Newsletter Archive

The Internet 800 Directory - http://www.inter800.com
The Internet 800 Directory Newsletter
This issue is for Friday, March 26, 2004
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Table of Contents
01. Phishing Internet Style
02. Being a Witness
03. Tip Of The Week
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*01 Phishing Internet Style

Earlier this week the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) and the Department
of Justice each brought separate action against Zachary Keith Hill of
Houston, Texas. Hill, a nineteen year old, was using e-mail to con
consumers into providing their private information.

The con worked like this: Hill would send out e-mail that appeared to
come from companies like America Online or Paypal. In the "from" line he
identified the sender as "billing center," or "account department" and
the subject line carried warnings such as "Billing Error Please Read
Enclosed Email," and "Please Update Account Information Urgent!" The
message contained a warning that if the consumers did not respond, their
account would be cancelled.  The e-mail then called on the reader to
update/correct their billing information by clicking a hyperlink that
took the consumer to a web page that spoofed the site of the company
referred to in the e-mail. The copycat web page belonged to Hill and was
used to collect private information from the consumer. He would ask for
information such as mothers' maiden names, billing addresses, Social
Security numbers, dates of birth, bank account numbers, and bank routing
numbers. Hill would also ask consumers to provide their screen names and
passwords to their accounts.

Hill used the information he collected from the consumers to establish
new credit card accounts and to make unauthorized changes on existing
credit accounts (like changing the address, so they wouldn't see the
bill). Then he placed orders and made purchases using the consumers'
credit information.

When Internet scammers are casting about for people's financial
information its known as, "They go "phishing." Phishing,  can also
called "carding."

The FTC offers these tips to avoid getting caught in this scam:

+ If you get an email that warns you, with little or no notice, that an
account of yours will be shut down unless you reconfirm your billing
information, do not reply or click on the link in the email. Instead,
contact the company cited in the email using a telephone number or Web
site address you know to be genuine.

+ Avoid emailing personal and financial information. Before submitting
financial information through a Web site, look for the "lock" icon on
the browser's status bar. It signals that your information is secure
during transmission.

+ Review credit card and bank account statements as soon as you receive
them to determine whether there are any unauthorized charges. If your
statement is late by more than a couple of days, call your credit card
company or bank to confirm your billing address and account balances.

+ Report suspicious activity to the FTC. Send the actual spam to
uce@ftc.gov. If you believe you've been scammed, file your complaint at
http://www.ftc.gov, and then visit the FTC's Identity Theft Web site
(http://www.ftc.gov/idtheft) to learn how to minimize your risk of
damage from identity theft.

 Please don't fall prey to this scam and have a great week.

Chuck Arning at chuck@inter800.com

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*02 Being a Witness - It's Not Just For Religion

For the third time in 6 months I've been a witness to something unusual,
even weird.

The first time was when I happened to see a hot-dog vendor head-butt a
competitor, which broke his nose, then calmly drive off. This is no
joke. It was actually reported in a local weekly paper as the "Hot Dog
Wars". Since I had told everyone in the office what I had seen, the
paper reporter called me, wrote my story briefly, which contradicted the
one that was given by the attacker, which claimed that his competitor
just fell down. Suddenly I was subpoenaed as a witness, and after 3
court appearances, they settled with an anger management agreement on
the criminal issue, but a civil case is still pending.

About a month after this incident I was driving on one of our freeways
and started braking for the long line of red lights in front of me. As I
always do, I looked in the rear view and side-view mirrors immediately
and recognized that the guy behind me was not going to stop. Since I've
been rear-ended before I braked hard and swerved.

I then saw the guy behind me smoke his tires, barely missing me, and I
saw the car behind him clip his left rear and just keep on trucking.

I got his license plate as he went by and got out to ask the guy who was
hit if he were all right. He happened to be a doctor but was so shaken I
later reflected that I hoped he wasn't on his way to surgery. We
exchanged cards and his insurance company has already called me.

Today, I watched a typical young guy hot-rod around my car, and, since
it was a vehicle that most people who drive them do not know how to
handle, fish-tailed it into a curb, whereby another hot-rod smashed into
him.

Now, I do not know why I witnessed these events in such a short time
frame, but I know that I did and that I have to bear witness, if for no
other reason than it is the truth.

The business parallel here is obvious with Enron, Tyco, Martha, etc.,
but more importantly, it can relate on a smaller scale to your own
organization.

If you witness something that goes on within your company that is
detrimental to the company that writes your check, then you should bear
witness. This goes for the boss on down the ladder.

That brings me to another small corollary. Anyone who thinks that he is
irreplaceable is probably the first one that should be replaced. And
that includes the boss, even if it is you.

Steven Jackson - sjackson@inter800.com
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Tip of the Week

Reducing a Word Document File Size

When you make a document using Word and you make formatting changes for
the paragraph, fonts, page etc., your file size gets bigger and bigger.
Word saves files by blocking, so any change you make to your document it
will create a new block with the new formatting and the old block will
disappear without deleting it from the file.

To solve this problem:
Open your file and select File \ Save As and give your file a new name,
it will save only the active blocks without the old ones.

When you compare the two files you will see a difference in size.

If you have any tips or shortcuts that you think the readers of this
Newsletter will find useful, send them to chuck@inter800.com

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