Today’s news that actor Stephen Fry, famous for his uptake of all new gadgets and one-man publicist for Twitter, is “thinking about giving up on Twitter” got me thinking. (see Fry ponders leaving Twitter site )
Apparently he thinks there’s too much aggression and unkindness around….. well, dah?
Not that I’m disagreeing with the sentiment; but really; what’s he expect?
In days of yore, early last century, actors and performers in music hall famously were pelted with all sorts of rubbish if the audience were at all dissatisfied with the performance – or even if they just wanted to “have a go”. Rotten fruit, tins, bottles, dead dogs & cats and even shit. (No-one noticed the shit as the stench was so over-powering from the great unwashed anyway, so what’s another turd gonna do?)
My point is that the great ivory tower in which performers now exist is ‘somewhat’ removed from reality (putting it mildly), and that Fry should ‘get a grip man’. A life lived inside scripts, cosseted by studio security seems to have addled his brain.
Twitter is only a glorified chat room, now taken over by the meeja while all the plebs struggle to keep their heads above water. I mean, why the fuck would I be interested in the latest tweet from the BBC’s “One Show” or anything else like that? For fucks sake, I’ve just watched the show!!!
Personally I’m glad this has happened and I hope he does ditch it. Then Twitter can sink back into the morass from which it came – called “doing a MySpace” nowadays. Because the reality of somehow nosing in on a celebrity’s thoughts wears a bit thin after a while. Now that the thing has been taken over by the thumbnail-fixated masses, who wants to know the minutiae of folk’s lives and what anyone thinks?
I mean, how many people do I really want to know have just gone to the shops and think Kylie is really good for her age?
None.
Do I want to know your choice in blonde hair colouring?
No.
It’s like listening in on texting. And that is the pits. The world, far from being full of aggressive & unkind people, is mostly full of boring people having normal humdrum lives.
Fry’s Tipping Point?
Q. Do you want to know which tweet tipped Fry over the edge?
A. Someone said “I admire and adore” Mr Fry, but that he found his tweets “a bit… boring… (sorry Stephen)”.
So using one of Stephen Fry’s pet phrases; “Q.E.D.” – ‘thus it was written’ – used as a proof statement.
Ages ago, Leo Laporte said MySpace is the new hell and I agreed. It’s just that Twitter has added an extra dimension.
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Of course, the irony is not lost on myself that I too, am now yabbering on about nothing.
The above MP3 link has an discussion about Facebook before the system went openly public. It’s an interesting historical document from this viewpoint.
Postscript 1/11/2009
Apparently all is well with Fry and the Twittering classes. The funniest, most ignorant comment has to have been that of Alan Davies who called the innocuous, slightly critical, but still boring comment above, “moronic”.
Remember, all the bloke said was: “I admire and adore” Mr Fry, but added that he found his tweets “a bit… boring… (sorry Stephen).”
Moronic? WTF? It’s redefined the English and psychiatric dictionary.
This site, by Mark Ayres, gives a description of the Doctor Who theme as it was created by Delia Derbyshire from the Ron Grainer score. In conversation with Paul yesterday, I was recalling how I started music by recording short or medium wave radio tuning, heterodyning and interference sounds onto a cassette and then chopped...
Introduction This is a small investigation into mail lists and scammy companies. Some companies are fine, but I always go by the adage to judge a man by the company he keeps. This shows how lists spread far beyond their initial purpose when you sign up for something. It also shows how the privacy policies...
In a weird co-incidence that I missed at the time, I’ve just found that the plans for the Auschwitz death camp were put on display during my Austrian visit earlier this year. This visit very soon prompted my outburst on the pontificating nutty bishop, Richard Williamson (see The Face of Evil from 20 Feb 2009), especially considering I’d just visited two Jewish cemeteries in Eisenstadt…. (also see Jill’s posting on the area and elsewhere here.)
A few months before this, the plans had been ‘found’ in a Berlin flat and were then bought by the Bild newspaper group as the German State said they were too expensive.
We have to hope that these are authentic because they add crushing evidence against the Holocaust deniers, including the now more ‘accepting’ nutty bishop.
