How to disappear from the Internet

And other Items of Interest

Folks, a few things for your Friday.

* Podcast: How to disappear from the internet

“On this week’s episode of the TechRepublic podcast, Frank Ahern reveals the secrets of skip tracing and social engineering. Frank also explains how to disappear completely and never be found.” Cick here.

* Why Microsoft’s ‘Tay’ AI bot went wrong

“She was supposed to come off as a normal teenage girl. But less than a day after her debut on Twitter, Microsoft’s chatbot—an AI system called “Tay.ai”—unexpectedly turned into a Hitler-loving, feminist-bashing troll. So what went wrong? TechRepublic turns to the AI experts for insight into what happened and how we can learn from it..” Read more..

[ “AI” is “Artificial Intelligence” ] [ And the whole idea of AI gives me the creeps.. Remember Hal in Space Odyssey? ]

* Cloud plus artificial intelligence is creating The Matrix (and that’s a good thing)

“A study by advisory firm Leading Edge Forum titled Embracing ‘the Matrix’ and the Machine Intelligence Era, suggests that the combination of cloud computing and artificial and machine intelligence (MI) “will increasingly be able to perform just about everything that companies and individuals do, and many things that we cannot“.” Read more..

[ .. a good thing? Replaced by a machine a “good thing”?? ]

* Just look at these crazy-spendy luxury gadgets

“The luxury tech market is full of gadgets that you did not even know you wanted … until now” VIEW THE GALLERY

… well, I think that’s enough for now. It’s Good Friday. Be well.

Today’s quote: “My message, especially to young people is to have courage to think differently, courage to invent, to travel the unexplored path, courage to discover the impossible and to conquer the problems and succeed. These are great qualities that they must work towards. This is my message to the young people.” ~ A. P. J. Abdul Kalam

Copyright 2007-2015 © “Tech Paul” (Paul Eckstrom). All Rights Reserved.

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All we really have, in the end, are our stories.
Make yours great ones. Ones to be proud of.

Internet Psychology

I often marvel at the thought processes I see displayed, and marvel further at the fact that such things as shown below actually produce the desired results.

Contact my lawyer in Cambodia …

What are people thinking? How does the human mind work? Why would someone send these emails? (Why did they use all caps?)

The answers lie in the fact that such frauds steal $105 BILLION USD’s annually (that’s what’s been reported.. but I suspect that’s just the tip of the iceberg). And it’s hard for me to remain positive, upbeat and optimistic about Man’s future when I know that people actually are going to contact Isar Aqilah’s ‘lawyer’ …

Have you heard the term “social engineering”? If not, click here and learn an important thing to know in our modern world. (If you do know, forward this on to friends/family who you suspect are clueless, please.) Because it seems everyone is doing it.
And this is a bigger threat to “national security” than anyone’s willing to face. (So let’s pretend it’s not there. Maybe it will go away.)

Today’s quote: “Every good act is charity. A man’s true wealth hereafter is the good that he does in this world to his fellows.” ~ Moliere

Fun video: It’s been a while since I put up one of these..

Copyright 2007-2013 © “Tech Paul” (Paul Eckstrom). All Rights Reserved.

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>> Folks, don’t miss an article! To get Tech – for Everyone articles delivered to your e-mail Inbox, click here, or to subscribe in your RSS reader, click here. <<

---

All we really have, in the end, are our stories.
Make yours great ones. Ones to be proud of.

Would You Recognize A Scam? Are You Sure?

Scammers, Frauds, Conmen, ID Thieves, Cybercriminals, “Phish“-ers – call them what you will, but they all are attempting to acquire sensitive information such as usernames, passwords and credit card details by masquerading as a trustworthy entity. (This is called “social engineering” in today’s vernacular.)

The methods they use to trick us are many and varied — would you recognize a well-crafted scam? Could you spot a fake “look-alike” website? What if they mentioned your supervisor’s name and put you on hold and you heard the company musak?

Social Engineering: Eight Common Tactics

“Famous hacker Kevin Mitnick helped popularize the term ’social engineering’ in the ’90s, but the simple idea itself (tricking someone into doing something or divulging sensitive information) has been around for ages. And experts say hackers today continue to steal password, install malware or grab profits by employing a mix of old and new tactics.

Here’s a refresher course on some of the most prevalent social engineering tricks used by phone, email and Web.”

Folks, a quick reading recommendation today. This article by Joan Goodchild describes and explains how the cyber-criminals try to trick us. Please Click here to read this terrific primer. (And if you are an employer, you may want to ask your employees to read this too…)

Copyright 2007-2010 © Tech Paul. All rights reserved. post to jaanix

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Eight Common Cybercriminal Tactics

Folks, a quick reading recommendation today. This article by Joan Goodchild describes and explains how the cyber-criminals try to trick us into clicking on links and/or revealing our personal information. Forewarned is forearmed, so learn to spot these ruses now…

Social Engineering: Eight Common Tactics

 

“Famous hacker Kevin Mitnick helped popularize the term ’social engineering’ in the ’90s, but the simple idea itself (tricking someone into doing something or divulging sensitive information) has been around for ages. And experts say hackers today continue to steal password, install malware or grab profits by employing a mix of old and new tactics.

