Another Scam Brewing?

I was one of the recipients of the Nigeria 419 scam and although the emails and the offers are very tempting I abstained from responding and was saved. However, this was not the only email scam I received. I received some highly plausible emails from people in Zimbabwe (?) at the height of the Robert Mugage against white people in Zimbabwe episode asking me to provide for a bank account where they can transfer their several hundred million and I will be rewarded with 10-15% of the amount for my help. I don't know whether it was genuine at that time and a little research showed that it was a scam. OK, so far people have been appealing to help them save their fortune. Nowadays people are informing me that I have won a LOTTO draw (that I didn't even enter) and that I have won a substantial amount of money and that I should provide them with the bank account details for them to transfer the money. They also caution me that if I don't respond by so and so date the money will be returned as unclaimed. I am giving this email below for everyone to read and beware of.

I was highly excited to know that I have won a small fortune as I did put my email address in a couple of draws. But what put me on my guard was that the sender was asking me contact a claim agent to give my bank account details, the fact the originating email address was a hotmail account not an organisation account and the fact that the address give is in South Africa. These are dead giveaways. I think the scammers should think of new countries now.

I hope my posting will help a lot of would be victims. Let me know.

The email I received:

Subject: WINNING NOTIFICATION

Body:

FROM: THE DESK OF THE PROMOTIONS MANAGER,
INTERNATIONAL PROMOTIONS/PRIZE AWARD DEPARTMENT


ATT: Mukul,
                                  WINNING NOTIFICATION
We are pleased to inform you of the announcement today, 13 Sep, 2005,
of winners of the GLOBAL MEGA LOTTERY SOUTH AFRICA/INTERNATIONAL PROGRAMS,
held on 20th 07, 2005 as part of our promotional draws. Participants were
selected through a computer ballot system drawn from 2,500,000 email
addresses of individuals and companies from Africa, America, Asia,
Australia, Canada, Europe, Middle East, and New Zealand as part of our
electronic business Promotions Program. You qualified for the draw as a
result of you visiting various websites we are running the e-business
promotions for.

You/Your Company, attached to ticket number 100-309-7482, with serial
number 513-10 drew the lucky numbers 2, 9, 22, 23, 24, 30 + 5 and consequently
won in the Second Category.You have therefore been approved for a lump sum
pay out of US$1,950,000.00 in cash, which is the winning payout for Second
category winners. This is from the total prize money of
US$13,650,000.00 shared among the Seven international winners in the Second category.

CONGRATULATIONS!

Your fund will be transferred to your designated account through, ABSA
BANK OF SOUTH AFRICA. Due to the mix up of some numbers and names, we ask
that you keep this award strictly from public notice until your claim has
been processed and your money remitted to your account.This is part of our
security protocol to avoid double claiming or unscrupulous acts by
participants of this program.

We hope with a part of your prize, you will participate in our end of
year (2005) high stakes US$1.3billion International Lottery.To begin your
claim, please contact your claim agent immediately;

MR. SOLOMON  KAMBA.
FOREIGN SERVICE MANAGER,
Universal Building,132-133
Park Hurst,Balfour-Unit 1440
JOHANNESBURG,GAUTENG 2001
SOUTH AFRICA.

TEL: 027 73 149 8431
EMAIL: solomonkamba@hotmail.com

For due processing and remittance of your prize money to a designated
account of your voice. Remember, you must contact your claim agent not
later than 30-09- 2005. After this date, all funds will be returned as
unclaimed.

NOTE: In order to avoid unnecessary delays and complications, please
remember to quote your reference and batch numbers provided below in
every one of your correspondences with your claims agent.

REFERENCE NUMBER: FLS-ZR39-825P-4
BATCH NUMBER: 74-263-BBN

Congratulations once again from all our staffs and thank you for being
part of our promotions program.

N.B. Any breach of confidentiality on the part of the winners will
result to disqualification. Please do not reply to this mail box. Contact your
claims agent through his email contact above.

Cyber laws and acts

I have been meaning to write about this for a long time and as always procrastination has been my best friend all along... Anyways now that I have come around to write this, let me go into this before I start wandering off everywhere.

Indian government has received recommendations from a committee setup for reviewing the Information Technology act. (http://www.mit.gov.in/itact2000/ITAct.doc). The amendment provides for more stringent actions and penalties for the perpetrators; an amount of Rs. 2500000 (Approx. USD 55000). But that's not the point. The IT act in its original form punished only illegal hacking activities, which is pointless. So the Indian government is going in the right direction.

But again that's not the point. India may have toughest of IT laws with a USD 100 million as penalty coupled with 200 years in prison, but what if the perpetrator is committing the crime from a country where the Indian Jurisdiction has no say and neither does India have a extradition treaty. The criminal cannot be punished. So you can have all the strictest of laws, but it would come to naught.

I mentioned earlier that I have been meaning to write about this. I have always believed that there should be a universal law governing cyber crime. The way the Internet has blurred the boundaries of nations today, we cannot possibly have separate laws for different countries. Right now I can sit in USA (or Argentina for that matter) and hack a computer in say... Bulgaria, transfer all the money in the central back back in India and nobody can do anything about it. See what I am coming at? Bulgarian government can prosecute the perpetrator in absentia and label the person as criminal. But what good will it do? The perpetrator will enjoy the money and get away with it. It is a very dangerous situation where people may start thinking that (cyber) crime does pay.