Fritz Darges, one of the last true Nazis (click for German obituary)
This week, one of the last fully signed-up and openly unrepentant Nazis died (see Secrets hope as Hitler aide dies). Apparently he’s left his memoirs which will add new substance to the overall Nazi guilt, especially towards Hitler. Again, if this is true, it’ll be a wonderful addition to our documented history.
However, it’s a sad indictment on human nature that the personal accounts of 100′s of thousands who witnessed events count for naught…? Funny that, innit?
One of the Aushwitz Plans
Bild itself, after the initial display of the Auschwitz plans in it’s offices, released some pictures and information on it’s website in August.
Near the top is a scribble in green ink which has been identified as written in the hand of Himmler, architect of the final solution and a former chicken farmer, famous for selectively breeding white chickens.
This small scribble further implicates the chief Nazis and if it’s all true, shows that their plans for domination and genocide were not thought of in an ad-hoc manner, but were systematically planned many years before. Only the methods changed as the kill volume increased.
As Bild says:
Remarkable about the plan, which was commissioned by the “construction management of the Waffen SS and police in order, is something else: it proves once again that the mass-production mass murder of European Jews not only with the so-called Wannsee Conference in January 1942 it was decided, but much earlier.
Introduction This is a small investigation into mail lists and scammy companies. Some companies are fine, but I always go by the adage to judge a man by the company he keeps. This shows how lists spread far beyond their initial purpose when you sign up for something. It also shows how the privacy policies...
Remove Referrals Information from This Website because of Malware Like many blogs, this website has displayed the last few hits (referrals) that it’s received as a kind of ‘live’ activity recorder and a small service back to the referring website. However, I’ve had to pull this from my front page because over the last few...
Remove Referrals Information from This Website because of Malware
Like many blogs, this website has displayed the last few hits (referrals) that it’s received as a kind of ‘live’ activity recorder and a small service back to the referring website. However, I’ve had to pull this from my front page because over the last few days, hundreds of malware-laden websites have seemingly broadcasting pings to everyone else….
Anyone unlucky enough to click on these back-links to the ‘referrer’, is then presented with some fake anti-malware scan that’s almost impossible to get away from without resorting to Task Manager.
Analysis and Appearance
The referring link is usually from a sub-domain of an apparently ‘normal’ website (whatever ‘normal’ means, but I hope you know!). Here’s an example that points to malware:
tummy2tummy.com appears to be mother and baby website.
Examples
Cyber Security Warning1
Cyber Security Warning2
Cyber Security Warning3
Here are examples of the typical warning messages after hitting a duff link or two… These are taken from Firefox 3 & IE8, all fully patched and up-to-date etc.
The website sometimes redirects, sometimes not, to the malware-coded location.
The message/dialog boxes have a variety of wording and button suggestions
Some websites are completely un-closable by normal means and the Task Manager is the only way to get out of a loop
There are a variety of files to download from the various websites. The one in the video below is called “Inst_174s1.exe” – which I’ve seen 3 times now. I’ve also seen another called “setup_build8_239.exe” which has a standard windows setup icon inside it to ensure it’s apparent legitimacy!
Standard Anti-Virus Failure
The video shows the fake scan and the various failed attempts at closure I made. The current IP address of the user (myself) shows to add an air of realism to it, although this is easily shown on any webpage.
Fortunately, in this video, IE8, even though the browser privacy and window size & positioning was mucked around by the malware-site, was finally closable with the normal close button at the top right. On other sites, the only way to get out of the loop in both IE8 and Firefox, was to use Task Manger to crash the process down. This worked, fortunately.
I downloaded the files purposely on some occasions for analysis….
ESET’s NOD32 (my AV program) failed to detect both these files as bad! I uploaded both for analysis to ESET and one has since been found to contain a trojan, a variant of Win32/Kryptik.AWY trojan! This trojan has been in the signature database since 21/10/2009 when NOD32 was the only AntiVirus program to detect it! So things aren’t that bad. Presumably, if I’d have ran the programs NOD32 would’ve kicked in, but I haven’t tried that yet. The setup file was only first detected as malware yesterday, and then only by a few vendors. The analysis of it’s actions is particularly revealing as along with a shed-load of new registry keys, it also modifies the ‘hosts’ file!
