Yet another (stupid) email scam

A fourth article about Internet scams.  This time, I want to show you how stupid an email scam can be and, once more, how easy it is to recognise it.  Here is a snapshot of the email I received a couple of days ago:

It is a scam in Italian because it was sent to an Italian email address of mine (which you can actually see at the bottom of the image).  It says that I have exceeded the PayPal limit (never heard of such a thing; have you?) and that, according to a new Italian law (?!?), unless I update my profile information, the account will be suspended.  To update my account, I should click on the link.

When I took the snapshot, I hovered with the cursor over the link, so that the actual link could be captured at the bottom of the email client's window.  The text of the link indicates a secure link to paypal.com, but the page it is pointing to actually is on davidserra.es.  Either this David Serra from Barcelona is so stupid that he shows his real domain name, or somebody has highjacked it.  In any case, it is clear that the email has nothing to do with PayPal.

Furthermore, why should PayPal send an email from admin@webbergrp.com?

In any case, any Italian with a minimum of brain would have dismissed the scam even without checking the link, because the text is not grammatically correct.  You cannot possibly believe that PayPal would send emails with grammar mistakes, would you?

The worst mistake is that the email addresses the customer in three different ways: with "voi" (a plural "you" also used in the past as a form of respect), "lei" (a singular "you" with people you don't know), and "tu" (an informal singular "you").  There are also at least four adjectives that do not match gender and/or number of the corresponding nouns.

I wonder whether this David Serra (or whoever the scammer is) has managed to obtain with this email credit card or banking information.  If he did, I am almost inclined to say that those "customers" deserved to be scammed because of their stupidity!

Scary AFP Scam

This is my third article about Internet scams.  The previous two (on 2011-09-12 and on 2012-03-07) were about email scams.  This time, I want to talk about a web scam.  Somebody must have highjacked a URL.  As a result, while attempting to access a web site, I was confronted with the following page (if you cannot read the text, right-click it and select View Image):

Scary, isn't it?

But:

1. The Australian Federal Police would never issue a fine via a web page.  And, if they wanted to seize your computer[s], they would come to your place in force and without notice, wake you up early in the morning, and take your computers to their labs.
   
   
2. The domain name, although it starts with "aft.gov.au", is in fact the domain k318843.com, which was registered in China through http://www.bizcn.com/.  No way that the AFP would operate via a Chinese registrar.
   
   
3. If any part of the Australian Government wanted to fine you, you would receive a letter through the mail, and they would not ask you to pay via Ucash within 12 hours!
   

My advice is therefore always the same: even if the graphic presentation is impressive and at first sight convincing, before taking any request seriously, regardless of whether it is for money or for personal information, check the originating email address or web domain very carefully.  Then, if you are still unsure, seek confirmation from the requesting organisation via a contact number or address that you have obtained via a public and independent source (e.g., telephone directory or their public web site).

Probably not a scam...

A few days ago, I published in this blog my second article about email scams. Then, just yesterday, I received the following email:

At first sight, it looks reasonable. A few years ago I wrote a book titled Beginning JSP, JSF, and Tomcat Web Development http://zambon.com.au/non_fiction/books_and_manuals/jsp_jsf_tomcat/, and Udemy does offer courses online at udemy.com http://www.udemy.com/

But this email remain suspicious, because the links don't point to the URLs they claim to be pointing to: if you hover with the cursor over the link Udemy.com at the beginning of the message, you see that it actually points to go.toutapp.com/vmqy0979d (as shown in the snapshot). The link in the middle of the message points to another go.toutapp.com page: 97rma91x6. The two links apparently pointing to two different press releases, actually point to the same page 1edz9gz8n, and the link to www.udemy.com points to fc7tpmwsj.

Now, all this could be perfectly legitimate, as toutapp.com http://toutapp.com exists and provides services to track access to websites. Also, the pages mentioned in the email exist.

This might just be a "good old-fashion" junk mail, like all unsolicited messages that offer services or products. But this hiding of URLs behind links that claim to point to other pages is in itself suspicious, and I strongly recommend never to follow them. I don't.

Another UPS email scam

In September 2011, I published in this blog an article titled How to identify some email scams.

A couple of days ago, I received another scam email claiming to come from UPS and once more from China. This time it had an attachment, and the first thing that made me suspicious was that the attachment was in HTML format, as I expect invoices attached to emails to be in PDF format.

But it was a very smart scam, because by claiming that they were sending an invoice, they played on the resentment of receiving an unjustified bill, which could result in carelessness.

Here is the snapshot of the email:

The links pointed to myapp-ups.com/main.php?page=03def465fa1423ac. The inclusion of "ups" in the domain name was clearly intended to allay any doubt that the mail was legitimate, but I don't think that UPS would use a domain name with "myapp" in it. I can imagine dozens of Chinese (and perhaps non-Chinese as well) scammers frantically registering all possible "whatever-ups.com" domain names, and send millions of emails to gullible westerners...

I searched the whois database to see who had registered myapp-ups.com and this is what I got:

This is what scammers do on Valentine days: they register domains for their scams...

How to identify some email scams

Some days ago, I received the following email (with my email address removed and the links disabled):

Subject: Your package has arrived!

From: UPS Shipments

Date: Wed, 7 Sep 2011 21:42:50 +0900 (KST)

To:

Dear client

Your package has arrived.

The tracking # is : 16B9159622A040A2 and can be used at :

http://www.ups.com/tracking/tracking.html

The shipping invoice can be downloaded from :

http://www.ups.com/tracking/invoices/download.aspx?invoice_id=16B9159622A040A2

Thank you,

United Parcel Service

*** This is an automatically generated email, please do not reply ***

Photovoltaic Panels Update

At the end of the post titled “Photovoltaic Panels” of September 8th, I talked about my intention to extend my PV system. I did, and here is a new picture of my roof showing the new array.

Photovoltaic Panels

Advertisements for solar panels have begun appearing on Australian television. At least, they have become frequent enough that I noticed them. Obviously, the purpose of the ads is to encourage the viewer to buy solar panels, but they tend to be misleading. By selling the electricity you generate, you eventually repay the acquisition price of the photovoltaic system. That’s true. It is also true that your electricity bill is reduced and can even go negative (which means that you get money from the utility). But you shouldn’t consider the two facts simultaneously true. After all, the utility pays you only once!

In this post, I will describe what I think is the financially correct way to look at the photovoltaic panels. But to start, I will first tell you what system my wife and I have bought.

We have on the roof eighteen panels manufactured by Sharp (model NT-N5E3E), as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1: Our panels.

Each panel can nominally generate up to 175 W of power. Therefore, our maximum generating capacity is 3,150 W.

Technology that gets under your skin

For the Merriam-Webster dictionary, Bionics is “a science concerned with the application of data about the functioning of biological systems to the solution of engineering problems”⁽¹⁾. Similarly, Wikipedia defines Bionics as “the application of biological methods and systems found in nature to the study and design of engineering systems and modern technology”⁽²⁾. Bionics has many applications, but what interests me is that it helps develop devices that support, enhance, or even completely replace functions of the human body. And to do their job, such devices must become part of the people who carry them. They represent the first steps of man-machine integration.

From chipped stones to wearable computers

A couple of million years ago we learnt how to walk on our two hind limbs. Natural evolution selected it into our genes because it improved our chances of survival. We could see above the toll grasses of the Eastern African plains and detect approaching predators before it was too late. And once detected the danger, we could escape at a higher speed. But that evolutionary step also had another profound effect on our ancestors: it freed their hands⁽¹⁾.