The odd-musings of Jared, the Director of Network Security for IAPS Security Services.

Folks, I see multiple Nigerian based email scams on a daily basis. It seems as though I’ve won the Nigerian lottery 15 times a week, every week. The greatest thing? They always enter me into the lottery without needing my consent. To collect my winnings, all I need to send them is a $150 U.S. Dollars, my birth certificate, the keys to my house, and my bank account numbers. They said they’d take care of the rest……

I hope you guys didn’t take that seriously. These emails scams have been around for at least 10 years and most, if not all of you, have seen them at one point or another land in your email box. The sad fact is that people still fall for it.

Here’s an example of what I just got today:
____________________________________________________________________
FROM THE DESK OF
DR JOHN AFFUL
BRANCH MANAGER
INTERNATIONAL COMMERCIAL BANK
KUMASI BRANCH GHANA.

Hello Dear,

My name is DR JOHN AFFUL, I am the branch manager of the International
Commercial Bank Kumasi branch Ghana. I got your information during my search
through the Internet. I am 46years of age and married with 3 lovely kids. It may
interest you to hear that I am a Man of peace and I don’t want problem, but
I do not know how you will feel about this because you may have double mind. But
I am telling you that this is real and you are not going to regret after doing
this transaction with me. I only hope that we can assist each other. But if you
don’t want this business offer kindly forget it and I will not contact you
again.

I have packaged a financial transaction that will benefit both of us, as the
regional manager of the International Commercial Bank; it is my duty to send in
a financial report to my head office in the capital city (Accra-Ghana) at the
end of each year. On the course of the last year 2008 end of last year report, I
discovered that my branch in which I am the manager made three million seven
hundred and fifty thousand dollar [3, 750.000.00] which my head office is not
aware of it and will never be aware of. I have since place this fund on what we
call SUSPENSE ACCOUNT without any beneficiary.

As an official of the bank I can not be directly connected to this fund, so
this informed me of contacting you for us to work, so that you can assist and
receive this fund into your bank account for us to SHARE. Mean While you will
have 35% of the total fund, Note there are practically no risk involved, it will
be bank to bank transfer, all I need from you is to stand claim as the original
depositor of this fund who made the deposit with our branch so that my Head
office can order the transfer to your designated bank account.

If you accept this offer to work with me, I will appreciate it very much as
soon as I receive your response I will give you details on how we can achieve it
successfully.

Best Regards
DR JOHN AFFUL
____________________________________________________________________

Would you really believe this? I sure hope not. When these types of emails arrive in your box, delete them just as fast as they arrived. Don’t reply to them ever. If you reply, your on their spammer list forever and there’s no way to get off them. I hope this helps some of you identify these scam emails and it protects you.

Folks, I’ve now added Nationalized Domain Names to our store. These domain extensions look like this:

.ch
.lu
.co.uk
.ar
.bm

These are just examples. We’ve got the widest variety available that’s humanly possible. If your looking for that personalized domain to show your country pride, this is the place to get it. The link above has a complete category listing of all extensions we’ve got available and what country represents each extension.

Folks, I’m seriously torn between 3 possible new locations: Australia, France, and Denmark. Australia seems to be way over-priced. Maybe its the data centers I’ve been seeing. France seems to be ok in terms of pricing. I also dropped by a few data centers in Spain and saw the highest prices I’ve ever seen any data center offer. Spain will have to stay out of our loop until we become a millionaire organization.

I’ve had multiple requests for a French location and that seems the likeliest of locations. However, I am certainly all ears if any of you know decent locations in Australia or Denmark. If you find any of the 3 locations to be suitable for yourself, please speak up and let me know. I tend not to get locations if I don’t have any feedback regarding them or there is simply no demand for them. Please don’t hesitate to ask for a location if we don’t have it.

Folks, I thought I’d share a bit about what helps me through these night shifts. On Saturdays and Sunday nights I generally listen to Coast to Coast A.M. with Art Bell. You can hear some of the strangest and most entertaining things happen on his show. I miss the good old days when he did the show Monday through Friday but I’ll take what I can get on the weekends.

I’ve heard some of the most outrageous conspiracy theories on that show ever. I’ve also heard a few nut jobs as well get on the air. I’ve always wanted to get out to Manilla, Philippines where he now broadcasts the weekend edition of the show but I never seem to find the time. Maybe one of these days I’ll get to the point where I finally up and go. It would be nice to see his studio/home where he entertains the world. George Norry who hosts the weekday edition is some one I don’t find as entertaining. Maybe some of you disagree and prefer him over Art Bell. Let me know how you guys feel…..

Folks, the big day has arrived. Silverhawk will become operational on Sunday May 31, 2009 around the middle of the afternoon. This server has been designed to be more efficient, more powerful, and produce more speed than all of its predecessors. This is a new class of server for us and we’re hoping to hear positive feedback on it from all of you to let us know if we should invest in more of these servers.

Folks, we’re currently looking into streaming media support for the Xbox 360. We just installed one in the control center here and are looking into how to maximize the streaming ability. I’m impressed with its features so far: can play any normal dvd, (whether burned or store bought), can connect to your Windows Media Center enabled computer, can play any files on your computer over a wireless network, and so many more features to name.

I’m looking for a way to get applications such as Zattoo to stream wirelessly from the computer (laptop in this case) to the Xbox 360 and onto the tv screen. Once I can accomplish this, I’ll be more than happy to post the results and instructions here. If any of you are more familiar with the Xbox 360 than myself or the IAPS crew, please feel free to add your comments below.

Folks, the long awaited arrival of ‘Silverhawk’ is now coming to an end. I’m excited over this new server because it has many enhancements over previous servers. For those of you aware of our “Hawk” series of servers, this new addition to the family will (hopefully) improve service by 150%. An extremely high amount of work is being put into this server for the benefit of the clients that will be placed on this server.

A memorial benefit will be held for Nighthawk. We will be closing the doors and shutting down the Nighthawk server as soon as Silverhawk is deemed fully operational. We’ve already prepared for a client transition and a smooth cross-over. The clients placed on Nighthawk should have already received pre-notification of this replacement via email.

Silverhawk should be operational and placed on the production line within 7 days time. Hopefully sooner if all goes according to plan.

Welcome everyone! I’ve never blogged before so this will be my first attempt. Many of you know me by my technical work through multiple websites, including the one that I own and operate. I’ve helped several thousand people through the multiple sites I mentor on with their home and business networking issues. I immensely enjoy the work I do and wouldn’t trade it for the world.

So now, why did I choose WordPress for this blog? I guess because its the most common name associated with blogging. Not to mention the fact that its free software and comes with a multitude of plug-ins for just about everything possible. When I was investigating these plug-ins last night, I saw some things I didn’t even know existed for the blogging world. I guess I need to update my sense of blogging!

I view this sort of as an online journal of my thoughts and how I can better the online world through my work, helping others, and through my knowledge of the networking world. There are so many different categories when it comes to online knowledge that none of us can figure them all out, let alone learn them all.

Keep watching this blog everyday as I’ll try to keep it updated as much as possible. Comments are always welcome and if you have questions that are more than welcome. Enjoy your time here and I hope you’ll come back often and enjoy hearing about my day, my thoughts, and answers to your questions. Have a nice day/night.