SCAM Email – Subject: bank of montreal update

Yesterday I received an Email from the BMO to one of my Email accounts which is not connected to any Bank and more for general requests. So the first idea I had was that this will be a SCAM Email. But other than the once I saw before where they ask you to confirm your contact details, this one assumed that you did not do anything and asked you to confirm that you did not attempt to access the BMO (Bank of Montreal).

Of course I checked the Link and the destination wasn’t the BMO. Well I wasn’t to surprised. But than I clicked the link anyways and got forwarded to a site that unfortunately looked very much like the BMO website. I made a screenshot which you can find below.

SCAM Email – Subject: EMERGENCY

Last week I received an Email send by a friend of mine. Well at least that what I thought when I first saw the Email. In the Subject a big EMERGENCY. I knew that my friend had some big projects on her plate and thought she might really need my help, but than I read the text.

I saw this kind of Emails before and knew immediately that this was a Scam Email. Someone hijacked her Email account. I called her and told her what just happened. She mentioned that she just recently changed her password and I advised her to do it again, but from a different computer, because the one she used might had a spy on it.

I also told her to contact her friends to inform them that she didn’t sent out this Email. You never know who may fall for it.

iMessage for the Mac

Apple is working on a new Operation System which will be released in summer 2012. The name of the new System will have the name OS X Mountain Lion and one of the new features will be iMessage. Other features such as the Reminder, the Notification Center as well as the Game Center will sound familiar for those who use iDevices such as the iPhone, iPad or the iPod Touch. I personally wished for iMessage on the Mac after the release of iOS 5. For me it was kind of a logical step to have iMessage on the Mac as a chat system that will combine the world of the Mac with the mobile world.

Having a chat function on a computer isn’t that new and text messages is also something we are familiar with. Many of us might have used already some online service to send a text message online.

Well and after Apple released iOS 5 with the iMessage I had a deep feeling that it will come to the MAC as well and I am glad that I was right. For those of you who want to get a sneak peak Apple released a BETA which you can download today to test the new iMessage on your MAC.

What you might need will be of course an iClod account, but if you have many Apple products you may have an iCloud account already. So download it, enter your Apple ID and test iMessage. I did it and it is working just fine.

If you are interested here is the link:
http://www.apple.com/macosx/mountain-lion/messages-beta/

I did test the new feature and must admit I enjoyed it very much to use my computer to send messages to my friends. For me it is a great feature and you should at least check it out.

Junk Email – Subject: “Information from BBB, id…”

Today I received two Emails pretending to be from the Better Business Bureau (BBB). The BBB is a non profit organization, fighting against scams, not just in and from the internet. If you have problems with a company you can contact the BBB and file a complain. You can get more information about the BBB by following this link http://www.bbb.org

But coming back to the Emails I received. Both Emails had the BBB Logo as well as an attachment. The attachment was a ZIP file and after opening the ZIP a EXE file was revealed.

Please find here the text of those Emails.

The Blackout Day, a SOPA & PIPA story

Many may have noticed that sites such as Wikipedia, Reddit as well as Google (US) have blacked out their sites today to protest against a bill called SOPA. Now you may think: “What do I care, I am not living in the US” and you may think that the SOPA does not effect you at all. Well think again, because if this bill passes, it could easily be copied in other countries as well. More likely is that the US will try to force other countries to join them in the fight against the terror, excuse me I meant of course piracy.

I know that there are lots of people who are more qualified and can better explain why and how bad SOPA is, but I personally find it ridiculous if I hear that SOPA basically can shut down a website like YouTube if one of their users is uploading a video of his / her kid who is singing a popular song which (s)he taped and uploaded on his / her channel. What? Honestly?

I can understand that the movie and music industry is concerned about piracy, but please keep your pants on. First of all movies and music also got copied back in the 80′s via tape recorder and VCR’s, so this isn’t new and second it is not easy to believe that the movie and music industry is suffering because of piracy, if you see the millions of dollars they receive for one appearance in a movie or on stage.

Don’t get me wrong I think it is great if someone achieves great things in life and lives in a big house, but I hope you can agree that it does look a bit “funny” if these people, who have it all, try to stamp on our little world… wide web, where we can be the “hero” for our audience.