HIV through Needles – Save your self and others

Got this mail today, this same mail I received last year too, amazing, isn’t it? Something always remains in the INFINITE loop and I will not be surprised next year if I see the same mail in my inbox

The email is certainly not from the person mentioned in the email as I tried some googling and found the same email originated from one “S. Dinesh Gopinath”, coincidently he was also the so called “I.A.S, Director of Medical & Research Div, Chennai” and here in following email its from “Arvind Khamitkar”
On Google search for the query “I.A.S, Director of Medical & Research” (with quotes), all search results were related to this same mail, whereas I was expecting some results related to this post maybe on something else, but none, so I doubt if such post exist in Indian Administration.
The email contents are worth reading, but I did not find any evidence to support the incidents mentioned in the mail, but well its good to keep people alert at public places.

Here are the email details

Subject (of what I received): Important .. save your self and others
From: Originating address Not Available
Content:

Dear All,
Be careful

(Don’t avoid Pls read this mail)

FROM Arvind Khamitkar , I.A.S, Director of Medical & Research Div,
Chennai

Dear Friends,

A few weeks ago, in a movie theatre, a person felt something poking from her seat. Whe n she got up to see what it was, she found a needle sticking out of the seat with a note attached saying “You have just been infected by HIV”.

The Disease Control Center (in Paris ) reports many similar events in many other cities
recently. All tested needles were HI V Positive. The Center also reports that needles have been found in cash dispensers at public banking machines. We ask everyone to use extreme caution when faced with this kind of situation. All public chairs/seats should be inspected with vigilance and caution before use. A careful visual inspection should be enough. In addition, they ask that each of you pass this message along to all members of your family and your friends of the potential danger.

Recently, one doctor has narrated a somewhat similar instance that hppened to one of his patients at the Priya Cinema in Delhi. A young girl, engaged and about to be married in a couple of months, was pricked while the movie was going on. The tag with the needle had the message “Welcome to the World of HIV family”. Though the doctors told her family that it takes about 6 months before the virus grows strong enough to start damaging the system and a healthy victim could survive about 5-6 years, the girl died in 4 months, perhaps more because of the “Shock thought”.

We all have to be careful at public places, rest God help! Just think about saving a life by
forwarding this message. Please, take a few seconds of your time to pass along.

With Regards,

Arvind Khamitkar ,
I.A.S, Director of Medical & Research Div, Chennai.

Rather than forwarding irrelevant mails, kindly pass this to every one. Probably ur mail can help some save his/her life.

Don’t believe it, its not TRUE!

Email Spam – Misuse of Ebay brand

I got this mail today, it looks like it came to me from ebay, and seems very real. After reading the content of the mail I am sure many of us will fall prey to such genuine-looking mail. You dig into it and find that the main action button “Respond now” isn’t from ebay.com but from some fake IP although all other links in the mail are valid links on ebay.com expect the main action item.
Though I have an account on ebay.in and not ebay.com (from where this mail seems to be originated), and moreover my this email address isn’t registered with ebay, it made it sure that it was nothing but a spam. Look at the below screenshot of the email, doesn’t it look like real?

God, these guys are really crazy and work very hard! I wish they could put this hard work in goodwill and not in such bad deeds.
Culprit IP – 61.56.78.36 (mouse over the “Respond now” button and see this IP in status bar )
Victim: ebay and ofcourse me if I would have clicked the button

Email Subject: Question from member
Email From: accounts@ebay.com <accounts@ebay.com>

Email Content: see screenshot below – (click on image to view enlarged view)

Email Hoax – Union Against Cancer

Below is copy of fake email, after a little googling it was found that it was a Spam and has no relation with any of the sponsors mentioned in the email, check the evidences below the mail: 

Sub: This is a serious issue. Please forward it to as many as possible.

Email Content:

This is a serious issue. Please forward it to as many as possible.

We are a non-profit organization trying to help a small group of people in
a remote town in Karnataka, near Dharwad (150Km away). This small
village is inhabited by around 400-500 people who are mainly laborers
working as stone breakers and lime extractors. Due to their continuous
contact with hazardous materials, nearly 70% of the working class have got
a very rare cancer
breeding virus, which can be still be treated as this is at an early
stage.

