WebWatch and the Center for Media and Democracy are pleased to announce the launch of our blog-driven, Wiki-based site, Full Frontal Scrutiny, a project devoted to unmasking the work of hidden persuaders on the Web.

Full Frontal Scrutiny, a joint venture between WebWatch and the Center, seeks to shine a light on front groups -- organizations that state a particular agenda, while hiding or obscuring their identity, membership or sponsorship, or all three.

Full Frontal Scrutiny debuted today with two exclusive features: An investigation of front group activity in the popular online information resource Wikipedia, including a guide to help consumers get the most out of that site; and a history of front groups and their activities.

Full Frontal Scrutiny will also publish selected content from WebWatch and from the Center’s SourceWatch database, as well as aggregating news about front groups from other reliable sources. We also invite contributions from interested readers. Visit www.FrontGroups.org to learn more.

Posted by Jorgen Wouters at 02:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Take a look at these graphic visual representations of various types of malware. Legit site, with no malware attached. Passed on to us by our colleagues at StopBadware.org.

Posted by Beau Brendler at 04:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

There's a rootkit virus on the loose in Europe called Mebroot. If Europe is having trouble, chances are other countries will be soon enough. Rootkits ensconce themselves at a higher level in your computer's system and are very hard to dig out and kill. This one specializes in ripping off bank information. Some say cybercrime's going to get worse as it moves more into the realm of organized gangs and mafias -- this story's got good information on botnets if you don't know what they are. Get the latest patches from Microsoft if you're running XP or Vista.

Posted by Beau Brendler at 02:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

What's wrong with the following sentences?

"The added security measures require all CitiBusiness Online customers to complete on a regular basis CitiBusiness Form. Please use the hyperlink below to access CitiBusiness Form:"

Your choices are:
a) They just sound weird
b) The article "a" is needed in both sentences before the noun "CitiBusiness"
c) The first sentence should say, "complete a CitiBusiness form on a regular basis"
d) All of the above
Pick any letter and you're right. The point is, this piece of phishing spam, which got through our corporate firewall yesterday, contains the tallest red flag of them all: Grammatical errors. No matter how beautifully the phishing spoofers simulate the look and feel of a Citibank, PayPal or eBay page, or e-mail, or whatever they are employing to steal your identity or money, they always trip themselves up with poor English. If you paid attention in English class, that's one of the best defenses against phishing. Spelling and grammar errors = no credibility.
The second-tallest red flag: The link in the e-mail that takes you somewhere else. NEVER click on them.

Posted by Beau Brendler at 11:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We recently received a call from a reader who came across a site called Freecar.com. She thought it sounded too good to be true, and wanted us to check it out. The site looks slick and inviting, beckoning you to step inside your “free car.”

According to the site: “Hey, you’re gonna drive anyway. Why not let someone else pay you to do it! Easy money doesn't get much easier than this! We have listings of companies who will actually sponsor your car for $500 a month (sometimes even more!) or provide you with a car and a cash allowance.”

It’s not entirely clear how it all works (or what it really costs), since you have to submit your e-mail address to activate your membership and find out—a red flag. We didn’t have to sign up to warn the caller to avoid this site, since it’s missing several basic items crucial to a site’s credibility. First off, there’s no contact information, not even an e-mail address. Secondly, there's no indication who runs the site, or where it's based. Third, there’s no privacy policy. That's more than enough, according to WebWatch's guidelines for credible Web sites.

But we wanted to find out who owns this site, so we pasted the domain name into Whois.net. Turns out the site is registered to an “Ivory Investments” in Belize.

Also, while digging around, we came across two similar sites, one called Cruising4Cash.com and another called Driving4Dollars.com. Both these sites fail the test for reasons similar to Freecars.com, though despite their resemblance to that site, they’re both based in Palma de Mallorca.

Posted by Jorgen Wouters at 06:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)