iphone-unlock.com won't unlock your iPhone

Wiki vandalism recently brought my attention to the apparent scam site iphone-unlock.com

Beware of iPhone Unlock and Jailbreak Scams. It's a clear cut case of buyer beware. These sites advertise chiefly through spam posts and Wiki vandalism. A search for "iphone-unlock.com" scam reveals people complaining that they paid for the "unlock" software, only to learn that the unlock software didn't work with their specific phone. If the site had offered refunds as a result of failing to provide the service they advertised, this wouldn't be a problem in and of itself, but it appears people do not get a refund after the software sold by iphone-unlock.com fails to unlock their phone.


The article Another Company Purports to Unlock iPhone 3.1.2 IPSW, Charges Money has a nice summary of problems with iphone-unlock.com. These include but are not limited to:

1. The service itself is probably illegal
2. They claim 24/7 support but don't actually offer it.
3. They're selling services that are available free of charge and most likely only providing the exact same tools that are available for free.

Here is a sample complaint:

the-iphone-unlock.com SCAM

People beware of the-iphone-unlock.com is a Scam. I paid close to 50 dollars for lifetime access membership, trying to find an easy way to unlock my Iphone. The thing is that they say that they could unlock the 3g iphone whith the 2.2.1 firmware, once I paid went in and bOOm, "Unlock will NOT work with the baseband version (02.30.03)". Tried getting a refund or getting support and after 3 weeks I am still waiting for an answer. I know it is my fault for trying to get things the easy way, but I just want to let people know that IT IS A SCAM! The worst part is that they advertise in MacRumors Forums!

iphone-unlock.com is just another in a long list of fly-by-night iPhone unlock scams. They claim to unlock phones they can't unlock and do not appear to offer refunds when they fail to unlock your phone.

Check out this article about the forms of iPhone unlock scams for more information.

Payday Loan Scam Site cornerstonepayday.com

I'm a sysop for the Freakipedia, a small Wiki dedicated to Distorted View, a hilarious, juvenile podcast that makes Howard Stern look like Pat Robertson. The bulk of my responsibilities amount to deleting spam. This once took about 5 to 10 minutes every few days. One day the podcast host, Tim Henson, announced that his father had terminal liver cancer and that the show would go on hiatus for a while. Within 48 hours of that announcement, the Wiki received more spam posts than it had gotten in the previous two to three months. The pattern was predictable. There would be an initial rash of posts linking to the spamvertised site and other vandalized Wikis, which would in turn link to the scam site being advertized at the moment. One URL kept cropping up more often than the others, cornerstonepayday.com. I decided to do a little research.
As the following text will show, cornerstonepayday.com is probably not a legitimate business. If the site itself will not try to steal your identity, it's designed to process your data with absolutely no security between you and their server. The site uses none of the security it claims when receiving your data and will not protect you in any way, shape or form. Even if by some miracle the site is legitimate, their fee structure results in interest rates that are no better than a cash advance through your credit card company.

If you need money badly enough to consider the services of cornerstonepayday.com, get a cash advance or loan from your credit card company.

The first thing I noticed was that when you try to leave cornerstonepayday.com you get a bevy of popups trying to get you to stay.

These come up after trying to leave home page. You haven't even entered any data and the site is trying to warn you not to leave. It does this repeatedly. Right off the bat we have a major red flag. Legitimate sites do not harass you about leaving.

Let's go on. Below the "Apply Now" button you see this text:

OK, that's nice, but the site hasn't loaded over SSL.

Even if the server itself is configured to support a secure connection, your data won't be encrypted unless you load the page using HTTPS and not plain, unencrypted HTTP. The "Apply Now" form asks for a first name, last name, email address and the amount of money you want to borrow. I filled it out with fake data and was immediately taken to a form asking me for my bank information, birthday, social security number and address, that still wasn't encrypted. It's not that hard to redirect web visitors to the secure version of your site if one exists. The popups trying to keep me from leaving the page take more technical skill than redirecting visitors to the secure version of a site. Even a lazy developer could at the very least have the form submit the data you enter over a secure connection, even if the form doesn't load over one. I took a look at the source code behind the form submission, and even the from asking for your social security number and birthday wasn't submitted to a secure page. The URL http://www.cornerstonepayday.com/apply.php was hard-coded into the page. This means even if you manually enter through a secure connection your data will be routed to an unsecured connection when you try to submit it.

