Category: Website

4 slipped through since my last post.
13,990 Caught / 154 Missed / 0 False Positives
(98.9% accuracy / 0.15%)

Thanks to Cari for winning me a Blingo prize! I opted for the iTunes $10 GC once again.

Go Blingo!

13 slipped through since my last post.

11,967 Caught / 150 Missed / 0 False Positives
(98.8% accuracy / 0.03%)

So my dad calls me and tells me of this new job offer he received and asking me if it was legit. My first response was if you had to ask me, it’s probably not legit. He goes on and faxes me the documents and I’m almost 100% sure it’s fake, but I do my research anyway, just for my dad.

A couple things that were good hints on the scam was:

• Variable salary given in the form of weekly instead of montly or annually ($900-2500 per week)
• Work at home
• Bank was located in Latvia

I had no idea even where Latvia is.

Anyway, there were a couple email addresses scattered throughout the email/application:
manager@open-financial-ltd.info
manager@international-escrow.info
nicos@open-financial-ltd.com

A quick whois on the 2 domains result in:

Domain ID:D14053311-LRMS
Domain Name:OPEN-FINANCIAL-LTD.INFO
Created On:12-Jul-2006 05:05:10 UTC
Last Updated On:10-Sep-2006 20:32:15 UTC
Expiration Date:12-Jul-2007 05:05:10 UTC
Sponsoring Registrar:eNom 401, Inc. (R146-LRMS)
Status:OK
Registrant ID:RM13765-BR
Registrant Name:Rustam Mindubaev
Registrant Organization:Mindubaev Rustam
Registrant Street1:Chetaeva, 28, 11
Registrant Street2:
Registrant Street3:
Registrant City:Kazan
Registrant State/Province:RU
Registrant Postal Code:614566
Registrant Country:RU
Registrant Phone:+79.29051839905
Registrant Phone Ext.:
Registrant FAX:
Registrant FAX Ext.:
Registrant Email:nicos@open-financial-ltd.com
Admin ID:RM13765-BR
Admin Name:Rustam Mindubaev
Admin Organization:Mindubaev Rustam
Admin Street1:Chetaeva, 28, 11
Admin Street2:
Admin Street3:
Admin City:Kazan
Admin State/Province:RU
Admin Postal Code:614566
Admin Country:RU
Admin Phone:+79.29051839905
Admin Phone Ext.:
Admin FAX:
Admin FAX Ext.:
Admin Email:nicos@open-financial-ltd.com
Billing ID:C4647264-LRMS
Billing Name:Eugene Magdesiev
Billing Organization:JSL Technologies
Billing Street1:Dubosekovskaya st. 5/6, office 350
Billing Street2:
Billing Street3:
Billing City:Moscow
Billing State/Province:Moscow
Billing Postal Code:125080
Billing Country:RU
Billing Phone:+7.0957300183
Billing Phone Ext.:
Billing FAX:
Billing FAX Ext.:
Billing Email:info@webrider.ru
Tech ID:C4647264-LRMS
Tech Name:Eugene Magdesiev
Tech Organization:JSL Technologies
Tech Street1:Dubosekovskaya st. 5/6, office 350
Tech Street2:
Tech Street3:
Tech City:Moscow
Tech State/Province:Moscow
Tech Postal Code:125080
Tech Country:RU
Tech Phone:+7.0957300183
Tech Phone Ext.:
Tech FAX:
Tech FAX Ext.:
Tech Email:info@webrider.ru
Name Server:NS1.JINO.RU
Name Server:NS2.JINO.RU

---

Domain ID:D10189040-LRMS
Domain Name:INTERNATIONAL-ESCROW.INFO
Created On:07-May-2005 18:11:24 UTC
Last Updated On:16-Apr-2006 23:18:58 UTC
Expiration Date:07-May-2007 18:11:24 UTC
Sponsoring Registrar:Go Daddy Software Inc (R171-LRMS)
Status:CLIENT DELETE PROHIBITED
Status:CLIENT RENEW PROHIBITED
Status:CLIENT TRANSFER PROHIBITED
Status:CLIENT UPDATE PROHIBITED
Registrant ID:C9876238-LRMS
Registrant Name:Dexter Martindale
Registrant Organization:Drawbridge
Registrant Street1:PO Box 1222
Registrant Street2:
Registrant Street3:
Registrant City:Wailuku
Registrant State/Province:Hawaii
Registrant Postal Code:96793-6222
Registrant Country:US
Registrant Phone:+1.8082680699
Registrant Phone Ext.:
Registrant FAX:
Registrant FAX Ext.:
Registrant Email:dm@drawbridge.us
Admin ID:C9876240-LRMS
Admin Name:Dexter Martindale
Admin Organization:Drawbridge
Admin Street1:PO Box 1222
Admin Street2:
Admin Street3:
Admin City:Wailuku
Admin State/Province:Hawaii
Admin Postal Code:96793-6222
Admin Country:US
Admin Phone:+1.8082680699
Admin Phone Ext.:
Admin FAX:
Admin FAX Ext.:
Admin Email:dm@drawbridge.us
Billing ID:C9876241-LRMS
Billing Name:Dexter Martindale
Billing Organization:Drawbridge
Billing Street1:PO Box 1222
Billing Street2:
Billing Street3:
Billing City:Wailuku
Billing State/Province:Hawaii
Billing Postal Code:96793-6222
Billing Country:US
Billing Phone:+1.8082680699
Billing Phone Ext.:
Billing FAX:
Billing FAX Ext.:
Billing Email:dm@drawbridge.us
Tech ID:C9876239-LRMS
Tech Name:Dexter Martindale
Tech Organization:Drawbridge
Tech Street1:PO Box 1222
Tech Street2:
Tech Street3:
Tech City:Wailuku
Tech State/Province:Hawaii
Tech Postal Code:96793-6222
Tech Country:US
Tech Phone:+1.8082680699
Tech Phone Ext.:
Tech FAX:
Tech FAX Ext.:
Tech Email:dm@drawbridge.us
Name Server:PARK3.SECURESERVER.NET
Name Server:PARK4.SECURESERVER.NET

