BRIBEline

 

What an interesting idea!

I just wonder though, if your company had just secured a thousand jobs, by bribing a rather odious potentate, that you'd report the fact to this anonymous web site.

Royal Mail and Paypal

 

Sell something with PayPal and Royal Mail will print a label for you and knock it off your PayPal account.

An interesting connection.

Giveaway of the Day

 

This is an interesting site, where you can get interesting software for nothing.

It's all legal and it's just given away.

One Day Scams

 

The scams seem to be splitting.

Some like Sydney Car Centre seem to go on and on, whereas there is a group of scams, that are there for just a day or two. The latter group include Walsh Services, Minaro, Viscard, NetCom, Unnamed, CombiTrust, Canadian Charity and Smart Business Solutions in July alone.

Do we have two groups, one of whom hits you again and again and another that just hits you for one day with a message?

Whatever method they use, don't answer them.

The Ultimate Car Number - W3WWW

 

Just saw this numberplate in Cambridge on an old Rover 216.

Surely W3WWW is the ultimate status symbol for any web fanatic.

Sydney Car Centre - 5

 

I've had quite a few e-mails recently accusing me of sending out the Sydney Car Centre scam. It does seem to be one that has got a lot of people very heated.

If you don't believe me then look at Bob Bear. He's been following the scam since it started.

It would seem that if you have a decent junk filter on your e-mail, most of these e-mails will end up there. This is because they are all so similar, that a decent filter such as that in Outlook 2003 or 2007 will bury them.

You can also create a rule in most e-mail programs that will assign any e-mail that contains "Sydney Car" will be sent to the Junk folder.

Canadian Charity

 

Here comes another scam. This time supposedly from Canada.

This intention is of most importance to all EU candidates

We are glad to present you our new project.
This is a job prospect for EU candidates only.

Requirements and benefits:

Monthly gross salary: USD 1800-3600 per month
Age limit: 18-80 y.o.
Possible profession growth and promotion opportunity
Internet access, cellular or home phone number and the e-mail
Part-time (2-3hr per day) and full-time employment (8hr per day)

Our organization Canadian Charity is looking for new candidates and collaborators in Europa.

Become a part of our donating system that includes global donations to HIV positives, war refugees from Middle East and starving children from poorest European countries.

Our program does not charge or ask you to invest anything. We do not try to take your capital. Our regional sponsors and investors from different European Union and North American regions have already accepted our deal and are now the investing affiliates in our multi-national donating program.

Collaborate with our investors during the donation process and get from 1500 EUR (1800 USD) up to 3000 EUR (3600 USD) income per month. Together we can make this program work with highest efficiency and thus have an occasion to ease the sufferings and decrease the needs of thousands of people.

This position you can request is the "Donating Assistant" (future promotion to "donating manager" is possible after 3 months of successful assistance).

Please let us know if you are interested in becoming a part of our system and EMAIL US. We will then send you more details concerning the position of a "donating assistant".

Thank you very much for your time and for your wish to help the ones who really need our help and joint support.

I think I've seen some of these before from somewhere else. It's the HIV, war refugees and poorest European countries.

[I searched and I was right. See the International Donation Association.]

DON'T FALL FOR IT.

Interestingly, they may be breaking EU law by putting an age limit on the job.

Smart Business Solutions

 

Watch for this one.

This is yet another scam where there are 23 positions available. Do these people have a thing about that number?

Hong Kong and Spam - 2

 

I received an e-mail from the Hong Kong police, saying that they had noted my comment.

But also, the website I mentioned, www.koal.hk, is now no more.

So I suspect they are taking action, even if it wasn't my e-mail that started it.

Google Maps

 

I've just added Google Maps to two of the sites I'm working on.

This one is for a firm of solicitors called the Cambridge Family Law Practice. This one is for our stud, Freedom Farm Stud.

Once you get the hang of the Java, they are very easy to setup.

they are infinitely better than Multimap, which seem to have developed a horrible habit of resizing your browser if you print the map. With Google Maps, you don't have to have a separate print page.

Hong Kong and Spam

 

There was a suggestion here a few days ago that the Hong Kong Police have taken an interest in all the rubbish pointing to .hk web sites.

Believe it or not Hong Kong law enforcement wants to deal with this. Forward spams on to them enquiry@hkdnr.hk , crimeinformation@police.gov.hk , hkcert@hkcert.org

Yesterday, I only received 591 spam e-mails that pointed at .hk web sites and a much lower level of spam for a Sunday. But of these e-mails 482 pointed at www.koal.hk. This then points to an on-line gambling site.

