WiseAndFoolish

Oboy! Mail!

A Fool and His Money Department
First up, Lei Hwang. Poor fellah wants to give me 20 per cent of $35,500,000 . . . my goodness, that’s seven million clams! Why, that’d surely pay a few bills. Mr Hwang would like me to email his Yahoo China email address for more information on how I can a) help him move the funds from China, and b) collect my hard-earned percentage.

Apparently, the Nigerian Scam has moved eastward. I wonder if this development — worldwide competition in the extortion field — will result in changes to the tried-and-true text within the formula letter / email?

I mean, Charlie . . . sorry, ‘Charles’ . . . Brown’s offer of 35 per cent of $20,000,000 comes to the same figure, but wouldn’t you feel better scammed in the famed Nigerian Scam by a legitimate Nigerian?

As it stands, though, I needn’t help out disadvantaged criminals in Nigeria and China by sending them a comparitively small amount of money to receive seven million bucks; I seem to have won several lotteries.

Darned if I didn’t win GBP 860,641.28 in the UK NATIONAL LOTTERY (in draw #1046) held on “14th of December 2006″. I must contact Mr.David Nelson at his Yahoo UK address to get the ball rolling.

NOTE: ANY BREACH OF CONFIDENTIALITY ON THE PART OF ANY WINNER WILL RESULT TO DISQUALIFICATION!

“RESULT TO DISQUALIFICATION”? Oops. I breached. Nuts. There goes a perfectly good £860,641.28

“We wish you a hearthy congratulation once again.”

Fortunately, I won it again a few days later, though the chronology’s a bit confusing. This time, I lucked into £750,000 (in draw #963) held on “3rd January. 2007″.

Something must have happened to Mr David Nelson; I’m requested to send all sorts of personal information to “Mr. Collins John” at a different UK Yahoo address.

“The UK NATIONAL LOTTERY internet draw,” sez the email from coordinator “Saint Courage”, “is held once in a year and is so organized to encourage the use of the
internet and computers worldwide.”

We-e-ll, that “once a year” bit could prove problematic, ’cause “John Smith” informs me I won it yet again in draw #1152 held on “Saturday 06 January 2007″ (”£2,500,000.00″, this time — whoo-hoo!), and I should contact “Robert Kings” with some personal information.

Lottery scams work along similar lines as the Nigerian Scam.

1. Sucker is told he or she has big money coming
2. To get the big money, sucker needs to send someone x dollars to “release the funds”
3. Given that the x dollars is in the hundreds or the thousands, and the “funds” just aching to be “released” are in the hundreds of thousands (or millions) of dollars, sucker thinks this is a great deal.
4. Sucker finds out the only funds released were those she or he sent the criminals.

Now, you would think that no-one would fall for this, given how long the general scam’s been bilking bucks from bozos, but there appears to be no shortage of bozos.

Take — f’rinstance — Alcona County (Michigan) treasurer Thomas Katona, who recently sent his life savings – and possibly over a quarter of the county’s annual budget — off to Nigeria. Mr Katona is currently in jail (he can’t afford the US$1 million bond) awaiting a hearing tomorrow.

Say . . . doesn’t Michigan have a state lottery?

It’s been a banner few days on the spam front. In one day, I’ve received emails with these titles (and the same attachment with differing names)

Chinese missile shot down USA aircraft (Full Clip.exe)
Chinese missile shot down Russian aircraft (Full Clip.exe)
Russian missle shot down Chinese aircraft (Video.exe)
Russian missle shot down Chinese satellite (Video.exe)
Russian missle shot down USA satellite (Full Story.exe)
Sadam Hussein safe and sound! (Full Story.exe) (Full Video.exe)
Hugo Chavez dead. (Full News.exe)
Happy World Religion Day! (Greeting Postcard.exe)

The ‘Sadam’ one was the only repeated title (with differently-titled attachments)

These are all variants of the European Storm email (’230 dead as storm batters Europe‘)

Symantec reports that the attachments are trojans — either Trojan.Peacomm or variants thereof — meant to add the computer of anyone who executes them into a peer-to-peer botnet. Once added to the network, a world of hurt is uploaded to the infected computer to turn it into a good little ‘bot.

You’d think people would know in this brave year of 2007 never to click an .exe file in their email (any attachment, really, but especially a blatant executable), but no-o-o-o . . .

Technorati Tags: botnet, spam, trojan

In a reversal certain to shock those in stylish tinfoil hats, the United States Defense Department has announced that its previous announcement about Canadian ’spy’ coinage is “not true“.

The Defense Security Service is now investigating itself. Whatever they may be, the initial findings may be suspect . . .

. . .

