Apotheosis
11-01-2005, 12:13 PM
Therehave been a number of job "phishing" e-mails that I have been receiving lately. One in particular, I applied for, because it fit the bill for something I applied for in the past.
Before I go on any further, let me give some basic background info. I had given up searching for jobs/projects on the internet, because it was easier for me to find work through networking and cold calling. I removed all of my online resumes, and politely ignored recruiters and headhunters that were outside of my network.
Anyway, the point is, I took the bait, because it was targeted to people with my skillset, and I am interested in generating new business. So far, I have not had any negative results (outside of more spam sent to a disposable e-mail address that I set up).
Anyway, I once I had filled out this application (which requested very little personal information), I realized that something was wrong. I did a search for the name of the "recruiter" who had sent the e-mail, and discovered a forum (scam.com) that identified the sender as a "phisher".
With that said, I have tried to identify exactly who "scam.com" is, and came up with some strange and conflicting information about the site itself.
#1, a whois search identifies scam.com as being registered by excalibyte.com, which does not have a website. In addition, the information identifies the registrant as being in Lisbao, Lisbao. IE: the physical address is weird and does not exist, as far as I can tell.
There is a Lisboa, Spain, as far as I know.
#2 The president of "scam.com" is from Ontario. Isn't it unusual that a domain is registered in a country different from the home state of the president?
#3 The main "users" of the site seem particularily bent on bringing attention to specific career "phishing" schemes relating to the one I applied to. They have gone so far as to identify the sources (or make allegations about the sources).
#4 Because I am not savvy at identifying internet sources beyond the "whois", I am curious as to what is exactly going on, and the reality may be that there is nothing.
Anyway, if you scratch a bit beneath the surface of this content, something about it doesn't seem right, and I wonder if there isn't a way out there that an average person can go to get some solid facts as to their Allegations and Identity.
The reason I bring this up is because, with a good understanding of SEO techniques, and how sites like google rank websites, it wouldn't be terribly difficult to create multiple forum based sites to collect personal data, and at the least collect data to sell to marketers, and at the worst commit identity and credit fraud.
So, can I really find out who this "Scam.com" is, and what the phishing schemes are trying to do?
Before I go on any further, let me give some basic background info. I had given up searching for jobs/projects on the internet, because it was easier for me to find work through networking and cold calling. I removed all of my online resumes, and politely ignored recruiters and headhunters that were outside of my network.
Anyway, the point is, I took the bait, because it was targeted to people with my skillset, and I am interested in generating new business. So far, I have not had any negative results (outside of more spam sent to a disposable e-mail address that I set up).
Anyway, I once I had filled out this application (which requested very little personal information), I realized that something was wrong. I did a search for the name of the "recruiter" who had sent the e-mail, and discovered a forum (scam.com) that identified the sender as a "phisher".
With that said, I have tried to identify exactly who "scam.com" is, and came up with some strange and conflicting information about the site itself.
#1, a whois search identifies scam.com as being registered by excalibyte.com, which does not have a website. In addition, the information identifies the registrant as being in Lisbao, Lisbao. IE: the physical address is weird and does not exist, as far as I can tell.
There is a Lisboa, Spain, as far as I know.
#2 The president of "scam.com" is from Ontario. Isn't it unusual that a domain is registered in a country different from the home state of the president?
#3 The main "users" of the site seem particularily bent on bringing attention to specific career "phishing" schemes relating to the one I applied to. They have gone so far as to identify the sources (or make allegations about the sources).
#4 Because I am not savvy at identifying internet sources beyond the "whois", I am curious as to what is exactly going on, and the reality may be that there is nothing.
Anyway, if you scratch a bit beneath the surface of this content, something about it doesn't seem right, and I wonder if there isn't a way out there that an average person can go to get some solid facts as to their Allegations and Identity.
The reason I bring this up is because, with a good understanding of SEO techniques, and how sites like google rank websites, it wouldn't be terribly difficult to create multiple forum based sites to collect personal data, and at the least collect data to sell to marketers, and at the worst commit identity and credit fraud.
So, can I really find out who this "Scam.com" is, and what the phishing schemes are trying to do?