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[Joined Chamber of Commerce] [Selling on eBay] [Phishing Internet Scams]

[Virus Warnings] [Urban Legends] [Iraq Deaths]

Talon 2005 December 1-15 Issue (page 18)

Why Focus on Iraq Deaths?

I’ve always wondered why someone feels it’s necessary to publish death statistics for Iraq in our little newspaper.  It seems a little out of place considering the statistics for something a little closer to home – like deaths due to drunk drivers.  Why don’t we focus on those deaths?  Here, let me show you what I’m talking about.  Since March 2003 there have been just over 2,200 deaths in Iraq (not all of which are due to enemy action).  And, in that same time period, we’ve had over 20,000 deaths on the roads of our own country!  What’s killing us more - Iraq or alcohol? 

This table shows the deaths due to alcohol as reported by the website of Mothers Against Drunk Driving.  Nationally, it shows that we’re losing over 1000 Americans a MONTH.  If you want to focus your anger – put it somewhere that’s closer to home.  Americans are killing more Americans than Iraqis or terrorists are!

For those of you who are looking at the New Mexico deaths and thinking how good we are (because we only have 100-200 deaths a year due to alcohol) – you’re missing the picture.  Our population in New Mexico is miniscule compared to that of the nation; therefore the numbers of alcohol related deaths are lower.

More importantly to understand is the number of deaths compared to the population.  If you look at the table under the heading “Alcohol Deaths by Population” for the state and compare those numbers to that of the nation you’ll notice something scary.  If you live in New Mexico you are close to TWICE AS LIKELY TO DIE BY A DRUNK DRIVER than if you lived outside the state.

While living in New Mexico there’s not a whole lot you can do to help reduce the deaths in Iraq; however, you can do many things to help prevent the deaths in our own area. If you want some ideas on how to help, e-mail me.

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Talon 2005 June 1-15 Issue (page 6)

Crazy E-mail Stories

Have you heard about the woman that died after climbing out of the sunroof of her moving automobile because she thought the rapture was in progress.  Apparently, she saw “blow-up dolls” floating away just after seeing a man that looked like Jesus? http://www.snopes.com/religion/rapture.htm

How about the man that was in a motorhome accident after he put it on cruise control (thinking it was an autopilot) and then left the driver’s seat to go make some coffee? http://www.snopes.com/autos/techno/cruise.asp

Have you received the winners of the “Stella Awards” which discuss how people get millions of dollars for suing people for the stupidest things? http://www.snopes.com/legal/lawsuits.asp

Have you received any story that seemed too ridiculous to be true – but the wording of the document sure made sense?  These are called Urban Legends.  People make up stories all the time – after so many tellings of the same story people start to believe it. 

If you ever receive such a story and are curious about the truth behind the story, I suggest you check out www.snopes.com.  This is a website that tries to determine the truth behind such stories.  Sometimes they are proven to be true, sometimes they can’t tell and most of the time the stories are proven to be false.

It’s up to you what you want to believe.  I prefer to believe the facts.  Some of these stories are VERY entertaining and I actually enjoy them.  But I know them for what they are – stories.

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Talon 2005 May 15-30 Issue

Virus Warnings From Your Friends (True or False)

By Shannon Lynch

I just received an e-mail from my well intentioned Father-In-Law that has me wondering how many others are being manipulated by their e-mail.

My last article discussed the phishing scam that some e-mails contain.

This article deals with virus warnings.  Most people know that some malicious people design computer programs (viruses, worms, or trojan horses) to attack your computer, your files, or your identity.  Some of these people do it for fun, some for greed, and others for meanness.  All it does for you is ruin your day.

Because of this some people, while trying to be helpful, will warn you of new viruses to be concerned with.  For the most part the people that first send out these warnings are more akin to the type of people that yell “Fire!” in a crowded theater when there is no fire in the building.  Subsequent people that forward these warnings on just don’t know any better.

The dangerous part about these warnings is that they sometimes have instructions on how to deal with the virus.  They will say something like “Look in your windows directory for a file named apcups.dll.  If you find the file you have been infected – so delete it.”  Well, this file is SUPPOSED to be there – it’s part of the operating system.  When you delete the file, you become a virus to your own computer by deleting a necessary file.

So what to do?  Before you believe ANY e-mail you should verify it first from some reputable source.  When it comes to virus warnings I always check out the Norton Anti-Virus website http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/hoax.html. McAfee Anti-Virus website also has a hoax page http://vil.mcafee.com/hoax.asp.

