New Phishing scam - CRA

Earlier this week I got a mail from what purported to be the CRA (Canada Revenue Agency). Looking at the email I saw a grammar error and the way the email was addressed made it look like a scam. My ISP also flagged it as a possible scam. I didn't click on the attached link, but, put my mouse over it to see what the link would resolve to. The proper URL for the CRA is WWW.CRA-ARC.GC.CA. This one had that and a bit more, namely the URL went to a '.COM' site. As this was a new scam to me I forwarded the note to RECOL and reported it as a scam/phishing attempt.

It failed on a few areas:

• Subject was 'recalculation of you tax refund'. They used 'you' instead of 'your'
• It was addressed to 'Dear Applicant' rather than my proper name.
• The URL provided did not end in GC.CA, but, to a COM site which the Government of Canada does not use.
• I had already got my tax refund and I know that the CRA does not have my main email address for correspondence as I prefer hard-copy rather than email from them.
  

When I got home I opened the site using Linux as it was fairly safe from trojans and viruses. It asked the following questions:

• Name and Adress
  
• Date of Birth
  
• Mother's maiden name
• Phone number
• email address
  

One of the first things firefox did was to warn me that this was a site reported for web forgery. If you don't have firefox I would advise you to download and install this browser ASAP as it is a second level of defense.

Again, if you get an email that claims to be from the government, bank, insurance company or anyone else asking you to key in personal information do not ever use the attached URL, go to their site yourself (using a link you know is legit).

Linux Mint V6

Since I upgraded to the new box I have been running Linux Mint as PCLINUXOS has a problem with the SATA drive. I downloaded the latest version (V6) and was playing with it for a while. It is much like V5 and works without a problem.

Both versions have a problem with my Palm Pilot and TV, but, the scanner and browsers work without a problem. Playing Runescape (Java based game) works as before. All of the other pieces of software appears to work and the hardware ran without causing any glitches.

I may upgrade my machine later, but, the current version works without a problem and I am really hoping that PCLINUXOS does come out with a version that at least recognizes my TV card.

It has been quiet... too quiet

Not much has been happening here. It is now almost tax time and there are no Linux versions of any tax preparation software for Canada so far. I broke down and picked up QuickTax and installed it on my Vista partition. To say that I am unhappy about this would be a slight understatement. I can understand in a way that companies will cater to the largest segment of the O/S market, but, figure out what has to be anchored to the O/S and what can be independent. If you do that you should be able to market to Linux, OS/X along with Windows and gain a slight competitive advantage by grabbing market share from those of us who use anything but Windows.

On the Linux Distro side I have been playing a bit with KUbuntu. I like the look and feel of it and the latest distro actually booted up on my Dell box. There will be a bit more playing around here to see if

• Runescape will play
• My graphic card can be used to its fullest
  
• TV tuner
• my Palm will work
• Scanner will work (XSANE)
• Web Camera
• Software to organize my photo library
  

KDE 4 looks nice and clean, but, I want more than eye-candy, I want all of my hardware to work to its fullest.

Another little thing and maybe someone out there can point me to the right place. A little while ago I was the photographer at my daughter in-law's baby shower and I took two videos. The camera stored it in AVI format. Linux does not have a problem showing me those, but, they are massive files and I cannot upload 200+ meg videos to facebook to share with the family. I looked quickly at the video editing software, but, I cannot see how I can redo AVI to MPG format and lower the size of the video. I don't want or need 640x480 to show family members some of the funny portions of the part, I just want to be able to share a small, easily downloaded video.

Now about one of my favorite topics, SPAM email. So far this year it has been a minor problem unlike other years (less than 30% spam rate now). However I have noticed the scams have been getting much better. Both for grammar and spelling. When you get a notice that purports to be from your Bank, Insurance Company, ISP wanting private information or to re-enter your security information... DON'T. Never click on any link supplied, but, use the one you type directly into a browser or saved previously in a bookmark. Keep your system up-to-date with all patches, run a virus scanner and have a firewall installed and running.