Mike's Mostly Tech blog

Watch out for e-Mail Scams about Electronic Tax Payments

Well it’s getting closer to tax season.

Many of us do our taxes as soon as we get our year end statements and many of us have quarterly taxes we pay.

Either way please keep an eye our for scams ‘reminding you of payments’ telling you owe payments and the like.

Believe me – if the IRS or the State wants their tax dollars they’ll reach out to you via REGULAR MAIL they will NOT be using some third party payment processing company.

The idea with emails like the one I just received is to first scare you into thinking you owe money, and second get you to click on a malicious link – one that will either infect your system or get you to a site designed to one way or another separate you from your money. Often times with life operators asking questions and continuing the scare tactics.

Above is one I just received. – IT’S COMPLETELY B.S.!!

Please IF you are ever concerned about a Tax problem go to the ‘front door’ of the agency – www.irs.gov, www.oregon.gov/dor, or the like, via your web browser address bar (NOT a search bar – the very top bar of your browser that says, http://www……)

the IRS has some good info here.

Remember be safe folks

Massive Data breach again – protect yourself

The names and e-mails of customers of Citigroup Inc and other large U.S. companies, as well as College Board students, were exposed in a massive and growing data breach after a computer hacker penetrated online marketer Epsilon.

The list of companies is HUGE! TiVo, JP Morgan Chase, Capital One Financial, US Bank, the Kroger grocery chain, teleshopping company HSN Inc., Verizon Communications Inc, Blackstone Group LP’s Hilton Hotels, Kraft Foods Inc, and AstraZeneca and more.
According to the reports only email addresses and name information was stolen. So you may just get an extra does of spam. But you can never be sure.

You can read more about it HERE and HERE.

Update Even more news here!

My advice is to reset your account passwords if you use any of these merchants and as always, use extremely strong passwords – preferably using applications like LastPass or KeePass to create super strong passwords and manage all your accounts information.

Either of these apps should be used by EVERYONE anyways. LastPass being the easiest for most.

Keep safe folks!

Electronic Pickpockets

This is some pretty scary stuff.

Many new credit cards carry an RFID chip for ‘fast pay/swipe pay’.

RFID stands for Radio-frequency identification. RFID is a technology that uses communication via electromagnetic waves to exchange data between a terminal and an electronic tag attached to an object, for the purpose of identification and tracking.

Here is a video showing a technique of stealing your information with out you even knowing it. Sadly this has been known for quite a while and not publicized much. I have seen many security related articles on this but I guess the public is just now being made more aware of it. And I think that is good. Be careful out there folks.

CheckPoint/Zone Alarm Lose with fake threat

I’ve written about this tactic before – using ‘rogue/fake’ threat or infection warnings to distribute REAL malware. This is one very effective way to get unsuspecting or untrained people to accidentally actually ‘infect’ themselves.

It now appears that a legitimate (using that word lightly now) company – CheckPoint, makers of ZoneAlarm is using the same tactic to ‘up sell’ their products to unsuspecting consumers. I hope others do not follow.

Please take the time to read this very short article.

At one time I used and recommended their products and most were quite good. In fact ZoneAlarm was one of the first ‘software firewalls’ I every used consistantly – over a decade ago.
However………

With this move CheckPoint has assured itself that it will be uninstalled and/or blocked on ALL of the machines (hundreds) I manage or have any influence upon.
I am passing this information to EVERYONE in my sphere of influence and I hope they do the same. Maybe even demand a refund pro-rata on any products they have installed.

Real D*%k move CheckPoint. See you later.

Indonesian Muslim in the White House

A little reality check. Here are some facts you won’t see on the nightly news or read in the Los Angeles or New York Times.

Lolo Soetoro, Stanley Ann Dunham Soetoro, baby Maya Soetoro, and 9 year old Barry Soetoro.

This registration document, made available on Jan. 24, 2007, by the Fransiskus Assisi school in Jakarta, Indonesia, shows the registration of Barack Obama under the name Barry Soetoro made by his step-father, Lolo Soetoro.

Barack was raised from the ages of 6-10 in Indonesia, his name was Barry Soetoro, and he was in fact a muslim.
Name: Barry Soetoro
Religion: Islam
Nationality: Indonesian

First, here is the certificate of enrollment at the Indonesian school:

For those of you not up to speed with Malaysian here is the English translation:

How did this little INDONESIAN Muslim child – Barry Soetoro, (A.K.A. Barack Obama) get around the issue of nationality to become President of the United States of America ?

Barack Obama’s step father, Lolo Soetoro, adopted him and listed his name as “Barry” not Barack. Since Lolo was a muslim I don’t think he would have had a problem with a step-son named “Barack.” But Mr. Lolo Soetoro did identify Barry’s religion as Islam. This is not a matter of opinion. It is a hard core fact. This does not mean that the guy we now know as Obama was a terrorist in training. 99% of the muslims in Indonesia are law abiding folks who reject terrorism. What I don’t understand is why Obama continues to hide this part of his life and pretend that he was raised a poor white child in Kansas?

PART 2:

In a move certain to fuel the debate over Obama’s qualifications for the presidency, the group "Americans for Freedom of Information" has released copies of President Obama’s college transcripts from Occidental College ..

