Chapter 12 - Social engineering

Social engineering is skill to manipulate with the people to get the confidential information or to get people do things the way one like it.

Lately there has been quite many stories in Estonian newspapers and in the news about one woman called Liis Haavel who is manipulating people to get money or any other asset from them.

She has studied law and know all the necessary terms to talk very convincingly. Her main victims are old men who are living alone in the house or apartment and who doesn't have wife.

Here is one candidate version how she is doing that.
She is meeting her victims in random places (near the victims home) and starting to have conversation. She is asking all kind of things about their lives, what they are doing and so on.
She is very kind and warm and very soon men start to think that this woman is the love of their life. She is young and beautiful and everything one could ever dream of.
When one victim sold the summerhouse he bought her a car and gave her rest of the money, and also most of the salary went to the Liis's hands. As Liis was very smart she convinced the old man to get the mortgage to the apartment and get some loan to 'earn' money. He did. Later on he also sold the house to pay the loan and again rest of the amount went to Liis.

Like this she is playing and manipulating with older people and this is not the only case. There is more of them..

Chapter 4 - Blocking software - Net Nanny

First I was surprised how easy it was to configure. Few clicks and everything is under control. Is it?
I am sure this software can be used for some other purpose (blocking some sites at work ..), but I am looking the case where parents want to forbid their children access to certain information in the web.
First I was blocking following possibilities: pornography, gambling, intimate apparel, adult/mature, drugs/alcohol, hate/violence, illegal activities, proxy.
I was trying to search with the following words: vodka, Pina Colada, flirt, sex, adults, shooting, lingerie and etc.. Nothing suspicious appeared.

* When I was looking for words gun in different versions I was able to read 'How to choose a handgun', How to use gun sights for target shooting and etc. I was surprised. I blocked 'violence'..

* When I was looking for word 'pleasure' - then there were some pictures which was quite surprised, that i could see, for example 1, and I was able to see some small pictures of woman in lingeries, when I clicked on them the blocking window appeared. After some time I didn't see these pictures anymore, although I didn't change anything in the settings. Weird.

* I was looking 'drunk', 'how to get drunk fast' and etc.. Seems that everything is working there..

* I was looking 'erotic and all the Web content was blocked, but I was able to see pictures. .. Its because I didn't block the images. But its weird. Parent has to block the images and videos, because otherwise child can see the inappropriate content. But if child is looking for flowers, dogs, cats, he/she is not able to see pictures at all. Some development needed there..

If child is trying to look something forbidden from Internet and overrides the request, parent gets the notice via email or can just look it themselves without any notices. And also there is possibility to make reports of web page uses.
I think this is worth to buy as it really limits the access to the certain pages.

Chapter 10 : How minority groups can make use of Internet?

When I started to write the blog, I didn't know exactly how to start. As there can be all sort of minority groups, I didn't know which one of them to take as an example.

Finally... I decided to choose disabled and handicapped people.
According to the Statistics Estonia research in 2007 there are approximately 2000 children age of 0-24 who are disabled. 1200 of them are under 16 years old. This number is quite huge and its quite hard to be aware of them if there isn't that much information and if one don't look this kind of information specially by themselves.

How could they make use of Internet?

* Create/join forums, where they could meet people with similar thoughts, origin, problems, disabilities or ..
* Blend in normally to any other community, club ..etc
* Chat in communities, use communication tools via MSN, Skype, e-mail
* Read interesting materials and get and impression what is going on outside (if they are not capable to go out and experience everything on their own - they at least have the opportunity to read/listen what others feel/know/do).
* Start blogging and sharing their thoughts -> make people more aware about their situation.
* Educate themselves/learn to have better jobs/better jobs in the future.
* Look for the information what life can offer when something like this have happened (Para Olympics , training clubs,...)
* Read other people advice with whom have happened the same accidents/ who have same disability - support group.
* Be more aware about their situation by themselves.
* Enjoy life.
...

But as in general there are some basic things all minority groups can do to make use of Internet, and some of them I already mentioned.

