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Are You on a Spam Rage? Chill Out or Lose Your Job!
The yuletide season is here. And while you’re
battling with the road rage with all the Christmas
rush happening all over, now you’re also
under stress attack with the road rage on the
information superhighway.
Spam
has made many people angry, and some who were
unable to control their anger eventually lost
their job. Wall Street Journal columnists Tim
Hanrahan and Jason Fry wrote last week that
an irate Philadelphia radio reporter ended up
getting fired. The radio reporter named Rachel
Buchman over-reacted and left an angry voicemail
to an unsolicited emailer (conservative issue
firm LaptopLobbyist).
The
voicemail said: "You're evil, horrible
people. You're awful people. You represent horrible
ideas. God hates you. He wants to kill your
children. You should all burn in hell. Bye."
After receiving this message, LaptopLobbyist
complained to the station.
Ms.
Buchman confessed in Philadelphia Weekly that
the “trouble started when she couldn’t
get off the group’s email list and decided
to contact the company.”
The
problem with spam is it has turned into a major
modern-day nuisance -- like the nasty traffic,
air pollution, or uncollected garbage –
that can let you easily lose your cool (also,
think about your irritating in-laws, overblown
cellphone or credit card charges).
In
their column “Real Time,” Hanrahan
and Fry cited an example: “About a year
ago, a California man was arrested for repeatedly
threatening to wreak vengeance on a spammer
in various terrible ways – anthrax spores,
death by ice pick and power drill – unless
said spammer stopped pitching him penis-enlargement
products.”
In
Russia, a communications official was fed up
with the emails from a Moscow school. He automatically
dialed the offending institution 1,000 times
in one morning with a voice message warning
that they must cease their “illegal activity.”
Hanrahan
and Fry further wrote: “The real wonder
is that spam rage isn't more common. We can
identify with the spam ragers, especially when
they turn out to be more-or-less regular folks
who just lost their cool. Spam is like a school
bully who pokes you in the head every 10 seconds
-- most of the time you show you're the bigger
person by just walking away, but sometimes you
go bananas instead. And everyone thinks you're
the crazy one.
“…[A]nd
so our advice in spam-rage cases sounds a lot
like the sensible but quietly infuriating counsel
our moms used to offer in any number of situations:
Stay cool and walk away. Treat spammers like
spots of nasty weather: avoid them if you can,
be prepared in case you can't, and accept what
you can't change. Nasty e-mails and phone calls
beget nasty e-mails and phone calls, and no
one wins these things. In fact, it's definitely
not a good idea to attract any extra attention
from people who have bulk e-mail programs at
their disposal.”
We
couldn’t agree more. Getting back at spammers
with angry and even nasty emails or voicemails
doesn’t solve the spam problem at all.
So, when you wake up one morning and all you
need to do is clean up your inbox of all disgusting
things that try to sell you Viagra, don’t
freak out. Try to seek refuge in a bit of moral
superiority, as Hanrahan and Fry would advise
us, and start hitting the DELETE button.
Don’t
let spam spoil your Christmas. So chill out
and cheer up!
Spiritual
Spam Now on Active Mode
Move
over all you unsolicited ads for Vicodin and
Viagra, phony Rolex watches and new mortgages.
These are about to share the inbox space with
a more ethereal product--the spiritual spam.
Jack
M. Germain reported for E-Commerce Times that
spiritual spam has been around for some time.
But recently, there seems to be an emerging
trend for unsolocited email containing religious
content.
Spam
analysts, however, are at a loss for an explanation
of the spiritual spam activity. Perhaps it is
an attempt by spammers to count responses to
see how effective their messages are, or a way
for spammers to harvest a new crop of email
addresses.
He
added that much of the spiritual spam is from
legitimate organizations trying to sell Bibles
or other religious items. Most of the spam are
Christian.
Industry
experts say more spammers could take advantage
of the holiday celebrations.
