ConVocation

Presumed US location of Adven

Consequences

Lily has a knack for drawing scammers like some people attract mosquitoes with similar blood-sucking results. You’ve met Lily a couple of times including a phishing scam involving Chase Bank.

I’m dismayed how often Chase victimizes its customers, freely handing out money to con artists and then blaming customers. I’ve noted a number of Chase fraud stories since and spoke with a lady who lost tens of thousands to a scam that Chase refused to acknowledge. Because Lily received advice to withdraw her funds and not a penny more, she remains the only person I know who survived monetarily intact.

She and I spent hours making phone call warnings and visiting Chase and state police, trying to apprise them of a crime in progress. We explained how the fraud worked, despite snorts and sniggers and snarky wishes *they* had a friend (wink, wink, nudge, nudge) who’d deposit thousands in their account.

“There is no money,” I insisted.

“Sure there is, we can see it right… right… Wait! Where did it go?”

After the fact, the bank blamed Lily and demanded she reimburse them for their shortfall and shortcomings as a so-called trusted financial institution. Ha. That’s ever likely.

Presumed US headquarters of Adven

Conversation

Lily sometimes struggles. She listed with LinkedIn seeking work at home. Unlike some, the girl self-motivates as long as the job doesn’t require copying the Encyclopædia Britannica in longhand.

Out of the blue, she receives a message from a European company expanding into North America. They require Lily to take a test and write an essay, but she’s hopped. She can take on as much work as she chooses and the pay is respectable, even a bit higher than her current salary, nicely filling in financial gaps.

Conjecture

Lily excitedly calls her boyfriend, she calls her mother, she calls me. I can’t pinpoint what, but something sets off my alarms. I ask for all the information she can provide, including text messages and anything else she can tell me. The list of accounting programs dismays me. Normally companies seek one or two, not half a dozen. I’m putting a damper on her happiness, but it turns out her boyfriend also senses something off.

I go to work.

Content

First thing, Adven exists. It’s a 600 employé company registered with a real web site and a presence in other European countries. But they mention nothing in the Americas. Okay, the contact explains they are setting up shop in the US.

I’ve been through that before, working for European concerns expanding into the States and vice versa. I consider calling to double check and notify Adven I suspect they are being used in a scam, but for the moment, I opt to let things play out.

Further research reveals Hanna Summa is a real person with a Linked-In page and a profile on her company’s web site. Acting so hands-on for a potential entry level employee raises an eyebrow, but again, I’ve seen this within major corporations when placing fresh folks overseas. Directors and vice presidents keep an eye on details to avoid screw-ups.  An executive engaging with new staff and line isn’t inconceivable.

Meanwhile, this ‘Hanna Summa’ assigns Lily an essay. I suggest she consider an AI piece to avoid heavy vestment at this early stage, but, honest as she is, she writes a paper as agreed. Hanna Summa promises to send a check.

And she did.

Concept

I recognize the scheme. I advise Lily not to deposit it, but ask her bank to vet the check. Most checks clear the same day, but occasionally a draft may take fifteen days or so to slog through the system. This is where this type of scam takes root. Senders instruct their victim to spend or send much of that money elsewhere, ultimately into scammers’ own pockets. By the time a check is returned as fraudulent, it’s too late– the victim has been financing the scheme with her own money.

Conversion

This method obviates another scheme, the business of money laundering. Con artists arrange with a person in another country to sell goods or collect and distribute funds and perhaps packages. The unknowing party isn’t so much a victim as a patsy, flushing money through the system. In one case, a foreign ‘artist’ arranged for ‘commissioned partners’ in North America to sell his paintings, retain 10% and return 90% to the cheerful dauber who just laundered illicit monies or and avoided taxes.

Contrariwise

Meanwhile back at the bank, instead of making a conditional deposit as usual, at Lily’s behest, clerks go to work investigating that critical slip of paper with its excellent engraving and holographic sticker between the memo and signature. When they reluctantly hand the check back to Lily, they shake their heads but with respect for her instincts.

Still playing along, Lily tearfully informs her Adven contact that her bank has refused the check, saying it was no good. Our fake Hanna expresses shock and dismay, shock I say, shock. She posited her company’s accounting partner inexplicably made a mistake, perhaps a matter of misinterpretation. She will investigate and get back to Lily posthaste.

Shock, I tell you.

Lily is still waiting for the results of the investigation.

Conclusion

Lily merely wanted earnest work to make an honest wage. Reaching back to the J.P. Morgan Chase episode, her first reaction was to visit the bank at least twice and explain something was wrong.

Opinionated pundits contend victims perpetuate swindles because of their greed. I disagree with such a blanket statement. ‘Found cash’ scams work because no owner can be found. ‘Bible bequests’ play upon emotions of grief, not greed, supplemented by deepset religious underpinnings. Avarice might motivate cynical experts, not necessarily others.

I sometimes toy with fraudsters, an activity called scam baiting. My approach is more psychological than technical. One future day I might talk about that, but know I have no sympathy for those who drain bank accounts and ruin lives.

Grift, Misinformation and the Long Arm of the Law

We often hear about the long arm of the law, suggesting that the justice system has far-reaching power. There is one place that the justice system doesn’t appear to be reaching: grifters who put people’s lives at risk.

These ‘influencers’ spread misinformation about snake oil cures for everything from diabetes to cancer. People die. No one pays the price. 


So, we’re learning that lying and killing people with lies isn’t a punishable crime. 

Mystery readers like myself have an innate need for justice to done. We want the arm of the law to be long enough to reach those who harm people, particularly if they kill them.

We’ve seen the rise of anti-vaccine misinformation reach so far into people’s psyche that not only are they eschewing COVID vaccines but also all vaccines - children are now dying of vaccine preventable disease like measles. For goodness sake, the news recently cited pet owners who are refusing vaccines, including rabies, for their pets because of autism fears.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has focused on the educational aspects and points out that, using various methods, 850,000 YouTube videos with harmful or misleading COVID-19 misinformation videos have been removed. However, this is a drop in an ever filling bucket. 

The WHO has joined various organizations asking for legal polices to stop misinformation but stop at outlining these policies - because it’s complicated. 

Legislators in various countries have made many attempts to rein in dangerous misinformation through regulation of tech giants. There have been suggestions of legal interventions that, “criminalize the dissemination of medical fake news”  The latter is so fraught with definitional problems that it’s not a good option, but certainly speaks to the increasing concern about putting people’s lives at risk.

So indulge me while I spitball some legal ideas with no legal training at all but with a strong sense of ‘what the heck can we do’? 

What if we start very small? What if there were some cases where people were harmed and they then sue? A few of those might make a dent in the growing rise of grifters. Nothing like fear and case law to stop wrong doing. 

Here’s a sample grift and my fantasy. The grift is real, you can find it here.

Now, this may seem like a small problem compared to many other forms of misinformation and certainly, the reach of this is much smaller. But starting small makes it easier.

This woman claims to cure eyesight, so what if someone was ‘cured’ and then got into an accident driving? What if they sued her for damages? 

One small victory against grift might start a snowball effect. It’s a simple grift - eyesight cure - and a simple test - either eyesight is better or it’s not. I’m a fan of starting simple. 

