the sephone blog

“The Ghost is in the Machine!” The simple truth about those weird emails:

You don’t know anybody in Nigeria, you don’t want a rolex watch! It is easy to wonder why people continue to send out these emails, even though “nobody” responds to them.

First of all, some people do respond to these emails, but the term “respond” does not always mean hitting the REPLY button. Did you know that you can be responding to the email just by looking at it?

Imbedded Links and images are a SPAMMERS delight! If you click or display on either of these, it actually is almost as if you answered the email. The SPAMMER gets what it wants — CONFIRMATION that it went to your VALID email address, which is what they are looking for.

Here is how it works: They take your valid email address, sometimes even going through your address book and and use it for launching viruses, or other ploys. Like when you receive those messages from banks you have never heard of or that Pay Pal account you don’t have. These are sent all in the hope that you will click on the link, give them your personal information. And you never even see it happen, there is a script that is running inside your computer “The Ghost is in the Machine” while you are going about your business.

SPAM isn’t just annoying it is dangerous. There are server based solutions like “Postini” that Sephone is offering now and there are software products you can buy just for your own PC, like Norton and others that are encryption services that protect your every keystroke.

The Federal Trade Commission has a terrific and easy to use web site that is very helpful:

You can visit it here by clicking this link. This site covers all kinds of Identity Theft, it is a good thing to bookmark so you can keep up with the latest “tricks” that are happening!

In the world of the Web, tools known as WYSIWYGs are used to edit large or complex areas of content. A WYSIWYG – a What You See Is What You Get editor – is useful when you need to insert text formatting (like boldface or italics), links, pictures, or other types of special text into whatever you’re writing.

Every so often, though, you may find that a WYSIWYG editor doesn’t live up to its name, and some content from the editor may look different when you look at it on the site that you’re editing. We find that this happens most often when content is pasted into the editor from desktop editing programs like Microsoft Word.

Behind the scenes of your text: lost in translation

Underneath any document you make with a rich text editor (including Microsoft Word and online WYSIWYGs) is a markup language. The main duty of a markup language is to let the computer know how to display the text you write; it makes the computer able to understand the difference between 36-point text and words that are bold or blue.

But not all markup languages are the same. When a computer copies text from a program like Word into an online WYSIWYG, it does its best to play the role of translator between languages. Once in a while (especially when working with content with a lot of different formatting within it) it isn’t able to correctly figure out how to translate the text from one markup language to the other. Because online WYSIWYGs aren’t as complex as a program like Word, the online text may start to act funny as it finds formatting it doesn’t understand.

What can I do?

When copying text from a program like Word into an online WYSIWYG, we usually suggest two things: wiping and plain texting.

Style wiping (also known as “scrubbing” or “cleaning”) is the easiest way to clean your content of special formatting from external programs. Wipers usually have their own toolbar button (like one of the icons to the right) and will run through your text and remove any formatting the editor doesn’t understand. (Because of this, there is a chance you could lose some formatting in your text after wiping.) Wipers are usually only found in advanced WYSIWYGs that have a lot of formatting options.

The other option for pasting is to convert your text into plain text before pasting it into the online editor. To do this, paste the text into a program like Notepad. After you’ve pasted the text, select all of it and then copy it again. This middle step removes any special formatting and allows text to flow easily into the online editor.

Do you have any other tricks you’ve learned when pasting your content into online editors? Let us know!

The Legendary Rock Band – The Who, definitely weren’t thinking of the Internet when they penned the classic tune. And if you are not careful when clicking around in email to what you  ‘ASSUME‘  is a legitimate inquiry from trusted sites, vendors, etc;  You may find yourself singing a similar tune.

By now you are asking yourself- “WHAT IS HE TALKING ABOUT”? Am I right??

OK- here it is. Phishing. (pronounced fishing) And it ain’t going to the river for smelts. The parties that are on this trip are out for suckers.

Here is an example… A normal looking email from Google.com regarding an Adwords account with a reasonable looking request – Account Reactivation appears in your in box. Well like some of you – I have an Adwords account, so OK- this sounds legit.

And it looks legit too! Even the URL ‘Appears’ to be as well. (Live URL purposely not linked)

Dear Google AdWords Customer,
Please sign in to your account at http: //adwords.google.com/select/login , and update your billing information.
Your account will be reactivated as soon as you update your payment information.
Your ads will show immediately if you decide to pay for clicks via credit
or debit card. If you decide to pay by direct debit, we may need to receive
your signed debit authorization before your ads start running,
depending on your location.
If you choose bank transfer, your ads will show as soon as we receive your
first payment.

We look forward to providing you with the most effective advertising available.

Sincerely,
———————————————————————————-
The Google AdWords Team

But if you think about it,

• WHY would Google send me an email regarding my account?
• When I signed up, didn’t they tell me they would NEVER do that?
• If I am an Adwords user, I would know if there was a problem with my account, so …
• WHY did I get this email?

Now put on your CSI hat and right click on that URL… Horatio Cane would be proud of you; as the link reveals its true purpose…

‘http ://adwords.google.com.selectlogin.cn/select/Login/’
^^

Some party in China, and that isn’t the town in Maine, is hoping for an unsuspecting person to click on that link and happily attempt to log in to their Goggle account where they could ‘re-Activate the account’ that is in need of reactivation. Sounds reasonable.

Instead of going to the real google.com site, you will be directed to a VERY well forged version of the Adwords site just waiting for unsuspecting individuals to try to login.

Let me tell you… You won’t!!!
But ‘they’ will use that info to log into the REAL google site; where ‘they’ would have access to your banking and credit card info. To Steal from you!!

And you would end the session thinking, yup, I have a problem… But- it would be days before you would know if you have a REAL problem.

So unless you have a very smart browser that protects you from these situations, then BE CAREFUL and BEWARE.

In this sometimes cruel world, its nice to know that someone is watching your back! But Don’t Get Fooled. When in doubt- Don’t fill it out!

NEVER EVER use a link in an unsolicited email to access your Bank Account or any other account where you have personal information attached. The key is unsolicited- If you call or go online to your CreditCard provider, Insurance Company or Bank and they send you an email- that is ok. Usually.

So Won’t Get Fooled Again- is a great tune- but lean the lesson here- Don’t get fooled the first time-
When in doubt- Don’t fill it out!