These two locations can tell you if the warning you received was a hoax or not.  If it is, I suggest you politely tell the person you received the “warning” from what you learned from this article.

Having said all this – be warned - any e-mail or attachments to an e-mail may include a virus.  Make sure your computer has virus protection and make sure it is updated FREQUENTLY!

Finally, if you want to be the first on your block to know about new viruses – go to the following Norton & McAfee websites: http://securityresponse.symantec.com/ and http://us.mcafee.com/virusInfo/default.asp.  Now when you see the new viruses on those websites (there were four new viruses found on April 29th alone) don’t go e-mailing all your friends with the information.  Instead, just e-mail them the link to the website – let them go look at the information directly!

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Talon 2004 September 15-30 Issue

Phishing – An Internet Scam

by Shannon Lynch at Rokatesh Websites

Most everyone knows the Internet and e-mail contain viruses; however, not a lot of people know about a scam system that attacks you in your e-mail.  It is called “phishing”. This is when a scam artist uses an e-mail to "fish" for your personal information by directing you to a website that requires you to enter secret or financial information.

Imagine a bubbling brook with a fly fisherman on the shore.  This analogy may be a little blurry because you must now imagine that you are the FISH.  The fisherman (scam artist) is attempting to lure you on to his hook (and get you to divulge your personal information).  His lure looks like an official e-mail from a company that you do business with.  If you are attracted to the fisherman’s bait (you believe his fake e-mail) you will start following that lure (straight to the scam artist’s fake website).  The fisherman will entice you with the bait by flicking his rod (keeps you believing by designing a website that looks like the real thing).  If you’re the unlucky fish that falls for the fisherman’s trap (you believe the e-mail and website), you will take a huge bite of the “hook” and give your personal information to someone who will do evil things it.

Not two days after I started writing this article, my wife received a phishing email that looked as if it was from Citibank.  This e-mail explained that her Citibank account appeared to have been accessed by an unauthorized party; and, therefore, her account had been flagged and proper access limited until she filled in the appropriate information.  Theoretically this is to prove that the account was still “good”. 

So, she would have been directed to an official looking web page if she clicked on the link in the e-mail.  This webpage asked for information like her credit card number, mother’s maiden name, the CV number on the name strip of the credit card, bank routing number, checking account number, user name and password.  Once again, this information was theoretically requested to ensure that she was the proper person of the Citibank account.  And, after entering this information, her account would then be “released” for continued use.

In actuality, the scam artist would now have all the information needed to steal her identity! 

Thankfully, having continued to explain the reality of these scams over the weeks and months, my wife recognized that this was a phishing expedition and deleted the e-mail!

The basics of this scam:

• The e-mail may look professional and will use the same logos as the bank, credit card company, or business. The email sent to my wife had the Citibank logo embedded in it. This is EASY to fake. Any picture on the Internet can be added to an e-mail.
• The e-mail will appear to be "from" an appropriate location. The Citibank email to my wife was from “Citi Support Team” with an e-mail address of Support@CitiBank.com. This is also EASY to fake.
• The e-mail will ask you to click on a link to go to the company's website so you can fix, update, or check on the information.  The link may even be in the form of a website address. This too is EASY to fake. The Citibank e-mail looked appropriate until you actually investigated a little further.
• After clicking on the link in the e-mail, your browser will load up the scam artist's web page.  This will look like the real website for that company. The Citibank website appeared appropriate; again all the expected logos were on the web page. Again, this is EASY to fake.
• On that web page will be a form where you are asked to enter your personal information.  Don’t do it!
• This information will then be saved by or sent to the scam artist who can then go into your account and do evil things (take money, edit your information, steal your identity, etc.)

Here are some things to look for:

• Who is the e-mail sent to?  If it is not delivered directly to you with your name in the “To:” block; it may not be a real e-mail.
  • The fake Citibank e-mail was sent to my wife’s business e-mail address; it was not sent to her by name.
• Examine the webpage address in the e-mail.  Fake and phishing web pages MUST use fake website addresses.  A real company would not allow a scam artist to use their website.
  • If you clicked on the link in the e-mail it sent you to a web page that was NOT a part of the Citibank website.
  • Always check to make sure you are on a secure website prior to providing any personal information.  You can tell you are on a secure website if the address starts with “https://”.  Another indicator that you are on a secure website is a small icon that looks like a locked padlock at the bottom right of the Internet Explorer or Netscape browsers.
  • Do not use any links from within the e-mail; go to the website manually and then log into the system from there.
• Look for spelling errors; you'd think the people designing these e-mails and web pages would be smarter - but no.
  • A large number of these scams come from out of the country where English is not their first language – this helps give them away.
  • Many times you'll find spelling and grammar errors.  As a matter of fact the subject line in the Citibank e-mail read: “Account ispection".  That’s right – they misspelled inspection.  After a little research I found that this fake Citibank e-mail came from Bolivia which would help explain the problems with spelling.

