On this episode of Spark: Personalized email scams, anti-human software design, and living Craigslist. Click below to listen or download the MP3 (runs 51:00).
Play audio:
- Anne Wright-Howard tells the story of a personalized email scam
- Finn Brunton explains how internet scam artists commit “lightweight identity theft”
- Judith Donath on the pros and cons of being fashionable online (full interview at Radio Berkman)
- Nora reflects on the trade-offs between speed and accuracy online
- Ke$ha YouTube video: HwOOD $IgN I$ oFFiciaLLY My bIZnatCH!
- CBC Arts online: Gordon Lightfoot very much alive
- Rob Ennals identifies controversial claims with DisputeFinder (full interview)
- Karen Mendell tells the story of her worst Craigslist experience
- Jason Paul is living his life on Craigslist (full interview)
- Jaron Lanier believes there’s danger in the way the web is evolving
- Jaron’s book is You Are Not a Gadget
This episode features Creative Commons music and sound effects:
- Countdown by Corsica_S
- Music from Music for a Valentine from Podington Bear
- “Anima Instrumental” by St. Paul
- “Rubber Molecules” by Chad Crouch
- “Graduation” by Podington Bear
- “Window like” by echoed
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Re the email scam segment — Dick Miller told a story very similar to this one on The Current a couple of years ago. It involved a friend in Ghana who had a compromised Gmail account.
Great interview with Mr. Lanier! Opinions/factoids from those of us who aren't fans of all Web 2.0 techstuff are hard to come by. It's great to hear more You Are Not a Gadget material, if only for a few minutes.
Most tech enthusiasts and computer scientists I've met are the type who will welcome in any new software/technology without any second thought about what implications might follow. It will need a little more material to compare with, but Jaron's manifesto could start up a more social-science based branch for computer science; something like cultural computer science or critical computer science.
Email scams are the worst. I just read a whole article on craigslist scams. They are even scamming people that are out of work looking for a job. Good post.. I liked the audio. Thanks
Nora: Thank you so much for your show today on email scams. For what it's worth, please tell Anne Wright-Howard not too feel bad…I almost got sucked into exactly the same scam through Yahoo mail just two weeks ago. The email had the Rogers banner and a photo of a father and son of East Indian origin lying on the floor looking at a laptop. My first thought was that the type of red in the Rogers banner looked like apple- red not the usual scarlet-red. And about the pic?.. I immediately thought …if this was an email intended to appeal to many Canadians, it would show a mixture of Canadians from various different ethnic origins and various walks of life…that's what I'm used to seeing in most Canadian communications companies' advertising or information pieces. Above all, the grammar in the email was wrong. Despite all this fishiness, the email still looked very real and it demanded an immediate reply with my password etc, or else my email account would be shut down in 24 hrs. I called Rogers and the rep told me this was a hoax and not to reply but she really wasn't too concerned or shocked about the whole thing…that surprised me! She did assure me my account would not be shut down. I did not reply to the email and after 24 hrs passed…and my email was still working, I truly believed her! Love your show. Keep up the great work.
I tried to download Dispute Finder but I kept getting sent back to a basic download of Firefox, which I already have. What do I do now?
DisputeFinder is a Firefox extension. I suggest you follow the instructions here: http://disputefinder.cs.berkeley.edu/thinklink/do…
I really liked the point you made at the end of the show about how technology becomes fixed in certain forms over time in our minds today Nora . You may find the philosophy of Andrew Feenberg, a professor at Simon Fraser University, interesting regarding this point!
Hi Kyle,
Thanks! It's sort of a bailiwick of mine. I actually interviewed Andrew Feenberg on a different topic several years ago, for a documentary that I made for IDEAS. I should look into an opportunity to have him on the show. Thanks for the suggestion!
Internet Golden Rules:
1. ON ONE, not your bank, your ISP NO ONE will ever ask you for your user name and password. NO ONE.
( Most of these scams are a result of email account hijacking and uneducated users. Including journalists)
2. NO ONE will ever email you a request for money. Seriously, if they were in that serious of trouble they would call.
3. Emails that look like they are from your email provider or bank or whoever are easy to validate simply by selecting the actual link (not clicking it) – highlight the text, right click and select View Selection Source (Firefox). This will show you the real address and chances are if it's a scam the address will NOT MATCH.
4. HTML email. That is emails that are written as web pages are the most popular way to trick people into thinking the email request is from a legitimate business or institution. TURN OFF HTML email in your desktop email clients and online email accounts like Yahoo, Gmail and HotMail. Better still download and install Mozilla Thunderbird email client and set up access to your online through Thunderbird which has very good phishing and scam protection built in. Oh and Thunderbird like Mozilla's Firefox browser is ABSOLUTELY FREE!
NOTHING is free.
Of course contrary to what many people think there is not a lot of nothing around. Most nothings are really full of something. We just do not yet really understand what most of those somethings are.
Greed is a dangerous thing.
Ungreedy people rarely get taken. Yes–ungreedy IS a word. I just used it.
My brother just sent us the same scam email, and my sister sent a witty reply.
Dear Brother,
I wonder if you could help me, Christian Brother. I know that you will follow
God's Way, and share all your money and worldly possessions with me.
I know I can count on you.
Please give me all of your bank account information, so that I can empty your
bank accounts — with great love and respect.
Go with God, (He loves even those with empty pockets and empty bank accounts)
Sis
The interview with Jaron Lanier was interesting. If there is a longer version, please post.
I would suggest a few other authors to put this interview in context.
Lawrence Lessig, who wrote Code and other laws of Cyberspace. He suggests (and I agree) that software code is a form of regulation, and that we should be analyzing how these rules are regulating our lives more closely. Who is writing them, are they accountable and transparent, what are their intentions (stated or ulterior) , etc.
John Ralston Saul. What Mr. Lanier attributed to "Web 2.0", many others would just call corporatism. This is something that has been discussed/etc long before Web 1.0 came around, so isn't a Web 2.0 issue. It isn't the technology that is dehumanizing people, but specific social structures which try to strip the diversity within each human away to smaller components to make us fit more into an outdated manufacturing model. Technology is just a tool being used to promote specific social and organizational structures. I don't think it can be legitimately said that Web 2.0 proponents are synonymous with corporatist technology proponents.
My spidy senses kept tingling during the interview whenever specific economic ideas came up — whether discussing musicians or discussing automatic payment systems for web content. It has turned out that the most de-humanizing force online has been attempts to use coercive methods to impose specific business models on basic communications technology. I'm thinking of things such as Digital Rights/Restrictions Management (DRM) which has as its goal the replacement of humans and social sciences (politicians/parliaments/etc, lawyers/judges/courts, buyers/sellers/markets/conversations) with unaccountable/non-transparent software code. Where I believe we need to be using better social sciences and human interactions to solve market problems (so creators will be paid more), I got the feeling (without it being said explicitly) that Mr. Lanier would be one of those authors that would favor DRM as if it were a legitimate tool to "solve" some of the problems he is concerned with, when in fact DRM would make those problems worse.
I did a bit more reading, and then posted a blog article: How comfortable are you with reading ideas you disagree with?
I thought I was finally over “junk food cravings” but Wendy’s’ idiotic “natural cut fries” ad is fueling my distraction engine.