It also is the extension of existing laws protecting people. If a doctor gives medical advice or therapy in the form of pills etc. and a patent is harmed, that doctor not only risks the loss of their medical license, but also jail time. So why not extend this to all medical therapies? 

While I’m spitballing and fantasizing, here’s another one: drugs for every disease need to follow rigorous testing guidelines. What is stopping legislators from demanding this from all ‘cures’ for all diseases? Then the grifters could be held legally liable for damages or even sued for putting their ‘cures’ in the public domain. This simple levelling of the playing field for all cures is fair, understandable by the public and simply extends existing laws around medical interventions. legal and regulatory measures.

I know this seems simple – nay, simplistic – but there may be a place for simple, clear solutions that start small, alongside looking at large scale changes to social media content. There is less support for stopping misinformation when it is an abstract concept and just the word ‘information’ gives an opening for demands for freedom of speech. To be clear, medical intervention is not covered under free speech protection, nor are drug manufactures able to claim free speech regarding the claims they make for their drugs. This also fits a justice model we are familiar with: if someone causes harm or death to another by any means, they are criminally responsible. This is one small way that the long arm of the law can extend its reach. 

The Digital Detective ~ Robocall Killers

Minutes ago my phone rang. I glanced at the caller ID. Usually it shows ‘Spam Likely’ and I swipe it off the screen. This time it gave a name I didn’t recognize. An unknown caller could have something to do with business, insurance, medical… who knows? I answered. Here are tips I’ve discovered to deal with telemarketers.

Tip 1

Like everyone else, I say hello immediately. I quickly say hello again and, hearing nothing, I’ll immediately hang up: a 1, a 2, click! Type A people do that– state your business or leave. Occasionally I catch half a syllable from ‘Mary’ or ‘Hector’ or ‘James’ from Indianapolis (INDIAnapolis) just as they might have caught my second Hello, but I’ve evaporated. I identified a spammer and dealt with the problem.

How does this benefit?

Robocaller machines initiate spam calls. I’m making educated assumptions, but it takes a couple of seconds to transverse the continents to India and then another moment or two for their operative to punch the connect button. They might hear my second hello, but by that time, I’m already gone.

But what if the call was important?

Naturally, they’ll phone back. In the course of fielding zillions of these interruptions, not one has called back. I suspect they’re geared to use auto-dialers but don’t permit manually dialing out.

Opinions to the contrary abound. Hanging up confirms a real person is at your end of the line, and, the belief goes, your number is marked for endless re-dialing. But, unless a robodialer hears the three tone SIT (special information tones) indicating “not a working number” or “number not in service”, it knows it has reached a valid telephone. It will try and try again no matter what.

Tip 2

Have you received a call from a cheery voice who asks, “Hello? Can you hear me?” Or a man who says, “How are you today?”

It takes training oneself, but don’t reflexively answer yes, okay, fine, good, lovely, peachy. You do not want professional spam callers to hear those words. Why?

Your voice is recorded on a separate track from theirs. That makes it easier to race through a recording where your mention of details can be readily found and identified. But it also makes it easy to manipulate the semblance of the conversation based on affirmative answers about the audibility of the call or the state of your day. With a push of an on-screen button, a trivial program can take your answers and turn one conversation into another:

“Hello? I’m calling on a recorded line. Can you hear me?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Good. How are you today?”
“Okay, fine.”

Misusing your answers can automatically result in repurposed recordings like:

“Hello? I’m calling on a recorded line. May I have your permission to continue?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Excellent. Can I sign you up for toxic chemical carpet cleaning, a new water hardener, a vacation to exciting DoofusLand, and a subscription to Mayonnaise Monthly?”
“Okay, fine.”

I stress reports of manipulated recordings are anecdotal chatter on discussion boards, but accusations recur and cherry-picking a victim’s responses is easier than you think. The result is that recipients claim they never intended to buy or even give telemarketers permission to call them. I’m not aware lawbreaking telemarketers have attempted to mislead the FTC, but simply initiating pre-recorded calls violates FTC’s own TSRs– the rules for telemarketers.

Do-Not-Call

The National Do-Not-Call Registry (888-382-1222 / https://www.donotcall.gov/) would be a good idea if spammers paid attention to it. Register all the same; it might dissuade one or two.

This article doesn’t delve into some technologies such as STIR/SHAKEN, which caused a brief 4½% dip in telemarketing attacks, only to climb more than ever before. One of the more common tricks is to spoof the victim’s area code and exchange (first six digits) to hint to the recipient of a neighborhood call. Others will throw false caller IDs on the screen such as Amazon, Apple, or Google.

Visit your App Store. Following is a list of apps you might find useful. Some rely upon collected databases of known spam numbers. You might hear this in action if your phone chirp or rings once and then stops. It had experienced a delay finding the number in a database. While useful, database apps don’t stop spammers from spoofing valid numbers.

Let us know your experience and useful tips.

ActiveArmor	Eyecon	Numbuster	Should I Answer
Call Blocker	Find Caller	Reverse Caller	Truecaller
CallApp	Hiya	RoboShield	Whoscall
Calls Blacklist	Nomorobo	RoboKiller	YouMail

The Digital Detective, Banco and Bunco, Part 2

Resuming from last week…

Money Laundering

Checks (‘cheques’ in other English-speaking countries) are becoming less common in our digital society, but they still have their uses: Investors often receive dividend checks, some companies send refund checks, and many of us write checks to our lawn guy and housekeeper. Check handling still holds a place in our economy and so does a scheme called ‘check washing’.

Crime segments on programs like Dateline and 20/20 have warned us against the practice of bad guys plucking checks out of mailboxes and ‘washing’ them in a ‘household chemical’ bath. Then with a blank check in hand with the original signature, they fill in a new payee and amount. The scheme can work with bonds, wills, and other instruments, anything with a dye-based ink written with ordinary pens. Very old inks comprised of iron compounds remain unaffected.

Wait. Are you going to share with us?

What is the household chemical? Enquiring crime writers want to know.

The answer is ink-dependent and I’m aware of two compounds. Women baddies may have an advantage: The primary go-to chemical, acetone, is the principle ingredient in fingernail polish remover. Other dye-based inks may better respond when treated with ordinary bleach.

Here’s a how-to video by Dr Uniball… (Shh. I know, I know, the poor man. I’m afraid Dr Uniball suffered an unfortunate lab accident.) That aside, here is one of his experiments:

Note: Although not mentioned in the video, fraudsters can preserve the signature by covering it with transparent tape. Ink not so protected washes away.

So how can you shield yourself against lawnmower man bleaching your check or your nifty cleaning lady rewriting the palty cheap-ass amount after an acetone bath? You can purchase speciality India ink pens costing in the hundreds of dollars. Or, as I recently learned, you can buy a less than two dollar Uniball at your local Dollar Store. This pigment-based pen is made by Mitsubishi Pencil Company, yes, a sister company of the car manufacturer. Look for Uniball 207, pictured here:

But wait. If you’re a fraudster and your victim banks with Chase or certain other banks, you don't have to bother erasing and filling in checks. Crooks have discovered Chase’s sloppy remote banking by smartphone looks only at the numeric dollar amount and routing number. Bad guys can add in an extra digit to the dollar amount, changing it from hundreds to thousands. Chase doesn’t trouble themselves to validate the written amount or check the written payee matches the conman’s name on the account. They even allow the same check to be deposited more than once.