So are the authorities in Hong Kong starting to get rid of the rubbish?

WUMP Models Agency

 

I've had 43 e-mails trying to sell me the services of the WUMP Models Agency.

This is a typical e-mail.

Hello,

You are seeking a companion or true love?

You need an intelligent well-educated girl speaking your language for escort in a business trip?
Your business deals with exhibitions and presentations?
You need an sexy girl to spend holiday?

Our international agency WUMP Models is ready to help you in any of these questions.

We are in international modeling business since 1996 and we perfectly know the tastes and preferences of our clients.
We work only with the best-looking girls.

You can invite any girl to your country!

Visit our web site and you won't be disappointed:
www.euro-models.biz

You will be as the web site is down.

But would you ever deal with a company called WUMP?

And one that has a domain name registration like this :-

Domain Name: EURO-MODELS.BIZ
Domain ID: D19219079-BIZ
Sponsoring Registrar: DIRECT INFORMATION PVT LTD DBA PUBLICDOMAINREGISTRY.COM
Sponsoring Registrar IANA ID: 303
Domain Status: clientTransferProhibited
Registrant ID: PP-SP-001
Registrant Name: Domain Admin
Registrant Organization: PrivacyProtect.org
Registrant Address1: P.O. Box 65
Registrant Address2: All Postal Mails Rejected, visit Privacyprotect.org
Registrant City: Monster
Registrant Postal Code: 2680 AB
Registrant Country: Netherlands
Registrant Country Code: NL
Registrant Phone Number: +45.36946676
Registrant Email: contact@privacyprotect.org

What genuine company ever hid its identity on a web site registration?

If you're going to create a scam shouldn't it be worth looking at?

Who Is Bob Smith?

 

I received this e-mail to bobsmith@daisy.co.uk from Friends Reunited this morning.

Hello Bob,

Thanks for registering on friendsreunited.co.uk

Click to complete your registration

You'll then be able to find your old friends.

Regards

The Friends Reunited Team

P.S. Remember, with Friends Reunited your email address is never revealed.

If the link above doesn't work, go to www.friendsreunited.co.uk, login and enter the validation code: QPZ

Huh!

I like the bit that remember with Friends Reunited your e-mail address is never revealed. But what if dear old Bob puts the wrong one into his registration.

Obviously, I shall think about taking legal action against Bob, when it turns out, I'm getting masses of spam to bobsmith@daisy.co.uk.

Pictures

 

Sam Shaw is an artist and the wife of Martyn Downer.

I've used one of her paintings to show how few pixels can be used to display images in a blog.

Here's the painting at just 200 pixels.


Here's the same painting at 400 pixels, which can be clicked for a larger one at 800 pixels.


It always surprises me that highly detailed pictures like Sam's still look good at a very reduced level of pixels.

I just guess that the brain fills in the bits that the eyes can't see.

CombiTrust

 

I've had a few job offers from CombiTrust.

The company may or may not be genuine, but the offers are fake.

At least this lot have a web site.

They say that they are not subject to US IRS supervision. Would you work for such a company if you worked in the US?

McAfee Fights Back

 

I thought that McAfee had been outsmarted but the company is now catching the greetings cards again.

Good for them!

Sydney Car Centre - 4

 

I got 197 of these yesterday, which makes a total of 3,362.

I thought that as this scam has been going on since the June 3rd, 2007, that this must be the most numerous scam, I've been pestered with.

It's not.

Several other scams have been more numerous than this one, but I don't seem to have got the same amount of comments.

FIC sent 4937 and United Cargo Solutions sent 6721.

So we've a way to go yet.

I thought they might be stopping, but they don't seem to yet.

The Hidden Beauty of Numbers

 

The FT has an article with this title today and it’s about a Professor Rosling, who is revolutionising the way statistics are shown.

http://www.gapminder.org

He’s sold it to Google for a lot of money.

It might be worth investigating.

Martyn Downer - News

 

This is an example of an integrated blog in a web site.

Everything is standard Blogger.

Blogger and Cookies

 

I've just had a bit of trouble with a client's blog. He couldn't log into it from his computer and the problem was that his cookies were a bit awry.

So if you get this sort of problem, the simplest thing is to delete your cookies that refer to Blogger.

There are some good articles on the web about this. Type "cookie problem blogger" into Google.

Click here to do the search.

