SERVING SIX ONE

So what is a phishing scam anyway? Trust me, you NEED to know – and if you use the internet to access e-mail or ANY type of online account, this may be one of the most important blog posts you’ll read today…

Bear with me while I give the definition of phishing and then read the story about how we almost became a victim of a phishing scam.

First, here is how Wikipedia defines phishing:

“In the field of computer security, phishing is the criminally fraudulent process of attempting to acquire sensitive information such as usernames, passwords and credit card details by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication.”

In other words, you are ready to sign into your e-mail account, but you mistakenly type in the wrong web address (maybe inputting two “n’s” where there was supposed to be only one “n”). Now you are ready to log in. All appears normal except you are not really at your e-mail provider’s website at all.

You are at a FAKE website that only LOOKS like your e-mail site. You put in your user ID and password, but nothing happens, or perhaps you are (unbeknownst to you) re-directed to the REAL site and a screen that says you entered the wrong password. You try again, and you are successfully and happily logged in.

But what you don’t realize is that you have now become the victim of a phishing scam! While you are merrily checking your e-mail, the phishing website owner is preparing to hi-jack your account. After all, everyone knows that if someone has access to your e-mail account, all they have to do is go to the websites you hang out at (They can find that out by looking through your saved e-mails), and even if those other sites use different passwords, all they have to do is click the “Lost Password” button and in most cases the password will be instantaneously sent to…you guessed it…the e-mail account that has been compromised.

Things could get pretty ugly in a hurry. Here is my story…

Yesterday my son was going to his Google Adwords account. He normally does that when he is logged into Gmail and from the Gmail interface, but since he already had Google open, he simply typed in “adwords” in the search box and (as usual) the top listing was adwords.google.com.

In fact, it was both the top “organic” and top paid ad. Well, he clicked on the top paid ad and went on to what he thought was Google’s Adword page and since he wasn’t already logged into his Gmail account, he entered his user ID and password. Nothing happened for a few seconds, but then he was immediately re-directed to a REAL Google page that informed him that he had entered the wrong password.

Since it was a re-direct he was suspicious and hit the Back button on his computer. Here is the URL where he really was:
http://adwords.googlen.com (The site is already down.)

It was a phishing scam site and now they had not only his Google Adwords account info, but also his Google Adsense and  Gmail profiles…since they all rely on the same log-in profile. Thankfully, he was able to get to his account first and change his password, but the results could have been disastrous!

We did some further research by going to Google and searching on Adwords again and now TWO ads came up at the top of the page:

• the URL mentioned above and this one…

• ebaypartnernetwvork.com (Notice the misspelled “netwvork”.)

Here is a link to a screenshot we took of the search results:
http://www.imageuploads.net/ims/pic.php?u=32201LsGqu&i=167811

The top two are fraudulent (EVEN THOUGH the top one looks JUST like it is
Google’s).

We notified Google immediately about the phishing scam, but I wonder how many hundreds of people compromised their security during the period of time that these ads were running?

So, if you are feeling lazy and want to type in your URL or do a search for
it (ESPECIALLY when your destination is going to require a log-in profile),
think again…One mis-type or “bad search” result and you are a step away from someone getting your password.

Instead, use a program like RoboForm (www.roboform.com) that automatically goes to the website that YOU have pre-defined and enters your log-in profile without you having to enter a single keystoke online.

ALSO…if you are one to use a public computer, such as one at a hotel business center, library, school, or public kiosk, you had better use RoboForm’s portable USB solution (RoboForm2Go) because who knows if someone hasn’t installed a spying software on that public computer and now your every keystroke is being logged so that a phishing scammer can steal your identity and wreak havoc on your life.

But don’t solely rely on software to protect you. Sometimes phishers employ cleverly worded e-mails, disguised as notifications from companies you already do business with, enticing you to click a (fraudulent) link so that they can capture your log-in profile. Slowing down and using a little common sense can also go a long way towards helping you avoid becoming the next victim of a phishing scam.