Signs of Fraud from Bank of America

A casual survey suggests Chase Banks may figure in more frauds than all other banking institutions combined.Worse yet, Chase battles customer victims who try to get their money back. Lily, our Chase target in a previous article did everything right, trying to get an oblivious and lackadaisical Chase to take action. And they die– they blamed her.

No place in the world is safe from fraud, but if YouTube is to believed, Arizona suffers an outsized number of attacks. And naturally, Chase customer service isn't there when needed.

From A to Z, ATM to Zelle

Zelle is German for jail, literally, a prison cell. I’m frankly surprised it doesn’t mean Sucker!

I can’t trust Zelle. If accounts of a money app can’t be viewed and studied on the web, the customer/victim is at a disadvantage when attempting to reconcile transactions. Unfortunately banks and society at large push us in that direction.

Former business partners owed me money and had been steadily paying me through Sun Bank. Abruptly payments stopped. I notified them. It turned out Sun wanted to cease sending direct, electronic payments to my bank (and others) and insisted its ‘partners’ use Zelle. The problem was that Sun submitted payments into the black hole of Zelle, but my bank didn’t see them.

“Not our problem,” said Sun. “Call Zelle.”
“Not our problem,” said my bank. “Call Zelle.”
“Not our problem,” said Zelle. “Call your bank.”

This occurred after repeated and futile attempts to get a phone number for Zelle, who declined to help because they were ‘too far removed from the situation’, claiming they were outside the transfer rather than being the conduit. It took four months of repeated complaints to resolve the issue.

☚☛

As you might imagine, Zelle is a convenient tool for fraud. In one particular scam, you receive an SMS text that your bank account has been put on hold, pending unusual activity. You phone the conveniently provided phone number, and a polite professional asks how she can help you.

She ‘checks’ your account, saying it appears nefarious forces are attempting to penetrate your security. The solution is to safely move your money into a bank-approved Zelle account. If you’ve not heard of Zelle, she provides you a web link showing your bank works with Zelle, and she’ll help you set up a new free account, which will make bill paying so much easier.

Ten minutes later, your new Zelle account is all set up and your money moved into it. “Thank you, thank you,” you say before hanging up, upon which the scammer sets to work. You receive another text message, this time from your real bank. Your accounts have been emptied.

“Not our problem,” says Zelle. “Call your bank.”
“Not our problem,” says your bank. “Call Zelle.”

The Digital Detective, Banco and Bunco, Part 1

One upon a time I was scammed, or rather American Express was. In my consulting days, a pair of cancelled flights kept me hostage at Chicago Airport for ten hours, which covered a couple of mealtimes. For one of those, I plunked down in their sit-down restaurant and partook. And was partaken without my knowledge.

The end-of-month credit card statement showed a charge that could have fed a family of twelve instead of not-so-little ol’ me. AmEx explained this was called a ‘waiter’s charge,’ literally so in my case. A waiter hands you a bill in a black leather folder. The diner casually tucks a credit card in the folder and the waiter carries it away. At this juncture, the fraud happens.

If the restaurant keeps a computerized tally, the waiter adds on an additional lobster and a hell of a tip. Without an ongoing account, a waiter simply adds in a dollar figure. In olden days, waiters might run two or three blank slips through the imprinter for later use. These days thanks to skimming devices, a waiter can mint a new card before you leave the premises.

Once a card is out-of-sight, waiters can do anything they wish.

As did a waitress in Minneapolis’ beloved Pannekoeken Huis. Two things had come together to draw my attention to a minor racket. Unlike my girlfriend whose sharp eye for cash register fiddles caught one in the middle of a famous theme park, I don’t have specialized training in these things. However, a conversation with a vice president of finance at the company I consulted for raised my awareness. After meals, he carefully perused the bill and credit card slip, commenting he’d find mistakes nearly half the time and went on to prove it.

Bad Taste

And so I found myself in the very restaurant where he’d enlightened me. Frankly, the waitress did little to avert attention to herself. In a Midwestern city where everyone is friendly, she was unusually hostile. Perhaps it was the result of a bad morning, but she acted distinctly sour. Thus when the check came and bearing in mind the VP’s admonition, I looked over the register’s paper tape and there it was… or in this case wasn’t. The line items didn’t match the inflated total.

Her scam took but a moment to unravel. The register tape provided the clue– the restaurant’s logo was missing at the top of the tape. She’d rung in a false item, rolled the register’s tape forward several inches and tore it off, and then rang in the real breakfast tab.

I brought it to the attention of the front-of-house manager. That trusting soul cheerfully waved off the discrepancy as a register glitch. Fine, not my problem, but the practiced moves of the waitress announced she’d done this many times. I did not encourage her by leaving a tip.

That wasn’t why he glanced at your derrière

Does your credit card have a tap ’n’ go icon? If so, it has a built-in bit of electronics called passive NFC… near field communications, a cousin of RFID. Your cell phone may have something similar, but is active NFC because it’s battery powered. They work on the same principal as store exit scanners that sense security tags still attached to the jacket you just bought.

Besides the likelihood of your butt mashing your phone, NFC is a major reason you shouldn’t carry your phone in your hip pocket. A passerby brushes her phone past your pocket and *snap* — she’s captured your information.

Sleight-of-Hand

Scams can happen other ways. You check out of your doctor’s office, or you pay at the window of that overpriced restaurant, or you’re enqueued at Wendy’s drive-thru window and your fuel gauge is running low as is the patience of the guy behind you who taps his horn for the third time but it’s not your fault because your salad isn’t ready and finally the server comes to the window and hands you a bag with a freckled girl’s face on it and says, “That will be $36.80,” and you realize for that kind of money you could have dined at Pannekoeken Huis with money left over but you dig through your purse and there’s your MasterCard that you hand over and a second later he hands it back followed by a receipt that you stuff in your purse and before the guy behind you can blast his horn again you pull forward and out of his way, yet when you get home you receive a text message that your credit card has hit its limit. What? How can that be? You should have at least fifty dollars to spare.

And there it is: Instead of $36.80, you were charged $96.80. Maybe the guy’s finger slipped ringing it up. But wait, there’s another $23 charge from the same place at the same time. That shouldn’t be possible. What happened?

When you handed over your card, you lost sight of it for an instant only. But it was enough time for the window guy to pass the card over a pocket skimmer or even a second NFC machine, a modern analogue of imprinting an extra credit card slip.

Universal Contactless Cards (NFC, RFID)

ATM : Access Thy Money

You may seen recent warnings about ATMs with inoperable card slots, glued shut according to articles. Nearby, a helpful guy who’s standing a respectable, unobtrusive distance behind you offers a suggestion. “You can tap your card.”

But of course you can. You thank the guy, boink the card over the symbol, stuff $200 in your purse, and nervously flee the scene to safety. Or so you think. The helpful guy, he moves in and empties your account.

When an ATM’s mechanical reader returns your card, it automatically logs you out of the system. Likewise in store transactions, once the clerk rings you out and you see the Thank You message on the screen, you’re once again disconnected from your account.

Surveys show at ATMs, tap ’n’ go customers often don’t manually log out of their accounts. Without a mechanism holding their card and releasing it as they sign out, clients fail to realize the connection to their account remains active and vulnerable. Please, log out.