I decided to try manually loading the page over a secure connection to see if one even exists.This is easy to do, you just change the HTTP to HTTPS in the browser's address bar.

The moment I hit enter I got the same list of popups I got when I tried to leave the site in the first place. Grand.

The next thing I saw was yet ANOTHER red flag.

What the Hell?

To understand why this is a problem, you need to know a tiny tablespoon of information about SSL. SSL, the encryption that protects data in your web browser when using your bank, amazon.com or other sites uses a secure certificate. This certificate is "signed" by a root certificate vendor, such as Verisign or Godaddy. These root certificate vendors have the job of making sure the people who buy certificates are in fact who they say they are. Without this system a random hacker anywhere in the world could buy a certificate claiming to be, for example, Microsoft. A self-signed certificate in this situation means the people behind cornerstonepayday.com couldn't cough up a hundred bucks or so and wait a day or two for the certificate vendor to verify their identity. This is not the behavior of a legitimate business, but of a scammer who knows that the process of validating his business would reveal him as a con artist. There are legitimate uses for "self-signed" certificates. Intranet sites within a business for example will often use them. They're also common in development environments. Putting one into production as cornerstonepayday.com has done is, at best. rank incompetence. You do do NOT want these people handing your personal data. Even if a legitimate business they appear to lack the computer skills to secure your identity information.

But wait, there's more! Check out the text "The certificate is only valid for Parallels Panel". What does this mean? Glad you asked. Parallels allows you to run other operating systems in a virtual environment. The use of a Parallels Panel certificate means whoever put it on the web server didn't even bother to generate their own Self Signed certificate but stole a random certificate from a different product.

Remember that hard-coded URL in the form asking for your social security number, bank routing information, home address and birthrate? Even if you used this invalid SSL connection to load that form, your data would STILL be submitted unencrypted. This is pretty much an identity thief's wet dream. If you wanted to design a site that would maximize the risk of someone stealing the data submitted, then cornerstonepayday.com would be the perfect example.

I'll use a home security analogy to explain what's going on here. Imagine your bank's web site is a house. It has a security system, auto-locking doors, censors on all the windows and doors, motion detectors and a guard on duty. There are signs on all the windows and doors warning that the home is protected by a security system.

Cornerstonepayday.com has windows with missing panes and a door made out of balsa wood. The locks that are present were stolen from a nearby shed and the people behind cornerstonepayday.com don't have the keys, but that's OK to them because the locks fall open again the moment you try to lock them. There's a piece of cardboard out front. Scrawled on it in crayon are the words "guud sekurity sistem. yur moneys saf with us."

Both the bank and the shack your name, birthday, home address and social society number

The final nail in the coffin comes in the form of their fees.

This translates into a 15% to 26% interest rate on the loan. That's on the initial rates they advertise to get you to apply!

Don't do business with cornerstonepayday.com. They advertise through online spam posts and vandalism, their web site has NO security to protect your data when you submit it, the site design has a number of major red flags for scam activity and their rates are no better than using your credit card anyway. Why risk becoming the victim of identity theft for no financial benefit over using your credit card?

Hate is an ugly thing

There are people who have used the 10 year anniversary or 9/11 to hate all Muslims as if every single one of them were personally responsible for the actions of the 9/11 terrorists. Hating an entire religion or ethic group because of the actions of a radicalized few is the kind of thinking that lead the 9/11 terrorists to hate all Americans in the first place.

The people below have more in common with the 9/11 terrorists than I think they would ever admit.

Thanks again to Openbook for making it so easy to locate people talking about how they want to Nuke Mecca.

