The Time Sink

Ah scammers... You know how I love to follow them about and check up on them? Well, I had to give this one a extra shot for sheer chutzpah! I'd followed the trail from a phishing email to a form at a dotted address site that requested the following:

To get you started, we'll need to validate some information from you in order to verify your account.

Please enter your 16-digit Citizens ATM card number or your Citizens MasterMoney Card Number, PIN (Personal Identification Number) and your 9-digit Social Security Number."

Yeah, that could certainly validate some stuff...

...but then I looked the URI and noticed I was two directories deep! So I bounced up one level. ...and reached:

Welcome to AOL Customer Support

Not. It was another form with:

"You were referred to this location because your credit card information on file for last month was not accepted by AOL's payment processing system. Please provide..."

Ummm... hmmm... Okay, let's hit the root for this bad boy... Whoa! A spoofed page from a document management outfit! ...and he even was nice enough to creat a favicon for them (the legit outfit doesn't have one<g>). But wait, there's more:

To download the (product name deleted) Image Control, please click the link below and select "OPEN" when prompted.

Download here
(Note: Please close down your browser window and reopen after installation)

Let's see. Behind that "download here" link is an exe file! Oh, yeah, like I'm going to click on that... Man, that's going after people full tilt!

Secrets of the aging arts... Say you have a project that requires a journal written in the 1600's. ...and say you want to have it looking like something in leather-bound parchment. Okay...

Here's how we worked it out: Daniel did the written portion in an 'old style' font (he actually did a good job picking it; the S's and F's and L's and such looked pretty good). After the ink dried, the pages were then brushed with wet tea bags and allowed to dry...

In the meantime, a hanging file folder was sacrificed and soaked in the pool. After it softened, it was crushed and resoaked and then allowed to sun dry. ...and for the binding cord? Well, it was soaked in a mixture of soy sauce and Worcestershire sauce <g>...

We're thinking we at least have the presentation portion of the show handled...

One down...

Well, the 'cooler' weather has shown up as promised; highs are only in the nineties this week with some rumors of eightish stuff by the weekend. ...but there's nary a trace of that 'fall coolness' when I head down the low area under the power lines when I blade. ...and there's no cool breeze coming off the field just past the snail lady's place.

Number two...

...but maybe the better memory from today:

Connectivity has been hosed most of the day as I rework the network here. Currently, the iMac is handling config duties in the garage and serving as a hard-linked test bed. ...and after several rounds of IP silliness the Win2k box is talking to the net.

At various times I've had other bits and pieces up, but for the most part I've been trying to integrate things that aren't really expected to play well together... The chief culprit is ICS on the Win2k box not liking how the dsl router does things ...and after dealing with wheels within wheels within wheels, I'm about done!

...and if you toss in the hard drive failure on the Linux box that handles the email here, well...

So yeah, it's time to pack it in and start afresh Sunday... Maybe then I can get to the two boxen and find out what I'm missing. ...and make sure I don't have the IPs swapped on the two NICS in the Win2k box <g>!

Well, the weather did pull off one heck of a change... Yeah, we went from 102 just a week ago to 72 yesterday. ...and fifteen of those degrees came since Friday night's post on the blog . Whew...

Yep, blading Saturday morning was nicely cool! ...and the cloud cover was the reason our part of the state didn't warm up much at all during the day. Yeah. ...and since it was finally "cold" out, the kids went for the "Can we toast marshmallows tonight?" routine. Ummm... Okay...

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"Any sufficiently advanced technology is
indistinguishable from magic."
Arthur C. Clarke, "Technology and the Future"

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