Gone Phishing

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Spam

This is a classic case of an email scam.

Another day, another gift in my inbox. This time it is an email claiming to be from the Electronic Payments Association, which is a real organization. The scam is a classic. It says that a recent transaction had been rejected, and to view the report detailing the event, all I have to do is click on the link.

If you hover over the link, you see that it is a hyperlink to a mysterious address, and not a PDF as they claim.

A quick Google of “NACHA scam” produces the following:

NACHA PHISHING ALERT (02/22/2011) EMAIL CLAIMING TO BE FROM NACHA

I have seen similar scams claiming to be from PayPal, Amazon.com, banks, etc. Don’t be fooled! Legitimate organizations will NEVER request personal information in this way. If you are in doubt about the authenticity of an email, give the company in question a call. And don’t call any number listed in the email, as that could be (and probably is) a fake.

Be careful out there!

Offline

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The contents of our home are currently pushed to the center of each room in preparation for trim painting. This includes anything that is plugged in: televisions, stereos, phones, lamps, and modems. The last time I was unable to connect to my wireless network was during a multi-day power outage back in 2006. I don’t consider myself one of those people tethered to their mobile devices, yet the fact that it feels weird being unable to get online does tell me something about how normal it has become to be constantly connected.

So, without an Internet connection, I naturally started looking to my neighbors for an unencrypted wireless signal. To my surprise, there is only one out of 21 wireless signals that is unencrypted, and its signal is too weak to use. This is a big change from the early days, where unencrypted networks named “default” dominated the airwaves.

I could tether my phone or unearth my modem and router to get online, but I’m kind of enjoying the break. Maybe I’ll read a book!*

*Actually, I just poked around Facebook on my phone until I fell asleep. :)

Free Internet Security!

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If you are a residential Comcast Internet subscriber, be sure you check out their offer for free Norton Internet Security software. Retail versions of NIS are usually $50, so this is a hard deal to pass up. Most people I know that are Comcast subscribers don’t even know this is a free benefit to their service, and are always surprised when I mention it. While you are on your home Internet connection, simply go to the following page:

http://xfinity.comcast.net/constantguard/Products/CGPS/norton/

You’re welcome!

PS:  For those Norton skeptics out there, and I know there are many, you should know that Staffordworks uses it on all of our computers.  Norton has been vastly improved over the years, and consistently ranks high for detection and prevention of virus and spyware infections.  Plus, it is light weight, meaning it won’t slow down your system.  My only complaint is the user interface can be a little confusing for people.

Welcome to the new Staffordworks blog!

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I’ve come to the exciting conclusion that trying to manually create and manage a Blog is extremely time consuming.  As a result, I’ve turned to WordPress, and integrated their blogging tools into my site.

I have missed writing about technology and sharing my experiences with everyone, so my hope is that by simplifying the process I will be able to post more regularly.

Lots more changes are one the way to the Staffordworks site, so stay tuned!