Technical Tidbits

I’ve been promising to do this for quite some time, and now I guess I just got caught in the wrong mood!

I’ve set up this category to help people learn about: spam, blocking spam, filtering spam, and recognize spam emails. So, here’s the first of several spam articles to teach you about spam email.

My take is that if you want spam, you’re going to get published here!

I received this e-mail this morning. (The only thing I’ve removed is the name on the e-mail address because it may have been spoofed.)

Subject: Microsoft Award Notification
From: “Rene Lingenfelter” <XXXXX@students.uwf.edu>
Date: Sat, 5 Jul 2008 20:38:52 -0500
BCC:

Microsoft Award Team
20 Craven Park, Harlesden
London NW10, United Kingdom.
Batch number: 12/25/0340
Ref number: MSN-L/200-26937
Winning number: TA09788

Microsoft Award Notification

This is to inform you that you have won a prize money of FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND POUND (£500,000.00) for the New Edition 2008 Lottery promotion which is organized by YAHOO LOTTERY INC & WINDOWS LIVE.

YAHOO & MICROSOFT WINDOWS, collects all the email addresses of the people that are active online, among the millions that subscribed to Yahoo and Hotmail we only select five people every Month as our winners through electronic balloting System without the winner applying, we congratulate you for being one of the people selected.

PAYMENT OF PRIZE AND CLAIM

You are to contact your Claims Agent with immediate effect to facilitate the protocol of your winning prized before the date of Claim, Winners Shall be paid in accordance with his/her Settlement Centre Prize must be claimed not later than 15 days from date of Draw Notification after the Draw date in which Prize has won. Any prize not claimed within this period will be forfeited.

These are your identification numbers:

Batch number……………….12/25/0340
Reff number…………………..MSN-L/200-26937
Winning number……………….TA09788

To begin your claim please contact our licensed and accredited agent assigned to you

MR. Terry Martins
(VERIFICATION DEPARTMENT MANAGER)
Email: mr_terrymartins1977@hotmail.com

[THIS E-MAIL ADDRESS HAS NOT BEEN CHANGED BECAUSE IT IS REQUESTING YOU RESPOND TO IT. THAT MEANS THIS IS THE PARTY COLLECTING THE INFORMATION REQUESTED HERE!]

<mhtml:{DB4EB49B-F16E-4DF7-BB5E-C6AF6CDA3D5B}mid://00000002/!x-usc:mailto:mr_terrymartins1977@hotmail.comt>
Tel: +44-703-190-9638
Tel: +44-703-196-8309
Fax: +44 870 471 6651

You are therefore advised to send the following information to the claims agent to facilitate them and in order for them to have access in proceeding with the transferr of your funds to your nominated bank account.

1. Full name…………
2. Country…………..
3. Contact Address……..
4. Telephone Number…….
5. Marital Status………
6. Occupation………….
7. Company…………..
8. Age………………..

Msn Lottery Prize must be claimed not later than 15 days from date of Draw Notification after the Draw date in which Prize has won. Any prize not claimed within this period will be forfeited.

Congratulations!! once again.
Yours in service,
Mrs. Rene Lingenfelter.
(Operation Manager)

The headers from the e-mail which shows where it is really coming from (my own personal information removed)

From - Sun Jul 06 08:09:57 2008
X-Account-Key: xxxxxxxxxxx
X-UIDL: UID20969-1183126117
X-Mozilla-Status: 0001
X-Mozilla-Status2: 00000000
X-Mozilla-Keys: Return-path: <prvs=1066ca1b57=rwl1@students.uwf.edu>
Envelope-to: xxxxxxxxx@mice.org Delivery-date: Sat, 05 Jul 2008 18:41:10 -0700
Received: from alpha.uwf.edu ([143.88.1.66] helo=uwf.edu) by xxxxx.XXXXXXXXXXX.com with esmtps (TLSv1:AES256-SHA:256) (Exim 4.68) (envelope-from <prvs=1066ca1b57=rwl1@students.uwf.edu>)
id 1KFJFP-000201-MP for xxxxxxx@xxxx.org; Sat, 05 Jul 2008 18:41:10 -0700
Received: from ([143.88.1.121])
by alpha.uwf.edu with ESMTP id KP-BRBWA.70787433;
Sat, 05 Jul 2008 20:39:40 -0500 Received: from XSTVS.argo.uwf.edu ([10.10.0.47]) by mail.uwf.edu with Microsoft SMTPSVC(6.0.3790.3959); Sat, 5 Jul 2008 20:39:39 -0500 X-MimeOLE:
Produced By Microsoft Exchange V6.5
Content-class: urn:content-classes:message MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=”iso-8859-1″
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Subject: Microsoft Award Notification
Date: Sat, 5 Jul 2008 20:38:52 -0500
Message-ID: <EA842B533AA9DB44BC514533D895A00231CD9A@XSTVS.argo.uwf.edu>
X-MS-Has-Attach: X-MS-TNEF-Correlator:
Thread-Topic: Microsoft Award Notification
Thread-Index: AcjfCQqKkpG3harLRt+XJAXAN2RCzQ== From: “Rene Lingenfelter” <xxxxx@students.uwf.edu>
Bcc:
X-OriginalArrivalTime: 06 Jul 2008 01:39:39.0790 (UTC) FILETIME=[27F18AE0:01C8DF09]
X-Spam-Status: No, score=-0.8 X-Spam-Score: -7 X-Spam-Bar: / X-Spam-Flag: NO

First of all, Microsoft, nor Yahoo cooperate in any kind of lottery. Not AOL, MSN, Hotmail, or any other mail host! THIS IS A HOAX and a phishing e-mail! And if I do say so, a pretty lame one at that!

