Sleepless in Midland

Being a climate change denier is probably the most rational way to approach the issue

As soon as someone started looking skeptically at the data coming from the climate change promoters they started calling them names. "Climate change denier" was the most popular epithet. But when a movement has the intended result of severely hampering western industry and the primary proponents are also proponents of the progressive lefty agenda, skepticism is warranted.

It was only last week that NASA proclaimed that 2014 was the warmest year in modern record. Not so fast. They left something out, something Daily Mail had to tell us about:

As a result, GISS’s director Gavin Schmidt has now admitted NASA thinks the likelihood that 2014 was the warmest year since 1880 is just 38 per cent. However, when asked by this newspaper whether he regretted that the news release did not mention this, he did not respond.

The movement has lost so much of its credibility even they must now realize that name calling has passed its shelf life.

The hypocritical Al Gore

From thehill.com: Al Gore: ‘There needs to be a political price' for climate 'denial’. Excerpt:

“It is simply not acceptable for major companies to mimic the unethical strategy of the tobacco companies in presenting blatantly false information in order to protect a business model,” Gore added, alleging that’s what some oil and coal companies are doing.

Earth to Al Gore, that's exactly what you are doing. There should be a price to pay for listening to this guy. Misrepresentations in his movie have already been exposed. But the most important thing about global warming predictions is that they've been based on evangelical environmentalists preaching bad science, and they're wrong.

Al Gore is set to become extremely wealthy from his investments in companies that will or have received government grants for producing some product claiming to stop global warming and from his scheme to sell carbon credits. Now that is an unethical business strategy, Mr. Gore.

Internet scam - mother and daughter crime duo jailed

These two were not the only ones involved, but they may be the only ones who were caught and prosecuted.

Here's how it worked.  A scout would peruse social media and dating websites for some potential victim who might fall for the scam. Then contact would be initiated with a story about how they were in the U.S. military.  Then at some point the the victim would be asked for cash for travel expenses or for a satellite phone or some such. According to BBC 374 people were conned, and the scam netted over $1 million.

Check out the two beauty queens.

They were prosecuted in Colorado. But the irony is that these two were probably patsies themselves having been dumb enough to agree to be the ones who actually accepted the cash when it was tendered by the victim.

Flaming faucets or flaming fakes -- Natural gas opponent resorts to fakery in propaganda movies

There's an environmentalist out there named Josh Fox who has made a couple of movies, Gasland and Gasland II, in which the crowning images in both are flames coming from household water taps. His goal is to thwart natural gas exploration and production in the name of saving the planet, and he counts as a "win" any government restriction on the oil and gas industry whether based on fact or fiction.

There's a theory that for many ardent environmentalists, "environmentalism" is like a religion. And its most ardent proponents are comparable to religious zealots with their presumed moral superiority and their fight against evil. Mr. Fox's tactics reinforce that theory.

Freebeacon.com addressed Mr. Fox's movies today in Gasland Director Presents Anti-Fracking Hoax as Evidence in New Film. Energyindepth.org addressed it as well in From Flaming Faucet to Flaming Hose: The Continuing Fraud of Gasland.

Unfortunately, the news source of the low information voter, The Daily Show, presents Mr. Fox as a voice of reason. See for yourself at segment 1 and segment 2.

But the problem with those flaming water taps depicted in his films is that they are either unrelated to oil and gas production or outright hoaxes. The one in the first film was supposed to be blamed on natural gas drilling, but in fact it was a phenomenon common to the area for years and which the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission had already investigated. They found that the water wells in question, "contained biogenic gas that was not related to oil and gas activity." Link to special report, which concludes with this:

Finally, it should be understood that the COGCC Director, Dave Neslin, offered to speak with Gasland’s producer, Josh Fox, on camera during the filming of the movie. Because the issues are technical and complex and arouse concerns in many people, Director Neslin asked that he be allowed to review any material from the interview that would be included in the final film. Unfortunately, Mr. Fox declined. Such a discussion might have prevented the inaccuracies noted above.

The scene in Gasland Part II of the flaming water hose was fake. A Texas court had already determined that the hose was connected to a gas vent and not a water source. See From Flaming Faucet to Flaming Hose: The Continuing Fraud of Gasland. Furthermore, the Texas Railroad Commission had already investigated the matter and concluded that the gas was naturally occurring and which probably seeped from a shallow formation which was completely unrelated to any oil and gas production in the area. (The targeted oil company posted the RRC report online.)