Amsterdam will soon be getting a statue dedicated to prostitutes. WiseAndFoolish has determined that there is no truth to the rumour that the bronze image — commissioned by a Dutch prostitute — will be a modern shelagh-na-gig.
. . .

Don’t Hold Your Breath Department
In his Sundance Film Festival opening-day speech, Robert Redford feels the world is owed a “big, massive apology” from the Bush administration and its toadies for the Iraq war debacle.

In what may well be the dumbest thing I’ve heard since “the Internets,” the CIA yesterday warned American defense workers that Canadian coinage had been compromised with transmitters.

‘Course, all our shoes have telephones in ‘em, too. Isn’t that right, 96?

Why anyone would stick a transmitter in something that circulates with the speed of currency escapes logic; transmitting RFID would be more sensible placed into any of several other items; watch 1998’s Enemy of the State for some mundane (but actually conceivable) alternatives.

Apple Computer had a few surprises of late, from dropping the ‘Computer’ from its name (Apple Computer, Inc. is now Apple, Inc.) to dropping this bombshell upon our furry — or otherwise — heads:

Coming this June, the iPhone combines a mobile phone with a 3.5-inch ‘widescreen’ 4- or 8-gig iPod smart touch-sensitive display, which resizes content in portrait or landscape, depending on the angle its being viewed turns off to save power if lifted to the user’s ear a two-megapixel camera and . . . . . . oh, heck — lots of great stuff. Read about it here. Impressive, this.

[Photo Courtesy of Apple]

Army of the Dead?
In a December mass mailing to officers no longer enlisted, the United States Army encouraged some 5,100 to return to active duty.  Of these, 75 had been killed in action.

No word as to specific incentives offered to encourage the dead to come back . . .

 . . .

While they can’t raise the dead, the US Army has been investigating technology which gives their troops a fighting chance in battle.  From sensors reporting real-time troop injuries and locations to medics to body armor reminiscent of that visualized by Robert Heinlein in Starship Troopers (the book, not the movie), Space.com reports several improvements to American fighting troops’ gear just over the hill.

 . . .

A Pox on You?
Already responsible for cold sores, chicken pox and shingles, the Herpes I virus is now in the running as a cause for Alzheimer’s disease.

So . . . it’s not all that LDS you did back in Berkeley.

 . . .

Technorati Tags: news, opinion, review

It’s 12:46am and I’m currently playing a freeroll on Cakepoker. I’m doing reasonably well, I think . . . earlier tonight (well, last night, given that it’s past midnight), I got a royal flush in another room (see below).

I have to work tomorrow, but can’t; my left lung has collapsed. This collapsing lung business isn’t a Big Deal anymore. These days, they just thread a tube attached to a dongle (they call it a Heimlich) into the chest through a small incision and “it’s Miller time.”

Funstuff.

Because it’s no big deal, I’m going to see how things are in an hour; it hurts, but mildly. It’s mostly pressure, y’see, as the air from the collapse hangs around in the chest cavity.

Where the danger comes in is if the collapse is significant enough to create a situation where the pressure further collapses the lung, which results in more air in the chest (Greek: pneumothorax), resulting in further collapse, et cetera.

I’m in 12th place. 11 people get a ticket to a Saturday event via this freeroll.

1:15am: 11th of 28, now. Skin of the teeth stuff.

With the pressure->collapse->pressure issue comes the possibility of collateral damage
. . . the other lung collapsing, or lots of pressure on the heart leading to cardiac arrest. Or something.

1:24am: 4th place.

1:27am: 3rd place, on break.

So, why is it No Big Deal? The Heimlich, I guess. It’s basically an outpatient procedure, instead of the Very Big Deal it was 12 years ago. Then, they took a pinkie-sized tube and rammed it ‘twixt yer ribs, then hooked it up to whatever the medical equivalent of a Shop-Vac is.

1:48am: 2nd of 12.

1:49am . . . doesn’t matter. 11 of us move on.

Anyway, should you not see any posts here for a few days, it could be ’cause things got weird. No posts in over a week means I probably won’t be around to de-spam the comments anymore. Should this occur, in lieu of flowers send someone around to re-roof the house.

It’s 2007, now, and it’s therefore clearly time to take mindless Internet quizzes. This particular bunch hail from GoToQuiz.
Typically, the quizzes’ results are shown with a bar graph; the CSS therein doesn’t work with the WiseAndFoolish WordPress theme.

Click the links to take ‘em yourself. You know you want to.

Quiz, the First: What American Accent do you have?
(I thought this one would be a hoot ’cause I’m Canadian. Turns out there’s no foolin’ ‘em, though)

Quiz, the Second: Do you deserve your high school diploma?

Quiz, the Third: Are You Gooder at Grammar?
(It brought out the editor in me)