Aaron Nicol I WANT TO FOLLOW PROPHRT WHO MARRIES AND FUCKS 9 YEAR OLD GIRLS LIKE MUMMAHED FROM THE CHILD RAPIST RELIGION OF ISLAM! AND I WANT 10 BRIDES THAT I OWN AGAIN ISLAM AND AN ONE WHO IS NOT OF MY TYPE OF ISLAM I MUST KILL. ISLAM = SATAN MUMHAMED = EVIL FUCK THE KABBAHA FUCK MECCA LETS NUKE THE SAUDIS

Tony Aiello We should wait for all the Islamists to go to Mecca and then drop a nuke on all of them. I still wont feel like we're even.

Joe Nicoletti THIS IS HOW WE SOLVE THE TERRORIST ISSUE. WE GET OUT OF THE MIDDLE EAST... YOU WILL NEVER CHANGE CAMEL JOCKIES. YOU CANNOT CIVILIZE UNCIVILIZED MORONS.. ONCE WE LEAVE, WE NUKE EVERY MAJOR CITY IN THE MIDDLE EAST INCLUDING MECCA. PROBLEM SOLVED!!!!!!!!! WE MAKE THEM SUBMIT.....................................

Aaron Nicol
TO DEAR OLD UNCLE SAM... IT HAS BEEN 10 YEARS SINCE THE SAUDI AL QUEDA TOOK THE TOWERS DOWN IN NYC IF WE GET HIT AGAIN LETS USE OUR NUKES ON MECCA AND MAKE THESE IGNORANT SAVAGE CAVE DWELLING SCUMFAGGOTS REALIZE YOU FUCK WITH THE USA YOU LOSE!!!!
Share · September 11 at 2:32am · Privacy:

Rollin Paramount likes this.
William H. Hensley And shoot their children in this country.;
September 11 at 2:33am

Remember, these are the posts they make publicly. One can only wonder what they say in private.

Dr. Oz is a jackass

The terms "organic arsenic" and "inorganic arsenic" are not trying to describe two different kinds of the element arsenic. They are describing the other elements to which the arsenic atoms are bound. Arsenic is a highly reactive element and as a result you don't find it in a pure form in nature.

Organic arsenic is arsenic bound to hydrogen and carbon. This is the kind that passes harmlessly through the human body. The stable carbon and hydrogen bonds keep the arsenic atoms securely locked into molecules that will not react with the rest of the body.

Inorganic arsenic is generally bound to atoms that are more volatile, such as chlorine, sulfur and oxygen. These molecules tend to break apart in the human body, allowing the arsenic to actually react.

The test Oz did failed to differentiate between these two kinds of arsenic containing molecule, making the results meaningless for evaluating the safety of the juice.

On Sports

Modern sports are a disappointment. You rarely see any real violence during a game. Let me know when they bring back Gladiatorial matches. Real ones, where the match ends with a death, none of these bad actors in homoerotic dances they call "professional wrestling". Hockey has too much body armor and rugby doesn't get anywhere near enough coverage to have a decent fan base. I'd wager if it DID start getting more coverage some hand wringing idiots would form an organization to ban it so they can prove that they "think of the children" more than the rest of us.

You want me to give a damn about sports? Then show some that are worth watching, not a bunch of millionaires running around and whining whenever someone breaks one of their manicured nails. I want a version of soccer where it's not considered a fowl unless you have a broken bone. Allow steroids, as long as they're laced with an anticoagulant, so if you do get cut you risk bleeding out. Get rid of the armor in Football. And Baseball? I'm not sure how to save baseball, but you can make a start by letting the batter keep the bat and use it to fend off anyone trying to tag him "out" with the ball. That MIGHT liven things up a bit.

The irony is that some men consider me less "manly" because I have no interest in the sissified dance numbers they call "sports." If I want a dance number I'll watch something with better music. At least "Glee" has the decency to be up front about the homoerotic plot themes. Sweeny Todd has it all. Death (at least in the fake Hollywood sense), violence, revenge and a soundtrack.

The real reason they don't bring back public executions is that everyone knows they would get better ratings than professional sporting events. Even death by lethal injection would draw higher numbers than the playoffs. If they bring back the electric chair the Superbowl would be permanently relegated to the #2 slot, unless of course another channel was airing a hanging. Against that double header the Superbowl would be #3.