Back to top
Con Internet-Accelerator
Software Swamps U.S. Universities
U.S. universities are struggling with
an influx of dangerous spyware that can prowl
on private communication using Secure Sockets
Layer (SSL), Paul Roberts wrote for IDG News
Service. Marketscore could be used to intercept
sensitive information, including passwords,
health, and financial data.
Recently,
information technology departments of some universities,
including Columbia University, Cornell University,
Indiana University, the State University of
New York at Albany, and Pennsylvania State University,
warned their users about the stealthy software
and posted instructions for removing it.
Marketscore
is created by a company with the same mailing
address as online behavior tracking company
ComScore Networks. Marketscore is just the latest
incarnation of a spyware program called Netsetter,
which first appeared in January, said Sam Curry,
vice president of ETrust Security Management
at Computer Associates (CA).
"Basically it takes all your Web traffic
and forces it through its own proxy servers,"
he said.
This
redirection speeds up Web surfing but performance
benefits have been elusive, raising a number
of complaints.
David
Escalante, director of computer security at
Boston College, said the number of infected
systems reported range from a handful to 200
on one large campus network.
Berkeley
Hack Leads to Stringent Information Security
California's state-run programs are
now inaccessible to the research community under
proposed legislation announced early this month
after a university system housing personal data
on about 1 million participants has been penetrated,
Kevin Poulsen of Security Focus reported.
The
bill, as proposed by State Senator Debra Bowen,
would prohibit state agencies from giving researchers
any personally identifiable information on Californians,
including names, Social Security numbers, dates
of birth, and addresses, said a spokesperson
for the lawmaker.
But
researchers warn that it could cripple a broad
range of important research in economics and
social sciences.
The
proposal was prompted by an incident when in
August 1 at the University of California, Berkeley,
a computer intruder cracked a system used by
Candace Howes, a visiting economics professor
conducting research into the effectiveness of
California's In-Home Supportive Services program.
The
compromised system housed a database with the
names, addresses, phone numbers, Social Security
numbers and dates of birth of everyone who provided
or received care under the program since 2001
- some 1.4m people, according to state officials
and Howes.
Important
Research At Risk—Professors
"I
think it would shut down a lot of really important
research that's being done trying to make people's
lives better, including research on poverty,
income distribution, employment, health services,
and anything in social services, including welfare
and Medicare," says Howes.
Howes
admitted that she lacked the knowledge that
her system might be vulnerable to intruders,
and she supports now the more rigorous security
standards for researchers and universities.
"But I don't think precluding access to
this kind of data is really the answer to the
problem," says Howes.
Some
corners of academia have already developed stringent
methodologies for protecting personal identifiers,
says political science professor Henry Brady,
a director at the U.C. Data Archive and Technical
Assistance center, which works with government
census data. Brady advocates pooling sensitive
information into data enclaves and guarding
it by those with information security expertise.
"If
this bill passes we won't be able to do evaluations
of all kinds of government reforms and their
consequences," Brady says.
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UK's Biggest
Spammer Faces Raps
Britain's
most prolific spammer, Peter Francis-Macrae,
has appeared in court for various charges. The
spammer has been on the run from both the police
and UK domain registry Nominet as reported in
The Register.
A
warrant for his arrest was issued after he failed
to turn up to a hearing at Huntington Magistrates
court. Francis-Macrae, who lives in the tiny
village of St. Neots in Cambridgeshire is charged
with five criminal counts from threats to kill,
sending offensive messages and threatening to
burn a trading standards office that was investigating
him for a variety of Internet scams.
Meanwhile
Nominet has won an injunction against Francis-Macrae
and his company Ultra Technologies. The company
decided to take Francis-Macrae to court after
he sent domain re-registration forms to Nominet
passing himself off as connected to it. The
company claimed that he used the Whois domain
to get details of its customers, which he then
used and compensate it for all costs related
to settling the matter.
