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Scammers Riding the Gustav Wave
ruphus13 sends in a sad tale of online scammers hoping to reap rewards from the misery in Gustav's wake. They have been busy registering likely-sounding domains and setting up phishing attacks and other ruses. While not all the domains were malicious in intent, several of them were listed on eBay for sale. Donors beware. From the article: "Nearly 100 domains related to Hurricane Gustav have been registered in the past 48 hours, security experts said Sunday, some of which may be used by bogus charity and relief scams after the storm strikes the US Gulf Coast. According to television station KTAL in Shreveport, LA, the office of Louisiana's Attorney General Buddy Caldwell has warned residents of Gustav phishing attacks already in progress ... numerous domains containing the word 'gustav,' 'charity,' 'hurricane,' and 'relief' had been recently registered."
Why not mug elderly women on the streets too, it is all dollars, after all!
I know that's kind of a rhetorical question, but it's because it's very, very easy to detach yourself from the victim of your crime if you never even have to look them in the eye while you rob them.
"It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him." - Tolkien
The TFA does not mention any sites that are being used for phishing. Instead it talks about how phishing sites were set up in the wake of Katrina, and that the sites being registered now may be destined for phishing. Talk about FUD.
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
and that scamming the Feds should be an offense punishable with LONG prison terms.
The opportunity-cost benefit analysis (C-B A) has to changed from the current
"low cost, low risk but profitable" C-B A into a
"low-cost but high risk, profitable" C-B A.
That will immediately provide jobs for people in the civil service who will have nothing better to do than to seek out and destroy spammers.
That should in turn shake out anybody who isn't a real criminal while making sure that any scam/spam you do get is punishable. (Spam is a lot less attractive is its going to net the spammer 15 to 20 years in some hell-hole prison, say Guantanamo?)
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
If new domains cost $100 each, there would be a deterrent for people to just go out and register a few dozen. Renewals could then be even cheaper than now. But I guess the registrars are making good money with all those bogus crap domains, so they have no incentive to turn this off. The domain system is seriously broken (including that idiotic "domain tasting").
EagerEyes.org: Visualization and Visual Communication
Actually, I think it's good for news organizations to report proactively instead of waiting for what they know is going to happen and then just interviewing a bunch of victims. Getting information out there now may prevent some scams from working.
Anyway, I would think twice about sending money to a charity with a site on Road Runner:
http://toolbar.netcraft.com/stats/hosters
Now if we could only manage to register the infinite remaining possible Gustav domains (ex: gustav-donations.org), we should be all set.
Ultimately, it's not so much about scammers' methods but rather the fact that people give money to questionable organizations. Every time I've donated money, I've always done it through well known organizations.
Full Tilt
Until there is one that is not a scammer and wants to start a private incentive. He is now not able to do so. Domain-squatting is never a good idea. NEVER!
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
If something significant happens - be it an event selling out, a disaster, etc.. there is always someone exploiting it. It's part of the concept of capitalism and it shouldn't be at all surprising.
(Kind of like when you follow a kdawson article link and it turns out it's another weak piece full of vague opinions, by "experts").
I record my sleeptalking
Check out the whois information for gustavrelief.com, registered to S H Berkowitz, Light Church in Albany, OR, and then compare it to the whois information for unsafesex.com, a porn site. Look up the domain of Berkowitz's listed email address, klickerz.com, or do a google search for S H Berkowitz "Light Church" to see other domains registered in his name.
Then use curl to get the source of the page at the gustavrelief.com web site without the redirect to the Red Cross site and figure out what the javascript is doing before you get redirected.
Actually I don't know what it is doing, but that on unload event function is certainly trying to do more than I like for a random website, and it certainly doesn't look like a charity website.
I am so tired of people always screaming for long prison terms. The priorities people have make me sad. It used to be that murder and rape were considered the worst crimes yet your bound to get less time for these than many of the new crimes that we invent. When you can take a life and get less time than for taking their money the society you live in has a serious problem.
funny how many of the people who will complain about computer crime are all for having the government take stuff from other people.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
I'm pretty stressed at the moment so I've been looking for good news. I found something that cheered my heart in the oddest place - Walmart. There are lots of good reasons to hate on Walmart but when I joined the early-morning throngs last Saturday on one last trip to Walmart for supplies in case the storm headed our way, I saw something that made me oddly and disproportianately happy.
My local Walmart had moved a bunch of carts right to the front of the store loaded with flashlights. With a hurricane coming, you can get USD$5 for *any* piece-o-crap flashlight. These were just very basic 2 D-cell plastic lights and as I approached them, I wondered just how overpriced they would be, especially since they included batteries.
They were 50 cents. Two for a buck.
OK, it's not much, but it brought a smile to my face. This morning, I think I'd rather dwell on things like that instead of marveling, again, at how my greedy and dishonest fellow humans are finding yet more ways to pervert a wonderful communications channel into a gauntlet of scammers.
Dead on the money. gustavrelief.com is a TRACKER. It pulls up the red cross website in a full frame and tracks in the main.
When you unload their page, it'll attempt a popup back to their site with (?p=2<m=x) appended. Using lynx, it looks like this is a bunch of ads with links, but I can't tell what's behind those links (I click on them and nothing appears to happen inside lynx).
The
If you have zero ability to determine whether or not a charity is authentic or not, you should definitely NOT be giving any money to charities. So I think "idiots" is a fair term. It is admirable that they want to help, but giving money to fake charities doesn't help the actual victims. If someone believes in the absolute goodwill of all mankind, sooner or later they too will be the victim of someone taking advantage of that fact. Besides, a real charity should have no problem being asked to verify it's authenticity.
"But this one goes to 11!"
Someone explain to me why I should spend my money on problems outside my house/family that will certainly never benefit me or my family when my government refuses to lead the charge?
Without intending to be a troll -- honestly I'm not. This thread seemed to be on topic enough to throw out an unpopular (seemingly) opinion which agrees with the OP.
- Why do I care about oppression in other parts of the world? Doesn't change the price of milk for my kids.
- Why do I need to support other people make life decisions that I do not agree with? Choose to live in a sea level area that can be prone to flooding... get what you deserve or move.
- Why do I care if Mother Nature doesn't like trailer parks if I don't live in one? We all have learned that TPs in tornado/hurricane paths are really bad ideas.
- Why do I need to support cancer research (pick a flavor), Alzheimer's research, or AIDS research if I will never benefit from that investment? Let's face it, I'm a miserable prick, and probably won't care after I'm gone.
- Why should I care if family X migrated (or is illegally in) to the US and hasn't learned the language or gotten a job to support themselves? That plan seems a little light in the 'thinking through' department.
- Why should I care about the homeless, the starved, the drug addicts, and the alcoholics? Giving/supporting them only makes me an enabler, and I won't get to claim them as a dependent -- although that's exactly what they become, dependent.
Bottom line is that all of those questions are exactly what charities ask for all day long. It is not my job to provide for the world, and I despise the fact that my government feels it should waste my tax dollars providing for the unprivileged around the globe, and can't manage to take care of business at home first. If the money the US spent around the globe with no hope of ROI were spent in the US, many of the issues mentioned above would certainly be more manageable than they are now.