If you want to know more about cookies, go to this article in Wikipedia.

Charities and eBay

 

eBay has a very nice and simple web page, where you can collect money for your charity.

All you need to do is register and then people can nominate your charity when they sell.

British Banks Get Phished Again

 

There is a large amount of phishing scams going on on British banks at present.

Alliance and Leicester has just joined the club.

The Power of Outlook 2003 and 2007

 

We all have the problem of keeping track of our contacts, the e-mails we write to them and the documents and letters we post to them.

Later versions of Outlook from 2003 onwards have a large Notes section in each contact.


Note how Word documents have been copied to the Notes. They are just double-clicked to open them.

You can copy any document or e-mail message to this folder to create a complete record about the contact.

Skype

 

It seems that Skype are the latest company to suffer an organised scam. This is one of many I've got from crooks.

Hello!

We have to notice that your account is suspended because Skype major Terms are being changed.

To re-activate your account you need to agree with the new Terms here:
Follow this link to re-activate: ACTIVATE
after that, your account will be automatically re-activated.

Thank You!
Skype Administration

I suspect they're after your bank account details, so don't fall for it.

I received 20 of these on the 16th of July.

I've also found details of these scams on a blog on Skype.

HSBC Goes Green

 

It's a scam.

Green Option for current accounts

Why not do your bit and help the environment by Going Green with an HSBC current account?

HSBC is committed to finding ways of reducing its impact on the environment through saving paper and the energy used to produce, transport and dispose of it.
Going Green with an HSBC current account is all about doing your everyday banking, but in ways that do not impact the environment, through the removal of unnecessary paper.

It's based on a Hong Kong web site.

DON'T FALL FOR IT!!!

A Record Week For Spam

 

Last week was a record week for spam, since I started collecting statistics.

A quick look, shows that most of it is still the drug scams, but crooks like bent casinos are bombarding us with more and more.

But it's still too much and it's about time that the US took action.

McAfee Outsmarted

 

I said on this blog that McAfee had got a stop on the greeting cards that deliver nasties.

Their stop lasted about one day and now they are back with a vengance.

It just shows how clever spammers are.

Spam Suspects Charged Over $4.6m Share Con

 

This post in The Register is perhaps a sign that the authorities are cracking down on "Pump and Dump" scams.

Apparently, The SEC was tipped off when a commission attorney got one of the spam e-mails at work. So they're not only crooks, but stupid crooks.

As I reported in my last scam analysis, they are now reducing significantly. But of course other scams are taking their place.

Another Fraud

 

This unnamed company is looking for mugs.

Dear employee,
Our International Corporation is looking for new employees on various vacancies.
We suggest you financial Independence right now. Only our corporation can offer you to gather a good income in a short period of time. You do not need to invest any sum of money and we do not ask you to provide us with your bank account requisites! We are engaged in completely legal activity and working in our corporation you can achieve career growth at a permanent job. We are looking for representatives from any point of the world. Average earnings of our employee is 3450-4500$ per month, but you can earn much more. Here is the top 10 of our representatives salaries:

Top 10 employees
Per month:
1. 45750 $
2. 42185 $
3. 38590 $
4. 25808 euro
5. 32000 $
6. 15700 GBP
7. 27200 $
8. 24300 $
9. 22750 $
10. 18730 $

It is easy to be in ours Top 10!
Everything is simple enough and it depends only of you.
We are waiting the creative approach and purposefulness from our employees. You can work full time or part time.
You determine the schedule of you work at our corporation. We pay you for result. The best regional representative becomes the head of regional office of our company and receives a full social packet and bonus at a rate of 50 % from his annual salary. Many of our employees have made excellent career, received full financial independence and have embodied all their dreams in a reality less than in 2-3 years of working in our company.

The preference is given to employees with knowledge of foreign languages.
If you are interested in our offer please send us the following information:
1) Full name
2) Address of residing
3) Phone numbers
4) Languages
5) Part time job/Full time
Please send this information to our email: sockadverttadvert2k7 (at) yahoo.com Please specify in the subject line: Application for the local rep position. Number 100711

If you are not interested in our offer or you received this email by mistake please reply with Unsubscribe in subject line and specify all your emails addresses to unsubscribe44919[at]gmail.com We apologize In advance.

Yours faithfully,
Colin Scowcroft

I've had 156 so far today. Note the bad English, which indicates that the sender is not a native English speaker.

Don't reply.