The hoax part is the stupid Lottery in the first place - NO SUCH THING.

The phishing part is the information they are looking for. They are asking you to verify your winnings by giving your full name, address, phone, marital status, age, occupation, and company. Can you say, “Identity Theft?”

The mail headers do not looked spoofed to me so it appears that this e-mail did come from the University of West Florida. Perhaps a student sent it or there is a botnet sending spam from their servers. Only the school knows for sure.

Here’s the IP address lookup that shows that IP address in the message header is coming from the University:

If this is a student doing it to be funny or cute, you need to pay more attention to your school work. It’s not funny, nor is it cute.

If this is a spammer using the school’s server for sending out this information, BUSTED! My advice to the school IT department is to check for botnets and rootkits on every single machine at the University!

And if the owner of this e-mail and phisher for the information is alias: mr_terrymartins1977@hotmail.com, may you spend eternity in e-mail hell because this kind of garbage makes my e-mail hell!

Many more to come!

PS I didn’t try the phone numbers because they are probably bogus too!

written by Admin \\ tags: hoax, hotmail, Microsoft, microsoft award notification, microsoft lottery, phishing, scam, Spam, spam email, spammer, spamming, stop spam, university of west florida

According to Remedy Magazines summer 2008 issue, that’s exactly what they are calling a “nasty norovirus that causes the stomach flu…” And this is not a hoax!

The catch is that the virus is actually spread through computer mice and keyboards in schools, offices, and at home - not by e-mail! (I would also include libraries in that list!)

According to their recommendations, you should disinfect keyboards and mice regularly with diluted bleach solutions and wash your hands often.

Now, the MICE™ word of caution here. Do not, I repeat, DO NOT ever put water or wet solutions directly onto a keyboard or mouse!

Although we teach how to clean REAL viruses in our courses, to clean keyboards and mice, follow these simple steps:

1. Always, always, always, clean these parts with the computer OFF!
2. After the PC shuts down completely, disconnect the device by pulling out the plug from the back of the unit.
3. When cleaning a mouse, flip the mouse over and remove the mouse roller ball from inside its compartment. (There should be a twist off cover.)
4. Clean the mouse roller ball with a lint free cloth dipped in alcohol. Yes, rubbing alcohol!
5. Carefully examine any turning parts like gears or rolling bars inside the ball compartment. Rub or carefully scratch off - lightly with your finger nail - any trapped fuzz or dirt that has collected on the rollers.
6. Use canned air or duster product to blow out the mouse chamber.
7. Replace the ball and close the compartment.
8. On the upper surface of the mouse, use another lint free cloth sprayed with a multi-purpose surface cleaning product containing bleach. I use my Clorox Disinfecting Kitchen Cleaner that I use on our kitchen counters. Note that I said the cloth is sprayed and not the mouse! It only takes a little liquid on the cloth - don’t soak it! Wipe down the outside of the mouse with the cloth and allow to dry for a few minutes before reconnecting to the computer.

To clean the keyboard, follow steps 1 and 2 above and then:

1. Tilt the keyboard upside down and tap lightly to dislodge any crumbs of dust that may be stuck between the keys or have fallen through the gap between them. You can also give it a shake to make sure everything is dislodged.
2. While holding the keyboard by one side so that it’s suspended on an angle (not lying flat), use canned air or a duster product for electronics and blow out the keyboard thoroughly. By having the keyboard hanging from your hand to do this, any particles blown out by the dust will fall to the ground and not back into the keyboard.
3. To remove any fingerprints or small coffee spills (if you’re like me!), use a product like 409 or Fantastic sprayed lightly onto a lint free cloth to rub off the affected keys.
4. To disinfect, use a lint free cloth sprayed (or dipped) with a disinfecting multi-purpose product with bleach - as in the mouse cleaning directions above.
5. Allow to dry for a few minutes before reassembling.

So now you know how to stop the spread of this new, nasty, computer norovirus! Now this is one virus alert you can send through the e-mail and it’s not a hoax! Just point them to our blog!

written by Admin \\ tags: 409, canned air, clean a keyboard, clean a mouse, cleaning PC keyboard, cleaning PC mice, clorox, computer, computer virus, computer virus makes you ill, duster, fantastic, hoax, how to, how to clean keyboard, how to clean mouse, illness, keyboard, keyboard cleaning, keyboards, mice, mouse, mouse cleaning, new computer virus, Remedy Magazine, sick, stomach flu, virus, virus hoax