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(erielack) computer scare

[From: Paul Brezicki Sent: Tuesday, August 17, 2010 4:11 AM
To: EL Mailing List; Paul Tupaczewski; Janet & Randy Brown; Joseph A.
Braun Subject: RE: (erielack) Who is Richie Batra?
I was one of several people who received an email from Mr Batra asking
what appeared to be a legitimate question about operations in the
Suffern area. I didn't respond but Joe Braun did.] 
 
I want to give a very brief summary of the subtle concerns voiced here and
the direct concerns voiced privately amongst the persons above. 
 
I went along with this person's request with minimalistic responses. I
didn't want to risk turning somebody off to our organization or hobby. After
one email exchange, I was still not sure whether I was dealing with a young
railfan with "rough edges" or someone with a con side that was starting to
show. I experienced a strange mix of him knowing specific stuff but being
really off-base on other facts -- and also a mix of subtle wiseass responses
intermingled with some serious comments. When I upped the level of talk
about the Erie lines east of Suffern by recommending that, since he
expressed an interest in history, he purchase the Wilson Jones book, that
became the end of the interchanges.
 
An email from him thanked me for the recommendation. A final email, to which
I did not respond, said only "YEAH, I ordered it from Amazon".  BUT - the
"YEAH" (underlined) flipped my cursor to an arrow, indicating that that word
was a link to something. I did NOT click. I did not get seduced with
curiosity. That is always the danger. Never click on a link on a strange
email, like the phoney PayPal and credit cards warnings that still are sent
out looking for prey. 
 
I had no idea what that "YEAH" link was about. But, if this was some
confidence con game of phishing, my making the link would have been the
portal he needed.
 
Others have warned that the individual's email address was from a foreign
country. That to me is not an automatic red-flag. As I have been selling off
all my non Erie and EL locos on Ebay, 70% of it is being bought out of the
country -- for example, to a PRR fan in the UK, a Milw Rd fan in Canada, a
GN fan in Japan, a Frisco fan in Deutschland!! This could be an expatriot in
the Philippines who loved the Erie.
 
But the following warnings are also on target:
 
From Frank Adams:  "Mails having hyperlinks tied to specific words, well now
that's a different story.  Depending on your browser security settings,
displaying a page can download nasty things." 
 
From Paul Tup: "The fact that it's an E-mail that ends with a country
specifier (".ph") makes it immediately suspect in my mind. By replying to
this person, you might have just confirmed to them that your E-mail address
is valid and being used - since Joe replied and immediately got back what
sounds completely like a phishing E-mail ("Click here!" - which will
undoubtedly redirect you to one of their servers to enter your credit card
info). So yes, there IS a danger in replying to an E-mail. This is how these
people start to get a foot in your "door", so to speak. It looks like this
person must have gone through the list archives and scraped the names of
people who posted, and sent his E-mail off to them. I'm betting that the
content of his E-mail must have been extracted from an old list post. 

I also ran the entire thread from this gentlemen past someone I know whose
job is computer security in a research facility with tons of servers heading
out into the world. My contact had the wherewithall to safely open up the
"link word" in the final email to me. The response I got was: "There's
nothing so far to worry about. That link is simply a mail link to that
person's supposed email address. If you click on the link, it will simply
start composing an email to him. Reading the emails, I think this guy is a
little hot-headed and wet between the ears, especially since he has a handle
of HAMMER. But these aren't virus messages or some phishing trick that will
take you to a bad website. Seems perfectly harmless, although his tone could
be a bit irritating." However, my contact did add the following which is
good for all of us to hear and rehear: "I'm glad to keep you paranoid and
help whenever you have questions. It's always good to be cautious when
dealing with strangers on the Internet. It's still the wild, wild west and
people will always find new and clever ways to trick you into giving out
your information or getting you to unknowingly infect your computer."

So that's the story. And, who knows? Maybe I've made someone a Wilson Jones
fan!

Joe Braun

 



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