Spammers Announce World War III 334
schliz writes with the stub of a disheartening article at IT News: "Hackers are deluging web users with malware-laden spam claiming that World War III has started following a US invasion of Iran. Security experts warned [yesterday] that spam emails with subject lines including 'Third World War has begun,' '20000 US Soldiers in Iran,' and 'US Army crossed Iran's borders' have been intercepted. The emails contain links to a malicious webpage that displays what appears to be a video player showing the mushroom cloud of a nuclear explosion."
Repercussions (Score:5, Interesting)
I wonder what the possible effects of a coordinated disinformation attack of such nature would be, if it managed to deliver said news to a large segment of the world's population (that have access to email). If such an act was coupled with a successful hacking operation on even one of the major news network's websites, serious consequences may erupt.
Doesn't sound like spam... (Score:4, Interesting)
Google could help (Score:2, Interesting)
Like their "report phishing" email flag, a similar "report virus/trojan link" button could help a lot of people, tie this to their badware project and testing the reported site (if x number of users report the same mail)
and it could do a lot for cutting down bot traffic targeted at GMail users
takes me 2 seconds to check a mail (they are easy to spot over the Viagra/Penis spam) call it "distributed malware reporting"
nearly everyday i get multiple emails with a provocative title that contains a link leading to a malware distribution point
Google could help their entire userbase in this regard
Easy (Score:5, Interesting)
this is is particularly eye catching, given current work events. Since it is different, many people will click on it anyways.
I know some people who I will be sending an email to about this story so they don't click on it.
An offshoot of the penny stock spam? (Score:3, Interesting)
I wonder if this has something to do with the penny stock spams...you know, spammers send a bunch of emails promoting a penny stock so the price goes up, then they sell the stock while it's up...
Perhaps, they bought a bunch of oil, sent out a spam about Iran being invaded to get speculators to buy oil, driving the price up, and then cash in?
They finally filled in the ???
1. Buy oil
2. Send out Spam saying Iran has been invaded.
3. Speculators buy on the "news" (formerly ???)
4. Profit!
Defining SPAM Re:Doesn't sound like spam... (Score:3, Interesting)
I think SPAM is best defined as any email you receive that you don't want and was sent without your specific permission. The intent of the email is irrelevant.
I've sent SPAM on behalf of a government agency before (coerced by management after weeks of resistance) and all they wanted to do was give people information they didn't want about lead paint poisoning. AOL blacklisted us as SPAMmers and they were right to do so, even tho their actual motive was just to charge us money to deliver email.
Another good example is that band's mailing list you signed up for at a bar 4 years ago that refuses to stop telling you how some guy you don't know's new band's fucking Alaskan tour is going. I hate that guy.
Re:An offshoot of the penny stock spam? (Score:4, Interesting)
I suspect they just figured a way around some spam filters for a little while. Most anything novel should get by for a while, once it starts getting flagged it should dissipate.
Re:How the hell... (Score:3, Interesting)
Impossible, or highly unlikely for quite some time (Score:3, Interesting)
World War III is just not going to happen anytime soon, at least a non-nuclear war. If it is nuclear than everyone is fucked everywhere and it's a moot point. We may go in and destroy Iran, but that is hardly going to escalate into WWIII. Just look at the countries and continents involved.
Antarctica and the Artic: Hmmmm, last the checked the Intuit peoples and the Penguins did not have some sort of secret alliance and hidden military. Probably not a player in WWIII.
Australia: Kind of remote. Might contribute troops but hardly the location for WWIII or the political force to cause it either.
Greenland: Too busy with awesome blond chicks, high tech data centers, and hot spas. Not interested in causing it and no one is interested in attacking it.
North America - Canada: Highly doubtful. If anything, they will be an innocent bystander that gets hurt when the US gets attacked. Won't start WWIII either.
North America - United States: Oh, the US will be involved. Bet your ass on that. Could start it too most likely if we have another idiot child president. Will it host the war on its own continent? Probably not. Getting troops and equipment to the US is a heck of a lot harder than Red Dawn made it out to be. Candidate for World War III.
North America - Mexico: They have problems of their own right now with the drug cartels and political scandals. Don't have anything military wise capable of waging a strategic war away from their own continent. No one is interested in attacking them, and they don't seem to be interested in attacking anyone else either.
South America - All: Way to involved in their own affairs and completely lack any military infrastructure capable of operations away from their home soil. Other than having a country with a president that likes to verbally attack the US, not much to see here. Who wants to invade and attack them? I dunno either.
Europe: Look at the countries that make up the EU. They don't want to start anything anywhere. They are far more diplomatic about dealing with the middle east than the US is. I doubt they will be invaded and I don't see them causing World War III either. Took a major chill pill after World War II. They are on break, and don't even get me started on the French.
