{"id":2585,"date":"2011-04-25T15:56:18","date_gmt":"2011-04-25T23:56:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.postdiluvianphoto.com\/blog\/?p=2585"},"modified":"2018-11-30T18:49:05","modified_gmt":"2018-12-01T02:49:05","slug":"caveat-artifex","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.postdiluvianphoto.com\/blog\/2011\/04\/25\/caveat-artifex-2585\/","title":{"rendered":"Caveat Artifex"},"content":{"rendered":"

I am a photographer, art reviewer, and curator. And for 17 years I worked in IT, and am a Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP). Recently the latter came in very handy for the former.<\/p>\n

The other day I received an email from an admirer of my photographs. She had seen them on my website, expressed interest in three of them, and asked for pricing details. I was flattered but wary. As a CISSP this was raising red flags. I’d never before been approached online about my work, and this could easily be a scam. I joked to someone that I was waiting for her to ask that they be shipped to Nigeria. I wasn’t far off.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I provided her with the requested information, and she said she wanted to proceed with the purchase. But when I asked for her address so I could determine shipping charges, I got a song and dance.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Uh huh. I immediately Googled a few terms from her original email and discovered the http:\/\/stopartscams.blogspot.com\/<\/a> website reporting scams using almost identical wording. Note that they are specifically targeting artists, but this was going to be a variation of the classic 419 scam<\/a>. They weren’t going to try to obtain my financial information and drain my bank account directly, but would “accidentally” send me too much money via a bad check, and ask me to send a partial refund (probably thousands of dollars) via Western Union.<\/p>\n

I decided to play along for the time being. Either she was legit or I’d waste a scammer’s time. I followed some good advice and advised that I would not be able to accept a check.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I did not hear back from her, but the next day I received the following email, which probably came from the same person in a last-ditch attempt to get my money:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

It appears to come from NACHA<\/a>, the backbone of a network that “serves as a safe, secure, reliable network for direct consumer, business, and government payments, and annually facilitates billions of payments such as Direct Deposit and Direct Payment.” But note that the extension of the attachment is actually .exe, not .pdf. It’s an executable. There was no way I was clicking on it. Another quick Google search confirmed that it’s a separate phishing scam.<\/p>\n

I’ve probably heard the last from my “patron.” I considered\u00a0scambaiting, stringing them along to waste their time and resources, but since they found me through my website I’m not anonymous enough, so that seemed unwise.<\/p>\n

Bottom line: I didn’t fall for the scam, but it would be very easy for another artist to. In fact many have. Our ego wants to believe the flattery is genuine.\u00a0Let the artist beware!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Michael Singman-Aste
\nPostdiluvian Photo<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I am a photographer, art reviewer, and curator. And for 17 years I worked in IT, and am a Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP). Recently the latter came in very handy for the former. The other day I received an email from an admirer of my photographs. She had seen them on my website, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[7,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2585","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-musings","category-rants"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pPxQO-FH","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.postdiluvianphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2585","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.postdiluvianphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.postdiluvianphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.postdiluvianphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.postdiluvianphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2585"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/www.postdiluvianphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2585\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5576,"href":"https:\/\/www.postdiluvianphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2585\/revisions\/5576"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.postdiluvianphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.postdiluvianphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.postdiluvianphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}