Curse you Frenchy spam-hackers!

For all of you arriving here following a link in a message I apparently sent you Sunday night, let me first offer my most sincere aplogies.

My g-mail account was hacked, and in the space of one minute, used to send out over 100 spam messages to everyone I have ever had contact with via my g-mail account. The messages consisted of a random combination of words (mostly names) as a subject, and a link to a random, innocuous sounding website. Although I have not been brave enough to actually click on the link, those who have tell me it is a pharmaceutical site, selling prescription drugs. The other link in the message is to this blog. This is because I have that link set as the signature line for all e-mails going out from my account. This has resulted in a spike in traffic here, which I guess is something of a silver lining. But I can promise you, I would rather nobody visited my blog than a single person get spammed in my name.

To summarize, here are a few talking points you should remember:

1. Nope, I am still a computer guy working a respectable, 9-5 job. I have not quit my job to start peddling Viagra via e-mail.
2. Can I repeat how sorry I am that you got spammed? I am even more worried that people might get infected with something by clicking on the link. Remember that even e-mail coming from people you trust could have questionable content. Trust your instincts, and don't click unexpected and/or unexplained links in e-mails. Call the person, like one very astute friend did (Thanks Jon, for continuing to call back three times when I didn't answer!) and ask them if they sent it. Or, just reply to the message like many others did without clicking the link to ask if it is legit. Or just delete it. Will it kill you if you miss a video of someone's cat playing with a cardboard box?
3. Keep your passwords complex. I got lazy and picked a password with all letters. This may not have been what allowed me to get hacked, but it certainly did not make it any harder. I have since remedied this (stupid!) mistake, by changing my password to a 10-character password including numbers, capital letters, and special characters. I already have it memorized, and I know you can do it to, if you really try.
4. G-mail has a handy feature that will tell you the IP address and location of anyone logged onto your account. It is way down at the bottom, in tiny font, but you can find it if you really look. Check it out once in a while. You might be surprised!
5. I am going to go and beat myself with some Cat-5 cable for a while, for being the IT guy whose e-mail got hacked.

And no, I will NOT be sending out links to the video. Sorry!

© 2010 Tyler Willson. All rights reserved

I have Traits! Rare, Hidden Traits!

"Tyler, please forgive us, but we have just taken a closer look at your profile. It turns out you're more special than any of us imagined! Did you know that you possess some very rare, hidden traits?"

So, it turns out that my Mom was right. There IS something special about me! And I have a letter to prove it! I even share some of these rare, hidden traits with a Famous Person (someone you would instantly recognize, he's on TV every night...). Can you believe it?

Only problem is, that I am not quite sure who wrote me the letter. They can't tell me any more than that they are "an exclusive association, a secret society". So I guess I can't really find out what they are all about, and why they have found me to be so special, can I? I mean, the only choice I have is to just fill out the "Free-Membership Invitation Form" and fax it back by Friday. (Holy Cow! That is just Two Days Away!) Then I can finally discover (absolutely FREE!) what my rare, hidden traits are and the "Greatest Kept Secrets" that will teach me how to use my rare, hidden traits to:

-Learn EXACTLY what to do to make $5,000, $10,000 even $100,000 CASH!

-Prosper in EVERY area of my life: emotionally, personally, physically, romantically, and financially!

-Learn how to control ANYONE and make any man or woman like me, admire me, or love me!

-All the money, power, and romantic love I've ever wanted can come to me Easily, Effortlessly, and Automatically!

Can you believe it?

Neither can I... (And I better not quote anymore of the letter; besides the ominous warning that these words are meant for me only, the whole thing is Copyrighted... You know, just in case I want to reproduce it somewhere...)

Well, fortunately for me, I have a friend. His name is Google, and he has tons of information on many different topics. Tonight, I asked him if he knew anything about the fax number at the end of this letter. Wow. The things he said! Let me just share a few of the more interesting ones...

The very first hit on the search is a site called "The Ripoff Report". Not an auspicious beginning for my new friends. But here I learn two things:

A. I am not the only person to have ever received this letter. So much for my "Rare" traits...

B. The mysterious "association" also goes by the name "Nouveau Society Neo Tech".

The rest of the information at this site is mostly opinion (including one posting by a supporter! Who is Not Paid at all for his/her Support!)

The rest of the results for searching just the Fax number are very similar. Lots of sites where folks list phone numbers of bill collectors, pushy salesmen, and fraudulent auto warranty firms. And, apparently, secret societies... So I moved on to search for the name of the (not so secret) association: "Nouveau Society Neo Tech".

First hit is a website called: "Corporate-Review.com". This site seems to review a few dozen common scams and MLM schemes. Kind of slim on real info, but at least it claims that the association is operated by a single family headed by one Wallace Ward (among other pseudonyms...). Mr. Ward has apparently written a series of books containing the "Greatest Kept Secrets" and membership in the association will allow you to purchase the entire series. (That's right... there is an entire series.)

