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BEWARE OF DATING SITE SCAMS. There are a lot of false profiles out on the dating sites. The false ones are typically free member parasites and not usually paying members. Many of the false profiles are harmless member stealer’s. They are on there to flirt with you and try and get you to come to some other dating site. But some are trying to steal your heart to get to your money.

ONLINE DATING SCAM TACTICS:

Step 1) Take the Bait

You meet someone on a dating site (Adult Friend Finder, Match, okcupid, etc). This person has posted a picture of themselves and they are gorgeous!
Their profiles says something like:

I am a caring ,loving, honest, respectful and i believe in god and real people to hop to meet meet my real love here

There profile seems perfect. They sounds sweet, loving and caring. Their picture (if they have one) looks incredible. They seem to live pretty close.

What’s really going on? More than likely it is some ugly dude from a third world country who just learned to use a computer. They found a hot picture and posted it on the dating site. They are the exact opposite of what ever they said on their profile: they are uncaring, dishonest and don’t respect anyone… not even themselves.

Step 2) The Out of Country Story

You send them a message. They reply and tell you that they’d rather talk to you on email (usually hotmail or yahoo). They then proceed to tell you that they are currently in another country (Nigeria, Ghana, Mali, England), but they have some sort of connection to the states in your local area. They’ll say they’re relatives are there or they do business their and they’d love to meet you sometime.

What’s really going on? They really are outside of whatever country you are (usually Nigeria, Ghana, West Africa – this is one of the top scams in that region).

Step 3) Relationship Deception

What they do next is get a steady relationship with you. They will send more pictures. They will want to know more about you so they can cater to your ego. They will tell you they love you, tell you how good you look, how great you are. Basically, anything get the relationship going.

What’s really going on? They are lying to you and 20 other people on 5 or 6 different dating sites.

Step 4) A Crisis: they Need Money

There are various lies they may use to get money. They will ask for cash to buy the ticket to come visit you or they will tell you a tragedy has occurred and they need your help maybe even with a promise to pay you back.

What’s really going on? They are attempting to take your money and spend it on bullshit.

Clues to Spot Dating Scams:

– Pictures look too professional. Magazine quality photos should be a dead give away. If they send a series of pics and each one looks like a “model posed” photo shoot, be suspicious.
– BAD GRAMMAR & SPELLING. They are typically not very well educated and it will sometimes come through loud the clear via very choppy English and slight stupid logic. Sometimes it is as bad as a 3rd grader (a dumb 3rd grader).
– Western Africa. Be suspicious of ANYTHING from from Ghana, Mali and especially Nigeria.
– Too much love, too fast. They will almost immediately start talking about “I love you”, “I miss you” – don’t be flattered… they don’t love you… trust me.

Disclaimer: Miracles do happen. Maybe you’ve just met a West African supermodel, with bad grammar, who has fallen madly in love with you in the course of two or three emails.

Conclusion:
I’ve dealt with these scammers on ebay, email, dating sites and in chat rooms and one thing I’ve noticed is that they are actually not very smart. They are just ruthless. They take advantage of people’s trust, kindness and generosity. They are not so much predators as they are parasites that jump from host to host. They feed on the infrastructure and wealth of Western Civilization and have nothing at all to contribute to humanity but ignorance and greed. The sad thing is that these few greedy, idiots are giving ALL West Africans a bad name on the Web and these nations (particularly Ghana & Nigeria) are among the richest nations in Africa with the greatest potential of having great success in any and all endeavors. Its a real shame.

Richest African Countries 2006: GDP Per Country

1. South Africa … $606.4 billion in international$ (up 8% from 2005)
2. Algeria … $262.2 billion (up 8.5%)
3. Nigeria … $181.8 billion (up 10.2%)
4. Morocco … $150.8 billion (up 4.8%)
5. Sudan … $98.8 billion (up 11.2%)
6. Tunisia … $91.4 billion (up 7.4%)
7. Ethiopia … $78.4 billion (up 12%)
8. Ghana … $59.4 billion (up 9.1%)

*This is an email from a date site scammer. They hunt for people to latch on to on dating sites. Once they are communicating with you they play on your emotions. They say anything to get in close. Once they believe you have feeling, they ask for money to come visit you or some other BS.

