News from PANUG - September 13, 2001 http://panug.org SCAMS Two Internet-related scams are of interest. We know that you would probably not fall for these scams but you may have family or friends that would. There are spammers sending out messages asking you to contribute to emergency relief funds for victimes of Tuesday's disaster but refer you to their web sites where they steal both your money and credit card numbers. There seems to be a resurgence of the famous Nigeria scam. In the unlikely event that you've not heard of this scam, it's one where you receive an email message asking you to help in moving a sum of money out of Nigeria into a joint account for which you'll be paid a commission in the millions of dollars. The scam is that they withdraw your money from the account. Here's the first portion of one of these messages: From: Alhaji Ademola MusaSubject: URGENT ASSISTANCE To: alh_ademolamusa@yahoo.com ALHAJI ADEMOLA MUSA Tel/Fax: 234 1 2882557 LAGOS NIGERIA. ATTN.: THE MANAGING DIRECTOR / CEO. Dear Sir, REQUEST FOR URGENT (CONFIDENTIAL BUSINESS RELATIONSHIP OF THE TRANSFER OF US$18,560,000.00 (EIGHTEEN MILLION, FIVE HUNDRED AND SIXTY THOUSAND UNITED STATES DOLLARS ONLY). HP SECURE LINUX Bruce Yatvin points out the following article that announces a security-enhanced version of Linux that has been developed by HP that sells for $3000 per system. http://www.cnn.com/2001/TECH/ptech/08/23/new.linux.os.idg/ Some people report that their companies do not allow them to deploy Linux because Linux is normally free and, consequently, their management thinks of it as low-quality Shareware. HP's Linux offering can be used to dispel this myth. You can tell your boss that high-end Linux software sells for $3000 but your applications can get by with the standard Linux which sells for far less. GROUPWISE SECURITY FIX PROBLEMS? Bruce Yatvin says that he's heard that the "hit the road" function of the GW client was affected by the Padlock fix and asks if anyone knows more about this. You can contact Bruce at yatvinb@ohsu.edu FEEDBACK Cory Hook responds to the article LONG TERM DATA STORAGE written by Ed Sawicki published here a few weeks ago: This is an interesting article. I, too, have had similar problems formatting disks on Windows 2000 and even NT4.0. Surprisingly, though, I don't have the same problem if I boot up a DOS machine and format the disks. I had always attributed it to a consistent error in my install procedures. Perhaps it is just one of the "feature upgrades" of the newer OSes. TRAINING CLASSES Due to conflicts with the Portland Itec show and a Microsoft/Intel event, the PANUG-hosted training classes on DNS and Firewalls have been moved to the second week in October. As son as we have confirmation of venue, well post the new dates.