Hi Ira...

Thanks for your unending efforts in looking over our collective shoulders.

In response, I know there's supposed to be a link for partners to access
their K-1 forms. However, I'm the treasurer and therefore, I guess I
don't see any link to print even my own K-1... if it's there, I am
unable to find it. My recollection is that printing K-1 forms
individually was an option last year. You're right... asking my
partners to print their own K-1 is the logical way to go. But... I
partner with a number of computer challenged people, some who don't have
a PC, and so I'm expected to print off copies for everyone. For the
other club, some folks have relocated and are no longer in contact via
e-mail and so I must mail the K-1. I guess there will always be paper.
  (Invest in Fort Orange, Cascade and Weyerhauser?) Otherwise... I'm a
great fan of electronic delivery. With respect to pdf files, I save a
copy of the partnership return in pdf format on my PC.

John

John Munn writes:
> Thanks for your unending efforts in looking over our collective shoulders.

Ditto. Thanks, Ira!

> In response, I know there's supposed to be a link for partners to access
> their K-1 forms. However, I'm the treasurer and therefore, I guess I
> don't see any link to print even my own K-1...

That's a bit of a problem of the interface. You have the Treasurer's
interface, and the other guys get their K1s when they click on the
Taxes link. They only see their K1 so it's a very different
interface.

You can go back to "Classic" mode by clicking Expert Taxes on the
bottom of the screen Taxes page. Probably should have labelled it
"Classic Taxes".

Rob

Lynn Ostrem writes:
> Like John, I saw the election for that option, but didn't see a
> place to do it. And sending the entire 28 page form to our members
> wouldn't work for two reasons. First, we also have barely-literate
> computer users that would have to print the entire thing to find their
> own. Second, we are very protective about social security numbers and
> wouldn't want to send them to all club members.

As you should be. When you check the "Allow members to view K1", they
get only their K1, not everybody's, nor the 1065.

> THAT'S ANOTHER THING! In prior years, we could pull up a K-1 on the
> screen, enter the social security number, print the desired number
> of copies and move on to the next one. This year, we had to hand
> write it on all 4 copies for all members.

With "Expert Taxes", you get to edit the individual forms.

> We choose not to store socials online.

This one I couldn't let go...

Your SSN is online with the government, your bank, your health care
providers, your insurance companies, and who knows where else. It's
important to be realistic about your data, and identity theft is not
going to occur through bivio's computers. It's going to be a much
larger and more easily breachable target, like the government.

I would highly recommend "Beyond Fear" by Bruce Schneier, who lives in
Minneapolis, and more importantly is a world-famous security expert.
It's a highly readable book with entertaining anecdotes that will
surprise you. Here's a link to Amazon:

http://tinyurl.com/a43nv

It's not designed for security people or programmers, rather just
people who want to understand security by someone who knows more than
most experts.

In this particular example, why do you trust Adobe Acrobat more than
you trust bivio? You could enter them in bivio, and then clear them
after you print your taxes. Adobe's software goes "online" without
asking you, and asks you about updates. Remember that. Also remember
that iTunes, Real Player, and Microsoft Media Player, also go online,
even when you are listening to offline music. Moreover, bivio's
computers don't get viruses, like most people's home computers, do.
You are much safer typing it into your browser connected to bivio over
an SSL connection than typing it into Adobe Acrobat, which may cache
the file or who knows what.

In our seven years of existence, bivio has never had a security
breach. We don't ship backup tapes via UPS in cardboard boxes like
your some very large brokers. Indeed, we don't ship them at all.
They are hand carried by bivio employees to our offsite location, and
the data is also transmitted over secure channels from our main
facility. Even if we had a security breach, the critical data in the
database (SSNs, credit card numbers, etc.) are securely encrypted.

Rob

Rob...

Thanks for providing an interesting perspective on security. I've
become increasingly annoyed with Quicken because if the "updates" it
does automatically as its interface began to take up my monitor's
valuable real estate with ads. While "updates" are performed, who knows
what financial data Intuit could be uploading from my PC? And the same
goes for any other software I use. The only way to be safe is to not
physically connect to the Internet while also not allowing any files to
be transferred from your machine. That would save personal data from
being stolen, but it still would not prevent viruses from coming in.

Bottom line is that we users are left with little recourse than to trust
in the integrity of software vendors.

John

John Munn writes:
> Bottom line is that we users are left with little recourse than to trust
> in the integrity of software vendors.

[Apologies in advance for the long monologue.]

Now you got it, almost. It's not just that your computer is offline
when a particular program is running. Most computers run tens if not
hundreds of programs without you knowing it. You can stop some of
these programs.

One of the most notorious is Microsoft's "Messanger" service (not MSN
Messanger, but another program by the same name, great huh?). This
program is responsible for a lot of viriuses, because it leaves open a
"remote management" port which the vast majority of home computer
users will never use. It's designed to help corporate IT manage their
computers, but even for that it's extremely bad design.

It's very good software design to have the program on your desktop
check-in for updates. No software is perfect, and most users don't
want to or forget to install updates. That's why many vendors have
added this feature.

OTOH, it's bad software design to have software on your computer that
is better maintained on a server, esp. software that's critical to
your data privacy. The consumer must trust the software vendor, as
you say, that's a given. Given that's a given, it's much better to
have a single strong link in the chain (a server) than lots of very
weak links in the chain (most home computers) holding your personal
data.

Our computers are much more prone to be attacked (we get thousands a
day). Your computers are attacked less often, but the attacks are
often as strong, that is, an attacker will not be targetting a
very specific computer, rather a class of computers (Mac OS 9, Windows 98,
XP, Mac OS X etc.) or a particular class of programs (Internet
Explorer, Safari, Word, etc.). Attackers work on the million doors
principle, that is, try a million doors to see if they are open or
will open with a particular key, and one of them is bound to open.

We know this, and plan for it. We understand the layers of security
required to protect valuable data, and more importantly, we have a
strong monetary incentive (much stronger than yours) to keep our
computers secure which includes, also, knowing that there has bee a
break-in, and what to do about it.

Security is like air. You only know it is important when it isn't
there. We are slowly educating our user base that they are better off
using bivio than a desktop product. It's messages like these that
remind people of that fact. :-)

Rob