CyberAngels
Recipient of a 1998 Presidential Service Award, CyberAngels was
founded in 1995 as the first cyber-neighbourhood watch and is one of
the oldest in online safety education.
Our mission is to function as a "virtual 411" safety destination,
and to address the concerns of parents, the needs of children,
on-line abuse and cyber crime, while supporting the right of free
speech.
We plan to implement the CyberAngels programs in Canada as we
move forward. In the meantime, please visit the official site of
CyberAngels
here McAfee SiteAdvisor Phishing Quiz
Can you tell a fake Web site from a real one?
Do you always know which e-mails are legitimate?
Take the McAfee SiteAdvisor phishing quiz and get your safety grade!
This is a very good test - click the images they give you to have
a good look before you answer, then be sure to read the explanations
of how to tell real sites/email from the fake ones.
http://www.siteadvisor.com/quizzes/phishing_0707Is Common
Sense Common Anymore?
Most of you are aware of the many scams that float around the
internet - and occasionally your mail at home.
- Lotteries you didn't enter - but somehow won ("we randomly
stole...er..."selected" your email address)
- People offering small fortunes to help get money out of their
embattled country.
- Petitions to add your name to for some cause (which either never
existed or ended 5 years ago) and then "if you're the 100th
sucker...er..."name on the list", send it to this email address so
we can add you all to our spam list.
- Domain name registration renewals from companies your domain name
is NOT registered with (but likely charge twice what you pay now).
- some person you met on the internet (usually from a foreign
country) who claims they "love" you and can't wait to be with you
"forever" (yes, please sponsor me out of my crummy situation so I
may come to your nice country and leave you shortly after I take you
for everything and make you responsible for me and my entire
family..."forever")
There are even scams offering you a JOB (talk about adding insult to
injury)!
Some of these seem pretty obvious, though they have fooled enough
people to make them popular.
Much more insidious are the people involved in identity theft, who
use methods that can be even more alluring to the victim - or a
series of seemingly innocent questions - for example the sort an
Astrologer might ask (birth date, time of birth, city,
name...parents names & birthdates...oh, and can you mail me a cheque
for the full printed result so I have your signature and bank
account number too?).
Many of these scams seem VERY personal - they may already have your
name (from a list they bought)...they include a photo of themselves
(from a series of photos they bought) and often sign the letters
"your friend" (well, they should be for taking all that money).
Consumer Protection in Australia and New Zealand have published some
very extensive lists of known scams/scammers (many scams that seem
to come from one place are often run from other countries with drop
boxes in different places to seem more legit).
http://www.docep.wa.gov.au/ConsumerProtection/ScamNet/content/pages/type_list.html
http://www.consumeraffairs.govt.nz/scamwatch/reportedscams-archived.html
http://www.consumerfraudreporting.org/psychicscams.php
Apparently one of the most prevalent advertising scammers goes by
several different pseudonyms, two of which are allegedly the
pseudonyms of Sara Freder and Pasqualina. Allegedly, this person is
actually a male living in France!
Get this… folks in the US/CAN who are 65+ years old, and account for
about 12% of the population, are the victims of 33% or more of the
blatant, outright fraudulent scams perpetrated each year!
If you’ve ever signed up for virtually anything at virtually
anywhere and in some manner shared the information that you’re 50+
years old, then you now need to keep on your toes. You’re being
targeted. And the older you get, the more you’re being targeted.
ALWAYS read the PRIVACY POLICY on any site you sign up for something
- if you are unclear (or worse, can't find it) best avoid the site.
You could always ask about their policy, or run a quick search in
Google for the company you want to share your information or do
business with - you'd be surprised what you can find (and on
occasion, use Google's CACHE feature - sometime the information has
been changed - or even deleted - since the cache and magically you
will see it there).
More links...
One of the world's best maintained databases on urban legends,
scams, etc.
http://www.snopes.com/fraud/fraud.asp
*Interactive scam guides (UK Gov't. site)*
These interactive flash files give examples of the tricks used by
scammers when they send scam letters through the post.
When you hover over the text pop up boxes will show the techniques
used to make the letters seem believable. If you click the warning
sign at the top of the page, you can see where all of the pop up
boxes are located.
http://www.oft.gov.uk/oft_at_work/consumer_initiatives/scams/scam-letters
Son of Spam (humour) - a parody of the "Nigerian Scam" that contains
reference to virtually every common piece of spam on the 'net!
http://www.snopes.com/info/notes/sonspam.asp
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