Guns Stolen (?)

Somebody got into my house while I was asleep a couple of days ago.

They found a couple of handguns (a .38 snubby & a 9mm carry gun) out in the open on a bookshelf, and waltzed away with them.

 I had brought the guns out while I reviewing my firearms inventory, intending to make sure I had the recorded serial numbers. Started with the long guns, then got sleepy and just went to bed.

I didn't notice for a day that the handguns were not where I put them. I thought I had put them back in the safe (which was the reasonable thing to do) until I checked; they weren't there. And the front door was unlocked.

I checked with my landlord and he said only he and I had keys to my house.

My guess it that it was a target of opportunity ... but is someone checking my front door every night to see if I left it unlocked? (I "always" lock my doors, even when I'm awake and in the house. Maybe this time I forgot the check? I can't believe that.)   And as far ask I know,  my neighbors don't know that I own firearms.   How could they?  I never talk to them ... they move in and out of the neighborhood (all rental townhouse duplexes in a college term) every three to nine months as they enter and exit the local college.

Since nobody else had keys, and my landlord was out of town (has been for a week), I have to conclude that I left it unlocked. It was closed and latched, I'm certain of that.

 And I keep my porch light on 24/7/365 ... that light has been burning for seven years on the same 60 watt bulb.   It was intended to make burglars think twice before attempting entry.

 Well that didn't work and locks didn't work. What's next, booby traps?

Now I have to go to the police and report the stolen guns. That will prove awkward, as I don't have serial numbers for both handguns. I have the original box for the automatic, but I don't have any record for the revolver. I missed it by THAT MUCH! (Actually, I did write down a number but I'm not certain that the tall vertical marks are "slashes" or "ones".)

They also took my money clip, with about $80 in cash and ALL my identification (drivers license, CHL) and two or three credit cards plus my bank card.

Monday I'll go around to my bank (haven't seen any withdrawals) and the police to report the robbery. I'll get with my credit company ... I have old cards, so I have my account numbers and I can also contact them online.

I don't mind the money, and the cards and drivers license are an inconvenience. Identity theft is an issue, although all the cards are password protected so they could not be used. 

But I'm concerned about a couple of loaded handguns in the possession of burglars.

I'm thinking it was kids. Teens. There were two rifles in plain sight ... I was checking their serial numbers, too ... and they weren't touched. There were guns in a nearby *temporarily unlocked* closet that I planned to record next but hadn't got around to, and they weren't touched.

There's a moral lesson out there for someone, or for everyone.  Maybe a couple of them.

(1) Make sure you have ALL your serial numbers, plus take photos of the firearms (including close-ups of the serial numbers to confirm ... which I was in the process of doing when I went to bed without properly storing my firearms).

(2) check all your doors before you go to sleep.  I do this religiously (I think) and someone still got into my house.

There's another issue:

Oregon is playing with a law which requires that all firearms be under lock and key, when they are not on your person.  There may be a civil liability ... I could go to jail ... if I report stolen guns where were not locked in an "adequate" container.  I've always said my apartment was always locked, and so my firearms were secured.  I'm in a quandary whether I should report the guns as stolen.

I WANT to report the theft *(or maybe I just "mislaid" them)* but can I ... WILL I? ... be prosecuted because I considered my locked doors adequate security.

The problem with new gun control laws is that it makes felons of innocents. However, in spite of my good intentions, I still lost guns which I considered to be secure.

All of my handguns are now in the safe, except for the one which I keep by my bedside.   And a few long guns, in my bedroom closet.  Obviously, I need the immediate availability of at least one firearm ... even in a neighborhood which for over 20 years I have considered to be "safe".

I guess I need to start wearing a gun on my person 24/7 ... which is certain to frighten my neighbors.

I don't like being  'The Bad Guy".

Hooray! I'm a MILLIONAIRE!

I just received an email from  the "Storage Officer" at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport, Mr. John Munez.   He tells me that a box containing over five million dollars is waiting for me to claim it:

In view of your inability to receive your package with registration # UK8100AF from National UK Lottery London united kingdom,originally scheduled to be delivered to you by an agency, city express delivery (c.e.d). This package in a golden metal box valued $5,316,000 USD (five million three hundred and sixteen thousand dollars mistakenly arrived at Chicago O'Hare International Airport terminal 5 via British airways flight no.BA297 from Heathrow airport London sometime ago. The package with registration no, UK8100AF has been cleared by the USA customs and is 100% legitimate. The agency, attached to the airport, city express delivery (c.e.d) who delivered your package to your address have just return the package to our storage facility at the Chicago Airport, due to incomplete address.

Please reconfirm these information's;

 The letter goes on asking for my full name, Internet address, phone number, the airport nearest to my location, and my occupation.    It concludes:

Therefore, writing to inform you that the days of grace has elapsed and we shall begin to charge the daily storage fee of $25usd. Please call Golden Williams on (773) 455-7017 Extension 21 terminal 5 or  contact Email address: (chicagoairport92@yahoo.co.uk) to release this package directly to you.

