Digital Choke Daynotes

 Monday, March 7, 2005       mail    link   the story

A busy weekend. I went over to my mother-in-law's house and mowed her lawn. "Spring has sprung" around here, so I didn't want to let it get too high. I also installed two new AC-powered smoke detectors, in addition to the two new battery-powered ones I put in about a month ago. Not hard to do: take out the old one, connect up the new AC power plug via those twist-on wire connectors, add a bit of electrical tape for good luck, and mount the new one to the outlet box. A quick test of the alarm, and all was well.

Which should remind you that it's probably time to replace the batteries in your smoke detector. That should be done twice a year.

Then I piled a few things into the truck for a trip to the dump (er--local material recycling center). Everything there is ground up and separated. I also got rid of several car/marine batteries that were cluttering up the garage. Those went to the hazardous material recycling center at the same place. The total cost for that was only $8.00, and the line wasn't too long for a Saturday.

Back home to relax a bit before heading over to baby sit the grandkids at their house. That was fun; the best part about being a grandparent is being able to spoil the grandkids. We watched "Bambi" again, had a little story time, then they were off to bed. The grandkids are pretty good, other than the usual rambunctiousness of the two-year-old.

Sunday was the usual early stuff for church; the general meeting in the morning, and some organizational meetings afterwards. So I got home about 3:00, and relaxed a bit before everyone came over for dinner. We took the kids over to the neighborhood park for a bit; the weather here has turned into spring, with temps in the 70's.

I fired up the BBQ for some steaks, and noted that it's probably time to clean it out, as there was a bit more flaring up than usual. Dessert was strawberry shortcake and ice cream, of which I had a bit too much, but it sure was good.

We all watched "EM-HE"; the two oldest grandkids were pretty tuckered out, and fell asleep while cuddling on the couch with us. After that, we piled the sleepy kids into their car so they could go home.

One big project at home is setting up the new computer. I've got the data moved over, and the needed programs installed. All that is needed is a final check of everything, then I'll move the keyboard and monitor to their permanent home on the desk. More info about the new computer later; it turns out that although you can build one yourself, you don't save much money over a mail-order system from the big guys.

 Tuesday, March 8, 2005       mail    link   the story

I got an interesting "phish" email today. It was from a bank telling me about a 'special offer' rewarding their good customers. By just clicking on the link, I can fill out my information so they will send me my "special coupons" entitling me to discounts at over "15000 shops". What a deal!

Here's what the email looked like when viewed:

Notice that the bank's logo is included in the email (very common), and a convenient link is available to click on. And if you type in that link, you'll get to the valid Washington Mutual bank site, where you can log in.

But if you click on that link, you'll be directed to the phisherman's site, as seen by this next screen shot.

All I need to do is to fill in the information for my discount coupons!

... And, my credit card account will start getting fraudulent charges on it. My credit card number will be sold to others, along with my social security number, PIN number, address, phone number. Great stuff for a full-blown case of identity theft! (Besides, I don't have an account with that bank.)

(Disclaimer: Washington Mutual is not at fault here; they are a common target for identity theft phishing attacks. And the browser used won't make a difference in this case.)

These types of phishing attempts are very common (see the other reports at the links at the top of this page for more examples). These virtual con men (people) are counting on victims to look for that 'something for nothing' offer. The victim temporarily disables the use of the area between their ears.

The usual warning -- be very cautious about offers for free anything.

The way I catch these phishing offers is to have a filtering rule to look for any message with an 'on-mouseover' (without the dash) text in the message. That's how they obscure the real link in the message. If you look closely at the above image, you'll see that the Address Bar doesn't have the Washington Bank address, just an address 'IP number'. If you see a number on the address bar, that's a good hint for fraud.

Although there are techniques to overwrite the address bar with a graphic showing a valid site name. (See the entries about that here from previous week's posts, and the "phishing report" up there at the top of this page.)

And I think that web page designers should put code in their pages to display a different graphic if the request doesn't come from their own pages. I haven't worked out the details yet, but I think it would be possible. If a web page on another host tries to use my graphic, then send them the 'fraud' graphic instead.

But, overall, use the area between your ears. And help others to be careful. A good place is the "Simple Steps" reports at the top of this page.

Remember what Michael Conrad says: "Let's be careful out there!"

 Thursday, March 10, 2005       mail    link   the story

I was just watching old reruns of the "Dick Van Dyke" show on TVLand. This was episode #4, and there was a young guy delivering coffee to their office. It was "Max Clinger" -- actor Jamie Farr. A look at the Internet Movie Database (IMDB) shows that Mr. Farr has been in many TV shows before MASH. That show was one of his early appearances, the show aired on 17 October 1961. He was easy to recognize by his proboscis, and you could tell he had some good comedic timing. He must have done well; he appeared in four episodes of the show that year.

Right now, IMDB says he's supposed to be in production of a movie called "Cyber Meltdown"; information is here. At least, information is supposed to be there. As far as I can tell, the movie may not really be in production right now. But it was interesting to see him on the "Dick Van Dyke" show (courtesy of my TiVo).

And did you see "Ensign Crusher" on CIS/Las Vegas tonight? Wil Wheaton was the homeless guy, and although his part was short, he was quite creepy. Mr. Wheaton has an excellent blog here. He's quite a good writer; his blog makes you feel like you are right next to him as he describes things.

Now that the episode has aired, he's promised to tell about what went on behind the scenes on the CSI set.

I just want to know where to get one of those flashlights.

 Saturday, March 12, 2005       mail    link   the story

Didn't get home until late last night. We went over to Pam's mother's house to visit. Pam's sister (from Houston) was there, along with Christine/Jared and the grandkids. A nice visit with everyone, but too tired for a post yesterday.

So we slept in a bit this morning, then did some cleaning. Pam tackled the kitchen floor, and I grabbed the carpet cleaning machine for the family room. Then we went down to the 'big city' (that's Sacramento) to visit my father who has been in the hospital. He's 87, and they've had trouble diagnosing his problem. But it looks like it might be Burkitt's lymphoma, and it may be fairly advanced. Won't know more about that until early next week as they complete more tests.

When we got there he was resting, but he perked up enough to eat a bit. It's difficult for him to speak, but I believe that he appreciated the visit. I hadn't been able to get there earlier this week due to a cold; I didn't want to spread any of those germs.

Then back home to clean out the BBQ, which was a bit greased up from all it's use. The weather out here is pushing into the 80's, so it was really nice outside. With a clean BBQ, Pam and I tried it out with some steaks, which turned out nicely.

Notice that the FTC has told the folks that make "Spyware Assassin" to immediately stop their business. They claim that the vendor was using aggressive pop-ups and fraud to get people to try out their product. When you ran the program, it would tell you that you had lots of spyware, and purchasing their product would get rid of it. Except that the program would find spyware on a brand new machine. A bit of fraudulent business practices.

Although spyware is a big problem, you need to be careful about the products you purchase. And, when you think about it, why would you buy an anti-spyware product from someone that assaults you with pop-up ads?

As mentioned in my "Simple Steps" reports (see the links up there at the top of the page), I recommend only two products: "Spybot Search and Destroy" and "Ad-Aware". To that you can add the Microsoft Anti-Spyware program (currently in beta, but it's been working just fine on my computers for more than a month). And the best part about all three programs is that they all are free ... and they work well.