The
spammer has been into trouble on the Internet
until he landed into Cambridgeshire's chief
constable Tom Lloyd. In one of his operations,
he gave out Tom Lloyd's name and the police
switchboard number without knowing it. This
led to his arrest.
Nominet
has personally served Francis-Macrae with the
court papers.
Russian Virus Writer Fined
A
29A virus writers group Russian member was fined
3,000 roubles (about £57) after he admitted
writing malicious code, The Register reported.
Eugene
a.k.a. Whale Suchkov, of the Russian Republic
of Udmurtia, admitted posting live code for
the Stepan and Gastropod viruses alongside the
source code to create variants onto a number
of underground virus exchange websites.
The
group, well known for creating proof of concept
viruses, whose active membership estimated by
anti-virus company Sophos to be from 12 to 20,
is drawn from Europe.
Former Virus Writer Now an Anti-Virus Software
Developer
A
prominent virus writer is now an anti-virus
software developer.
Benny,
a former member of 29A virus writing group,
is now the main developer of Zoner Anti-Virus
(ZAV), The Register reported.
Zoner
Company, the developer of Zoner Anti-Virus,
hired Benny to develop security software to
protect servers run by Zoner's Internet Division.
Despite
controversies of employing virus writers for
fear of bad public relations and the industry
discouraging the idea that writing viruses can
lead into a lucrative career in computer security,
the company said they hired Benny for his skill
and principle.
Benny,
22, was involved with computer virus underground
for five years, being a member of the 29A, well
known for developing proof of concept code.
The virus writer admitted having written a virus
to infect Windows 2000 to humiliate the software
giant but didn't release it.
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top
Two
Korean Ministries Fight Over Anti-Spam War Jurisdiction
The
Fair Trade Commission (FTC) and the Ministry
of Information and Communication (MIC) clash
on whose jurisdiction does the control of spam
or unsolicited commercial messages in the Internet
fall, Kim Tae-gyu reported for Korea Times.
FTC
said it plans to beef up efforts to crack down
on spam as many advisory groups recommended
strengthened measures against spammers. The
ministry goes for mails whose subject lines
don't correspond with the content and also for
spammers who are left free due to lack of relevant
regulations. It will come out with the final
version of fortified anti-spam measures and
seek legislation of the crackdown next year.
MIC,
the ministry in charge of the war against online
commercial messages, was irate of FTC's claim.
"The
FTC's claim doesn't make sense because we already
have regulations that outlaw spam mail with
distinct subject lines compared to contents,"
an MIC official told Korea Times. The same official
added that for the past 10 months, the MIC has
fined as many as 238 spam senders.
Observers,
on the other hand, said that the ministries
should instead focus on the people's interest.
Spam
Hampers Hong Kong Productivity
Millions
of US dollars each year are spent in wasted
time and lost productivity due to spam. Half
of all emails in Hong Kong are spam and nearly
all of it comes from outside territory, a government
survey revealed as reported by Independent Online,
South Africa.
Only
five percent of the spam comes from Hong Kong
while forty percent comes from Asia and the
rest from the United States.
Secretary
for Commerce, Industry, and Technology John
Tsang said legislation is not the only solution
to the problem. "We may need to look at
cooperation with the industry and other jurisdictions
and see how to raise the shield from a technology
perspective," he said.
CICT Chief:
New RP Cybercrime Bill Has Anti-Spam Provision
An
anti-spam provision is included in the latest
draft of a cybercrime measure, a government
information and communications technology official
told the Philippine Daily Inquirer.
Virgilio
Peña, chief of the Commission on Information
and Communications Technology (CICT), stated
that the anti-spam provision is the latest addition
to the pending cybercrime measure that hopes
to impose stiffer penalties against Internet-related
crimes.
Peña
is endorsing the cybercrime bill to both the
House of Representatives and the Senate. The
bill provides a measure penalizing a range of
undesirable computer-related activities such
as writing and distributing viruses, online
fraud, extortion, distribution of child pornography,
and cyberterrorism,
Back to top
Cabir
Worm Hits Phones Through Skulls Program
"Skulls" Trojan
Horse's second version with a cell phone virus
have been unleashed by virus writers, a security
company has warned, ZDNet.com UK reported.
