Digital Vigilantism

Digital vigilantism is where citizens become activists and use the power of social media to share comments, demands for action, information, rallying calls etc. to counter what they see as offensive or injurious or damaging comment and behaviour.

This is not just about posting comments online but about taking actions online that have more serious consequences.

This is happening as social media has become an outlet for people angry or dissatisfied with the behaviour of other groups and institutions. This is increasingly used – sometimes for good but not always – to highlight behaviours and consequences.

An example occurred in the town of Charlottesville where a rally over plans to remove a Confederate statue were met by counter-protesters, leading Virginia’s governor to declare a state of emergency.

This led to violence that was witnessed by many local people.

Some Twitter users in the Charlottesville incident accessed private information to identify and publicly shame any and every white nationalist who took part in the rally, whether they committed a crime or not. Others, however, focused on identifying only the white nationalists seen in photos and videos committing violent acts. The digital evidence was then turned over to the Charlottesville Police Department.

In 2011 the Vancouver Stanley Cup riots broke out after the Boston Bruins ice hockey team defeated the Vancouver Canucks. Facebook vigilantes named and shamed individuals, including several young offenders, who took part in the riots. A 17-year-old, Nathan Kotylak, was named in response to an image posted online, and this led to him and his family having to flee their home.

‘Naming and shaming’, that is sharing the target’s personal details by publishing them on public sites is also known as ‘doxing’. This is quite extreme and can be very damaging for the individual concerned.

Sometimes this digital vigilantism helps the Police apprehend criminals, but it can easily backfire and damage innocent people.

May 24, 2021

Re-Shipping Scam

This scam takes advantage of the many people desperate to find a job working from home.

You search online and find what appears to be an ideal opportunity.

It involves accepting parcels from an overseas company then putting a new delivery label on and sending the parcel off to its intended destination. Sounds straightforward.

There is a convoluted story about why this is necessary rather than the company shipping the items to the desired destination themselves. The story makes no real sense but you are so keen to get a job working at home that you accept the premise.

The scammer promises to pay per item or maybe a flat monthly salary.

You are then happy to accept the incoming items, attach pre-paid postage labels and send them off to a new destination – likely to be in a different country.

For some victims, things progress smoothly receiving and sending out packages. For others things go wrong straightaway. The problems can start with the first delivery you receive. Seems a normal small package and you add the delivery label you’ve been sent and drop the package off at the Post Office.

But then it is returned you to because the delivery label was a fake.

You email the scammer and are told it was a mistake and she sends you another label to use. Maybe that works or is another fake and so on until one does work.

Sometimes the package receiving and sending goes on for a month then you expect to be paid but of course that doesn’t happen – the scammer has disappeared.

The worrying part is that the packages may well be illegal and the Police may get around to investigating your part in this re-shipping scam which is of course illegal.

The package may contain anything from drugs to weapons.

You then have to prove you were duped or face being prosecuted for a criminal offence.

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May 23, 2021

Stupidest Spam of the Week Wallet Sucking

Most scammers try to push people into action by threats and warnings or promises of some kind.

A small number prefer to be mysterious and intriguing – telling you nothing but hoping that the lack of information will make you click the link or reply to the email.

This latest one is titled ‘Retrieve Your Stolen Money Here’.

Then a set of meaningless statements such as below and a photo of a banknote being burnt.

‘It’s not who you think it is’

‘Something big is about to go down’

‘Telling you this will get me into trouble’

Etc.

The imagery used is quite weird e.g. ‘someone’s been sticking a straw down your wallet and sucking up your hard-earned money’.

It’s all to get people to click the link which is likely to be a fake website that will download malware to your computer or maybe to a phishing site after your personal information.

All rubbish of course – never click on links in unsolicited messages.

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May 22, 2021

Time-Wasters Update

There are endless scams on weight loss, because there are so many people desperate to lose weight without having to put in lots of effort. This latest one pictures a woman supposedly named Karen who put on 30 lbs of fat and lost her self confidence but her unnamed doctor had a magic remedy for her. A ten second trick that made her lose 1 Lb of fat every day. Click to learn the secret. There is no secret except for the sender’s real name and address and that’s a secret because it’s all just a scam of course.

Sylvie Lemery sent me an email, but addressed it to unknown recipients so it must be a mass email. It asks me to collaborate with her on an LNG project. She uses a Canadian email address and signs the email off as Mei. It’s just a simple message trying to find out which email addresses on her spam list are actually people dumb enough to reply to a stupid message. She can then sell those email addresses at a higher price or move on to her next stage scam. No thanks. Never reply to such emails.

There are endless scam messages claiming to be from Amazon. This latest one is actually from amaz0n0801.co.uk which is definitely not Amazon. It tells me that my subscription to Amazon Prime will automatically renew unless I click the link to cancel it. A typical phishing email – trying to get me to use my Amazon login and password on their fake website.

Fake messages from 1&1 IONOS are very common. The company provide email services for huge numbers of people and businesses. This latest message claims that according to EU regulations I have to consent to the processing of my personal data, otherwise they will close my account. All of these 1&1 messages are phishing messages – they give a reason why you have to click the link to login and reset something or cancel something or approve something. Doesn’t matter what, as long as they get your login and password so they can steal your email account and that can lead to fraud and identity theft. Never click on links on such messages.

Dr. Mrs Margarita says she is from the United Nations and would like to inform me that my email address was among those listed for Covid 19 Compensation. I am ‘enlisted’ to receive the covid 19 compensation valued at (five Hundred and fifty Thousand Dollars Only). A simple 419 scam as she doesn’t know my name, there is no reason why I would receive such compensation, the United Nations does not give such money and her email address is a Gmailpersonal address whereas the United Nations can afford proper business email addresses for its real employees. Pathetic.

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May 21, 2021

Scamvoid Website Checker

“Use this service to check the online reputation of a website.

Check if a website is a scam, check if a website is legit and trusted by other users”.

Scamvoid at https://www.scamvoid.net/ is a free online security service born in September 2012 that lets users see if a website is known to be a scam site or is safe. So, it’s a simple way to check if a web site is safe before accessing it.

Sadly, there are ever more scam websites ready to steal your personal information, download malware to your device or con you into paying for something you will never get.

Scamvoid is a useful resource to help warn you about dodgy websites.

Scamvoid accesses various online services to check if they have registered the site as containing malware or otherwise to be dangerous. These services include: