NBK Scam Phising - Investigated

MY K, from MY K Blog wrote about a National Bank of Kuwait (NBK) Phishing scam.

The scam works by sending you an email telling you to go to a seemingly valid banking site and update your account number and PIN code. That site would be a fraudulent site and what it does is send to the fraudsters your personal information that you just entered. Later they will log on to your account and try to transfer money out of it.

I did a little investigation and read the source code of the NBK fraudulent site. I found some clues such as the signature niarB, which is Brain in reverse. Searching around I found some more information about this elusive Brain. It turns out that Brain is a group of Morrocan fraudsters calling themselves Mr. Brain. They offer phishing/scam kits on the Internet that allow you to set up a fraudulent site that looks like a popular bank's page. When the poor victim enters his information, that information is sent to the fraudsters who used Mr. Brain's tools. A copy is also sent to the Morrocan Mr. Brain team. More information about this scheme can be found at Trend Micro's Site and also at Netcraft's Site.

In addition to the Mr. Brain's signature found in the source code, there is also a coded string that represents the email address. The string is "245616c647881696e30384067617761622e636f6d". It probably is the email address of the fraudster.

I did not bother to decode it, but if NBK wants to, they can always catch the Mr. Brain team and they can explain everything to them.

Four Armies

North Korean Army


French Foreign Legion (Légion étrangère)


Ukraine Army


Arab Army

Which one would you fight?
Which one do you want to join?

Je vous en prie Monsieur Sarkozy

You are supposed to wiggle the little cup if you don't want more Arabic coffee, not clink it.

Dooced because of Blog

I track a lot of blogs and news feeds, 206 and increasing everyday. They are assorted feeds including technology, gadgets, world news, music sites, business and of course personal blogs. Personal blogs are my favorite. I don't read each and every item but when a title catchs my attention, I read the post attentively glimpsing into that blogger's little window witnessing those small moments in time that are revealed.

One blog I am following is petite anglaise. It tells the story of a single parent english girl working in Paris, France. According to her profile, "Paris has been my home for a decade. After living 'in sin' for 8 years, I left my partner for a man I met on my blog. I now live alone with my daughter Tadpole; her daddy, Mr Frog, lives nearby. "

Well, La Petite Anglaise has recently been dooced.

According to the telegraph article, An English secretary is bringing a test case under French labour law after allegedly being sacked for bringing her employers into disrepute by writing a "Bridget Jones in Paris" blog describing her everyday life.
Using the pseudonym La Petite Anglaise, she has attracted a sizeable international following for her musings on love, work and single motherhood in her internet diary. Her employers discovered her blog and dooced her.

Well, I hope everything works out well for La Petite Anglaise, and she wins lots of money from her court case against her former employer. She can follow that success by writing a best selling novel. Her writing is captivating and she deserves all the best.

4 things about me - Tag

Beyond Q8iya tagged me.

Tags are evil people, nip it at the bud and don't help it spread, but anyway, here goes:

Four Jobs I've Had:

1. Programmer
2. Unix Administrator
3. International Sales
4. Big Shot Manager in a Big Shot Company

Four Movies I can watch Over and Over:

1. Armageddon
2. Kill Bill 1
3. Kill Bill 2
4. Godfather 1,2,3

Four Places I have lived:

1. Algeria
2. Moscow - Russia
3. Paris - France
4. Kuwait - Kuwait

Four TV shows I LOVE:

1. Drew Carry
2. Buffy the Vampire Slayer
3. Farscape
4. Star Trek (all of them)

Four Places I've Vacationed:

(I have been nearly everywhere but these places are nice)

1. Los Angeles
2. New Jersey
3. Hawaii
4. Toronto

Four of My Favorite Dishes:

1. Pizza
2. Sushi
3. White Castle Hamburgers
4. Japanese Ramin Noodles

Four Sites I visit Daily:

1. Google News
2. Google
3. Safat
4. Bloglines (to read the 129 and growing feeds I am tracking)

No one is going to be tagged, tags are evil, except for MiYa FuSHi because I want to get her back for tagging me before.

