I just received another of these virus fake traffic ticket notices. This one is for failing to stop on May 2nd. (note: I was not in Italy on May 2nd, and it was sent to an e-mail address which is used as a contact address on one of my websites; I've never given that address out anywhere else. The address is readily available to e-mail harvesting robots which scour the web; the return address on the spam is a gmail address, but it appears to have been sent from an IP address in the Netherlands). The Subject is "Art. 141 codice della strada"
quote:
La presente per notificarle la sanzione applicata per "divieto di sosta" in data 02 Maggio 2008.
Articolo contestato n° 141
E' obbligo del conducente regolare la velocità del veicolo in modo che, avuto riguardo alle caratteristiche, allo stato ed al carico del veicolo stesso, alle caratteristiche e alle condizioni della strada e del traffico e ad ogni altra circostanza di qualsiasi natura, sia evitato ogni pericolo per la sicurezza delle persone e delle cose ed ogni altra causa di disordine per la circolazione.
In allegato :
- Documentazione verbalizzata. - Immagini di ripresa del veicolo. - Documentazione di contestazione. - Conteggio punti patente.
Siete pregati di prendere visione di quanto in allegato ed agire di conseguenza entro e non oltre 15 giorni dal ricevimento della presente.
____________________________________________ Qualora volesse opporsi a tale sanzione in allegato trova il modulo riferito alla sentenza di cassazione del 20 Luglio 2001 NR 9909 la quale sminuisce la presunzione di veridicità dei fatti attestati come avvenuti in assenza di verbalizzanti ( immagine ripresa con mezzi digitali ( autovelox ).
Seguirà raccomandata al suo indirizzo.
There is a 66k zip file attached to the e-mail; I'm not going to download or investigate that file, since I'm sure it's a virus. (I'm able to get at the text of an e-mail safely with Mailwasher or by logging into a unix shell on my mail server, so I can safely see and copy the text of this spam without it touching my PC).
Shortened line in quote to reduce width of thread - marta
This message has been edited. Last edited by: Marta,
Posts: 304 | Location: Chicago area and Tuscany | Registered: 26 March 2006
Hmm. Nick Z points out that this is happening on various systems and networks, so it can't really be a web-based problem, but rather it is "pilot error." Someone, somehow, introduced into the Slowtalk community something that is sucking up our address books like aphids on a rosebush.
Roz points out that there is no evidence that anything was passed from the Slowtalk site, and that Slowtalk is blameless. Roz uses the analogy that if two people catch the flu from a third person at your house, your house is not to blame.
I wonder which it is? Is this a problem that people are having all over the non-Slowtrav world? Has anyone heard from their hairdresser or their kid's teacher, someone, anyone, with no Slowtalk connections, that their address books are being used thusly?
I can't imagine that this is a problem confined to Slowtalk. I think that because we are all so damn friendly and have a closed circle of e-mail addresses in our files, we are more susceptible to vandalism of this sort. Which brings me back to my original point, that there is something very wrong with Google, AOL, Microsoft, et al., and their e-mail security.
Originally posted by Gargoyle: (I'm able to get at the text of an e-mail safely with Mailwasher or by logging into a unix shell on my mail server, so I can safely see and copy the text of this spam without it touching my PC).
Can't you glance at the attachment on the Unix box? I guess the Unix box doesn't have an anti-virus setup for the mail server. Or did it miss the attachment when it sent forward?
Has anyone heard from their hairdresser or their kid's teacher, someone, anyone, with no Slowtalk connections, that their address books are being used thusly?
I think I posted links early in this disucssion, showing just this - that it happens all the time, around the world, to the point where there are even websites that show people how to do it.
I have 300+ people in my address book, and I heard back from several that the same thing had happened to them. One works for the City of Chicago, and was the one who said that just changing my password was the first line of defense, as I was working from a computer in a hotel room. My brother-in-law, a computer geek, told me what several others on this site have said, to check my anti-virus software, etc. But he didn't know I was away.