The hybrid Skulls.B
Trojan horse displays images of skulls on handsets
running the Symbian operating system and releases
the Cabir.B worm, software maker F-Secure said
in an advisory. Cabir spreads by sending itself
to other handsets within Bluetooth broadcasting
range.
Skulls.B-infected
phones can infest nearby handsets with Cabir.
It was originally distributed as "Extended
Theme Manager." One will know that Cabir
is infecting because the word "Caribe"
is displayed on the screen as the worm modifies
the Symbian operating system and looks for other
cell phones to target.
F-Secure
director of anti-virus research Mikko Hypponen
said that Skulls is indicative of a growing
effort among virus writers to target wireless
handsets. "Skulls's existence shows that
there is increasing activity in the underground
looking a phones and genuine interest in how
to write Trojans, backdoors and viruses for
these devices," he said.
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Opinions From
Inspector Mails
| Inspector
Mails is the AI entity for Bigfoot's Anti-Spam
Solution. He
will be giving regular updates
and opinions on current anti-spam
trends. |
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Virus
Disguised as Christmas Message
Don’t be fooled
by this email that bears the message “Happy
Holidays” and the subject line “Merry
Christmas”, even when it appears to be
from someone you know.
Most likely,
it is a worm, attached in a file that pretends
to be a holiday postcard greeting and usually
arrives via email and through peer-to-peer networks.
The message may appear in different languages
based on your country’s domain.
This worm, called Zafi.d,
is a variant of the Zafi worm. Zafi.d is a mass-mailing
worm that when executed, copies itself twice
to the %windir%\system32 folder using a random
name and .DLL extension. The worm copies itself
to directories on the C: drive containing one
of the following strings: "share",
"upload" or "music".
According to TechTree,
this worm sends itself out in Hungarian and
English, creates a registry key, so that infected
files are executed every time an infected computer
is turned on. Zafi.d also has the ability to
search for directories of anti-virus and personal
firewall software, and then overwrite the executables
with a copy of itself.
In an attempt to thwart
manual identification and cleaning of an infected
machine, the worm will also attempt to terminate
processes.
According to reports,
the virus poses a greater threat to home users
as it is most frequently attached to email as
a .php file. Home-based Web users may be less
diligent in updating their anti-virus software.
Attachments appear at
12 KB in size. Once inside the infected system,
the worm drops a copy of itself under a legitimate-sounding
file name.
Back to
top
"I
find your newsletter very valuable."
I find your
newsletter very valuable.
So far this
month I have "won" the UK
Lottery for $823,000;" and been
offered free online bill pay by "SunTrust
Banks" -- whose websites do not
load, or part of them are really SunTrust
and the rest are the scammers' SunTrust-
look-alikes. (If there even is a SunTrust
Bank). By clicking on"Lost Pasword,"
then on "Continue" (without
filling in any blanks), we learn that
all fields are required -- SSN, your
ATM cardnumber, your PIN, and the
last 4 digits of either your checking
or savings account. Then the screen
changes into Arabic, the computer
freezes, and the error messages start
appearing.
So far I have
blown these guys into to Treasury,
the state banking commission, the
FBI, the UK Lottery Commission, Scotland
Yard, etc.
Frankie
Anderson
Reference Librarian
Wells College
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Thank you for your vote of confidence.
It has always been our main editorial
thrust to provide our readers with relevant
news from around the globe about spam
and the global fight against it. We are
pleased that you find our newsletter valuable.
We
believe you are on the right track.
The whole anti-spam community needs
vigilant users like you who take the
time and effort to do their own share
of the pie. And we commend you for that.
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appreciate all of the comments and responses
we have received about the newsletter. We will
be addressing your concerns in the next issue.
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