August 03, 2007
Payback is a Bitch - Scamming the Scammers
I've occasionally posted the lame scam attemps I've received by email. I did not realize that there are actually many people who give it back to these scammers. 419 Eater is a website devoted to stories of scamming the scammers and giving them a taste of their own medicine. Some of the stories make you feel almost sorry for these dumber-than-an-irish-setter scammers who will fulfill the most absurd requests to get their Western Union pay-offs.
419 scams are those typical emails you get - I'm in Nigeria (or some country) and I have 20 million dollars I can't get out of the country but I want to send it to you, so please please help me I'm an orphan because my parents died and I have no legs and my dog died last night and I want to give you half the 20 million just for doing this for me!
One scammed scammer actually wrote out in his own handwriting a complete Harry Potter book - EVERY PAGE - for a supposed company that would pay him $100 per page for "handwriting samples".
Now, remember these scammers do prey on the mentally feeble and those poor old souls with the plaque-clogged brains of dementia to make money, so don't feel too sorry for them.
Posted by smashmonster at 12:35 AM
February 21, 2007
The Problem with Wikipedia - Accuracy and Surfer Naivete
If you peruse the controversial topic section of Wikipedia, you find some great gems on how this user-edited encyclopedia can be abused by foolish types. I won't link to them as they have enough link power to overwhelm even the most authoritative sites on various topics.
Here is my favorite example of vandalism in Wikipedia:
Autism - "The leading cause of Autism is infection through interspecies "relations" with elephants."
I do not want to make light of the issues Wikipedia creates. I have spoken with many pretty sophisticated Internet users who have been surfing for close to 10 years and not one of them had a clue that anybody could write anything in Wikipedia. Although Wikipedia does have a neutral POV policy and does attempt self-policing, there have been incidents that show abuse can happen. For example, for 132 days an article discussing the JFK assassination claimed that John Seigenthaler, a respected journalist, was involved in the assassination. Needless to say, Seigenthaler was not happy about this falsehood being listed in something many people mistakenly believe is an accurate encyclopedia.
Although some reviews have shown entries to be highly accurate, that does not change the fact that anyone can add an article and write whatever they please - someone has to actually discover the article and dispute it for the inaccuracies to be corrected. I'm sure Mr. Seigenthaler felt the article about him was up 131 days too long. I wonder how many high school teachers were perplexed by papers turned in with this astonishing information.
"My goodness! I had no idea they figured out once and for all who really killed Kennedy!:"
Update - right after I finished posting this tonight a friend sent me a link to an article today in the NY Times, which I just had to insert in the middle of this post.
A History Department Bans Citing Wikipedia as a Research SourceBy NOAM COHEN
Published: February 21, 2007
When half a dozen students in Neil Waters’s Japanese history class at Middlebury College asserted on exams that the Jesuits supported the Shimabara Rebellion in 17th-century Japan, he knew something was wrong. The Jesuits were in “no position to aid a revolution,” he said; the few of them in Japan were in hiding.He figured out the problem soon enough. The obscure, though incorrect, information was from Wikipedia, the collaborative online encyclopedia, and the students had picked it up cramming for his exam.
Dr. Waters and other professors in the history department had begun noticing about a year ago that students were citing Wikipedia as a source in their papers. When confronted, many would say that their high school teachers had allowed the practice.
But the errors on the Japanese history test last semester were the last straw. At Dr. Waters’s urging, the Middlebury history department notified its students this month that Wikipedia could not be cited in papers or exams, and that students could not “point to Wikipedia or any similar source that may appear in the future to escape the consequences of errors.”
Did not one of these students think to double-check the accuracy of the information in Wikipedia? Why not? Most likely they "assumed" it was accurate.
The real problem lies in the inability to truly monitor individual articles, especially for small bits of vandalism. How many people read that Autism is caused by interspecies relations with elephants? Granted most people would say, "Huh? That's absurd!" until another editor came along and deleted it. However, there are times when small or subtle changes might not be detected for long periods of time.