From: Sadia Iddrissu
To: me
Sent: Sunday, May 11, 2008 3:15:41 PM
Subject: Re: hello my love

hello love i miss u

Time: Tue May 13 7:30am =96 8:30am (Timezone: Central Time)
Where: cbnwiretransferofficer@yahoo.com
Calendar:
Description: FROM THE DESK OF: DR. EDWARD MEBAM
CENTRAL BANK OF NIGERIA (CBN)
FOREIGN OPERATIONS DEPARTMENT
TRANSFER UNIT

SIR,

RE:- REMITTANCE NOTICE

ACCORDING TO THE SCHEDULE AND MANDATE RECEIVED FROM THE FEDERAL MINISTRY OF =
FINANCE, OFFICE

OF THE DIRECTOR FOREIGN DEBT RECONCILIATION/MANAGEMENT OFFICE.

THIS IS TO INFORM YOU THAT, YOUR OVER DUE PAYMENT WHICH WAS APPROVED BY THE =
PRESIDENCY,

FEDERAL GOVERNMENT OF NIGERIA AND THE CENTRAL BANK EXECUTIVE GOVERNOR HAS BE=
EN RELEASED BY

WIRE TRANSFER TO YOUR NOMINATED BANK ACCOUNT ON MONDAY THE 12/05/2008 VIA OU=
R CORRESPONDING

BANK LONDON.

THE REMITTANCE WAS EFFECTED IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE INTERNATIONAL BANKING RUL=
ES AS WE WILL

NOT BE HELD RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY MISDIRECTION.

IN THIS REGARD, YOU ARE ADVISED TO MAKE EVERY CONFIRMATIONS FROM YOUR ATTORN=
EY WHO

REPRESENTED YOU AND SIGNED OFF THE PAYMENT TRANSFER ON YOUR BEHALF AND YOUR =
BANK AND QUICKLY

MAKE CONFIRMATIONS BY REVERTING BACK TO THIS OFFICE TO ENABLE US UPDATE OUR =
PAYMENT RECORD.

CONGRATULATIONS.

YOURS FAITHFULLY,

MR. EDMARD MEBAM
H.O.D OPERATIONS/REMITTANCE OFFICER,
CENTRAL BANK OF NIGERIA (CBN).

**** SCAM****

Dear Beloved Friend,
Greetings in the name of Lord JESUS CHRIST, I am former Alhaja Fatima Okeh,now Mrs. Felica Okeh a widow to late Alhaji Sheik Okeh, I am 51 years old and now a new Christian convert, suffering from long time cancer of the breast. From all indications my condition is really deteriorating and it s quite obvious that I may not live long according to my doctors, this is because the cancer stage has gotten to a very bad stage.

My late husband late Alhaji Sheik Okeh, was killed during the USA raid against terrorism in Afghanistan. My late husband was very wealthy, who made his money from the Afghanistan’s Government, and hence I inherited all his business and wealth after his death because during the period of our marriage we couldn’t produce any child. And now the doctor has advised me that I may not live for more that six months, so I now decide to divide this wealth in order to contribute to the development of the churches in Africa, America, Asia and Europe and for humanity in general.

I selected you after visiting the website and I prayed over it, so I am willing to donate the sum of $10 million US Dollar to you on behalf of your organization to lend a hand in reaching out to the less privileged and the development of the gospel of our lord Jesus Christ, since I am very sick to handle this my dream on my own.

