Category: information

July 14, 2016

How Blog Comments are Auto Generated

Hi there every one, here every person is sharing such
experience, so it’s nice to read this weblog, and I used to pay a quick visit this website daily

Now that’s a very strange sentence above. The words sort of make sense but it’s written in a way that no person would ever do. How come?

Because it’s created by an automatic blog comment generator.

Here’s another example.

Very handful of web-sites that come about to become in depth beneath, from our point of view are undoubtedly nicely worth checking out.

Spammers have long since automated the process of adding spam messages to blogs as comments. It seems a stupid thing to do but it gets their message on the Internet. Google and other search engines can spot when a spammer copies a comment repeatedly on multiple blogs. So, the spammers have software that modifies the comment by using a thesaurus to replace certain words or phrases.

The result is then posted to the blog.

If you have a blog and have been getting strange comments – maybe it’s the automated comment generator at work.

If so, there’s no point complaining to the author – just delete the rubbish comments.

July 7, 2016

Bogus Hotel Bookings

Up to one in every 16 online room bookings is a fake, according to official figures.

The Federal Trade Commission says travellers have arrived at hotels only to learn there’s no record of their reservation, the hotel is fully booked, or they have to pay more for the only upgraded room available.

How does this happen?

You type in the name of a hotel and then click on the first result on Google. However this first result may be a scam website that looks like the real hotel site and once you enter your details – the money will disappear and you may believe you have a room booked, but in fact haven’t and you only find that out when you arrive at the hotel.

In other cases, the bogus sites actually pose as online travel agents, again using genuine logos and photos.

And in at least one reported case, a fake site had a “contact now” button that connected victims with a fully-staffed, bogus call centre.

Just because a webpage looks like the official site of your favourite hotel chain doesn’t necessarily mean it is. Before you reserve a room for your next out-of-town meeting or family vacation, make sure you know who’s at the other end of that BOOK NOW button.

Book directly through a hotel chain using the toll-free number or web address on your rewards card or in print ads.

Carry a printed copy (or an easily accessible smartphone copy) of any email confirmation you receive after making your booking.

How to Book Safely

Check that the website address matches what you expect (you wont get a legitimate booking for Hilton hotels at fredsplumbing333.com for example)
Book directly if possible
Before setting out on your journey, call the hotel (using a number you know to be genuine) to confirm they’re expecting you.

[source: scambusters.org]

July 6, 2016

Check If Your Email Address Has Been Compromised

If you want to know if your email address has been compromised in one of the large scale data breaches that you see in the news, then this website will check for you.

www.haveibeenpwned.com

The guy who created this website is Troy Hunt, a Microsoft Regional Director who is well known and highly regarded in the Internet security world.

Why did Troy build the site?
Troy says “This site provides a service to the public. Data breaches are rampant and people don’t appreciate the scale or frequency with which they occur. By aggregating the data here, I hope that it not only helps victims learn of compromises of their accounts, but also highlights the severity of the risks of online attacks on today’s Internet”.

A “breach” is an incident where a hacker illegally obtains data from a vulnerable system, usually by exploiting weaknesses in the software. All of the data in the haveibeenpwned website comes from website breaches which have been made publicly available.

There’s an option on the site to sign up to be notified if your email address comes up in a later breach.

What to do if your email details have been compromised?
This doesn’t necessarily mean that someone has your password but you should check and take precautions.

Change the password for the account
Change the password for any other account that has the same password
Review whether to shut down the relevant accounts and whether there has been any suspicious activity on those accounts ( if there is money involved).

You should always use strong passwords so if you have any less than strong passwords do update them on all relevant accounts.

June 22, 2016

Online Auction for Domain Names

We received an email at the radio station, offering the opportunity to participate in an auction for sale of the Internet domain name radio.co.uk

Clearly they are sending out the invites to every radio station they can find.

This is a Dutch company that runs the auctions and claims to have 21 million domain names .

It claims to connect the best virtual real estate i.e. domain names with industry leaders. But that’s false – they just sell to the highest bidder. That’s how auctions work. There’s no quality check – just counting of money.

A quick check shows they are currently auctioning

259.com estimated to be worth €50,000

Also 43.com estimated at €3,000,000

Estate.com at €1,500,000

Multivitamins.com at €150,000

There are much cheaper domain names available e.g. ann.nl estimated to be worth €1,000

It seems there is a group of people calling themselves domain name speculators or domainers whose job is the buying and selling of domain names.

Is there anything wrong with this?

Buying and selling commodities of all types is normal business practice – from farm output to stocks and shares to minerals. However, I do feel there is something repugnant in buying things you think other people want and making money from their need without adding anything.

So I think this is legal but objectionable.

It is clearly a big market – the buying and selling of domain names.

June 17, 2016

A Magic Phone Number and Call Blocking

The Magic Phone Number
When buying something online or registering online there is usually a form to fill in of your details and quite often this insists on your telephone number even though you know it’s not needed.
This is annoying, plus, you wonder what they will do with your phone number. Will they sell it or give it to third parties?, resulting in phone calls you don’t want.

As the forms usually check the number is in the correct format, you need a real phone number to input.

You can use 0333 88 88 88 88 (the last 8 doesn’t matter if the form only allows 11 digits.)
When, they call, those cold call culprits will hear a short recorded message:-

“trueCall38 is handling my calls. I prefer not to be contacted by phone, so please contact me via my email address. Goodbye!”
Problem solved.

Do companies block this number from being entered in the form? No, but if they do then Trucall38 have a display page “Wall of Shame” but none has done so thus far.
Q. Why do companies ask for your phone number?
They rarely really need it, and you don’t know what they are going to do with it. Interestingly, experts say that asking for a phone number can reduce the number of people who complete an online form by 25%. That’s a big loss.

Of course, some companies sell their customers phone numbers on to other companies, so you don’t know who’ll get your number.
Call Blocking
The business behind the website trucall38.com have developed a call blocking device called Trucall that is reported to have been 95% successful in blocking nuisance calls. The technology has been licensed to BT and is incorporated in their BT8500 phone.
Trucall claim that half a million people in the UK are now protected from nuisance phone calls by their technology.

The guys behind Truecall say “We thought that everyone should have the opportunity to opt out of handing over their phone number unless they wanted to, so we launched the trueCall38 number – a completely free service”.
If you don’t want someone to have your phone number – tell them 0333 88 88 88 88