Elamb Cybersecurity

Tag: movie

  • 419 the Nigerian Scam, the movie

    Sorin Mihailovici is making a movie about the Nigerian scammers.
    Sorin Mihailovici

    419: the Nigerian Scam is about the scam e-mails that people receive daily. The Internet is flooded with e-mails promising money-making business proposals, lottery win notifications, and fabulous inheritances. This is the story of how one man’s involvement with such an Internet scam ruined his life. Before I started shooting, I myself exchanged a few e-mails with real scammers from Nigeria and Ivory Coast. They even send me “documents” certifying all kinds of positions and deals that they have. The inclusion of this real correspondence with the scammers gave an added level of realism to my film.

    — Heckle Spray

    I hope the movie goes viral, goes on CNN all major news outlets so that people will be cautious about the traps set on the web’s ruthless anarchy. The price of true freedom only available in the newly discovered digital landscape.

    While I don’t think an ‘eye for an eye’ type justice will come to all of the third world country online scavengers, I do believe there is hope for potential victims. My hope is in the spark of awareness that can be ignited by media like Sorin Mihailovici’s movie or this little blog. If I can help even one person NOT send a penny to an online liar, then I feel like these words I publish are worth it.

  • untraceable movie

    untraceable movie

    I just saw a movie called Untraceable. It is cyberterrorism meets Seven. Although it is very violent, it falls short of the pure “torture porn” genre (i.e. Hostel, Saw). They didn’t sensationalize the FBI computer crime team. They made the characters real people with real problems.

    The best part of the movie is that it addresses hard societal questions that we are still struggling with. The killer’s greatest weapon was the Internet itself. He used the anonymity and distributed non-centralized power of the net to broadcast killings on the Internet. Once he captured a victim, he would put them in a contraption that would torture them to death based on how many people came to the site. The FBI is at a loss, because their equipment (while it can easily bait & hunt small time phishers, criminal hackers and adults soliciting sex from kids online) it is useless against this serial killers level of software, Internet, and electronics sophistication. They eventually call upon the NSA, who tell them that they are not allowed to use their resources for domestic issues. With the Patriot Act and NUMEROUS presidential NSA acts, I don’t believe this is entirely true. But the movie seems to suggest that it is.

    Although, I disagree with the message of giving more power to the FBI & NSA to catch bad guys (as it would require the loss of more civil liberties of law abiding citizens), I definitely recommend this movie.


    Movie fact:

    The site used by the killer (www.killwithme.com) actually exists. It’s owned by the movie studio and it’s used to promote the movie. In it, users are taken to a replica of the FBI computer used by the character Jennifer Marsh. Her desktop gets hacked by the killer who provides the visitor with four test he/she must complete to deactivate his site.