corrente

For those too young to remember the old cop show "Hill Street Blues," the above is the admonition the Old Sergeant used to give his shift of officers after the morning briefing as they were about to go out onto the streets.

Trust no one.

(via abcnews.com)

In recent weeks, online security experts have noted a new twist on fraudulent e-mails being circulated on the Internet. The latest virtual scams trick victims with seemingly genuine political messages — and pleas for money to support candidates in tight political races.

Experts at SurfControl, a British company that provides e-mail security software, discovered two suspect e-mail solicitations purportedly from the campaign offices of Sen. John Kerry, just days after the Democratic National Convention in Boston ended.

Both messages contained subject lines that read: "President John Kerry, please vote and contribute." Inside the bogus e-mails was information on Kerry's campaign, mimicking pitches from the candidate's official sites. Each message also contained a link to a Web site where readers could submit their information — address, credit card and Social Security numbers — to make a donation to Kerry's campaign.

Both fraudulent sites were unaffiliated with the Kerry campaign, and were most likely operated by identity thieves out to steal personal information. The campaign complained and the sites — one registered in India, the other in Texas — have since been shut down. It is unknown how many e-mail users might have been duped by the phony messages.

Many of us are signed up with email lists for party or campaign websites. Thieves know the easiest cars to break into, the ones least likely to be even locked, are ones in church parking lots. (And national parks, oddly enough.) Trust, but verify.