Easy Spyware Tools

I’ve had a few people mention “odd things” happening when trying to install an application on Facebook called “Gridview”. Well, I decided to try it out. On the install screen, you see this:

Makes sense so far. Here’s the install screen where you agree to let the application loose on your profile:

Click to Enlarge

Once done, you see the following screen and this is where it all starts to go a bit wrong:

Click to Enlarge

Note that the application is ALREADY installed by this point, because the Gridview icon is on your list of current applications (highlighted by the red box on the left).

However, top right (also highlighted) is a box made to look like a standard Facebook “continue” button. When installing the application for the first time, this caught me out too - I didn’t notice the app was already installed and (naturally enough) clicked the “continue” button, thinking there was something else I needed to do to complete the installation.

Imagine my confusion, then, when I was suddenly presented with this:

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I saw an interesting post over at Anti-Virus-Rants today, where Kurt Wismer linked to an article regarding content scraping. In essence, the site doing the scraping (Security Ratty) ended up with “Security Ratty is a slimy, content stealing thief” on the front page. I find this interesting, because not so long ago I’d considered doing something similar with one of those fake security spam blog things that lift the content and splatter a ton of adverts on their site, while removing correct attribution.

Instead, I decided to do a little digging and quickly traced it back to a guy running a whole network of various sites, blogs and other networks. However - something didn’t seem quite right. For all intents and purposes, he seemed like a normal, legit guy. He had pictures of himself on various portals. He openly advertised his main line of business, which (I think) was something to do with accountancy. There was a personal blog about pet dogs.

Holding fire on the “Here’s a post specifically for your scraper site poking fun at you, aren’t I clever” post, we found out that the guy had purchased a bunch of ready-to-roll blogs in good faith and had no idea the sites were removing correct attribution (and replacing it with fake names), amongst various other things. Realistically, I didn’t expect him to know the ins and outs of all the little details that turned reproduction in good faith into something that just about started to cross the line. A few helpful emails back and forth, and everything was fixed at their end and it didn’t snowball into some big stupid argument over nothing.

Coming from an arts background, I’m realistic enough to know that if you put something out there, it’s going to get copied and / or republished without your permission (or worse) down the line. That’s the risk of publishing material online, and to a large degree, there is absolutely nothing you can do about it. The way I see it, you spend the rest of your days on a futile hunt to shut down all the content scrapers, or accept that (at the very least) the information you hope may be of use to somebody will reach and help them in some way.

If it doesn’t have my name attached to it, I can live with that - but I’d rather invest my energies in research and writing than a few hours brief “victory” via a slow procession down an RSS feed. I’m not familiar with the ins and outs of the particular case linked to, but for all I know, the scraper site in question is entirely automated and devoid of any real life person manning the controls. If that’s the case, the “victory” is rendered almost entirely pointless save for a cool-for-a-while screenshot.

Is that really a good use of time and effort? Personally, I’m more pleased with our behind-the-scenes EMail resolution but different strokes, different folks and all that…

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A handful of scam mails currently in circulation, including one mention of “groundnut oil” that seems so bizarre I had to highlight it in bold text. All this and more, after the jump…

Subject:
FROM THE DESK OF MR. STEVEN JAMES
From:
“Steven James”<steven@fristbnkngplc.net>
Date:
Mon, 30 Jun 2008 19:17:03 +0100
BCC:

FROM THE DESK OF MR. STEVEN JAMES
CHAIRMAN INTERNATIONAL RELATION
FIRST BANK OF NIGERIA PLC
# 1 BANK ROAD WUSE FCT
ABUJA-NIGERIA.
PHONE: +234-80-66520277
Email: stevenjames809@live.co.uk 

Very Urgent Attention,

Please permit me to introduce my humble self to you, my name is Mr. Steven James, I am the Manager of International Relation with First Bank of Nigeria Plc, I ‘m 38yrs old, and I got your email address from a friend of mine, and my confidence reposed on you. I hope you read this message carefully and reply me immediately. Although we have not met before, but I suggest that this transaction will bring us together.

My dear, we had a customer, a foreigner but base here in Nigeria, his Name was Mr. Hamilton Creek. He is from Atlanta Georgia United State of America, but based here with his wife and his two children, Mr. Hamilton has being banking with us for the past 4yrs and some time in August 2002, Mr. Hamilton was on his way to his house, and unfortunately ran into a Trailer load of Groundnut Oil, and died   immediately, Their car got burnt, no single soul was saved, Mr. Hamilton Creek and His entire family was confirmed dead.

My Board of Directors and the Management of First Bank has mandated and instructed me to look for Mr. Hamilton Creek? Relation(s) and his Next of  Kin to come and claim his fund, Since August 2003 till date, I have been looking for his relation’s or his next of Kin to come and claim his fund which he Deposited with our bank, I have contacted his Embassy and after 3days, his Ambassador told me that Mr. Hamilton Creek has no relation and no next of Kin, their Ambassador told me that he used his first son as His next of kin, but it is quite unfortunate that Mr. Hamilton Creek Died with all his family members.

The reason why I contacted you is thus, Mr. Hamilton is dead, and his only son who supposed to inherit his properties and money also died with him. As at this moment, nobody or person[s] is coming to   claim this Money from our bank. The Board of Directors and management of our bank told me that if nobody or person[s] apply for the claim of Mr. Hamilton Fund, the bank will return the entire Fund into our Federal reserve. In the Light of the above, I want you to stand as the next of kin to Late Mr. Hamilton Creek; it might interest you to know that he had a Domiciliary Bank Account with our Bank and he has a total sum of US$9.2M Nine Million Two Hundred thousand Dollars, this is the exact amount which he had in his domiciliary account before the ugly incident occurred, and this money is still in his account as unclaimed money.

