Yes, that’s right. Mike is dead.
From TMZ:
We’ve just learned Michael Jackson has died. He was 50.
Michael suffered a cardiac arrest earlier this afternoon at his Holmby Hills home and paramedics were unable to revive him. We’re told when paramedics arrived Jackson had no pulse and they never got a pulse back.
A source tells us Jackson was dead when paramedics arrived. A cardiologist at UCLA tells TMZ Jackson died of cardiac arrest.
Once at the hospital, the staff tried to resuscitate him but he was completely unresponsive.
But, what’s more insidious than the constant coverage of his passing on every “news” outlet is the impending flood of spam. Gird your loins. It should be starting started any time now. All too often spammers rely on the death of a celebrity to ply their trade.
Today will be no different.
It’s not like there isn’t precedent for this. Back in 2005 a piece of spam made the rounds pronouncing the alleged suicide of Michael Jackson.
Well, I’m done with this nonsense. If I’m to feel bad about something, I’m going to feel bad about something of substance.
UPDATE: Well, can’t sat I didn’t call it. Just four days later and the malware is making the rounds. Not that it was a stretch. It’s interesting to note that only three AV engines, Antivir, McAfee and Sophos, could detect this one.
The depths of human stupidity never fail to amaze me. What ever happened to the simple adage “if its too good to be true, then it probably is”? I guess it would be better served with a revision for these times. “If its too good to be true then some dumbass will more than likely take the bait hook, line and sinker.
One such story involves the sad story of one John Rempel from Leamington, Ontario.
From the Windsor Star:
John Rempel said he quit his truck driving job, lost friends, borrowed money and crossed the globe in pursuit of a non-existent inheritance, after he was contacted by e-mail in what is known as a Nigerian 419 scam.
Rempel said he borrowed $55,000 from an uncle in Mexico and his parents gave him $60,000 on credit to cover fees for transferring $12.8 million into his name.
“They’re in it now because of me,” said Rempel, 22, breaking into sobs. “If it wasn’t for me, nobody would be in this mess. You think things will work out, but it doesn’t. It’s a very bad feeling. I had lots of friends.
“I never get calls anymore from my friends. You know, a bad reputation.”
The part that strikes me square in between the eyes is that not only did this guy get taken in the 419 scam but, so did the rest of his family who gave him money to pursue this folly. Where did common sense manage jump the tracks and rush headlong into a concrete abutment?
The scammers even had him meeting cutouts in London,
They met Rempel the next day with a suitcase. They said it had $10.6 million in shrink-wrapped U.S. bills. Rempel wanted more proof. His new friends pulled out one bill and “cleansed” it with a liquid “formula,” which washed off some kind of stamp. Rempel was told that process made the money “legal tender.”
“I was like holy crap, is that mine?” he said. “They said ‘yes sir, it’s yours.’ It all sounded legit.”
At this point in the story I had to seek medical attention. I had manage to stab myself with a coffee spoon.
For the full story of this idiotic escapade darwin award runner up read on.
( a special thx to @packetsense for the new graphic )
We’ve all received on at some time or other. The dreaded SMS spam. An annoyance in no uncertain terms. The part that drove me to distraction was years ago my (then) provider would send corporate promotional SMS messages and then ding me for the cost of receiving it.
Needless to say that business relationship ended.
But, more importantly, in Australia the AMCA has dropped the gloves and is going after these insidious spammers in court.
From iTnews Australia:
ACMA alleges that Mobilegate Ltd, Winning Bid Pty Ltd and International Machinery Parts Pty Ltd (now deregistered) sent or caused unsolicited SMS messages to be sent to Australian mobile telephone numbers via premium rate telephone shortcode.
The messages allegedly promoted a service known as ‘Safe Divert,’ which was marketed as a text relay message service, and a service called ‘Maybemeet’.
It is also alleged the accused companies used ‘fabricated dating website profiles to dishonestly obtain a financial advantage or gain from Australian mobile telephone account holders’.