Next Week: Money Laundering

The 2nd Greatest Con Man in America

Neither Democrat nor Republican, I’m an independent. I’m not happy if I can’t equal-opportunity offend all parties. But damn, these days some of the high-profile players egregiously push their way to the front of the ignoble queue. That old saw “Where there’ smoke…” invariably ends with, “…someone’s fanning flames.”

But I’m not here to talk about partisanship, but to address two major theories enjoying unwarranted attention. They gain traction because rumour mongers depend upon an absence of science and technical knowledge. (For the litigious sort, kindly note this is an opinion piece.)

For example, my friend Sharon forwarded an email acclaiming Chinese-designed dancing robots in Shanghai Disneyland. Although these were clearly not automatons, many, many people willingly suspended disbelief.^[1]

Blowing Smoke

Same with politics. As Alice’s Red Queen might say, we’re asked to believe six impossible things before breakfast. Psychologists have noted the biggest lies can be the easiest to accept.

As the above-mentioned smoke about massive voter fraud begins to clear (with a portion of the credit going to the incumbent’s attorneys), conspiracy oriented talk hosts have turned their attention to data manipulation. The first brings to life two decades of concerns about voting machines. The other centers around government computers reassigning millions of votes.

Hypothesis 1, Voting Machines

Grab a coffee. I can’t believe I’m defending Dominion, née Diebold, aka another half dozen company names. I’ve been highly critical of their technology and its lack of transparency. I’ve also proposed a solution, open-source code. That way anyone can peek at its internals searching for flaws.

Twelve to twenty years ago, Democrats worried problematic voting machines at best lost votes and at worst, threw elections. Part of their concern was the company’s Republican CEO, a good friend of George W Bush. According to sources, the CEO ill-advisedly told Bush he’d help win his election. Some stretched that to mean he might use his product, voting machines, to disfavor Democrats.

When Florida’s Secretary of State Glenda Hood ordered error-prone Diebold machines, Senator Bill Nelson questioned the wisdom. She told him to mind his own business… which of course he was. If memory serves, Sarasota County that year lost 20,000 votes. The county’s seemingly baffled Supervisor of Elections said 20,000 people had obviously shown up and chosen not to vote.

Diebold’s reputation was so checkered, they underwent a series of name changes: Diebold ➡︎ Premier Election Solutions ➡︎ Election Systems Services ➡︎ Sequoia Voting Services ➡︎ Dominion Voting Systems.

Over time, they have improved, but one thing is clear. Neither individual machines or networked clusters are capable of diverting anywhere in the range of numbers hinted at: a half million to a suggested two-point-seven million or even seven million votes. Some accusers hinted at machine glitches in Michigan and Georgia, while Q-Anon outright claimed hundreds of thousands of votes were deliberately deleted. Apparently audit trails aren’t widely studied on 4-Chan.

One might wonder the motive of a company board to lose this election, a corporation considered reliably Republican, historically regarded with caution and even suspicion by Democrats. Hey, don’t ask me… I raise the question, but I don’t know. (See? I told you I’d offend both sides.)

Hypothesis 2, The Giant CIA Supercomputer Conspiracy

This is a two-coffee problem, so pour another cup as you’re asked to take an ever bigger leap from the improbable to the nearly impossible.

The short version claims that the CIA (and possibly CISA) deployed a Bush era supercomputer originally used by the despot Obama to surveil and enslave Americans. Called HAMR,^[2] affectionately nicknamed The Hammer by techno-savvy, Marvel-reading politicos, it was seized by Biden’s nefarious agents to subvert the election by diverting Trump votes to Biden. A Bannon-Breitbart correctional recount proved Mr Trump won 98% of the popular vote, nearly 140-million total, the largest in history.

(How Mr Trump wrested this antique computer from Hillary’s election hands in 2016 isn’t clear.)

This vote-rigging supercomputer was engineered by a genius superprogrammer, Dennis Montgomery– both this amazing computer and the accompanying conspiracy theory. Already, I see you have questions.

I left my own amazing computer career a few years ago and haven’t consulted for the DoD even longer, but that name, Dennis Montgomery, rings no bell. I checked with colleagues, all with the same answer: Who? Actually that’s a question.

LinkedIn lists a Montgomery Dennis, which may or may not be a hit, but I suspect it is. This entry describes a guy with amazing computer, management, and top secret intelligence skills, who has the Director of the CIA, Secretary of the Air Force, and the US President on speed dial. He claims to have given intelligence briefings to the white house… yup, lower case. We shouldn’t judge him. Maybe he meant something like a white clapboard house in Terre Haute.

If that is his résumé, he’s awfully modest. Certainly he’s much better known in scam and conspiracy theory circles. Since his curriculum vitae is weak and poorly worded, I whipped up a supplement for him. Mr Montgomery may pick and choose as needed, no charge.

Dennis Montgomery (aka Montgomery Dennis?)

Superduper all around computer expert and geopolitical action figure.
($29.95 on AliExpress) Pinocchio nose sold separately.

Education

• Studied under Michael Milken at Drexel Burnham Lambert.

Career

• Operated American Report web site specializing in conspiracies of the day.™
• Investigated tunnels under a Washington daycare pizzeria. Conclusively proved pepperoni contained meat byproducts.
• Demonstrated, using advanced computer analysis of birther certificate, Ted Cruz not born in USA.
• Invented catchy names like Scorecard and The Hammer for programs that, uh, don’t actually exist.
• Scammed Bush administration into paying several million dollars for pretend programs to decode secret al-Qaeda radio messages that, uh, didn’t really exist.
• Conducted anti-terrorist scam. Fake security alerts caused the US to ground some flights and reportedly caused the Bush administration to nearly shoot down airliners. That was a rush.
• Falsified emails to implicate gubernatorial candidate and Congressman Jim Gibbons in bribery scandal that, uh, didn’t exist.
• Conned Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio into forking over more than $100,000 of taxpayer money so he could reveal a conspiracy plot against Sheriff Joe… which, uh, didn’t actually exist.
• Faked federal wiretapping evidence that, um, didn’t exist.

Hobbies

• Dabbles in presidential elections for fun and profit. Like the emperor’s clothes, evidence doesn’t exist.

In my personal opinion, I believe Mr Dennis Montgomery enjoys conning important people and, with the 2020 election, he’s hit the jackpot with the coteries of the candidates, and the attention of the two most powerful men in America.

Footnotes

1. The claim is that the performers are Chinese designed robots, a leap ahead of US, European, and Japanese robotics. As it turns out, Snopes has done the leg work, determining it’s a clip from the British television show “Strictly Come Dancing” that aired on BBC One in 2013
2. Seagate, the hard drive manufacturer, has coined the acronym HAMR, meaning heat-assisted magnetic recording.

The Digital Detective: Pay Your Debtors

This continues a series of earlier articles about computer fraud.^† Originally I practiced a career of systems software design and computer consulting, but I sometimes came upon a more shadowy world, that of computer crime. I seldom sought out fraud but I sometimes stumbled upon it, picking up undetected clues others missed.

This episode doesn’t deal with crime, per se, but it includes a banking con, minor as it is. The scheme required a little ‘social engineering’ and, though the word might be Yiddish, no one can schmooze like Southerners.