Note that this notice serves as our last recovery notice to you as our department will be compelled to shortlist your package as an unclaimed consignment, and maybe forfeited.

Note: Delivery of your package from the airport to your residential address is free.

I thought that last part was a nice touch.  They're going to deliver my five million dollar gold box for free!

Full contact information was included, of course ... including a yahoo.co.uk email address (which was NOT the gmail.com address from which the email was sent).

(What, you think I don't look at the header details?)

Now, I sure don't want to miss my chance to pick up an easy five mill ... and take advantage of that tasty "Free Delivery" offer!   But I'm a little uncomfortable replying to either email address, or calling any of the phone numbers which were included in the contact information.   So I did what I always do.

I reported it to the FBI.

There's a division of the Feebies called IC3 (Internet Crime Complaint Center) which accepts reports of larcenous attempts to either phish us or otherwise separate us from our hard earned dollars.  I filled out a long report (online) with much of the information "Mr Munez" was hoping I would send him.  Let the FEDS call the phone numbers, reply to the various email addresses, and talk to the REAL "Storage Office" at Terminal 5, Extension 11, located at 10000 West O'Hare.

It was a very impressive letter, but there are still some telling characteristics which cast doubt on the authenticity of this letter:

• They didn't include my name
• There were grammatical errors in the letter ("Please reconfirm these information's;")
• The "yahoo.co.uk" email address doesn't seem a reasonable place to reply to the Chicago Airport
• No security arrangements were expressed nor implied .. to send me five million dollars?
• They were careful to mention that this box "has been cleared by the USA customs and is 100% legitimate"!
•  ????? !
• They needed my internet address (email), presumably because they sent this to so many people they couldn't be sure which one had self-identified as a greedy, larcenous sucker.

All of this ignores the most obvious twist.  I know I don't have any dead rich uncles in England who would have sent me a buncha boddle ina box of bullion.  (Sorry, couldn't resist the iteration.)   They know I know that.  This is a patent effort to encourage my participation in larceny.

In short, it's just another attempt to phish out my personal information.   It's Identity Theft.

I have to admit, it's a slick twist, from their point of view.  They don't ask for bank account or credit card information (although, it's a "first contact" ... and there is a mention of $25/day storage fees, which would probably be required from me 'before the item is released from storage').

And even if I balk at actually sending them money after step 2 or 3 or 4 in the scheme ... they might still have enough information to open bank or credit card accounts in my name.


In a quick search of the internet, I haven't been able to find reports of similar attempts.   But   if you receive an email like this, I encourage you (and tell your family and friends) that before they reply to ANY "out of the blue" emails, they might want to spend a minute and look at the FBI's "Looks Too Good To Be True" website.

If it looks too good to be true ... it probably isn't.

Nigerian Letter: HK Version

It happens every now and then, and I usually ignore it completely.  I get another version of "The Nigerian Letter" (the "419" scam) inviting me to give them sufficient information for them to find, and raid, my bank account.

Here's the full text of the letter, FYI:

Attention: Respondent,

I am currently attempting to acquaint myself with your family history  
in order to make you the heir suitable to inherit the estate of our
customer( now deceased) because you bear the same last name with our
late customer. I want you to partner with me and receive this fund in
your account.

During the course of our auditing, I discovered a floating fund
($11.5m) in an account opened in the bank in 1999 and since then
nobody has operated on this account that belongs to this our late
Customer who hailed From your country hereinafter referred to as our
customer who
worked as contractor with Chevron/Texaco an oil magnate in my country
and was killed as a result of an attack from Niger Delta Militants.

Hence, we are currently handling a high valued financial portfolio of  
our late customer who clearly shares your last name and it was
recommended that I contact you. In looking for a suitable heir
apparent to our late customer, I am specifically interested in the
following information:

1. Your full names (no initials pls.)
2. Your Contact address.
3. Your Telephone and Fax number.
4. Your Date of Birth:
5. Your Current Occupation.

Could you please send me the information I have requested, along with  
any other information about you or your family history that might be
relevant? I need to make an important decision fairly soon about the  
administration of his estate on intestacy, so please send me the
information at your first opportunity today. Contact us for more
detailed information about this case.

Thank you for your assistance.

Sincerely,
Mr. Chris David.

----------------------------------------------------------------
This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program.

Essentially, this complete stranger expects me to provide sufficient information that he can at least made a 'good effort' to discover my Social Security Number.  That, with my full legal name and current address,  along with my DOB, might be sufficient to access my SSN account along with any other 'fiduciary' accounts I have.

I know you can't easily read the screen-shot of the original email, so here's the information about the sender:

SENT BY:  "Audit / Account Department"
REPLY TO:hrisdavide110@yahoo.com.hk

The first thing to notice (and a give-away that it's bogus, if you didn't already notice) is that the reply email address isn't the same as the "from" email address.

