Email Chain Letters - Ripping Off The Cyber Population $1 At a Time

Email Chain Letters - Ripping Off The Cyber Population $1 At a Time

What is it with people sending on these email scams that promise you a lifetime of riches and good luck?

They are so friendly telling you that you deserve all of this wealth, pulling you into their web of deceit.

The originator of these scam emails knows exactly what it is you want to hear, and offers you an abundance of it.

Then comes the punch line - it's going to cost you something!

Just put one dollar in an envelope and send it to the first x number of people on the list, and then add your name to the bottom of the list and send the email on to more people from your mailing list. These people don't just want to con you - they want you to perpetuate the con by adding your friends and family to the list.

But wait a minute - how did you get on the list? Well there's two main possibilities: either the originator took your email address from a mailing list that you appear on and found you that way, or, you got on the list because someone you know was sucked into the con and thought you'd play along too.

Think about it for a moment. Have any of your friends suddenly become rich? Overnight have they resigned from their job and took off on a luxury round the world cruise? No? That's what I thought!

So why do scam emails like this keep arriving in your mailing box? Well for one reason, one of those top names on the list is probably going to be the originator of the scam.

They will receive $1 for every person who falls for this desperate urge to become rich, and let's face it - it's only about $5 in total and so many people will take the gamble right? That means the originator of the list is going to be getting rich $1 at a time.

Mightn't seem a lot but like your mother always told you cents soon make dollars, and dollars soon start to add up when they are constantly coming through the mail.

Let's look at another possibility. You actually do get money back. Do you seriously think it's going to be the huge amount of money that the original email promises you? I don't think so.

The reason for this is quite simple. Whilst there are some people who can afford to gamble the dollar - or alternatively are needing money so badly they'll try again - most people will do what you probably will do - hit the kill key and delete the email for the rubbish that it really is.

The only reason that these emails keep going is that they do work - but only for one person, the person who sent out the first original email. Chances are they didn't just send it to their friends, but rather they bought a mailing list, or trawled through membership lists on email groups, and created the master list from which to start this scam.

There are so many millions of people with online access that it's not too hard to believe that they could send this to a lot of people and still not send it to two people who actually know each other - at least not well enough to talk about what's in the scam mail each day!

If you get one of these, do what you would do with a regular chain mail letter that dropped through your home's mailbox, bin it. Don't take any notice of any supposed bad luck or bad karma messages that come at the end of the scam letter.

Take a stand for the non-scammers and don't send on that dollar, don't add more names to the list, just delete it and never think of it again.

If everyone did that, pretty soon they'd give up - until they found a new way to entice money from unsuspecting people!

Katie-Anne Gustafsson, 2006

Ignorance and the Internet

Ignorance and the Internet.

Though the Internet is used as a tool for communication, shopping, and information, many of its users are not properly briefed on the rising hazards of using the World Wide Web.

“Net crimes and misdemeanors are committed against more than 60,000 people a year, and the number is growing every day, according to statistics from the FBI and victim advocate associations,”(Hitchcock 2).

To start, basic use of the Internet requires a very small technological vocabulary which enables immediate access to anyone. This easy access allows unlimited possibilities to the handler’s resources without the proper forewarning needed with a tool that carries any and all information from one source to another.

The book, Net crimes and Misdemeanors: Outmaneuvering the Spammers, Swindlers, and Stalkers Who Are Targeting You Online. By J.A. Hitchcock emphasizes and argues the importance of an education with a limitless information based connection such as the Internet.

“If our privacy is up to us to protect, we need resources like this book to teach us how to assert our right to be left alone,”(Hitchcock xviii).

Hitchcock emphasizes three major types of online traps: Social traps, Downloadable viruses, and credit card/identity theft through unsafe online shopping. By taking action in reading the book and reporting cases of the above listed traps, people are better able to encourage the government to pass new laws and follow through with support groups as well as other forms of help.

Through the authors shared stories of Internet catastrophes, both her own, and others, she leads by example for her readers. All three online traps happen most frequently to those Internet users who don’t take the right privacy precautions such as being aware of what personal information to disclose online (if any), how to make sure a website is safe before giving their personal information, and downloading the right protective software for the computer while keeping abreast of the ever changing security updates.

“Not only install an anti-virus program on your computer, but remember to keep it updated at least once a week so that your computer is inoculated against new viruses that crop up,”(Hitchcock 278).

In the case of technology, Hitchcock preaches that ignorance is not bliss. Simple rules such as reading into a company’s Terms of Agreement when shopping and setting up two email accounts, one readers only hand out to people they trust, puts a jump start on safety.

The traps most often inflicted on users have to do with misplaced trust in the Internet as a safe environment and the people on the Internet. “People are inherently trusting, and for some reason it seems this is even truer online.

