Snoskred - Life in the Country

But.. you’re not.

Let me preface this post with a little story. When I was about 16, I attended a church. One day I found an anonymous letter in my letterbox which was pretty unpleasant - *though I don’t remember any of the details now. The person thought they were anonymous, but when I gave the letter to the church pastor, he recognised the handwriting - and thus anonymous was found to be a nasty beyotch named Michelle. No offense to people named Michelle, but I’ve found it a bit hard to trust people with that name ever since. It’s not you. It’s me.

So when Kelley posted on her blog that someone calling themselves “concerned” had written her a nasty letter full of unpleasantness, I commented could she please give me some information and maybe I could track down who wrote it. And because I am awesome and have mad skillz, I did manage to track down the writer. And now Kelley knows who it is, and I assume it won’t be too long before the entire interwebz knows who it is also. Word like that tends to spread.

Everywhere you go, everything you do, you leave behind a few vital details. Like your IP address, the time you visited, what browser and operating system you run. Your IP address can be used by the police and your internet service provider (and by scambaiters like me who know what they are doing) to track you down. That is how they arrested all those pedophiles not so long ago - there was a page on the internet that a lot of pedophiles visited, and the federal police came knocking on the door of the people who visited it.

For example, here is a line from a server log - me visiting Kelley’s blog and my browser grabbing her Favicon.

121.44.XX.XX - - [20/Jul/2008:11:41:34 -0500] “GET /favicon.ico HTTP/1.1″ 404 25192 “-” “Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.16) Gecko/20080702 Firefox/2.0.0.16″

Note - I have XX out a couple of the numbers, because I am on a static IP address and I have been on it for a decently long time, and I don’t want to give that IP address to the scammers because it can be used to do port scans and other rather nefarious activities.

So every website you visit your browser sends a whole heap of GET requests off to the server, and the majority of servers log all of this information.  Also, when you visit a blog and leave a comment, most blogging software keeps a record of the IP address. This is always worth keeping somewhere in case you need it another time - mine all go to a gmail account so I can easily search it and don’t have to worry about storage.

When you visit forums - say for example the Aussie Bloggers forums - your IP address is logged. If you were to leave a message that was abusive, the forum admins might report that to your Internet Service Provider. And for those of you who think you can use a proxy to access the forums and leave abuse - sorry, we get *both* IP addresses, the proxy and your real one. So there is nowhere to hide.

Also, interestingly, when you send emails (unless you know what you are doing like I do, otherwise I would not be emailing the scammers) your IP address will appear in the header of those emails.

So, when you think you are anonymous and you send an anonymous email to someone - say Kelley, for example - what happens if you’re not actually anonymous, and you can be traced? Well, I guess what happens is, I know who you are. And I do know who you are, Concerned. Will I tell people? Maybe I will. Hope that keeps you awake at night.

Would you like a piece of unsolicited advice “Concerned”? If I were you (which I would NEVER be, I believe anonymous letters are lame and horrible and creating bad Karma for yourself) I would confess that you did this on your blog now.  People might feel sorry for you if you do that. Probably not too many, but maybe you can manage to tell enough of a sob story that you can keep a few friends.

And here’s some more advice. Get a life. I can’t believe you spent at least 4 hours solid viewing Kelley’s website. For those of you interested, here’s just one hour of the viewing -  of course to save you headaches I have just put the time and the get request.. You need to add +10 (or so) to the actual times - so this happened between 7pm and 8pm Australian Eastern Standard Time.

[07/Jul/2008:09:02:58]    GET /page/25/ HTTP/1.1
[07/Jul/2008:09:10:06]    GET /page/26/ HTTP/1.1
[07/Jul/2008:09:17:47]    GET /page/27/ HTTP/1.1
[07/Jul/2008:09:21:09]    GET /page/28/ HTTP/1.1
[07/Jul/2008:09:28:04]    GET /page/29/ HTTP/1.1
[07/Jul/2008:09:33:18]    GET /page/30/ HTTP/1.1
[07/Jul/2008:09:39:53]    GET /page/31/ HTTP/1.1
[07/Jul/2008:09:43:53]    GET /page/32/ HTTP/1.1
[07/Jul/2008:09:48:46]    GET /page/33/ HTTP/1.1
[07/Jul/2008:09:51:05]    GET /page/34/ HTTP/1.1

This person read back 56 pages. In order. Over 24 hours. Viewing the log made the hair on the back of my neck stand on end.

So if you happen to have a blog that is hosted by me, and someone sends you an “anonymous” email, please contact me immediately and I will give you instructions on how to get me the info I need from the email. Whatever you do, don’t delete the email. I know that might feel like the right thing to do because when you get an email like this it feels horrible, but identifying people like this is one of the best ways to stop people from doing this kind of stuff. They might not stop with just one anonymous letter.

*I seem to be having some problems with my memory but that is a whole ‘nother post for another day..

This week the Hump Day Hmmm topic is a tricky one. How I Matter is this week’s topic. There are many subjects I could have written about but I chose the one I’ve been involved in for almost three years now - online scams, scammers, and how to protect yourself.

