We apologize for the inconvenience.

We apologize for the inconvenience.

Further, ITS has taken steps resolve issues related to configuration settings on the wireless network controller.

However, many of the wireless trouble reports have been due to problems on the wireless devices themselves [notebooks, phones, game consoles, etc.]. For tips on troubleshooting wireless issues on your wireless device, click here.

Thank you for your patience.

On a daily basis, we are beset by email Inboxes full of messages that at the very least cause annoyance and in the worst cases cause system bugs or identity theft.

Many of us erroneously lump these emails into the category of “Spam”. For all intents and purposes, we get your meaning when you say, “Spam”. But for those random conversations about email at your next cocktail party, here are some terms that will demonstrate your erudition:

Spam is unsolicited, (usually) commercial bulk email. Examples usually include weight reduction products or other, er, image enhancing products.

Phishing is the practice of sending emails that appear to come from a bank or PayPal or eBay. They usually share a common feature: they will ask you to click on a link which takes you to a legitimate-looking web page where you will be asked to log in or offer some other personal information. If you type in your login information, you’ve taken the bait — hook, line and sinker.

Entertaining examples of these pesky critters include the ever popular email from Bill Gates back in 1997 (when I was just a sprout) — earnestly promising that if only we’d share this email with 10 other people, we’d be sent $1,000. Because Bill has all that money just sitting around.

The classic scam is that of the Prince/Duke/Lord/ of some country whose father (the King/Chief/Head Honcho) was assassinated/kidnapped/imprisoned and now if only we would assist him in certain tasks (which may cost us a few paltry thousands of dollars), he’ll be sure to share the riches of his kingdom with us (also known as the 419 fraud). This last is one of my personal faves as the concept dates back to 1588 and is referred to as “The Spanish Prisoner”. (I love a scam with a pedigree. Or was that “scamp”?)

For a walk down Memory Lane:

• Snopes.com: The Bill Gates email
• sierra-leone.org: The 419 Fraud

(Cue “Memories”)

How do you identify what is and is not Phishing/Spam?

While there are millions (4,010,000 to be precise) of sites to be found offering you assistance (Google: “identifying spam”), Microsoft offers some basic criteria to help identify the various scams:

“Requests for personal information in an e-mail message
Most legitimate businesses have a policy that they do not ask you for your personal information through e-mail. Be very suspicious of a message that asks for personal information even if it might look legitimate.”

Urgent wording
Wording in phishing e-mail messages is usually polite and accommodating in tone. It almost always tries to get you to respond to the message or to click the link that is included. To increase the number of responses, criminals attempt to create a sense of urgency so that people immediately respond without thinking.

Fake links
Phishers are getting very sophisticated in their ability to create misleading links to the point where it is impossible for the average person to tell if the link is legitimate or not. It’s always best to type in the Web address or URL you know is correct into your browser. Also you can save the correct URL to your browser Favorites. Do not copy and paste URLs from messages into your browser.

Excerpt from
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/assistance/HA011400021033.aspx

Don’t forget to use Snopes for investigating the legitimacy of your emails.

What does Pomona College do to help you out?

Interesting tidbit:
Midnight to midnight October 23, Pomona College received over 240,000 emails. Of those, over 90,000 were blocked by Postini as insidious. An additional 112,899 were dropped from delivery because of invalid recipients.

Postini is the e-mail filter used by Pomona. It blocks suspicious messages from reaching your inbox, while still allowing you to access the messages if you must. Postini automatically runs on your e-mail account from the moment the account is created. Postini will send you an e-mail each morning listing emails it blocked the previous day. (If nothing was blocked, you won’t get this e-mail.) You can click on the subject line to view the message, or click deliver to send incorrectly blocked messages to your inbox.

For more information about Postini and how it can help you, see our Network Security Overview

Feedback or questions, please email julie.journitz@pomona.edu.