One myth of the Internet is that users can remain anonymous,”(Hitchcock 289). This well known misconception makes an education about online stalkers, phishing, viruses, and online shopping a must because all of the above can happen while putting faith into an unsecured person or web page.

Without becoming aware of the dangers of simple trust in technology, scams can happen to people on both lesser known websites and very well known websites such as Myspace (www.myspace.com).

Most often the simple steps that the author details such as password protection and checking links in the overhead bar before signing in can stop the social spammers that hack into accounts.

One of the most popular methods of obtaining information and using it on the web is through social networking sites such as Myspace because of the wealth of targets provided. Once an account is hacked into by obtaining log-in information by a fake log-in screen, the person’s information is screened into a database leading to a takeover resulting in spamming, or mass advertisement through that person’s site, or worse.

If people became educated and put aside their unrealistic trust in all things technological, perhaps the hackers of Myspace would become less prevalent. As it is “95 percent of new phishing traffic targeted Myspace,”(Vaas 31) which leads to the second half of this paper, how the knowledge of Internet safety and dangers can severely limit the social phishing of Myspace.

One of the major factors in Internet safety is always checking the overhead bar to ensure the website is official before log-in, as well as staying away from any and all clickable advertisements.

Most often these advertisements take the user to a fake log-in screen tricking them into believing they have been accidentally logged out. Once they sign back on to the server, their home page will look the same as it did before, however their information will now be available to a third party host.

Through scrutinizing URL’s the risk of this happening becomes severely limited.”The phisher could notify a victim of a ‘security threat’. Such a message may be welcomed or expected by the victim, who would then be easily induced into disclosing personal information,”(Jagatic 96).

This method is most often called “spear –phishing” or “context-aware phishing” because if participants were more aware of their online activities, it would happen less often.

An experiment conducted by John Hopkins University showed that 68-76% of students were more likely to give out personal information through this phishing technique, though they all grew up in a supposedly techno-savvy environment.(Jagatic 97).

In an age of information, the most important knowledge is gained through advice websites such as SecurityCartoon.com, which emphasizes the dangers of phishing, how to report an attack, and the uses for the information that the hackers have gotten so victims can cut them off at the source.

This makes other, more severe measures, such as changing Internet service providers and all other personal information and credit cards possibly unnecessary if taken care of right away.

Based on the information given on a Myspace profile, once hacked there is no limit to the information a possible hacker can obtain just through simple search methods and a little money. By scrimping on as much information as possible, users can keep security risk to a minimum while still giving out personal information to trusted real-life friends and family members using more secure means.

Not understanding the dangers on Myspace is just one major example of how everyday people are taken advantage of by their ignorance of the world around them. In a leap to help users understand the dangers of phishing, multiple posts have been done by the moderator of Myspace “Tom”, in an effort to better inform people on safety measures and what MySpace can and cannot do for people attacked.

Hitchcock pushes for higher media coverage of Internet crimes not only when affecting large scales of people, but wherever possible. Using the media as an outlet to educate causes a greater known awareness in the feigned safety and anonymity of the Internet.

“The media has given some coverage to this growing problem, but not enough. It tends to emphasize sensational cases without imparting safety information to the public,”(Hitchcock 2). The author hopes to open up the public’s eyes to the dangers through providing links, hotlines, and other major resources outlining safety information.

She also outlines steps to report attacks in hopes of bringing awareness to higher levels of government and passing laws against some of the worst cases such as social-phishing and identity theft.

Through setting the right examples and the sharing of information about the net, the dangers for victims of social traps, viruses, and shopping online decrease steadily.

The main problem with people using the Internet as a resource of open knowledge is that personal knowledge can be gained by everyone.

In order to break down the wall of trust built into an ever-expanding technological advancement, people need to come to terms with the lie that all users of the Internet are safe. J.A. Hitchcock proves through her book that knowledge of privacy can beat most hackers at their own game while still allowing Internet users to do what they like and have a good time.

If people were informed more through this book and the growing pool of interest in phishing happening on Myspace, the population wouldn’t be taken advantage of quite so much.

In this case, Hitchcock understands, knowledge really is power.

Bibliography

Hitchcock, Jayne A. Net Crimes & Misdemeanors: Outmaneuvering the Spammers, Swindlers, and Stalkers Who are Targeting You Online.New Jersey: CyberAge Books, 2002: 2, 278, 289.

Jagatic, Tom N. “Social Phishing.”Communications of The ACM 50 Oct 2007: 94-100.

Vaas, Lisa.”MySpace worm dodges detection: Exploit uses Fast-Flux Technology to Turn MySpace Users’ Sites into Zombies.” Security Solutions. 13 Aug 2001. Vol 34.http://go.eweek.com/casestudies 31, 32