Napoléon's Coronation as Emperor

Notre Dame Cathedral is in its full glory with dignitaries and papal representatives present to witness Napoleon's coronation. Pope Pius VII is present with his entourage. Napoleon and Josephine, his wife, enter Notre Dame to the tunes of Marche de Lesueur.




Napoleon, having conquered most of Europe had forced Pope Pius VII to come to Paris to consecrate him as emperor, only to demean him at the last minute by taking the crown from the pope's hands and crowning himself.

Few individuals can have created so much national social capital so quickly as Napoleon. In two frenetic decades, the Corsican-born petit caporal (little corporal) drove France to the heights of glory and the depths of despair, leaving behind a rich legacy: the civil code, the Bank of France and the beauty of Paris.






Inisde Notre Dame, the pope blesses the Emperor and his wife, Napoleon crowns himself and Josephine kneels in front of Napoleon and is crowned by Napoleon. Napoleon and Joesephine then seat themselves in their imperial thrones.

The Pope blesses the couple and pronounces to the assembly, "Vivat Imperator in aeternum".






Napoleon then pronounced the constitutional oath, his hand on the gospel.

"Je jure de maintenir l'intégrité du territoire de la République ; de respecter et de faire respecter les lois du concordat et la liberté des cultes ; de respecter et faire respecter l'égalité des droits, la liberté politique et civile, l'irrévocabilité des ventes des biens nationaux ; de ne lever aucun impôt, de n'établir aucune taxte qu'en vertu de la loi ; de maintenir l'institution de la légion d'honneur ; de gouverner dans la seule vue de l'intérêt, du bonheur et de la gloire du peuple français."

Finally the herald proclaimed: "the most glorious, the most august emperor Napoleon, emperor of the French, is crowned and enthroned emperor, Long live the Emperor!"

Napoleon and his entourage leave for Le Palais des Tuileries.

Nigerian 419 Scam

A long long time ago, pre-internet, pre-email, I received a letter from the daughter of Jean-Bédel Bokassa. She told me that after the overthrow of her father, he had hoarded many millions through Uranium sales to France and other countries. She needed my help to get this money out since all this money was hidden in secret accounts. She had $75,000,000 worth of money and she promised me 25% of that. All I needed to do was send her details of my bank acoounts and blank pieces of paper with my signature on it. I can expect the money within a few days.

I am not so smart or wise but any offer of easy money immediately has my bullshit detector light up, and now it was lighting up. I did not respond because it looked like a scam but I felt real proud I was considered scam material, it means I am worthy of a scammer's attention. I felt like I joined the Forbes World's Billionaires list - scammer version.

Now that I was on the scam inc. mailing list, I started getting at least 3 or 4 letters every year. I had the oppurtunity to help different African ex rulers, Malaysian Magnates, Russian Oligarchs and many other rich people that needed my personal help. I felt honoured and priviliged.

Scammers then discovered the internet and my email address. A recent appeal for help was from Saddam Hussein's Niece that needed help in getting her billions out of a Dubai bank. It was really nice of her to consider me and asking for help from a Kuwaiti like me. Maybe she felt sorry for the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and wanted to personally enrich me by sharing her wealth. Let bygones be bygones.

These scams are known as the Nigerian 419 Scam after section 4-1-9 of the Nigerian Penal code wich relates to this scheme. It seems just like Henry Ford created Mass Production, some Nigerian Entrepreneurs perfected this scam into a whole industry.

Well one 419 scamstress was caught recently.

Amaka Anajemba,the scamstress has been sentenced to two and a half years in jail. She must also return $48.5million to a Brazilian bank which she also scammed, another $5million to the government, and pay a $15,000 fine. The scams in which Anajemba was involved, along with two others, totalled more than $242 million.

Wow, $242 million!, thats better than winning the lottery. Maybe some clever scammer can write a letter on Amaka's behalf and say that she managed to stash a few millions from her 419 enterprise and needed my help in getting that money out.

A recursive scam. That would be fun to see.