Thursday, October 8, 2009

A Phishy Message

You may have received this. It's one of those "phishing" e-mails that tries to look official and to get you to disclose personal data that they can use to hijack your accounts. This one, which came to me the other day, struck me as setting some high achievement in presuming that there are computer users out there who are brain-dead stupid. Take a quick read...

Dear WEBMAIL ONLINE Owner,

This message is from the WEBMAIL TEAM users messaging center to all WEBMAIL ONLINE TEAM account owners. We are currently upgrading our web/data base and carrying out maintenances of all our e-mail accounts in order to reduce the rate of spam/scam mails. We are also deleting all unused WEBMAIL ONLINE TEAM account to create more space for new accounts.

To prevent your account from being closed unnecessarily, you will have to update us with the following informations below in order to know that it's a present used account and to also facilitate maintenance operation.

CONFIRM YOUR EMAIL IDENTITY BELOW
1.Full Email Address:________ 2.Password:________ 3.Country:_______4.Age:________5.Date of birth:______6.First name/Last name:____7.Security Question/Answer:______

Warning: Account owner that refuses to update his or her account within  Seven days of receiving this warning will lose his or her account permanently.

Thank you for using WEBMAIL ONLINE TEAM.
Best Regard,
WEBMAIL ONLINE TEAM®.

Seriously: Are there people out there who'll fall for this? They'd have to start by not knowing the name of the service via which they get their e-mail, which is almost certainly not named Webmail Online. They'd have to overlook the typos and stilted grammar which suggest that this was not written by someone who speaks English as their primary language. They'd have to miss the fact that the sender is telling you that there's something wrong with your e-mail but needs you to supply your e-mail address. And of course, the premise here is that your e-mail account hasn't been used lately so you have to give them your password and security info to prove to the company that hosts that account that you still use it.

Oh, yeah...and a bit of Googling reveals that the return address is not someone at this Webmail Online company. It's the e-mail of a professor at the University of Dhaka in Bangla Desh. If you replied, you'd think your message was going to him but it would actually go to another address.

As a reminder: Not all phishing schemes are this obvious. Don't expect they'll all scream "fraud" as blatantly as this one does.

• Posted at 11:01 PM · LINK

Honoring Shel

The man at right in the above photo is Warren Beatty in the title role of the movie, Dick Tracy. The man at left is Shel Dorf, who is usually referred to as the founder of the annual event now known as Comic-Con International. And he was, though nods should go to several other folks who helped invent that wonderful gathering. I met Shel in early 1970, months before the first convention, when it was not more than a dream he spoke of with great enthusiasm. We became instant friends and apart from a year there when a silly squabble drove us apart, we remained friends. Shel loved comics and it's easy to be friends with someone like that.

Alas, my friend is not well. For months now, he's been in a hospital in San Diego with a pretty long list of ailments including kidney failure and intermittent heart attacks. I don't like to write someone off while their heart is still beating but his condition is pretty bad. I visited him a few months ago and he was unable to speak or recognize me. The nurse on duty said he occasionally has better days.

Several of the folks who worked with Shel to start the convention have set up a website to honor his achivements. There's not a lot yet on the Shel Dorf Tribute website but there will be more, including a piece I'm preparing. But take a peek at what Mike Towry, Richard Alf and Barry Alfonso have to say so far. Those three guys were there at the beginning and they know the magnitude of Shel's contribution.

• Posted at 12:02 AM · LINK