Two Bits

The Chinese are desperate for our business!
Last week we received more than 200 emails from Chinese and Indian companies urgently seeking ways to do business with us, though they haven’t the faintest idea of what we do. I think they feed their letters written in Chinese into a digital mincing machine that spits out a sort-of English, then use a digital shotgun to splatter their business letters all over the world.
Typical letters start with “Dear Sir or Madam, Nice day, Glad to hear you are in inflatable outdoor products market . . “ or “Dear Sir or Madam: It is much honor to see you here. This is tyler from Nan’an Ji Yuan Stone Co. Ltd. We have very competitive price of granite g654 . . .”
Those are clear enough, though we definitely aren’t in the inflatable outdoor products market, whatever that is, or for kitchen tops or tombstones.
Then there was this one: “This is Keven from Ningbo Redsun Rapid Prototype Co. Ltd which is specializing in prototype for many years.” Poor Keven, the rest of his letter gives no clue what a “prototype” is. A prototype of what? I don’t think he’s had many sales.
I’m a bit puzzled by this one: “We would like to inform you that we are one of the leading manufacturers of Male condom, Probe Covers and Personal lubricant.” I am so curious what a “probe cover” is that I think I’ll order one. Do you think it’s like a cover for a golf driver? Bit smaller?
That kind of spam has become an everyday occurrence, along with the letters pleading to use my services to transfer $20 million from Gadaffi’s secret Swiss bank account. When will they stop trying that nonsense? But yes, someone has just stepped the game up a notch.
Last week when I was out and about, I got a call from our accountant, asking if I really had instructed her to transfer R214 000 to a strange bank account? On the face of it the email looked perfectly legitimate, coming from my internal company email address. What tipped her off was that the language was on the brusque side. It’s my practice to say please and thank you, but this message commanded: “Jay – Herewith attached request for your swift action. Regards, Bruce.” The “attached request” gave the amount and account details.
A look at the source code showed that the email originated from a server in California. How scary is it that someone is watching from all the way over there, with a view to conning us? I suppose it’s easy enough to look at our website and work out who’s who, but man, have we got to second-guess everything now? How do they work it that the email looks as though it came from my internal email? I know they hadn’t got into the system, because there was no message in my “Sent” folder, so that’s some consolation.
This happened six weeks after our network was hit by the “Ransomware” virus, which wiped out a ton of files and knocked out the newspaper production system. It was all okay because we’ve got more backup systems than NASA, but it was a ruddy nuisance.
Maybe we should haul out the old Remingtons and go back to typed memos. I read recently that the Australian cabinet has banned the use of Apple smart watches, cellphones, laptops and all electrical gizmos in meetings for fear that they can be compromised and used as listening devices. And one day soon they are going to want us to trust our lives in driverless cars, driven by computers? They would probably be better drivers than a lot of people on the roads, but can you imagine if someone wanted to cause havoc?
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With Diwali and Guy Fawkes coming up over the next few weeks, have a thought for the animals before going wild with thundercrackers.
“Our perfect companions never have fewer than four feet.” – Colette
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I had written to Aunt Maud,
Who was on a trip abroad,
When I heard she’d died of a cramp
Just too late to save the stamp.