Monopolizing The Currency Market
Monopolizing a market is done by creating multiple blog spots and/or Forums which all link back to a Master Forum. This generates add revenue for the Master forum. Most of these sites are flagged for unethical as well as illegal activitity including Wire fraud, Mail fraud, and Violations Committed under the unlawful sales of securities pursuant to 11 51 301
One of the many lawsuits under investigation ... http://www.dora.state.co.us/securities/pdf_forms/enforcement/amiraq-verified-petition.pdf
Data Being collected @ http://www.iraqidinarmoney.com/theiraqidinar/
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Foreign Exchange Investment Fraud ~ Link ~ Crimes of Persuasion
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Foreign Exchange Scam
The Washington State Department of Financial Institutions is warning consumers about potential scams regarding Iraqi Dinar currency exchange services. While foreign exchange scams are not new, the sudden popularity with the Dinar and resulting consumer complaints to our banking partners is concerning. Consumers can read about the investment-related risks in our previously-released consumer alert ...
“Forex: Risky Business?” at link Several websites have recently begun advertising investment opportunities in Iraqi Dinars, the currency of Iraq. These websites are asking the consumers to send a check, wire, money order, or pay cash upon delivery of the Dinars.
Continues ..
Friday, April 29, 2011
Monday, April 18, 2011
South Korea bank probed over "cyber-attack" 3 day shutdown ...
April 18, 2011 S. Korea bank probed over "cyber-attack" shutdown
SEOUL: Regulators launched an inquiry Monday into South Korea's largest banking network in terms of branches, after a suspected cyber-attack left many customers unable to access their money for three days.
A system crash that started on April 12 left customers of the National Agricultural Cooperative Federation, or Nonghyup, unable to withdraw or transfer money, use credit cards or take out loans.
Financial Supervisory Service and central bank officials visited the bank's Seoul headquarters Monday to investigate whether it had complied with computer security rules.
The bank's services were partially restored after three days, but some -- including an advance cash service -- were still unavailable Monday. Some 310,000 customers have filed complaints and nearly 1,000 called for compensation.
The major technical glitch also temporarily deleted records of some of Nonghyup's 5.4 million credit card customers, leaving the firm unable at present to bill customers or settle payments to retailers.
Nonghyup, which has about 5,000 branches, said it suspected the problem was caused by cyber-attackers, who entered commands to destroy computer servers and wipe out some transaction histories.
"The latest incident was conducted internally...the meticulously designed commands entered through a laptop computer owned by a subcontractor company were carried out to simultaneously destroy the entire server system," Nonghyup official Kim You-Kyung told a briefing.
The bank pledged full compensation for any damages and stressed there was no leak of personal data.
It was the second major glitch at a financial firm this month, after Hyundai Capital said a hacker broke into its computer system and stole customer data.
Hyundai Capital, which has about 1.8 million customers, said it lost data on 420,000 customers such as names, residential registration numbers and mobile phone numbers.
About 13,000 passwords also appeared to have been hacked from customers' loan accounts, said Hyundai Capital which is also under investigation by regulators.
Consumer rights groups said they may file class action suits against the two firms.
"We have already enough people to qualify to file suits, but laws are not favourable to consumers in a case like this," Cho Nam-Hee, chief of the Korea Finance Consumer Federation, told AFP.
Cho said the level of protection that financial firms must by law maintain on its online systems is relatively low, and courts usually impose fairly light punishments.
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_asiapacific_business/view/1123478/1/.html
Friday, April 15, 2011
Internet Poker Entrepreneurs Charged With Fraud, U.S. Says
April 15, 2011 Internet Poker Entrepreneurs Charged With Fraud, U.S. Says
Founders of Internet gambling companies PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker and Absolute Poker were among 11 people charged by the U.S. in a case that seeks at least $3 billion in forfeitures and penalties.
A revised indictment issued yesterday includes charges of bank fraud, money laundering and illegal gambling. It is the latest in a series of criminal cases against Internet gambling companies brought by U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara in Manhattan.
PokerStars, based on the Isle of Mann, Ireland’s Full Tilt Poker and Absolute Poker of Costa Rica are the leading online poker sites doing business with U.S. customers, according to the indictment. The charging documents name two principals from each company and others who allegedly worked with them to illegally process payments.
“These defendants concocted an elaborate criminal fraud scheme, alternately tricking some U.S. banks and effectively bribing others to assure the continued flow of billions in illegal gambling profits,” Bharara said today in a statement. “To circumvent the gambling laws, the defendants also engaged in massive money laundering and bank fraud.”
Prosecutors allege that after the U.S. enacted a law in 2006 barring banks from processing payments to offshore gambling websites, PokerStars, Full Tilt and Absolute Poker worked around the ban to continue operating in the U.S.
_$5.1 Billion Market
The Internet poker market was $5.1 billion last year, 7.1 percent higher than 2009, according to U.K.-based H2 Gambling Capital, which supplies data on the industry. The global online gambling market now is about $30 billion.
None of the poker company principals indicted are in the U.S. and they haven’t been arrested, Bharara’s office said. Those charged include Isai Scheinberg and Paul Tate of PokerStars; Raymond Bitar and Nelson Burtnick of Full Tilt Poker; and Scott Tom and Brent Beckley of Absolute Poker.
Michele Clayborne, a spokeswoman for Full Tilt, didn’t immediately return a voice-mail message left at her office seeking comment. An e-mail sent to Absolute Poker’s spokesman, David Clainer, was returned as “undeliverable” and a telephone number posted on the company’s website was inoperable.
Jennifer Roberts, a spokeswoman for PokerStars, didn’t immediately return a voice-mail left at her office after regular business hours.
_Tricked Banks_
The poker companies named in the indictment are accused of using fraudulent means to circumvent federal laws and “trick” banks into processing the payments on their behalf.
In one instance, after U.S. banks and financial institutions detected and shut down multiple fraudulent bank accounts used by the betting websites in late 2009, Scheinberg and Bitar developed a new processing strategy that didn’t involve lying to banks, prosecutors said.
They allegedly concealed the money they received from gamblers by disguising it as payments to hundreds of non- existent online merchants purporting to sell items online such as jewelry and golf balls.
Of the billions of dollars in payment transactions that the poker companies tricked the U.S. banks into processing, about one-third of the funds went directly to the poker companies as revenue for so-called “rake” charges to players on almost every poker hand played online, prosecutors said.
PokerStars, Full Tilt and their payment processors persuaded the principals of a few, small local banks facing financial difficulties to engage in such processing in return for multimillion dollar investments in the banks, the U.S. said.
Civil Complaint
The indictment and a related civil complaint filed by Bharara’s office seek at least $3 billion in money laundering penalties and forfeiture from the poker companies and the defendants.
A federal judge has seized about 76 bank accounts in 14 countries which the U.S. says contained the proceeds of the charged offenses. A judge has also ordered the seizure of five domain names used by the poker companies to operate their illegal online businesses in the U.S., Bharara’s office said.
In September, Sportingbet Plc (SBT) agreed to forfeit $33 million in proceeds that the company provided to U.S. customers. The U.K. Internet gambling company said it would maintain a permanent restriction on providing Internet gambling services to U.S. customers unless the law changes, according to the agreement reached with Bharara’s office to avoid prosecution.