I want you to know that this fund is in presently in Security Company in Switzerland, where my late husband deposited it. So and upon your reply I will instruct my attorney Barrister Michael Gill Holonis, who presently is in West Africa distributing relief materials to victims of bomb blast in Sierra-Leone, to file in an application of Withdrawal of the consignment to your favor. Presently I am writing this letter from a Hospital in London where I have been taken my treatment, which is why I handed over every thing concerning this Donation to my Attorney, since he has been my family Lawyer for 18 years now.
Meanwhile to process the documents that will be used to withdrawn this consignment from the Security Company I will need some vita information about you or on behalf of your organization, so that I will forward it to my Attorney immediately, so please confirm this items as below:
1,your full name
2,your mailing address
3,your telephone and fax numbers.

On receipt of this confirmed items I will forward it to my Attorney so that some necessary changes will be made on the documents to enable you have claim to the Consignment/Donation.

Lastly, I honestly pray that this Donation when transferred to you, will be used for the said purpose and properly too, because I have come to find out that wealth acquisition without Christ is vanity. Please note that until this Donation is delivered to you, I will strongly insist that this transaction most be keep a top secret.

May the grace of our lord Jesus Christ, the love of GOD, and the fellowship of GOD be with you and your family as I wait your gentle and kind response to this mail.
Expecting to hear from you as soon as possible.
GOD blesses you and your family.
Mrs. Felica Okeh

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I honestly think you ought to calm down; take a stress pill and think things over. – Hal, 2001 Space Odyssey

Information Systems will eventually have the infrastructure and ability to “socially engineer” its creators. This is far fetched science fiction blooming before our very eyes being created by our own hands.
It will happen when three criteria are in place: 1) The creation of laws that can completely disregard the privacy and sovereignty of human beings. 2) The advancement of Information Awareness System and 3) Smart Artificial Intelligence

LAWS
Lets discuss the situations that will give governments the pretext to implement laws to track their citizens. This is happening now. Laws and systems are being created for unchecked monitoring of individuals under the guise of security, safety and prosperity. Systems such as national ID cards.
They were implemented after the Sept 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and in the U.K. after the 7 July attacks in London.

It was 19th Century philosopher Samuel T. Coleridge who said, “In politics, what begins in fear usually ends in folly.”

Imagine it: The PATRIOT ACT IV is passed as a result of recent Critical Infrastructure cyber-terrorism attacks. International terrorists implement a globally synchronized Distributed Denial of Service Attack against the worlds Root nameservers and successfully cripple the Internet for three days. The impact is devastating as corporations lose billions.

Domestic Cyber Terrorists infiltrate hospitals by becoming apart of the staff only to socially engineer and infecting HIPPA protected networks with virus’ that wipe out databases and actually scramble prescriptions causing an array of death by misdiagnoses.

Local police and security personnel repeatedly thwart numerous attempts by religious fundamentalists to detonate suit case sized tactical nuclear weapons inside major United State cities but security professionals predict that it is only a matter of time before at least one slips through the cracks. All the enemy needs is one.
Patriot Act IV is the patron saint of lawmakers who have been screamed at by constituents to “DO SOMETHING NOW!” The new Patriot Act is eventually internationally accepted and allows for unrestricted Data Mine into commercial and state owned databases worldwide (US-EU). It of course has deferent names and variations world wide but its application is the same. In the United Kingdom it is called the Civil Contingencies Bill. The data mining would tap into the “transaction space” by accessing hospital, financial transaction and legal databases world wide to be shared by all law enforcement agencies (county, federal, city local and international). The system works like a global Amber Alert system that can track criminals anywhere in the world and notify the respective local agency immediately. The system works very, very well.
I honestly think you ought to calm down; take a stress pill and think things over. – Hal, 2001 Space Odyssey

Information Systems will eventually have the infrastructure and ability to “socially engineer” its creators. This is far fetched science fiction blooming before our very eyes being created by our own hands.
It will happen when three criteria are in place: 1) The creation of laws that can completely disregard the privacy and sovereignty of human beings. 2) The advancement of Information Awareness System and 3) Smart Artificial Intelligence

LAWS
Lets discuss the situations that will give governments the pretext to implement laws to track their citizens. This is happening now. Laws and systems are being created for unchecked monitoring of individuals under the guise of security, safety and prosperity. Systems such as national ID cards.
They were implemented after the Sept 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and in the U.K. after the 7 July attacks in London.