This transaction is very easy and simple, and it is 100% risk free, I’m the Manager for International Relations with First Bank of Nigeria Plc, and the Management and Board of Directors of the Bank are waiting for me to provide to them the Relation or next of Kin to late Mr. Hamilton Creek, of which I told them that I am still searching the next of kin to the deceased. Finally, if you are interested with this transaction, I will front you to the bank as the only next of kin to late Mr. Hamilton Creek, and I will let the bank know that you are the only right person to inherit Late Mr. Hamilton Funds and properties. If you are interested, just email me or call me on my   direct and private line#: +234-80-27536038 and late Mr. Hamilton’s Funds will be credited into your account and all his Properties will be released to you either through Courier Services or the Bank will Cargo all his properties to you in any were you want it.

So reply me immediately and feel free to ask any question with regards to this transaction. You will take 50% of the US$9.2M. Which is? US$4.600, 000.00 Four Million Six Hundred Thousand Dollars, while the Balance of the same amount will be mine.

Your swift response will be highly appreciated.

Thanks and have a nice day.

Friendly Regards

Mr. Steven James

*******************************************************************************************

Subject:
REPRESENTATIVE NEEDED
From:
DFS SALES LTD UK <info@dfs.net>
Date:
Tue, 01 Jul 2008 23:00:55 +0800
To:
undisclosed-recipients: ;

COMPLIMENT OF THE DAY TO YOU.

I am PETER WOODS from DFS SALES LTD UK.(
Website: www.dfs-online.co.uk ) Visit our site

We are into  furnitures and we sell shares to people in
Canada,America, Australia and Europe.

We are in need of a book keeper. someone who can represent our company
in his/her country.

Our client in your location will contact you and make the company
payment to you.

You will be entitle to 11% of every payment been made out to you.

This is because most of our officer are from china and they do not

understand english very well.its hard for them to contact our
customers.

Our head office is located in CHINA. But we have a sub-office in the
uk.

If you are interested, Kindly send the entries for more understanding.

NAME IN FULL :………
COMPANY NAME: …..
POSITION:……
FULL ADDRESS: …….
CITY/TOWN:……..
STATE:…………
ZIP CODE:……..
COUNTRY:…….
MOBILE:…….
HOME TEL: …..
EMAIL ADDRESS: ……..
OCCUPATION: ………..
BANK NAME :…….
AGE:…………

You are to send the above details to

NAME : PETER WOODS.
EMAIL : dfs_woods@yahoo.co.uk
PHONE NUMBER : +44-704-575-0212

HOPE TO HEAR FROM YOU

*****************************************************************************************

To:
undisclosed-recipients:;

Good day!!!

 We have been waiting for you since to contact me for your Confirmable Bank Draft of ?18 Million (Eighteen Million Pounds sterling) but we did not hear from you since for a couple of weeks now. Then we went to the bank to confirm if the draft that expired or getting near to expire and Metropolitan Police Uk told us that before the funds will get to your hand that it will expire.So I told him to cash the ?18 Million (Eighteen Million Pounds sterling) to cash payment to avoid losing this fund under expiration as I will be out of the country for a 6 Months Course.

 What you have to do now is to contact FED EX COURIER SERVICES as soon as possible to know when they will deliver of your funds to you because of the expiring date. For your information we have paid for the delivering Charge Insurance premium. The only money you will send to the FED EX COURIER SERVICES to deliver your cheque direct to your postal Address in your country is ?250.00 being Security Keeping Fee of the Courier Company so far. Again don’t be deceived by anybody to pay any other money except ?250.00 for the Security Keeping Fee.We would have paid that but they said no because they don’t know when you will contact them and in case of demurrage. You have to contact FED EX COURIER SERVICES now for the delivery of your Draft with this
information below:

 CONTROLLER: Mrs.Helen Williams
 NAME: FED EX COURIER SERVICES
 ADDRESS: fedexofficeuk@gmail.com
 PHONE NUMBER: +447024080684

 IF YOU ARE THE OWENER OF THE FUNDS AND YOU WILL SEND YOUR INFORMATION TO US SO THAT WE CAN DELIVERY YOUR FUNDS TO YOU WITHIN THE NEXT 84HRS TIME.IF YOU DO NOT RECEIVED YOUR FUNDS WITHIN THE NEXT 72HRS TIME AND YOU REPORT US THE UK FBI AND THE METROPOLITAN POLICE (SCOTLAND YARD) or YOU CONTACT YOUR LAWYER TO TAKE UP PROCEDURES AGAINST US.

 Let me repeat again try to contact them as soon as you receive this mail to avoid any further delay and remember to pay them their Security keeping fee of ?250.00 for their immediate action. The FED EX COURIER SERVICES don’t know the contents of the funds. This is to avoid them delaying with the funds.

 Thanks as you contact them today.

 Yours Faithfully

 Mrs Helen Williams.

(The above actually comes with a nifty graphic that they’ve thrown in, thinking it makes it all look more legitimate. It doesn’t, but here it is anyway):

….altogether now: oooooh. A slightly shorter 419 roundup than usual, but I’m sure I’ll have piles of the things next week.

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Interesting article over at PCWorld:

One of the first social networking upstarts, MySpace, is facing continuing security problems that threaten to spoil many of the innovative features that make the site useful.

Hackers,
spammers and Internet malcontents have turned many of the “group”
sites, which are dedicated to interests such as home beer brewing,
animal welfare and gay rights issues, into cyber-graffiti walls, filled
with offensive comments and photographs.

Link here.

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