good and bad times. My current status is possitive, I gain more money than I lost. However, I decided for the time being to reinvest most of the money and diversify my portfolio - this is improving my pontential status on the risk of loosing a part of my investment.

12DailyPro - This is the best running program until now. My current investment is a totally $2700. If you remember from my older posts I started with $900 via StormPay and then I added $1080 via eGold. I've been paid a total of 5 times and I diversified most of the earnings to other programs - mostly FeederFund, PrivateOpps and GoldenRocks. I also increased the total amount of money I've got in 12DailyPro.

Auto-surf.biz - This runs very well also. I have been paid each and every week since I joined (7 payments) and have made back $490 of my initial $1000 investment. All auto-surf.biz money went either to other HYIPs programs or the sister site eprofitsurf.com

Eprofitsurf. com - Another very well run site for the moment. I have not been paid yet but I wait my first payment until 15 of December. I have $1000 in this one and have already (virtually) made $700 - 2% sum-up very well indeed. If this stays alife for a very-very long time then I intend to build a fortune of it .... lets see

DadnDaves - Trustworthy site. Have been paid twice. From my initial $1000 investment I have got back $400 already and reinvested $100.

PaidResponse - My worst investment until now ($1100). The site seems to be in big trouble and no payments have been made for a few months. I did a mistake when I put money in this one BEFORE reading all the negative posts floating around on the web. Still, I have not lost hope and I do believe I will be able to get some (at least!) of the initial money I invested in this one.

GoldenRocks - I could not resist all the possitive hype and I spend some money in this one. Actually, I put on it $405, mostly profits from 12DailyPro and auto-surf.biz. The returns are great (90% per month) and the site is being online for one year now - so, I found the risk hm, justified.

FeederFund - I made a test spend of $200 (FXIG program). Make sure you make the spent at the end of the month and not before because deposits are only valid after the 5th of each month and for the month ahead. The program seems very stable however the returns are at the range of 10-15% per month which is not a lot for my initial steps where I need to increase my money level as fast as possible.

PrivateOpps - I have read good and bad things about them but my own feeling is really possitive at the moment. The returns are good enough and their attitude looks very professional. I have put $900 in their system mostly from 12DailyPro earnings with, on average, 1.2% return per day.

Signs of sites to avoid!

Here is my list of 12 things you should check on an autosurfing site.
If more than 2 of the things below stands true then DO NOT use this program.

1)Less than 3 months old. Most poorly managed or scam sites die in less than three months. You may find alluring to get in early and get out early but most of the times this is the fastest way to loose money.
2)Unreleastic referral structure. If there are referral payments more than 2 levels deep then do not use it. This structure is only for attracting new members via excessing advertisments.
Ideally a program should not have ANY referral structure.
3)Unreleastic returns. Everything more than 2% real daily return is unrealistic. My only exception to this one is 12DailyPro at the moment.
4)Excessive communication. Its one thing to have a communicative webmaster and another to have 2-3 mails every day in our mailboxes. Even worst, to send advertisment of other sites.
5)Change of management. All sites that changed management collapsed.
6)Not known webmaster, no where-abouts and no third party certification. There is no site you can be 100% about but some sort of certification of the system is necessary. Be careful here that the new breed of scammers can have third party certifications (the rules about getting these certifications should become tigher for sure!)
7)Not consistent payment record. If you read for delayed payments DO NOT join. Not payments is lethal for a program since it diminishes its ability to attract new money.
8)Excessive rules changing. This makes your life harder. Some changes may be necessary to ensure the program against bad users. Use your own judge on this one.
9)Only eGold upgrades. eGold is not reversable. Ideally the program should use eGold, StormPay AND paypal.
10)Very odd "Get out rules". Make sure you can get back your initial investment the most after 90 days. The less the better.
11)New autosurf site launched. Running one autosurf site is a really time consuming task. It is impossible for the same person to run two autosurfing sites with some commitment to the members base.
12) Bad security practices. Look for a dedicated server, minimum down time, fast connection, good DDOS security history and Firewalls. Every dedicated webmaster should be able to deal with all the above


Now, a program that has one or even two of the above characteristics is not necessary a bad investment. However, you should really avoid a program with 3 or more of the things in the above list and ideally choose programs that do not have any of the above bad points.

Some thoughs on 12DailyPro & Extending Diversification

Another interesting week on the internet investing arena. This week we did not see any new collapses which is a relief after the miserable past one. Also, the end of the month arrived which is good news... some cash is due to arrive :)

12DailyPro keeps going very strong. A lot of people have been able to regain some of the losses after GCISurf and ClixSurf and 2WeeksSurf collapses due to this phenomenal autosurf. I have post a few thoughts on Jim Polak's forum on where the money may arrive. Here is my line of thought.

"I was thinking a bit on how Charis would see this system from a webmaster point of view. We always think how much we get and how much to upgrade but for her, the webmaster, 12DP is probably a system that gets something in (X), gets something out (Y) and has something inside (Z).

When X>Y then obvious there is no problem. The income from new members is always enough to sustain payments.
When Y>X then there is NOT necessary a problem if Z is well managed.
If she can make a good profit on Z (P=a function of profit on Z) so that always X+P(Z)>Y then there will NOT be a problem.

So, lets hypothesize, for the shake of simplicity, that she has the whole Z for 20 days and she wants to make a profit on it. That Z should be enormous by now, I believe something between 20 and 100 million dollars (there will be a few users at the 6000 level but a lot-lot-lot more at 50 or 100 level. I assume 100,000 members with 200 to 1000 for each on average). At a well sustained system Z should always grow since the total income is bigger than the outgoing stream.

Now, what can you do to make a good profit from several millions of dollars that you have at hand? Dan from auto-surf.biz described a scenario where
60% of the Funds deposited go into an e-currency exchange program that uses these funds to move money on the internet. In exchange, they pay them a portion of fees they collect for the transactions they make. Other systems do exist that can make a good profit on large amounts of money.

I do belive that in her mind the percentage 12Daily pays means little; the percent is a way to grow X from new users and minimize Y as more people reinvest to get even more.. this is called greed. The P(Z) should be big enough to fill the gap of the people that actually leave the system or have reached the maximum level."

On another topic, during this week I diversified my portfolio with 12DailyPro earnings. I spent $200 to GoldenRocks, $700 to PrivateOpps and $200 to FeederFund. These three look to me the best of all HYIPs (if any HYIP deserves this title). You can read on my previous post why I choose them. As always, I will keep you informed on how things progress with each one of them.

Regarding my other autosurfs, everything seems fine except PaidExposure which, once more, has not keep its promise to pay their members until November 30. They came up with all kind of excuses but the simple fact remains that nobody got paid. I don't want to be a pessimist but right now I rather believe that its end is approaching. And this is something I wish I had never have to say.