[LINK] Your money dot con on ABC/RN

[Adrian Chadd]

I've been thinking of organising a series of presentations/workshops
targetted at end-users about this very issue here in Perth.
I note there's a lot of push by ISPs to get people connected,
online and using voice services, and not a lot of end-user education
about just this very issue.

I'd like to cover topics related to safe online practices, basic
identity theft, basic online scams, good password practices,
who to call when you think something suspicious is going on,
that kind of thing.

Do people think this is a worthy cause? Would anyone like to help
me draft some content? If its successful then I'd be happy to work
with other internet associations around the country to provide
content (or present, depending on how things go) to end-users.

Thanks,



Adrian


On Sun, Jun 24, 2007, Rick Welykochy wrote:
> An excellent 1/2 hr program just went to air on ABC/RN:
> 
> http://abc.net.au/rn/backgroundbriefing/stories/2007/1955341.htm
> 
>   Your money dot con
>   ------------------
>   No one's telling how much of our money is being stolen through
>   the Internet because no one wants us to lose confidence in the
>   system. The banks are making so much money out of it, they prefer
>   to wear the costs or push them down to the customer. In the meantime,
>   everyone has a story and global criminals are stalking our accounts,
>   our phones and our PCs. Reporter: Ian Townsend.
> 
> 
> A podcast and transcript will be available soon.
> 
> The 80% of the presentation that I did listen to failed to mention
> specifically which PC configuration was the source of all the zombies
> that is causing this financial fraud epidemic, i.e. PCs running
> Microsoft Windows. I have never heard of a Linux or Mac or BSD or
> other Unix zombie.
> 
> The estimate made in the report is that approx. 50% of all PCs (running
> Windows I would conclude) are now owned by the Zombie Lords of the
> Underground Criminal Internet - we are talking hundreds of millions
> of PCs here. A zombie controller PC was investigated and found to
> be controlling about 1,000,000 zombies.
> 
> PC users should now be updating their anti-virus databases every 12
> hours, installing software security upgrades at least daily and
> also learn how to correctly answer the myriad of security questions
> they are asked by their PCs in order to secure their systems. I had
> to laugh at that conclusion! It ain't gonna happen.
> 
> Banks will continue to be mum about online fraud (it is in their
> interest to refund the odd complaint and keep their traps shut),
> law enforcement officials will continue to pass the buck from one
> dept to the next and consumers will continue to run totally insecure
> computers on the insecure internet.
> 
> California has enacted a law that makes it a crime to fail to
> report an online theft, fraud or other criminal activity. Sounds
> like a good first step to me.
> 
> A great second step would be to make it a criminal offense, actionable
> in the civil courts as well, to write and deploy software that lacks
> sufficient security provisions to prevent online fraud from happening
> in the first place. Call it "duty of software care" legislation.
> 
> 
> cheers
> rickw
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> _________________________________
> Rick Welykochy || Praxis Services
> 
> Any belief that can't stand up to objective scrutiny is hardly worth having.
>      -- LJ McIntyre
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