Google and oppressive regimes

I've been thinking about the Google+ "Real Name" controversy and the selective enforcement, like allowing all the "Lady GaGa" profiles. I'm also reminded of Google's "Great Firewall of China" and their desire to do business with often oppressive regimes. It occurs to me that having political dissidents using pseudonyms on Google+ would be a problem in negotiations with these regimes. From a business standpoint it would be easier if political dissidents simply avoided Google+ completely. There's no need for embarrassing negotiations with China or Iran about dissidents using Google+ if there are none. Requiring people to use their real names will do a spectacular job of keeping away people whose lives would be endangered by using their real name.

What, did you honestly think the "No Pseudonyms" policy was about piracy or civil discourse?

Dennis Markuze aka David Mabus in the news again

Everyone's favorite death threat dealing, stalking, psychotic nutjob has been in the news again.

It all started when long time target of Markuze aka David Mabus threats posted the blog entry Time to institutionalize Dennis Markuze. In it he noted:

Every morning when I get up and get on the computer, the first thing I do is delete the pile of spam from Dennis Markuze, each of which is usually cross-posted to 50 to 100 other people. Every time I fire up Twitter, the first thing I do is clear the garbage Dennis Markuze has left there; yesterday I blocked and reported spam from over 25 Markuze accounts, amounting to several hundred messages.

You know what? This is wrong. I shouldn't have to do this. Over the years — I've been getting these threats from Markuze since 1993 — it's gradually grown from an occasional deranged message on usenet to part of my daily routine, where I'm dealing with hundreds of ranty messages every day from one disturbed individual in Montreal, Canada. And I'm not even his sole target: he has a hate-on for Shermer, Randi, and Dawkins, and this is all he does with his life: he sits in his bedroom in his parent's house and sends out shrill, incoherent messages to the world, all day long.

In the body of the post, PZ linked to a petition demanding that the Montreal city police take the "Mabus" death threats seriously. What the survey didn't disclose was that every signature generated an e-mail to the Montreal police. After a few thousand signatures were added to the petition they plaintively tweeted:

@SPVM Police Montréal
@rebeccawatson Please stop sendind e-mails to our media adresse by signinig the petition.We are investigating the case. Thank you.

The next day the Montreal Gazette ran the article Montreal police start probe of Twitter threats. Predictably the Montreal Police come off looking like idiots. Some people are claiming to have never heard of Mabus, others are claiming there's an ongoing investigation. It all comes across as a lazy, incompetent force trying to circle the wagons and pretend to be doing something.

Then there's the conspiracy theory that Markuze / Mabus is a Deep Cover Liberal and the Montreal Police are in on it.

During all of this Twitter users have been asked to retweet screen captures of any threats that Mabus makes to @SPVM so the Montreal Police get a copy of the tweets before Twitter deletes the latest account used by this nutjob.

Markuze / Mabus is crazy, no bones about it. He's been stalking people and making death threats for a while, and it's only a matter of time before he hurts someone. Even psychics think Dennis Markuze aka David Mabus is a threat to the life of PZ.

I wonder if the Montreal police ever use psychics.

You have to admit it

Two grown men calling out God's name while covered in baby oil and glitter is pretty gay.





Liberace didn't glitter this much. Inexplicably, Joshua Mills looks even MORE flaming without the glitter.

It's like Rosie O'Donnell lost some weight and ran face first into an ugly stick.

Just like the "Prophet or madman" apologetic for the divinity of Christ, there's only two explanations for Joshua Mills. Either he's a con artist pretending to sweat glitter and baby oil, or God approves of gays, made one a prophet and is fairly fabulous himself.

I'm not terribly comfortable with the second option, only because it would mean God has a very strong resemblance to the annoying gay male sidekick from "Will & Grace." I have nothing against gays, but I think I'd prefer Joshua be a con artist.

Glittering Flaming Con Man for Christ!

Joshua Mills claims he sweats supernatural oil and gold dust:
https://web.archive.org/web/20111012050409/http://unreasonablefaith.com/2011/07/21/glittering-miracle/

His web site is a riot:

Joshua Mills "about" page

During his services signs and wonders are commonplace with manifestations of supernatural oil and gold dust, creative healings, supernatural weight-loss, financial miracles, Angelic visitation and heavenly encounters.

