Our shocking Parliament: only one-third of federal MPs deserve any respect
Next year’s election is an opportunity for voters to replace the liars and misfits in Parliament with quality independent candidates.
BBC: Two year investigation, leaked documents, show scope of activity by Nigerian violent gang Black Axe around the world
Question of the week: What is happening with emails claiming I’m being charged for renewing Anti-virus programs I’ve never had? I get on average three of these a week, supposedly from Norton, Geek Squad, or other companies. They have a phone number to call. Who is behind these, and what is the scam?
BBB Studies. Here are links to the study topics of my studies: puppy fraud, romance fraud; BEC fraud, sweepstakes/lottery fraud, tech support fraud, romance fraud money mules, crooked movers, government imposters, online vehicle sale scams, rental fraud, gift cards, job scams, and online shopping fraud.
Virus Scams
- New Zealand: Many charging to get vaccinated in the name of others; charge $100; one woman got 20 jabs
- UK warns of text messages claiming you can get a shot for Omicron from the NHS; tells you to fill in a form and get personal information
- DOJ gets a permanent injunction against three Vietnamese over online sales of hand sanitizer and other products during the pandemic; defendants arrested in Viet Nam
- Connecticut: Russian gets four years prison for encrypting service that prevented antivirus programs from detecting malware
- Major US retailers urge Congress to act on online sales of counterfeit goods
- How Yahoo Boys pay off Nigerian police
- Web sites are selling counterfeit postage stamps from China
- Man extradited from Cameroon gets 80 years prison for fraud on healthcare system
- Ireland: Man arrested for calling and pretending to be the bank so he could get visit them, get their ATM cards, and steal money; believed to be part or Nigerian organized crime
- New Jersey: Two from India get 27 months prison each; part of conspiracy that called impersonating IRS or Social Security; handled over $600,000
- Wendys drive through “took too long”, so woman starts shooting, say police
- Las Vegas police arrest man who breached airport security so he could steal a jet and fly to Area 51
- New Zealand bans light sabers from carry on luggage
- Louisiana woman drives to sheriff’s office and refuses to leave unless they arrest her
- FTC issues agenda for open Commission meeting December 16, 1pm; can join by video
- FTC settles with group of phantom debt collectors in South Carolina; claimed people were going to be arrested if they didn’t pay debt they did not owe; took in $12 million
- OpenX advertising site settles FTC charges over collecting children’s data; will pay $2 million
- Atlanta: Man gets two years prison for PPP fraud
- Texas: Jury convicts woman who got $1.9 million in PPP fraud
- Colorado had $73 million in fraudulent unemployment benefits
- Detroit: Two charged with fraud in unemployment; got $3.2 million
- New Jersey: Man gets three years prison for PPP fraud
- Florida: Former NFL player sentenced to 37 months prison for PPP fraud; got $1.2million
- Tulsa, Oklahoma: Three women plead guilty to PPP fraud
- Tampa: Two sentenced for unemployment benefit fraud; one gets 7 years, other nearly six
- Texas: Man arrested for $3.3 million PPP fraud
- Philadelphia: Man pleads guilty to $1 million PPP fraud
- Russian speakers take credit for attack on Australian electric utility
- Romania arrests major ransomware affiliate; police there worked with the FBI
- Hits Volvo; steals R&D data
- Attack on NYC Metropolitan Transit Agency timekeeping system
- Hits IT agency that serves Virginia legislature
- Attack on large natural gas provider Superior Plus
- Vermont AG releases toolkit/education for romance scams
- NY Post: Article on romance scams; National Geographic TV program on romance fraud
- Hong Kong: Five months jail for two romance fraud victims who worked as money mules
- “The broadening of personhood to include some nonhuman entities is not so much a recent adaptation of an old legal concept as it is a return to an even older one” — Justin E.H. Smith (Université Paris Diderot) on the personalization of nature
- Making discussions of cosmopolitanism more cosmopolitan — short reflections from nine philosophers initiate a project to draw upon Chinese philosophical traditions in order to explore alternative understandings of the nature and future of cosmopolitanism
- Part of his legacy is the motivating of “a history of political philosophy that does not cleave to exclusionary conceptions of the discipline” — an appreciation of Charles Mills by Sophie Smith (Oxford)
- “Almost every person has reason to avoid subjection to digital recording whenever possible” — Elizabeth O’Neill (Eindhoven) on the “spectacular set of new threats” we face owing to the combination of digital recording, the internet, and artificial intelligence
- “Living in the now does not entail a refusal to care about the future, only a refusal to condition happiness and meaning on it” — John Martin Fischer (UCR) on a common insight of Stoicism and Buddhism
- “Just as we would be loath to dictate what art people must engage with, we should be wary of social pressures that decree what they can’t” — Erich Hatala Matthes (Wellesley) on consuming the art of immoral artists
- “Ten Propositions of Baruch Spinoza for Tenor and Piano” by British composer Michael Zev Gordon has been shortlisted for an Ivors award — you can listen to the 21-minute song cycle sets of texts from Spinoza’s Ethics at the link