Scams. Banning gambling advertisement. RNLI supporters under attack from “doxxing”. Caitlin Moran.

 It was crisp and sunny when I ran this morning. Not exactly an Indian summer here but quite pleasant to be out and about in.

Do you know what a homoglyph is? I confess that I did not until I read an article about one of the latest scamming attacks that are going  on. A homoglyph is a character that looks very similar, or even identical, to another one. For example, the headline to this article read as follows: “Reαd carefully: how to spot – and avoid – a homoglyph attack”. In the original the letter “a” was in a slightly different typeface in just one of the words, only really noticeable if you looked carefully.  But now my copying and pasting has removed the anomaly.

Anyway, it seems that using a letter from a different alphabet or typeface in this way enables scammers to creat urls to tempt you into following a link into a system which will steal your details and generally get into nefarious activities in your name! Here’s a link to the article, where it is better explained.

I read something the other day about the House of Lords, or some members of that establishment, getting together to persuade parliament to debate banning advertisements for gambling.

“After hearing our evidence, the House of Lords Liaison Committee is today calling for a "comprehensive ban on gambling advertising."

Now the Government must act.

For I don’t know how long I have been shouting at the TV set whenever one of the numerous adverts for gambling pop up. Now ai wait to see if anything comes of this.,

Another new word for me is ‘doxxing’. This is apparently a form of online abuse where someone is marked as a target by publishing their name, address and identifying info online. It’s been used a lot recently by "Patriots" going after the RNLI - revealing the names and home addresses of volunteers - leading to further acts of violence and intimidation against them. Now Lisa Nandybhas reportedly announced that the government would be clamping down in “doxxing” attacks.

This information is from the Campaign to Rejoin the EU.

“All this comes in response to "Patriots" going after the RNLI - revealing the names and home addresses of volunteers - leading to further acts of violence and intimidation against them. 

That's the thing about doxxing. 

It's just the start for victims. 👇🏻

⚠️ they get sent things in the post

⚠️ their cars get vandalised 

⚠️ their windows get broken

⚠️ dog mess gets thrown at their houses

⚠️ people stalk and surveil them

And it can get worse from there. 

The problem with doxing is that once your details are out there, you have no idea who might choose to make use of them - and you have no way of controlling what they choose to do. “

This is the kind of thing that has Caitlin Moran railing against social media, expressing her disillusionment in this article.

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!