Check out Joshua's head shot on the link above. The only way he could be more flaming would be to have a "Friend of Dorothy" pin on an ascot and a cardboard cutout of Margaret Cho in the background.

And he loves male angels.
http://churchwarnings.blogspot.com/2008/07/joshua-mills-angels-dripping-oil-manna.html

Joshua Mills also sings!
http://www.myspace.com/joshuamillsmusic

Oh, and he talks about miraculous teeth whitening. That's right, Jesus will give you white teeth: Xpmedia: Teeth whitening Joshua Mills

http://slaughteringthesheep.wordpress.com/2010/03/25/joshua-mills-teeth-whitening-miracle/

Apparently Mr. Mills decided the feather from "Forest Gump" was a message from God:
http://www.therisinglight.com/tag/joshua-mills/

Do people actually take loons like this seriously? Please tell me the guy from Borat or a similar comedy performance artist is behind this. The idea that people are actually dumb enough to fall for such a shoddy, obvious act is too depressing to contemplate.

Is Stacey Campfield Gay?

All joking about Stacey Campfield's flaming appearance aside, there is some speculation about the sex life of the driving force behind Tennessee's "don't say 'Gay'" bill.

First, there's Stacey Campfield apparent terror of homosexuals. There's no rational basis for banning Tennessee teachers from mentioning homosexuality aside from blatant fear mongering. Most of the people I've met who oppose discussion of homosexuality seem to think merely talking about it will trigger a rush of man-on-man orgies in the classroom. This attitude is perplexing to me. If someone I do not want to have sex with propositions me with a sex act I find repugnant, I'm not going to dive in and engage in it no matter what sweet nothings the person mutters. The idea of "enticing" an allegedly straight person into a homosexual act is absurd. No one who is completely straight is going to have sex with someone of their own gender. The only way a man can seduce another man with sweet nothings or lewd suggestions is if the "straight" man is at least a little gay.

Being a gay man who is attacking the rights of homosexuals would be incredibly hypocritical, but Stacey Campfield is no stranger to hypocrisy or at least profound contradictions.

The article What the Heck is Wrong With Stacey Campfield? points out:

it is hard to escape the contradictions underlying his geniality. He is a family-values conservative who has never married, a fathers’ rights advocate with no children, a professed preservationist who has been cited by the city for property neglect and sued by his tenants (though he is quick to point out that he has also won a suit of his own against a tenant), an advocate for education who litters his blog with spelling and grammatical errors, and a legislator who rarely manages to get his own legislation out of committee. He proposes bills more likely to generate headlines than laws.

So if he's gay, how did he become a Republican? In his own words:

I was very much just more of a fiscal conservative and really the social issues weren’t as key to me as the fiscal side was. But after I got up there, the more I studied and the more I looked at stuff, the more I realized that social issues have huge impacts on the fiscal issues. You can go down through it, you can say, unwed parenthood or something like that, that’s somebody else’s problem. Well, it is until they need social services or they need something else.

That sounds a bit like how the average Log Cabin Republican gravitated towards the GOP. The problem is the Tea Party era GOP makes it hard to be a fiscal conservative and a social progressive / moderate. That puts you in something of an outsider position. Campfield appears to have that very kind of an outsider position in the GOP. He was cut from the Republican governor's news mailing list.

We have a man pursuing a homophobic agenda, in a political party known for the wide stance problem of closeted homosexuals, who isn't married and has no children. He appears to be on the track to marginalization within the GOP despite the success of his "Don't say Gay" bill".

Oh, and Campfield appears to assume most women are sluts.

Check out the tinycatpants article linked above. It sounds like Campfield appears to think women are trolling the Earth, seeking men to shag briefly in order to bind them into paying for a child that may or may not be his. It's a bit paranoid but professing such a fear would allow a closeted homosexual to offer a token explanation for why he doesn't have a girlfriend. Animosity towards women doesn't mean you're gay*, but the Republicans are the ones who often claim that Lesbians are "Man Haters." It's another red flag.

