DonXML Blog : Personal

Outlook Makes It Impossible to Report Phishing Scams to PayPal and Ebay

DonXML — Tue, 25 Jan 2005 19:15:00 GMT

If you are like me, you get a couple phishing scams every week. Where most folks just delete them, I like to report them to the company they are trying to impersonate. Microsoft has this page dedicated to helping individuals determine phishing scams, and how to report them. The problem is that most of the phishing emails contain images, which Outlook will, rightfully, not download (so that the person that sent the email doesn’t get a ping that you actually read the email). If you try to forward the message, Outlook requires you to download the images (thus alerting the phishing party that you read the email). So in the Microsoft guide, they tell you to create a new email, include the suspected email as an attachment, and manually copy the headers over to the new message. But, to report a phishing email to EBay or PayPal they want you to forward the email to them, not send it as an attachment, which is the exact opposite of the MS guide. If you try to follow Microsoft’s suggested method, and report the email to EBay or PayPal, you will get a response asking you to forward the original email, not include it as an attachment. Do you see where I’m going? You can’t use Outlook to forward the email without downloading the images, and EBay and PayPal will not accept it any other way.

My solution at the moment is to log onto my email via webmail and forward it, but there has to be a better way. The average person will not go to this extreme to report the scam, and it will not be reported. Maybe one of the Outlook MVPs out there has a better solution?

The preceding blog entry has been syndicated from the DonXML Demsak’s All Things Techie Blog. Please post all comments on the original post.

Weblogging Article in Discover Magazine

DonXML — Thu, 16 Oct 2003 02:05:00 GMT

I bought the November 2003 issue of Discover magazine (I love the Vital Signs column) and while flipping thru the magazine I came across an article on Weblogs: Emerging Techology - How the Web Edits News. It prettty much focuses on concept of the “Daily Me” aspects of blogging and news, and thankfully does not mention the “secret society” slant given by some that don't truely understand blogging. Overall I was really surprised the a notable science magazine dedicated some print to our world. Now if the scientists of the world can take a page from us techies and use blogging to help them work together, then we will all be bettter off for it.

DonXML

Sobering Thought Of the Day

DonXML — Thu, 07 Aug 2003 19:02:00 GMT

Dr. (colonel) Richard Colin Campbell Ames in The Cat Who Walks Through Walls by Robert Heinlein:

...whatever you've done, whatever you've been, is all, totally, one hundred percent, your own fault. All.

Once you come to terms with this, your next step is to then realize that you will make mistakes, make sure to learn from them, get up dust yourself off, and continue on.

DonXML

JCL

DonXML — Wed, 30 Jul 2003 17:20:00 GMT

During drinks and hanging out with the other .Net bloggers in NYC, the strangest of topics came up, JCL. Anyone under 30 probably has no idea what JCL is/was (not my quote), but it stands for Job Control Language, and it is used on IBM Mainframes to control batch job processing. There were only two of us there that had any idea of what it was, the rest were baffled. JCL had to be one of the funkiest “languages” I’ve ever learned (and one of the first). Any language that uses reverse logic should buried and forgotten. JCL if statement equivalent has no associated else, and the statements within the if only run when test is NOT true. How wacked is that?

DonXML

[Listening to: She Was Dead - Sr-71 ]

NYC .Net Blogger Meeting Tomorrow

DonXML — Mon, 28 Jul 2003 13:46:00 GMT

Just a reminder, if you live in the NYC area, we are all getting together at the NYC.Net User Group Meeting @VSLive. Tim, Rob, Samer and I will all be there, and will be going out for dinner afterwards, and everyone is invited to hang out as long as you want.

DonXML

RSS for Charity

DonXML — Thu, 24 Jul 2003 20:07:00 GMT

XMLDevCon was great, but one of the unexpected highlights of the conference was Rory Blyth’s blog entries, and his skewed perception of life. Rory has really out done himself with his latest idea, RSS for Charity. What it is? A very unique use for Amazon’s Web Service (presented at the XMLDevCon by Jeff Barr) that can generate some money for charity. You definitely got to stop by Rory’s site and check it out. Expect to see this button all over the web:

DonXML

Blogshare Listed

DonXML — Mon, 21 Jul 2003 19:35:00 GMT

Jeff Julian let me know that this blog has been listed on Blogshares. Seems as though I need to post the following on my page to claim it.

DonXML

Springsteen Tonight at Giants Stadium

DonXML — Fri, 18 Jul 2003 16:51:00 GMT

My punk and metal friends will cringe reading this, but I’ll be at the Springsteen show tonight at Giants Stadium (first of 3 shows for me). It’s not so much the music, as it is the opportunity to tailgate with my friends (since elementary school) and our wives. Springsteen is pretty cool live. He hasn’t broke into my top 5 live shows, but he still does pretty well. I’ll make up for seeing Bruce, by going to the Warped Tour in Asbury Park in August.

DonXML

Scoble and Today’s Dilbert

DonXML — Thu, 17 Jul 2003 20:14:00 GMT

I’m beginning to think that Scott Adams has been reading Scoble’s Blog lately. Check out today’s (July 17, 2003) Dilbert. I wouldn’t be surprised if the recent Seattle Post Intelligencer article on corporate blogging (with quotes from Scoble) had something to do with today’s Dilbert.

DonXML

Missing the SVG Open

DonXML — Wed, 16 Jul 2003 17:03:00 GMT

Unfortunately, I had to fly back home early from the West Coast to attend to a family matter. This meant I had to cancel my 2 presentations on SharpVectors at the SVG Open. Now I consider SharpVectors to be one of my most important projects, and only family could have dragged me away from doing these presentations.

So in order to make up for missing the conference, I will be adding article versions of both presentations to the SharpVectors site. As soon as I get a chance, I’ll post them and let everyone know about it via my blog.

DonXML