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Aug

2010

Mona Vie Name in your URL

Posted on 00:01, August 27th, 2010 by Strangely

Hacker Attack?

This article is a copy of one formally at this web address. This is currently down and is repeated here in its entirety as a public service! It’s suspected of being hacked, as described here on LazyManAndMoney. This page will be removed if all is okay. (scheduled to release at midnight Friday 27/08/2010)

Mona Vie Name in your URL!

Mona Vie: Don’t use our name in your URL, unless you’re Wikipedia (and we’re doing the editing), By the author of Expert Fraud Investigation and Essentials of Corporate Fraud , Tracy Coenen

“No, MonaVie doesn’t endorse or approve me writing about them. In fact, they’ll probably get mad that I’m mentioning them. I don’t like MonaVie“.- Tracy Coenen

Earlier this week I wrote about the MonaVie lawyers going after bloggers who do unflattering critiques of the company. Their premise was silly: You can’t use our name in a URL. Here’s exactly what they said in their threatening letter to blogger “Lazy Man”:

“As a network marketing company MonaVie does not permit its name to be used in any URL or email address and the company must take necessary action to protect its intellectual property. It is not permitted for a third party vendor to use the MonaVie trade name in any form.”

So no use of their name in a URL, and no user of their name in any form? Gotcha.

Except it’s not so cut and dried. Lots of references to MonaVie in the titles of articles makes it so that their name is in the URL:

How I Did It: Dallin A. Larsen of MonaVie – http://www.inc.com/magazine/20090901/how-i-did-it-dallin-a-larsen-of-monavie.html

MonaVie Ranks No. 1 in Utah Business Fast 50 Awards – http://www.marketwatch.com/story/monavie-ranks-no-1-in-utah-business-fast-50-awards-2009-09-01

Pro bike: Tinker Juarez’s Monavie-Cannondale Scalpel Team – http://www.bikeradar.com/news/article/pro-bike-tinker-juarezs-monavie-cannondale-scalpel-team-22730

Monavie thinks people don’t have a right to criticize it – http://www.walletpop.com/blog/2009/09/01/monavie-thinks-people-dont-have-a-right-to-criticize-it/Mona Vie – Company Profile on LinkedIn – http://www.linkedin.com/companies/mona-vie

Facebook | MonaVie – http://www.facebook.com/pages/Bakersfield-CA/Mona-Vie/140576343241

MonaVieMonaVie on Twitter – http://twitter.com/monaviemonavie

But the best example of a URL that includes “Mona Vie” and would therefore violate the bogus legal threats of the company comes from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MonaVie

It gets better, though. Not only does Wikipedia use the MonaVie name in a URL (horrors!)… people at MonaVie headquarters actually participate in editing the article about Mona Vie!!! A lot!!!

Here’s the link showing edits done by 65.44.117.2: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/65.44.117.2. You can see lots of edits to the MonaVie article.

And here’s the proof that the IP address doing these edits is owned by MonaVie:

http://centralops.net/co/DomainDossier.aspx?addr=65.44.117.2&dom_whois=true&dom_dns=true&traceroute=true&net_whois=true&svc_scan=true

For now, let’s ignore the fact that Wikipedia rules prohibit a company or its employees from editing articles about the company. That’s a conflict of interest (they obviously have an interest in slanting article material in a positive direction).

But I don’t care so much about that, however. What I care about is the fact that use of the MonaVie name in a URL seems to only be frowned upon when the URL is for an article with negative information and opinions. Have the lawyers gone after Inc.com for using their name in the URL? Or MarketWatch? Or Facebook?

Here’s the best part about the edits of the Mona Vie page on Wikipedia, though… This edit removed the company’s Income Disclosure Statement from the article. Interesting, isn’t it? Especially since the link is to a page on the official MonaVie website. How could they object to that? Easy. The MonaVie Income Disclosure Statement, if looked at carefully enough, is a damning piece of information. It proves that almost no one is making any money from the “wonderful opportunity” that Mona Vie is offering. Here’s an explanation of the statement, which clearly shows that 99% of MonaVie distributors are making $3.75 a week. What an opportunity.

So what is it, Mona Vie lawyers? Can we use your name in a URL or not? Or do your made up restrictions only apply to negative opinions?

