NEVER Give Out Your Password! (Part two)

A month ago, I posted this article, Give Out Your Password? NOT! NEVER! It's even more urgent and very important that you do not even give your password out to anyone, not even someone who claims to be your friend. Here's why;

Internet scammers target deaf community

The scam works exactly the same way in every time. They say you've won money or something like that. In reality, you haven't. The account of someone you know is compromised somehow and this person impersonates them. They'll IM everyone on the buddy list. Then this same person on a second account talks to you, and tells you to talk to your friend or your friend will talk to you.

This is your classic confidence or similar scheme.

How do you defend yourself? A good password not found in the dictionary that's at least 6 characters. That plus never giving out your password to anyone. Even better is to actually pay attention to how your "friend" is typing including use of capitals and lower case and English. There's a way to know if it's your friend or not;

- certain things only you and your friend know, change the details of them.
- Ask them about how their husband/wife is, but this time, use a completely different name.
- Ask if they're going to this imaginary event/movie next month with you.
- If the actual owner of the account has an illness, give a different name than what the illness is and ask them about it. For example, if they need surgery on their arm, ask about their broken leg.

If the person doesn't even make corrections to your 'mistakes'...

BUSTED! COVER BLOWN!

It works every time without failure.

9/11 Reflections

We, as a nation, including the world, will be remembering the 9/11 attacks. The question still pops up at times;

"Where were you that fateful day?"

I was still asleep, having spent part of the night doing some stuff on the computer. Vibrations from a neighbor's pounding on the front door woke me to let me know what was going on. It finally happened...

I turned on the TV... The Twin Towers fell after two planes were flown into it. The Pentagon had a plane flown into it. A fourth plane nosedived into a field in Shanksville, PA, after the passengers revolted against the hijackers.

I went into the IRC (Internet Relay Chat) and checked in with friends on there and in email. I didn't logoff til late that night. They were all safe, those I knew in NYC and two who worked at the Pentagon, despite some getting home very late if at all or stayed somewhere. The local metro still ran, but the Pentagon station was closed. Traffic out of DC was gridlock. The area's Kiss & Rides in Metro stations were madhouses of foot and vehicle traffic. Air traffic was grounded for nearly a week.

One year later, on personal business, I went to NYC. I made a side trip to the former WTC site. Limited traffic around the area was allowed, and media cameras didn't quite show everything. Some of the buildings still had some frontal damage.

http://www.chameleon.net/~boogi/wtc/

Just yesterday, the Pentagon unveiled their memorial. I plan on visiting it sometime in the future.

Can we prevent another 9/11? Unfortunately, there's no one answer to that. More security at airports? Maybe not. Add on security and then some at bus and train stations? Going totally paranoid isn't going to do it either. Everyone needs to do their part rather than trusting the government and law enforcement for protection.

NTID Laptop Thief Using Info?

Earlier today I got back from visiting the local Capital One bank. Yesterday, I had received an account opening statement from them which had the correct address, but wrong addressee. I took a look inside to find that it was an account that had been opened in someone else's name and SSN but the account opener used my address. It was dated a day or two after the theft.

After checking with some people, I found that the SSN and birth date did not belong to them. So, off to the Capital One location I went.

I talked with the bank people and they thanked me for bringing it to their attention. While I was there, the person talked with the fraud people and they said that there were over 100 accounts opened online recently. I gave him my name and SSN for them to place on a fraud alert watch so if the person tries to open an account with my info, it will not go through. I also put a fraud alert on my own bank account at another bank.

I don't think I'd have gotten this far had I used the relay. It was worth the gas and time to get there, a 35 mile round trip.

One thing of interest. It is a classic scheme to send things like this not to the person the information belongs to, but elsewhere in the same city, somewhere in the same state or another state. Then when nothing happens after a period of time, the person may then start using and abusing it.

So again, everyone, safeguard your personal information.

Give Out Your Password? NOT! NEVER!

There's some AIM screen names, most notably "powerball4real8," that are being used to scam more deaf out there. Watch also for any with "emerson" in it, like "pacemerson247" that kept getting others. This time it's of someone who is trying to ask you for your password to "open the briefcase" to get the person their money.

