So I just got another check cashing scam. The subject was "Make $225 And More Every Day" and instead of text, they used a graphic. Inside the e-mail, they repeated the "Make $225 And More Every Day" plus a link to their scam site at fallseagull.com. A check into the registration on fallseagull.com shows that the domain was created a week ago on February 29th, but unlike the dumbasses at Marinellsoft who used a Russian address to register their domain, these crooks were a little smarter, using a domain ownership proxy service from Moniker.com to hide their address.

Before you go thinking Moniker is shady, almost all domain registrars, including GoDaddy and Network Solutions, offer a "private registration" service where they or a subsidiary register the domain for you, but in their name, so your personal or business information doesn't have to be part of the domain registration record. In some cases this is a very legitimate thing. In most cases, it isn't, but it's a way for the registrars to make more money.

So, while they didn't have the red flag of being in Russia, they did have the red flags of the domain being barely a week old and being set up so the real owner is kept secret.

Here's the graphic.

Following that, they had this text...

To unsubscribe please go here
or send mail to:
19800 MacArthur Blvd., Ste. 300,
Irvine, CA 92612

To no longer receive Advertisements from us Click here to unsubscribe, or write: List Administrator 110 W. 9th St #311 Wilmington, DE 19801

That's one of the problems with crooks. They have no thought for quality control. They didn't think that conflicting unsubscription instructions might be a dead giveaway that they were full of crap. They also didn't bother to copy edit their graphic. The plural of guru is not "guru's". There's no apostrophe needed.

The two addresses they provide... Normally such addresses are bull. They're real, but pulled from a directory and the scammer has no actual presence there. The one in Newport Beach is an office building with a temporary office suite rentals service. The one in Wilmington is a UPS store with wi-fi service. Now I know legitimate businesses that use temporary office suite rentals and UPS stores, so those aren't red flags in and of themselves. But when you combine their anonymizing power with the anonymous domain registration, it's just another red flag. Do you really want to do business with someone who is hiding their identity from you?

I didn't click on their link for two reasons. They may be trying to use the site to infect people with spyware and viruses. I didn't want them to get encouraged to do more scam spamming by getting a click through on their bogus ad.

Once again... no legitimate business needs average joes to cash checks for it. Nobody's going to give you something for nothing. If it seems to be too good to be true, investigate it until it screams before you even consider saying yes.

Best of luck to you all.

Just got yet another notification that I won a lottery I did not enter. How many lotteries can I win in a day?

CONFIRMATION OF YOUR EMAIL REF NUMBER
You have won USD850,000.00 in BELGISCHE LOTTERY Email Sweepstakes Progam Corporation, held on the 5th of MARCH. 2008.in Belgium.We write to officially notify you of this award and to advise you to contact the processing office immediately for the Claim.
Contact person,MR.JOE VAN HAEZEBROUK.
TEL:[removed]
E-mail:[removed]
WINNING INFORMATION'S
Reference No (14-23-16-40-48),
Lucky No 15-24-44-17-27-33
Batch No 3-12-30-8-42-10
Ticket No 28-20-15-19-21
Remember,all winning must be claimed not later than 4th of April, 2008
Sincerely,
Mrs.Helenna Debecker.

Even more silly is the fact that these people send these notices from free e-mail accounts or from addresses where the domain (like viola.fr for this one or big-web.us for the South African Lottery one I posted earlier) has absolutely nothing to do with the lottery they claim to represent.

Sadly, they wouldn't keep doing it if there weren't people who fell for it. I mean the big red flag is the sudden e-mail that you won a lottery you never entered. But if you need more proof it's a scam, notifications from e-mail addresses not affiliated with that lottery (if it even exists) are another red flag.

Be on your guard. No one is offering something for nothing.

After many announcements of cool new features... which I've been too scared to try after a development build of Inkscape crashed on save and trashed an hour of work... Inkscape announced a "chill" for the 0.46 release of their awesome vector drawing program!

Over the next couple of months, they'll be fixing up bugs, heading toward a new "stable" release, which will provide all those cool new features with a lot fewer worries about crashing. While Inkscape doesn't have some import/export filters that I sort of need, I LOVE drawing in Inkscape, a lot more so than Adobe Illustrator. It's got professional quality tools and its more fun to use. So a new release with more cool tools rocks.

Thanks Inkscape people!!!

To those who actually say "content wants to be free" with a straight face and seriousness of purpose...

"Content wants to be free" makes as much sense as "content wants to be a fireman" or "music is a Republican."

When you say "content wants to be free," you actually mean, "I don't want to pay for content" or "I believe in creating free content to share with others because it's a social good" (though 98% of people are in the first camp and a very noble 2% are in the second camp). Regardless, you're talking about your own desires, but projecting them on an inanimate object the way a three-year-old does.

"Content wants to be free... and my teddy bear wants a chocolate chip cookie... and my shirt wants a hug."

Free content is a good thing and I support free content projects like the Open Clipart Library (I've given money, time, code, and some artwork I created or owned), but let's stop talking like three-year-olds, please.