Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Sunday, March 16, 2008

Beware of Phishing

I got an email from a supposed Paypal requiring me to verify my details.


On the surface it looks pretty decent, a proper header, the use of the trademark signs when necessary, even the hyperlink and the return email address looks pretty legitimate.

BUT!

The biggest tell tale sign that this is a phishing email is that this is not the primary email address I'm using for my Paypal account.

Then I ran my cursor over the seemingly legitimate hyperlink and look at this,

It appears that the hyperlink would be redirecting me to some other weird website.

So I ran a check on the full message header to check where the email originated from, and take a look at this,

It clearly states that the author of the email is not from Paypal but some other weirdshite organisation.

For pre-emptive measures, I decided also to check with Paypal to doubly make sure that this is phishing even though I'm already 99% sure that it is. So I ran around to check for an email address from Paypal to see if I can check it with them. True enough, Paypal does have a whole range of security measures, and specific departments to handle all sort of phishing complaints. To report phishing emails, just forward the email received to spoof@paypal.com simple as that, and that was what I did.

And their response was pretty quick, not that I think it'd take pretty long for them to decide if they did or did not send out verification emails.

But at least it's one less worry off my back.

Usually I don't go to such an extent to report phishings, but Paypal is different because they handle my money, and anything that has a direct relation to me and my money is a pretty serious issue. Over here I'd like to highlight the importance of recognising a phishing email and not fall into the traps of phishing.

Sunday, March 09, 2008

Malaysian Elections

For some unknown reason, I was actually quite interested in this round of elections in Malaysia. Maybe because I just returned from Malacca and Kuching, and looking at the actual state of Malaysia that made me think a little bit more, or maybe I just happened to have matured a bit, or maybe it's the high coverage of non-mainstream media reports that are floating about the internet that I can easily access. Or maybe it's a bit of a mixture of all those above mentioned reasons and some more.

But anyway, my point is that I'm quite unsure if a weak Malaysia or a strong Malaysia is better for Singapore. And I'm unsure if a strong BN equates to a weak Malaysia or a strong opposition equates to a weak Malaysia. Politics and social development is so complicated.

Anyway, I was reading some of the abstracts of the opposition party and I thought that the opposition parties in Malaysia are getting smarter. Or at least more sound that they're actually viable oppositions. Take for example PAS, I always thought that they were some sort of a staunch Islamic group, but they've modernised. The main focus of the party now is not to convert Malaysia into an Islamic state and impose religion on everyone, but to stand against corruption, rising prices, and promote harmony among the races. The DAP's also a very interesting party, there's a lot of highly educated people among the ranks, and they know what is it that could make Malaysia stronger, and their calls for a Malaysian Malaysia.

Well, let's just say that if I were a Malaysian... But anyway I'm not and I've different interests at stake, so I'll just watch the results and see how things go from there I suppose. Congrats to the the opposition for winning for than a third majority, good luck to you guys. Congrats to the BN for winning the majority of the seats, good luck to the government.

Thursday, March 06, 2008

Food Fight

This is the coolest video I've ever since about wars and conflict.

Food Fight


If you don't understand it, check out the cheat sheet for the various food characters over here! Also check out the main page over here. I think this guy is really amazing.

My personal various part is his depiction of the Cold War. I also like how he depicted all the infiltration parts and the alliances coming together. And it's kind of funny how America is one big McDonald's at the end. Really cool shite!

A Really Cool Day

I woke up at 10am this morning. It was raining hard and cold. I decided to pull my blanket over my face and tuck the sides of the blanket under my body to prevent minimal heat loss from within the blanket. I rolled in my bed and continued lying in a semi-conscious state and do nothing, just resting. When I was finally awake, I reached for my ipod in my bag which was lying on my bed. I plugged the earpieces in and switched my ipod on. I watched a video on my ipod, a one hour long TV programme I downloaded some time ago. I brought the ipod under my blanket to join me while I still lay on my bed with my head snugly attached onto the pillow. Wonderful~

After the show ended, I wriggled on my bed and decided that I shall go online. I picked up my laptop beside my bed and turned it on. Facebook, with my Warbook, and Battle Stations. Yum yum, like that another hour passed by. What a nice cool wonderful day doing nothing but lying in my bed.

Are you jealous?