It was 19^th Century philosopher Samuel T. Coleridge who said, “In politics, what begins in fear usually ends in folly.”

Imagine it: The PATRIOT ACT IV is passed as a result of recent Critical Infrastructure cyber-terrorism attacks. International terrorists implement a globally synchronized Distributed Denial of Service Attack against the worlds Root nameservers and successfully cripple the Internet for three days. The impact is devastating as corporations lose billions.

Domestic Cyber Terrorists infiltrate hospitals by becoming apart of the staff only to socially engineer and infecting HIPPA protected networks with virus’ that wipe out databases and actually scramble prescriptions causing an array of death by mis diagnosis.

Local police and security personnel repeatedly thwart numerous attempts by religious fundamentalists to detonate suit case sized tactical nuclear weapons inside major United State cities but security professionals predict that it is only a matter of time before at least one slips through the cracks. All the enemy needs is one.
Patriot Act IV is the patron saint of lawmakers who have been screamed at by constituents to “DO SOMETHING NOW!” The new Patriot Act is eventually internationally accepted and allows for unrestricted Data Mine into commercial and state owned databases worldwide (US-EU). It of course has deferent names and variations world wide but its application is the same. In the United Kingdom it is called the Civil Contingencies Bill. The data mining would tap into the “transaction space” by accessing hospital, financial transaction and legal databases world wide to be shared by all law enforcement agencies (county, federal, city local and international). The system works like a global Amber Alert system that can track criminals anywhere in the world and notify the respective local agency immediately. The system works very, very well.

Information Awareness Systems

The system, developed under the direction of John Poindexter, then-director of DARPA’s Information Awareness Office, was envisioned to give law enforcement access to private data without suspicion of wrongdoing or a warrant. — Electronic Privacy Information Center.

Government funded unrestricted Data Mining and Information Awareness programs develop and run revolutionary Information Awareness Systems. Despite public opinion, these National Security systems continue to work to protect the nation against enemies foreign and domestic. The system extracts data from its transactional databases and recognizes patterns of behavior that would fit that of a terrorist. The system is so exhaustive that is works with 70% accuracy and seamlessly in conjunction with systems such as Next Generation Facial Recognition systems and Activity, Recognition Monitoring for enhanced surveillance.

Artificial Intelligence
Within thirty years, we will have the technological means to create superhuman intelligence. Shortly after, the human era will be ended. – Vernon Vinge, 1993, What is the Singularity?

Artificial Intelligence has been in use for many years. It is greatly relied upon for businesses, hospitals, military units and even in forms of entertainment such as video games. However Strong Artificial Intelligence, the development of cognitive systems simulating the human brain, have been developing quietly in research labs around the world under programs dedicated to the “scientific understanding of the mechanisms underlying thought and intelligent behavior and their embodiment in machines. (AAAI)”

Smart Information Awareness is Strong Artificial Intelligence merged with Information Awareness Systems. Smart Information Awareness seems to go beyond merely recognizing patterns of behavior as it predicts the future actions of a given psychological profile with over 75% accuracy allowing Law Enforcement to be like an all seeing eye with incredible new methods of forensics and counterterrorism. Crime as a whole will be greatly reduced. System that recognize criminal patterns have been around for some time, Smart Information Awareness systems are a new trend.

The Smart Information Awareness system is so accurate in determining human behavior trends that it is used to track and manipulate consumer buying habits for corporations. With its accuracy, the system will be able to determine what marketing tools can be used to influence the behavior of buyers.

With unfettered access to consumer’s personal transactions, buying habits, methods of payment, and credit history a system would be able to pin point buyers who demonstrate interests in certain products and offer “special deals” a specific group of highly interested buyers.