Snoskred Is Educational -

There are many email scams out there in the world. I try to educate people about some of them in order to stop them from being scammed. These scammers are criminals. If there is something I can do to stop them, I’m sure as heck going to try.

What Is An Email Scam?

There are many types of email scams but let me sum it up simply for you.

Someone you don’t know and never heard of before is contacting you by email to tell you they have money for you.

An Important Point To Remember -

NO MONEY is coming to your email inbox as a surprise.

Variations On A Scam -

Someone you don’t know and never heard of before is contacting you by email to tell you you have won the lottery.
Someone you don’t know and never heard of before is contacting you by email to tell you they need to borrow your bank account and they’ll pay you a large sum of money to do this.

Stay At Home Moms Watch Out!

Someone you don’t know is contacting you by email to tell you they have a job for you, or you apply for a work at home job on a legitimate job seeking website. You may have heard of the company because the scammers use legitimate companies to make their scams seem real. I know you want to be able to stay at home with the kids but getting scammed out of money is not going to achieve that. Always check independently if you can - don’t use the number the scammer gives you.

Online Sellers Watch Out!

Scammers often use Ebay, Craigslist and others in order to find people they can scam. Usually this will be a fake check scam but sometimes they may try to wire stolen funds into your account, use stolen paypal accounts or stolen credit cards and the list does go on. Be very careful. Get educated on the scams they try to use and how to protect yourself before you start selling.

What Does Snoskred Do About It?

The number one thing I do -

is talk and get the word out - here on the blog, in the media via radio and press interviews which I have done many times in the past, on various scam victim support websites.

The second thing I do -

is hook the scammers up with a special *baiting tool, which keeps them busy with fake victims rather than real ones. Recently I have been a little busy and neglected this somewhat but I intend to get back into this over the next couple of months. It isn’t difficult. I have the tools all set up and ready to bait, I just need to hook scammers up to the machine.

The third thing I do -

is bait fake checks out of the scammers. I then contact the companies on the checks and warn them that the scammers are using their account details. Do not try this at home, ya’all. I use a safe PO box which my name is not attached to in any way to receive the mail. These scammers are criminals who have been known to kill their victims.

The fourth thing I have done -

in the past but currently am not involved in is warning actual scam victims. Some of the victim support websites receive information about people being scammed - from friends or family of the victims, law enforcement, web hosts who take down the scammers websites and sometimes from very brave people on the inside of these scammer gangs who do not like what they see - they email us victim email addresses, phone numbers or street addresses.

Some might say that I do this one to feel good about myself, that’s baloney but occasionally it does feel good when you have called at the right time to stop someone being scammed. Some might say I do it to help the victims, well that is partly true - it is a side effect.

Sometimes it works and the victims listen to me. Sometimes it does NOT work and the victims get angry and abusive towards me because they have grown to trust their scammer. That is tough to take. That is one reason I am taking a break from it right now. You can only do it so long before you burn out.

The real, deep at the heart of it, reason that I do this? To stop the scammers from making money out of people who are vulnerable. I don’t want them getting a cent from their scamming.

The fifth thing I did -

I took three months out to volunteer full time to assist when the Fraudwatchers website was launched. I truly believed in what they were doing - I still believe in it, I just had a falling out with the management there about the best way to do things.

Why We Know Our Actions Are Working -

Currently there is a major denial of service attack against several of the sites which bait scammers and sites that support scam victims. It has been going on for roughly two weeks now. They would not go to all this effort if we weren’t putting a major dent in their income. Unfortunately this means many of the scam baiting and scam victim support websites have been offline for extended amounts of time.

How You Can Help -

- Tell your family and friends about the scams, and ask them to speak to you if they ever wonder if an email might be legitimate.
- Stumble this post to get the word out about these scams to more people, if you’re a stumbler.
- Link to this article in my internet safety series which speaks about these scams.
- Ask me via email to guest post on your blog on the topic of scams to help educate your readers.
- If you know anyone who has any questions about these scams I am only an email away. However there are some great websites on the internet that try to help as well though some of them are currently offline due to denial of service attacks - Fraudwatchers - Scam Victims United - Fraud Aid
- Let the readers of your blog know about the Scam-O-Matic - a web form which can look at an email and tell you if the email looks like a known scam. Is this email a scam? Ask the Scam-O-Matic -
- Become a scambaiter. Scambaits and 419eater have mentor programs where they will train you to bait scammers safely and with no danger to yourself. I will warn you, it is an addictive hobby.

Further Reading -

- Snoskred Made 5 MILLION DOLLARS Online This Year!
- Snoskred on Fake Check Scams and Scambaiting
- View My Fake Checks From Scammers

Snoskred’s Scambaits -

Wondering what goes on when I bait these scammers? Have a read of one of these.

- Holy Church Of The Sacred Butterfly
- Tyr@ Vs Alf Olds
- The Lad Formerly Known As

Snoskred’s Internet Safety Series -

Part One - Part Two - Part Three - Part Four - Part Five - Part Six

Over To You -

Have you ever received an email you thought might be a scam? What did you do about it? Have you known someone who was scammed out of money?

