| Product: |
email privacy |
| Date: |
19/11/03 (106 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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This opinion is brought to you by the letter D, for deceit: something that's big business nowadays. It's rife in the real world and it's also becoming a major problem in cyberspace. I think I'm pretty good at spotting scams but it's still easy to get caught out. The trick is not to divulge any information unless you're sure of the credentials of the person you're giving it to.
The incident that got me thinking about this topic involved tarmac. I was at the entrance to my drive recently when a van pulled up and the driver started talking about the surface of my drive. He said that his company had last done my drive and he asked how long I had lived here. I told him that it was about seven years and how the Baker family had been here before. The driver said that the Bakers knew the drive would need resurfacing about now, before it breaks up completely. He said his company was doing some resurfacing work for a neighbour the next day and how there might be some disruption. He volunteered to give me a quote so my work could be done at the same time. I declined on the basis of being rather short of cash and so the driver left.
I thought no more about it until the end of the next day when I realised that no one was having any work done. I then realised that I had been on the verge of being conned. I had inadvertently given the driver key information. And yet his words had a sort of comfort factor - he claimed to know the previous family, to have carried out the work before and that he would be working elsewhere in the street. Had I had the money then I would probably have taken up the offer. And most likely the quote of £500 would turn into a final bill of £5,000 with several 'heavies' marching me off to the nearest bank to get the payment.
I normally research any goods or services I need, meaning that I'm unlikely to buy anything from a cold call. I'm amazed that people buy kitchens in this way. If th
ey need a new kitchen then they should be searching out the best deal rather than waiting for a supposedly good deal to come to them. This is a good philosophy to have, both in the real world and when it comes to the internet. Most scams rely on the recipient reacting quickly. Just thinking 'why has this come to me?' should be enough to alert you to many scams.
Email has allowed scams to proliferate like never before. The simplest ones involve hoaxes - fake warnings that give the perpetrator satisfaction when they see how far their wares travel. Virus warnings are the most common hoaxes. These are normally easy to spot. After all, why would someone write to you about one particular virus when there are thousands of viruses out there? The most effective hoaxes seem to be the ones that make naive users think they've got a virus by pointing them to a common file supplied with Windows or a popular application.
The first one of these I came across became known as the AOL Virus. Basically, users were told they had a virus if the AOL startup executable was on their system. Removing it destroyed the apparent virus but of course it also nuked AOL in the process. An experienced user would spot such a scenario because viruses are not normally contained in a single file, other changes are required to make sure the infected files are actually run.
Meanwhile, if someone has a few million notes in suspect money to launder then what better way than to contact a complete stranger in another country? A small admin fee will be required. Before you know it you'll be on your way to completely embarrassing yourself, as well as making your bank account a little lighter. If it's too good to be true then it's probably best avoided.
Scams stand out when you're targeted for a service that you don't actually use. At one time I was receiving daily emails requesting my account details for the ICQ instant messaging service. Dire
warnings were given that my account would be closed down unless I responded to the message. The more I ignored the requests the more email I seemed to get. Why didn't I do anything? Because I've never used ICQ.
Everyone should be suspicious of any unsolicited emails that request personal information. In some cases you may be asked to go to the site and perform an action to keep your account alive. That's fair enough if it's a service you use and you manually take yourself to the site in question. But no legitimate organisation will email its users and request key information such as passwords and credit card numbers.
The more popular a service is, the more likely its users are to be targeted for scams. When I originally joined eBay I noted how many users employed their email address as their username. I thought that was a good idea, although it was too late for me as my account was already set up. I now see things in a different light: public email addresses are just waiting for a scam email to be sent to them. This is why eBay is now in the process of outlawing email addresses as usernames.
If users are tricked into giving out their eBay account information the consequences can be serious. Another user can gain control of their auctions, which could lead to other buyers being ripped off. EBay's PayPal subsidiary is also regularly targeted by scammers. This is even more serious because PayPal is in the business of accepting credit cards and allowing funds to be transferred to bank accounts.
Lots of tricks can be performed in email and not everything may be as it appears. For starters, the email may well not be from the specified sender. On most systems the outgoing email address can actually be set to anything you like. I've worked this way for many years, making it appear as though my email is coming from my own domain. In practice it's being sent from a rather boring BT Openworld account. This works b
ecause replies go back to my domain, which are then forwarded on to my BT Openworld account. In the case of spam, the sender generally doesn't want a reply to come back to him by email so any other email address can be specified as the sender.
The next thing to be aware of is that a scam may be linked to a website with a similar name to a well known one. Always look very carefully at any web addresses you are taken to from unsolicited emails. Are you really at the official site or an unofficial one set up to look very similar? If you're in any doubt check to see who owns the domain you've been sent to. It's surprising how often suspect sites have been set up a few weeks previously, often in obscure countries.
If you want to check a domain you'll need to be aware that the www. bit is not part of the domain name. For example, the website at www.microsoft.com runs under the microsoft.com domain. For UK sites go to www.nominet.org.uk and enter the domain name in the box on the front screen. For top level domains such as biz, com, info, net and org use the Whois function at www.internic.org. Either search should return some useful information, including when the domain was set up.
Basically, everyone needs to be careful when dealing with the internet. The best policy is to trust no one until they've earned your trust. Don't be afraid to delete suspicious emails. Any financial institutions you deal with are much more likely to write you a letter than to send you an email. And don't forget to ask the advice of people who may be more experienced than you.
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