Digital Divide and Internet Availability in Estonia

Digital divide is the economical difference of individuals, households, companies and geographical areas while using information- and communication technology opportunities and Internet. It is the gap between the people who have effective access to communication technologies and Internet and those who don't.
In February 2008 GfK Custom Research Baltic made a research in Estonia which reveals that people with lower income don't have access to some e-services although 69% of Estonians have computers at home and they use Internet.
Actually it sounds quite logical. People who have lower income may not be able to buy computers or can't afford regular access to the internet. And due to this some e-services are not 'there' for them 24/7. Of course its not necessary to have these services available all the time and there is always opportunity to go to library or any other public internet service, but even these places may be hard to tap in, specially in the countrysides. While using public internet services the risk that someone can have access to your personal data is much bigger (if one forgets to log himself/herself off from email or bank account..) and going to library one need to make some extra efforts.
For example those students who don't have Internet at home, can't do their homework when ever they want, they have to make plans to go to the library or to friends place and their time is often limited. Students who have internet have vantages in studies.
Although percentages show that we have digital divide in Estonia, it is not so big and I personally can't feel it. I think its because I am not one of them who dont have access to communication technologies. Most people with whom I communicate have Internet access at home and have access to basic communication technologies. We use mobiles, skype, msn and Internet every day.
In Estonia there shouldn't be a problem finding WiFi areas - cafes, restaurants, gas stations and bigger malls. Not only in big cities, but in smaller as well. There is a page called wifi.ee which says that at the moment there is 1174 Wifi broadcast area per 45 000 km2 and there are lists of every county wifi areas separately.
I think while talking about wifi, Estonia is a really good example to any other country!

Frauds - lottery scam

People are different. They have different characters and different views of life.
These behaviors and differences are carried over the Internet. There are people who are just having fun (playing games, reading gossip pages etc), people who are looking information or working and there are people who try to make profit in illegal way.
For example they are "earning" money through some fraud schemes: credit card fraud, "lotteries", debt elimination, identity thefts and etc..

There are many possibilities how one can cheat via email, for example lottery scam letters. These are sent thousands every day, hoping that somebody will believe it and do what ever letter is telling to do.

Actually I was thinking that there cant be so silly people who would just one day receive the letter announcing the win of 10000$ or some other amount and believe they have actually won it, even if they never purchased any lottery tickets ?
Although some letters may claim that winner were selected through visiting some webpage, but still.
I know one person who got this kind of lottery letter many years ago, where "they" announced her about the winning. I don't remember exact amount, but she was asked to send approximately 3000 eek for taxes and bank fees. And she did!
First she didn't tell about it to anybody, but when she realized she will never get this money back, it just came out..

Scam:
1. Lottery scam letters are posted - Something like: Congratulation!
This message is from the World leading Email Lottery Organisation. Results have been released for 2008 and your email address is among ten selected lucky winners of one million each. etc.. - letters are usually really official form, then they are more believable.
2. People receive these letters
3. Some people fall for it, some delete/ignore it.
4. Fallen people send their personal data or money or ...
5. They find out that it was a scam
6. Maybe! they turn somebody for help.
back to point 1.

My first thoughts would be what kind of pages I visited, where they got my email, if amounts are big, then this kind of information is never discussed via email?
If I win something why I have to pay for it, can't they just subtract the tax amount from the sum I won and etc..


And about this scam page.. I think that it is good from one side - people can see and read what kind of scams there have been and they would never fall for it? In the other hand some frauds who are beginners can have "great" thoughts from there.

Echelon

Echelon is one of the largest and oldest (over 50 years) information sharing mechanisms in the world. It is part of a global communications tracking and surveillance systems which can be used to intercept any electronic communication across the globe.
"It is the end of our right to privacy. We are placed under suspicion from the moment we start to communicating with other people."[1]

Its not possible to talk with friends/family/police/businessmen over the phone, to send private emails or chat in the web without "somebody" listening - this mystery "something" is always there.

What if one day Echelon have power to lead airplanes (by sending some signals into the airplane system), power to influence nuclear power plant or have a power to influence traffic by changing the traffic lights or just switch them off in any place around the world.
Maybe its not dangerous until this kind of information is in the right hands ( if so, it may even help to keep the world the safer place), but what if some day some people steel this information and use it in their own favor, in negative manner.
There would we chaos in the streets, people would be afraid because of unawareness, "accidents" can happen, maybe even something bigger than 9/11 - this would have devastating influence to the economy.

Data is the power not only in the web, but as a whole. Beside it everything else becomes less valued.

Is there anything we can do to protect our privacy?

As Benjamin Poole claims, there are still some possibilities how protect ourselves from listen in[2].
Of course its not 100% protection, but just messing with the system:)
1. Talk in code - use ordinary words instead of keywords, Echelon systems has difficulties noticing hidden data.
2. Change your voice or speak different language - change speech patterns and intonations.
3. Use VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) phone lines - it do not protect you from monitoring, but it is significantly more secure.
4. Use anonymous proxies
5. Use redundancy & concurrent communications.
6. Use encryption.

Echelon systems influence is two sided. It's great until the information stays where it belongs - influence is positive. If it spread out to third parties, we never predict the consequences.