Halifax Bank email scam.

"Ben Padstow" <benpadstow@NOSPAMsensical.co.uk> wrote in message
news:98lspvcq83rr6pdd19b4v3rgmrrmpjrpla@4ax.com...
> On Mon, 27 Oct 2003 18:07:01 -0000, "cmw" <cmw52@-----cam.ac.uk>
> wrote:
>
> >"Dr Ivan D. Reid" <Ivan.Reid@brunel.ac.uk> wrote in message
> >news:slrnbpqk2t.27g.Ivan.Reid@loki.brunel.ac.uk.. .
> >> On Mon, 27 Oct 2003 15:21:51 GMT, Barry Margolin
> ><barry.margolin@level3.com>
> >> wrote in <jKanb.233$lK3.179@news.level3.com>:
> >>
> >> > The URL goes to shortway.to, not halifax.co.uk. Notice the '@' in
the
> >URL;
> >> > the complete syntax of an HTTP URL is:
> >>
> >> > http://<username>:<password>@<hostname>:<port>/<pathname>
> >>
> >> > So in the URL in the scam email, the username is "halifax.co.uk", the
> >> > password is "ac=tVfB1OzCLmQRF1na6lTT", the hostname is <ShOrTwAy.To>,
> >and
> >> > the port defaults to 80.
> >>
> >> The one I got had
> >>
>
>http://www.citibank.com:ac=ZUVv0gvJR...?c2YWqI8kEPFDK
B
> >>
> >Got one purporting to be from Barclays - cunning little monkeys.
>
> What I want to know is - how are the scammers getting hold of the
> email addresses in the first place?

Change one letter to "spammers". They use the same tools, the same bulk
email lists, the same stolen customer addresses as the other fraudulent
spammers.

The canonical rules are:

1: Spammers lie.
2: See rule one.
3: Spammers are s-t-o-o-p-i-d.

"Bill Unruh" <unruh@string.physics.ubc.ca> wrote in message news:bnmlr0

> ] The Rules of Spam
>
> ]Rule #0: Spam is theft.
>
> ] Angel's Commentary: Spammers believe it's okay to steal a little bit
> ] from each person on the Internet at once.
>
> Nuts. Spam is not theft. It may be many pejorative things but theft it
> is not. And refering to the totally trivial amount of electricity used
> is silly (even if courts have used that excuse because they could not
> think of any other way of saying it is bad). We should not be
> encouraging this sort of thinking because, as in A Man for All Seasons--
> where will you hide, having brought down all the laws, when the devil
> turns on you?

"Theft" has weird definitions in law. It's often a theft of services both
from the spammer's ISP and from whatever victim SMTP servers they bounce off
of, and many consider it a form of theft of the recipient's time and
resources.

Being trivial does not mean it is not theft, especially since it's *disk
space* and *bandwidth* that are being consumed from the SMTP servers and
mail clients. Spam adds up to a very large proportion of all network traffic
today: it's a serious problem.

Also, if you scratch away the patina from many net-geeks, you find
Libertarians, who consider "theft" to be the primary form of crime, period.

> ]Rule #1: Spammers lie.
>
> I think a better term is deceive.

No, they flat-out lie. Believe me on this one.

> ]Rule #3: Spammers are stupid.
>
> No, actually many spammers are very smart in an ugly sort of way. The
> effort they spend on getting around antispam devices has a certain level
> of ingenuity. Mind you so do mass murderers, but it is not the
> intelligence in either case which is the problem.

No, they are fundamentally stupid. Their businesses almost inevitably
collapse within a quite short amount of time. Only a very, very few have
made a successful go of it over time, by selling their spamming tools to
others instead of spamming for their own business.

Most spammers rely on the laziness and lack of enforcement by ISP's to
continue their businesses. Much like kids stealing road signs, it doesn't
take much brain to do.

> ] 1. Bandwidth is infinite. It possible for infinite messages to
> ] occupy the same box at the same time.
>
> No. It is the problem of the commons. If something is free for all, how
> do you prevent abuse.

Remember, spammers are *s-t-o-o-p-i-d*. They pretend it's infinite.

