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Latest Headlines from the Grocery Checkout Line?

August 11, 2008

“Man Eating Tribe Eats Tourists”, “Obama Affair”, “Statue of Liberty Returning to France”; juicy tabloid headlines to peruse while you wait to pay for your groceries.  Problem is I wasn’t shopping; I was sifting through junk mail on our email server.

Social Engineering is a way for criminals to gain access to your computer or personal information.  Social Engineering through the use of email hoaxes is nothing new, but have you noticed most of the new headlines actually have the correct spelling and punctuation.  Used to be the email hoaxes were so easy to spot with misspellings galore.  Now perhaps we all take a second look, should I open it maybe it’s real.

The answer as always is deleting it immediately, but most of us are curious and some of us want it to be real.  Hundreds of millions of this type of email are sent everyday, and if one person is hooked and opens the email then it has been successful and the cycle continues.

More headlines, more hoaxes, more criminal activity.  Will the cycle ever be broken?  Perhaps someday in the way distant future, but I bet not in my lifetime.  Let’s do everyone a favor and ignore these emails, delete them, whatever you have to do.  Oh and if you get two emails for blue pills, one for $.07 and one for $.13, go for the more expensive one.  After all it must be legitimate at that price ?.

Written by Chuck Pettis · Filed Under Technology 

Comments

One Response to “Latest Headlines from the Grocery Checkout Line?”

  1. Melissa Park on September 8th, 2008 8:39 am

    Am I the only one whose dad forwards this stuff on to them like they’re legit offers? As long as my dad has email, these kinds emails will never be ignored! At least he has learned to stop forwarding these to me and just calls me if something seems legit. All joking aside, while many of these emails seem harmless enough, they are intended to feed off of our optimism and, in the case of my dad for example, our naiveté. But that’s how all criminals are successful, right?

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