Amazon.com asked me to verify my email address for something called “Amazon Delivers” a kind of opt-in spam delivery service sponsored by Amazon. I’m not an opt-in kind of person. I didn’t ask for it. According to my Amazon communication settings, I do “do not have any Amazon.com Delivers e-mail subscriptions as yet” and I can’t get any until I opt-in. Fine and dandy, says I.

What’s confusing me is that Amazon’s email asks me to click on a link to verify. I didn’t fall off the banana boat yesterday—I never, never, ever click on a potential phishing link in an email.

We have received a request to verify that the e-mail address fake-email@yyyyy.com belongs to you. Please click on the (Valid Amazon.com link removed) below to complete the verification process.

Please (valid Amazon.com link removed) confirm your e-mail address to continue.

Once you have verified your e-mail address, you will be subscribed to:

• (valid Amazon.com link removed) category

Alternatively, you can type or paste the following link into your Web browser:
Valid Amazon url link removed

Amazon’s anti-phishing help page reaffirms it. So what’s the deal? Who gets the blame for this? Third party contractors? Inattentive interns? Lack of internal controls? A turn toward the dark side? I’d like to know.

If you receive an unsolicited e-mail that appears to be from Amazon.com that requests personal information (such as your credit card, login, or password), or that asks you to verify or confirm your Amazon.com account information by clicking on a link, that e-mail was sent by a “phisher” or “spoofer.” Amazon.com will never ask for this type of information in an e-mail. Do not click on the link.

My Daddy came in all excited about an incident he heard about,

where an elderly couple were killed in a Florida home invasion.

Daddy, being elderly and all, wanted more information. Me being co-dependent (and online at the moment,) Googled “home invasion murder elderly couple florida 2009″.

The first return linked to an Italian-sounding URL: http://www.gabineteorellana.com/ but the text was right

FLORIDA COUPLE KILLED
Jul 13, 2009 … Pregnant Woman, Baby Killed in Florida Home Invasion, . … Up to 8 People Involved in Murder of Florida Couple With 16 Kids

And I so wanted to please Daddy, so I clicked it (Google being so reliable and all). I was immediately taken to securefolderscannerv6.com where Personal Antivirus took over. Confusing pop-ups told me “Windows Web Security” found malicious software. I should download a program. Do I want to download it? No? “Don’t close this window if your want you PC to be protected”[sic]. Close the window. Do I want to cancel? Yes? If you really don’t want to cancel click OK. OK? Oops. Not Ok. Stop. Help. Rinse and repeat.

Thanks to BleepingComputer.com Personal Antivirus is :

. . . a rogue anti-spyware created by company named Innovagest 2000 and is a clone of General Antivirus and Internet Antivirus Pro. This program is advertised through the use of Trojans that display fake security alerts on your computer. These alerts will contain messages stating that your computer is under attack or that malware has been detected running on your computer. When you click on these alerts, Personal Antivirus will be installed on your computer and automatically be configured to run when you start Windows. When running, it will scan your computer and display a variety of infections that cannot be removed unless you first purchase the program. In reality, though, these infections are all fake and are only be shown to scare you into purchasing the program.

Removing it is not simple. Here’s how.

A friend once got suckered into installing this POS and paid a local repair company $150 to remove the trojan. Gosh. Too bad. Local PC repair company discovered he hard drive was failing. She needed a $300 external drive and a forensic repair to move her data to it (including the Trojan, as it so happens).

Would you give this woman $300 a day?

Un Chien Bleu had a veritable flurry of comments to posts this week

Twenty of them, none of them real. Now, this is a blog that is lucky to get 20 hits on any article, total. I’m simply not that popular. Luckily for me, There is a wonderful WordPress plugin called Akismet to screen out spammy-looking comments and hold them for me to approve.

Eighteen were to my post about Photoshop brushes. Obviously Photoshop brushes are more spam-worthy than, say, my conflicts with my Rush-Limbaugh-loving aging parents.

They were all automatically generated from the former USSR, with random character titles (“vipmgfrug”), random web site addresses (“pzzhbduklakn.com/“) and random email addresses (“gyqfnc@pujwzx.com“). A few were in Russian cyrillic characters

(“Стол, Стенка и Полочка. Компания «Белорусская мебель»! -единственный официальный представитель в Украине. Спальни, Прихожие, Мягкая мебель, Корпусная мебель, Мебель массив, Мебель для коттеджей, Мебель с натуральной сосны. Мягкая мебель.”)

The other two were notable:

• One linked back to movie review site RottenTomatoes.com with a gmail address, and hopeful comment
  

  “Rather interesting. Has few times re-read for this purpose to remember. Thanks for interesting article. Waiting for trackback”

  Heh, heh. Until Hell freezes over.

• The other one used a Gravatar of pop-mistress Avril Levigne and a linkback to mikesmoneysite.com (“The requested URL /suspended.page/ was not found on this server.”). The title of this missive (“Cool post, just subscribed.”) was
  

  How I Make $300 a Day Posting Links Online

  And now it becomes much clearer.

Photoshop brushes to play around with while you’re supposed to be doing your taxes

75 Sets of Unusual Photoshop Brushes.

Interesting and seldom seen group of (free) Photoshop brushes, ranging from angel wings, label maker, horror movie posters, keys, grungy street signs and more.

Yes, brushes are probably overused in the Photoshop ‘community’, but if you’re an incompetent boob relative newcomer to Photoshop’s fancy tricks, they come in so so handy!

If you don’t know how to use PS brushes, download the collection, extract the .ABR files (using  WINRAR or your favorite file uncompactor program) to the Adobe Photoshop BRUSHES file, which is probably located in C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop CS3\Presets\Brushes (or something like that). Once installed, they will appear in your selection of brushes.

Good News: Vista can find my USB drive again

Bad News: It took me three hours to find that out.

My kid got a fancy new phone/MP3 player and needed to ‘borrow’ my Readyboost USB drive—like, right now. I got a new thumb drive and—Zow! Vista couldn’t find any USB drivers. It didn’t even know what the heck a USB drive WAS. Didn’t care, either. Read the rest of this entry »