The same month, a Canadian charged with laundering $350 million for foreign Internet gambling companies was sentenced to six months of house arrest after pleading guilty to processing offshore bets of U.S. citizens. Douglas Rennick, who faced as long as 12 months in prison, also was ordered by U.S. District Judge Sidney Stein in New York to forfeit $17 million.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-04-15/internet-poker-entrepreneurs-charged-with-fraud-money-laundering-by-u-s-.html
White House unveils cyber ID proposal ~ Computer Identity to cut down on Cyber Crime ...
Those of you who maintain a number of social media profiles, blogs, and any other links will be easily identified online. Easy tracking coming soon. Links to all your social profiles, blogs and any other links could be easily scanned in one click.
April 16, 2011
White House unveils cyber ID proposal
WASHINGTON - The White House unveiled a plan on Friday designed to boost confidence and business in cyberspace through the creation of a single, secure online credential.
"By making online transactions more trustworthy and better protecting privacy, we will prevent costly crime, we will give businesses and consumers new confidence, and we will foster growth and untold innovation," President Barack Obama said in a statement.
"That's why this initiative is so important for our economy," Obama said.
The National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace (NSTIC) proposes the creation of secure and reliable online credentials that would be available to consumers who want to use them.
It would be private-sector driven and participation would be voluntary.
The "identity ecosystem" would involve the use of a single credential -- unique software on a smartphone, a smart card or a token that generates a one-time digital password, for example, -- and would eliminate the need to remember multiple passwords.
"The consumer can use their single credential to log into any website, with more security than passwords alone provide," the White House said.
"Consumers can use their credential to prove their identity when they're carrying out sensitive transactions, like banking, and can stay anonymous when they are not," it said.
"The Internet has transformed how we communicate and do business, opening up markets, and connecting our society as never before," Obama said. "But it has also led to new challenges, like online fraud and identity theft, that harm consumers and cost billions of dollars each year."
The White House said the goal is to "make online transactions more trustworthy, thereby giving businesses and consumers more confidence in conducting business online."
In addition to providing more security for consumers, the White House said the proposed system could also provide better privacy protections.
"Today, a vast amount of information about consumers is collected as they surf the Internet and conduct transactions," it said. "How organizations handle that information can vary greatly, and more often than not, it is difficult for consumers to understand how their privacy will (or will not) be protected.
"The NSTIC seeks to drive the development of privacy-enhancing policies as well as innovative privacy-enhancing technologies to ensure that the ecosystem provides strong privacy protections for consumers," it said.
Commerce Secretary Gary Locke, speaking at an event at the US Chamber of Commerce here, said "we must do more to help consumers protect themselves, and we must make it more convenient than remembering dozens of passwords.
"Working together, innovators, industry, consumer advocates, and the government can develop standards so that the marketplace can provide more secure online credentials, while protecting privacy, for consumers who want them," Locke said.
The Washington-based Center for Democracy & Technology issued a statement emphasizing that the NSTIC was not proposing a national identification program.
"There are two key points about this strategy: First, this is NOT a government-
mandated, national ID program; in fact, it's not an identity 'program' at all," said CDT president Leslie Harris. _"Second, this is a call by the administration to the private sector to step up, take leadership of this effort and provide the innovation to implement a privacy-enhancing, trusted system," Harris said.
"By making online transactions more trustworthy and better protecting privacy, we will prevent costly crime, we will give businesses and consumers new confidence, and we will foster growth and untold innovation," President Barack Obama said in a statement.
"That's why this initiative is so important for our economy," Obama said.
The National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace (NSTIC) proposes the creation of secure and reliable online credentials that would be available to consumers who want to use them.
It would be private-sector driven and participation would be voluntary.
The "identity ecosystem" would involve the use of a single credential -- unique software on a smartphone, a smart card or a token that generates a one-time digital password, for example, -- and would eliminate the need to remember multiple passwords.
"The consumer can use their single credential to log into any website, with more security than passwords alone provide," the White House said.
"Consumers can use their credential to prove their identity when they're carrying out sensitive transactions, like banking, and can stay anonymous when they are not," it said.
"The Internet has transformed how we communicate and do business, opening up markets, and connecting our society as never before," Obama said. "But it has also led to new challenges, like online fraud and identity theft, that harm consumers and cost billions of dollars each year."
The White House said the goal is to "make online transactions more trustworthy, thereby giving businesses and consumers more confidence in conducting business online."
In addition to providing more security for consumers, the White House said the proposed system could also provide better privacy protections.
"Today, a vast amount of information about consumers is collected as they surf the Internet and conduct transactions," it said. "How organizations handle that information can vary greatly, and more often than not, it is difficult for consumers to understand how their privacy will (or will not) be protected.
"The NSTIC seeks to drive the development of privacy-enhancing policies as well as innovative privacy-enhancing technologies to ensure that the ecosystem provides strong privacy protections for consumers," it said.
Commerce Secretary Gary Locke, speaking at an event at the US Chamber of Commerce here, said "we must do more to help consumers protect themselves, and we must make it more convenient than remembering dozens of passwords.
"Working together, innovators, industry, consumer advocates, and the government can develop standards so that the marketplace can provide more secure online credentials, while protecting privacy, for consumers who want them," Locke said.
The Washington-based Center for Democracy & Technology issued a statement emphasizing that the NSTIC was not proposing a national identification program.
"There are two key points about this strategy: First, this is NOT a government-
mandated, national ID program; in fact, it's not an identity 'program' at all," said CDT president Leslie Harris. _"Second, this is a call by the administration to the private sector to step up, take leadership of this effort and provide the innovation to implement a privacy-enhancing, trusted system," Harris said.
Germany to Roll Out ID cards with Embedded RFID; They Will Also Be Used for Establishing Identity Online
Germany to Roll Out ID cards with Embedded RFID; They Will Also Be Used for Establishing Identity Online
Via: International Business Times:
The production of the RFID chips, an integral element of the new generation of German identity cards, has started after the government gave a 10 year contract to the chipmaker NXP in the Netherlands. Citizens will receive the mandatory new ID cards from the first of November.
The new ID card will contain all personal data on the security chip that can be accessed over a wireless connection.
The new card allows German authorities to identify people with speed and accuracy, the government said. These authorities include the police, customs and tax authorities and of course the local registration and passport granting authorities.
German companies like Infineon and the Dutch NXP, which operates a large scale development and manufacturing base in Hamburg, Germany are global leaders in making RFID security chips. The new electronic ID card, which will gradually replace the old mandatory German ID cards, is one of the largest scale roll-outs of RFID cards with extended official and identification functionality.
The card will also have extended functionality, including the ability to enable citizens to identify themselves in the internet by using the ID card with a reading device at home. After registering an online account bonded to the ID card, are able to do secure online shopping, downloading music and most importantly interact with government authorities online, for example.
august 2010 @ http://cryptogon.com/?p=17169
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22 September 2010
CCC reveals security problems with German electronic IDs
The Chaos Computer Club (CCC) has repeated its criticism of Germany's new electronic IDs (eIDs). They claim that the system used with the basic scanner, 1 million of which are to be handed out for free, is inherently unsafe.
The electronic identity cards with their integrated RFID chips are being introduced in Germany to allow the authorities to quickly and reliably identify citizens. Card holders can, by using the basic reader, also use the card to identify themselves online and lock accounts on government web sites to the eID on the identity card. The mandatory electronic identity cards are being issued from the start of November.
But, back in August, CCC members demonstrated on German TV news show "Plusminus" how attackers can use malicious software on a PC to sniff the input of the eID's PIN. The basic scanner does not have a keyboard that would allow the PIN to be entered manually and prevent sniffing.