The story came to my attention while consulting for banks, this one deep in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley. My landlord for part of the stay was an eccentric but colorful codger. He talked about a neighbor who leased farm land from him but failed to pay his rent. Outsiders might expect he pulled on a jug of rye whiskey as he talked, but all he did was lean back in his recliner, sip beer, and twirl a never-lit cigarette while a cheerful woman less than half his age clattered in the kitchen. I jotted down his story long before I became a writer, so kindly forgive error and stylistic issues as I strove to capture his dialogue.

Corn picker © John Deere

Damn Ernie. I hounded that man all summer long for the rent. Finally last fall, I hooked up my corn picker and started up the corn rows. Now a corn picker ain’t a quiet machine, and lo and behold, neighbor Ernie come dashin’ out of his farmhouse yellin’ and cursin’ that I’m stealing his corn.

I said to him I couldn’t possibly be stealing corn off my own land, unrented land at that. He steamed and stormed and said the seed and planting labor had been his, and anyway he was just a little late with the rent, three or four months, maybe four or five, weren’t nuthin.

I told him that I was just going to keep picking corn for myself until someone showed up with rent money. He dashed off like banshees themselves chased him. Pretty soon he comes back waving his checkbook.

I said, “Ernie, are you sure there’s money in that account?” Oh yes. He told me twice there was, so I said there’d better be, and he said he wanted the corn I’d picked. I told him to consider the already picked corn interest and collection fees. Fact is, I finished the rest of that row, which he just hated.

So the skinflint S.O.B. hustled off to hitch up his combine and wagon, and I find myself a few bushels better off than I was before. I cleaned up and headed in town to the bank, right past Ernie who’s racing his machinery through the fields.

At the bank, I always get in Molly’s line. She’s a sweet, buxom lass, and I’d been thinking about asking her out.^‡

Anyway, I get up to her teller window and she said the account’s a bit short to cover the check. I asked her exactly how short, and she said she wasn’t allowed to tell me that.

So darlin’, I cajoled, is this check completely worthless, or did Ernie at least come close? Looking at her computer, she said he was purty close.

Well, I says to her kind of reflectively, I want to tell my neighbor Ernie how much he needs to cover my check. Like would he have to deposit only $10? No, she said, ten dollars wouldn’t cover it.

Well, says I, would $20 or $30 do? No, she smiled at me, it’s not quite enough.

Hmm, says I, I wonder if $40 or $50 would suffice? Um, she said to me, that first amount ought to cover it.

Thank you, I says, I’ll tell that rascal he needs to put $40 in the bank. By the way, sweet thing, can I have a deposit slip? And you think maybe I can call you up? For, uh, you know, maybe dinner Saturday?

So I walked out of there with a bounce in my step, a deposit slip and her phone number. I was feelin’ purty good. What I did was get in my car and circle around through the bank’s drive-thru. I already had Ernie’s account number on the check, so I just filled out the slip and shot it through the air tube with two $20 bills. Sure enough, the receipt came back showing $1002.39. Good on Molly.

But wait, I say, I almost forgot to cash a check. This time I send over Ernie’s $1000 check and this time I get back a thousand dollars.

Fair enough. I probably had $40 in shelled corn and a lesson I ain’t gonna rent to Ernie no more.

Ernie got stupid, though, and instead of being grateful I didn’t bounce his worthless ass along with his worthless check and turn both over to the sheriff for collection, he raised holy hell at the bank yelling someone manipulated his account.

I took Molly to the horse show that Saturday. Now I tell you personal like, you want to get a lady in a receptive mood, bein’ around horses will do it. Something about women and horseflesh– can’t explain it– just a word to the wise.

Anyway, Molly, she confided the bank said it was apparent someone had taken liberties, but they couldn’t blame the teller who took the deposit and they couldn’t blame the girl that cashed the check. They just gave everybody a stern reminder warning.

Molly said Ernie wanted to call the authorities, but the branch manager told Ernie he’d be the one in trouble for writing bad checks. He didn’t mention Molly could have fallen in the soup too if they’d figured out her role.

Molly said she knew I’d manipulated her and wanted to know if I’d asked her out from obligation or guilt. I said I didn’t want to sully a relationship thinking I used her. She needed a lot of reassurance about that, and so Friday nights and Saturday nights we just get romantic and I give her plenty of reassuring. Been about a year now. Figure we can go on with this for a long, long time.

And he winked at the cheerful lass in the kitchen doorway.

Cornbine © John Deere & Farming Sim Mods

† This essay had originally appeared 19 May 2013 on SleuthSayers for a matter of hours, when a magazine editor asked me to unpost it with an eye toward publishing. A check never arrived, so I now return the article for your enjoyment.
‡ Commonly in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley, ‘out’ sounds are pronounced like a Scottish ‘oot’. Thus he really said, “I’d been thinking aboot asking her oot.”

Kyle in Payables Has Been Binge-Watching, and Now You Need to Care About Zettabytes

Please welcome the newest inmate to our cozy little asylum.  Robert Mangeot  has been around the short mystery fiction scene for a few years now. His stuff is in a few anthologies and appears frequently in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine (and has made my best-of-the-week selection four times.) He’ll have a piece in AHMM's November/December issue due out later this month. Bob is a healthcare industry long-timer when not writing, as his first piece makes clear.

— Robert Lopresti

KYLE IN PAYABLES HAS BEEN BINGE-WATCHING, AND NOW YOU NEED TO CARE ABOUT ZETTABYTES

by Robert Mangeot

Here’s Kyle again, five minutes late for the 8:00AM St. Healthcare Payables team Zoom huddle. He’s bleary-eyed--again--and slurping coffee (“Kyle, can you mute, please?”) after all-nighter binge watching the just-dropped Wicked Streaming Show That Has People Talking, season two. WSS.2, in Kyle-ese. He’ll gush baggy-eyed over each and every spoiler if anyone hangs on the Zoom too long. Usually, we can’t stay mad at him. Kyle is bedrock here in Payables, first with the virtual high fives and the loudest voice singing “Happy Birthday.” This morning, though, the coffee isn’t kicking in yet, and he’s digging this new email promising a GIFT CARD!!! if he clicks there and takes this important HR survey. Gift cards? Hello, WSS merch.

Don’t do it, Kyle. Don’t.

Kyle does it. Clickety clickety click. He’s heard about email scams and stolen files and that stuff. They do training in Payables, thank you very much. But this email seems legit. The logos and fonts are right for HR (they are), the linked website looks like HR (it kinda does, those smiling nurses), and the password log-in seems fine (it’s so not). Anyway, his melatonin is off this morning.

Let’s call the malware BigBummerExpress. Kyle’s computer doesn’t slow to a crawl processor-wise. It doesn’t flash the Blue Screen of Death. It doesn’t laugh a super-evil laugh like that cray hacker episode from WSS.1. BigBummerExpress is loaded and running, sure. And yeah, there’s patient information on his computer for the grabbing.  

Kyle isn’t who BigBummerExpress is after.

                                                                                  #

Meet the United States healthcare system. We Americans spend $3.6 trillion annually on all things medical and surgical, much more per capita than most other industrialized nations. Three trillion isn’t the largest number involved in this caper, but it’s the motivating number.