I think it is foolish to underestimate the naivete of people surfing the web. This is not to insult people - but most simply trust information that looks official, and few take the time to check the accuracy of information they find on the web. I have a friend who used to send me all the emailable urban myths - free trips to Disney, Bill Gates offering a hundred bucks if you forward the email and they can see how many people it goes to, a guy in west Africa who needs to put 10 million in your bank account so it can be safe, he just needs your routing and account information...
A few years back I had a site that was very popular (I have since let it languish because I don't have the time for it). It was a fictional unsolved crimes site based on a television series I was developing at the time. My friends posed for gruesome murder scenes and I put up all the evidence for people to solve the cases. I can't tell you how many people contacted me about these cases as if they were true. Who thinks the policy put up all that evidence on the Internet? Now you might say, oh they weren't professionals! But I'd say you are wrong - two of the people who asked me for ADVICE on a murder case were police investigators (one a homicide investigator who asked for my help on a drowning case). A tabloid news show producer got angry at me because, he said, he had spent "hours" trying to track down the cases in real life before he figured out they were fictional. Of course, he could have simply emailed me or read the disclaimer page. I suspect he was afraid I would ask for a fee if he contacted me about the cases - so he wasted his time being cheap when I would have immediately told him - It's Fiction!
I do hope the issues with vandalism, biased points of view, and misrepresentations can be fixed. Otherwise, we will have more people walking around thinking elephant sex causes autism and that journalists are prone to commit political assassinations.
Posted by smashmonster at 05:21 PM
February 16, 2007
Phishing for Ebay Passwords - Security Warning
The other day I was almost duped by an email that seemed to come from Ebay - it wasn't the traditional phishing expedition where the email says you must reset your password and update your account will be deleted, an obvious attempt to get your password and other personal information. This email was formatted like a traditional Ebay auction update email - the same emails you get when you win an auction or the like. It appeared to be from another Ebay user who was angry that I had not followed up on an auction I'd participated in and stated he was going to file a complaint.
Because I knew I had not participated in an auction recently, my first reaction was that someone had hijacked my Ebay account and was using it to commit fraud. I made a mistake - usually when I get emails like this I NEVER click the links - I go directly to the website on my own and log in. This is an exra layer of protection against phishing expeditions. I broke my rule - fortunately I am so protected on my computer I got an immediate warning in IE that this was a phishing site. I immediately went to ebay and changed my password just in case.
This was a close call and a reminder to be sure you always keep security in mind when using the Internet.
1. Don't click in emails if you have the least doubt about their authenticity - or if anything about it alarms you (by alarming you, phishers get you off-guard)
2. Keep you browser updated to the latest version - there are significantly more security protections in the later generation browsers. If you have not updated your browser in years, you are likely quite vulnerable to these types of attacks
3. Keep your virus and firewall software updated - set it so it checks for updates automatically upon start up (or at a certain time each day if you keep your computer on 24/7.
4. Use very secure passwords. Lowercase words that can be found in the dictionary are not secure. Many sites now force you to choose a password with at least one capital letter and one number or symbol. These are the most secure - especially if you use 8 characters or more.
Posted by smashmonster at 06:01 PM
March 20, 2006
I Could Use the Money to Buy a New Brain
Really, people do fall for these. I heard about some old guy who'd fallen for this old old scam and lost over a million dollars - his son was trying to get legal control of the estate to stop the scammers from draining the poor old guy's last penny.
FROM: MR. CHRIST OTUNMBA
THE MANAGER INTERNATIONAL
COMMERCIAL BANK TOGO
FIRST LIGHT BRANCH
LOME TOGO
ATTN: DEAR,
I GOT YOUR CONTACT DURING MY SEARCH FOR A RELIABLE, HONEST AND A TRUST WORTH PERSON TO ENTRUST THIS HUGE TRANSFER PROJECT WITH.MY NAME IS MR. CHRIST OTUNMBA.I AM THE MANAGER OF THE INTERNATIONAL COMMERCIAL BANK TOGO FIRST LIGHT BRANCH LOME TOGO. I AM A TOGOLIES MARRIED WITH TWO KIDS. THIS OFFER MIGHT SOUND UNBELIVEABLE (ya think?) TO YOU COUPLED WITH HIGH RATE OF INTERNET SCAM IN THE NET TODAY (oh, but not this one, no this is legit - oh ok), BUT HAVEN (the quaint misspellings make is so much more authentiky) WILL BEAR ME WITHNESS THAT THIS IS REAL OFFER.