I think they made it rather anonymous so that you can't search the Internet to check its fraud.

An Angry Individual

 

Someone has accused me of sending him spam messages. I tried to reply to them by e-mail, but unfortunately, he gave me the wrong e-mail address.

So this is the message I send them.

I am sorry you are getting messages that appear to be from me, but I can assure you that I am not sending you messages, except of course this one. The messages you are getting are probably due to people using my domain name as a spoof, when they send e-mails. If you check the headers the messages usually come from the US, Russia or China, so I suggest you complain to the appropriate embassy.

I would suggest that you employ a proper spam filter from someone like McAfee or use the filters in Outlook to put these e-mails in the Junk E-mail folder.

I should hasten to add that I get about 8,000 spam e-mails a day and I have proved that with the right software I can manage them.

If you read my history at http://www.jamesmiller.com, you will see that I have been involved in the computer industry for over forty years and that I am a very ethical businessman. So I would have no need to send spam messages to anyone.

In addition, if I was a crook, would I give you my full details in this e-mail.

James Miller

Daisy Analysis Ltd.,
East Green Farm,
Great Bradley,
Newmarket, Suffolk CB8 9LU

I am genuinely sorry that this person is being upset, but until the US, Russian and Chinese governments take action, the tide of spam will increase.

If the individual involved will send me an e-mail, with their correct e-mail involved, I will try to ascertain how they can minimise the problem.

DestroyAPrinter.com

 

This is an interesting piece of viral marketing.

It was posted in my topic on Cleaning a Printer.

No-Free-Phone Mobile Phone Contract

 

I've had my mobile phone for about six years now. It's a Nokia 6310i and at present I run it on an O2 contract, that is of course expensive because I pay for free phones that I don't want.

Incidentally, I had a problem with the phone a few months ago and I was able to get it repaired for £25 by a company in Cambridge. They told me that they repair lots of these phones as it does everything most people want.

So does any company offer a mobile phone contract, where I don't have to pay for other peoples' free phones?

Cleaning a Laser Printer

 

Improving the quality of printing on laser printers is often just about keeping it clean.


I'm changing a cartridge here on my HP 4500 Color Laserjet. Note the Dyson DC-16, which is an excellent portable vacuum cleaner.

Postcode Anywhere goes International

 

I've used Postcode Anywhere for some years. They've just gone international, so you can find and check addresses in US, UK, Canada and Europe.

Here is some information relevant to their international addressing software.

The developer page for the international product can be found at the following page. This page contains all technical information needed to set up the international address finder in your application.

A demo of the international product can be found here.

As far as the pricing goes, the size and cost of the per-click credit packs can be found at the following page. The credit usage for international addresses is 1 credit per request for UK, US and Canada, and 2 credits per request for everywhere else.

It soudns like technology worth checking out.

Ryanair's On-Line Check In

 

Just used it to check-in for a trip to Salzburg on Wednesday.

It seemed to work very well.

You've Got Worms

 

It didn't take long for the next scam to come along.

Dear Customer,

Our robot has detected an abnormal activity from your IP adress
on sending e-mails. Probably it is connected with the last epidemic
of a worm which does not have official patches at the moment.

We recommend you to install this patch to remove worm files
and stop email sending, otherwise your account will be blocked.

Administrator

Just as with the Greetings Card Scam it links through an IP address to some nasty on the Internet.

I looked up one e-mail address and the results are shown.

Unknown domain: 67.158.42.211
[IPv4 whois information for 67.158.42.211 ]
[whois.arin.net]
OrgName: PrairieWave Telecommunications, Inc.
OrgID: PRAIR
Address: 5100 S Broadband Ln.
City: Sioux Falls
StateProv: SD
PostalCode: 57108
Country: US

As of eight o'clock this morning I've had 52 of the little bastards.

Titles of the e-mails include :-

Alert!
ATTN!
Malware Alert!
Spyware Alert!
Spyware Detected!
Trojan Alert!
Trojan Detected!
Virus Activity Detected!
Virus Alert!
Virus Detected!
Warning!
Worm Activity Detected!
Worm Alert!
Worm Detected!

The rules are with any e-mail from a sender that you don't know, then don't click on any links or attachments it contains.

Remember you are your own worst enemy.

Goodbye Greetings Card Scams

 

They disappeared (for the moment anyway) at a minute to six in the evening on Sunday.

So McAfee, and probably the other anti-virus companies too, have got their man.

They did take a month or so to do it.