These are just some of the things to look out for; for more information, check these websites:

http://www.mailfrontier.com and http://www.antiphishing.org – contain up to the date information on e-mail scams.

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Talon 2003 November 15-30 Issue (page 20)

Selling on eBay

by Shannon Lynch (eBay User ID: hanging_spider)

Everyone has heard of eBay (www.ebay.com), even people that don’t use the Internet. eBay is nearing their 3 billionth auction and in that time – people have put all sorts of items up for auction. There was the man trying to auction off one of his still-in-use kidneys (in September 1999) or maybe you’ve heard of the auction for one of Elvis Presley’s teeth (in July 2003). Many people, however, still don’t know how to use the system.

The easiest explanation of eBay is that it is a website that allows people to auction off items. You can freely surf the website; however, you can not place or bid on any of the auctions until you register. While surfing, you will see the large quantity and variety of items that are for sell – things like books, shoes, clothing, and collectibles (coins, stamps, magazines, etc.).

To register you will provide your name, address, phone number, and e-mail address. This information is given to the buyer at the completion of an auction so they know where to send your money. Sellers then go through a system of answering questions about the product they are selling, eventually leading to a final button that sends the auction to the Internet. You will be provided choices to determine the category that the item should go in (there are thousands). Then you put a title to your auction – this needs to be eye catching and informative all at once (this is what the buyers will see first). After that you enter a description and upload a picture of the item so the bidders will know what they are bidding on. Finally, you specify the auction length (from 1-10 days), the starting bid, reserve bid, and “Buy It Now” price.

The starting bid is the lowest bid that people can make. If you have no reserve bid, then this price COULD be the price you sell your item for. If one person bids the minimum amount (say $5.00) and no one else bids higher – you will be required to sell the item for that minimum bid – unless you have a reserve bid.

The reserve bid is the lowest bid that you will accept for your item. This bid is hidden from the bidders – only you know what it is. If your item starting bid was $5.00 and the reserve bid is $50.00, then people can start bidding at $5.00 and you are not obligated to sell the item until the bid reaches or exceeds the reserve bid of $50.00.

The “Buy It Now” price is an immediate selling price that you put on your auction for people that want your item without going through the auction process. Typically, the “Buy It Now” price would be higher (continuing our example set the price at $75.00). So, if someone wanted the item without bidding, they could “Buy It Now” without waiting for the end of the auction for the $75.00. This option is only available if the item has not already been bid on. The last task to complete is providing feedback to your customer. You indicate whether the transaction was 1) positive, 2) neutral, or 3) negative and then provide a small comment. The feedback that you provide (and receive) will be visible to everyone. After you submit the auction, sit back and wait to collect your money.

You may be asking: “How does eBay make any money?” They make it off you, the seller. There are small fees to list the item (whether they sell or not), to spruce up the listing (with pictures, bold writing, highlights) and there is a fee if you actually sell your item. eBay doesn’t do this for free!

To learn more about eBay and how to use it, you can go to eBay’s University at http://www.ebay.com/education. Or you can contact me at www.rokatesh.com for any help using the eBay system. Coming soon – an article on “Buying on eBay.”

By the way – the kidney did NOT sell; eBay removed the auction because trafficking in human organs is a felony. And Elvis’ tooth did not sell with the initial price of the auction near $100,000. If you’re interested in more of the odd auctions; check out www.whattheheck.com/ebay – but be warned – the site tells you up front it is not for children or those without humor or an understanding of sarcasm.

Schubert, K (2003). Bazaar Goes Bizarre. USA Today. (Retrieved 10/31/03)
      http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2003-07-28-ebay-weirdness_x.htm

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Talon 2003 April 15-30 Issue (page 6)

Chamber News

CONGRATULATIONS to the Chamber's first GO Program Recipient

The Aztec Chamber of Commerce is proud to announce that Shannon Lynch, Rokatesh New Age Memories is the first recipient of a grant through the Chamber's Grant Opportunity (GO) Program. Rokatesh New Age Memories, started by Shannon Lynch this past year, offers website design and administration, video tape to DVD transfer and photograph repair, editing, copying and printing.  Contact Shannon at 420-3226, or visit his website at www.rokatesh.com.

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