We contacted Tata Hospital, Mumbai, who agreed to send us special equipment
and medicines, but the expenditure runs into a few lakhs of rupees. We can
understand the plight of this small town, as they are very poor, and can
hardly afford such a high cost of m edical treatment Our group of 6 doctors
and 10 medical helpers, have decided to help them We need your help.
We are not asking for any financial help, but just send this email to all
your known Indian friends. Our sponsors have agreed to pay us Rs.2 to 5/-.
Each time this email will be forwarded. We thank these sponsors for being
so considerate.
Please make sure that you include the email address, below
unionagainstcancer@hotmail.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
since only then the sponsors will pay us. Let us prove that as Indians we
are still united,and fight for these poor people, whose future is in our
hands.

Our special thanks to Mr Ratan Tata, since he was very helpful in finding
the sponsors ( www.tata.com )

Sponsors :

1.Times of India ( www.timesofindia.com < http://www.timesofindia.com/ >)

2. Amala Cancer Hospital and Research Centre Amalanagar, Trichur
District,
Kerala State 680 553 Trissur Kerala, India .

3.Karnataka Cancer Therapy and Research Institute M.G.Road, Navanagar,
580025 Hubli Karnataka , India

4. Tata Memorial Centre (Tata Memorial Hospital & Cancer Research
Institute) Dr.E.Borges Marg Parel 400
012 Mumbai Maharashtra , India

Note : Dharwad is well-connected to Bangalore, Goa, Belgaum and Miraj.
Belgaum is the nearest airport, about 140 Kms away.
M. John Marshall Human Resources Ford Business Services Center Pvt.Ltd.,
Chennai – 600 032. Phone 235 23 00 X 5398 Fax 235 47 34

Life is what which happens to you, when you are busy making Other Plans..,

Be Blessed,

Evidences:

Excerpts from Tata.com

UNIONAGAINSTCANCER @ hotmail.com – A HOAX

The mail id furnished in the mail as unionagainstcancer@hotmail.com is not valid.
Tata Sons filed a suit against an unidentified defendant calling him “Ashok Kumar” following the example of the “John Doe” case in the United States which dealt with anonymous persons making false and disparaging statements on bulletin boards and through e-mails.
URL:http://tata.com/tata_sons/releases/20050105.htm

Delhi HC casts net on Hotmail, seeks user details in Tata fracas

In a first-of-its kind order in the Indian legal history, justice C K Mahajan of the Delhi High Court has restrained an unidentified defendant from claiming any kind of association or endorsement with the Tata group. This was done through an interim injunction.
The court has also directed the e-mail service provider, MSN Hotmail, to furnish the registration details of the e-mail account within a fortnight, which could help in identifying the defendant.
 The only information known about the entity is the e-mail address, “unionagainstcancer@hotmail.com”.
URL: http://www.tata.com/tata_sons/media/20040505.htm

Why this blog?

Hours ago I received an email, it was from one of my friend in same organization and the mail was copied to more than hundred people. It looked genuine, asking for help by forwarding it, but still I thought of googling on that email and found very surprising things about it. It was a SPAM and intended to collect email addresses. My friend was a victim and as he send the mail to the senders address (as requested in the email) and copied the mail to all of his friends, obviously the culprit got a huge list to attack.
Few hours later I got the same mail from someone else,  and I realize people respond to such mails and get trapped because of their emotions, without realizing that it could harm them.
We get such emails everyday and most of the people do what has been asked in the email without investigating further about the sender or the fake content in the email. We fall prey to such attacks, but we can save ourselves and others from such attempt just by looking around.

Web is an excellent resource of information, dig it and we can make sure we are SAFE!

This blog is an attempt to collect and post such information on Spam emails, online frauds etc and help people to protect themselves.

Hello world!

 

Hi People! Well I won’t bother to introduce myself as its already there in my profile

I do blogging and have good blogs (I think so ), one on my professional career – Web Usability and SEO and second some timepass stuff – hera pheri : Jokes, humor, fun etc, this is really a good one if you know hindi. Both of these blogs are on blogger.com, I wanted to start a third one on Public Awareness (I will tell you the reason in next post), but wanted to try it somewhere else. During my past blogging life, I heard lot many good things about wordpress, so just thought lets give it a try, and here I am!