I would enjoy seeing more of this happen on our side of the marble.
Read on.
Spammers managed to purloin a mailing list that was managed by the BBC. The email accounts that were on the list were then subject to a barrage of, you guessed it, spam.
From the Telegraph:
The spam e-email offered the sex drugs at “US$1.49 per pill” but such advertisements are often a front for identity fraudsters attempting to glean financial information from their victims.
John Whittingdale, chairman of the all-party Commons Culture Committee, called on the BBC to take urgent steps to protect personal details from event the security lapse being repeated.
“This is a very serious incident and I would expect them to take urgent action,” said the Conservative MP.
So, the question is, do you trust your personal information will be handled safely by large organizations?
Bell Canada and Telus looking to cash in on SMS spam.
Or that is the appearance.
Starting in August both Bell Canada and Telus Mobility in Canada are going to be charging 15 cents for incoming text messages to pay-per-use customers.
From the Globe and Mail:
“The growth in text messages has been nothing short of phenomenal,” wrote Telus Corp. spokeswoman Anne-Julie Gratton in an e-mail to The Globe and Mail. She pointed to the latest statistics from the Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association (CWTA) that peg the number of text messages sent in Canada at more than 45.3 million a day.
“This volume places tremendous demands on our network and we can’t afford to provide this service for free any more,” Ms. Gratton wrote.
Sadly, this includes spam messages.
Mr. Laszlo said that if a Bell customer receives any spam messages, he or she can contact customer care to have their account credited.
“If a client is experiencing an ongoing issue with spam, the client has the option of changing their phone number,” Mr. Laszlo wrote.
Wow. So, for every spam you received you would have to contact customer service? And if it is bad you have “the option of changing their phone number”. Negative option billing.
Not cool.
Tags: Bell Mobility, Telus Mobility, Text Messaging, SMS
From the BBC:
The net could see its biggest transformation in decades if plans to open up the address system are passed.
The net’s regulators will vote on Thursday to decide if the strict rules on so-called top level domain names, such as .com or .uk, can be relaxed.
If approved, it could allow companies to turn their brands into domain names while individuals could also carve out their own corner of the net.
The move could also see the launch of .xxx, after years of wrangling.
The part I find funny is the number of politicians that think having a .xxx domain will cordon off sexually oriented websites from the rest of the web.
The move could yet be blocked as the independent arbitration panel can reject domains based on “morality or public order” grounds.
Morality on the Internet. Hmmm, ok.
Uh boy. The spammers are at it again.
From CNET:
A “serious security flaw” in Gmail turns Google’s e-mail service into a spamming machine, according to a recent security report.
INSERT, the Information Security Research Team, has created a proof of concept that exploits the “trust hierarchy” that exists between mail service providers. By exploiting a flaw in the way Google forwards messages, a spammer can send thousands of bulk e-mails through Google’s SMTP service, bypassing Google’s 500-address bulk e-mail limit and identity fraud protections.
The report notes that with the rising volume of spam, e-mail providers have turned to whitelists and blacklists to help root out IP addresses of known spammers. Because, Gmail falls into the trusted whitelist category, messages are allowed “carte blanche” to bypass spam filtering.
So, that’s why I’ve won so many lotteries that I never entered 
Wow, how stupid do they think I am?
It’s a rhetorical question wise guy.
Here’s a phishing email that I received this evening.
——————–
From: Chianelli, Russell R.
Date: Thu, Apr 24, 2008 at 8:05 PM
Subject: UNICEF ORGANISATION DONATION AWARDED PIN NUMBERS U-777-1815, D-01-47 CONTACT INFOS (**********@yahoo.com.hk)
To: undisclosed-recipientsUNICEF ORGANISATION DONATION.
Unicef OrganisationConcern.
The Unicef Orgnasation, Would like to notify you that you have been chosen by the board of trustees as one of the final recipients of a cash Grant/Donation for your own personal, educational, and business development. The Unicef Orgnasation was formed in 1947 after WWII to help children displaced by the war. It was then called the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund. The United Nations Organization (UNO) and the European Union (EU) was conceived with the objective of human growth, educational, and community development.