None of this of course constitutes proof that Stacey Campfield is gay. It's all speculative to circumstantial at best. There are a lot of red flags but as the jury in the Casey Anthony murder trial could attest, numerous red flags don't necessarily constitute solid evidence.

Is Stacey Campfield gay? No one knows, but I doubt anyone would be surprised if he were caught demonstrating a wide stance or exploring Santorum in a private bath house.

* OK, using Rush Limbaugh, the guy who was caught smuggling illegal Viagra on an "All Boy's Fishing Trip", may not have been the best example to use when claiming animosity towards women isn't necessarily an indicator of homosexuality.

Tennessee

Where they think banning the word "Gay" will make Stacey Campfield less flaming.

Where, exactly are his eyes directed while he's holding up that sticker?

Yes, he's still a creep

The Billboard Douche has been ordered to take down his billboard.

Normally a BarMitzvah has kosher food

A Jewish friend has commented on the fact that Max Ultimate Food has a very, er, flexible definition of what constitutes appropriate food for Bar & Bat Mitzvahs. Their highly inappropriate sample menu includes things like burgers with cheese, lobster and crab. The pigs in a blanket are iffy, as it's conceivable they're made with all beef franks and no cheese, but given the colossal lack of clue in the rest of the menu I'd be inclined to doubt it.

My commented screen capture is below. Please forgive any rough edges, as I had to stitch it together from multiple screen shots. I do not have a graphic designer's screen.

UPDATE:
A friend pointed out that I missed the prosciutto in the "First Course" when marking up the image.

Killed Someone? Let God Cover For You! | The American Jesus

Killed Someone? Let God Cover For You! | The American Jesus

This is GREAT NEWS for prosecutors who are finding their death row cases overturned by DNA evidence. If they can prove the inmate probably "Found Jesus" after committing the crime then they can argue that a DNA mismatch is to be EXPECTED and proves NOTHING about the innocence of the people on death row. A DNA match on the other hand, proves the prisoner never REALLY converted and thus deserves to be executed even sooner.

You heard it here, unbelievers. Converting can CHANGE YOUR DNA! We’ll all go out and knock over some convenience stores, leave lots of hair and skin samples behind, then have a “genuine born-again experience” and change our DNA. It’s the perfect crime!

I will have to brew a batch of this

FARK.com: (6285506) Gueuze: complex, funky, idiosyncratic, multifaceted, pungent, satisfying, intense, crisp, dry, acidic, refreshing, tart, fruity, oaky, sour, musty, vinous, lemony, strawlike, cidery, grassy, haylike. That's an awful lot of words for beer

Not the way to get your kid to sleep

Not the way to get your kid to sleep
Originally uploaded by flakingnapstich

Not the way to get your kid to sleep

Caleb and the raven

Caleb and the raven
Originally uploaded by flakingnapstich

Caleb and the raven

Kirk Cameron's manager sent a threatening letter about this photo

Warning: Criticizing washed up, has been actor Kirk Cameron for mocking a man with a terminal illness and using a silly photo of Kirk Cameron to do it will get you threatening letters from Kirk Cameron's manager Mark Craig.

Kirk Cameron is an asshole, and so is his manager Mark Craig.

Imbibing quarts of bathtub gin

Make: Online | How to Make Your Own Gin Without a Still
I've been making my own gin by steeping juniper berries. I'm looking forward to trying this recipe. All I need is some 100 proof vodka.

Measles Outbreak In Europe, Especially France

"Oh, but they won't sell as many vaccines that way. Never mind, then... "

The profit on a singe vaccinatio­n is about 10 to 25 cents. The cost of a single measles case can be thousands of dollars. If "big pharma" really was determined to make people sick to profit from it, they'd be doing everything they could to NOT vaccinate.

But hey, you stick with the naive belief that a merciless profit motive is driving them to turn away billions from treating measles, whooping cough and polio in order to scrape together a relative pittance from vaccinatio­n. I'm going to invest in "big pharma" stock. The anti-vax movement is going to be making money for them hand over fist in the next few years.
About Personal Health
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost