-- Posted Thursday, 23 August 2012 | | Disqus

Web-based crime is spinning out-of-control, presumably because it’s so hard to get caught and because there’s an unlimited supply of rubes who are easy to find. Here’s a test to determine whether you may be a rube yourself. Would you follow the instruction if this message popped up on your cell phone: “Click here to claim your $1000 gift coupon”? That’s what we thought. Of course you wouldn’t. Only a retiree with a brand-new smart phone would be that stupid. But suppose the sender had identified itself as Best Buy, and that you’d made a purchase at a Best Buy store just 15 minutes earlier? This is where the gullible and the feeble-minded get culled from the pack. A quick thank-you note from a store where you’ve just made a purchase (and which has stored your phone number) hardly seems implausible, right? But how about the $1000 prize? We took a pass, perhaps because we’ve never hit the lottery for more than $6. Our first thought about the offer was that he outcome would probably be no different if, instead of following the link, we were to mail our wallet, credit cards, house key and Social Security number to some Russian hacker.

Instead, we called a Best Buy store to ask whether they knew anything about this message. They did, but not much. Surprisingly, they rejected the idea that the scammer knew about our minutes-earlier purchase because they had somehow tapped into Best Buy’s server and were stealing point-of-sale information. Although this scam has actually been done before, big-time, Best Buy said the message we’d just received was merely a coincidence. We’d never gotten any similar messages before, but Best Buy was unpersuaded that it had been more than happenstance. They suggested we call corporate customer service, and we did. It took about ten minutes to overcome a voice-menu fusillade, but we finally reached a recorded message that said Best Buy was in no way associated with text messages claiming to offer gift cards, prizes, coupons and such. The recording went on to suggest contacting our cell-phone provider to block such messages, but guess what: T-Mobile phones turn out not to have this capability. The company is “working on it.”

Call the FBI?

Small wonder that computer-based crime is epidemic. If you doubt it, try to find a legitimate apartment listing on Craig’s List. All those great apartments, but no one to take your deposit in person! But Craig’s List is just seat-of-the-pants stuff, with no frills, let alone customer service. Best Buy and T-Mobile, on the other hand, are Fortune 500 companies that one might think have an interest in policing scams perpetrated in their name or on their networks. Apparently, they’d rather not be bothered. So whom do you call? The FBI? Local police? The Better Business Bureau? As far as we can determine, there is no one who cares enough to do anything about. Sounds like golden days ahead for the growing legion of journeymen dedicated to mastering identity theft.

Incidentally, there’s an actual place in Russia where cyberthieves flourish like a digitally armed Hole-in-the-Wall Gang. Geographically, their safe haven lies in the Siberian outback, in a place where only a mudhole existed just a few years ago. These days, mixed drinks are $30 at the local watering hole, and there are more Mercedes-Benzes and Lambos than you could count in a week on Rodeo Drive. The hackers who have made this town so prosperous seem likely to thrive as long as the huge sums they steal are reckoned by the likes of Verizon and T-Mobile as just a cost of doing business. This encourages the sort of corruption that can only feed on itself, metastasizing until politicians smell opportunity in proposing to “do something about it.” Politicians being politicians, not only will they fail, we will all be worse off for their efforts.

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-- Posted Thursday, 23 August 2012 | Digg This Article | Source: GoldSeek.com

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