back to article Pondlife scammers abuse Air France tragedy

Cybercrooks are once again taking advantage of current events to push malware. Prurient interest in the death of Kill Bill star David Carradine is being used to promote Twitter updates containing links to sites punting rogueware. The attack is the latest in a string of assaults over the last week or so that abuse the Trending …

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  1. Will Godfrey Silver badge
    Unhappy

    I object...

    to you calling them pond life.

    Pond life is a highly productive and important part of the ecosystem

  2. kain preacher

    Proper term

    Would be floaters. You know they stuff that just keeps on floating to the top no matter how many times you flush.

  3. Peter Murphy
    Thumb Down

    I don't like "Pondlife" either.

    It makes me think of innocuous things like frogs on lily pads. Wouldn't "effluent" be a better term? Or perhaps "Blackwater" - water with extra urine and faeces. I'm probably being too nice to the scammers.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    A lot of people make money from death

    Card shops sell bereavement cards.

    Florists sell wreaths.

    Websites get advertising revenue from news stories.

    What makes it okay for you to make money from it and not others? Perhaps you'll stop any advertising on news stories where someone has died? No, I thought not.

    You may not be scammers, but I suspect that makes you worse, not better.

  5. Anonymous John
    Unhappy

    The Lads from Lagos have joined in too.

    /www.scamwarners.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=2685

    "A dormant domiciliary account with a point balance of ($8.3m USD) has been willed to you by late Veronica Ivanovitch, 57; Swiss-Brazilian; the wife of telecoms millionaire Hans Ivanovitch, who died amongst crew and passengers aboard Air France Flight 447, which crashed in the Atlantic Ocean en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris carrying 228 people on Sunday, 31st May 2009."

    Bastards!

  6. Winkypop Silver badge
    Thumb Up

    RE:The Lads from Lagos have joined in too.

    Bad as they are, they do entertain with their witless accounts!

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Alert

    Pondlife?

    Pondlife? Shouldn't that be pondscum?

  8. bruceld

    Pondlife?

    I'm confused. Perhaps it's a UK thing but comparing scammers to cute frogs, dragonflies, ducks and other pond life is being far too nice to scammers and far too mean to other pond life. Perhaps this is a cultural difference.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Happy

    It is just psyops

    something that the main stream news outlets use themselves to hack minds.

    Whatever is the most salacious story is chosen, it has nothing to do with faux morality it is about the efficiency of the delivery mechanism.

    The problem is humans are by nature selfish and corrupt, you can look into any organisation and about 80% probably are on the take in some manner, they may not realise it directly, but they will have routines they use that are amoral or just downright immoral.

    Nothing is sacred any more, too many mistakes have been made and really it is each organisation out for itself, vying in a political ecosystem where truth or lie is just an expediency to gathering some cash, it is brutish all over, but for these hackers well at least they realise it.

    It does highlight the hypocrisy that our societies are in, it is was a very cynical and irresponsible move to get hospitals to store data, if they are willing to offer them up as a sacrifice why should anyone feel any qualms about targeting them. And disasters happen all over the world all the time sometimes they are used to mask more important things for the living.

    The glass house is shattered, scum reigns anyhow, and morality is just something people try to make objective when they have something they love and don't wish to lose it, it is just selfish lies all round :)

  10. Ru
    Alert

    Re: Kettle, it's Mr. Pot on line 2

    Yay, lots of commentary from the 'hypocrisy is worse than anything else in the world' school of self-righteousness.

    Were you tricked in to reading the article, possibly? Maybe some enterprising reg hack has filled your PC with malware to force you to visit the page? No? Wonderful as it is for those who make a living by criminal deception to have defenders, I disagree that somehow a wreath-selling florist is on a par with trojan pushers.

    Anyway, on the hypocrisy note; I'm a noscript/adblock user, so my web experience is minimally commercial. Having read your points of view, I guess I can now read prurient and exploitative articles and feel a warm cosy glow from the knowledge that I'm sticking it to all those cold, cruel, moneygrabbing capitalists.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @Mike Richards

    US PC user has found a much easier way. You uninstall Adobe, reboot,then download the latest version. :)

  12. Charles Manning
    Dead Vulture

    Reg getting lazy

    So how have Reg added value here? Couldn't just have the savvy to make money from it directly so you're trying to make second-order money by writing articles about pond life.

    Reg, you're getting lazy. You didn't even make playmobil reconstructions.

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @'A lot of people make money from death'

    If you cannot tell the difference between someone providing services with "real" products (ie flowers, cards, something "entertaining" to read as well as to find out what is (allegedly) going on) and the scammers who offer things like "free fat-busting pills", "manhood enlargements", etc then I hope you never rise any higher up the ladders of power than the puddle of mud the ladder stands in.

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