Not satisfied with such a slim report, I checked out a few more of the results from sites like:

-419legal.org - Key quote: "Do we really need to warn you to avoid this one?"

-scams.net - Still pretty slim on real info, heavy on sarcasm. I did learn that this letter has been going out since at least 2005.

-able2know.org - A discussion board with plenty of supporters of the program. However, I honestly had some trouble following the logic of many of the "supporters" Key Quote: "They are selling they materials what about I bought the material even before I bought the material, I was being harrassed jobs after jobs coworkers telling me how talented I was, and I was just puzzled because I didnt tell anything, I have a video of Mark hamilton I guess" - Not too sure what poor Mark has to do with anything, but this was one of the more cogent sentences...

-wikipedia.org - Finally, that ubiquitous fount of internet knowledge. Finally some somewhat useful information, such as other names for the association, and some clarification on poor Mark. (Apparently he is a marketing official and has authorized his apprentices to drop the $350 initiation fee so that they only have to make a $100 sell to their initial contacts... Go figure. I thought it was free...)

So what have we learned? Not much more than I had already deduced when I pulled the colorful envelope out of the mailbox. (You know the ones, they are made to look like an airmail envelope.) A bunch of crap from someone trying to make their envelope look more important. And as I read the entire 8-page letter my stomach repeatedly churned with disgust. The entire sales pitch is aimed with laserlike precision at people who are despondent with life, lonely, depressed, and looking for a way out. They purposely word their pitch to sound like it has been personalized for the recipient, and that they genuinely care to help because "You are special!" And, in a hallmark move for any scam, they isolate and hurry their victims. "This is Confidential! For Your Eyes Only!" and a deadline only five days after the date on the letter. (Which was only two days after I pulled it out of the mailbox. Who wants to bet I could mail it back in four and they would make an exception for me?)

The saddest part for me is thinking of all the poor souls out there who will see this as their own personal light at the end of the tunnel. There has to be some response, for this scam to have continued for four years. Even scammers get tired of running a scam that gets no suckers. Why do people fall for stuff like this? As I learned a while ago, people fall for stuff like this because it hits them at precisely the right time. (Or wrong, depending on your perspective.) A man receives this letter on the day his unemployment runs out and the car breaks down again. A woman receives this letter the week after her teenage son takes his own life. A retiree gets this letter instead of the one he was expecting from his son - and has been waiting for for six months.

How do we combat it? The best way is knowledge. Spread the word to everyone you know. The three cardinal rules of scam recognition:

1. If it seems too good to be true, it is.

2. If they want you to hurry up and keep it to yourself, then put it down for a week, and talk to everyone you can get to listen to you.

3. If it seems too good to be true, it is.

Spread the word. Don't let someone you love be victimized.

Phishing Bait Uncovered

This is an e-mail my sister received today. She forwarded it to me to see what I thought of it. Since I don't think we can spread the word about this kind of thing enough, I thought I would share my answer with everyone.

From: tanyaguinn-at-hotmail.com
Subject: Verify Your Account Now To Avoid It Closed (VX2G99AAJ)
Date: Sat, 28 Mar 2009 08:36:48 +0000


Dear Account User

This Email is from Hotmail Customer Care and we are sending it to every Hotmail Email User Accounts Owner for safety. we are having congestions due to the anonymous registration of Hotmail accounts so we are shutting down some Hotmail accounts and your account was among those to be deleted. We are sending this email to you so that you can verify and let us know if you still want to use this account. If you are still interested please confirm your account by filling the space below.Your User name, password, date of birth and your country information would be needed to verify your account.

Due to the congestion in all Hotmail users and removal of all unused Hotmail Accounts, Hotmail would be shutting down all unused Accounts, You will have to confirm your E-mail by filling out your Login Information below after clicking the reply button, or your account will be suspended within 24 hours for security reasons.

* Username: ..............................
* Password: ................................
* Date of Birth: ............................
* Country Or Territory: ................

After following the instructions in the sheet, your account will not be interrupted and will continue as normal. Thanks for your attention to this request. We apologize for any inconveniences.

Warning!!! Account owner that refuses to update his/her account after two weeks of receiving this warning will lose his or her account permanently.

Sincerely,
The Windows Live Hotmail Team

This is a classic example of a PHISHING message. It has all the hallmarks.

First: The return address. (Although this one is not always 100%, since it is a very simple thing to spoof the return address on any email message!) The sender address is tanyaquinn-at-hotmail.com. Hotmail is operated by Microsoft, which is one of the most wealthy companies in the world. How likely is it that Microsoft employees would be required to send out official e-mail using their personal free e-mail account? Anything official coming from Microsoft would more likely be from a "no-reply" address. (Again, this is easy to spoof, so never think that a message is genuine just because the sender address looks legit. I have recently been receiving a lot of spam that gets through the filter because it apparently came from me!)

