The Time Sink

Well, now! Only nine days until Men's Shopping Night... Hmmm... I guess I'd better start thinking about what to get people. Darn. I'm betting since Shelley hasn't used her radial arm saw from last Christmas yet, there's no point in the table saw I had picked out for her...

She's feeling better, by the way, but certainly not over her cold. ...and Brad's still a bit febrile; but if you didn't have a thermometer to check him, you couldn't tell.

Me, I've been merrily playing around with satellite maps in hopes of hooking up a web friend with some history. ...and using Apt to update the Red Hat 8 install on Tux whenever there's a free block of time to handle a download.

Hmmmm.... Let's just try this again tomorrow... Yep, Plan "B" is in effect: sleep!

Ah, finally... I think I can actually see the end of the begining of the start of the ramp up for Christmas. No, wait... Maybe it's the start of the end of the run to the finish... Eh? Whatever... Homework is almost finished; there's a math test on the horizon that is a life wrecker; and we're down to parties at school...

Come on, how many adults are this excited over no homework <g>? Yep, I'm ready for some quiet nights here. ...and it's not like I don't have a list as long as Santa's of projects here and projects there. So yeah, I'm getting ready to get started to begin to initialize the Christmas thing in my mind...

Okay! One math test for the oldest, one spelling test for the youngest and we are done! Yeah! Oh, yeah, one more day of work. Well, a half day, it's looking to be. Something about a lunch deal...

Hmm... I got busy downloading a few hundred meg via Apt for Red Hat... It seems it takes a while on dialup <g>.

...and the Christmas season insanity continues in full swing. ...but Shelley seems to be slowing down on her shopping and I'll take that as a good sign. ...and not of the Apocalypse!

Me? Well, yeah, there's still time. Why? Are you in a hurry? See, it's simple: the stores stay open late on the 24th for a some reason. I mean, it seems silly not to help them out on a slow night?

Okay, let's line out an eBay scam for those who aren't quite up to speed on things... No, not you, your Aunt Minnie, who just found out about the place and figures to complete that set of depression glass she's treasured all these years. So maybe forward this one to her, -eh?

Things start out innocuously enough, with just an email from eBay (eBay <supportdep61@eBay.com>). ...but if you take a look at the body, it's not really a text message at all, it's a gif:

Hmmm... And the entire gif is hotlinked! If you mouseover the gif, you see: "http://scgi.ebay.comindexupdateyourinformationsecure@211.213.29.167:4901/dl/index.htm", which the browser sees as: "http://scgi.ebay.com%69%6E%64%65%78%75%70%64%61%74%65%79%6F%75%72%69%6E%66% 6F%72%6D%61%74%69%6F%6E%73%65%63%75%72%65@%32%31%31%2e%32%31%33%2e%32%39%2e %31%36%37:%34%39%30%31/%64%6C/%69%6E%64%65%78%2E%68%74%6D"

So... If you were to click on what you think is the legitimate looking link in the message, you'll end up where the link behind the gif wants you to go. ...and that would be here:

...and while that looks really, really good (Brad assured me it was eBay <g>!), even to the point of hijacking the graphics and help link from eBay's own servers, the Whois on the true URI yields a place in Korea. ...and don't most eBay logins begin with "http://signin.ebay.com"? Yeah, I thought so...

So, just a click so she can keep buying, a easy form to fill out, and she's all set ...and the asshats have Aunt Minnie's credit card info and access to her eBay account. Kinda' slick, really. ...but it shows how easily Aunt Minnie (my apologies to all the alert Aunt Minnies of the world) could be taken in by one of these scams. eBay has excellent pages on security, and even a page to report such as this (of course I did!); but it's all a bit deeper into their pages than the casual user would tend to go.

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

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