*Note - these aren’t tools that regular humans can get access to - this is something only long time scambaiters can use. So if you want to use it, get into baiting - when the time is right you’ll be given access.

Welcome back to me! Very relieved to be back at home, I won’t lie to ya’all. It was nice to go away but it is even nicer to return to one’s waterbed and kitties.

A HUGE thank you to Sephy for helping me out here on the blog and posting the pics I emailed to him from my mobile phone which have been coming to you as a surprise over the weekend.

I have not yet logged into my google reader but I am looking forward to going in and catching up with what everyone has been up to.

So, the week in review. I talked about how things are different in the country, I had some adventures in hair dying and a lovely beach walk with photos for ya’all. Over on blogzreview, I reviewed Thailand Gal, one of my favourite blogs, and I invite all readers to submit reviews of blogs they love and enjoy.

One really important post I’d like to draw your attention to, written by Sephy. It’s over on his blog and it is regarding the Assassination scam. These scammers do a lot of really terrible things but this is by far the worst type of scam out there and the most scary for anyone who receives it. Thanks to Sephy posting it, a lot of people have found his blog and know it’s just the scammers trying to get money out of people they know nothing about and there’s no assassination teams watching them. It’s a huge relief for those people who received the email.

If any bloggers reading this could do us a favour and help us educate more people on these scams by linking to that post and perhaps also to my internet safety post part six which talks about those scams, that would be fantastic. In case you missed it, here’s links to Internet safety part one - two - three - four - five - six. I’m going to put this series at the top of the right sidebar for a little bit, to make it easier for people to find.

Blogs added to the sidebar this week -

andhra spicy - lots of great recipes. Also the new blogs for the Australian Blogs Community - DejaMoo - Astronomy Down Under - Invoice Place Blog - Joh Blogs - Nothing’s Too Sacred - The Dead Roo - The Wodonga Online Times

Funny search terms this week -
headache, foggy memo
email shenanigans
plane panti hose
hairy boys
animals diecan’t turn over
home hair dying green
jammed acrylic nail and lifted my real nail
why does sunscreen make acrylic nails sticky? (does it? I didn’t know this)
scary pictures of sharks and people (I know where to find this but it scared me so much I’m not telling)
rob lowe naked (yeah, I wish I knew where to find that too!)

And a lot of Morten Harket queries.. Morten Harket was the number one search term this week.
is morten harket gay? (You’d have to ask him, I’m voting no but he does wear a lot of leather so I can understand the general confusion)
is morten harket married? (He was, yes)
morten harket and his wife
morten harket naked pics (sorry, I don’t have any, if you find them let ME know!)
how tall is morten harket

We’re still averaging 700 unique visitors a week here - that doesn’t count return visits during the week. I am still in the middle of the blogging chicks commenting challenge but didn’t get too much done last week thanks to the trip, so hopefully this week I’ll get busy.

So things are back to normal with me returning home, and you can look forward to some quality blogging this week as well as lovely photos of Ikea purchases and the Sydney Harbor Bridge at night. I’m hoping to write another blog about differences between the country and city this week, as well as something about vertigo and pilots. No, that won’t be as boring as it sounds.

From yesterday’s post, Em had a question -

What is your opinion of spam filters. My gmail one seems to work quite well and the spam doesn’t bother me because I don’t see it…

I’ve got about 40 gmail accounts actually. Being a scambaiter, you tend to have a lot of email addresses. The spam stuff, like viagra and cialis and people trying to sell you stuff, gmail does reasonably well with. However, they do NOT do as well with the *scam* emails, and also phishing gets through on a regular basis.

You might not be getting much in the way of spam as yet, but if you have an email address which is anywhere out there on the internet, it will be coming to you as a surprise some time in the future. Here’s a screenshot from one of my email accounts which is on a scam blog. The people emailing it do not know it is on a scam blog because they use an email extractor program to get the addresses.

The emails you see there arrived over the space of less than an hour. That account regularly receives around 40 emails per hour. That’s 960 emails a day. Can you imagine how this would mess up your inbox?

For most people, a single gmail account with a spam filter might work just fine - until someone gives out your email address somewhere. It’ll start out being 3-4 spam emails a day, and keep going upwards until you want to throw things at people you’re getting so much of it. If you have one email account which you use for everything, it’s a real nightmare when that happens. And you would be surprised at whom is doing what with your email address as we speak.

I’ve done a lot of email warnings to scam victims over the years, and many times some of these people have decided I am their friend and added me to their forwards list. They then send me any “joke” or “inspirational” email that they stumble across during their interweb travels. The trouble is, they add all the email addresses as “cc” - carbon copy, which means me and everyone else who got the mail can see who it was sent to! That means, if a scammer or spammer gets their hands on it, they have a bunch of new targets to email.

So there’s the lesson for today - use BCC when you want to email to more than one person. *Blind* carbon copy - it means nobody else can see who you sent that mail to.

The reason I am suggesting the email plan rather than just one gmail account is because if you break it down into groups it is much less of a hassle when that account is compromised. I say when because it is highly likely to happen. Spam and Scam is getting worse, and there really isn’t much that can be done to stop it, so it is much better to be prepared.

I hope that answers the question.