Here’s a refresher course on some of the most prevalent social engineering tricks used by phone, email and Web.” Click here to read.

See how many you recognize.

Copyright 2007-9 © Tech Paul. All rights reserved. post to jaanix

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Skype Users Beware

Folks, if you use the very popular VoIP program Skype – as I do – you need to be aware of some recent cybercriminal activities. These bogus ‘alerts’ try to trick you into installing malware on your machine (which will bypass your security).

1) The fake “Windows needs immediate attention” attack is active again. Please see, Skype — “Windows Requires Immediate Attention”.. Not!

2) There’s a new attempt – using a trojan and a pretend ‘add-on’ – to steal your account information. Please see, SpySkype.C Trojan Wants to Talk to You! by Internet Security blogger Bill Mullins.

Please alert your friends and family (who use Skype) to these “social engineering” scams too.

[addenda: Peter Parkes (Skype Blogger) wrote and asked me to remind my readers to, quote, “Please report users who send these messages to abuse@skype.net – that will help us to block them where appropriate.”]

Copyright 2007-9 © Tech Paul. All rights reserved. post to jaanix

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Is that anti-spyware program really spyware?

Over the 200+ articles I have written, I have tried to help educate people about the dangers we face in this era of ‘always-on’ Internet connections — such as hackers, cyber-criminals, phishing, and malware — and offered advice on how to get protected.
Yesterday, and continuing on into today, I have been assisting a client in trying to rid their machine of malware (trojans, worms, etc.) infection and to do so short of wiping their drive and starting over. Folks, you do not want to let this stuff onto your machine. Part of this person’s problem was they were tricked into installing a rogue anti-spyware program.. which in fact infected their machine. So I have decided that I will re-post my article on such applications, in case you missed it the first time. Originally titled “25 years since the first virus”, it appeared 9/12/07–

Time marches on.. twenty five years ago a High School freshman wrote the first “true” virus, and distributed it to his friends (via floppy disk) as a practical joke. That the “Elk Cloner” virus was harmless, and the young man went on to become a heavyweight in the computing industry, allows us to bear him no ill will. If it hadn’t have been him, it would’ve been someone else; there were “experimental” viruses written before his.

Those of you who have been around for a while may remember the evolution of viruses: from a harmless prank to system destroyers to profit-centric spyware. Security experts generally agree to the important historical malware events as being as follows: Elk Cloner, 1982; Brain, 1986; Morris, 1988; Melissa, 1999; Love Bug, 2000 (aka ILOVEYOU); Code Red, 2001; Blaster, 2003; and Sasser, 2004. (For a much more complete history of viruses, worms, and trojans, click here.) (Today, we have the Storm worm in the news.)

Today, the business of keeping data and communications safe from viruses and other malware is a $38 billion dollar industry.. and growing. Yes, a lot has changed in twenty five years: I have gray in my hair now, for one.

Tip of the day: Beware of “rogue” anti-spyware programs. There is so much money to be made off of stealing corporate data, identities, and sending spam that the malware writers have created spyware that claims to prevent spyware. You think you’re installing a spyware remover, but you’re not. You are actually installing their malware.
Some claim to give you an anti-spyware scan for free, and they “discover” a critical infection (again bogus) which, if you buy the “Professional” version, they’ll clean up for you. Please, Dear Reader, never fall for this. The quality anti-spyware programs are well-known and are routinely rated and compared by reputable sources like PC World and PC Magazine and C/Net.
[Note: there is an excellent list of know rogue anti-spyware apps posted on Spyware Warrior.]

One such program is currently sending a few people my way for assistance, named Spy Shredder. There is plenty about this nasty on the Internet. Most reputable anti-spyware utilities will detect and remove this (see today’s free link as well) item. The people infected with it (who contacted me) had no protections except an antivirus, and it was kind of hard to feel sorry for them. There is no excuse, in this day and age, to not be running Internet Security programs. Full Internet Security Suites are easy to find that are free after rebate, after all.

For those of you looking here to find out how to remove Spy Shredder, I suggest you click on the word “anti-spyware” in my Tag Cloud, download and run the anti-spyware programs I have suggested in the “Today’s free links” area (always at the bottom of Tech-for Everyone articles), as well as today’s — do not try the manual removal methods found at other websites unless you’re a skilled and experienced Registry editor.

[Update 4/5/08: Bill Mullins has just posted a wonderful article on rogue anti-spyware programs which includes a list of known villians, and a tool useful for removing them (prevention is better, but..). http://billmullins.wordpress.com/2008/04/05/don%e2%80%99t-download-antispywaremaster-%e2%80%93-rogue-security-software/. I also recommend looking at his How Fake/Rogue Software Affects Real People]

Today’s free link: SpyCatcher Express from Tenebril. From website:

Allows novice PC users to remove aggressive spyware

Stops next-generation, mutating spyware

Blocks reinstallation of aggressive spyware

Removes spyware safely and automatically  

Copyright 2007 © Tech Paul, All Right Reserved

 

 

 

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