Nick Lathouris at NetCom

 

So far this morning I've had 34 e-mails from this idiot.

Hello,
My name is Nick Lathouris, I represent NetCom company located in New Zeland (offices in Spain, Ukraine and France).
Our company is seeking for a representatives part-time jobs.
This is not spam and we will not ask any money from you.
Your minimal income will be $4000USD a month in average. You will be paid DAILY.
No relocation required, job duties include mail and payments processing, standart office duties and everyday reporting.
All candidates have to be authorized to work with minimal computer knowledge. If you're interested in this Job please contact us through the contacts below:

mail: nick.lathouris@hotmail.com

Best Regards,
Nick Lathouris.

As you can see it contains all the usual rubbish. It even says it is not spam. Don't believe it.

It obviously has no connections with the Actor, Nick Lathouris.

US NMA is in China?

 

I had 194 of this spam e-mail yesterday.

It contains a domain name of enmukasunfdes.com, which is registered in China.

Administrative Contact:
Dima li
Dima li
jungonglu1219hao
shang hai Shanghai 200093
China
tel: 86 021 76886639
fax: 86 021 76886639
mmlara@163.com

Well possibly.

Click it and it diverts to a site in Hong Kong, which in many cases has been already put down.

McAfee Cracks the ECards

 

As of today, the ECards are now showing as viruses because my McAfee system is stopping them.

But it took them from the 16th of June to stop them.

The Baker

 

This is a review of the film called The Baker, which has been produced by Dan Shepherd, who is a friend of our youngest son, George.

The film has just been signed by a distributor and recently it won an award at the Tremblant Film Festival in Canada.

I'm sixty next month, but I do go the cinema regularly with my wife of nearly forty years. So we're not particularly your young cinema goers.

We watched a courtesy copy of the film on our 17 inch non-widescreen television with a crap sound system. The film has faults, such as it doesn't play well on a small screen, but what film does. It also needs atmosphere in that I think it's one of those films where the bigger the audience the better the enjoyment applies.

It's a film that I want to see in a large cinema to get rid of those problems.

So is it a good film?

Yes.

The film is unusual with more than a touch of the surreal about it. Although, I only saw an early copy, it is very well made and doesn't suffer from the bad continuity, sets and acting, that befall so many low budget productions.

It also has one of the most innovating sex scenes, that I've seen in a film in a long time.

So if you are lucky enough to find this film in your local cinema go and see it. You won't see much violence or graphic action, but you will see a film that will make you smile and say that that was a very good effort.

Although very different, I think if you liked Sideways, you'll like this film.

It would be rather nice, if the readers of this blog could influence events and get this film shown to a wider audience.

But isn't that what the Internet is supposed to be about?

Inappropriate Advertising

 

I am a coeliac and some of you will know that I run a coeliac diary and am also the moderator of an active Yahoo group for coeliacs.

Today I found this pornographic advert on the group that had been added by Yahoo.


Who wants to buy an overweight and planet-killing American pickup?

Spam by Spamhaus?

 

I've just had this message in what looks like a typical spam message. The title was "My guin and chokoloskee" and it was from someone called Nettie Powell.

>>>>>>>

WORKING TO PROTECT INTERNET NETWORKS WORLDWIDE Spamhaus tracks the Internet's Spammers, Spam Gangs and Spam Services, provides dependable realtime anti-spam protection for Internet networks, and works with Law Enforcement to identify and pursue spammers worldwide.

The SBL database is maintained by a dedicated international Spamhaus team based in 9 countries, working 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to list new confirmed spam issues and - just as importantly - to delist resolved issues.

The Spamhaus Exploits Block List (XBL) is a realtime database of IP addresses of illegal 3rd party exploits, including open proxies (HTTP, socks, AnalogX, wingate, etc), worms/viruses with built-in spam engines, and other types of trojan-horse exploits.

The Exploits Block List can be used by all modern mail servers, by setting your mail server's anti-spam DNSBL feature (sometimes called "Blacklist DNS Servers" or "RBL servers") to query xbl.spamhaus.org.
Use of the XBL is free for users with normal mail servers (but networks with high email traffic should see DataFeed).

You can get MUCH MORE if you contact us:

The Spamhaus Project Ltd. //Address Deleted// but it was in Kent with a phone number.

<<<<<<<

I doubt it's spam, but why? Could it be to discredit Spamhaus?

Two of the phone numbers in these e-mails are mentioned in the defauct web site, Ultradesign.

All very curious.