Mr. Fox has the audacity to ask why haven't government regulators done anything about this. (See The Daily Show segment 1.) His own answer to that question is that, "The natural gas industry has come in and literally taken away the regulatory agencies from the people, has obstructed the science, and has advised even the President of the United States."

Maybe the crusader Mr. Fox believes his opponents are so evil then his deception tactics are relatively minor sins, and the religion of environmentalism absolves him of any guilt. Reminds me of Jack Nicholson's character in "A Few Good Men." In his view his work was so important that a minor crime like murder was an inconvenient byproduct.

How to thwart those annoying Yahoo email hackers

Yesterday's complaint was about Yahoo email hackers, and in particular, how two Yahoo email accounts of mine sent spam out to some of my contacts. I noted in that previous post that a mysterious entry from Israel appeared in the log-in history. That wasn't me, that was the hacker who logged in through a "Yahoo Partner's Application." See a screen shot on the right.

Adding to the mystery was the clean bill of health provided by no fewer than two anti-virus programs and two malware detectors. That plus reading opinions of others has convinced me that the problem isn't with my machine but with Yahoo's email program. There's a vulnerability that Yahoo can't seem to get a grip on.

So Yahoo email users have to take matters into their own hands. The Yahoo help pages suggest frequent password changes and all the usual blather. But a suggestion from Molly in a comment to that prior post provides a tactic that will probably more effectively cut off the hackers access -- disable the "Yahoo Partner's Application" feature. (Thanks Molly!)

To get rid of those uninvited "Yahoo Partners" follow these instructions after logging into your email account:

1. For users of the "New" Yahoo email, roll the cursor over the little thing that looks like a gear in the upper right, and a list appears. Click the one on the bottom that says, "Account Info."

2. If it asks, re-enter your password. (Go ahead, we aren't watching.)

3. Then on the page that appears locate the category "Sign-In and Security."

4. Under that heading find and click "Manage Apps and Website Connections."

5. Once there, if "Yahoo Partner's Application" appears, click "Remove."

6. Click "Sign off" and you're done.

If you're lucky enough to still be using the old Yahoo email, click "options" in the upper right to reveal a list which includes "Mail Options." Click that one. Then on the new page, click "Account Information" which appears in the list on the left. That takes you to the screen where you have to re-enter your password. And that takes you to item #2, above, where the rest is the same.

I was using the old Yahoo mail on the two hacked accounts, but another thing that axehole hacker did was irrevocably upgrade them to the crappy new Yahoo mail. Grrrr.

Yahoo mail it too easy to hack

Many of my Yahoo using email acquaintances have gotten hacked in the past few months. By "hacked" I mean that Yahoo email service is sending bogus emails to their contacts. The email appears to be from the right person and the text may even contain their name. The message will be something bland, but there will always be a hyperlink.

I routinely ignore emails like that and never click on the link. However, in spite of my precautions, yesterday afternoon one of my Yahoo email accounts sent out emails to a bunch of my contacts with a bland message and a hyperlink. As soon as I discovered it I sent a real email to all of them telling them not to click on that link.

This morning another of my Yahoo email accounts experienced the same thing at 6:45 AM. The account page showed that someone logged in with "Yahoo! Partner's Application" at that time from Israel.

I changed the passwords and deleted the contact lists for both accounts to deprive them of spammunition. Then I ran two anti-virus programs on my computer, AVG and Avast. Both programs reported that my computer was clean. Then I ran the Sophos virus removal tool and Malwarebytes Anti-malware tool. Both reported a clean computer.

So what was the problem? I still don't know, but I strongly suspect it was Yahoo and not my computer or something I did. That suspicion is shared by others. See Yahoo's Email Hacking Problem Starts To Hurt As Major Telecom Provider Ditches The Service:

A British telecom company says it will no longer make Yahoo Mail the default email service for its 6 million customers due to concerns their accounts are vulnerable to getting hacked.

“We will be switching customers’ email over to BT Mail, which will include the features and functions they expect from a modern email service,” said Nick Wong, online director for British Telecom’s consumer division, according to The Telegraph.

The shift of BT's 6 million customers to another email service represents just a small fraction of Yahoo's overall email customer base of about 280 million people worldwide. But the loss of clients could be a troubling sign for a company that relies heavily on maintaining its email users to generate advertising revenue. Yahoo is now the third-largest email provider after Google’s Gmail and Microsoft’s Outlook.com.

That Yahoo hasn't yet solved the problem suggests it must be a big one.