To celebrate the 27th anniversary program, The Unicef Organisation is giving out a yearly donation of One Million Four Hundred and Seventy Thousand United States Dollars. These specific Donations/Grants will be awarded to 70 lucky international recipients worldwide; in different categories for their personal business development and enhancement of their educational plans. At least 17% of the awarded funds should be used by you to develop a part of your environment. This is a yearly program, which is a measure of universal development strategy.
Based on the Continental selection exercise of internet,data base websites and millions of supermarket cash invoices worldwide, you were selected among the lucky recipients to receive the award sum of US$1,470,000.00 (One Million Four Hundred and Seventy Thousand United States Dollars) as charity donations/aid from the Unicef Orgnasation and the UNO in accordance with the enabling act of Parliament. (Note that all beneficiaries email addresses were selected randomly from Various internet Job websites or a shop’s cash invoice around your area in which you might have purchased something from).
You are required to contact the Permanent Secetary below for qualification documentation (ed. note: emphasis added) and processing of your claims. After contacting our office, you will be given your pin number, which you will used in claiming the funds. Please endeavor to quote your Awarded pin numbers (U-777-1815, D-01-47) in all discussions.
Permanent Secetary- Mr. Peter Geroge
Email: *********@yahoo.com.hk
Finally, all funds should be claimed by their respective beneficiaries, no later than14 days after notification. Failure to do so will mean cancellation of that beneficiary and its donation will then be reserved for next year’s recipients. On behalf of the Board kindly, accept our warmest congratulations.
Happy New Year.Regards.
Sir. williams Charlton
(Online Coordinator)
Happy New Year…riiiight.
Now, call me crazy but, I’m fairly certain that Unicef doesn’t use Yahoo for their email. In all seriousness if you receive an email like the aforementioned, delete it.
Now, where’s did I leave that whack-a-mole mallet?
Ah the old standby the “captcha”. Designed to ensure a human is inputting the information into a web app. That is, until someone got the bright idea to hash all of the possible captcha images.
From the Reg:
Spammers, fresh from the success of cracking the Windows Live captcha used by Hotmail, have broken the equivalent system at Gmail.
Internet security firm Websense reports that miscreants have created bots which are capable of signing up and creating random Gmail accounts for spamming purposes, defeating Captcha-based defences in the process. It reckons the same group of spammers are behind both attacks.
Captcha (Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart) challenge-response systems, which are used to prevent accounts being created until a user correctly identifies letters in an image, are designed to ensure requests are made by a human rather than an automated program. The technique has been used to defeat automatic sign-ups to email accounts by services including Yahoo! Mail and Gmail for years, and hackers are increasingly successful in defeating the approach. For example, the HotLan Trojan has created more than 500,000 spam email accounts with Hotmail, Yahoo! and Gmail since its arrival back in July 2007.
Read on.
Tags: Spam, Captcha, Spammers, Gmail Captcha
I’m actually a little surprised that it took as long as this before the phishers jumped on this particular opportunity.
From the Reg:
A phishing attack targeting victims of the HMRC data loss debacle has been spotted on the net. The bogus emails offering recipient the false opportunity to claim a tax refund of £215 from the UK Government over the potential exposure of confidential data. The email contains a web link to a suspect site, reports security firm McAfee, which spotted the ruse.
The ploy takes advantage of the loss of computer discs by HM Revenue and Customs containing the confidential details of 25 million child benefit recipients, including bank and building society details, NI numbers, addresses and child records. The attack follows more than two months after UK Chancellor Alistair Darling announced the loss, so arguably fraudsters have been slow off the mark.
Well, I see that I’m not the only one with that perspective. For our non-security readers, always be wary of emails like this. Anything that asks you to submit your password or tells you that you have received a refund or prize is likely a fraud. Be aware and surf with care.
