Peregrine

Today, I decided to take a look at a couple of the links that blog spammers have been trying to put up in my blogs’ comments. Most of it actually led to “anti-spam” websites that are actually spam list phishers. This is, of course, very clever of the spammers.

First, they put spam up that includes links to their phishing sites on blogs they troll the net for. This part is very easy, thanks to services like Technorati and Blogger.

Next, “young” bloggers (i.e., those who are still fairly new to the “sport” of blogging), see comments. Either they naively authorize the spam comment, don’t moderate at all or decide to follow the links and check it out before authorizing the comment. If the comment gets posted to the blog, then others who read the blog can fall into the trap. If the blogger decides to visit the pages, they could get sucked in to all kinds of things.

But as I looked at a few of the links, they turned out to cause redirects to either www.abusepost.com or www.spamcop.net (I didn’t make those into links on purpose; DISCLAIMER: GO TO THOSE SITES AT YOUR OWN RISK, I’M NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR CHOICES). Of course, the vast majority of bloggers, both experienced and just getting started might think that those sites are providing a pretty good service. Looking a little more closely at the form and at the HTML itself reveals that these sites look suspicious. They require your name, email address and website address (which will be the blog that they hooked you at in the first place, for most people).

Were you paying close attention? They require you to provide the exact information spammers want in order to “report” a site that they are already “about to shut down”? Doesn’t make much sense to me.

Do you smell phish or am I the only one?

A word to the wise: Just Say No.

Here are some simple rules for Internet safety, though, they apply (with proper contextual edits) to any online communication:

1. Moderate — Whether it’s comments on your blog(s), forums (which I hate, BTW) or mailing lists. Moderation is currently the most consistently effective way to defeat all forms of SPAM.
2. Never give out your information if you don’t have to — Just because a particular website’s “form” says that it requires your information, doesn’t mean they should be given any. We all know not to publish our credit card numbers online, but it’s amazing how many people don’t understand that your name, email address, street address, phone numbers, websites, employer’s name, favorite color, mother’s maiden name, etc. are not needed by most websites. When in doubt, don’t give it out.
3. The only stupid questions are the ones you do not ask — In other words, ask someone you know who has lots of experience with the Internet, email, spam, security, etc., any questions about specific websites or other items in general. Keeping yourself safe is hard enough to do, but keep trying to do it without the right information and you just might make things much worse.
4. Don’t open HTML emails — If someone sends me an HTML email (and I think it’s worth this effort), I send it back to them with a simple, polite note explaining that for security reasons, I do not accept nor read emails that are not in plain text. Too many people are using stupid email programs like Microsoft Outlook and Outlook Express that have hundreds of severe security flaws when it comes to processing HTML email, alone.
5. Don’t Panic — It can be easy to let fear take over at this point and abandon your dreams of blogging and the “Internet lifestyle”. Don’t worry, it’s not that hard to keep yourself safe. Once you know how to recognize the dangers, it’s easy to avoid them.
6. Think — (OK, this one could sound kinda mean, but it’s not; it’s just a sad truth, so don’t take it too personally) The spammers and the Phishers keep doing what they do because it works. There are just too many people on the Internet who do not think for themselves. You have a brain and I’m sure it functions at least well enough to read this far. I’m sure you have a lot more capacity to figure things out than you might be giving yourself credit for. Being able to think is not enough on it’s own, but with a little bit of knowledge, your brain can be used to help keep yourself, and your loved ones, safe on the Internet.
7. If in doubt, bail out — You don’t have to go any further than you already have when visiting any website or continuing a discussion on IM in a chat room or on a mailing list. You can pull the rip-cord at any time.

I’m sure there are other things that we could put in that list. Perhaps some commenters will try to help me out in that regard. But I think these basics should be enough to get you started.

This is one of my favorite Turkish proverbs:

No matter how far you have gone down the wrong road, turn back.