Eastern Europe: Still getting on their feet IMO. Lack the resources or the will to put up much of fight for anything. I know there are some tensions between some east european countries and Russia regarding missile defense, but not very likely to start World War III.
Japan: Too busy making and selling entertainment equipment, cars, and used womens panties. They figured out the best way to wage war was with skyscrapers and advanced technology in products. Next.
Africa: Yeah, right. They are too busy being butt raped for resources by the rest of the world and dealing with chronic disease and gang rapes of women. Next.
South East Asia: Not very likely. I can't see any country being invaded or doing the invading.
North Korea: Will launch a single attack and promptly be totally destroyed within days. Everybody will ignore the rotting corpse and nobody will come to their aid, certainly not China. China would only object if there was a nuclear response to North Korea which is not totally necessary.
India: More interesting. If anything happens they might take the opportunity to attack Pakistan since they just love each other.
Russia: Who are they going to fight? US? China? Not until resources become absolutely critical. We got the missile defense deal going, which does remind me of the Cuban Missile crisis, but actuall
Motives for Spam and Country of origin (Score:3, Interesting)
More than likely, it is just a shock type of attention getting mail. However, what if it is state sponsored spam by another country.
Obviously, there are countries out there that would like the US&As reputation damaged, and this may help do that. There are countries with states sponsored hackers, trying to hack US government/Pentagon computers, so why wouldn't they also attempt psychological damage as well?
If you here rumors, over and over again about someones behavior, then you might start to think that the person (or country) might behave that way, and maybe think less of them.
Re:Breaking news! (Score:5, Interesting)
This isn't new or interesting -- it's a classic pump and dump, most likely on the price of oil.
(1) Buy oil futures
(2) Pump spam/disinformation about a US military strike in Iran.
(2a) Do this when US/Israeli officials are making strong statements
(2b) because Iran has just tested some missiles
(3) Watch the price of oil go up 4-5% in a day http://www.bloomberg.com/energy/ [bloomberg.com]
(4) (Sell your oil futures at a) Profit!
Yawn . . .
Re:How the hell... (Score:5, Interesting)
The most invoative one I saw slip by my filter recently was:
Increase the effectiveness of your copulation organ
I found this troubling in that the only word I could safely blacklist on our corporate mail filters is probably
copulation
I can't imagine anyone except maybe the HR department needing to send work related message with that word in the subject, and even then I can't imagine it would be hit our public MX.
If copulation could be eliminated then blocking a spam like this will only be possible via the statistical analysis of the entire message; sure this entire specific subject might be filterable but not the individual words.
Unless something is a miss in the headers its going to get by.
It made me wonder if the doom and gloom folks might be correct in that SPAM will make traditional mail realy useless. Sadly SPF and related methods are not an option as we just can't count on our customers to implement it and risk not being about to exchange mail with them. Sure if a problem is discovered whitelists can be used but by then you may have lost an account.
The other interesting thing is that would anyone educated enough to have the vocabulary to required understand that subject be ignorant enough to respond? I know the economics of SPAM are such that even if 1 in a million people bite, its worth it but as that first number approches 0 its gotta stop being worth while somewhere.
Re:Impossible, or highly unlikely for quite some t (Score:3, Interesting)
Look at the countries that make up the EU. They don't want to start anything anywhere. They are far more diplomatic about dealing with the middle east than the US is. I doubt they will be invaded and I don't see them causing World War III either. Took a major chill pill after World War II. They are on break, and don't even get me started on the French.
More like they were castrated after WW/II by American Troops being stationed throughout Europe to prevent them from starting yet another war. There is no question WW/III would have happened if the United States hadn't taken over nearly all the military operations in Europe.
They are diplomatic because that's all the power they have at this point. This is a double-edged sword; Europe is now nearly powerless to start another war, but they're also close to useless when it comes to helping out when military action is really needed.
(Some younger Europeans will probably be peeved about this post, but they really need to read their own unbelievably bloodthirsty history)
Making connections out of the info fragments (Score:3, Interesting)
Let's assume the expected oil price minus all the speculation, is per IEA calculations, around $70-80/barrel. If Iran gets attacked, it is likely they will attempt to block the Straits of Hormuz by destroying passing oil tankers. If they succeed, it will at a stroke remove 60% of world oil supply from the market. The shock of that happening would cause the oil price to spike to well over $200/barrel, with devastating consequences to world stock markets.
Speculation has already pushed the price up close to $150/barrel. However, the speculative bubble can be quickly and deliberately popped with the help of a trillion dollar hedge fund around the same time that war breaks out and the Straits get blocked. There would be much less of a surge in the oil price.