Second: Poor grammar and spelling. Once again, Microsoft definitely has enough money to hire workers who can use proper spelling and grammar in their official communications. Many phishers are not native English speakers, so watch out for mangled english phrasing especially in tense and gender. Example: "we are having congestions" No capitalizations at the beginning of a sentence and misuse of the word Congestion. (How many congestions have you had lately?) Example: "Verify your account to avoid it closed."

Third: Basic rules of Internet security. Companies will rarely if ever contact you via e-mail asking for sensitive information. Companies that do should be chastised by their customers (I certainly do!) because this is a horrible way to get info from your customers. How do they know it is you replying, and how can they guarantee that your information is safe? Even when my bank sends me a legitimate message telling me that I need to take some action they won't ask for the information in an e-mail. They will instruct me to log into my account and get or give the requested information. They may provide a link - just to be on the safe side I will never use their link. I will open a browser window and go to the site the way I normally do. This is to prevent someone from putting a bad link in the message that directs me to a different spoof site. If you really, really, really think the message is genuine, find a legitimate phone number for the organization (NOT from the e-mail itself!) and call. Banks especially LOVE to hear from their customers that there is an e-mail out there trying to initiate fraudulent activity on people's accounts. Can you imagine why?

Fourth: Asking for information that is irrelevant. When you signed up for your Hotmail account, do you remember having to enter your birthdate and country of birth? What in the hell would Hotmail need that info for to confirm that you are using your account? This message at least isn't asking for your SSN or DL number, but once they get into your account, they are free to dig through your messages for whatever info you may have stored in there aren't they? In addition they can assume that you use the same password for multiple online accounts, and once they have your password for Hotmail, they are free to go try that same password at your bank website too. Finally, once in your account they can send out spam messages from your account, and guess what? People you know will be more likely to trust a message that comes from you. And access to your account also gives access to your address book. Eureka! A gold mine of new victims who will initially trust a message from you!

Fifth: Common Sense. Think how many people have Hotmail accounts. Think how many of those accounts are used once or twice and then forgotten. Think of the administrative burden on some poor analyst at Microsoft to sort through those millions of accounts and try to figure out which ones to flag for deletion. Wouldn't it be easier to just go through and delete all of the accounts that have not been logged into for say 90 days? Leave your Hotmail account idle for 90 days and see what happens. You can sign into it after that time, but all of your mail will be gone, and it will act like you just opened a new account.

Sixth: A sense of urgency. Scam messages will ALWAYS give you a ridiculously short deadline to follow the instructions. The don't want you to think, or to consult anyone, or otherwise have any time to consider what they are asking. They want you to react out of emotion and panic. Because paniky people are stupid. Einstein would have been stupid if you could have made him sufficiently panicked. How many people you know (including yourself) might go for a day or two without logging into their email accounts? How reasonable would it be for someone to set a 24-hour deadline for deleting your account?

Seventh: Google is your friend. Google the e-mail address of the sender. OK, in this case there is nothing. No surprise. Free e-mail accounts are simple to set up and so this one just has not shown up on the scam radar just yet. Wait a week or two and see what develops. Next, try Googling some text from the message. Try to pick a phrase that is kind of unique in the message. I chose the one that I pointed out above as having some grammar problems. "we are having congestions due to the anonymous registration"

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=active&q=we+are+having+congestions+due+to+the+anonymous+registration+&btnG=Search

Number one hit? A website dedicated to debunking e-mail scams. Number two through 1,320,000 - probably more of the same. This script is used by phishers all over the world to try and lure unsuspecting victims into giving up their account information.

So what now? You can feel good that you detected this particular phish-bait. You also did the right thing in not replying. Even replying to say that you were not fooled would only let them know that they had a live one. (Think when you were fishing. Even nibbles could keep you at that spot for hours. Don't nibble!) Hotmail has a "Junk" button you can click to mark the sender as a spammer. (http://windowslivehelp.com/solutions/safety/archive/2009/03/23/how-to-report-abuse-or-spam-in-windows-live-hotmail.aspx)

Click it. And forget it. There is not much more you can do. The scammer will monitor this mailbox until it quits receiving replies or gets shut down and then will simply open a new free account, paste a million potential victims in the To: or CC: line and hit send again. As long as you use common sense and don't allow emotion to dictate your actions, Spam like this will remain simply an annoyance like stepping in dog doo at the park. People aren't supposed to do it, but law enforcement usually has better things to do than chase down people that do.

© 2009 Tyler Willson. All rights reserved