Luckily for us, not everybody who goes phishing for your personal information is very good at it. This elegant example arrived in my in-box just today:
we wishes to inform you that your E-mail id have won you a lump sum pay
out of Eight hundred and ninty-one thousand,nine hundred and thirty-four
Great Britain pounds £891,934.00 pounds sterlings)you are to contact our
agent.
Mr Phil Herald.
Email:cgnl_claimsagent@gala.net
TEL: +447031907814
+447031925941
He will brief you on steps to be taken for due processing and remittance
of your prize money.
PLEASE FILL OUT THE VERIFICATION AND FUNDS RELEASE
============================================
1. FULL NAMES OF BENEFICIARY:
2. RESIDENTIAL ADDRESS:
3. DATE AND PLACE OF BIRTH:
4. PHONE/FAX NUMBERS:
5. NAME AND ADDRESS OF NEXT OF KIN:
6. SEX:
7. OCCUPATION:
8. MARITAL STATUS:
9. NATIONALITY:
10. REF NUMBER AND BATCH NUMBER:
11. AMOUNT WON:
Sincerely,
Mrs. Dianne Thompson
Online Coordinator,
CAMELOT GROUP,Operators of The National Lottery.
My email address, by nature of being so danged long, used to be nearly spam-proof. Starting a blog and publishing it seems to have weakened its resistance. Lesson? If you're going to start a blog, make sure you create a NEW email address for it. I should have thought of that before hand, but this site started as sort of a test... I didn't realize that I'd keep it or enjoy writing so much!
-The Misanthrope
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Why all the names?
So, why all the pseudonyms? Well, in the first place, this is a political site, and my job just isn't conducive to public opinions about our national leaders. That'll likely change in a year or two when I hope to start my own business, but until then it's probably a good idea to not advertise who I am. As for why there are three names (moral hedonist, misanthropic humanist, and constantine magildahyde...) well, there are three different explanations. I'd like the whole thing to be the Misanthropic Humanist, but that address was already taken. Moral Hedonist is more descriptive of who I am, rather than the misanthropic humanist which is a world-view. Constantine Magildahyde is just what happened one day when I tried to get a good email address with my real first and last name and it said that was already taken. Well, I can't tell you what that is yet, but for now you'll have to take my word for it that there's no possible way. So anyway, I got mad and typed in the weirdest name I could think of. Unfortunately that worked, and it's been my email address for years.
Most phishing efforts are not so blatantly scams. I received a request for information that appeared to be from one of my creditors. It looked right, except for one misspelled word, and mimicked the bank's website, but I called them to verify, and the request had not originated with them. Perhaps the study of English could be promoted as a security measure!
ReplyDeleteA great idea, if it weren't for actual banks and creditors misspelling things almost as often. I even feel like reading newspapers with a red pen these days!
ReplyDelete