They Want Your Money
The creeps who want your money keep an eye on the news. They know which banks are in trouble and which banks have acquired failing banks. So they blast out spams telling you have you have only 48 hours to confirm your identity. After that, what are they going to do—confiscate your money? Needless to say, I received one of these bogus messages and, needless to say, I didn't bite. But I did look around. What I found was a lot of bad news.
The message said:
WACHOVIA CORPORATION NOTICE.
Citigroup announced a buyout of Wachovia brokered by the FDIC moments ago. (1)
All Wachovia bank locations will be in the Citigroup merger to prevent failure of Wachovia.
The Citigroup/Wachovia would focus on upgrading banks' (2) security certificates.
All Wachovia customers must fill the forms and complete installation of new Citigroup Standard digital signatures during 48 hours. (3)
Please follow the installation steps below:
Read more here>> (link to nowhere good)
Sincerely, Jonas Womack.
2008 Wachovia Corporation.
All rights reserved.
Notes:
(1) "Moments ago"? This is something a breathless reporter from the mainstream media might utter. It ain't banker talk.
(2) Wow! They got the apostrophe in the right place.
(3) Would any bank enforce a 48-hour deadline?
The link to nowhere good: http://commercial.wachovia.online.financial.service.sessionervlet.mboe1wefbo.memberverify. selfservice.eruntre.com/support.htm?/securitychallenge/servletdologin/OSL.htm?LOB=853661405&refer=rr8MmBoe1W
The red part is the actual domain, which claims to be registered to someone who lives in Bo, Pennsylvania, but who also claims to have a Greensboro, North Carolina, phone number and Zip code. I tried to visit the website root and found that access is forbidden. This is never a good sign.
So then I tried loading the page (I first loaded it in Sam Spade and knew that the page would try to run a file when I arrived.
And indeed that's exactly what it tried to do. Firefox and AVG Antivirus kept the trap from being sprung. Would you fall for this?
Election News (Relax; It's Not Political)
This is mainly a tip of the hat to the Franklin County Board of Elections. (Truth in reporting: I work for the Board of Elections one day per year every 2 years.) On Tuesday, those who haven't yet voted at Vets or who haven't voted an absentee ballot will have the opportunity to vote in one of 854 precincts at 534 polling locations. I'll be the location manager at one of them.
Last weekend I spent a little over 4 hours at a training refresher. This weekend, I'll pick up some supplies and spend another hour or two at a hands-on session. Tuesday begins with set-up starting between 5 and 5:30, opening the polls at 6:30, hoping that nothing serious goes wrong during the day, closing the polls (with luck, at 7:30), and then going with another election judge from the major political party opposite to mine on a road trip to the board of election's warehouse with the day's records.
This year, you have a choice of voting on a touch-screen machine or filling in a paper ballot. If you vote a paper ballot, remember to check the back of the paper. Ballots are printed on both sides. And please do your research on the issues before you get to the polls. Although 15% to 20% of Franklin County voters will have voted early or absentee by Tuesday, we could still see half a million voters at the polls.
You'll also be able to speed the process if you have a current Ohio driver's license that shows your current address. If the address doesn't match what's in the voting roster, but you're in the right precinct based on your current address, you won't have any trouble voting.
And if you've heard that you'll be subject to arrest if you show up to vote and there's an outstanding traffic ticket (or even an arrest warrant) for you, forget it. Poll workers don't arrest people and the police have better things to do than stand around polling places.
I've been doing this for several years now and I continue to be impressed by both the volunteers and the paid staff from the board of elections. Yes, poll workers are paid, but the pay is so low that it might as well be volunteer work.
Go as early as you can. Be prepared for delays. And vote.
Windows 7 is Still More than a Year in the Future
I'm finding it increasingly hard to wait. Vista is pretty and I really like some of the features, but Vista turns even a fast computer into a bowl of half-frozen bacon grease. After more than a year of working with Vista, I would seriously consider ripping it off the machine and going back to XP if the process wouldn't take so long. So I'm already ready for Windows 7 even though Microsoft is still working on milestone releases. No sign yet of even an early release candidate.
But Microsoft is showing the current milestone release around. According to postmortems that have emerged from Microsoft development of Vista was somewhat haphazard with communications problems between teams. This time around, Microsoft says it's gotten that part right.
Microsoft has spent a lot of money trying to retro-fit improvements into Vista. For Windows 7, these improvements are the starting point. That alone should help immensely.
Despite its quirks, Vista has some user-interface features that I like. These will be retained and improved in Windows 7. One feature of Vista that almost nobody likes is user access control, those annoying pop-ups that ask if you want to continue doing something. Most people think the only options are on or off. That's not true, but the settings aren't as granular as they should be. Windows 7, Microsoft says, will improve that part of the interface.
It's far too early to count on any specific features for Windows 7, but it's not to early to dream about a really workable operating system. For Microsoft, this could be the last chance to get it right. Vista's problems (real and perceived) have already chased some users away to Apple or Linux machines.
Nerdly News
Which Newspaper Will First Go Internet Only?
That's a question that's been rolling around in my head for a long time. Now we know. It's the Christian Science Monitor. As of April 2009, the paper will halt its print edition, except for a once-weekly paper. Daily content will appear only on the paper's website, CSMonitor.com.
In hindsight, I probably should have figured this out long ago. The CSM is a national (if not international) newspaper, so delivery is probably the paper's largest expense. The Wall Street Journal might be expected to fall, except that it has strong local circulation in New York City. Judy Wolff, chairman of the Board of Trustees of The Christian Science Publishing Society, says the newspaper will "take advantage of the Internet in order to deliver the Monitor's journalism more quickly, to improve the Monitor's timeliness and relevance, and to increase revenue and reduce costs. We can do this by changing the way the Monitor reaches its readers."
Circulation has been dropping, slowly, for the past 4 decades, but Wolff says the Monitor's Web readership clearly shows promise.
The newspaper will be 100 years old November 25. Wolff says eliminating the print version will also eliminate the major production and distribution costs. The Monitor's website currently attracts about 1.5 million visitors a month.
Reducing those costs will allow the newspaper to maintain its current level of international and domestic coverage. It's a small newspaper, but it had bureaus around the globe and a strong presence in Washington. That doesn't mean all jobs are safe, though. Editor John Yemma says there will be a small reduction in the paper's 95-person editorial staff.
The electronic version will be subscription based and will be sent by e-mail as a PDF document. The cost hasn't yet been determined.
In announcing the change, the Christian Science Monitor quoted New York Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr., who expressed some doubt that the New York Times would be a print product in 2018, "The heart of the answer must be (that) we can't care. We must be where people want us for our information."
So now the question is, "Who'll be second?"
R U Patched?
A week ago, Microsoft released an emergency out-of-cycle patch (MS08-067) to protect users from a Trojan horse. Your computer probably has been updated; if not, you need to make sure that you've applied patch 958644.
Microsoft's Security Response Center blog carries discussions about attempts to exploit the security hole, so clearly the bad guys are working to develop a way to take advantage of machines that haven't yet been patched. Remember 2003 when the MSBlaster worm appeared? It was devastating for those who had failed to heed warnings about patching their systems.
Yes, you will have to restart the system. That's because the file that will be patched (netapi32.dll) is used by many Windows processes. It's simply not possible to halt all those processes during the update, so a reboot is required.
The time to make sure that your computer's operating system is up to date is now.
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