---

Domain Name: OPEN-FINANCIAL-LTD.COM
Registrar: BULKREGISTER, LLC.
Whois Server: whois.bulkregister.com
Referral URL: http://www.bulkregister.com
Name Server: NS2.JINO.RU
Name Server: NS1.JINO.RU
Status: ACTIVE
EPP Status: ok
Updated Date: 22-Jun-2006
Creation Date: 22-Jun-2006
Expiration Date: 22-Jun-2007

>>> Last update of whois database: Fri, 15 Sep 2006 10:03:32 EDT < <<

Mindubaev Rustam
Gogolja, 65, 2
Kazan\\’, RU 420111
RU

Domain Name: OPEN-FINANCIAL-LTD.COM

Administrative Contact:
Rustam Mindubaev admin@rehabilitation-center.net
Mindubaev Rustam
Gogolja, 65, 2
Kazan\’, RU 420111
RU
Phone: +79.29051839905
Fax: +.
Technical Contact:
Eugene Magdesiev info@jino.ru
JSL Technologies
Dubosekovskaya st. 5/6, office 350
Moscow, Moscow 125080
RU
Phone: +7 495 7300183
Fax:
Billing Contact:
Eugene Magdesiev info@jino.ru
JSL Technologies
Dubosekovskaya st. 5/6, office 350
Moscow, Moscow 125080
RU
Phone: +7 495 7300183
Fax:

Record updated on 2006-06-22 20:32:46
Record created on 2006-06-22
Record expires on 2007-06-22
Database last updated on 2006-09-15 19:36:05 EST

Domain servers in listed order:

NS1.JINO.RU
NS2.JINO.RU

TransferGuard LOCK Status => ENABLED

http://www.open-financial-ltd.com/ and http://www.open-financial-ltd.info/ both point to a bank like page which only purpose is to offer jobs.

What’s worse is that http://www.international-escrow.info/ is just a random page holder by GoDaddy.

Anyway, I call back and tell him this is indeed a fake, a scam and he actually questions my judgement! He goes from what he read on that website, this was a legit bank in Latvia which is a branch under some Switzerland bank. I ask him where he read it and he tells off their website. I’m like OH MY GOD! Sigh… He then questions what reason would there be for someone to randomly offer jobs. I go, identity theft and then everything clicked for him.

What’s interesting about this scam is it appears they found his information on Monster.com.

Why the title? Well, when I was talking to my dad on the phone, my Roomba Scheduler got activated and when it came to my area, it noticed it’s butt (container) was missing, so it was zooming along sucking up dust and just shooting it straight back out where it’s butt is suppose to be. Apparently, the last time I emptied its butt, I must’ve not snapped it back in correctly and it hit something along the way and his butt was just lying in the middle of my dining room.

26 slipped through since my last post.

10,651 Caught / 137 Missed / 0 False Positives
(98.7% accuracy / 0.07%)

12 more has slipped through. Not sure if there’s still problems with the code or if these were real misses.

9,155 Caught / 111 Missed / 0 False Positives
(98.8% accuracy / 0.11%)

This is just awesome! Wow, Matt Mullenweg (apparently the brainchild of both WordPress and Akismet) actually left a comment on my blog regarding this issue. He even apologized for the problem and informed me it should be working now. There’s really nothing to apologize for as this is an awesome free service. But now that it’s been fixed, I’m happy! Apparently a code change had triggered a bug which broke the API calls, so spam on our side wasn’t correctly marked.