Inevitably the very system (laws, practices and technologies) that successfully protects humanity from itself is used to manipulate and exploit humanity.

Perhaps you believe that there is nothing wring with this level of target marketing. If so, I submit to you these questions: What will separate humanity from cattle if every man, woman and child is seen as nothing but a number and a consumer to the system that we rely on to survive? Since we are already regarded as merely numbers and consumers by the corporate beast, how much control and information will we allow them to have?

Perhaps this is a bit much. Perhaps I exaggerate the technology and extent of fear that will breed it.

http://www.p2pnet.net/issue03/page1.html

http://www.epic.org/

http://www.jbholston.com/weblog_discussion.php?post_id=74
Statewatch.com – Secret EU-US agreement being negotiated. http://www.statewatch.org/news/2002/jul/11Auseu.htm
http://www.eff.org/Privacy/TIA/20030523_tia_report_review.php

http://www.aaai.org/

nin – TheSlip (thanks Trent)

Ray Kurzweil @ Google Zeitgeist

Civil Contingency Bill

Eschelon TIA – Total Information Awareness

Introduction

Ars Technica’s original Wireless Security Blackpaper was first published back in 2002, and in the intervening years, it has been a great reference for getting the technical lowdown on different wireless security protocols. As a sequel to the original blackpaper, we wanted to do something a little more basic and practical, because the number of devices with 802.11x support has greatly expanded since 2002. Wireless security is no longer the domain of geeks and system administrators, but is now an issue in the lives of everyday users, from the worker with a home office who wants to keep sensitive files secure to the homemaker who wants to avoid an RIAA lawsuit because the teen next door is a wireless-leeching P2P addict.

read more | digg story

National Cyber Alert System

Cyber Security Tip ST05-008

You may think that you are anonymous as you browse web sites, but pieces of information about you are always left behind. You can reduce the amount of information revealed about you by visiting legitimate sites, checking privacy policies, and minimizing the amount of personal information you provide.

What information is collected?

When you visit a web site, a certain amount of information is automatically sent to the site. This information may include the following:

* IP address – Each computer on the internet is assigned a specific, unique IP (internet protocol) address. Your computer may have a static IP address or a dynamic IP address. If you have a static IP address, it never changes. However, some ISPs own a block of addresses and assign an open one each time you connect to the internet—this is a dynamic IP address. You can determine your computer’s IP address at any given time by visiting www.showmyip.com
* domain name – The internet is divided into domains, and every user’s account is associated with one of those domains. You can identify the domain by looking at the end of URL; for example, .edu indicates an educational institution, .gov indicates a US government agency, .org refers to organization, and .com is for commercial use. Many countries also have specific domain names. The list of active domain names is available from the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA).
* software details – It may be possible for an organization to determine which browser, including the version, that you used to access its site. The organization may also be able to determine what operating system your computer is running.
* page visits – Information about which pages you visited, how long you stayed on a given page, and whether you came to the site from a search engine is often available to the organization operating the web site.

http://www.us-cert.gov/cas/tips/ST05-008.html

IS THIS REAL? no.

Dear Beloved Friend,

Greetings in the name of Lord JESUS CHRIST, I am former Alhaja Fatima Okeh,now Mrs. Felica Okeh a widow to late Alhaji Sheik Okeh, I am 51 years old and now a new Christian convert, suffering from long time cancer of the breast. From all indications my condition is really deteriorating and it s quite obvious that I may not live long according to my doctors, this is because the cancer stage has gotten to a very bad stage.

My late husband late Alhaji Sheik Okeh, was killed during the USA raid against terrorism in Afghanistan. My late husband was very wealthy, who made his money from the Afghanistan’s Government, and hence I inherited all his business and wealth after his death because during the period of our marriage we couldn’t produce any child. And now the doctor has advised me that I may not live for more that six months, so I now decide to divide this wealth in order to contribute to the development of the churches in Africa, America, Asia and Europe and for humanity in general.