I AM WRITING TO SOLICIT YOUR ASSISTANCE IN THE TRANSFER OF US$5,500.000.00.THIS FUND IS THE EXCESS OF WHAT MY BRANCH IN WHICH I AM THE MANAGER MADE AS PROFIT DURING THE LAST YEAR. I HAVE ALREADY SUBMITTED AN APPROVED END OF THE YEAR REPORT FOR THE YEAR 2005 TO MY HEAD OFFICE HERE IN LOME AND THEY WILL NEVER KNOW OF THIS EXCESS. I HAVE SINCE THEN, PLACED THIS AMOUNT OF US$5,500.000.00 ON A SUSPENCE ACCOUNT WITHOUT A BENEFICIARY.
AS AN OFFICER OF THE BANK, I CANNOT BE DIRECTLY CONNECTED TO THIS MONEY THUS I AM IMPELLED TO EQUES T FOR YOUR ASSISTANCE TO RECEIVE THIS MONEY INTO YOUR BANK ACCOUNT. I INTEND TO PART 30% F THIS FUND TO YOU WHILE 70% SHALL BE FOR ME. I DO NEED TO STRESS THAT THERE ARE PRACTICALLY NO RISK INVOLVED IN THIS (other than you actually losing your money and getting nothing in return) TRANSACTION. IT'S GOING TO BE A BANK-TO-BANK TRANSFER. ALL I NEED FROM YOU IS TO STAND AS THE ORIGINAL DEPOSITOR OF THIS FUND.
IF YOU ACCEPT THIS OFFER, I WILL APPRECIATE YOUR TIMELY RESPONSE. PLEASE
RESPONSE TO THIS E-MAIL ADDRESS (christotunmba@yahoo.com)
WITH REGARDS,
MR CHRIST OTUNMBA.
Posted by smashmonster at 09:14 PM
March 03, 2006
I'm Rich!
Not.
E-mail scam I got today. Yeah, right.
MILTON ASSOCIATES AND CHAMBERS,
128 DESTMOND AVENUE KENT LONDON,
DESK OF BARRISTER MILTON JOE.
milton_associates_chambers@yahoo.co.uk
I am Barrister Milton Joe,a solicitor at law.I am the personal Attorney To the late Mr. Raymond Appleyard a national of USA.On the 21st of April 2002,my client was involved in a car accident.Unfortunately he lost his life.
I have contacted you to assist in repatriating the money and property left behind by my client before they get confiscated or declared unserviceable by the Bank where this huge deposit was lodged. The bank where the deceased had an account valued at about $3.8Million dollars has issued me with a notice to provide the next-of-kin or have the account confiscated.
Since I have been unsuccessful in locating the relatives,I now seek your consent to present you as the next-of-kin Of the deceased since you have the same last name so that the Proceeds of this account valued at $3.8 Million dollars can be paid to you,subsequently to be shared among us if you agree,we can discuss your percentage. I have all necessary Legal documents that can be used to back up any claim we may make.
All I require is your honest co-operation to enable us see this transaction through.I guarantee that this will be executed under a legitimate arrangement that will protect you from any breach of the law.
Best regards,
Milton Joe(Esq)
Really, people fall for these all the time. I just read about a guy who is trying to take over his elderly father's estate after finding out he sent about 1.8 million to the Nigerian scam that has been around for about 25 years - I remember my mother getting the Nigerian scam letter back in the late 70s - of course, the Internet has made it easier (and infinitely cheaper) to troll for fools.
Posted by smashmonster at 07:57 PM
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