HSBC and MasterCard Battle Phishing with Phishing Technique

Here’s a little internet security quiz for you.

You’re planning a trip and are using the internet to reserve a lovely B&B in Scotland. You’ve filled out reservation information and now are going to use your credit card to pay.

You fill in your card number, expiry date, the 3 or 4 digit security number on the back/front of the card, your name, home address etc.

You press “SUBMIT”

After pressing submit, a window pops up, taking you to a different site, where you’re asked to fill in some of the same information you’ve just given, plus your date of birth.

You should:

a) cancel the transaction immediately
b) never put in the additional information being requested
c) copy down the address in the window and call your bank immediately
d) all of the above - you’re being phished.

If you answered a,b,c, or D, you’re correct.

Unless of course you have a Mastercard account.

Because, for some bizarre reason, this is exactly the technique Mastercard has begun using to try to bring ‘more security’ to your online transactions.

And it’s bound to fail miserably.

The scenario I described above is exactly what happened today. The popup looked like this:

Now, pop-ups are bad enough and always put me off.

But this one comes from a domain I don’t know (its not my bank or mastercard.com) and it uses the same kind of language I always see in those spam emails. You know, “free service”, “get it now” to make things more secure - oh, and guess what - you can’t complete your transaction without doing so…

We immediately bailed on the transaction fearing we’d been phished.

In a way, we had been - except it wasn’t a bad guy - it was Mastercard

OMG. Whoever talked them into this new online security move apparently doesn’t actually use the internet.

To make matters worse, even if you were going to institute such a lame scheme, you’d think Mastercard would tell their customers via their monthly statement that this was coming. You know, a heads up ?

Didn’t happen.

After spending 20 minutes on the phone with our bank, HSBC, we were reassured that this is legit.

I should point out that if you go to securecode.com you will be redirected to Mastercard. However, if you try the URL that was in the popup - a subdomain - you get a very un-Mastercard looking error screen (click it for a larger version)

This plan is doomed to fail. Mastercard’s new securecode system sends off alarm bells for even the most seasoned internet shopper.

Ironically, Mastercard may in fact reduce internet fraud by reducing internet transactions - their new system will cause people to cancel their transaction for fear they’re being duped.

Madsu’s New Andersen Winches

Madsu’s still on the trailer in the driveway. It puts a crimp on sailing, but is handy for doing upgrades.

I’ve just finished replacing the electrical I didn’t get to last year, pics on that soon.

Today I finally got the new self-tailing winches installed. As I mentioned a few weeks ago, I pulled the old Lewmar winches off the cowling along with the cleat -

I managed to get the fiberglass fairly clean, filled the old holes, and drilled six new holes for the new Andersen winches -

I picked up some 1/4 inch aluminum plate from Express Metal supply in Burnaby and cut & drilled some backing plates -

With some help from Garnet and Matthew, bolted the new winches down, and they look downright lovely - even if they are on a boat in the front yard !

Just One Look, That’s All it Took

EB and I have something on today.  It involves:

It really does seem like yesterday when I spotted her sitting on the couches at CBC Winnipeg waiting for an audition.

Rats in Paradise

Nice bit of ad positioning in this story in today’s Vancouver Sun online…

New Film Festival for Vancouver

Over on VanGoGreen I’ve just posted info on a new film festival coming in May.

It’s the PROJECTING CHANGE FILM FESTIVAL. Details on VanGoGreen.com

Podcast with JER Envirotech

I’ve just posted a new podcast with Edward Trueman, President and CEO of JER Envirotech in Delta BC.

JER Envirotech is a British Columbia company at the forefront of new technology that’s changing the thermoplastics industry and helping the environment at the same time. When JER Envirotech was first founded ten years ago, the goal was to find a way to use organic materials in thermoplastics.

The idea was simple - instead of sending waste wood to the landfill or burning rice hulls - why not make use of these products by combining them with polymers to create a new kind of thermoplastic.

While the idea may have been simple, the science is not. With help from the National Research Council of Canada, JER Thermoplastics has been able to find a way to do it.

Podcast is on the At Large Media web site here.

It’s also on VanGoGreen.com here

Matt Mullenweg feature interview Podcast

In my heart I’m still a capitalist…the most powerful thing you can do is marry profit motives with community motives.

- open-source software creator and entrepreneur Matt Mullenweg

I’ve just posted the interview I did with Matt Mullenweg, founder of WordPress, when he was in Vancouver for Northern Voice.

The podcast is on the At Large Media website.

The interview followed his keynote speech, which is also online here.

Special thanks to kk+ for helping arrange this.

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