The WORD’s Blog

Another Check in the Mail

(more…)

Touché?

(more…)

Say What!?!

(more…)

Demonically Absurd

(more…)

The Insidiously Sneaky (If Not Stupid Or Silly):

(more…)

The Funny:

(more…)

I was snookered a few weeks ago, allowing my Twitter account to get hacked. Nasty. The hacking occurred as a number of phishing moments were showing up in my email service. Must be the season for parasitic trolling. Another reminder that the depression called a recession is effecting all?

It was decided a long time ago to blog occasionally about phishing which sounds like fishing, as in, say, fishing expeditions, or, as in, say, casting nets, trolling, and discover who and what fills them.

From Wikipedia (footnotes and links removed):

Phishing is an example of social engineering techniques used to fool users and exploits the poor usability of current web security technologies. Attempts to deal with the growing number of reported phishing incidents include legislation, user training, public awareness, and technical security measures.

Thus a series, the following “phishing categories” addressed: The Funny,The Insidiously Sneaky (If Not Stupid Or Silly), Demonically Absurd, Say What!?!, Touché and Check Is in the Mail. But there are probably as many categories as there are imprints from the human imagination.

Any people reading the phishing posts in this series are encouraged to post their experiences if they have had any and want to, gulp, share.

I’ve been experimenting with several writing/reporting projects, the most recent is requiring my news ethics and responsibility class to write op eds about their communities and the sources that they use to know what’s going on in their communities as well as staying on top of important local, city, state, national and international issues.

It’s been an interesting learning experience for me, and will be influencing my writing/reporting classes in the future. The project, Who Needs Newspapers?, can be found in the Newspapers Dying? No Big Deal to These Students.

The real D.C. Teachers Federal Credit Union indicates that it has been scammed and is being scammed, like the message below:

Notification From D.C. Teachers F.C.U.
Dear Customer,

At D.C. Teachers Federal Credit Union, the highest responsability to our customers is the safekeeping of confidential information you have entrusted to us and using it in a responsable manner. A fundamental element of safeguarding your confidential information is to provide protection against unauthorized access or use of this information. We maintain physical, electronic and procedural safeguards that comply with the federal guidelines to guard your nonpublic personal information against unauthorized access.

At this time we need you to confirm your e-mail address with our existing database. As soon as our database will be updated we need to make few important announcements to our customers so please update your contact information with no delay.

Update Your D.C. Teachers Federal Credit Union Online Account

(more…)

Just finished watching the Sarah What’s-Her-Name segment of CNN’s Reliable Sources, an excellent show for a genre purporting to broadcast insightful commentary and analysis and news about news. Sometimes, however, the difficulties of producing a regular schedule of quality programming for this genre is evident – slow news week, bad news week – and banality can rule at times.

Nothing insightful this date, November 22. Nothing new, nothing gained.

Lots missed?

(more…)