Brian Jones

Unwanted Calls – Episode#19 – Voice Identification

Brian — Wed, 16 Jan 2013 21:15:27 +0000

For this episode I’m trying out a new tactic.

After watching the Market Place episode on the Duct Cleaning telemarketers, I got the sense that most telemarketers doing these scams are fearful of their identity being revealed. So in this call I try to play of this fear, making the claim that I am recording the call and uploading it to a website that links callers to Facebook and YouTube postings.

Call came from: 01159150133671

Unwanted Calls – Episode#18 – Former Co-Worker

Brian — Sat, 08 Sep 2012 21:00:10 +0000

I wasn’t really in the mood to do one of these calls today, so there’s nothing really fancy about this one. I’ve sort of been toying in my head with the idea of pretending to be a former co-worker at the call centre. I know I’m going to have to tweak the script a bit, but I got a good response from the caller in the end.

Caller id on the call was 561-667-0332.

Unwanted Calls – Episode#17 – Sales Call That’s Not a Sales Call

Brian — Wed, 22 Aug 2012 02:27:59 +0000

I got a call from a guy named Ronny who wanted to do a quick survey with me over the phone. He immediately assured me that this was not a sales call, which is telemarketing lingo for “yes this is definitely survey call.” As what I like do with every survey call, I question to the caller to explain to me how I can be certain he or she is not trying to commit identity theft. There is no way any telemarketer can make this assurance, so the best they can do is give you their company’s contact information, website, etc. After questioning Ronny very heavily, he informed me I would be getting a sales call from some kind of investment broker.

Caller id: 209-809-1528 (209-809-1528)

Company: Canada Lifestyle Survey (or Kanata Lifestyle Survey) (I think)

Does anyone recognize his accent?

Unwanted Calls – Episode#16 – The Windows ID

Brian — Wed, 01 Aug 2012 19:58:17 +0000

Another Windows Virus call from 24/7 Windows Support. What I enjoyed most about this call was when the guy quoted me my Windows ID, if there ever was such a thing.

The call came from 315-635-9781, according to additional information I have on the call, it did not original from an international destination in terms of the PSTN (it could have originated internationally over VoIP which is likely the case). Anyway, the number above is a Verizon number in New York. I will email their abuse address and see if they can find out if the call actually originated from their network.

Unwanted Calls – Episode#15 – Go to Hell

Brian — Fri, 15 Jun 2012 21:53:48 +0000

Sorry the audio is a bit quiet in this episode, the caller’s volume wasn’t loud. Also, there is some bad language in this episode, so be warned. The caller got pretty upset at me because he thought I was hacking his computer.

This was a Microsoft Windows virus scam. Caller id showed 01118036.

Unwanted Calls – Episode#14 – Bad English

Brian — Thu, 31 May 2012 22:11:52 +0000

Nothing very special about this call, just another Windows Virus scam. The caller didn’t really speak English that well, so I didn’t try to push him that hard to go to my website.

Can anyone identify the virus scammer’s accent?

Adding New Cities to Mac OS X’s World Clock Widget

Brian — Fri, 11 May 2012 11:24:43 +0000

I live in Thunder Bay, Ontario, and for years ever since Apple came out with Dashboard I had to put up with having to use either Toronto or Ottawa as my world clock city. Finally, after having enough of putting up with Toronto, I decided to investigate if it was possible to add your own cities to the list of World Clock cities. And yes, it is possible, since widgets are just HTML and Javascript files. Here’s how I added Thunder Bay:

Open the World Clock widget package by finding it in Finder. It’s located in /Library/Widgets/World Clock. Right (or ctrl-click on it) and select Show Package Contents.
Open the file WorldClock.js, search for Toronto (or whatever city makes alphabetical sense), and before Toronto add this line:
```
{city:'Thunder Bay', offset:-240, timezone:'Canada/Eastern', id:"6166142"},
```
You can change the city name, and timezone to be whatever city and timezone you want. The ID field–to be honest I’m not sure if it has to be set to this–comes from Geonames.org. On Geonames, search for your city, select it (make sure you pick the one listed as a place), and click on the CSV link on the bottom. Open the CSV file and you’ll be able to find the ID of your city.
Finally, open the file English.lprog (or whatever language you use) and open the file localizedStrings.js. Add this line before Toronto (or whatever city makes alphabetical sense):
```
localizedCityNames['Thunder Bay'] = 'Thunder Bay';
```

Now save all the files and add a new instance of the World Clock widget. You’ll now be able to choose Thunder Bay, or whichever city you chose to add.

