The new scam spam
It used to be that we knew what to expect with email spams and scams: pharmaceuticals, offers of and improvements on sex, university degrees, security warnings from banks, money from Nigerian gentleman, replica goods and the like. But a new variation on a theme is now becoming more common. Rather than presuming our trust in banks it tries to play on our trust of lawyers, and of course our greed.
Yes, we’ve suddenly all become heirs to fortunes.
The example that brought this to my attention is from a Mr James Patton [presumed not real name, but a good choice]. He has recently emailed twice, though he claims thrice. Most amusingly in his latest missive he’s blaming the spam filter for my not seeing the last email (I did see it and it was auto filtered as spam, but as so little gets through I check that box every now and then out of interest).
There are plenty easy tell-tale elements that highlight his polite yet firm email as spam: it’s generic, email address isn’t a law firm and has numbers in it, no contact details… need I go on? So for your amusement, ‘Mr Patton’s’ outing and as a warning to others here is the email in full.
from: James Patton
reply-to: jamespatton00000@rediffmail.com
to: jamespatton00000@rediffmail.com
date: Sat, Sep 4, 2010 at 1:33 AM
subject: {Spam?} 2ND NOTICE AGAINGreetings,
We wish to notify you again that you were listed as a Heir to the total sum of (Three Million Six Hundred Thousand British Pounds) in the codicil and last testament of our deceased client. Name now withheld since this is our second letter to you.
We are reaching you the second time because her instruction stipulates that this fund should be paid directly to you upon her death.
If you receive this notice, we request you to kindly acknowledge officially to enable us file in all necessary legal documents to the paying bank for the urgent release of your inheritance.
Please call urgently or send an acknowledgement email to enable us process your inheritance.
Yours Truly,
James Patton
There be dragons – mapping social media in 2010
The hand drawn map is a world of imagination and exploration into territories unknown, which is why this updated version of one originally drawn by XKD in 2007 is really rather special… Although not that useful for showing as part of a presentation as this map needs time.
Prioritising email
I’ve recently been trying to clean up my inbox and make it more efficient and less full of interesting but none-the-less not high priority newsletters. This has meant a process of unsubscribing and analysing what’s really useful. So today I read with joy via Jemima Kiss over on the Guadian’s PDA blog a new development from Google: Gmail Priority Inbox.
“‘Priority inbox’ learns from your email usage patterns and begins to prioritise messages that it thinks you’ll be most likely to read. Your inbox is divided into three sections: important and unread, starred and everything else.”
Here’s the explanatory video:
It’s not reached my inbox yet, but I will be testing it out as soon as it does.
The Internet of Things
Nice video explaining The Internet of Things:
Introduction to the power of open data
As some of you may know I’ve been working with the Where Does My Money Go? team over the last month or so, helping with the communications side of things.
Where Does My Money Go? (WDMMG) is run by the Open Knowledge Foundation, a “not-for-profit organization promoting open knowledge: that’s any kind of information – sonnets to statistics, genes to geodata – that can be freely used, reused, and redistributed.”
WDMMG gathers, analyses and visualises UK government spending data with the aim of making that information more usable and useful – for tax payers, journalists, businesses, researchers, policy makers, politicians and more. The aim is to make government spending as transparent as possible to hold the government to account but also to enable more informed decision making in the long run.
It’s a fascinating project and is part of a wider open data trend and movement that has been gathering pace over the last few years.
One of the main protagonists in this area is father of the web Tim Berners-Lee, who is famed for getting the 2009 TED conference audience to shout “Raw Data Now!”.
So as a way of introducing the concept of open data and it’s potential power, this five minute video by Tim at this year’s TED conference is worth viewing:
UPDATE 5/08/2010: Apparently TBL’s shout of “Raw Data Now!” was based on a meme that started with this Open Knowledge Foundation blog post, and which Tim cites here.
Four years on Flickr
Today I realised that I’ve been a member of Flickr for four years. Joining in 2006 after receiving a digital camera as a leaving present from the New Statesman (thank you Dan, Spencer and co.), I’ve been active fairly regularly on the site ever since.
Like with all good platforms the site can operate in a way that suits you. Want to just share photos privately? Can do. Want to share with a select few known individuals? No problem. Want to use it as a store and back-up? Yup.
Read more…
