Fun (& dissapointment) with Email Fraud

Last week, a coworker tapped me on the shoulder and said, “I got this weird e-mail.”

It was from “accounts@[his bank].com.” It read, “Your account has been overdrawn by $1 billion. Come up with the money by five o’clock, or we’ll break your legs.”

I waited for Nick, my coworker, to share his thoughts and then told him, “I sent that e-mail.”

It’s easy to commit this fraud

I don’t have access to Nick’s bank’s mail server; anyone can send an e-mail like this because the sender of the e-mail (you, me, anyone) can set the ‘from’ header of the e-mail transmission to any value he pleases. (No, your e-mail website or client software won’t let you set this header manually, but a very little bit of computer coding is all you need.)

So suppose I compose an e-mail to Nick, and I include his bank’s info in the mail, complete with logos and official-sounding text. My fraudulent e-mail instructs him to login at the website and check his messages, then provides a link to the login page.

… Only the page that it opens isn’t the bona fide login page. It’s a page I’ve built that looks identical to the real login page. (It might even have a URL almost identical to your bank’s webpage’s URL.) As soon as you try to login on my imitation webpage, I get your bank login information. Then I go to your bank’s real website and steal your money.

The good news

The good news is that it’s easy for your mail server to warn you of this kind of fraud: when your mail server (i.e. the recipient mail server) gets the fraudulent e-mail, it can compare the ‘from’ address with the address of the mail server that actually sent the e-mail (i.e. the sender mail server). If the two don’t match, your mail server can attach a warning flag to let you know that this e-mail may be fraudulent.

E.g. some months ago, I sent an e-mail to my bishop (using Mozilla Thunderbird), and his mail server rejected it because I used an AOL account to identify myself (i.e. the ‘from’ header) but configured my mail client to use my ISP’s server (i.e. the sender mail server).

Disappointing news about Gmail

The bad news is that detecting this warning sign appears to be out of common practice. As implied before, my office’s e-mail server did not give my coworker any warning about the fraudulent e-mail I sent him.

Another surprise for me: Gmail also provided no warning when I sent similar e-mails to my Gmail account. Because of Gmail’s good spam filtering system, I assumed that Gmail was watching out for its users better than this.

Car Motors and Radio Waves

To play music from my iPod on my car stereo, I use a small radio transmitter: I plug a the device into my mp3 player, set it to a certain radio frequency, turn the car radio to the same frequency, and voila.

What I realized this week is that the motor turning affects the signal: the stereo carries a high whine when the engine turns, it grows in volume as the motor turns faster. I can watch the tachometer needle (which gauges RPM) rise and drop as I accelerate and the transmission shifts gears; I hear the whine crescendo and decrescendo accordingly.

I wonder what causes this.

Yes, the radio transmitter plugs into the cigarette lighter, so it draws power from the car battery, but its primary signal (the music) does not crescendo and decrescendo in time with the speed of the motor.

Counting Generations in Ether & OT

For a lark, I compared the number of generations in the Book of Ether to that in the Old Testament over the same time span. You may say that certain factors make this endeavour impossible, but those factors notwithstanding, some interesting observations can be caught.

Background

The book of Ether begins at the time of Genesis chapter 12, the building of the tower of Babel. It concludes within a generation or so following the fall of Jerusalem under the reign of King Zedekiah.

(Actually, it is possible that the Mulekites had established themselves in America several generations before finding Coriantumr—which would place the termination of the Book of Ether several generations after the death of Zedekiah—but such is unlikely, given the enormity of the last battle of the Jaredites.)

Chart 1

Book of Ether Old Testament
Jared Reu
Orihah Serug
Shule Nahor
Omer Terah
Emer Abraham
Coriantum Isaac
Com Jacob
Heth Levi
Shez Kohash
Riplakish Amram
… Moses
Morianton *Joshua
Kim [12 Judges]
Levi *Saul
Corom *David
Kish Solomon
Lib Rehoboam
Hearthom Abijam
Heth Asa
Aaron Jehosaphat
Amnigaddah Joram
Coriantum Athaziah
Com Athaliel
Shiblon Joash
Seth Amaziah
Ahah Uzziah
Ethem Jotham
Moron Ahaz
Coriantor Hezekiah
Ether Manasseh
*Coriantumr Amon
Josiah
Jehoahaz
Jehoiiakim
Jehoichin
Zedekiah

*Not a lineal heir of the predecessor but probably 1 or 2 generations younger.