> ] 2. The less value a message has, the more people want to see it.
> ] 3. The more someone is offended, the more likely they are to buy.
> ] 4. Reward is inversely proportional to the work done to earn it.
>
> No, the rule is that if only .01% of recipients fall for it, it pays.
> They do not care about the others.

You've obviously never read carefully the spammer's rants about being cut
off. Whatever they say, spammers follow and possibly believe *these* rules.

> ]Rule #4: The natural course of a spamming business is to go bankrupt.
>
> What evidence do you have for this?

Woodside Literary Agency: DOA

Canter&Siegel: disbarred, divorced, and Larry is running from Martha's
process servers last I heard.

Cyberpromo: Amazingly dead and pankrupt (Sanford Wallace is apparently a DJ
these days).

$cientology: Still losing members at something like 10% a year, despite
their 1/2 Terabyte in six months spamming of newsgroups to prevent
discussion of their cult secrets

> As long as you believe in these rules of spamming it will be hard to get
> rid of them. Underestimating your enemy is the first rule for defeat.

No, rolling over and saying "here, eviscerate us while we discuss your
proposals" is the first rule of defeat.

The classic 3-rule description of spammers explains their mindset and their
tactics in quite good detail.

Scott wrote:
> Below is a fairly obvious scam to extract account details I received
> today - Halifax have shut their site down. The question is how can
> this possibly work? Surely the link below goes to the genuine Halifax
> server,

bzzzt wrong.

the link is hosted at "ShOrTwAy.To"

> how then is it possible for the fraudsters to obtain the
> account details without also being able to plant their own software
> on that server?

They haven't. The scam site is sh0rtway.to

BTW You also spelled "breach" wrongly.

"R W" <no.spam@thankyou.maam> wrote in message
news:bnr8s9$9ee$1@yarrow.open.ac.uk

> They haven't. The scam site is sh0rtway.to
> BTW You also spelled "breach" wrongly.

You misspelled the scam site with a zero instead of an oh:

shortway.to:
ASERVER.ONE.RU [193.124.133.29]
ASERVER.OO.RU [194.135.19.10]


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In article <j1pspvkvont1q5vbd5onas3d7224mbl3o0@4ax.com>, Ben Padstow
<benpadstow@NOSPAMsensical.co.uk> writes
>I thought the suggestion was that the spammers are specifically
>targetting customers of the scammed banks?
>
>Is it just that they're sending out thousands of emails and happen to
>be catching people who have an account with that bank?
>
>The strange thing is, I get every spam going, and haven't had this. I
>bank with Smile.
>
I have had ones (lots) for both ebay and Barclays accounts which I don't
have.

--
Timothy Lee http://www.wightproperty.com

"Barry Margolin" <barry.margolin@level3.com> wrote in message
news:UPxnb.266$lK3.48@news.level3.com...
> In article <LExnb.51189$e01.128233@attbi_s02>,
> Glen Herrmannsfeldt <gah@ugcs.caltech.edu> wrote:

(someone wrote)

> >> No they don't, any more than anyone who doesn't lock their front door
> >> deserves to get burgled.

> >Now that the net is international, I may not believe that. With senders
> >from countries with different laws than ours, I don't believe that
statement
> >is true in the case of e-mail.

> Regardless of the laws, are there really places where not protecting
> oneself is considered an open invitation to become a victim? Where it's
> ethical to take advantage of someone because of their ignorance and/or
> stupidity?

> Something doesn't have to be illegal in order to be wrong.

Well, ethics can be different in different cultures, and there might be some
where it is true. I would not be surprised in Iraq or Afganistan right now.

Also, there are these e-mails related to a Nigerian (I think that is the
country) official with millions of dollars to transfer if only someone will
supply a bank account number. I have heard that the government isn't
interested in stopping it as it is a big source of hard currency for the
country.

For that matter, I would say that state lotteries that pay back 50% or less
are unethical and take advantage of people's ignorance, but they are
actually supported by state governments.