I am awake since 10am and haven't stepped off my bed, not even to the toilet, basically I'm just paralysed on my bed. I love rainy days~ I love rainy days when I'm at home with nothing to do and can sleep in and laze about and slack. woohoo~ Just hope that after today's torrential rain there won't be any more rain left for tomorrow. Tomorrow I'll be in school the whole day and raining would just make the situation more depressing. haha~

Ciao for now, I'm going back to playing my Warbook and Battle Stations. There's no plans for me to get off my bed until after lunch. My parents are buying lunch back for me, whee! I don't even need to get off bed to eat. I'll be staying in bed for as long as I don't need to go to the toilet, but I'll return to my bed straight after I'm done in the toilet, so it's still considered spending the whole entire day in my bed paralysed. haha~

Tuesday, March 04, 2008

My Lovely Sister

While I was at Sarawak, my sister spearheaded the parents to buy a very expensive adidas orginal jacket for me. The reason was because my sister lost my World Cup Germany 2006 pullover. Apparently, she heard that Changi Airport's T3 had this FIFA Concept Store, but she didn't know that it was in the transit area until she got there. Anyway, back to this jacket...

Rewind a couple of weeks earlier when I was out shopping with my sister. She spotted this jacket, pastel yellow with baby pink adidas three stripes, very nice and comfy and a very hefty price tag on it. Let's just say that it's the most expensive item in my wardrobe excluding my dinner dresses, and my adidas dress. Sure, I thought it was very nice, but my sister was in love with it. She told me to buy it, and I jokingly told her to buy it for me instead. The story ended there, or so I thought...

Fast forward back to when I was in Sarawak. Apparently, my sister told my parents that I called her to buy that jacket for me, so she wanted them to split the cost of the jacket with her to buy it for my birthday. So she paid for 1/3 the jacket while the parents each paid the other two thirds.

I came back from Sarawak pretty worn out with a deadline looming, and while I was in the state of half consciousness, I lay around my bed, probably half asleep. Somewhere, I thought I saw my sister bring in the adidas paper bag and put it on the foot of my bed, but I carried on sleeping. When I woke up I saw my birthday present, with a card on it. The card read that that was my belated birthday present, from my sister and the parents. My sister wrote it, so she used the personal pronoun ME, which she had it capitalised and underlined and bolded it. Below, she added a postscript saying that she wanted to borrow the jacket tomorrow.

erm, yes...

I think there's a Hokkien term for that, chao kuan. The parents too agreed that that was a perfect term to use on the sister.

Anyway, a little bit later, my sister told me that she told my dad that I wanted to rear a puppy. erm, let's rewind a couple of weeks ago...

My sister told me that she wanted a puppy, a pure white Siberian husky. So I told her that S wanted to rear a puppy too, so maybe next time we might rear one, and he's also quite interested in a Siberian husky. But that was just talk la, I'm not the kind committed enough to look after puppies, and of present, it was also not possible for us to have one, no money no space no nothing.

Fast forward back to present day. My sister said ta dah, there, you said you wanted to rear a puppy. -_-" I feel so maligned, like words taken out of my mouth put into the wrong context. Anyway, my dad didn't even bother listening to what my sister has to say about puppies, his decision is final, no puppies.

My sister still has the cheek to say that S can get a puppy first then put in our house and when we get our own place by then my sister would be staying in the hostel already and we can get the puppy back, erm, by then the puppy would have become a huge dog already. ahh... Whatever...

Monday, March 03, 2008

Why No Blog?

I'm tired.

These isn't much reason for me to blog lately since life has hit a nice little stream, no ups no downs, no serious blogging material. I don't want to think too deeply and write serious shite, I haven't been writing since ages, not even reading much, no many movies, not many everything at all.

Life now revolves around school and S, the two big Ses. Yes, I went to Malacca and Kuching and went to some jungle, but that's about it. Until I find the momentum to do up the photos, I'll be too tired to blog about it.

Oh yar, I just had my birthday. A great big thanks to everyone who remembered and wished me happy birthday even though I was in some kampung in Sarawak, so couldn't reply to your thanks. But I did feel all the warmth radiating back from home. Love ya guys so much.

I'll be rushing off for my driving lesson now, after a three month hiatus, wish me luck. I'll need to renew my PDL too, wish me a short queue ahead. Ciao, folks~