12 more did slipped before the code was fixed.
8,995 Caught / 99 Missed / 0 False Positives (98.9% accuracy / 0.13%)

Akismet must be broken today. 23 slipped through today.
8,981 Caught / 87 Missed / 0 False Positives (99.0% accuracy / 0.21%)

I’ve decided to host my own videos now in my Gallery: Videos

The reasoning for this… well, let me just show you my usage for last month:

Bandwidth Usage:
Total Provided: 1314 GB ($1/GB over)
Total Used So Far: 5.432 GB

Disk Usage:
Total Provided: 26640.000 MB ($0.10 / MB over)
3 Day Avg: 1851.572 MB

So last month, I used less than 1% of the provided bandwidth and I’m currently using ~7% of my alloted disk space. So I thought, instead of getting my account locked on YouTube again or having videos on PutFile get deleted after 6 months of inactivity, I thought I’d just host my own videos given I have so much unused space and bandwidth.

Gallery does support videos (movies) which is nice, so I began transferring my movies onto Gallery. However, I hit 2 problems:

1. Thumbnails weren’t being created for my .wmv files
2. Gallery wouldn’t recognize .mov as movie files (GalleryMovieItem)

I was actually okay with the thumbnails not being generated as I know most of my videos were encoded with WMV9 and it is a ‘proprietary’ codec, but what was funny was that .mov files were recognized as application/quicktime and as a movie before I uploaded, but after I uploaded, it was placed into the GalleryUnknownItem category. This was really mind boggling as I started to trace through the Gallery code and went through my database trying to find the problem. The ability to downlaod the movie was still there (there was a “Download unknown” link), but I wanted the video to play on screen.

I ended up giving up and posted on the Gallery forums asking for help, as it seems there’s also been other people that hit this same problem. So at this point, I started looking up info on FFMPEG as that’s what Gallery uses to generate thumbnails. Apparently there’s already support for WMV9, but required to get the latest nightly builds. What I found interesting about FFMPEG was there was no download for it. There download/files page on SourceForge had 0 files. The only way to get it was to download the source code from MPlayer and compile it on my own, which I ended up doing.

I replaced FFMPEG and regenerated all my thumbnails and my videos now have icons. Yay!

Then I thought, maybe Gallery was marking .mov files as Unknown because it FFMPEG said it wasn’t a movie file. So I tried reuploading a .mov file and BAM, it worked! So both my problems were solved just by updating FFMPEG.

---

Random Crap:

Darth Vader Phones Home – I believe this a scene from Robot Chicken on Cartoon Networks’ Adult Swim. The scene features what happened after they blew up the Death Star and Darth Vader phones the Chancellor. Really funny video.

Workers discover chocolate Virgin Mary – Workers at Angiano’s gourmet chocolate company, Bodega Chocolates, discovered under a vat a 2-inch-tall column of chocolate drippings that they believe bears a striking resemblance to the Virgin Mary. Sigh… Another Virgin Mary resemblance…

Zune interface, features detailed (from /.) – Here’s a prototype of Microsoft’s Zune player, that is going to compete against iPod.

A truly bizarre crime… – Thieves in Germany stole 7,500 euros ($9,554) from a man by throwing feces at him from behind and then pick-pocketing him while they pretended to help clean up the mess, authorities said Monday. Interesting way to pick pocket.

Current events dwarfed by pop culture… – here’s my score card:

• # of dwarfs from Snow White you can name: 5
• # of Supreme Court justices you can name: 0
• Who is J.K. Rowling’s fictional boy wizard: Harry Potter
• Who is British prime minister: Tony Blair
• Name of Homer’s son on the television show “The Simpsons”: Bart
• One of the ancient Greek poet Homer’s epic poems: The Odyssey
• What planet Superman was from: didn’t know
• Which planent is closest to the sun: Mercury
• Name the Three Stooges: didn’t know
• Name the three branches of the U.S. government: legislative, executive, judicial
• Name the most recent winner of the television talent show “American Idol”: didn’t know
• Name the Supreme Court Justice confirmed in January 2006: didn’t know

A gallery of unusual Chinese robots (from /.) – Chinese engineers have unveiled a series of robots these days — without releasing lots of technical details about them. In the past two months, I’ve gathered pictures of robots which can act as waiters in restaurants in Hong Kong or pull rickshaws near Beijing. I’ve also found a four-finger robotic hand able to play organ, a female robot greeting tourists visiting the Sichuan Science Museum with ‘ni hao’ (‘How are you?’ in Mandarin — if my sources are correct), and even a robotic chimpanzee. Please visit my photo gallery…

Firefox Circle – a group of friends found a field that hasn’t been harvested yet and made a crop circle resembling the Firefox logo. Pretty neat!

Dell users in China upset about processor mislabelling – article’s not that interesting, but I found the cartoon funny:

(Left: Chinese consumer) – You lied to me! That’s not right!
(Right: Dell) – It’s not affecting your usage, why be so concerned?

Active Virus Shield (from B$) – a new service provided free from AOL. Although I’m very anti-AOL, this is a move that I approve. They’ve rebranded Kaspersky Lab’s AV software and is giving it away for free. Kaspersky Lab is rated as one of the best AV software. If you think Norton or Symantec is good, you haven’t tried Kasperksy Lab or Computer Associates.