First, this is another variation of the Nigerian scam.

Second, this is a gross violation of your account security. Plenty of damage they can do with your account.

Third, it's against the TOS of any service out there to give out your password.

So in short, do NOT give out your password, no matter what. I made this mistake some years ago back in college and had it locked down shortly afterwards. Apparently, someone combined a bunch of files into one huge file and sent it to various people, including the system operators and, unbelievably, the head of operations! Needless to say, I had to do some explaining. I've even broken into a few accounts myself due to weak passwords and my knowing the person well.

Worse stuff can be done with more sensitive accounts. Again, do not give out your passwords. A password like cat-0cargo3 is quite difficult to brute-force crack. The longer your password, the longer it takes.

Textwalking, Textdriving, textwhatever...

Sherlock Steve has had some pretty good points when talking about texting while driving. The recent Washington Post article, Textwalkers: Do They Need A Heads-Up? talks about things like this including textwalking. There's even mention of laws being passed related to texting.

Folks, put down your pagers and just walk normally. You do not want to be in NYC or other city when you fall down the steps to a subway station while deep in a text convo... Same with driving, just pull over for a bit. It's not worth it being flattened by a speeding bus, truck, or train. I've seen the pics and they ain't pretty.

NTID Reunion Recap

What a time at the reunion. I didn't want to leave, but I had to. Whoever plans them, keep doing so. They keep getting better every year. I'm hoping future gas prices will stabilize or at least be lower than how they were at the time, hovering around $4.15 a gallon. Where the artwork was, they had a slideshow of previous SVP events, with me being in one of them with my face covered with the result of a pie eating contest.

What tempered the reunion a bit was going without two old friends, James Sharer and Harold Tritt, both who died within 6 months of each other. That plus finding another old friend I couldn't find, had died also, Barbara Fallon. Steve Baier, James and Janet Byrne, Jamie Berke, and I attended Harold's funeral and burial. The art room also had a listing of those alumni who passed away.

The stage shows were pretty good. Our final time in the Panara theatre had a few surprises, with Robert Panara showing up as well as the staff tossing two cases of disposable film cameras out to the audience and Dr. Robert Davila briefly talking. We had CJ Jones and John Maucere bringing down the house. I had seen The Wrong Game for the second time, and they also showed a preview of the Dummy Hoy movie, "Signs of the Time" with the production staff answering questions.

The food was good, with the best time being Friday under the tent with a rather yummy ribs dinner with some other things. The weather pretty much cooperated, with it being sunny, and it did rain some.

Right before Jamie and I were to head to the airport, we found she had gotten a message on her SK saying Delta had cancelled our flight from Rochester to JFK airport. After a quick call, I managed to get our flight rescheduled from Rochester to Cincinnati, then to National Airport and still had a bit of time to kill at LBJ with someone.

Like I said, in all, it was a good time out there. I had to use my wheelchair what with all the standing around everyone was doing, though I parked and folded it in the wheelchair area in the theatre and moved to my seat. Sometimes it's better to join the audience...

Doctors and the relay - Hung up? - Part 2

Those of you who were following my previous post can relax. As it turns out, I went in today (Monday morning June 23) after they opened and talked to the front desk person. She took one look at my papers and computer records and realized that she had neglected to call me to reschedule. Since the doctor was there, they were able to get me in for a checkup of my knees and decide what to do next. He'll talk with his colleagues about what they're going to do next and get back to me. I'll give them a call or visit next week if I don't hear anything by then.

I also got an email response from the office manager stating that they will bring the up subject of using the relay in their next staff meeting.

Those of you wondering about interpreters, this office takes this sort of thing seriously, since it's a collection of offices in various locations. Normally, I don't have interpreters at a doctor appointment since I can communicate with them pretty well. What helps is learning what I've got, what I need to do, and what I'm facing, which helps in coming up with the right questions.

Now that was a rather good resolution, wouldn't you say?

Doctors and the relay - Hung up?

Has anyone had a doctor appointment seemingly be cancelled for no reason, and when you show up at the office, no one is there and you find out that the doctor's on vacation or something? Then when you check your emails, you see a collection of relay calls that you don't know who they're from, who called, and they're all hangups?

