Meddling

It would’ve worked, too, if it weren’t for those meddling kids!

There are 617 posts filed in Meddling (this is page 60 of 62).

North Korean reactor in Syria?

A while back I mentioned the bombing run Israeli warplanes made on a mysterious building in Syria. Today, the BBC reports that the CIA has video showing North Koreans and a nuclear reactor in the facility.

What I don’t understand is that the site was wiped clean after the bombing run. Also, as far as I know there was no trace of radiation. I also fail to believe that the Syrians could be so stupid as to build a reactor in plain view of spy satellites, especially knowing that Israel has no qualms about taking them out.

If the CIA does have video inside a secret Syrian nuclear facility, well, bully for them. That would be a major accomplishment. Highly unlikely, but within the realm of possibility. However, because we normally don’t get closer than 200 miles to these things (that is, with imagery from our satellites), call me skeptical. This new “revelation” simply raises more questions for me.

New phishing scam targets Latinos

Got a hangup call this evening from the number 503-898-9988. No message was left, so its the same M.O. as the car warranty scams I’ve blogged about before.

A perusal of 800notes.com shows the calling party plays a Spanish recording telling the caller he’s won a prize and to press 1 for an operator. I’m not sure what happens next as no one’s posted anything, but it sure sounds fishy. Apparently speaking English to the calling party is enough to get you disconnected, from what people have said.

The calls are targeting the Triangle, Colorado, and the San Francisco areas, according to the posted reports. My Spanish is nonexistent, so I can’t bait these guys like I might’ve done for Great Atlantic Warranty.

If you’ve gotten a call like this, please send me a comment describing your call. And please post on 800notes.com, too!

Gen Drebery is an unwelcome guest

This is the second comment spam I’ve seen on my site(s). When WordPress emails me about a new comment, the new spam looks like this:

Author : Gen Drebery+ACc-,+ACc-deber@gmail.com+ACc-,+ACc-+ACc-,+ACc-63.2.12.45+ACc-,+ACc-2008-01-25 23:21:20+ACc-,+ACc-2008-01-25 23:21:20+ACc-,+ACc-+ACc-,+ACc-0+ACc-,+ACc-Internet Explorer+ACc-,+ACc-comment+ACc-,+ACc-0+ACc-,+ACc-0+ACc-),(+ACc-0+ACc-, +ACc-+ACc-, (IP: 69.31.80.66 , colo-69-31-80-66.pilosoft.com)

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What’s going on here?

This is a little disconcerting. The London Sunday Times claims that the FBI denied the existence of a document whose existence the Times later claims to have confirmed. The document in question allegedly regards an investigation of a Turkish and Israeli nuclear-secrets smuggling scheme: one in which American officials are alleged to have taken part.

So far there has been no mention of this in the American press, from what I can see. Not sure what’s going on here, but I think the activities involved are serious enough to warrant further investigation.

Female Marine dead, sheriff says

Ed Brown, the Onslow County sheriff investigating the disappearance of missing Marine Lance Corporal Maria Lauterbach now says she’s dead and a search is on for her body. Lauterbach was 8 months pregnant and had previously claimed to have been assaulted by a superior officer.

What I don’t understand is how the sheriff could be so sure she’d dead. No one has been able to find her body, nor can police find the guy they suspect of killing her. A lot of what I’ve heard seems to indicate she had planned to go away, so what would make the sheriff say she’s dead?

U.S. doubts source of Persian Gulf radio transmission

Did I call it right or what? I was happy to see that the U.S. Navy now doubts the source of the radio transmissions accompanying the Iranian speedboat confrontation this week.

It goes without saying the Persian Gulf is a tough neighborhood. Our big ships can be attacked at any minute with little warning or chance to escape. This necessary hair-trigger posture usually keeps sailors safe but can occasionally cause tragic accidents in the confusion and rush to act.

I give our ship captains a lot of credit for taking a deep breath and making the right call in this latest incident.

NY Times covers “ghost calls”

On a related note to the hang-up calls I mentioned, Slashdot pointed to a N.Y. Times story on so-called “ghost calls.” The story is a good primer on what web resources exist for tracking these calls. In other words, this story describes the kind of battles I’ve been fighting for the past few months.

The story also provides an interesting tip for defeating the calls that I hadn’t heard of before:

Because the predictive dialers try to identify answering machines by measuring the amount of time that someone or something speaks, one way to defeat them is to give a long greeting, as an answering machine does, rather than a simple hello followed by a pause.

Be sure to check the comments in the Slashdot post, as the geeks (as usual) have excellent information on how these predictive dialers really work.

Annoyance Calls

For the past few weeks we haven’t just been getting car warranty calls. Another annoying situation has established itself where we’ll get a hang-up call at 9:15 PM on Sunday evenings, followed by one about 6 minutes later. Then, at 4:25 AM on Monday morning the phone will ring again and – just like the other calls – there will be nothing but a dial tone.

I’ve since configured Asterisk to block these calls so they will no longer get through. Even so, I plan to see how good the crackerjacks at AT&T are at tracking them down by filing a complaint with them. Back in my BBS sysop’ing days, I had a phone number to the phone company group that could track any number. I’m sure I can find the AT&T equivalent with a little effort.

This has gone on for weeks now and its time to fight back.

Tasering rule of thumb

After reading about another tasering incident, this time on an irate Best Buy customer in Florida, I’ve decided that the problem I have with the incidents I’ve seen is that in none of the cases do the officers make any attempts to detain the suspects before they go for the phasers. Officers should never unholster a taser unless they at least first attempt to place a suspect under arrest. If you don’t have probable cause to arrest someone, you certainly don’t have cause to taser them.

Mouthing off to a cop is one thing, resisting arrest is another. Causing a commotion in Best Buy is no excuse to shock someone.