Mark Zuckerberg’s Hoodie

Brian — Thu, 10 May 2012 11:16:08 +0000

There was a lot of talk in thew news today regarding Mark Zuckerberg’s hoodie. There was one analyst out there who criticized Zuckerberg’s for his choice of uniform as being disrespectful to those who will be investing billions into his company.

Personally I find this kind of ironic, and perhaps even almost hypocritical considering the most valuable company in the world used to by run by a guy who wore black turtlenecks and jeans as his uniform.

Perhaps it’s just an analyst who wants to get on every news site in the world to increase his number of Twitter followers.

Anyway, I had an interesting thought about the whole hoodie thing, and it made me wonder what kind of message is Zuckerberg sending. In 2009, he challenged himself to wear a tie everyday to work, and this was his reason:

So is there any message the hoodie represents? Perhaps the analyst is right and Mark Zuckerberg is not taking the IPO seriously. Or maybe the message he wants to send is that going public won’t change who we are.

Plaxo Trying to Access My Google Account?

Brian — Tue, 08 May 2012 10:38:09 +0000

I got a strange email from Google this morning:

Brian,

Someone recently tried to use an application to sign in to your Google Account, [filtered]@gmail.com. We prevented the sign-in attempt in case this was a hijacker trying to access your account. Please review the details of the sign-in attempt:

May 8, 2012 8:19am GMT
IP Address: 204.15.240.72
Location: Sunnyvale, California, United States
If you do not recognize this sign-in attempt, someone else might be trying to access your account. You should sign in to your account and reset your password immediately. Find out how at http://support.google.com/accounts?p=reset_pw

If this was you, and you want to give this application access to your account, complete the troubleshooting steps listed at http://support.google.com/mail?p=client_login

Sincerely,
The Google Accounts Team

The IP address, 204.15.240.72 appears to be owned by Plaxo Inc. According to this site, there have been three other people reporting similar unauthorized sign in attempts from this email. Plaxo, what are you up to? I’ve never authorized you to log into my Google Account? Will email their abuse contact to find out what’s going on.

UPDATE #1: The phone number listed as the abuse contact on their IP address comes back busy when I call it.

UPDATE #2: Received an automated response from their abuse email address.

UPDATE #3: I believe someone from Plaxo commented on this post and referred to this blog post from Plaxo explaining what happened. I find the section on What happened? to be very cryptic and deflecting responsibility for something that did in fact happen. I find the post to be very confusing because it doesn’t answer the fundamental question of What happened?, what information was accessed? And should I really be worried about it. In any case, I’ve deleted my Plaxo account to be safe.

Why Don’t Phones Let Us Record Calls?

Brian — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 18:11:08 +0000

Fraud happens on the PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network) because it’s outdated. The laws and tariffs on the network were designed for an era when IP Telephony did not exist, and long distance was much more expensive than it was now. Certainly, with all the technology we use everyday on the Internet, the PSTN could be made much more secure, and accountable, but with numerous vendors and stakeholders involved any major changes would be expensive or nearly impossible to implement. However, I will propose two very simple changes that could have significant impact on fighting fraud. Here is the first proposal, and I will write about the second proposal in an upcoming post.

The first, and easiest change, is that handset manufacturers should start producing phones with the capability to record phone calls. Or at the very least, electronics manufacturers should start producing inexpensive equipment for recording telephone calls. We have the tech, and it’s much cheaper to produce than ever before. The law, at least in Canada, allows anyone to record a conversation they are apart of without the consent of the other party for their own personal reference, or journalistic purposes.

Recording phone calls, particularly telemarketing calls–both illegal and legal calls–have the following benefits:

It holds the telemarketing industry accountable. Not everyone follows proper telemarketing rules, or etiquette all the time. A recording is your silver bullet for keeping them accountable. It’s a indisputable record of events that can be shared with management, and of course in today’s society: the Internet.
It enhances law enforcement’s ability to investigate fraud. Giving law enforcement a recording of a fraudulent phone call helps them identify calling agencies, develop a profile, and more importantly it’s evidence that could be used in court. As well, recordings will allow law enforcement to better support the victim of fraud by knowing exactly what information was disclosed.
It raises public awareness of fraud, and the types of fraud being conducted. Nothing educates the public better than being able to listen to a telemarketing call. Listeners of my Unwanted Calls podcast are well aware of the tactics used by Microsoft Windows Virus scammers, and are educated by my recordings to know that their computers are fine.

If handsets with the ability to record calls were generally available on the market, more recordings of fraudulent calls would be posted on the Internet and provided to law enforcement, thus increasing the public’s awareness of phone fraud and in turn lowering it’s profitability.