However we got here and whatever your opinion about it, U.S. healthcare is a huge market. Most money is spent well enough or at least well-intendedly. As for the rest, there’s a reason that entire professions--including mine--have spun up to chase bad actors. And lately, there’s the bad actor golden ticket: ransomware. 

To be clear, I am not a technology expert. I’m not involved in cybersecurity. I’m a humble regulatory nerd who barely understands how my laptop crunches its ones and zeroes. But with cybersecurity being crucial to those regs, I try to stay hip on the trends.  

In September, Universal Health Services--a giant at 400 facilities--announced a major cyberattack had taken down clinical systems. Universal is not releasing details, but if it sounds like ransomware, it probably is. Patient appointments were rescheduled, test results were delayed, and patients inbound to their ERs were diverted elsewhere. 

Universal is hardly alone in the cyber battles. In 2019, hospitals and clinical practices reported nearly 1,000 successful ransomware attacks. What makes healthcare an outsized target over other sectors? Large health organizations can find the pay-off money somehow. Paying up may be a care imperative. Also, medical software products are often older and assembled as a patchwork. Lastly, a patient record contains a more comprehensive set of personal data than your average retail outlet. Such records are so valuable that the Dark Web apparently coined its own term: Fullz.

Health data has grown to mind-boggling size and mushrooms further each year. Experts predict that cumulative health data about you and me will reach 35 zettabytes this year. A zettabyte is tech-speak for one sextillion. That’s roughly one byte for all the grains of sand on all the Earth’s beaches--multiplied by 35. Or to see all the commas, we’re talking 35,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 bytes of health data out there.

And the problems usually start with phishing. 

                                                                                #

A month has passed since Kyle did that vendor survey thing. He’s forgotten about that gift card or reporting a concern because, bless him, rumors go WSS.3 will be the full throttle, slam-bang finale. In that month, BigBummerExpress has used his system credentials to cruise the company IT platforms and learn where that sweet data is, how it’s structured, what protects it. To the Security people, if they spot any oddness in Kyle’s activity, it looks like him accessing places he’s authorized to access. 

It’s encryption time. 

8:15AM, the Zoom huddle and Kyle slurping coffee. His boss is asking Kyle to mute when everyone’s Payables screens flicker off. Text messages start flying. His boss manages to say, “I gotta go.”

                                                                             #

It’s no wonder that crime fiction often involves a cyber angle. The technology and its human implications can be fascinating, and it brings plenty of cat-and-mouse games. If anyone is mulling a healthcare cyber tale, here’s a general lay of the land for 2020 realism. 

To read the industry studies, hospital ransoms used to be small, way cheaper than fighting the protracted fight. A volume business. Fast forward to 2020: Those studies put asking prices in the millions. Today’s ransomware isn’t just encrypting data natively but stealing it on threat of release, so that companies can’t plug in the back-ups and refuse to bargain. Big game hunting, in the lingo.

Healthcare providers have layers of serious defenses in place. Be assured the good guys are damn good—and have to be. Federal regs (anyone remember the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act?) require detailed IT security plans and regular self-assessments, at the pain of major fines and enforcement should personal health information be jeopardized. Europe’s laws are even tougher.

Cybercriminals are such an everyday threat that it’s an insurable risk. Of course, no underwriter goes on the hook for potential millions only to stay out of the response and prevention discussions. Like I said, serious defenses.

That can have a weak link.

                                                                             #

Kyle is messaging his buddy. He had another emergency Zoom interview, this time an IT consultant dude with an open collar shirt and razor stare. The consultant dude kept showing Kyle that HR email and asking about BigBummerExpress and even about his browser history. His affiliations. This FBI lady joined the call, too. She didn’t utter a word. Just made notes. 

It was awesome.

It’s been weird at St. Healthcare. HR sent an actual email with an actual performance warning. It took forever to get the Payables and medical record interface back running, and while it’s not been on the news, Kyle figures somebody must’ve coughed up for the hackers to go away. 

Hackers. Big money. Affiliations. What Kyle’s thinking, this would make full throttle WSS fan fiction.

Bam, Scam, Thank you, Ma'am

Every six weeks, or so, my wife Barbara says to me, "Isn't your big break about due again?"

It's a standing joke, going on for so long we no longer remember when it began.

The phone rings and when one of us answers, we hear a young female with an Asian accent asking for "Step-on Leez-cow." This young woman, whose name is always "Mumble" and who works for "Mumble Mumble" promotion group (both of those change from call to call, by the way), is very ex-site-ted about my new book, Post Cards of the Haing-Ging. They would like to promote it and hope I will send (usually 50 or 100) copies to some book event that also changes with each call and which I've never been able to find through an Internet search.

I haven't stayed on the line long enough to learn how much money I'm supposed to invest in their enterprise, but I know it will be enough to make their phone call worthwhile… for them.

My "new" novel Postcards of the Hanging, appeared in February 2014. I have received this phone call at least a dozen times in the last three years and I look forward to it along with offers to update the warranty on my 2004 Honda Accord.

If you're new to writing, you'd probably be thrilled to receive a call like this. Don't be. Ask  how the "Company" heard about your book. Ask what they noticed about your website. Ask where else they have looked to find information about you. It's fun to listen to the dead air before they guess. Sorry, Ms., no lifeline here.

A month ago, I heard from a new caller and was in a bad mood (Surgery does that to me), so I played with him more than usual.

"Kevin" called from some mumbled promotion group, and they were palpitating about Words of Love, which I published "recently." It was late 2019, so props to them for being more up-to-date than Ms Bangkok (Who is due to call again next week). Kevin wanted to promote my book so we could boost the sales enough to bring it to the attention of major publishers and renegotiate a deal. We would split the profits. He didn't say whether it would be an even split.

I interrupted to ask how much he expected me to invest, and he answered, "10 or 15 thousand dollars" (Cue hysterical laughter). After that, like a basketball player who turns the ball over and compounds the error by committing a foul, he asked if I was familiar with traditional publishing.

My first novel was with a small traditional publisher. They peeled me like an apple, partly because I signed a bad contract and partly because they were blood-sucking vermin. Other writers had similar experiences and the company has long since disappeared because word got around, as it always does. Remember, we're writers. We tell stories. That company is one of the reasons I self-publish my novels now.

Then Kevin went for the Trifecta, asking me what I've done to promote my book. This is my answer, pretty much verbatim:

I'm a member of Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, International Thriller Writers and the Short Mystery Fiction Society. I have served on panels for both MWA and SinC, usually at libraries, but at both the New England Crime Bake and Crime Conn, too. I conduct fiction workshops in libraries and other venues, and have a video workshop available online. I have done radio and TV interviews,  podcasts and print newspaper feature stories. I have won several awards, which are listed on my Website and Facebook Author page. My daughter updates my website frequently. I have also published about thirty short stories (traditionally) and have several others currently under consideration.

Kevin was amazed. I told him he hadn't done his homework or he would have, at the very least, Googled me and found all that stuff--along with reviews of various books and stories.

I didn't bother to point out what would happen on the one in a trillion chance that a traditional publisher decided to take on my book. I simply told Kevin I don't give large sums of money to amateurs.

These are scams. 