One of my correspondents asked if it might be NSA. Hmm. Maybe that explains the clean anti-virus reports. Those off-the-shelf anti-virus programs don't know how to detect sophisticated state sponsored viruses. But even if they did, the companies, at least the American ones, might be prohibited from alerting their users.

Update: Molly in a comment pins the problem on "Yahoo Partner Applications." See How to thwart those annoying Yahoo email hackers for a step-by-step on how to get rid of it. Thanks Molly!

He reads your facebook page then pretends to be mind reader

Is there such a thing as putting too much personal info on Facebook? You betcha.

The premise was that people can have an experience with a gifted mind reader for a future TV show. And the subjects are astonished at his ability.

Watch Amazing mind reader reveals his 'gift' at youtube.com.

But it's actually a pitch for safer online banking. And it's great fun to see the startled faces of the unsuspecting people, first as he tells them stuff he shouldn't know about them, and second when they find out how he did it.

Via Nakedsecurity.sophos.com.

Meanwhile, many American banks are having their own problems as they battle a wave of cyber terrorism. It's almost enough to make a person go back to banking the old fashioned way.

Passwords smasswords

There's never a shortage of security people telling us to use passwords too complicated to remember.

So when the folks at NakedSecurity yuk it up over the password "password" among the Yahoo Voices passwords stolen and publicized the other day, it's worth remembering that those 450,000 passwords weren't deciphered one by one by some tireless hacker trying to get into those accounts, they were stolen in volume from Yahoo itself regardless how sophisticated or stupid the individual passwords were.

Why scammers admit they are from Nigeria

We've all gotten them. They are emails from someone claiming to represent the heir to the fortune of a Nigerian Finance Minister or some such. All they need is a reputable person to help with the transfer of funds. You could be that reputable person. There's a substantial sum coming your way if you do.

They are so common the shorthand moniker is "419 scam" named after the section of the Nigerian law that makes the scam illegal.

Admitting that the sender is Nigerian should raise a red flag to just about anyone. So why admit it? Microsoft researchers have studied the phenomenon, and in an overly long answer say that the pool of potential victims is very small, and the scammers don't want to waste time with people who aren't gullible enough to fall for the scheme. Therefore, simply saying they are from Nigeria is the buzz phrase that will deter the skeptical. And the only people who are tempted are the really, really gullible. It's so dumb it's smart.

Links: BusinessInsider.com;
Research.Microsoft.com PDF;
via NewmarksDoor.com.

But the bank said the check cleared

The victims were scammed anyway.

Here's the way it works.  A potential client in another country contacts a law firm asking for help collecting a debt. The firm takes the case, and shortly thereafter, they receive a check from the debtor for the full amount. The client tells the law firm to deposit the check into the law firm's bank account then wire to the client the amount of the first check less the law firm's fee. The law firm complies, but that check from the debtor was hot. So the law firm is out whatever they paid to the scamming client. See page 17 of the IC3 2011 Internet Crime Report.

That scam has been going on since at least 2007, and the news is that law firms were so quick to wire money before determining whether the bogus checks cleared. But here's the twist. There are some cases in which the law firms did ask. And in a case in New York state a banker told the lawyer that the check cleared and that the funds were available. The law firm acted on that information, but the check was no good. The law firm sued the bank and lost with the NY appellate court holding that "cleared" was an ambiguous term. See Greenberg, Trager & Herbst, LLP, Appellant, v HSBC Bank USA et al., Respondent.

GTH's claim{**17 NY3d at 580} is based on the alleged oral statement by the HSBC representative that the check had "cleared"—an ambiguous remark that may have been intended to mean only that the amount of the check was available (as indeed it was) in GTH's account. Reliance on this statement as assurance that final settlement had occurred was, under the circumstances here, unreasonable as a matter of law.

Ouch, that must have hurt. Via via via.

Closer to home, a similar scam can target everyday sellers. LooksTooGoodToBeTrue.com gives us this advice:

IF YOU ANSWER “YES” TO ANY OF THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS, YOU MAY BE GETTING SCAMMED!
Are you about to cash a check from an item you sold on the Internet, such as a car, boat, jewelry, etc?
Is it the result of communicating with someone by email?
Did it arrive via an overnight delivery service?
Is it from a business or individual account that is different from the person buying your item or product?
Is the amount for more than the item’s selling price?

What's missing is a way to determine whether the check really did clear.  It's a jungle out there.  Best to ask for a money order and hope it isn't counterfeit.