I’ve been thinking a lot about my Dad lately. This May will be two (2) years since he has been with us. It seems like yesterday when he was still lingering in that hospital bed and I was able to lean down and kiss his forehead and whisper that I loved him, something that I had been too embarrassed to do or say for most of my adult life.

In a way, his 5-year struggle with cancer was a blessing, as it was a wake-up call that we all recognized as a message from God saying, ‘Life is short. Live it while you can. Family matters. God matters.”

I don’t know if I ever would have kissed my Dad again, had he met his demise in some other way, such as a heart attack or sudden accident. Sure, he displayed affection to me when I was a little boy. I remember him taking me in his arms and swinging me around and hugging me when he was proud of something I had done. But sadly, somehow, when boys start to grow into men, many lose the ability to show affections that were once perfectly natural in our younger days.

So, with him lying there, I bent down and kissed him. It was so hard because men are not supposed to do that, right? But I am glad that I was able to overcome my inhibitions and do it.

Dad taught me a lot about emotions. His favorite emotion (if you can call it an emotion) was laughter. He loved jokes – clean ones. And there are some of my dad’s jokes that I probably heard over 100 times. Most were pretty corny. In fact, many of the times when his jokes elicited laughter…his audience was not laughing with him, but at him and how stupid his joke was.

Yes, Dad taught me how to laugh; but he also taught me how to cry. He wasn’t afraid to cry in front of his children. He would always cry when a movie ended happily. Dad would weep for joy when he heard about our accomplishments and accolades.

I remember when our dog got hit by a car when I was in the 7th grade. Dad cried louder and harder than me or younger sister.

In the final months of Dad’s life as he battled valiantly with cancer, Dad kept telling us how he wanted to go home. “I want to go HOME,” he would say over and over again. “Dad, you ARE home, ” my sisters and I would answer. “No, I’m not. No, I’m not. I want to go HOME.”

They say there’s no tears in heaven, but my family knows that this is not true…because on May 15th at 5:16 p.m., 2007, my dad was probably so excited that he cried as he embraced Jesus and heard the words, “Welcome HOME.”

“No matter how bad things seem, always look on the bright side.” That’s something my Dad said to me many years ago, and he lived it out countless ways in front of me. If the glass was 80% empty, then my Dad would call it 20% full. That’s the Dad that I remember.

Growing up, I received few spankings from Dad. That was mainly Mom’s territory; but the ones I DID receive are quite memorable, each one dealing directly with a specific form of behavior Dad disliked. Dad did not tolerate disrespect. I remember the one time that I failed to call him “Sir”, yelling “Huh” down to him from upstairs. I never knew Dad could climb stairs so quickly. That was the last time I ever used that word around him.

Another memorable spanking was when I kept saying the line, “I can’t.” Dad HATED those words. He “taught” me never to say them. I wish I could say that I have always adhered to those instructions. Many times, even when I don’t mouth that hated phrase, my mind says it for me, which is just as bad – or even worse, I think.

When I was 9 years old, I signed up for the Dixie Youth Baseball League. I did it mainly because all of my friends were joining, too. Now, I would like to say that I was an immediate star, but that would be lying. I would love to say that I was just so-so, but that would disingenuous as well.

The truth of the matter is…Dad was pretty lucky. All other kids’ parents had to be at the game by 6:30 pm if they had intentions of seeing their kid play baseball that night. Dad didn’t have to show up until an hour or so later…just in time for the 7th inning (which was the last inning in little league baseball) because that was the only time the coach would put me in the game.

Still, Dad was always so excited when I got up to bat and would talk to me from the stands, as I stood in the batter’s box, waiting for a called strike three. As far as I remember, he never showed embarrassment that his kid was the worst person on the team with the exception of the 8-year old daughter of our coach, who was the team mascot.