Tonight, another German news show, "Bericht aus Brüssel"(German language link), will be broadcasting a similar demonstration by the CCC starting at 8:55 PM GMT. The show will demonstrate that software freely available to everyone on the Internet can be used to remotely control the electronic ID using the stolen PIN. The CCC said in a press release(German language link) that once an attacker has the PIN, they can use the eID for anything, as long as the identity card is inserted in a scanner. Attackers could hide in the background and act as the holder of the ID without even having to access the transmitted data. It's even possible, say the CCC, for attackers to change the ID's ‘secret’ PIN”.
Tricks like virtual keyboards operated via a mouse apparently do not provide additional security, and even scanners with their own PIN keyboards only offer limited protection. Man-in-the-browser attacks can be conducted to modify the content of transactions without the knowledge of users. Users can only see what transactions they are conducting if the scanner displays the most important transaction data, such as the recipient account and the amount for online banking, before the PIN is input.
The CCC also criticises the new electronic identity card's optional signature function, which provides a legally binding signature for digital documents. Attackers have reportedly already managed to use Switzerland's SuisseID card to put a legally binding signature on a foreign identity. The CCC says the German ID card has similar vulnerabilities.
In particular, the CCC complains that there are no guidelines for how documents to be signed must be set up. They argue that it is generally a bad idea to put digital signatures into complex document formats because users cannot be certain that the document will always be displayed the same way in different applications.
For example, the "SwissSigner" program can sign a PDF file containing active JavaScript even though the application cannot correctly display the document and the document has a different appearance in the widely used Acrobat Reader. Nonetheless, under certain conditions, it has been shown that the qualified signature can remain intact.
An expert from the BSI, Jens Bender noted the criticism of the CCC and acknowledged that users would be making "a big mistake" if the identity card was left in a reader for longer than necessary. But apart from services such as age verification, it would be impossible for online criminals to carry out fraudulent financial transactions on the Internet because a separate signature feature would need to be activated. This signature, he says, is protected by a second PIN which can only be entered into a reader with an integrated keypad.
Under no circumstances, Bender says, would an attacker gain access to the personal data of the eID card holder as this would be transmitted in an encrypted form. He did concede that it was possible to change the PIN number but regarded that as an improbable scenario as the owner would immediately realise that something was wrong. The BSI stresses that even with the known weaknesses of the basic readers, the authentication procedure is significantly safer than the combination of user name and password that is in use now.
sept. 2010 @ http://www.h-online.com/security/news/item/CCC-reveals-security-problems-with-German-electronic-IDs-1094577.html
Via: International Business Times:
The production of the RFID chips, an integral element of the new generation of German identity cards, has started after the government gave a 10 year contract to the chipmaker NXP in the Netherlands. Citizens will receive the mandatory new ID cards from the first of November.
The new ID card will contain all personal data on the security chip that can be accessed over a wireless connection.
The new card allows German authorities to identify people with speed and accuracy, the government said. These authorities include the police, customs and tax authorities and of course the local registration and passport granting authorities.
German companies like Infineon and the Dutch NXP, which operates a large scale development and manufacturing base in Hamburg, Germany are global leaders in making RFID security chips. The new electronic ID card, which will gradually replace the old mandatory German ID cards, is one of the largest scale roll-outs of RFID cards with extended official and identification functionality.
The card will also have extended functionality, including the ability to enable citizens to identify themselves in the internet by using the ID card with a reading device at home. After registering an online account bonded to the ID card, are able to do secure online shopping, downloading music and most importantly interact with government authorities online, for example.
august 2010 @ http://cryptogon.com/?p=17169
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22 September 2010
CCC reveals security problems with German electronic IDs
The Chaos Computer Club (CCC) has repeated its criticism of Germany's new electronic IDs (eIDs). They claim that the system used with the basic scanner, 1 million of which are to be handed out for free, is inherently unsafe.
The electronic identity cards with their integrated RFID chips are being introduced in Germany to allow the authorities to quickly and reliably identify citizens. Card holders can, by using the basic reader, also use the card to identify themselves online and lock accounts on government web sites to the eID on the identity card. The mandatory electronic identity cards are being issued from the start of November.
But, back in August, CCC members demonstrated on German TV news show "Plusminus" how attackers can use malicious software on a PC to sniff the input of the eID's PIN. The basic scanner does not have a keyboard that would allow the PIN to be entered manually and prevent sniffing.
Tonight, another German news show, "Bericht aus Brüssel"(German language link), will be broadcasting a similar demonstration by the CCC starting at 8:55 PM GMT. The show will demonstrate that software freely available to everyone on the Internet can be used to remotely control the electronic ID using the stolen PIN. The CCC said in a press release(German language link) that once an attacker has the PIN, they can use the eID for anything, as long as the identity card is inserted in a scanner. Attackers could hide in the background and act as the holder of the ID without even having to access the transmitted data. It's even possible, say the CCC, for attackers to change the ID's ‘secret’ PIN”.
Tricks like virtual keyboards operated via a mouse apparently do not provide additional security, and even scanners with their own PIN keyboards only offer limited protection. Man-in-the-browser attacks can be conducted to modify the content of transactions without the knowledge of users. Users can only see what transactions they are conducting if the scanner displays the most important transaction data, such as the recipient account and the amount for online banking, before the PIN is input.
The CCC also criticises the new electronic identity card's optional signature function, which provides a legally binding signature for digital documents. Attackers have reportedly already managed to use Switzerland's SuisseID card to put a legally binding signature on a foreign identity. The CCC says the German ID card has similar vulnerabilities.
In particular, the CCC complains that there are no guidelines for how documents to be signed must be set up. They argue that it is generally a bad idea to put digital signatures into complex document formats because users cannot be certain that the document will always be displayed the same way in different applications.
For example, the "SwissSigner" program can sign a PDF file containing active JavaScript even though the application cannot correctly display the document and the document has a different appearance in the widely used Acrobat Reader. Nonetheless, under certain conditions, it has been shown that the qualified signature can remain intact.
An expert from the BSI, Jens Bender noted the criticism of the CCC and acknowledged that users would be making "a big mistake" if the identity card was left in a reader for longer than necessary. But apart from services such as age verification, it would be impossible for online criminals to carry out fraudulent financial transactions on the Internet because a separate signature feature would need to be activated. This signature, he says, is protected by a second PIN which can only be entered into a reader with an integrated keypad.
Under no circumstances, Bender says, would an attacker gain access to the personal data of the eID card holder as this would be transmitted in an encrypted form. He did concede that it was possible to change the PIN number but regarded that as an improbable scenario as the owner would immediately realise that something was wrong. The BSI stresses that even with the known weaknesses of the basic readers, the authentication procedure is significantly safer than the combination of user name and password that is in use now.
sept. 2010 @ http://www.h-online.com/security/news/item/CCC-reveals-security-problems-with-German-electronic-IDs-1094577.html
Thursday, April 14, 2011
*"The new Iraqi investment law is excellent as it allows 100 percent ownership" ~ Iraq seeks to reactivate trade ties with Kuwait
April 14, 2011
Iraq seeks to reactivate trade ties with Kuwait
The _Kuwait Chamber of _Commerce and Industry (KCCI) welcomed an Iraqi trade delegation yesterday at its premises.
During the meeting which was well-attended by many kuwaiti businessmen, the representatives from both sides discussed reactivating commercial and economic relations between Kuwait and Iraq and also considered investment opportunities in Basra.