Because of the Covid-19 lockdown, many people who have threatened to write "That Book" have actually used the time to do just that. The scammers smell fresh meat and are coming out of the dunghills to take advantage of it.

The Short Mystery Fiction Society posted a scam letter a few weeks ago, and when I first started out, I might have fallen for it. Now, I got about one sentence beyond the salutation before I knew it was fake. Less than two weeks ago, SMFS published a warning about a questionable literary agency that wanted to put writers in touch with Hollywood to sell their novel as a screenplay. I get email offers like that about once a month. They never name the novel they're looking at.

The problem is, if you're starting out, you're learning to write and query and create a synopsis and do an elevator pitch and revise your novel and create a website, a Twitter feed and a dozen other things. You're already swamped without having to learn to spot the grifters out there. There are a few websites to warn people, but they need to know a scam is active before they can pass the word. That means someone has to spot it and alert them.

Writer's organizations are important because they protect their members.

That's another thing mystery writers do besides tell stories. We try to look out for each other.

Chasing Pennies

I've written about exploits in banking and brokerage fraud with further articles to follow. Bad banking practices don’t feature well in my write-ups. Institutions change only when they’re forced to.

Recently my fraud expertise touched upon the personal. A good friend fell victim to gaping holes in one of New York’s largest financial institutions, J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.

Lily is smart, pretty, and unattached. Two out of three is pretty good, but she means to win the trifecta. She doesn’t advertise, but merely hopes to attract the right kind of guy. She appears on social media: Facebook, Pinterist, and a singles’ site that’s been around some thirteen years, MeetMe.com, where she met an interesting fellow.

Telling the good from the bad isn’t always easy. By the time our malefactor (male factor or dirtbag are also suitable) stepped into the light, he already knew critical pieces of information about Lily: her real name (thanks to odious Facebook requirements), where she’s lived, family relationships, and importantly– her birthday.

For a few weeks, ‘Antonio Sanchez’ from ‘New Jersey’ wooed our lass on MeetMe. He didn’t do anything crass like ask her bank account number or credit card information; thanks to Chase’s security ‘features’, he didn’t need to.

As Thanksgiving approached, Lily traveled across the country, stopping to visit relatives in Greenfield, Indiana, home of another Lilly, the famed pharmaceuticals company. Our heroine happened to check her bank account and found it unexpectedly fourteen hundred fifty dollars richer.

Lily, not only smart but honest, sought clarification at the Greenfield branch of Chase. Greenfield couldn’t fathom the problem.

check 1 of 6 #808869

“You put money into your account in the early hours of the morning. Looks like you needed it. What’s the problem?”

“I didn’t deposit anything.”

“But you did.” Greenfield regarded her suspiciously. “You’re saying you didn’t?”

“Exactly. I didn’t do any such thing.”

“Well, lucky you. Someone likes you well enough to put coins in your account.”

*click* Instantly Lily knew who’d made the deposit.

A couple of hours later, the situation reached me. By then, other deposits had appeared. Curiously, monies were rapidly shifting among Lily’s three accounts. My fraud alert alarms clanged.

“If you make a withdrawal,” I advised, “calculate only what you own to the penny and not a cent more.”

“What’s the problem?” friends asked. “A handsome guy sending Lily money? Does he have any brothers?”

I spoke adamantly. “There is no money, no boyfriend in New Jersey, no gold at the end of the rainbow.” When I explained the con, Lily agreed to join me for a visit to the Indiana State Police.

The man manning the reception desk told us all detectives were out of the office and wouldn’t return until the next day. Lily asked if she could file a report.

The grizzled trooper brought forms out to us in the lobby. He stood by as Lily tried to explain the situation.

He interrupted her. “A guy giving you money is no crime. No crime, you can’t file a report.”

I said, “There is no money. It’s a con…”

The trooper threw up his palm in a ‘Talk to the hand’ gesture. Cops are trained to seize and maintain control, even when counterproductive. He went on to lecture Lily, not so much accusing her of wasting police time, but of being silly.

“May I explain?” I said as levelly as I could. “There is no money, only fake deposits. He will use that false balance to pay himself.”

The cop paused, considering. “Wouldn’t work,” he said. “If I deposit a check, I have to wait a few days to withdraw funds.”

“That’s why he’s moving money around her accounts. Some banks, perhaps including Chase, lose track of new deposits as they’re moved around. The technique is called seasoning, losing the new deposit tag and making the money look like it’s aged on account.”

“I’m a road warrior,” said the trooper. “I’m not up on these things. Yeah, I’ll have a detective phone you.”

Virtually next door to State Police Headquarters, we’d noticed a Chase branch. Lily made the wisest decision of the day, visiting the bank for an update.

The young woman listened attentively. She quickly grasped the situation. “Oh my God,” she said. “I received a notice exactly like yours of a deposit early in the morning. I need to check my own account before I go home today.”

Together, the three of us discovered additional deposits and further shifting around of money. By then, funds had been used to buy the first Western Union money order made out to an unknown and very foreign name.

“Let me guess,” I said. “The money’s sent to Nigeria?”

“If Lily didn’t give this jerk her personal information,” the young lady said, “how did he get into her account?”

I explained one hypothesis. I’m a vocal critic of the so-called security questions routinely forced upon on-line customers. “What city were you born in?” “What was the name of your first pet?” “What’s your favorite team?” “What’s your favorite color?”

With the slightest information, bad guys find it ludicrously easy to guess the answers. The favorite color question often includes a helpful drop-down menu of eight colors. No one chooses black or white, so a malefactor can guess the answer in six tries or less.

The young branch manager rang the fraud department. She posed the same question to them, who replied “There are so many ways to breach an account…”

check 2 of 6 #808870

The bank gave us copies of the checks. One peculiarity came to light. Chase said it appeared the Nigerian repeatedly deposited the same two checks over and over, fooling Chase and highlighting another flaw in their security, a defective filter for detecting duplicate deposits.

Chase froze Lily’s accounts, leaving her stranded without travel money in the midst of a cross-country trip. But wait, we’re not done.

Lily awoke the next morning, finding her accounts unlocked and a half dozen or so deposits burgeoning her balances.

Lily phoned Chase to let them know further monkey business was afoot in her reactivated accounts. They quickly closed the window and her accounts, again cutting off her funds.

---

Big banks and little people, comes now the pathetic part. Instead of expressing gratitude for Lily’s quick action of notifying them of fraud, Chase blames Lily for the leaking of money from the bank. Their stance is that Lily either worked with the malfeasant Nigerian to defraud Chase, or at the very least handed over her account information to the bad guy. As you now know, that doesn’t have to happen. All it takes is sloppy banking.

Besides seizing Lily’s bank balance, Chase now demands another $600 in compensation for their losses. Good move, Chase: encourage honest citizens to rush in to report fraud made possible by your own shortcomings.

It’s a great day for banking. Have you had similar experiences?

Just Another January in South Dakota

I don't know if this made the national news, but the South Dakota media was all over the story of a 72 year old SD man, Daniel Lucas, who snow-birded in winter to Arizona, and who never came back last spring and was missing.  Well, they found him.  He killed himself in his car, they say.  His head was in a box, and his body down in a canyon in Maricopa County.  So how did he get dismembered?  Well, apparently a homeless man, Mattew David Hall. found him in his car, dead, and rather than call the police, he moved the body but kept the head to prove that he hadn't killed him… And kept it for a long, long, long time… They say that Mr. Hall has mental issues.  Yah think?  I think the guy kind of looks like Nick Nolte, so there's casting if they ever make a movie of it.