Who's to say the big speculators haven't been playing the market for this very purpose, in clever anticipation of upcoming attacks on Iran in September?
The good news for us is that after it is all over, the oil price should fall back around $70-80.
Re:Breaking news! (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually, it isn't. A single Prius might not use much gas compared to a single Hummer, but lots and lots of Priuses still use lots and lots of gas.
A workable solution is not obvious, but it *is* clear that we aren't heading for one. Electric vehicles would work if there was a decent source of electricity. Such are possible, but progress in that direction appears slow and diffuse. The real stumbling block seems to be how to store large quantities of electricity, as the desirable ways of generation seem to all be intermittent. (I'm not including nuclear fission, as I consider that to be a "last resort" kind of thing, though if one allows breeder reactors it's probably better than coal.)
Re:Impossible, or highly unlikely for quite some t (Score:3, Interesting)
Firstly, if each EU nation decided to turn on the American troops based in their countries, what are the US going to do ? Bomb their own troops ? (probably, going by past events).
Secondly, how much does the US spend on its military every day ? And how much of that is spent to maintain defences on foreign soil.
Seems like the EU gets the best deal financially speaking, and as it's only the US that wants to start wars recently, why should we waste all our cash ?
As for your last point, the USA has only existed for a couple of centuries. Europe has had nation states for thousands of years. And yet the US seems to be intent on catching up in the bloodthirsty stakes. Only you like to keep it at arms length. Let's see, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Turkey, Afghanistan, Korea and Vietnam to mention a few. There is also the interference in Southern American countries, so I would watch where you point that finger.
Re:Impossible, or highly unlikely for quite some t (Score:5, Interesting)
There is no question WW/III would have happened if the United States hadn't taken over nearly all the military operations in Europe.
"No question"? Really? [citation needed].
Perhaps you're thinking about the Morgenthau Plan [wikipedia.org], which was a primarily economic effort (which only lasted a few years) to "industrially disarm" Germany.
To the best of my knowledge, the primary reason for the stationing of US troops in Europe was to expand the US sphere of influence here (yes, I'm European) as a bulwark against the Soviets -- with whom relations were already beginning to deteriorate at the close of the war.
And no, I can't be bothered to dig up references for that, which I suppose makes me a hypocrite but hey, technically I should be working! :)
Re:Breaking news! (Score:3, Interesting)
However, when the lifetime of the Prius is over, all that energy isn't wasted. The batteries don't disappear. They are still there and can easily (And it's incredibly cost-efficient to do so) be recycled. Thus the 'total energy cost' of the next set of batteries is drastically lower.
The energy cost of recycling the batteries is actually not drastically lower either; much of the cost of manufacturing the Prius batteries is in the shipping costs. Guess what they're doing to do when they recycle batteries? It's cheaper to do it almost anywhere but in the US due to environmental restrictions.
the batteries can be recycled an theoretically infinite number of times
heh heh.
Nothing is free, anyway. The recycling process is not just shaking some pixie dust on the old batteries.
Re:Impossible, or highly unlikely for quite some t (Score:3, Interesting)
The US troops were left in Europe to hold the USSR back, not to prevent another war in Europe. In fact Europe was to be the battleground.
It's true that much of the reason was to hold the USSR back (though, let's not forget that Eastern Europe is still Europe), but after two world wars, do you really think the nature of the countries of Europe suddenly turned into peaceful loving countries? Hardly. The United States might've primarily been talking about holding back the USSR from aggressive expansion (which was absolutely a threat), but there was no doubt that Western Europe still had all the old hatreds and desires. You would think they would have learned after WW/I, but they didn't. And they didn't learn after WW/II. They were just forced to learn.
For some bizarre reason, Europe has now styled itself as always having been this mature, peace loving continent. And I'm not going to get into a worthless debate about the wars of the United States in the 20th century that you'll never agree with. It's fashionable to bash the US, so I highly doubt you'll be objective. I'll just say that the wars the US is involved with have had fundamentally different motivations than the wars of Europe.
Re:Breaking news! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Breaking news! (Score:2, Interesting)
Paranatural,
I'm sick of all these soap box idiots forgetting about the costs of SHIPPING!!!!
Shipping parts around the world costs energy, and pollutes.
Also, tell me where these batteries will be recycled? (More pollution due to shipping)
How many batteries will you use throughout the lifecycle of the vehicle? (More pollution due to shipping)
As the initial poster stated:
Supposedly this problem will be greatly mitigated when the new battery plant opens in Fremont, CA. (IIRC it was Fremont, anyway.)
Fremont is closer, thus SHIPPING costs are mitigated.
Anyone who leaves shipping costs out of the equation, is naive.