Greg's Corner

Updates from August, 2017 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts

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  Greg Collier 9:03 am on August 7, 2017 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Baltimore County, Keith Mills, Maryland, rental scam ( 92 ), squatters ( 3 )   

  You don’t even have to be doing business online to become the victim of a scam 

  

  Normally, when you’re the victim of an online rental scam, you’re usually the person who thinks they rented a property only to learn the property was not for rent at all and the person you gave money to was a con artist. Those victims often find themselves broke and sometimes homeless. Recently, in Baltimore County, Maryland, that exact scam happened but another victim was drawn into the scam as well.

  Keith Mills is a contractor who owns the home and was living there while he was remodeling the home. He went away on vacation for over a week and when he returned he found the locks were changed and someone was living in his home. The people living in the home claim they had rented the home on craigslist and had the right to be there. The problem is Mr. Mills was not renting the home on craigslist and the people who had moved in had paid a scammer. So one might assume you just call the police and have the squatters removed. Not so, in this case. According to local law, Mr. Mills has to go to court to prove he is the owner of the house, then he can have the other people removed.

  It sounds like Mr. Mills was showing the property as it had a realtor’s lockbox on the door. So it’s possible someone had copied the realtor’s ad to craigslist and listed the property for rent instead of for sale which is a common craigslist scam. If you’re selling a property through a realtor, it might behoove you to keep an eye on the local real estate listings on the less than reputable websites to make sure no one is copying it.

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    Salman 7:49 am on August 8, 2017 Permalink

    OMG.
    I guess we all are surrounded by scammer no matter we are online or real estate business firm.

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  Greg Collier 9:03 am on August 4, 2017 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Kronos, malware ( 28 ), Marcus Hutchins, ransomware ( 11 ), WannaCry ( 2 )   

  Arrest related to Wannacry made, but it’s not who you might think 

  

  Back in May, a number of computers and corporate networks were infected by the WannaCry ransomware attack. If you’ll recall, Wannacry would encrypt your files and instruct you to pay a ransom in Bitcoin to unknown attackers if you wanted your files decrypted. A British researcher was widely credited for finding an exploit in WannaCry where it could be disabled. Now, that man has been arrested.

  23-year-old Marcus Hutchins was arrested at Defcon, a cybersecurity and hackers conference that’s held annually in Las Vegas. The US Justice Department says Hutchins was allegedly part of another piece of malware called Kronos, Kronos is said to be used in stealing log in information of financial websites enabling an attacker to gain a users’ financial information in theory. The DOJ believes Hutchins made and sold Kronos resulting in a six-count indictment against him, however, those who know him from the cybersecurity field say Hutchins was dedicated to stopping attacks like Kronos and could not possibly be guilty of the crimes he’s accused of.

  Meanwhile, the attackers behind WannaCry finally collected their $140,000 in Bitcoin ransom. While it will be difficult for them to convert Bitcoin into cash without revealing themselves, prosecution may be unlikely considering the attack was believed to have originated from North Korea.

   
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  Greg Collier 9:02 am on August 3, 2017 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: eclipse 2017 ( 2 ), eclipse glasses, Scams ( 1,668 )   

  Beware of fake eclipse glasses online 

  

  On August 21st of this year, a narrow path through the United States will be able to view a complete solar eclipse for roughly 3 minutes. That’s not even taking into account any weather disruptions that may occur along the eclipse’s path. With such a small window of opportunity to view a possibly once in a lifetime event you might think scammers wouldn’t bother with such a small potential pool of victims, yet they are.

  As we all should know, you can’t view a solar eclipse with the naked eye without sustaining severe optical damage. In order to view the eclipse, you would need a pair of eclipse glasses that have special filters. Luckily, eclipse glasses are relatively inexpensive. However, this hasn’t stopped the market from being flooded with cheap imitations and knock offs that could potentially damage your eyes. NASA states legitimate glasses should be designated ISO 12312-2 and should be labeled as such. According to a local news report from a city that’s near the eclipse’s path, if your glasses were made in the U.S., you should be ok.

  What you should probably not do is buy them online, unless they’re from a reputable vendor. A number of ads for eclipse glasses on certain disreputable websites carry little to no information about the glasses they’re selling. The actual glasses are cheap enough and are plentiful enough from legitimate sources that you don’t have to worry about dealing with fakes.

   
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  Greg Collier 9:03 am on August 2, 2017 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Backpage ( 70 ), Communications Decency Act ( 5 ), Human trafficking ( 101 ), Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act of 2017 ( 3 )   

  Senate submits amendment to CDA to go after human trafficking websites 

  

  Yesterday, the Senate submitted a bill that would add an amendment to the Communications Decency Act of 1996 that would specifically remove the protection sites like Backpage have hidden behind so they could continue to facilitate the trafficking of women and children in their ads. The bill, sponsored by Ohio Senator Rob Portman, is called the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act of 2017 and would essentially leave the CDA intact as it is except for websites who knowingly engage in sex trafficking. In the Senate’s own investigations, they believe Backpage knowingly edited ads sent to them in order to avoid further scrutiny by law enforcement and the government.

