Objections

How do I object to a fraudulent voter in my constituency?  Now that we have continuous registration of voters in Anguilla, there is a heavy burden placed on the Electoral Registration Officer, Priscilla Gumbs, to make sure that, after 1 January 2009, she checks each new voter’s application for registration.  Her questioning of applicants to be registered during 2009 is now the first line of defence against voter registration fraud in the process of continual registration.  The applicant is required to attend personally before her, and to make himself available to be questioned, and made to produce evidence of residence and other qualifications. 

It is not every Anguillian who is entitled to vote in Anguilla.  We have to be qualified Anguillians or belongers, and we must not be subject to one of the statutory disqualifications.  So, for example, any Anguillian, who has been certified as insane, or convicted of an elections offence, is disqualified from voting. 

            The second line of defence against fraudulent registration of voters is the 'objection'.  This is provided for by the Election Registration Regulations.  I understand there have been objections in the past, and some appeals have even gone up to the Magistrate's Court.  That is as it should be.

By Regulation 36, any voter in the Electoral District in question may object to the registration of any person whose name is included in the published list of claimants.  Thus, no voter from outside District 5 can object to any person who is registered as a voter in District 5.  The objection is made by filing the appropriate form of ‘notice of objection’ which is obtained from the Electoral Registration Office.  Such notice is to be delivered not later than 15 days after the first day of publishing the quarterly list of voters.  For this quarter, that date was 26 November 2009. 

I trust that every candidate is paying attention.

Phishing

The email was so
realistic, with the cute little logo and all.  It invited me to click on a link to update my
information “as part of our continuous effort in protecting your account.  I have seen dozens of these over the past
several years.  I can only hope that no
customer of National Bank of Anguilla is taken
in by the scam.  It helped that the usual
mis-typings and mis-spellings expected of these scams were present.  I immediately forwarded a copy of the email
to Val, Roy and Ian at NBA suggesting they get an urgent notice to the police
and the public using all media.

Dear Valued Customer, It has come to our attention that your NBA Online profile needs to be updated as part of our continuous effort in protecting your account  and reducing instances of fraud on our website. This is being done to secure your accounts and to protect your personal informations from being compromised.We at National Bank of Anguilla Online are committed in making sure that your online transactions are secure. Click on the link below to start the verification process and re-confirm your account https://www.nba-online/_mem_bin/formslogin.asp Once your information has been updated and confirmed your online service would continue as usual and would not be interrupted Sincerely, National Bank of Anguilla Customer Service

Wikipedia explains
that in the field of computer security, phishing is the criminally
fraudulent process of attempting to acquire sensitive information such as
usernames, passwords and credit card details by masquerading as a trustworthy
entity in an electronic communication.  Communications
purporting to be from popular social web sites, auction sites, online payment
processors or IT administrators are commonly used to lure the unsuspecting
public.  Phishing is typically carried
out by e-mail or instant messaging, and it often directs users to enter details
at a fake website whose look and feel are almost identical to the legitimate
one. Even when using server authentication, it may require tremendous skill to
detect that the website is fake.  Phishing is an example of social engineering
techniques used to fool users, and exploits the poor usability of current web
security technologies.  Attempts to deal
with the growing number of reported phishing incidents include legislation,
user training, public awareness, and technical security measures.

A phishing technique was
described in detail in 1987, and the first recorded use of the term
"phishing" was made in 1996. The term is a variant of fishing,
probably influenced by phreaking or password harvesting fishing,
and alludes to baits used to "catch" financial information and
passwords.

The main thing we
have all been taught is DON’T CLICK ON THE LINK.  If you check out the ACTUAL address for the
link you will find it takes you to a site that looks exactly like NBA but it is
actually http://thomaspaulpillow.com/main.html.  Once you sign onto your account, they have your logon info.  If
you already signed on, better check with the bank or put a hold on your
account.

Hopefully, no one in Anguilla who received this, and I am sure I am not the
only one, was tricked.

Diplomas

How many doctors, plumbers, carpenters, teachers and lawyers have this type of

bogus qualification?  I keep getting this unsolicited e-mail in my in box.  LIME must have changed their settings.  Normally, their filters remove such obvious invitations to fraud from the server long before Outlook Express downloads them to my computer.   

I have been patiently deleting the messages.  But, they are getting more frequent, and annoying.  The last one read:

BECAUSE YOU DESERVE IT!

Is your lack of a degree holding you back from career advancement?

Are you having difficulty finding employment in your field of interest because you don’t have the paper to back it up – even though you are qualified?

If you are looking for a fast and effective solution, we can help!

Call us right now for your customized diploma: Inside U.SA.: 1-718-989-5746 Outside U.S.A.: +1-718-989-5746.

Just leave your NAME & TEL. PHONE # (with country-code) on the voicemail and one of our staff members will get back to you promptly!

You have got to wonder.  How many frustrated, ambitious but unqualified, persons fall victim to this fraudulent invitation.  It sounds so clean and above board.  The reality is just the opposite.  It is an invitation for the unqualified to put money into these tricksters’ pockets.  In exchange for the fee you get a bogus degree to add to your name.  The hope is that you might be able to fool your employer into accepting, and paying you a higher salary than you would otherwise be entitled.  In the USA or Europe there are agencies we can use to quickly find out who has a real qualification from who has gone to one of these diploma mills for a worthless certificate. 

But, here in the West Indies who is our consumer watchdog?  Who is our standard setter? 

We do not even measure the amount of gasoline coming out of the pumps.  Never in the history of Anguilla has any shop’s scales been tested by the non-existent Weights and Measures Officer.

There is no one, of course.  Take no qualifications at their face value.  You better check everything for yourself.  There is no one you can rely on to do it for you.

Meanwhile, I have taken my own steps to block this unwanted invitation from showing up in my in box again.

Related posts:

Measures