By the way, when I just logged in I got the same message: Malicious Site Prevented (or somesuch) and the name of the malicious site was: clickserve cc-dt.com
Posts: 74 | Location: Chicago, USA | Registered: 26 June 2005
for what I can see it is related to a gif of an adv, trvlsmth but only on the main site. On the forum the image is coming from creative.[the rest unchanged]
Posts: 850 | Location: italy | Registered: 18 July 2002
Can't you glance at the attachment on the Unix box? I guess the Unix box doesn't have an anti-virus setup for the mail server. Or did it miss the attachment when it sent forward?
The attachment was a zip file, I didn't see the need to try unzipping it on the unix server. The previous one, which came in last week, was flagged by my anti-virus software.
Posts: 304 | Location: Chicago area and Tuscany | Registered: 26 March 2006
I doubt mine has anything to do with ST. I think Eden started this thread and all those who have suffered responded! It is getting really vicious out there though. My husband forwarded me an email today supposedly from Google Ads. It was worded exactly as the Google email I got once when I changed credit cards and the card on file at Google was no good anymore except that instead of asking you to log in to your account & fix the problem, it provided a link. BUT, it was sent to a generic address at my husband's company and I am the only email address Google Ads has, so if it went to anyone it should have been me. So I told him not to touch it. It's a fake, for sure.
By the way, when I just logged in I got the same message: Malicious Site Prevented (or somesuch) and the name of the malicious site was: clickserve cc-dt.com
Hi Sharonov-
That clickserve site that you mentioned is a click-thru link for our affiliate account for Travel Smith. It is the same link found on our main site and on the Travel Smith banner located on the right hand column in our forums. Not sure why your program has marked it as a malicious site.
Originally posted by Janie&Geoff: It is getting really vicious out there though.
I got another "Mail undeliverable" message. I hope it is just a very slow response to that problem earlier this month. I am getting worried if this keeps up. Only one this time though... whereas there were numerous of those when my problem started... Phewww....
I have also experienced this with hotmail and it is very frustrating. I have now changed to a longer and more complex password and hopefully it will not happen again.
I've been waiting for the first of the month to see what happens, for the past 2 months this has been when a flood of "non-deliverable" emails have bounced back to me. But my system seems clean now, haven't had any problems in weeks -- I did get ONE of those emails but when I looked at the date, it was for a bounced email sent back on May 1st, so it was a case of taking a long time to travel back with the non-delivery. What did I do to fix the problem? I have no idea - one or a combination of the following: - loaded up Ad Aware (free) and ran it a few times, updating the pattern definition files along the way - set my Outlook Express email to be password protected (it wasn't at all before, since it lives on my PC and I'm the only one using the PC_ - bought a Registry cleanup tool(Registry Repair Pro), which now runs regularly (also good for performance improvements). According to my tech support guy at my ISP, sometimes the trojan horses live in your Windows registry files, which anti-virus programs are reluctant to clean up since they are finicky. - anti-virus protection as usual.
So, it could be the Registry cleanup tool, or it could be that either the anti-virus or Ad Aware (which didn't seem to help the first couple of times) programs finally released pattern files that found the virus.
On a totally different tactic, I phoned one of my credit card companies and had them drop my credit limit to $1000, and I'll be using that card from now on for online purchases, including the ones through PayPal. I know PayPal is supposed to add another level of security, but it's scary out there.
Diana showed up in my mailbox this morning. Not even remembering the hacking stuff and that some had come with her name before, I eagerly opened it thinking that it really was her--a nice start to the day.
But...once again it was someone selling something--much less polished than the previous ones. It was from a msn.com e-mail address.
Another round--but this one is different. I wonder if anyone else found it in their inbox today. I had someone claiming to be a travel agent for Nepal and Tibet who said he got my e-mail from Slowtalk and knew I liked to travel. This is the first indication that ST is being trolled and really makes me angry that this safe harbor on the internet is no longer safe. Off comes my address.
Oh Jane, this is why I'd never Facebook. There are too many ways now for people to invade your privacy. There are programs out there which troll for email addresses. I know some folks in high tech who never post a URL or email address in text. Instead, they do it as a bitmap graphic - a JPG or GIF file. On their web pages, or pasted as a "business card" graphic in their emails. So that at least if they get spammed, it's from someone who actually had to manually find their contact information and copy it down.
Off comes my address.