I selected you after visiting the website and I prayed over it, so I am willing to donate the sum of $10 million US Dollar to you on behalf of your organization to lend a hand in reaching out to the less privileged and the development of the gospel of our lord Jesus Christ, since I am very sick to handle this my dream on my own.

I want you to know that this fund is in presently in Security Company in Switzerland, where my late husband deposited it. So and upon your reply I will instruct my attorney Barrister Michael Gill Holonis, who presently is in West Africa distributing relief materials to victims of bomb blast in Sierra-Leone, to file in an application of Withdrawal of the consignment to your favor. Presently I am writing this letter from a Hospital in London where I have been taken my treatment, which is why I handed over every thing concerning this Donation to my Attorney, since he has been my family Lawyer for 18 years now. Meanwhile to process the documents that will be used to withdrawn this consignment from the Security Company I will need some vita information about you or on behalf of your organization, so that I will forward it to my Attorney immediately, so please confirm this items as below:

1,your full name
2,your mailing address
3,your telephone and fax numbers.

On receipt of this confirmed items I will forward it to my Attorney so that some necessary changes will be made on the documents to enable you have claim to the Consignment/Donation.

Lastly, I honestly pray that this Donation when transferred to you, will be used for the said purpose and properly too, because I have come to find out that wealth acquisition without Christ is vanity. Please note that until this Donation is delivered to you, I will strongly insist that this transaction most be keep a top secret.

May the grace of our lord Jesus Christ, the love of GOD, and the fellowship of GOD be with you and your family as I wait your gentle and kind response to this mail.

Expecting to hear from you as soon as possible.
GOD blesses you and your family.
Mrs. Felica Okeh

Wireless Routers vs Wired Router

Overview: Routers, switches and hubs (1) (a.ka Internetworking devices) give you access to the Internet (2) via some sort of ISP device (broadband modem, DSL ect) (3). The speed onto the actual Internet depends on the service you have purchased with your local ISP (4). They are the gatekeepers (AT&T, Comcast, Verison, Local ISP ect). This usually creates a bit of a bottleneck because your local area network (LAN) is much faster than your connection to the actual Internet. You actual connection to the Internet is controlled by your ISP. Wired LANs will allow you to get from 100-1000Mb/second, Wireless will get from from 10-250Mb (depending on how far from the wireless router you are and what type you get).

ISPs allow you to go anywhere from 56Kbs – 12Mbs:

Dial-up: 56Kbs – (4 minutes to download 1.7MB file)

DSL: up to 6Mbs – (2 seconds to download 1.7MB file)

Cable: up to 12Mbs – (1 second to download 1.7MB file)

*the math: 1.7 Mega Bytes is 13,600,000 bits (per second) of data divided by n, where n is your speed (i.e. 56K = 56,000 bits per second)
**There is a technology called WiMax Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (802.16e) coming out that will allow wireless to go directly in your home from the ISP at 70Mb/second and that will beat every currently on the market.

If you have a home LAN (more than one computer in your home linked together connected to the Internet), your network is passing data at about 100Mb/second – which is really fast for even really large files. But this is where the Wireless vs. Wired Internet comes in. Don’t confuse your internal network speed with your connection to the Internet (see overview).

Should you go with a wireless or a wired router?
Any wireless router you get will have both options available, so you are better off getting a wireless. The cost isn’t usually that different unless you want a high end wireless which will usually be between $20-$50 more.

Which Switch is Faster, wireless or wired?
It really depends on what kind you get. However, the fastest wired router will beat the pants off of the fastest wireless. Wired routers go up to 100-1000Mb. Of course, I high end wireless can have everything a high end router has (including those super 1000Mb speeds).

SUPER HIGH END HOME ROUTER

BANGKOK: The death toll from a powerful cyclone that struck Myanmar over the weekend rose to 22,500 on Tuesday, and foreign governments and aid organizations began mobilizing for a major relief operation.

http://news.google.com/nwshp?tab=wn&ncl=1154951388&hl=en&topic=w