That first year, I had a grand total of “0″ hits. But at Dad’s urging, I signed up for the next season anyway. But this year, my fortunes changed drastically: I had “1″ hit. Dad was thrilled. ‘You’re getting the hang of it, son,” I can still hear him say as he drove me home the night I had my career-changing single. (In this league, they scored it a hit – even if you hit it between the first baseman’s legs.)

After turning 11, I graduated to the 11-12 year-old little league – now known as “Pony League.” Dad attended every game and watched me do something quite spectacular: two hits, not including a line drive that almost made it through the hole, but was speared by the shortstop to end an important game.

It was then that I decided to end my career on a high note and retire at the age of 12. Dad was livid. He never talked me out of it, but this is what he said, “Son, just look at it…you are only 7 years away from a 100-hit season. You could be an all-star some day and maybe even go pro…” The sad part about his statement was that he really believed it!

The way he explained it to me was that all I had to do was keep doubling my total like I did from before.

-1st year – 0 hits
-2nd year – 1 hit
-3rd year – 2 hits
-4th year – 4 hits
-5th  year – 8 hits
-6th year – 16 hits
-7th year – 32 hits
-9th year – 64 hits
-10th year – 128 hits

Growing up I heard many sermons, both in person and on television. And if you would have sat me down at about age 18 and asked me to come up with a list of the 6 things I thought that God hated the most, I would have probably given you something like the following:

• drinking
• cussing
• smoking
• chewing tobacco
• doing drugs
• speeding in my car

You see, I , like many of my friends, had been “indoctrinated” through exposure to religious services, books, tapes (Yes, we had tapes back then) and other forms of media. But that’s not all; a majority of the influence I received that helped me mold my beliefs originated from Hollywood – in the form of sitcoms, cartoons, and movies that represented “Christian” stereotypes.

And sometimes people only believe what they WANT to believe anyway; it is far too easy to call out a list of sins of the “flesh” than to ponder what God REALLY says.

But guess what? We don’t HAVE to wonder what God does not like. He tells us plainly in Proverbs exactly which sins he hates most:

Biblical faith means you believe in something promised  – even when you don’t yet see the evidence. But sometimes faith sometimes means NOT believing what you see – even when you see it. Yes, I know how the infamous Bible verse goes:

¹Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.
(Hebrews 11:1 NLT)

And it IS sometimes very hard to believe something that you don’t yet see. Maybe it’s hard for you to believe that your financial situation is going to get better when you don’t see any money in the bank or that your relationship with a spouse or child is improving – even when the evidence you see is to the contrary…

But sometimes it is equally hard to believe that something is NOT what you see. That involves faith, too. Let me explain…

Many years ago, my grandfather, who ran the community grocery store in a small but growing town, was cleaning the public restroom of his business. As he labored in the small, dimly lit room, he noticed what looked like a whiskey bottle in the window sill, that was evidently left by a customer who did a little more than relieve himself when he used the facilities.

My grandfather, a very devout man and known city-wide as an itinerant preacher and the chairman of the deacons at the local baptist church, held the whiskey bottle to the light in order to see the label and see if it smelled as he suspected.

At that precise moment, the bathroom door opened and a man who knew my grandfather very well walked  in. Both men were startled, and my grandfather’s friend exclaimed “Why, Henry, if I hadn’t seen it with my own two eyes, I would have never believed it to be so.”

“Wait, you don’t understand,” my grandfather pleaded…

“Nope,” said his friend, “I would not have believed it unless I had seen it with my own two eyes.”

And so his friend could not be convinced that his eyes had betrayed him and he left believing that he had caught the chairman of the deacons of the local baptist church with a bottle of spirits.

Now whether you believe it is okay or not to drink…that’s beside the point. The point IS that sometimes what we see…or what we THINK we see is not reality.

Sometimes real faith involves NOT trusting our five senses, but believing our one Savior and the work he has done, is still doing, and will do in our lives and the lives of those we love.