  This couldn’t come soon enough as the victims of sex trafficking have been blocked multiple times from seeking justice against Backpage by the outdated CDA. The Communications Decency Act is 21 years old. The CDA was passed during a time when most of us weren’t even on the internet and the only way you could access it was over a dial-up connection on an expensive PC. Since that time, the internet has grown exponentially and the technology used to access it has vastly exceeded any expectations we had of it in 1996. Yet the CDA has largely remained the same, failing to advance along with the times.

  Those who think this new amendment may restrict free speech on the internet couldn’t be further from the truth. The new bill has language in it which specifically targets sex trafficking sites. According to the Washington Post…

  The proposed law would clarify that Section 230 [of the CDA] does not preclude prosecution of state or federal criminal laws dealing with sex trafficking of children; does not prohibit civil suits related to sex trafficking; and ensures federal liability for publishing information designed to facilitate sex trafficking.

  So yes, we can have a free and open internet where the rights of trafficking victims are recognized and their facilitators are punished.

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  Greg Collier 8:57 am on August 1, 2017 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: craigslist ( 131 ), drugs ( 6 ), Facebook Marketplace ( 68 )   

  Facebook Marketplace follows craigslist’s dangerous lead 

  

  In a previous blog post we stated “Craigslist has nothing to teach Facebook” in terms of content moderation. We defended Facebook stating they have a much better content moderation system in place than craigslist. However, it seems we may have been a bit mistaken in that defense because it seems Facebook Marketplace is following craigslist’s bad example anyway. In a report by Sky News in the UK, their investigation found illegal prescription drugs were allegedly being sold on Facebook Marketplace with impunity.

  Rather than having personal moderation on Facebook Marketplace, Facebook seems to be relying on the craigslist model of ‘community policing.’ The problem with having the community moderate Marketplace is they tend not to report illegal activity. The people who are going to Marketplace for illegal goods are not going to report anything and the people who are going to Marketplace for legitimate uses aren’t actively searching for illegal content.

  That’s also not taking into account Facebook seems to be lax in enforcing their own rules. According to the Sky News report, Facebook initially said the profiles of alleged Marketplace drug dealers didn’t violate their terms of service. The offending profiled weren’t removed until Sky News contacted Facebook personally. Most Facebook users aren’t an international news outlet who can just contact Facebook by phone. So, much like craigslist, it seems Marketplace’s community policing is a lot of lip service.

   
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  Greg Collier 8:55 am on July 31, 2017 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: malls, retail ( 49 ), supermarkets ( 2 )   

  Can supermarkets save the mall? 

  

  We’ve discussed the decline of the American mall many times before. Thanks to all in one retailers like Wal-Mart and giant online sites like Amazon, mall after mall have been shutting their mirrored doors in the wake of these giant merchants. It almost seems like the only use for malls anymore are for YouTubers to explore dead malls.

  Now, the San Francisco Gate is reporting a new trend of supermarkets moving into mall space. While items like electronics are now mostly ordered online, most consumers still like to make food purchases at the store. Could this new trend make it more convenient and give consumers more choices for their groceries? Maybe not.

  As the old adage goes, the three most important things in real estate is location, location, location. Unfortunately, the old malls tend to have terrible locations. They were originally designed to be destinations in themselves and supermarkets depend more on convenience, like picking up a few things on your way home from work. To drive off of your commute and pull into an old mall parking lot, then driving around the mall to wherever the supermarket is located turns a quick stop into a major chore.

   
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  Greg Collier 8:33 am on July 28, 2017 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Amazon ( 114 ), retail ( 49 ), walmart ( 25 )   

  Why do we hate Wal-Mart but love Amazon? 

  

  Wal-Mart is no stranger to controversy. Not only has it put mom and pop outlets out of business, but it’s also been known to close down national chains in its wake. It has a reputation of underpaying and overworking its employees, and when a new Wal-Mart store is scheduled to be opened, it’s almost unanimously met with protest.

  However, tech blog The Next Web poses a very poignant question. Why do we despise Wal-Mart while Amazon is just as guilty of being cutthroat in the retail world?

  Think about it for a moment, Amazon started off selling books. Add that to the advent of Amazon’s e-reader, The Kindle, and now you would be hard-pressed to find a physical bookstore. Amazon has also crushed national chains such as Circuit City when it started selling electronics and Best Buy could be looking at the same fate. A number of consumers tend to use these stores as showrooms for Amazon, meaning they get hands on with the product at one of these stores before buying the item on Amazon. Their pending purchase of Whole Foods could put an even larger strain on what remains of the mom and pop stores. Also, much like Wal-Mart. Amazon had its own kerfuffle in recent years when some of its employees from their fulfillment centers took to the web to voice their concerns about wages and working conditions. Yet there’s been little to no protest by the public at large. Why is that?

