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| HON EMMA HIPPOLYTE |
The Spam email from Emma was not the first of its kind. It was headed: “Terrible
Situation......Please i need your help” (see Textbook 2). A similar email was
dispatched from Dedan “Gilo” Jn Baptiste (Blog Editor for Choiseul-on-the Move)
on the same day (See Textbox 1). I didn't know of the Minister's whereabouts; but I knew for a fact that Gilo was in Roblot, Choiseul and that there was no way he could be stranded in Godliman
Street, London, as the email suggested.
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| TEXT BOX 1: GILO'S SPAM EMAIL |
Previously,
a similar spam caused Dr Tennyson Joseph much embarrassment to the point where
he had to abandon his hacked email account.
Many
high profile public and private figures have been victims/subjects of that type
of attempted cyber-fraud and malice.
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| TEXTBOOK 2: EMMA'S SPAM EMAIL |
Two
questions are: (1) How is it possible that those Spams can happen? And why would a service provider allow
their embarrassing proliferation which can potentially bring so much psychological harm to the victims?
This time around, the Powerhouse decided to do a little bit of investigative
cyber-journalism. Our Telecommunications consultant was commissioned to look
into Emma’s email and provide us with some insight and feedback on what could
have possibly happened.
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| UWI LECTURER: DR TENNYSON JOSEPH |
The
consultant reported: “These
emails almost always originate from Nigeria. In this case the email was sent
from an IP address linked to an African domain (does not necessarily mean the
person is from that part of the world).”
He
further reported: “Someone
may be running an open mail relay on his server/PC. Anyone (anywhere) can
connect to these and pretend the traffic came from there.)”
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| DEDAN GRIFFITH "GILO" JN BAPTISTE |
An
open mail relay (OMR) is an SMTP server configured in such a way that it allows
anyone on the Internet to send e-mail through it, not just mail destined to or
originating from known users. OMR was the default configuration in many mail
servers. In fact, it was the way the Internet was initially set up; but OMRs
have become unpopular they are generally exploited by spammers and worms – as
apparently was the case of an organisation propagating those unfortunate Spam emails in the names of unsuspecting victims. Consequently, many relays were closed, or were placed on blacklists
by other servers.
The
PowerHouse consultant went on to identify the name of the company where the
email originated, namely the African & Indian Ocean Internet Registry (AfriNIC -
http://www.afrinic.net). He gave us the email address (abusepoc@afrinic.net)
and telephone number (+230 4666616) and suggested that the company would have
to be contacted for further details.
We
learned from the AfriNIC Website (http://www.afrinic.net) that “AfriNIC is a web-based portal designed
for AfriNIC members to manage their contact information, resources, billing and
support requests through a simple, graphical, user-friendly interface”.
The
operations of the company are run by a board of directors. It seems to be a
pretty reputable organization.
The
question is: why would a seemingly reputable organization allow itself to be embroiled in that mess?
In
our attempt to get to the bottom of the matter, we took the advice of our
consultant and placed a call to the AfriNIC. In our first attempt, we got a
voicemail. So we tried again next day!
This
time, Bingo! We got through! The lady who answered categorically denied any
such knowledge and involvement of her company. She then asked for my name and
telephone number and said she would put me onto someone who could assist me.
When the call apparently didn’t go through, she promised to call back.
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| Davina Armon Member Services Liaison |
Yes!
Indeed she returned the call almost immediately. She said she was calling from
Mauritius and her name was Davina Armon. Among other things, she requested the IP
address of the Spammer! She always requested that the email (with the complete
header) be forwarded to her (at hostmaster @afrinic.net) and promised that her
company would investigate fully.
I
have already received an acknowledgement of the email sent to Afrinet and they
promised to reply within one day.
Meanwhile,
we implore the victims (or potential victims) of that type of Spam to be extra
careful, for even when we know those emails are Spam, we are also aware of the
consequences, especially for people like Minister Emma Hippolyte. Among other
things, we implore internet users to always logoff from their email account,
especially when they use a public computer and be careful of suspicious emails
or websites.
We
will keep you posted on our findings!
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