If you have a corporate email account that you use much, you’ve probably seen an email something like the following in the last few months. It seems to have ramped up in the last few days:

Thinking that someone might actually have access to your system and the ability to record your screen and use your web cam can be scary.

Why I Know This Is False – #1 – No Web Cam

I know this email is false because the computer I use this email address on doesn’t have a web cam. The server is a corporate email server, so it is protected by our firewall. In fact the ***BULK*** you see in the subject line was added by the firewall. So I have a couple of reasons for suspecting that this is bogus.

Another Reason – Email Properties

If you use Outlook, you can click on the file tab, then on properties to see the “Internet Headers.” If you use another email package, you can get to them, just Google the name of your email package and add “View Internet Headers.” For example, if you Google, “Thunderbird View Internet Headers,” you’ll get several pages of helpful articles and several more pages of unhelpful articles on the subject.

Here’s the header for the Bogus message from Outlook:

You’ll notice that the second line says:

“Received from esyi.com…”

If it were from my email server, it would say:

“Received from <servername>.dgginc.net”

<servername> would be replaced with the name of my mail server.

No bitcoin for the bad guys

So don’t send any bitcoin to someone who claims to have your personal browsing history and threatens to reveal your innermost secrets if you don’t. If you just have to send some bitcoin, send it to me. Oh, wait, I don’t have a bitcoin wallet. If you want to send me some bad enough, drop me an email; I’ll see what I can do.