NOD32 wasn’t alone in this scanning detection failure. I tried the online scanners of Trend, McAfee and AVG on the two files and they all failed to detect anything! Time constraints meant I didn’t try Kaspersky, Symantech et al, but I’m fairly certain that the same results would’ve happened.
Conclusion
Everything is not as it seems! Be very careful what you click on!
Send any suspicious file to VirusTotal.com as it has quite a crack at finding out the truth about files from it’s methodology of using most of the Anti-virus vendors.
As for my website here, the recent referrer back-links are now gone as they made me look like a pointer to bad sites, and I’m not. Whether it’s possible for this sub-domain behaviour to be blocked, probably depends on the website owners, as it’s not the browser’s fault.
What I have noticed, is:
A lot of these malware sites are hosted at my old crap host, ixWebhosting.com (If I recall, a setting exists to block sub-domain creation)
A lot of host sites are in Arizona, Florida and Utah
A lot of malware sites can be traced back to China & eastern European states.
Make of that what you will. If I spot any more ‘tendencies’ or ‘co-incidences’, I’ll add them to the list.
Introduction I had an interesting referral from an external website early today. It was, http://kexhoxonxk.iblogger.org/ iblogger.com has a decent WHOIS entry and is USA based. However, the sub-domain bit is a bit iffy. MyBookFace.net If you follow the link, it’s immediately redirected to http://mybookface.net/ The tagline for this website is: MyBookFace is a friendly social...
Introduction I knew there was something really, really dodgy about that MyBookFace.net crap highlighted in this post the other day. Not only are they connected to some serious malware (as detailed in the posting), but they’ve an interesting line in popups!!! Google Treasure Chest Rises Yet Again! Here’s what to do… Go to http://mybookface.net making...
If you think you’ve had your bank ‘cleaned out’ by any of a multitude of ‘life cleanse’ or ‘colon cleanse’ type internet scams, there is only one real remedy…
Ask for a charge-back against the company through you credit card company. Your reason, when asked, is that the company has either:
Not adhered to their own claimed ‘Terms and Conditions’ or
The company cannot be contacted through their advertised channels
If the company fails on any of these two key points they have no excuse not to refund you. In fact, if they deliberately make contact difficult, it’s criminal.
The redirect was still working on the user’s website (devoted to head and neck cancer, http://www.squamoussupport.info/). The key bit is to click on the head and then the Amazon Store link in the bottom right. Sure enough (today), you get taken to MyBookFace.net!!!
It’s like the return of a boil on the bum for me. Now, depending on how you access this shit-hole, you’ll see various things.
The first page is sometimes loaded with “White Teeth” ads, from you know who(see here and here for instance), which are accessed via a false newspaper ad containing the key(yukky)word “mom”. Sometimes it’s Mary Steadman — again!
I’ve had two popups, several hours apart during my checks, that both claimed I was the lucky 1,000,00th visitor to the site and thus deserved a prize! This popup by-passes the pop-up blocker in IE8. Give it a go – you too can be the 1,000,000th visitor!!!
If you allow further pop-ups, the fun really starts!
More Fun With MyBookFace.Net Popups!
During one session, using the ‘Private Browsing’ feature in Firefox, I got the Mary Steadman fake newspaper ad again – wahay!. In this were two adverts; for Acai and Colon Cleansing.
They both originated from the same place and had similar designs. The Acai one (at acaiberryexclusive.com) I left, because the Colon one has some VERY, VERY DANGEROUS CLAIMS in it. (The Acai ones were very similar, actually, but I’m trying to keep this post short-ish)
EffectiveCleanse.com
EffectiveCleanse.com loads with the strap line “Life Cleanse”. It’s contact address is in County Durham in the UK again! (just like all the UTAH scams). This time the address is:
LB LFP Internet Ltd.,
101 Deneside,
Lanchester,
Co Durham,
DH7 0LZ,
UK
A small hunt for this address produced several companies, all apparently squashed into someone’s living room only a mile or so from the UTAH scammers elsewhere in Co Durham! There are many unhappy folk about who’ve had dealings with companies at that address. Similarly for the company name itself...
