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Ozarks Technical Community College robbed of nearly $900k

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Re: Ozarks Technical Community College robbed of nearly $900k

#81

Post by dmd »

slig wrote: post #25
civilized wrote: post #17

I feel like spammers and cyber criminals are getting better. Stuff is starting to get through Google spam filter by mashing up with elements that seem very real and urgent. Like yesterday I got this spam in my Gmail primary inbox with a subject line like "RE: Department of Education Case #295720186". It made me wonder if you could autogenerate filter-evading spam using GANs? Train a GAN to generate email that fools a…

Gmail's spam protection has been broken for ages. I'm keeping getting obvious spam (pills, eggplants emojis, money from prince kind of stuff) directly into my inbox. At the same time, legitimate email is going to the spam folder.

I seem to have the opposite experience. I've been using the same email address, never hiding it at all even on Usenet, for 25 years. I get >600 spams/day and ~20 non-spam, and at most 1 or 2 spams get through Gmail's filter.

I want to move to Fastmail, but every time I try it out, their spam filter lets through 50-75/day, which is unworkable.

Re: Ozarks Technical Community College robbed of nearly $900k

#82

Post by angry_octet »

SapporoChris wrote: post #71
sdenton4 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Html enabled email can easily contain tracking. Even without JavaScript, you could insert an img tag pointing at a uniquely generated address and log the query... It becomes a question of who you trust more: the service you've chosen for handling your email (and spam protection), or the people sending spam emails. If you don't trust your provider, you should find another provider.

Most email clients have the option to not autoload images. I set my client to not autoload, it is easy enough to click to load an image if I think I want to see it. In most cases I do not!

And Google auto downloads embedded images when they receive the email, they show you the cached version and there is no information provided to the sender.

Re: Ozarks Technical Community College robbed of nearly $900k

#83

Post by dreamcompiler »

Eyght wrote: post #73
qiskit wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they'll just "report spam" rather than unsubscribe I'm guessing this is a major part of it. But then again, if a legitimate service is so spammy that people will just "report as spam" rather than unsubscribing, maybe they should change their behavior.

In e-commerce I've noticed that customers that request to be removed from the mailinglist and/or to have their info/account be deleted often forget about ever using the site. Then a few months later they order something and sign up for the newsletter again. When they receive their "first" newsletter they recognize the style and remember that they requested it to be cancelled, which leads to many angry emails and spam…

Saving a SHA-256 of the email address seems like a perfect solution to this problem.

Re: Ozarks Technical Community College robbed of nearly $900k

#84

Post by dreamcompiler »

mulmen wrote: post #49
pphysch wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like it or not, this is the price of "privacy". Being able to easily pretend to be anyone, in the absence of an overarching identity framework -- and leaving identity recognition to the end user -- makes cybercrime a lot easier than it has to be.

Privacy does not mean anonymous interaction with known parties. It means the CIA can’t see me make an account transfer over the wire. In other words, without a warrant. Authentication and privacy are compatible. Privacy and anonymity are orthogonal.

In theory the CIA cannot legally monitor anything about you if you're a US person, even with a warrant. That's the FBI's job. If you're not a US person the CIA can monitor you all day long without a warrant.

In practice it's a bit messier than that.

Re: Ozarks Technical Community College robbed of nearly $900k

#85

Post by angry_octet »

tyingq wrote: post #43
threatofrain wrote: post #5

Naive question, but why can't banks undo a fraudulent transaction? Is there no such framework in place?

The scammers typically recruit fall guys to open accounts to receive the funds by offering them some small portion of the take. Along with a story about it being a favor , like "I'm from outside the country and don't have a bank account to receive my recent inheritance, etc" . With perhaps some intermediate transfers to other fall guys if it's a large amount. The funds are withdrawn in sub $10k chunks by the fall guy…

These people are usually called mules or money mules, inheriting the name from drugs smuggled on an individual courier.

Usually they are tricked into immediately depositing the cash into an array of destination accounts; this part is called smurfing. Sometimes they are told to buy physical goods and have them shipped, usually to a third country.

Cuckoo smurfing is a clever variant where the mules think they are receiving a legitimate payment, e.g. an inheritance, and they have to pay some beneficiaries, or they think they are shipping agents, doing drop shipping, and they have to pay their suppliers. People are gullible.

Re: Ozarks Technical Community College robbed of nearly $900k

#86

Post by MrLeap »

formerkrogemp wrote: post #23
downrightmike wrote: post #8

Oof, if a $900,000 invoice doesn't trigger review from their accounting dept, kind of their fault for not having a process of the common sense to question that bill.

I hate to say it but a lot of "accounting depts" these days are someone with no formal training who just took on the role as another hat on top of other hats as the more experienced folks retired or moved on to greener pastures. There's a shortage of accounting folks in general as well.

Amusing anecdote. My girlfriend has an accounting degree in the Ozarks and has had trouble getting work related to it.

Re: Ozarks Technical Community College robbed of nearly $900k

#87

Post by [deleted] »

dreamcompiler wrote: post #84
mulmen wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Privacy does not mean anonymous interaction with known parties. It means the CIA can’t see me make an account transfer over the wire. In other words, without a warrant. Authentication and privacy are compatible. Privacy and anonymity are orthogonal.

In theory the CIA cannot legally monitor anything about you if you're a US person, even with a warrant. That's the FBI's job. If you're not a US person the CIA can monitor you all day long without a warrant. In practice it's a bit messier than that.

[deleted]

Re: Ozarks Technical Community College robbed of nearly $900k

#88

Post by formerkrogemp »

MrLeap wrote: post #86
formerkrogemp wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate to say it but a lot of "accounting depts" these days are someone with no formal training who just took on the role as another hat on top of other hats as the more experienced folks retired or moved on to greener pastures. There's a shortage of accounting folks in general as well.

Amusing anecdote. My girlfriend has an accounting degree in the Ozarks and has had trouble getting work related to it.

There are many job postings for folks with 3+ years of experience. Very little is being offered for people who don't want to work in Big 4 or haven't completed a few internships. Most traditional entry level work is being or has been automated. Accounts receivable and payable are being rolled up along with payroll into the job duties of outsourced accounting and the like.
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