The Iraqi delegation was headed by the Basra Governor and included the Head of the _Basra _Investment Commission Dr _Haidar Fadhel, the Iraq _Ambassador to Kuwait Mohammed Bahr Al-Olum, and other Iraq businessmen and investors.
Rabaah Al-Rabaah, General Director of the KCCI welcomed the members of the Iraqi delegation and hoped this meeting would bring positive results and strengthen the economic ties between the two countries.
"Kuwait and Iraq are neighbors and have many common traditions and history. I hope that this visit will be successful and will improve the relations in all fields of life," he pointed out.
The Acting Head of the Basra Chamber of Commerce Mazin _Abdulzahra agreed with Al-Rabaah on the strong historical relations between the two countries. "Both the countries are able to build a strong economy as they are well-developed.
The real resource for development lies in industries, not oil alone. It's necessary for Kuwaiti goods to be on the same price level as other products in the region, so that the Iraqi market will be able to absorb it with this high competition.
Also it's a good opportunity to establish new factories in Iraq," he said.
The Head of the _Basra _Investment Commission Dr Haidar _Fadhel highlighted the fact that the commission is supporting the Kuwaiti investors by giving them legal security according to the Foreign Investor Law and Foreign Capital.
"The Iraqi government providing security for the investment projects was established in Iraq. Cases were filed at the court to return Kuwaiti property in Iraq, which were confiscated illegally. Kuwaitis possess a substantial chunk of real estate in Basra, which translates to about 12percent of the registered realty of individuals and companies," he said.
The Iraqi Investment Law allows companies and investors low taxes.
"For the first 10 years, the investors have complete tax and customs exemption on all the material used in the project.
The investors can also benefit from decreased tax on profit, even after the free trial has expired.
***Also the newly built Al-Faw Port will provide more than $1 billion investments and will turn Basra into a Mega Investment City, " added _Fadhel.
Kuwaiti businessman Jawad Bu Khamseen praised the situation in Iraq and said that it's a good place to invest in. "I have been doing business there for more than five years and have never faced any problems.
*The New Iraqi Investment Law is excellent as it allows 100 percent ownership.
We suffered regarding proprietorship in Egypt, Syria, and Lebanon, but didn't have to go through this in Iraq," he noted.
He elucidated further about the advantages in Iraq. "There 25 banks, manpower is available, and investors can work on the B.O.T. system. I encourage the Kuwaiti investors to enter this market. I also call upon the Iraqi government to solve the problem of Kuwaiti real estate in Iraq," he said.
http://www.kuwaittimes.net/read_news.php?newsid=NDY0MzMyNTAx
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
U.S. Shuts Down Massive Cyber Theft Ring "frankly speaking, this is just the beginning" ...
April 13, 2011 U.S. shuts down massive cyber theft ring
U.S. authorities claimed one of their biggest victories against cyber crime as they shut down a ring they said used malicious software to take control of more than 2 million PCs around the world, and may have led to theft of more than $100 million.
A computer virus, dubbed Coreflood, infected more than 2 million PCs, enslaving them into a "botnet" that grabbed banking credentials and other sensitive data its masters used to steal funds via fraudulent banking and wire transactions, the U.S. Department of Justice said on Wednesday.
The government shuttered that botnet, which had operated for a decade, by seizing hard drives used to run it after a federal court in Connecticut gave the go-ahead. "This was big money stolen on a large scale by foreign criminals. The FBI wanted to stop it and they did an incredibly good job at it," said Alan Paller, director of research at the SAN Institute, a nonprofit group that helps fight cyber crime.
The vast majority of the infected machines were in the United States, but the criminal gang was likely overseas. "We're pretty sure a Russian crime group was behind it," said Paller. Paller and other security experts said it was hard to know how much money the gang stole.
It could easily be tens of millions of dollars and could go above $100 million, said Dave Marcus, McAfee Labs research and communications director. A civil complaint against 13 unnamed foreign nationals was also filed by the U.S. district attorney in Connecticut. It accused them of wire and bank fraud.
The Justice Department said it had an ongoing criminal investigation. The malicious Coreflood software was used to infect computers with keylogging software that stole user names, passwords, financial data and other information, the Justice Department said. "The seizure of the Coreflood servers and Internet domain names is expected to prevent criminals from using Coreflood or computers infected by Coreflood for their nefarious purposes," U.S. Attorney David Fein said in a statement.
In March, law enforcement raids on servers used by a Rustock botnet were shut down after legal action against them by Microsoft Corp. Authorities severed the Rustock IP addresses, effectively disabling the botnet. Rustock had been one of the biggest producers of spam e-mail, with some tech security experts estimating they produced half the spam that fills people's junk mail bins.
A botnet is essentially one or more servers that spread malicious software and use the software to send spam or to steal personal information or data that can be used to empty a victim's bank account. U.S. government programmers shut down the Coreflood botnet on Tuesday. They also instructed the computers enslaved in the botnet to stop sending stolen data and to shut down.
A similar tactic was used in a Dutch case, but it was the first time U.S. authorities had used this method to shut down a botnet, according to court documents. Victims of the botnet included a real estate company in Michigan that lost $115,771, a South Carolina law firm that lost $78,421 and a Tennessee defense contractor that lost $241,866, according to the complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut.
The government plans to work with Internet service providers around the country to identify other victims.
U.S. authorities claimed one of their biggest victories against cyber crime as they shut down a ring they said used malicious software to take control of more than 2 million PCs around the world, and may have led to theft of more than $100 million.
A computer virus, dubbed Coreflood, infected more than 2 million PCs, enslaving them into a "botnet" that grabbed banking credentials and other sensitive data its masters used to steal funds via fraudulent banking and wire transactions, the U.S. Department of Justice said on Wednesday.
The government shuttered that botnet, which had operated for a decade, by seizing hard drives used to run it after a federal court in Connecticut gave the go-ahead. "This was big money stolen on a large scale by foreign criminals. The FBI wanted to stop it and they did an incredibly good job at it," said Alan Paller, director of research at the SAN Institute, a nonprofit group that helps fight cyber crime.
The vast majority of the infected machines were in the United States, but the criminal gang was likely overseas. "We're pretty sure a Russian crime group was behind it," said Paller. Paller and other security experts said it was hard to know how much money the gang stole.
It could easily be tens of millions of dollars and could go above $100 million, said Dave Marcus, McAfee Labs research and communications director. A civil complaint against 13 unnamed foreign nationals was also filed by the U.S. district attorney in Connecticut. It accused them of wire and bank fraud.
The Justice Department said it had an ongoing criminal investigation. The malicious Coreflood software was used to infect computers with keylogging software that stole user names, passwords, financial data and other information, the Justice Department said. "The seizure of the Coreflood servers and Internet domain names is expected to prevent criminals from using Coreflood or computers infected by Coreflood for their nefarious purposes," U.S. Attorney David Fein said in a statement.
In March, law enforcement raids on servers used by a Rustock botnet were shut down after legal action against them by Microsoft Corp. Authorities severed the Rustock IP addresses, effectively disabling the botnet. Rustock had been one of the biggest producers of spam e-mail, with some tech security experts estimating they produced half the spam that fills people's junk mail bins.
A botnet is essentially one or more servers that spread malicious software and use the software to send spam or to steal personal information or data that can be used to empty a victim's bank account. U.S. government programmers shut down the Coreflood botnet on Tuesday. They also instructed the computers enslaved in the botnet to stop sending stolen data and to shut down.