Moving on, we South Dakotans have our own Kremlin connection!  We're so proud.  Paul Erickson, of Vermillion, SD, is a long time Republican campaign operative.  He worked in SD for Trump, and in 2016 Erickson claimed he was on the Trump presidential transition team.  Which is why he sent an email during the 2016 NRA convention to then-presidential candidate Donald Trump with the subtle subject:  "Kremlin Connection":

Fun Fact:  Back in 1994 Erickson was an entertainment lawyer
who booked John Wayne Bobbitt
on a “Love Hurts," worldwide media tour.
Subtle, he's not.

"Putin is deadly serious about building a good relationship with Mr. Trump. He wants to extend an invitation to Mr. Trump to visit him in the Kremlin before the election. Let's talk through what has transpired and Senator Sessions' advice on how to proceed."

No one knows if that meeting took place:  Sessions told the House Intelligence Committee he didn't remember the request.

Okay, so Erickson is also connected to Russian gun rights advocate Maria Butina, who's worked for the deputy governor of Russia's central bank, Alexander Torshin, and who ran a pro-gun group in Russia supported by Torshin.  Erickson and Butina formed a limited liability company called "Bridges" in South Dakota in 2016 (I don't know if it was before or after the Kremlin Connection e-mail), which has an address in a Sioux Falls apartment building and no known actual purpose.  (Can't even find it on the web, dag nabbit.)  So - according to McClatchy news outlet, the FBI is investigating whether Torshin funneled money (thru Butina, thru Erickson?) through the NRA to help fund the Trump presidential campaign. The NRA spent $55 million on the 2016 election with $30 million of that going to the Trump campaign.
Gentle reminder:  The reason this matters is that it's illegal to use foreign money to influence federal elections.  (Thank you, Angela Kennecke for your investigation!)
BTW:  Check out this post from South Dakota's own Cory Heidelberger, with photos of Ms. Butina speaking all over South Dakota, including the Teenage Republicans Camp in the Black Hills, where a number of past and current South Dakota legislatures were counselors, or just there for the party.  Including Mr. Erickson...

Our South Dakota Legislature is back in session, and the legislation is coming out thick and fast, and piling deeper and higher.  Some of my personal favorites so far:

HB 1144, which makes it easier for city councils, county commissions, school boards, and other governmental bodies to do their business behind closed doors, especially if they're "Consulting with legal counsel or reviewing on communications from legal counsel about proposed or pending litigation or contractual matters.”  (Someone's trying to do something they don't want anyone to see...)

SB 107, which would repeal all regulations and licensing requirements for barbers.  Can't figure that one out to save my soul...

SB 109, which would repeal the licensing requirements for sign language interpreters.  Can't figure that one out, either...  

THE Official State Seal

HB 1102 started as a bill to require as much as a year in jail and a $2,000 fine for creating any replica of the Great Seal of South Dakota that did not include every detail specified by state law, including the state motto, “Under God the People Rule.” (See image to the right)

Well, the ACLU and most of us South Dakota smart-alecks had a lot of fun with that (google freely), and it's since been amended to ban renditions of the seal that are “greater than one-half inch in diameter and used for an official purpose or a for-profit commercial use” while at the same time making it clear that HB 1102 does not apply to “or limit any artistic or satirical use of the seal.”  More fun is still being had, because how can you resist shooting ducks?  (This is funnier up here, in Ducks Unlimited territory.)  Google freely.

State Representative Drew Dennert wants to make hunting, fishing, trapping and harvesting wildlife a constitutional right, that "shall be forever preserved for the public good" in HJR 1005, and make "Hunting, fishing, and trapping...  a preferred means of managing and controlling wildlife."  Still trying to figure out the "harvesting" part.  I can just see it now - hunters fighting against farmers in combines in the corn fields over the pheasants:
"I'm hunting!"  "But I'm harvesting!"  And shots ring out...

Meanwhile, a Mr. Levi Breyfogle of Rapid City has proposed a new Constitutional Amendment that would make all "victimless" crimes unchargeable:
"(1) A charge of a violation may only be filed by a victim whose person or property has been physically damaged by the defendant. If the victim is incapable of filing a charge of a violation, a family member may, but only if the victim does not object; and  (2) The damages must be physical, quantifiable, and have already occurred."
(Someone's done something they don't want anyone to know about...)

But enough of that, back to the news:

Local News:  On January 24th, in an improbably appropriate move, a woman crashed into the Billion Car Care Center.  Meth, not alcohol, and there were also 2 children under three in the back seat, who were unharmed, and are now "in the care of a family member."  Thank God.  BTW, here in South Dakota, if you get arrested, you get to do the walk of shame in jail stripes., which is then broadcast on the nightly news, and she looked shell-shocked, to put it mildly.  Whether it was the situation she finds herself in, or that she hadn't had any meth in over 24 hours, I don't know.

The photo that launched multi-
million dollar investments...

The latest scam:  Perhaps because they saw the EB-5 and GearUp! rifling of federal dollars, Tobias Ritesman and Tim Burns (long-time Brookings developer) cooked up a new company, Global Aquaponics which was going to be a high-tech fish farm near Brookings, SD.  (check out their website here!)  They were going to grow fish and shrimp in tanks, and use the "nutrient rich" water to grow vegetables.

And apparently there were quite a few people who weren't bothered by the lack of experience in shrimp farming available in the High Plains, because they managed to raise a few million dollars. (P. T. Barnum was so right.) But a year later, while the ground had been (barely) broken, no tanks were being built, and there was no sign of anything but a nice office downtown in which Mr. Ritesman went slightly off his nut one day and wanted to know about Bitcoins while waving a gun in front of a tech consultant. Let's just say that everyone got ripped off, and Mr. Ritesman and Mr. Burns are facing federal charges.

In the "we should have known" department: Mr. Burns was involved in the EB-5 scandal. (Thanks again to Angela Kennecke at Keloland News)   And Mr. Ritesman claimed to have won the same "Entrepreneur of the Year Award" as Steve Jobs and Elon Musk.  He didn't, but apparently no one checked before investing.
(BTW, this proves that there's a reason why Frank L. Baum made the Wizard of Oz a humbug and a conman in his earthly life back in Kansas and other parts of the Midwest.)

National News:  So, no fish, no shrimp, no vegetables in nutrient-rich water.  But we do have radium, at least in Brandon, SD.  Radium, which is (1) radioactive, (2) killed Marie Curie, (3) can occur naturally, and (4) has been in the city's water for decades. It's also not uncommon across the country. An analysis by EWG (go here for an interactive map) found 170 million people exposed to radium from drinking water in 22,000 utilities nationwide.  Brandon's radium level doesn't exceed federal guidelines.  What's amazing to me is how much (and many) poison(s) you can have in your drinking water before it exceeds the guidelines  Look it up some time.  

Well, that's all from South Dakota, where we talk like Mayberry, act like Goodfellas, and the crazy just keeps on coming.

 

My husband just looked this over and suggested, "Sponsored by the South Dakota Tourism Department".