-- glen

On Mon, 27 Oct 2003 15:09:01 +0000, Scott wrote:

> Below is a fairly obvious scam to extract account details I received today -
> Halifax have shut their site down. The question is how can this possibly
> work? Surely the link below goes to the genuine Halifax server, how then is
> it possible for the fraudsters to obtain the account details without also
> being able to plant their own software on that server? The ability to do
> that would be a massive security breech on the part of Halifax and a
> completely unconscionable error for a major public company. [BTW I don't
> have such an account].
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> Dear Halifax Bank Member,
>
> This email was sent by the Halifax server to verify your e-mail
> address. You must complete this process by clicking on the link
> below and entering in the small window your Halifax username
> and password.
> This is done for your protection --- because some of our
> members no longer have access to their email addresses and
> we must verify it.
>
> To verify your e-mail address and access your bank account,
> click on the link below. If nothing happens when you click on the
> link (or if you use AOL), copy and paste the link into
> the address bar of your web browser.
>
>
> http://halifax.co.uk:ac=tVfB1OzCLmQR...9/?TAhIJmjCxxi
> Otyp
>
>
> --------------------------------------------
> Thank you for using Halifax!
> --------------------------------------------
>
> This automatic email sent to: scott@scott2.demon.co.uk
> Do not reply to this email.

A similar trick would use the click-through counter scripts that many
sites run - quite often when you click on an external link in a website,
it doesn't take you straight there but through a general purpose cgi
script that counts the links people leave the site through. So if anyone
is running a site like this, make sure there's some way to ensure that the
click-through counter only works for links you have specified.

andy.

--
remove 'n-u-l-l' to email me. html mail or attachments will go in the spam
bin unless notified with [html] or [attachment] in the subject line.

> For that matter, I would say that state lotteries that pay back 50% or
> less are unethical and take advantage of people's ignorance, but they
> are actually supported by state governments.

I don't know about other states, but in Michigan, all lotto profits,
including unclaimed prizes, go straight to the education fund.

When i buy a lotto ticket (rare, but on occasion) i don't consider it
stupid or ignorant, but rather a donation to education with a one in a
trillion chance of being rewarded for my genorosity.

--
-alex49201

"alex49201" <alex@ae.homelinux.com> wrote in message
news:dV%ob.9063$8x2.5411909@newssrv26.news.prodigy .com...
> > For that matter, I would say that state lotteries that pay back 50% or
> > less are unethical and take advantage of people's ignorance, but they
> > are actually supported by state governments.

> I don't know about other states, but in Michigan, all lotto profits,
> including unclaimed prizes, go straight to the education fund.

> When i buy a lotto ticket (rare, but on occasion) i don't consider it
> stupid or ignorant, but rather a donation to education with a one in a
> trillion chance of being rewarded for my genorosity.

Well, I buy then once in a while. While they say they go to the education
fund, at least some states that I know of decrease the amount that they
would otherwise have put into the education fund. So while it is strictly
true, practically it may not be. States put much more money into education
than they ever get from the lottery, so it isn't easy to notice.

But I suppose it is still better than sending it to some con artist
somewhere. Though too many lottery tickets are bought by people who can't
afford it, and those are the reasons I say it is unethical.

-- glen

"alex49201" <alex@ae.homelinux.com> wrote in message
news:dV%ob.9063$8x2.5411909@newssrv26.news.prodigy .com...
> > For that matter, I would say that state lotteries that pay back 50% or
> > less are unethical and take advantage of people's ignorance, but they
> > are actually supported by state governments.
>
> I don't know about other states, but in Michigan, all lotto profits,
> including unclaimed prizes, go straight to the education fund.
>
> When i buy a lotto ticket (rare, but on occasion) i don't consider it
> stupid or ignorant, but rather a donation to education with a one in a
> trillion chance of being rewarded for my genorosity.

Lotto money is often used to launder income: Some mobsters buy up big
winning tickets (at a discount) to hide their income, which also lets the
winners avoid income tax on any winnings by being paid in cash.

And the bureaucracy involved to run the Lotto is listed as an expense, not
part of the "profit" you mention, and charged to the lottery, instead of
coming directly out of state coffers. Are you under the impression that
lotteries are run efficiently or honestly? They're a truly prize job source
for graft-ridden politics, especially nepotism for former state
representatives and selectmen and political party professionals. We've
certainly seen this in Massachusetts.