dow.ngra.de

We just received an email offering us to register a domain name ahead of competition. First I took it to be the real deal, and replied, but luckily before actually doing anything I did a search in the internet. Ladies and Gentlemen, I almost was a scam victim :)

However now that I know this is a scam, I just might to try and turn the tables on the scammer. If I succeed to do anything fun, I’ll be sure to let you know :D

The letter is verbatim below to serve as a warning to those even less careful than me:

(If you are NOT CEO,please forward this to your CEO, because this is urgent.Thanks.)

Dear CEO,

We are the department of registration service in China. we have something need to confirm with you. We formally received an application on Sep 28, 2009, One Japan company called Seed soft investment Corp” are applying to register(zeroturnaround) as internet brand name and domain names as below (zeroturnaround.net.cn zeroturnaround.org.cn zeroturnaround.mobi zeroturnaround.asia zeroturnaround.in zeroturnaround.hk zeroturnaround.cc zeroturnaround.tw in etc.).

After our initial checking, we found the internet brand name and these domain names being applied are as same as your company’s, so we need to get the confirmation from your company. If the aforesaid company is your business partner or your subsidiary company, please DO NOT reply us, we will approve the application automatically. If you have no any relationship with this company, please contact us within 10 workdays. If out of the deadline, we will approve the application submitted by Seed soft investment Corp” unconditionally.

We would like to get the affirmation of your company,please contact us by telephone or email as soon as possible.

Best Regards,

Kevin Wu
Senior Director
TEL: +86 21 69929440
Fax: +86 21 69929447
Website:www.govqipeng.org.cn
Address:Room 902,8th,nong 1518,Jinyuan 1st Road,Jiading District, Shanghai city.

Two years ago a hidden video was made of the authors of this blog, Real Programmers Use Sign Language. In that video we were talking about the internals of JRebel and most of the time we were discussing using our hands. It was filmed by just placing a camera on one of the shelves in the room.

Two years later when a new developer was about to join our ranks it got me thinking. On the morning of his arrival we placed a video camera in one of the laptop bags opened towards him. We inserted an OpenSolaris Live-CD (was not able to get Plan 9 to boot :( ) to his new PC.

The OS was booted in text mode and a user with his name added so that it would feel warm at ~ home. He was placed in a javarebel folder and a VIM sessions had just ended (in text mode you very often see the old contents of the session). The first 5 minutes at the new office follows.