A similar tactic was used in a Dutch case, but it was the first time U.S. authorities had used this method to shut down a botnet, according to court documents. Victims of the botnet included a real estate company in Michigan that lost $115,771, a South Carolina law firm that lost $78,421 and a Tennessee defense contractor that lost $241,866, according to the complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut.
The government plans to work with Internet service providers around the country to identify other victims.
Also, Frankly speaking .. internet crime in the U.S. continues to climb ...
Monday, April 11, 2011
Searching for News and Coming up with the Same Lame Website ~ Cloaking and Page-Jacking ~ It's Illegal you know?
They call me Groovy Granny, I go by many names, my real life story will be featured right here ...Cloaking and Page-Jacking
"Page-jacking" is the new artform whereby unscrupulous webmasters copy popular sites such as Microsoft and the Harvard Business Review to their own servers and use a cloaking system to deliver those stolen pages to search engines.
Once the search engine spiders find the pages, they are indexed, and unwitting surfers looking for, say, Microsoft, would click on what they thought were going to the Microsoft site and would be instead page-jacked to an unrelated site which used this method.
Last year, the FTC "cracked down" on pagejacking, bringing the technique to the attention of the general public. "Cloaking" or "IP Delivery" is a technique which allows you to deliver different pages for the same URL based upon the IP address of the requesting agent.
When the server receives a page request, a script checks the IP address of the user agent (or browser) using a database of known search engine IP addresses. If a match is found, the server delivers an optimized, "search engine friendly" page for the spider to index. This page is optimized for each search engine, according to each search engine's algorithm. These pages are invisible to the regular user.
If no match is found, the requesting user agent is sent to the page the public sees.
In other words, cloaking shows an optimized doorway pages to the search engines while displaying different and beautiful pages to human visitors.
Aside from the obvious advantage of being able to feed the search engines pages which are specifically designed for high placement, IP delivery also hides the meta tags from anyone who might want to steal them to boost their own placement.
While IP delivery is clearly appropriate and ethical when used, say, to optimize a page which is only a flash page or just a graphic, the potential for abuse is there.
Anyone can learn to write their own cloaking script at sites like the one at http://www.spiderhunter.com/. The cost of commercial cloaking software ranges from $25 to more than $1,000.
An interesting situation arose last month, when a search engine optimization firm filed a complaint with the FTC about another SEO firm allegedly pagejacking using cloaking. The two principals made appearances at SearchEngineDiscussion.com, each airing his own side of the case.
"Page-jacking" is the new artform whereby unscrupulous webmasters copy popular sites such as Microsoft and the Harvard Business Review to their own servers and use a cloaking system to deliver those stolen pages to search engines.
Once the search engine spiders find the pages, they are indexed, and unwitting surfers looking for, say, Microsoft, would click on what they thought were going to the Microsoft site and would be instead page-jacked to an unrelated site which used this method.
Last year, the FTC "cracked down" on pagejacking, bringing the technique to the attention of the general public. "Cloaking" or "IP Delivery" is a technique which allows you to deliver different pages for the same URL based upon the IP address of the requesting agent.
When the server receives a page request, a script checks the IP address of the user agent (or browser) using a database of known search engine IP addresses. If a match is found, the server delivers an optimized, "search engine friendly" page for the spider to index. This page is optimized for each search engine, according to each search engine's algorithm. These pages are invisible to the regular user.
If no match is found, the requesting user agent is sent to the page the public sees.
In other words, cloaking shows an optimized doorway pages to the search engines while displaying different and beautiful pages to human visitors.
Aside from the obvious advantage of being able to feed the search engines pages which are specifically designed for high placement, IP delivery also hides the meta tags from anyone who might want to steal them to boost their own placement.
While IP delivery is clearly appropriate and ethical when used, say, to optimize a page which is only a flash page or just a graphic, the potential for abuse is there.
Anyone can learn to write their own cloaking script at sites like the one at http://www.spiderhunter.com/. The cost of commercial cloaking software ranges from $25 to more than $1,000.
An interesting situation arose last month, when a search engine optimization firm filed a complaint with the FTC about another SEO firm allegedly pagejacking using cloaking. The two principals made appearances at SearchEngineDiscussion.com, each airing his own side of the case.
Is cloaking ethical? When used appropriately, yes. The problem is that since everything is hidden, webmasters and search engine optimizers who use this technique are on their honor.
Will the search engines penalize you for using it? Not yet. But it's probably going to happen. Given that the main objective of search engine alogrithms are to prevent manipulation which renders relevancy irrelevant, as it were, surely this is yet another trick that isn't going to be around for long. I certainly wouldn't counsel anyone to spend money on cloaking at this point.
http://www.searchenginecommando.com/articles/titles/2.html
Will the search engines penalize you for using it? Not yet. But it's probably going to happen. Given that the main objective of search engine alogrithms are to prevent manipulation which renders relevancy irrelevant, as it were, surely this is yet another trick that isn't going to be around for long. I certainly wouldn't counsel anyone to spend money on cloaking at this point.
http://www.searchenginecommando.com/articles/titles/2.html
What is Pagejacking?
What is Pagejacking?
Pagejacking is a technique used to siphon Internet traffic from intended websites to unintended sites, usually containing bogus content. Once at the site, surfers might find it difficult to leave, as clicking the “back” button of the browser might only redirect them to another related site (owned by the same company).
Pagejacking is unlawful, under the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), falling under the purview of a deceptive practice that interferes with commerce.
To set up pagejacking, an unscrupulous vendor copies a popular webpage from a legitimate site along with its underlying HTML code. HTML stands for HyperText Markup Language, and is what Web browsers process into the visual graphics we see when we visit sites. You can view the source code, or HTML of a webpage by right-clicking on a site and choosing “View Page Source” from the popup menu.
The source code of a webpage includes meta tag. Meta tag are keywords and key phrases that describe page content. Search engines use the meta tag section to classify and rate the page. High-rated webpages are presented first by search engines, making it easier for surfers to find good information fast.
Pagejackers steal the coding of a highly rated webpage to trick search engines into listing the copied page. The pagejacker then adds a small bit of code to the copied page, causing it to redirect surfers to a completely different website. For example, a surfer might enter “party supplies” in a search engine, and of the many returned links, the copied site will be one of them. Clicking on this seemingly legitimate link will reroute the surfer to the offending site.
Once pagejacked, it’s often difficult to leave the pornographic site. Clicking the “back,” “forward” or even “close” buttons might redirect the surfer to even more objectionable sites with windows popping open like fireworks. This is referred to as mousetrapping, commonly accomplished using JavaScript or other coding. Disabling JavaScript can prevent it in most cases, but JavaScript is also used to enhance legitimate websites, so many people prefer it enabled.
Traffic is the basis for revenue on the Internet and pagejacking increases traffic to websites through illegitimate means. With every click to leave, a redirect to another offending site boosts that site’s traffic statistics and earns the pagejacker a small revenue for funneling traffic. Pagejacking is also used to increase advertising revenue and can be utilized to boost the selling price of a domain by presenting bloated traffic statistics to the buyer.
If you find yourself pagejacked, manually enter a legitimate address in the URL (address) field of the browser, or click on a bookmark. Check for lingering open windows that might be behind the main window, or minimized to the task bar. If concerned about minors, consider a filtering program that will block pornography, preventing a browser from redirecting to offending sites.
You can also report pagejacking to the FTC.