Sigh.

Also, email does not directly cite either my name or my email address ... another sign that it's a 'mass email'.  Most of the information requested does not seem necessary.  The email address to which the prospectus was sent does not include my family name, and never has, so the author couldn't know MY last name.  How would he have matched me to the supposed deceased relative?

It's all just bogus, free-lance larceny, and we all benefit from any pressure we can apply to these predatory bastards.

HOW TO COMBAT INTERNET FRAUD:

I know I've talked about this before, here.  In accordance with my "Bad Example" life experiences, I  once again present  this warning that if you EVER get an email like this, do what I did: forward it to the FBI.   Their "Common Fraud Schemes" website will help you to find the best way to do that.  Look under the sub-heading:

Tips for Avoiding Nigerian Letter or “419” Fraud:

 Just find the link to "... contact your nearest FBI office   ... " and get the email address.

Don't delay, do it today!

If nothing else, you may get an email from the FBI, and won't THAT be exciting!


NOTE:  If you're one of those people whose priority is to "fly low", you may choose not to report the email.  On the other hand, if you are really "maintaining a low internet profile", you probably won't receive one of these emails, anyway.

I'm Gonna Getcha, Sucka!

Somebody came phishing in our pond here at Geek Central.    I received an email from someone who claimed to be from PayPal Customer Service and Support.  There was a return address on it and everything.  The email started with the salutation to "Dear PayPal Services User".

It was a long email, announcing that PayPal had rewritten "over 60" policies and replaced them with just two, which were shorter and easier to read.  They asked me to download an attached file and .. well, here's the pertinent text:

- How can I read and accept the PayPal policies ?

It's easy:
1. Download the new policies attached to this email.
2. Confirm that you're the owner of the account.
3. Read and accept the Privacy Policy and Merchant Services Agreement by clicking the "I Accept" button.

Please note:
You have to read and accept our new policies within the next 10 working days, however, if you don't comply to accept our new policies, we (PayPal Inc.) will be forced to terminate your account.

[I underlined the part that was the 'kicker' .... it was an attempt to induce me to comply using fear tactics.)

The email had an attached file, which I did NOT open!

Instead, I went to the PAYPAL website, found the page on "SECURITY CONSIDERATIONS", and forwarded the entire message including the attachment to spoof@paypal.com

Later, I received the following message from PAYPAL:

Thanks for forwarding that suspicious-looking email. You're right - it was a phishing attempt, and we're working on stopping the fraud. By reporting the problem, you've made a difference!
Identity thieves try to trick you into revealing your password or other ersonal information through phishing emails and fake websites. To learn more about online safety, click "Security Center" on any PayPal webpage.
Every email counts. When you forward suspicious-looking emails to spoof@paypal.com, you help keep yourself and others safe from identity theft.
Your account security is very important to us, so we appreciate your extra effort.

Four things alerted me to this obvious phishing expedition:

1. The salutation ... if a vendor sends me 'official' email, they use the identity with which I had subscribed to their service.   They don't use some generic salutation.
2. The technique; Download a file to read the policy?   And how would I confirm that I had read it?   It's just bogus ... any legitimate vendor would have a webpage on their official (and Safe/Secure) website.
3. The threat .... no legitimate vendor would cancel a subscription because their customer didn't reply to an email.  Suspend an account, perhaps, under special circumstances.
4. The address .... I DO have a PayPal account, but it's not related to the email account to which this email was sent.  In fact, none of my business accounts reference any of my 'public' email accounts.

So no, I didn't open the attachement.  As soon as I received the confirmation from PayPal, I permanently deleted the original email and the attachment.  They were already in limbo, because the FIRST thing I did was to mark it as S*P*A*H*M (deliberately misspelled) because the domain name was obviously bogus.

Companies like PayPal and EBay all have these kind of security concerns.   But we have to do our part, too.   If YOU ever get an email that you think may be bogus, the first thing to do is to not click on any links, and not open any attachments.  Not all email providers have protocols as safe as they should be, and Microsoft Outlook is just the most obvious example of software which may open files without instructions, if you don't have the highest level of security settings activated.

In the meantime, I'm feeling just a little smug tonite.  Instead of them getting me, I got them!

Xerox Your Secrets --- NOT!

The LawDog Files: Read this. Now.

I'm not suggesting that you, or I, have ever done this. OF course not, we're far to conscious of our own personal security concerns

But people who, for example, have ever used their employers' copy machines to make a 'file copy' of their income tax return may discover that they have just made the entire document available to anyone who eventually buys the leased machine, somewhere down the road.

Lawdog draws our attention to a CBS report. Those machines probably contain a hard drive, and for 300 dollars anyone can buy a used copier ... and reproduce ANY image that the machine has ever copied

Do the clicky-clicky thing here.