We go fishing all over the place.  Sometimes, we have amazing stories to tell friends.  Sometimes, we have pictures to even show them!  But most times, we go home empty handed.  As my friend Marc says, “That’s why it's fishing and not catching, Yas.”  Yeah whatever.  I still want to catch my fish. 

I have actively been fishing for 9 years and in the process, have had days when we were pleasantly surprised and had countless streaks where we caught NOTHING.  And that’s like the folks sending out the junk emails.  Most of the time, people don't fall for their junk, but they just need one person to open an infected email, and… life is good.  So don’t be a victim.  Phishing scams can lead to identity theft, bank information theft, theft of personal information or even just stupid things like posting your pics all over the place.  We have seen people attempt to snag you with PHISHING scams, Facebook scams you name it. 

There are a lot of people out there who fish for your personal information too.  But in this case, it's called PHISHING.  Phishing claims over a 5 million computer users a year (that’s only the rough numbers that are reported).  Its costs those users over $200M a year in legal and other fees to recover their identities.  I personally think it’s a much larger number but we can talk about FBI statistics later.

So what is Phishing?  You ever won an iPad and had to fill out information?  You ever been left an inheritance from a distant relative in Nigeria who suddenly died but remembered your name before they did?  AHHHHH... These are forms of Phishing scams.  Not limited to just these.  You might get an email from amazon.com or ebay.com or even your network administrator telling you to click and fill out information.  These are what's called spoof emails.  It looks like it came from a legitimate source but in actuality, it's not.

Some of these spoof emails are done good.  Like REALLY good.  But most of the times, the smallest of clues give it away.  Here are some tips to watch out for:

1. Spelling errors.  Yep.  Pretty simple.  After all, would you click a link that says First AMERISAN Bank? Or CHAS Bank? 
   
   
2. If you have a Yahoo email for your Amazon account and then you get something from Amazon to your Hotmail account,… walk!  It’s a spoof.
   
   
   
   
   
3. You Uncle Jimmy or Cousin Jane looking for help and sending you a resume without addressing you properly?  Forget it.  It’s a spoof.

There are some that are honestly scary good as far as looking legitimate.  If you tend to live on the extreme, a couple of tips:

1. If there is a link in the email, don’t go clicking it.  It can take you to a tainted website. And if you do go to a tainted website, careful to not click a thing.  The adage of “Oh well, I got nailed, may as well play around,” only makes things worse.  MUCH. Check out the screen shot of the website below.  Notice that it looks and smells like the official APPLE website.  BUT look in the red circle.  It's not even apple.com and instead, looks like a "sala global."  What's that?  NO worries about what it is. Just start disinfecting the computer!
   
   
   
   
   
2. For the most part, look at the subject header.  Is your Amazon account that active?  Why are they suddenly sending you email?  And if it is active, is it to the right email address?
   
   
1. Which leads to… if you do a lot of things online, it's good to have a couple of different email accounts:  One for your shopping, one for correspondence etc.  I know, confusing but at least you don’t have to worry about a mailbox filling up, and Gmail, Hotmail and Yahoo are just a couple of the hundreds that offer free email.
   
   
   
   
   
3. Use common sense.  Would some heiress you don’t know really want to give you a hundred thousand to help her?  If that’s Paris Hilton, make sure you let me know.  Otherwise, it's SPAM.
   
   
4. Research.  If someone really has a free iPad giveaway, then Google it and see if it is real.  I see them all day and trust me, most times, like... almost all the time, its fake or has a catch. 
   
   
5. Remember, your bank or credit union or Amazon or Ebay will NOT send you an email to tell you to change passwords and other kinds of information.  And you are THAT unsure, seriously… call your bank or financial institution and verify it. 

Customers are always coming in to our store saying that they have the latest anti-virus and anti-spyware etc.  The reality of it is, common sense will always win out.  There is a scene in BLACK HAWK DOWN when a Colonel points to a Delta Force soldier and says…”That weapon is hot, it should be always be on safety!” and the response was “This is my safety” and flicks his finger.  You get it?  if you don’t know what you are doing and clickity click all over the place, you will get in danger.  But if you surf the internet carefully and properly, it's not a problem at all. 

And OH... check it out. 

I have been lucky enough to be able to test out the newest and greatest Intelligo from Time Warner.  Its technology from Sierra Wireless and I have to say... nice!  Let's answer a few questions:

• What is this?  It’s a small box.  Actually smaller than my Blackberry phone.  Turn it on, let it get hooked up and BAM... up to 4G and if you are near a RR hotspot, even better!
  
  
• Who would benefit from this?  Anyone!  Up until recently, if you have a internet card, you were limited to your one computer on the wireless card.  With this, I can turn it on, connect, and have up to 4 other devices connect too!  That cute girl at Starbucks? No problem.  Flick it on, let her know your password and good to go!
  
  
• Why would you want to have 5 connections at once?  Why not?!  Now when I travel and go to a location with no free Wi-Fi, I flick this on and everyone around me can enjoy it.  Imagine driving down to Vegas from LA and the two people in the back surf the internet and the iPad in the front being the GPS.  Not too bad right?  And guess what? Everything is mobile, you created your own hotspot, go ahead and make friends!  It fits in your pocket. Have small informal meetings at the beach while we fish.  Life is again good with a solid network and good connection speeds!
  
  
  
  
  
• How does this work? Easy. 4G! It’s a new, high-capacity mobile broadband network that uses WiMAX technology.
  
  
• How do you get it? Even easier. Call Oceanic Time Warner and ask them. 643-2337!

By the way... this is pretty cool!