This article was taken from the ” the Fraud Files blog” at www.sequenceinc.com

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Message from the Chief Protocol of Independent Corrupt Practises Commission (ICPC)

Posted on 21:41, August 9th, 2010 by Strangely

I got a phishing spam this morning from Nigeria!

Typical 419 that I usually see:

Nothing unusual in that, you say – the Nigerian 419 scam has been going on for years! It even has it’s own scambusters (see references later) and the actual advanced fee fraud is usually just called a 419 scam because that’s it’s number in the Nigerian criminal code, apparently.

Anyway, I’ve not seen this particular version, and so I provide a full copy of all the spelling, syntax and language mistakes for your information and enjoyment.

From: Mrs. Marisa Smith <email hidden; JavaScript is required>

Subject: Pls Reply

Attention: Sir,

I am Mrs. Marisa Smith the Chief Protocol of Independent Corrupt Practises Commission (ICPC) in alliance with economic community of West African states (ECOWAS) with head Office here in Nigeria. We have been working towards the eradication of fraudsters and scam Artists in Western part of Africa With the help of United States Government and the United Nations.

We have been able to track down so many of this scam artist in various parts of west African countries which includes (NIGERIA, REPUBLIC OF BENIN, TOGO, GHANA CAMEROUN AND SENEGAL) and they are all in our custody here in Lagos Nigeria. We have been able to recover so much money from these scam artists. The United Nation Anti-crime commission and the United State Government have ordered the money recovered from the Scammers to be shared among 100 Lucky people around the globe.

This email is been directed to you because your email address was found in one of the scam Artists file and computer hard disk in our custody here in Nigeria. You are therefore being compensated with $2.5 Million Dollars. We have also arrested all those who claim that they are barristers, bank officials, Lottery Agents who has money for transfer or want you to be the next of kin of such funds which do not exist.

Since your name appeared among the lucky beneficiaries who will receive a compensation of $2.5 Million, we have arranged your payment through our swift card payment centre. The swift card ATM has been specially prepared to enable you withdraw your money in any ATM machine in any part of the world, but the maximum is Five Thousand Dollars Only per day.

For proper execution of this project i decide to handle payment myself. Provide the information bellow to enable him prepare your ATM Master Debit Card including your Pin to access it.

1)YOUR FULL NAME.

2)YOUR RECEIVING ADDRESS.

3)YOUR TELEPHONE NUMBER.

4)YOUR PROFESSION.

5)YOUR ID/AGE

Best Regard,

Mrs. Marisa Smith

Google and GMail use LSO Super Cookies

Posted on 17:58, August 5th, 2010 by Strangely

LSO Super Cookies? Well It was News to Me!

I this article in “Windows Secrets” by Woody Leonhard, Eliminate Flash-spawned ‘zombie’ cookies, he describes how they are generated as un-deletable cookies by Flash applications, which compromises user privacy, in the sense that they do stuff to your hard disc and network without your permission!

So What I Did

….was download and install the recommended Firefox add-on (Better Privacy) from here, https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/6623/

LSOs from Google being stored

I then deleted all of the hundreds of LSOs from my hard-drive!

Then I fired up Firefox.

I then clicked on a Google bookmark, went to GMail and then got prompted by the Better Privacy tool that THREE LSOs had been dumped on my hard drive! (see screenshot).

And I always thought Google web pages used ordinary cookies…? After all, where’s the Flash on a simple Google page?

After all, the actual technical name for this poop dust is a Flash-spawned ‘zombie’ cookie! This is live tracking of LSOs in the tool, and it seriously slowed down the PC, so I’ve turned it off now.

What it Means

I think it’s time to look seriously at the problem, specifically things that Steve Jobs from Apple has being saying with regard to Adobe and their Flash application, Google and Microsoft.

In the past I’ve taken all his speeches with a pinch of salt because it always sounded like corporate jealousy and back-biting (his company being just as protectionist and restrictive as all the rest), but now it looks like he has a point.
The trouble is that the cat is already out of the bag and it looks like LSOs are being used as a lingering storage solution far removed from their Flash origins.

But what can I do? After all, I like using Google stuff!