On Tue, 26 Oct 2004 20:26:17 -0600, -exray
wrote:

OH YEAH wrote:

shown, which did prove you wrong - TO A POINT - but not entirely. It still
doesn't mean they do "scrutinize" ALL e-mails. Maybe some. I will agree, to
a point it is canned. . I'm not saying you are completely wrong or I'm
completely correct.. The system isn't the greatest, we can both agree on
that. But it is all they offer! So, we deal with it.

Well clearly they want the things reported to them so they can get the
header info and have the bogus sites shut down as rapidly as possible.

Not really. It depends mainly on the integrity of the site hosting
the problem. A forward of the problem post/e-mail *with headers* to a
good ISP will cause them to check. If they come up with anything that
user is gone.

And they seem to do a good job of that. I wonder what kind of SWAT team
they have that can get a page pulled on a server in Romania within
hours? Maybe we should send THEM after Osama!

OTOH there are sites stateside and off shore where catching some one
is like pulling teeth or they just move to the server setting beside
the one they were using.


Its still disingenuous and misleading for me, you, them or anybody else
to suggest that the answer might be anything other "its not from us".
Next thing ya know the phishers will start sending out bogus replies
saying "yes, that was us, please log in and give us your info".

Some people have a hard time understanding the level of fraud that

It's more than some people. A recent survey turned up less than 25%
of the users on the net have a firewall. I'd guess it's probably
around 15%. Most have the mentality that it won't happen to me and I
only open attachments from friends and they'd never send me a virus.
They don't realize most viruses come from someone who had them in
their address book.

exists on the internet. I knew a lady on another forum who got bitten
TWICE with those phony Microsoft emails that told you to delete such and
such file. When she got chastised for doing it the second time her
response was "Why would Microsoft send me phony emails?". She just
didn't get it. I guess ebay has an overdose of that mentality around
which they have to tailor their procedures.

I'm not going to say the average user, but rather most users are
completely clueless about computers, the Internet, viruses and scams.
They have to be or I wouldn't be winning some lottery or another at
least 4 or 5 times a week and being contacted by some guys widow, his
estate's law firm, or some government official to get help moving many
millions of dollars out of their country.

When I was in Grad School I taught 5 classes at the university level
as a GA. They were "The Introduction to Computer Science". I had 195
students and their level of computer literacy was scary. I had one
genius who picked up another students floppy disk which had her home
work on it. He turned it in as his own without ever even changing the
name. Of course he claimed it was an accident and the disks must have
gotten mixed up, but as he sat between me and my boss (head of the
department) I've never seen a kid sweat that much. We should have put
a drip pan under him.

Although that was in 91, things haven't changed all that much.
Computer science was involved in virtually every class at that point.

One other note. I wrote a rather elaborate database search program
that from the user end was strictly a "click on what you wanted to do
and "fill-in-the-blanks". Still, it took days to train 6 people how
to use it and it was the same questions, over and over for a full
week. The next year I had a "trainer" to teach the same people. :-))

People tend to fall into three camps. Those who have at least an idea
as to what is going on, those who place blind faith in the computer's
ability to do what ever with out fault, and those who are intimidated
by them.

Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com

-Bill