  Is it Amazon’s hidden nature that causes us not to care? For example, we never see their workers to see how they are being treated on the job. Or is it the convenience since we don’t have to leave our homes to purchase items and don’t have to deal with the hassle of the crowds?

  It seems to be that Amazon benefits from the ‘out of sight, out of mind’ principle while it commits businesses practices that are as equally as detrimental as Wal-Mart.

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  Greg Collier 9:02 am on July 27, 2017 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: real estate ( 140 ), rental scam ( 92 ), scam ( 22 )   

  The cost of online rental scams 

  

  A number of people tend to think that the real estate rental scams that take place online are no big deal. That couldn’t be further from the truth. Currently, southwestern Florida is experiencing a surge in these rental scams. The scam is the same one that’s been plaguing certain classifieds sites for years. A con artist, or artists, will copy an ad from a property that’s being sold and change the ad to make it appear that the property is for rent. Then the scammers will claim to be renting it at a reduced price that’s hard to resist. On top of that, they’ll try to lure in people who are either undocumented in this country or people with low credit scores. Of course the scammers will put restrictions on how you deal with them such as only contacting them through email or not letting you view the property before sending them some form of down payment or processing fee.

  WFTV in Florida supposes that if one of these scammers collected the $310 ‘processing fee’ that the scammers are asking from two people a day, the scammers could end up with a quarter million dollars in a short amount of time. That’s not even taking into account the victims who will not only be out of their money but could also find themselves without a place to live.

  The best way to find out who the true owners of the property are and if it’s for rent is to go to your county’s appraiser website. However, the best way not to get scammed is to not use that certain classifieds site that is the flame to the moth for real estate scammers.

   
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  Greg Collier 8:59 am on July 26, 2017 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Backpage ( 70 ), gift cards ( 108 ), Human trafficking ( 101 ), sex trafficking ( 3 )   

  Backpage now takes gift cards as payment for trafficking ads 

  

  After having the credit card companies cease doing business with them, forcing them to turn to Bitcoin, Backpage has now made it much easier and more anonymous to purchase sex ads.

  According to an article by the Dallas Morning News, Backpage is now accepting gift cards as payment for their ads for prostitution. The same gift cards you can buy from just about any store in the world, from your high-end retail outlets to your local bargain store.

  How it works is you purchase any one of these gift cards, like iTunes or Starbucks or Target, and give the card number to Backpage. Backpage then allegedly turns around and sells the card number for cash. If this sounds familiar, this is the same way craigslist scammers try to get you to pay them. If they’re not asking you to wire them money, they’re asking you to pay them in gift cards. The obvious problem with this is it breaks a chain in the paper trail. If someone pays for a gift card with cash, that’s a virtually anonymous transaction which makes it more difficult to find the victims of sex trafficking.

  So now it’s even more business as usual at Backpage. Just think, some underage girl is probably going to be sold into sexual slavery by someone who bought an iTunes gift card at Dollar General.

  The devaluation of human life continues at Backpage.

   
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  Greg Collier 9:01 am on July 25, 2017 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: fake news ( 12 ), gofundme ( 10 ), Snopes ( 2 )   

  Hoax busting site Snopes facing financial shutdown 

  

  The scourge of conspiracy theorists and urban legend believers everywhere, Snopes.com is facing a financial crisis that could result in the website shutting down. Snopes was started in 1994 by the married couple of Barbara and David Mikkelson, who created the site in order to have a resource where people could debunk urban legends. Prior to the internet, urban legends would break out in various pockets of the country and would spread like wildfire with nothing to stop them. Some of these tall tales have gone on to ruin the reputations of prominent regional figures. In 2014, the couple divorced with Barbara Mikkelson selling her half of the site to a digital media corporation and that is where Snopes’ current problems seems to have originated.

  Snopes is accusing this digital media company of cutting off its advertising revenue stream in a power struggle for ownership of the site. According to the website SaveSnopes.com…

  Although we maintain editorial control (for now), the vendor will not relinquish the site’s hosting to our control, so we cannot modify the site, develop it, or — most crucially — place advertising on it. The vendor continues to insert their own ads and has been withholding the advertising revenue from us.

  Because of this Snopes is going the crowd funding route by trying to raise $500,000 on the fund-raising site GoFundMe. As of this writing, Snopes has raised close to $350,000 toward its goal.

  If Snopes were to close down, it’s almost a guarantee another site could rise from its ashes. However, none of them would have the cache and credibility Snopes does. Losing Snopes would not only embolden conspiracy theorists and partisan ‘news’ sites, it would also be a great loss of a plethora of investigative information that has had a big hand in trying to prevent ignorance on the internet.