I’d recently discovered a mailbox that I had left unattended for several years.  It had no anti-spam tool monitoring it, so it was mostly filled with really obvious spam messages and phishing attempts – email scams where people try to fool you into putting in your financial information into a site that looks like a legitimate banking site.

I found this message particularly amusing and thought I would share:

The email wants me to believe that Bank of America is giving me $30,000 in a lottery I never signed up for, never identifies me by name, and wants me to become a Western Union “Active Member.” (The message was sent in 2007, otherwise the Bank of the America reference would clearly be even less believable.)  All I have to do is send $400 to a Western Union in Phoenix, Arizona.  Phoenix isn’t even the corporate headquarters for Western Union.  Couldn’t they have thought of something more clever than that?  It seems pretty lazy.  It made me wonder how many people might have actually fallen for it.

Meanwhile, Microsoft recently published a study showing that the public estimates of losses due to phishing may be over-exaggerated by as much as a factor of 50.  In fact, most phishers may ultimately become victims themselves.  In the study, the researchers concluded that:

One explanation of the thriving trade in phishing-related services … is that phishers with more experience prey upon those with less. That is, those who have tried phishing and found it unprofitable or marginally profitable find it better to sell services to those who haven’t reached that conclusion yet.

So the big fish eat the little fish, just like in the sea.  Nice.

UPDATE:

I just took a peek at the Western Union website.  Maybe this type of scam is more prevalent than I thought.  Front and center on their online transfers page is a very clear and stern warning:

Protect Yourself from Fraud Don’t Send Money

• To someone who you don’t know
• To claim lottery or prize winnings
• Based on a promise to receive a large amount of money
• Because you were "guaranteed" a credit card or loan
• In response to an Internet or phone offer that you aren’t sure is honest

It’s really surprising that people actually need to be warned that they shouldn’t send money to claim a lottery or prize winnings.

[Microsoft Phishing Study c/o InformationWeek]

Cheers & g’day to all the Aussies!

A few days back TechCrunch had a story about Microsoft putting out a promo video for SongSmith that included a poorly disguised Apple MacBook covered up with stickers:

If you check out the IBM LotusLive site, which I mentioned earlier, it’s also got a stock image of a woman working on an Apple MacBook, but the Apple logo has just been erased:

Not exactly in the same vein, but still one that I found amusing was the (perhaps inadvertent) Mac vs. PC ad in the Facebook Developer Forum back in December:

So why does this happen?  Well, my theory is that it’s usually because people in marketing and creative arts departments typically use Macs, especially since they’re often used for video editing, so they’re just there. No reason to run out and buy a $600 prop, right?

If you have another example I should add to the list, ping me in the comments.

In an article featured in the New York Times:

[Researchers] found that people who used two 20-inch monitors were 44 percent more productive at certain text-editing operations than people using a single 18-inch monitor.

Although I can personally attest to being more productive with two (or more) monitors, the study was sponsored by NEC, a major manufacturer of LCD computer monitors.  So make of it what you will, I suppose.

Nonetheless, that’s all the reason I need to go out and buy myself another 22” LCD monitor.

The high level of noise causes employees to lose concentration, leading to low productivity, there are privacy issues because everyone can see what you are doing on the computer or hear what you are saying on the phone, and there is a feeling of insecurity.

Seems plausible, I suppose.  On the flip side, though, open floor plans do facilitate more open communication between employees.  And it also makes it harder to spend your entire day playing mine sweeper or solitaire.  I doubt anyone would buy that excuse if I tried to use it as a reason for calling in sick, though.  This sounds about as useful as saying that the fluorescent lights are bothering you.

More details on CNET Australia.

Please allow me to explain.  I hate voicemail.  It’s a technology that was a good solution at the time it was invented, but by now there’s really no excuse for anyone to use it anymore.  Everyone that has access to a phone should have access to email, or the web, or have some way of contacting me through some other mechanism that is much more convenient for both me and the person trying to get in contact with me.

Voicemail is weird and awkward, for both the person recording a message and the person listening to it.  I have to listen to someone on the other end, perhaps nervous or uncertain of what to say because they were expecting to hear my voice instead of having to leave a message.

Voicemail isn’t succinct or thought out like emails, text messages, or instant messages.  People often ramble in voicemail messages, and there’s no way for me to jump into their head and remind them to get to their point as they are leaving me their message.

Voicemail is far too asynchronous.  I prefer technologies that allow me to both receive my message and reply quickly, as close to real time as possible.  Voicemail typically means a 2-3 hour turnaround time, and sometimes the return call I make ends up being longer than I intend – I really only want to tell you what you called me about, it’s nothing personal, but I can’t talk to you for twenty minutes about your trip to Florida.

Voicemail gives people a false sense of immediacy.  People sometimes leave “urgent” voicemail messages.  Odds are, even when I did listen to voicemail routinely, it would take me 2-3 hours to return a call.

Voicemail is far too linear.  I have to listen to it from start to finish.  Sure, you can skip parts of a voicemail, or fast forward it, but then there’s no way of knowing what it is that you might be skipping.  Is it the most important part?  Who knows.  And yes, I know there are services (like PhoneTag) that transcribe your voicemail into email, but that only solves a part of the problem – the part about me having to listen to the voicemail in the first place.  And besides, I don’t want to pay for a service that transcribes my voicemail into email.  I just don’t want to listen to your voicemail message at all.

It’s really nothing personal.  I just want a solution that works better for us both, something faster and less asynchronous, something very cheap, and far less time consuming for us both.  Here’s hoping that 2009 sees less voicemail for everyone.

The feds claim that Siddiqui embezzled more than $65 million from Fry’s under this scheme, and has paid more than $120 million to three Las Vegas casinos since 2005.

Like everyone else in the Silicon Valley, I shop at Fry’s pretty often – sometimes as much as three or four times a month.  This story leaves me wondering: is that why the prices for routers and flash drives at Fry’s are so high compared to everywhere else?  It sure would explain a lot!

[c/o SF Chronicle]