There’s a new type of terrorist stalking the World Wide Web ~ Online Outlaws Target Business Sites
December 15, 2010
Online Outlaws Target Business Sites
There’s a new type of terrorist stalking the World Wide Web.
“PageJackers” attack corporate web sites, stealing their pages so they can use them to lure web surfers away from their victims and toward their clients’ sites.
The scheme – or should I call it “scam” – uses a cloaking device (though one unrelated to “Star Trek”) to masquerade one company’s pages as another’s as they list out on Internet Search Engines.
It’s part of the ultra competitive “search engine strategy” many companies use to ensure they get top billing to the millions of surfers looking for their type of business.
If you have any kind of e-mail presence, you may have received oodles of pitches claiming they can get your site listed more prominently on Internet search engines, if the price is right. I get so many of these inbox assaults that I nearly wore down my “delete” key.
The concept is quite valid, however, and it makes sense for many businesses.
“Optimizing” your search engine placement supposedly ensures that, when someone types “widgets” (or whatever it is you do or sell) into a search engine, your web site is displayed before your competition’s.
This means the web surfing public is more likely to find your site and visit it, rather than click through endless pages of matches that may or may not have anything to do with your business, but which happen to contain a similar keyword.
Unfortunately, as with so many other things, it’s open to abuse.
The problem isn’t the cloaking technology itself. Cloaking, which is also called “IP Delivery” or “Spoon Feeding,” can be used to help get around web designs that otherwise wouldn’t get indexed properly by search engines – like some pages generated by databases.
So, as with many other technologies, methodologies – or car drivers – it’s the nut behind the wheel that causes the problem.
These less than scrupulous interlopers use cloaking to get their pirated web pages to show up when the Internet address (URL) of the original company is requested.
How? The search engine is fooled into thinking it’s showing the real page, but when the searching public clicks on the “Joe’s Billiard Hall” link they found in their search, they’re whisked instead to “Frank’s Pool Parlor,” which just happens to be a client of the virtual hijackers and pays them by the click through for the people delivered to Frank’s site.
What these modern day pirates are doing is stealing the other company’s intellectual property, and using it to present its clients’ web pages. It’s an online form of the old “wolf in sheep’s clothing” ploy.
Rather than doing their own work and getting their clients listed on the search engines legitimately, they just find top-ranked pages that contain most of the same keywords they want, file the serial numbers off them and copy them onto their own servers.
Then, when the robots from the search engines come a poking around, they see the stolen page, store its fake location, and send traffic there instead of to the real McCoy (or, in the case of my example, the real “Joe”).
The issue came to my attention after a data recovery company’s “search engine optimizer” searched for a listing of web sites linking to its client’s site. The ugly discovery that it had been had opened up the whole PageJacking can of worms, causing them to file a complaint with the US Federal Trade Commission.
That supposedly led to some house cleaning and many “mea culpas” from the culprit company, which was apparently hijacking pages on a huge scale.
The last I heard, the culprit was no longer online and, needless to say, the legal ripples are still spreading.
How can a company fight the online plague of PageJacking? According to a spokesman for one of the firms hit by these modern day pirates, they’ve now been forced to hire two people whose fulltime job is to monitor the search engines and the company’s placement on them.
They made the costly move after going online one Monday and discovering that, as if by magic, their company’s listings – which they’d paid good money to have “optimized” – had disappeared into unknown reaches of cyberspace.
Which must have been a frightening prospect for a company that’s used to getting forty per cent of its customers via the Internet.
________
Search engine spam
Definition
Excessive manipulation to influence search engine rankings, often for pages which contain little or no relevant content.
Information
Online Outlaws Target Business Sites
There’s a new type of terrorist stalking the World Wide Web.
“PageJackers” attack corporate web sites, stealing their pages so they can use them to lure web surfers away from their victims and toward their clients’ sites.
The scheme – or should I call it “scam” – uses a cloaking device (though one unrelated to “Star Trek”) to masquerade one company’s pages as another’s as they list out on Internet Search Engines.
It’s part of the ultra competitive “search engine strategy” many companies use to ensure they get top billing to the millions of surfers looking for their type of business.
If you have any kind of e-mail presence, you may have received oodles of pitches claiming they can get your site listed more prominently on Internet search engines, if the price is right. I get so many of these inbox assaults that I nearly wore down my “delete” key.
The concept is quite valid, however, and it makes sense for many businesses.
“Optimizing” your search engine placement supposedly ensures that, when someone types “widgets” (or whatever it is you do or sell) into a search engine, your web site is displayed before your competition’s.
This means the web surfing public is more likely to find your site and visit it, rather than click through endless pages of matches that may or may not have anything to do with your business, but which happen to contain a similar keyword.
Unfortunately, as with so many other things, it’s open to abuse.
The problem isn’t the cloaking technology itself. Cloaking, which is also called “IP Delivery” or “Spoon Feeding,” can be used to help get around web designs that otherwise wouldn’t get indexed properly by search engines – like some pages generated by databases.
So, as with many other technologies, methodologies – or car drivers – it’s the nut behind the wheel that causes the problem.
These less than scrupulous interlopers use cloaking to get their pirated web pages to show up when the Internet address (URL) of the original company is requested.
How? The search engine is fooled into thinking it’s showing the real page, but when the searching public clicks on the “Joe’s Billiard Hall” link they found in their search, they’re whisked instead to “Frank’s Pool Parlor,” which just happens to be a client of the virtual hijackers and pays them by the click through for the people delivered to Frank’s site.
What these modern day pirates are doing is stealing the other company’s intellectual property, and using it to present its clients’ web pages. It’s an online form of the old “wolf in sheep’s clothing” ploy.
Rather than doing their own work and getting their clients listed on the search engines legitimately, they just find top-ranked pages that contain most of the same keywords they want, file the serial numbers off them and copy them onto their own servers.
Then, when the robots from the search engines come a poking around, they see the stolen page, store its fake location, and send traffic there instead of to the real McCoy (or, in the case of my example, the real “Joe”).
The issue came to my attention after a data recovery company’s “search engine optimizer” searched for a listing of web sites linking to its client’s site. The ugly discovery that it had been had opened up the whole PageJacking can of worms, causing them to file a complaint with the US Federal Trade Commission.
That supposedly led to some house cleaning and many “mea culpas” from the culprit company, which was apparently hijacking pages on a huge scale.
The last I heard, the culprit was no longer online and, needless to say, the legal ripples are still spreading.
How can a company fight the online plague of PageJacking? According to a spokesman for one of the firms hit by these modern day pirates, they’ve now been forced to hire two people whose fulltime job is to monitor the search engines and the company’s placement on them.
They made the costly move after going online one Monday and discovering that, as if by magic, their company’s listings – which they’d paid good money to have “optimized” – had disappeared into unknown reaches of cyberspace.
Which must have been a frightening prospect for a company that’s used to getting forty per cent of its customers via the Internet.
________
Search engine spam
Definition
Excessive manipulation to influence search engine rankings, often for pages which contain little or no relevant content.
Information
Search engine spamming often gets confused with legitimate search engine optimization (SEO). While there is much gray area between the two extremes, in their most clear cut forms the terms are very different. Spamming involves getting a site more exposure than it deserves for its keywords, leading to unsatisfactory search experiences. Optimization involves getting a site the exposure it deserves on the most targeted keywords, leading to satisfactory search experiences.
Examples Include:
Irrelevancy - targeting keywords unrelated to the site/page.
Hidden Text - putting keywords where visitors will not see them, used to increase keyword count.
Hidden Links - putting links where visitors will not see them, used to increase link popularity.