I sent this message to the Quality Management contact on the doctor webpage with some details removed;


Currently, my orthopedist is (doctorname) in the (location) office. Before I continue, let me introduce myself. You got my name from the headers of the message. I am a deaf patient in (town name) who uses hearing aids and lipreading to communicate with the doctor and front desk people. On my contact form can be found my home address, my phone number, and I believe my email address. This phone number is a relay number that goes directly to my instant messenger account where I communicate with the caller.

Approximately 3 months ago, I had hyaluronic acid injections in both knees and had an appointment scheduled for June 19 at 11am. Unfortunately, the office was closed when I showed up, When I used the relay to call the office, I got an answering machine that stated that the office was closed. I then called (another office called) and found that the (my doctor office location) office was closed due to the doctor being on vacation.

The problem here is at least twofold. First, this appointment was to determine what course of action would happen next if it would be knee surgery (total knee replacements) or something different. Second, I have at times received relay calls that don't even say who called or what number called. Here's one of those messages;

Subject: Missed call from Unknown Caller

MY IP RO 7259M GA (PERSON HUNG UP) THK U MY IP RO 7259M BYE SKSK

Instead of a message left, I have no idea who just called and for what reason. I currently have a listing of a number of "Unknown Caller" emails in my inbox. While calling a relay number sounds like a marketing call when the operator answers and makes a connection with me, it is actually a valuable communications tool for many deaf people out there who would otherwise be dependent on a hearing person to make those calls for them. This caller could have at least sent me notification via regular mail or email since all this is on my contact info sheet.

You can see how much trouble this has caused me. I do not want to have to wait months later for another appointment when my knees are in more need of help than anything else. I deserve an immediate new appointment given the seriousness of my condition.

=====

Has anyone else had this kind of issue with a doctor or someone in the office who tends to just hang up and not even try to make any more contact with you? What was your course of action?

Forget the DC Tax Scam. We Got An Interpreter Scam.

Never mind it being Friday the 13th today... The Washington Post Metro section had a story about an embezzlement case involving the local community college. What upset me was finding that the former coordinator of interpreters for the deaf was involved as well as one of the interpreters, and I knew Mark Kreidler from when I attended and worked with him on getting interpreters for my classes. A bit more upsetting is that I was going to use him as a reference...

The DC tax scam ran for around several years and cost DC at least $20 million dollars. (use keywords dc tax scam on Google or the Post)

I'm disappointed in you, Mark Kreidler. You may have caused damage to the jobs of other interpreter coordinators and interpreters around the nation. Your position involved more than just the trust of deaf students attending the college.

The 'Wrong Game' Review

A couple weeks ago, I was with Jamie Berke to watch The Wrong Game at Gallaudet's Foster Auditorium. Little did we know we'd be sharing the campus with a festival and what looked to be a basketball game. The movie itself was quite good, the first time we've watched a full-length ASL/signed movie. The first thing I'd noticed was no sound. Next thing I noticed was that it had no captions/subtitles for those who don't sign well or at all. Not a problem there.

All through the movie, I noticed little elements from other movies and books here and there. It's rather difficult to list them, but suffice it to say that some major elements seem to have been taken from the SAW movie series. Namely, people being stuck in a room and having to do something in order to exit a maze or room. Even though the movie was low-budget, you know they had to fake, but otherwise their acting 'told' you what was going on. Very little blood and gore was used, with the most being in the Lion's Den when a character put his arm into one of the lion's mouths on the wall... Hardly a gush by Hollywood standards.

Other elements I'd noticed came from books I'd read over the years, a little Hitchcock here, a little Stephen King there, and a few other things here and there. Some of the props and scenes were made to look even more scary and menacing by the use of spiders and snakes. It was interesting seeing Bernard Bragg, both in one of the pre-show ads and in the movie.

Whatever questions I had through the movie were answered at the end. The signing was clear, although with the "old man" character in the attic with the blue gloves was a little hard to understand what with the dark gloves color against a dark background. The camera tricks were pretty well-done as well.

No spoilers here for those who haven't seen it. Let's just say the ending was quite interesting.

Move over, Hollywood... There's a new player in town and it's called Deaf Cinema.