EffectiveCleanse Claims
Effective Cleanse Antioxidant. Get Your Risk-Free Order Trial Now
Everything is visible on the full-screen dump in the image here by clicking on it. Their claims would be laughable if they weren’t so dangerous. (In many respects, the claims are very similar to those of Monavie, currently being investigated by Vogel, Cyberxion, Food Tech of California and others on this entertaining post by LazyMan about the scurrilous Monavie here: http://www.lazymanandmoney.com/monavie-scam-was-my-wife-recruited-sell-snake-oil/#comments)
Possible the most dangerous claim that this company makes is that it will “Repair Digestive Tract”!!! This is seriously bad stuff. There are only two ways to repair your gut and that’s either surgery or a massive dietary change, usually by stopping all alcohol intake, reducing fat consumption etc. Some of the ingredients can relieve IBS and constipation by their topical application and ingestion from their fungicidal, antiseptic or mucilaginous properties . But this is not the same as “repairing the digestive tract” by any judgement. Indeed some ingredients will make intestinal damage worse!
It also claims to break down DEADLY TOXINS!! Again this is a wholly unsubstantiated and untrue claim worthy of a prison sentence. Let’s consider a few deadly toxins – cyanide & botulism, say. Do you really think these few internet pills will stop death from cyanide? Do you think that taking these pills would have saved the Jews in the cyanide gas chambers? Of course not. If they’d said “slightly bad toxins” that would have been more accurate. But deadly? That’s something else.
Helps prevent intestinal pathologies…. WTF! This one is good…. Pathology is the study and diagnosis of disease! So they are claiming that this product will stop you from studying …er…various intestinal problems? I repeat – WTF? !!!
The word “FLUSH” appears a lot – “flush out excess weight”, ” flush harmful toxins”. Should it read “make you go to the bog a lot”, because it will. Some of it’s ingredients also induce abortion and breast milk-flow but no warnings are given about this (shades of Thalidomide here). Some have been found to cause cancer. Some either bung you up or give you the trots dependant on the quantity taken! It’s a bit of a fine balance between flush and bung. I don’t think I’ll be using my guts as a testing ground!
Perhaps the funniest claim is that it will “Increase Focus and Energy”…. It’s a pity the author didn’t try and focus a bit harder. Because further down the page is the mind-numbing misspelt paragraph which reads (I kid ye not):
According to National Geographic – “Human waste is a sinisteer(sic) world of monstrous creatures that feed on living flesh- Parasites” (sic) Parasites feed on Humans ams(sic) your body may house more than you know. The US alone contains widespread parasites accross(sic) the nation.
My spell-checker has gone berserk on that. I can’t believe that National Geographic actually printed that!
And anyway, human waste in a healthy person is certainly not pathogenic. The bacteria in one’s gut DO NOT “feed on living flesh” as they claim. They are an essential part of living and without them, we’d all die. If they mean worms etc, then again, they do not feed on your flesh – they feed on your gut contents! They live on shit!
Terms Disagree with Claims
Effective Cleanse Antioxidant. Terms & Conditions
Well it had to be somewhere, didn’t it? Despite all the criminally outrageous claims on their front page, their T&C actually states:
Our Products have not been evaluated by the FDA or EU Health Authorities, and Our Products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.
Fortunately, they have a UK contact number of 0044 20305 10825, which makes it a London number. Why not give them a call and see which bit is correct – does it cure, or doesn’t it?
You’ll also see here, in small print, only once, that you’ll be charged £69 per month for 30 days supply. Except it’s written thus: “At the end of your 15 day trial period you will be charged GBP 69.”
Of course, upon reading the consumer complaints listed at the bottom here, you’ll find that many people can’t get through on the phone. In that case, the information on their FAQ page to the question:
I did not place this order and do not recognize the charge on the credit card statement. I think it is fraud.