Doorway Clutter - mass production of low-quality doorway pages, sometimes of the machine-generated variety.
The Internet Harbors Them …
The Internet Harbors Them …
The Mask of Sanity
Imagine – if you can – not having a conscience, none at all, no feelings of guilt or remorse no matter what you do, no limiting sense of concern for the well-being of strangers, friends, or even family members. Imagine no struggles with shame, not a single one in your whole life, no matter what kind of selfish, lazy, harmful, or immoral action you had taken.
And pretend that the concept of responsibility is unknown to you, except as a burden others seem to accept without question, like gullible fools.
Now add to this strange fantasy the ability to conceal from other people that your psychological makeup is radically different from theirs. Since everyone simply assumes that conscience is universal among human beings, hiding the fact that you are conscience-free is nearly effortless.
You are not held back from any of your desires by guilt or shame, and you are never confronted by others for your cold-bloodedness. The ice water in your veins is so bizarre, so completely outside of their personal experience, that they seldom even guess at your condition.
In other words, you are completely free of internal restraints, and your unhampered liberty to do just as you please, with no pangs of conscience, is conveniently invisible to the world.
You can do anything at all, and still your strange advantage over the majority of people, who are kept in line by their consciences will most likely remain undiscovered.
How will you live your life?
What will you do with your huge and secret advantage, and with the corresponding handicap of other people (conscience)?
The answer will depend largely on just what your desires happen to be, because people are not all the same. Even the profoundly unscrupulous are not all the same. Some people – whether they have a conscience or not – favor the ease of inertia, while others are filled with dreams and wild ambitions. Some human beings are brilliant and talented, some are dull-witted, and most, conscience or not, are somewhere in between. There are violent people and nonviolent ones, individuals who are motivated by blood lust and those who have no such appetites. [...]
Provided you are not forcibly stopped, you can do anything at all.
If you are born at the right time, with some access to family fortune, and you have a special talent for whipping up other people’s hatred and sense of deprivation, you can arrange to kill large numbers of unsuspecting people. With enough money, you can accomplish this from far away, and you can sit back safely and watch in satisfaction. [...]
Crazy and frightening – and real, in about 4 percent of the population….
The prevalence rate for anorexic eating disorders is estimated a 3.43 percent, deemed to be nearly epidemic, and yet this figure is a fraction lower than the rate for antisocial personality. The high-profile disorders classed as schizophrenia occur in only about 1 percent of [the population] – a mere quarter of the rate of antisocial personality – and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say that the rate of colon cancer in the United States, considered “alarmingly high,” is about 40 per 100,000 – one hundred times lower than the rate of antisocial personality.
The high incidence of sociopathy in human society has a profound effect on the rest of us who must live on this planet, too, even those of us who have not been clinically traumatized. The individuals who constitute this 4 percent drain our relationships, our bank accounts, our accomplishments, our self-esteem, our very peace on earth.
Yet surprisingly, many people know nothing about this disorder, or if they do, they think only in terms of violent psychopathy – murderers, serial killers, mass murderers – people who have conspicuously broken the law many times over, and who, if caught, will be imprisoned, maybe even put to death by our legal system.
We are not commonly aware of, nor do we usually identify, the larger number of nonviolent sociopaths among us, people who often are not blatant lawbreakers, and against whom our formal legal system provides little defense.
Most of us would not imagine any correspondence between conceiving an ethnic genocide and, say, guiltlessly lying to one’s boss about a coworker. But the psychological correspondence is not only there; it is chilling. Simple and profound, the link is the absence of the inner mechanism that beats up on us, emotionally speaking, when we make a choice we view as immoral, unethical, neglectful, or selfish.
Most of us feel mildly guilty if we eat the last piece of cake in the kitchen, let alone what we would feel if we intentionally and methodically set about to hurt another person.
Those who have no conscience at all are a group unto themselves, whether they be homicidal tyrants or merely ruthless social snipers.
The presence or absence of conscience is a deep human division, arguably more significant than intelligence, race, or even gender.
What differentiates a sociopath who lives off the labors of others from one who occasionally robs convenience stores, or from one who is a contemporary robber baron – or what makes the difference betwen an ordinary bully and a sociopathic murderer – is nothing more than social status, drive, intellect, blood lust, or simple opportunity.
What distinguishes all of these people from the rest of us is an utterly empty hole in the psyche, where there should be the most evolved of all humanizing functions. [Martha Stout, Ph.D., The Sociopath Next Door] (highly recommended)
read more @ http://www.cassiopaea.com/cassiopaea/psychopath.htm
The Mask of Sanity
Imagine – if you can – not having a conscience, none at all, no feelings of guilt or remorse no matter what you do, no limiting sense of concern for the well-being of strangers, friends, or even family members. Imagine no struggles with shame, not a single one in your whole life, no matter what kind of selfish, lazy, harmful, or immoral action you had taken.
And pretend that the concept of responsibility is unknown to you, except as a burden others seem to accept without question, like gullible fools.
Now add to this strange fantasy the ability to conceal from other people that your psychological makeup is radically different from theirs. Since everyone simply assumes that conscience is universal among human beings, hiding the fact that you are conscience-free is nearly effortless.
You are not held back from any of your desires by guilt or shame, and you are never confronted by others for your cold-bloodedness. The ice water in your veins is so bizarre, so completely outside of their personal experience, that they seldom even guess at your condition.
In other words, you are completely free of internal restraints, and your unhampered liberty to do just as you please, with no pangs of conscience, is conveniently invisible to the world.
You can do anything at all, and still your strange advantage over the majority of people, who are kept in line by their consciences will most likely remain undiscovered.
How will you live your life?
What will you do with your huge and secret advantage, and with the corresponding handicap of other people (conscience)?
The answer will depend largely on just what your desires happen to be, because people are not all the same. Even the profoundly unscrupulous are not all the same. Some people – whether they have a conscience or not – favor the ease of inertia, while others are filled with dreams and wild ambitions. Some human beings are brilliant and talented, some are dull-witted, and most, conscience or not, are somewhere in between. There are violent people and nonviolent ones, individuals who are motivated by blood lust and those who have no such appetites. [...]
Provided you are not forcibly stopped, you can do anything at all.
If you are born at the right time, with some access to family fortune, and you have a special talent for whipping up other people’s hatred and sense of deprivation, you can arrange to kill large numbers of unsuspecting people. With enough money, you can accomplish this from far away, and you can sit back safely and watch in satisfaction. [...]
Crazy and frightening – and real, in about 4 percent of the population….
The prevalence rate for anorexic eating disorders is estimated a 3.43 percent, deemed to be nearly epidemic, and yet this figure is a fraction lower than the rate for antisocial personality. The high-profile disorders classed as schizophrenia occur in only about 1 percent of [the population] – a mere quarter of the rate of antisocial personality – and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say that the rate of colon cancer in the United States, considered “alarmingly high,” is about 40 per 100,000 – one hundred times lower than the rate of antisocial personality.
The high incidence of sociopathy in human society has a profound effect on the rest of us who must live on this planet, too, even those of us who have not been clinically traumatized. The individuals who constitute this 4 percent drain our relationships, our bank accounts, our accomplishments, our self-esteem, our very peace on earth.
Yet surprisingly, many people know nothing about this disorder, or if they do, they think only in terms of violent psychopathy – murderers, serial killers, mass murderers – people who have conspicuously broken the law many times over, and who, if caught, will be imprisoned, maybe even put to death by our legal system.