The transcript indicates that Obama, under the name Barry Soetoro, received financial aid as a foreign student from Indonesia while an undergraduate at the school. The transcript was released by Occidental College in compliance with a court order in a suit brought by the group in the Superior Court of California . The transcript shows that Obama (Soetoro) applied for financial aid and was awarded a fellowship for foreign students from the Fulbright Foundation Scholarship program. To qualify for this scholarship, a student must claim foreign citizenship.

This document provides the smoking gun that many of Obama’s detractors have been seeking – that he is NOT a natural-born citizen of the United States – necessary to be President of these United States . Along with the evidence that he was first born in Kenya , here we see that there is no record of him ever applying for US citizenship..

Gary Kreep of the United States Justice Foundation has released the results of their investigation of Obama’s campaign spending. This study estimates that Obama has spent upwards of $950,000 in campaign funds in the past year with eleven law firms in 12 states for legal resources to block disclosure of any of his personal records.

Mr. Kreep indicated that the investigation is still on-going but that the final report will be provided to the U.S. attorney general, Eric Holder.

Mr. Holder has refused comment on this matter.

LET OTHER FOLKS KNOW THIS NEWS – THE MEDIA WON’T!

Stop Spam Calls

Ok, how many of you have gotten calls that were dialed by an automated system?
You know the kind. Your phone rings and if you pick it up there is a ‘pause’ before someone gets on the line.
Who then proceeds to tell you that,
”the FBI needs your information..”
“your car warranty is about to expire..”
“you owe money to such and such and we can reduce the amount…”
“we are in the neighbor hood doing x for the Jone’s etc.”

The list is just about endless.

Or how about getting messages on your voice mail or answering machine that tell you “to call 800-xxx-xxxx ext. xxx for a very important matter.” Or “you have an outstanding balance please call 800-xxx-xxxx etc.”

These calls and nearly all like them are made by ‘dialing programs’. There are two types most in use today.

The first and most common is the programs that actually dial a whole set of numbers for a given area code and prefix.
Example: 310-473-xxxx from 0001 on up.

The second is used mostly by fraudsters, bill collectors (illegitimate and some times legitimate) and other scammers.
The program dials a given set of numbers the same way.

HERE IS THE KICKER:
Since the calls are made by machine they follow rules! And we can exploit them to our advantage!
The programs were designed to save money by dialing fast and not wasting the time of (expensive) people. Although one could argue that wages in Bangladesh aren’t that high, you still need real people, even if they don’t speak proper English, to carry on a real conversation.
So when the dialer get’s an out of order or line disconnected ‘tone’ it marks the number as ‘no good’ and moves on.
If however you pick up the phone the system knows the number is valid and puts you through to a person who will then annoy the crap out of you.
Same goes for the calls on answering machines and those going to voice mail – if the dialer get’s an out of order or line disconnected ‘tone’ it marks the number as ‘no good’ and moves on. If your machine or voice mail answers with a ‘message’ like, “hello we are not here ……” the call then plays the message to call a certain 800 number back etc.
With any of these calls the absolute worst thing you can do is actually call that number!!
Your phone will be marked as ‘valid’ and ‘worth calling’ forever!
[This also applies to spam email too!! Never respond to spam email to ‘be removed from list..’]
So how do you we beat the machines?
Quite simple actually.
By playing the ‘call could not be complete’ or ‘number disconnected’ tone before your answer message.
That’s right by simply placing that ‘beep beep beep the number you are dialing…’ tone before your message you will kill the auto dialed call. If you are like me you can even play the tone before you answer a live call!
Just play the tone then record your message.
Make sure you tell people who should be calling you – family friends – that they should ingnore/wait for the actual message.

So where to find the ‘tone’.
Here are a couple links to the tones with the associated message.
Remember you only need the ‘tone’ at the beginning to make the dialer think the number is bad.
You can find them here:
Disconnected number:
Wave format:
Call not completed as dialed:
Wave format

I have created a looped tone with out the message that I use. It plays the ‘beep beep beep’ twice in a row. I will try and find a ‘place’ to put it when I can for easy download. Check back.

Global Warming, Really

I have such a disdain for lies and deception it borders on an obsession.
One of my biggest peeves is the absolute LIE of ‘man-made global warming’.
An entire generation of children have been literally indoctrinated with this ‘religion’ that is based on junk science!
This schtick has been used by the anti-capitalist to bludgeon the economies and bind the freedoms that have made the west the most advanced civilizations in humans short history on this planet.
Virtually every bit of legislation tied to the ‘green movement’ ONLY harms the developed nations of the west and does absolutely nothing to help the underdeveloped nations of the world.
The sole purpose of the ‘green movement’ is to monetarily penalize man’s economic and scientific advancement and redistribute the wealth of the world. In short to put control of freedoms and progress in the hands of an ‘elite’ few who ‘know what’s good for us’.
I know that the left’s hysteria can’t be bothered with actual facts but maybe we can help educate the young.
Here are some fantastic links to actual science.
A great video that should be played in all grade schools!:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3069943905833454241

Some other great links:

http://www.globalwarming.org/

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=57605

http://www.oism.org/pproject/s33p36.htm

A good site with lots of information:
http://junkscience.com/