Hacking your life away

Arthur Lopez, one of our friends, rang me up early the other morning to inform me his son Jebo (who lives in Washington, D.C.) received an email supposedly from my babeseyeview yahoo account – claiming that I was stranded in Canada with all my money stolen at the hotel where I was staying. The email – which was written in horrible English – went on to ask $2,700 from several people in my contacts list so I could go back home to Manila. It was quite clear my password was stolen by a jerk trying to snitch some money. 

Fortunately, most of the people in the address book were friends of mine and they knew me better than that. Of course, Arthur Lopez called up his son to tell him the email was bogus knowing I was in Manila, and with his usual sardonic humor told his son Jebo – “It cannot be your Tito Babe because he only stays in cheap hotels and would not spend that kind of money.”

The hacker stole the password by sending a fake email complete with the Yahoo! logo claiming the password had to be changed to keep the account active – which my office secretary complied with. That’s when the hacker was able to “scan” the password, and had the account locked by putting in his own password.

Fortunately, we have a very good tech guy in the office, Rommel Miranda, who cracked the password used by the hacker and changed it immediately so we could recover our email account. I suppose I could chalk down the experience as just some stupid attempt by a scumbag to make a fast buck.

There’s a lot of hacking going on all over the world, and that’s usually the risk that comes along with modern technology especially if your computer is connected to the Internet, or if you pay credit card and other bills online. Cybercriminals can literally hack your life away if they manage to obtain sensitive information like credit card and bank account numbers, addresses, contact numbers, Social Security numbers and other personal information embedded somewhere in your computer files which could ultimately lead to “identity theft.”

One of the most common scams is the online lottery, with con artists sending fake email messages informing unsuspecting recipients that they had just won millions of dollars in some online contest. This is accompanied by a request for recipient to supply personal details like telephone and bank account numbers supposedly to facilitate transfer of the money. The minute the victim complied, these hackers would then gyp victims by asking for money supposedly to cover processing fees.

Nowadays, it’s text or email which have become the favorite tools for swindling, but I remember it used to be the regular telephone with jerks calling the household help claiming their “amo” was hit by a car and needed a blood transfusion, instructing the maid to bring money or jewelry to a certain place. 

But the latest and more scary one is an email in the form of a memo using the letterhead of the Philippine military, warning people about the existence of this “Bloods gang” whose initiation for a new member involves driving around with no headlights on Friday and Saturday nights. The email (incidentally, text messages are also going around about this) goes something like, “If you are driving after dark on Friday and Saturday nights and you see an oncoming car with no headlights on or high beams, do not flash your lights on them! This is a Bloods gang initiation. The first driver who blinks his lights to inform the new gang member that his lights are off becomes the target. The gang member is then required to chase that car and kills all the occupants of the vehicle to complete his initiation requirements.”

I checked with the AFP civil relations chief General Nestor Sadiarin who immediately told me the email was totally untrue, and will have the matter investigated. Actually, there’s a plan for an international organization against cybercriminals to trace the origin and entrap the creators of fake emails such as this. Obviously, this is to sow panic and alarm among the people and worse, could be a tool for terrorism.

Actually, this Bloods gang email is just another one of those hoaxes – part of the growing number of email “urban legends.” This one started sometime in the ’80s with rumors claiming this was how Hells Angels initiated members. News about the “blood initiation weekend” eventually spread through fax, then email forwards, with the stories changing a little to give it a more localized version. It caused a lot of panic in the United States then, and today, it’s causing a lot of panic here as well.

Well, I guess in this high tech world, one has to be really careful because it can be so easy to commit identity theft and other cybercrimes. Perhaps it’s fortunate that I am not at all a high tech person. I still rely on the good old fashioned telephone or cellphone to contact a person. And if I need anything from anyone, I’ll just call him or her directly. I don’t have the patience to use the email for lengthy messages. Besides, contrary to what Arthur Lopez says, I’ll ask for much more than the measly $2,000 that stupid hacker was asking for.

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