Quick count: The Book of Ether gives 31 generations. The Old Testament gives 35, plus however many existed in the book of Judges (represented above as ‘[12 Judges]’).

The ellipsis (…) is provided in the left column to indicate that Morianton is described only as a ‘descendent’ of Riplakish (see Chart 2).

Aside: An interesting error can be found in the Book of Ether—(I won’t venture to guess whose error it was): chapter 1 lists the son of Com as ‘Shiblon’ in both instances where he is mentioned. Later, when his history is told in chapter 10, he is called ‘Shiblom’ in every instance.

When was the tower of Babel built?

You see my Old Testament chronology beginning with Reu, born in Genesis 11:18. This relies on some guesswork because the tale of the tower of Babel comes after Noah’s descendents’ geneology is given through the sons of Joktan (Gen 10:26-29), and none of Joktan’s sons is given a complete geneology thereafter, but Joktan’s brother’s line is provided, and Reu was Joktan’s nephew.

Does the Book of Ether show sonship?

One complaint that Book-of-Mormon readers may raise is that Ether chapter 1 gives ‘descendent’ instead of ‘son’ for several of the relationships in its synoptic geneology. However, a perusal of the history in ensuing chapters indicates sonship for all of these relationships except one: Riplakish to Morianton—and even that relationship might be single-generation-filial. (See Chart 2 below.)

The length of Jaredite generations

An uncommon quantity of generations in the Book of Ether are longer than the norm for the Jaredite population. Between a third and a quarter of the sons in the given geneology were begotten during the old age of their fathers. (See Chart 2 below.)

Chart 2

verse father synopsis narrative aged
6.14 Jared son son
7.3 Orihah son begat yes
7.7 Kib son begat yes
8.1 Shule son begat
9.14 Omer son begat yes
9.21 Emer son begat likely
9.25 Coriantum son begat
9.25 Com son begat
10.1 Heth son descendant
10.4 Shez son begat likely
10.9 Riplakish descendant descendant
10.13 Morianton son begat yes
10.14 Kim son begat yes
10.16 Levi son begat likely
10.17 Corom son
10.18 Kish son
10.29 Lib son begat
10.31 Hearthom son begat
10.31 Heth descendant begat
10.31 Aaron son begat
10.31 Amnigaddah son begat
10.31 Coriantum son begat
11.4 Com son begat maybe
11.9 Shiblon son
11.10 Seth son son
11.11 Ahah son descendant
11.14 Ethem son begat
11.18 Moron son begat
11.23 Coriantor descendant begat
Ether

The column labelled ‘synopsis’ refers to the language given in the geneology in Ether chapter 1. The column labelled ‘narrative’ refers to the language in the geneology drawn out over chapters 6 through 11 of the book. the column labelled ‘old age’ indicates whether the father begat the named offspring in his old age.

Quest for the Castle Treasure: Dénouement

This post is part of a series on the magical treasure hunt, particularly, the Quest for the Castle Treasure.

The final clue

Inside the pipe are a few strips of tin and a message: ‘The key to the castle treasure eroded to dust lifetimes ago, but the secret to the lock lies already in thine hand. Take thou these plates, though thou needest but one.’

The strips of tin are cut from a second-hand cookie tin. One of them must be cut into the shape of the key (which, in fact, was lost long before the antique padlock came into my possession). The shape of the key is given in the drawing included in the introductory handbook. The counterfeit key opens the lock, and the contents of the treasure box belong to the players.

After the treasure hunt

I packaged up the materials for the treasure hunt and sent them off with one of my sibling couples so that they can stage the treasure hunt for their other family. When they’re done, the materials will go off to the next sibling.

I encourage you to adapt to this treasure hunt for your own family and start a propagation of your own. Thanks for joining us.