We are not commonly aware of, nor do we usually identify, the larger number of nonviolent sociopaths among us, people who often are not blatant lawbreakers, and against whom our formal legal system provides little defense.
Most of us would not imagine any correspondence between conceiving an ethnic genocide and, say, guiltlessly lying to one’s boss about a coworker. But the psychological correspondence is not only there; it is chilling. Simple and profound, the link is the absence of the inner mechanism that beats up on us, emotionally speaking, when we make a choice we view as immoral, unethical, neglectful, or selfish.
Most of us feel mildly guilty if we eat the last piece of cake in the kitchen, let alone what we would feel if we intentionally and methodically set about to hurt another person.
Those who have no conscience at all are a group unto themselves, whether they be homicidal tyrants or merely ruthless social snipers.
The presence or absence of conscience is a deep human division, arguably more significant than intelligence, race, or even gender.
What differentiates a sociopath who lives off the labors of others from one who occasionally robs convenience stores, or from one who is a contemporary robber baron – or what makes the difference betwen an ordinary bully and a sociopathic murderer – is nothing more than social status, drive, intellect, blood lust, or simple opportunity.
What distinguishes all of these people from the rest of us is an utterly empty hole in the psyche, where there should be the most evolved of all humanizing functions. [Martha Stout, Ph.D., The Sociopath Next Door] (highly recommended)
read more @ http://www.cassiopaea.com/cassiopaea/psychopath.htm
Pagejacking - identifying and dealing with pagejackers ...
Pagejacking - identifying and dealing with pagejackers
What is pagejacking?
In essence, pagejacking is the copying of a page by unauthorized parties in order to filter off traffic to another site. The copying doesn't include just the wording - it's the whole box and dice. Traffic to the illegitimate page is then usually redirected to a competing, or at times, totally unrelated offer.
Why do people pagejack?
When you have the good fortune of having a page that ranks highly in the SERP's (Search Engine Results Pages); it brings you both good and bad attention. Some unscrupulous individuals make take copies of your pages in an attempt to get equally high, or higher rankings and therefore capturing some of the traffic that really should have gone to your site.
In the instance where the pagejacker is also well versed in search engine optimization; it can be the case that the *majority* of search engine traffic that usually arrives on your site is redirected to the pagejacker. As you can imagine, this can be very costly to your online business.
How is pagejacking executed?
The "newbie" pagejacker simply copies your page in it's entirety and pastes it into another page on his own site. They may add some of their own offers to the page and adjust the links in your content to point to other pages on their site. Only the most stupid of pagejackers use this process.
The more advanced pagejacking strategy is quite clever. First, a copy of your page is taken. A page is then created on the pagejackers site that is basically a carbon copy of your content - including meta-tags. The pagejacker then adds extra scripting to allow only search engine robots to be able to read the content of the page. A 302 .htaccess redirect or meta-refresh is then used to automatically redirect human viewers to a totally different page - they never see your content.
How do I detect pagejacking?
You can detect pagejacking quite easily as most pagejackers will only bother with pages that have decent search engine rankings. Use the following process:
Identify a couple of phrases that are rather uncommon in a popular page on your site.
Run these phrases through a query on the most popular search engines such as Google, Yahoo and MSN. When querying the engines, ensure your encapsulate your query with quotes; e.g. "the flomble is pink with black stripes"
In the results that come back, as long as the phrase you have used is uncommon, you'll probably only see your page and instances of pagejacking. Even if you're not able to use an uncommon phrase as the basis of your search criteria, or you allow the reproduction of some of your content on other sites and you wind up with 100 results, go through all the results pages anyway. Yahoo, Google and MSN always show extended snippets from the page which will make it easier to identify a site that is using pagejacked content.
To confirm that the suspect listing is in fact pagejacked content, instead of clicking on the link to the page in the search engine results, click on the "cached" option. It will display the page as it appeared to the search engine robot the last time it was crawled. High ranking pages are usually crawled quite regularly, so the cached copy should be reasonably fresh.
How do I deal with pagejacking
Pagejackers by nature are a snivelling, cowardly breed and easy to deal with if you go about it in the right way.
If you have identified pagejacked content, the first thing you need to do is to save the cached copy of the page - this is very important as it is solid evidence.
One of the great features of Google is that when it displays cached copies of pages, it adds a box to the top of it with identifying information, including the URL and the date the cached copy was taken.
If you are using Internet Explorer, to save a copy of the cached page, simply go to "File", select "Save as" and in the "Save as type" dropdown option, choose "Web archive, single file (*.mht)".
This option will download everything, including images and the Google info box into a single file.
Having a single file makes it easier to transmit to other parties during the follow up process.
Once you have the archive file safely stored on your own computer, it's time to swing into action.
The first thing you should do is to contact the owner of the site. There is no need to be overly polite in the notification, but also do not be abusive.
Bear in mind that in some cases, the pagejacker may *not* be the actual site owner. The owner of the site may have employed an unethical optimization company who used the pagejacking technique. Regardless, it is the site owners' responsibility to deal with the situation.
I recommend writing a brief note along these lines: Subject = "Copyright infringement - (Domain Name)" Body =
"It has come to my attention that you have made an unauthorized use of my copyrighted work located here; (copyrighted work URL), by reproducing it on your site (their URL with infringing copy). At no time have I given permission for you to reproduce my original content in such a way.
A cached copy from Google of the illegally copied content on your site is attached, along with details as to its location on your site and the date it was gathered. It appears that my content is being used on your site as part of a pagejacking strategy and is visible only to search engines.
As the legal owner of this copyrighted content, I demand that you remove my property from your site immediately.
You have 72 hours to remove this content. If the content is not removed within this time frame, then I will find it necessary to take further action; including contacting Google, your hosting service and any other legal avenues I have at my disposal.
Sincerely - Your name - Your contact details
Ensure you flag the email as urgent and select the read receipt option in your email software. If after 72 hours, the content is not removed, you should first contact the company hosting the site.
These details, as well as the domain name registrant, can usually be found on the WHOIS record for the domain name by looking at the nameserver information, or by running a trace on the domain name.
If you do find it necessary to contact the hosting service, check the host's site first for guidelines for copyright complaints. Each company may differ slightly in terms of copyright infringement complaints processes and it's important that you follow their submission guidelines carefully - usually a US company will direct you to follow a process as laid out in the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act).
If the infringement has caused you a major loss in profit, then it is advisable that you contact your lawyer before taking any sort of action if it is within your means to do so.
How do I prevent pagejacking
In short - It gets to a point where you can spend so much time in trying to protect your online business from parasites and copycats that you may as well not bother with having a site at all. Monitoring is the key in relation to pagejacking.
Other possible negative effects of pagejacking
I've read a number of reports on the subject of pagejacking that appear to indicate that some search engines will favor the pagejacked page over the original one to the point that the original page will be dropped from the SERPs altogether. The reason for this is that most search engines employ duplicate content filters - and the way some work is that the higher ranking page is usually the one that is kept.
One very important negative effect of pagejacking is damage to your brand. For instance, a pagejacker may copy a page that contains multiple instances of your business or product name. If the pagejacker is successful in achieving consistently higher rankings than your own content, unsuspecting surfers may begin to associate the brand with misleading content and steer clear of it altogether.
Protecting your site from online parasites is an ongoing battle; I hope this article has assisted you in dealing with one aspect of this multi-faceted war.
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Michael BlochTaming the Beast http://www.tamingthebeast.net/
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