…should be taken with a large grain of salt. The answer they give is that making a false claim of fraud is a criminal offence. Er..no. It isn’t. All you are doing is to resolve a dispute over charges to your credit card that you consider erroneous. It’s not a criminal offence to dispute the bill!!!! This is what they say to frighten you, and it’s only to frighten you:
We take Credit Card fraud very seriously and considerate it a crime. Our Risk/Fraud Department will verify that the transaction is indeed fraud and was not ordered by you. In such case we kindly ask you to contact us and our Customer Service Team will be happy to assist you. Please prepare the following information before calling or writing to us: name on your credit card, descriptor(s) on the charges, amounts, and date(s) of the charges, your billing and shipping address.
We would like to inform you that making a false claim is a criminal offense and you will be prosecuted if such claim is made. All information that you provide us, along with all related log files and IP addresses will be forwarded to the local police department and district attorney. In addition the governmental cybercrime agency will use this data to investigate and establish the physical location and computer from which the account was created.
If you can’t contact them through the phone, as many have found to their cost, the above information is doubly bogus.
On the other hand, the claims they make for the product on their main landing page, really are criminal. There is no way in hell that GSK et al would dare say anything like this.
Conclusion
Anyone who has read mine and other’s Google Treasure Chest, Acai, Government Grant and Teeth-Whitening investigations will suspect that there’s more to this business than County Durham alone. They hide their domain WHOIS for a start.
Because of their secretive nature, their misleading and dangerous claims which are in plain contradiction of their T&Cs, and the ‘unreliability’ (and that’s being generous) of their customer service as evidenced by the many complaints, this bunch of clowns are much worse than a comedy act. Scammer or crook? I couldn’t possibly say, but fetch me a bargepole to poke them away. Tommy Cooper would say “Scam-Crook; Crook-Scam. Scam-Crook; Crook-Scam. Scam-Crook; Crook-Scam.”
I’ll finish now, using words taken directly from their webpage by saying:
The US alone contains widespread parasites accross(sic) the nation.
(Mostly in Utah, from my experience, but not exclusively in the US.)
Extra Links(Just a few of the many complaints about this lot):
http://cacaweb.com…tradingplanetltdcom-arnaque.html (French website which has done a brilliant exposure=connection routine and even demonstrates how the linked companies manage to ‘accidentally’ get the wrong country code in their WHOIS records!) Two new County Durham companies and addresses are now added to my catalogue of shame because of this….see below
Imprint of www.acaiberryexclusive.com
LB Cassiopeia Media Limited LB Cassiopeia Media Limited
118 Fines Park
Annfield Plain
Stanley
Co Durham
DH9 8QZ
Tel: United Kingdom +38 616 004 917
Imprint of www.effectivecleanse.com
LB Eridanus Entertainment Limited
57 Langden Close
Templetown
Consett
Co Durham DH8 7NG
Tel: United Kingdom +39 064 523 0442
Postscript (30/10/2009)
As with the Google Treasure Chest/Money Tree (Kit) bollox, because I’ve posted about the colon parasite scammers, this website is now attracting Google adverts from those very scammers. I use advertising to help fund the costs, my payments in a round-a-bout way coming from the scammers! I couldn’t possibly comment any further except to point you to my privacy policy page.
Introduction I knew there was something really, really dodgy about that MyBookFace.net crap highlighted in this post the other day. Not only are they connected to some serious malware (as detailed in the posting), but they’ve an interesting line in popups!!! Google Treasure Chest Rises Yet Again! Here’s what to do… Go to http://mybookface.net making...
Monavie, Gillmap, Idaho Falls, Google Treasure Chest and Oprah Winfrey Introduction Last June, a contributor to this website @Not Kevin made a telling entry here (http://strangelyperfect.tv/4308/google-revolution-different-name-same-scam/#comment-1589) that has direct prescient relevance to the court case in the USA that Oprah Winfrey has heaped onto a host of companies and individuals for using her name to...
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