Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with spoof

Can I make Chrome appear Firefoxy?

bluefly — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 07:16:20 -0800

I like to watch a lot of streaming video especially for sports games. I usually use the Google Chrome browser. But some sites' media players say they only work with Firefox or IE and won't even give me the chance of trying it out in Chrome. Is there a way to trick the sites into thinking Chrome is really one of the approved browsers? Or is there really some fundamental difference that makes the players break in Chrome? I am especially looking to watch sports on NBC. I recently uninstalled Firefox because I didn't like the new version. But I can reinstall it if that's the only solution. I am on a Windows Vista computer. Thanks.

Spam No More! How do I convince gmail of this?

darth_tedious — Fri, 01 May 2009 20:53:39 -0800

How Do I Get Hosts to Stop Labeling My Email As Spam? For the last five years or so, spammers have been systematically spoofing my domains, and sending out the usual Viagra and whatnot emails under my name. I finally asked my hosting service the right question, in the right way, and they finally uncovered the misconfiguration that apparently allowed this to happen. Since my domain name rep is now so shredded that even my actual emails to myself get automatically routed into my Spam Box, I'm curious: How do I go about reversing this, so that my actual emails get sent to my customers' inboxes, instead of their spam boxes?

A hip hop spoofish song that played on alternative stations...

petethered — Fri, 01 May 2009 20:41:03 -0800

It's killing me... there was a hip-hop SPOOF song ( or at leat I considered it a spoof ) that would play on DC101 that I can't seem to remember anything about. I'm pretty sure it's about three years old. I swear it had something to the extent of "Rollin with my homies , with a fourty by my side". in the lyrics. The M.I.A song "Paper Planes" always reminds me of the song I'm seeking...

Please hive mind... tell me what the song was.... It's killin' me.

Fraudulent Telemarketers on my Cell Phone!

fogster — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 11:05:01 -0800

Telemarketers calling my cell phone. With spoofed Caller ID. For fraud. How do I send them to PMITA prison? I'm one of those people that's very guarded about my phone number. Maybe 20 people on the planet have my home number, and about 5 people have my cell number. So when I got a call Monday night from (717) 432-5696, I was instantly suspicious. I didn't pick up, and they didn't leave a message. I Googled the number, intending to just let Google tell me whose number it was (a random couple in PA), but I noticed this page, indicating that hundreds of people left complaints about being called by this number and trying a callback, to find the number out of service. Those who did pick up said it was a robodialer (illegal!) calling their cell phone (illegal!) to sell them "extended warranties" for cars they didn't own (fraud!), and that the caller wouldn't tell them who they were (illegal!) and/or started swearing at them when they asked.

This morning my cell phone started ringing with a call from (323) 581-3046. I quickly Googled the number, but didn't get to pick up before I had an answer. But same deal: lots of complaints (starting today) of phishing-sounding requests for auto warranties.

I understand that it's easy to spoof Caller ID with a digital line / VoIP, which is what I suspect is going on. I also understand that, since I haven't picked up, I don't exactly have a strong case against these guys.

However, I refuse to sit back and let them keep at this. Next time they call, what can I do? (I've read of a *57 "Call Trace," but I don't know how it works, and I've read things suggesting that it's not all it's cracked up to be. More information on this welcome.)

I'm hearing rumors, BTW, of cell companies "releasing" the lists of their cell numbers. I suspect this is a chain-letter hoax, but can anyone point to something definitively debunking (or confirming...) it?

My cell number is not explicitly on the Do Not Call Registry, but my understanding is that, as a cell number, it's effectively there "by default."

I'm an unemployed recent-college-grad, so I don't really have the means to bring a lawsuit, but I do have a lot of disposable time. If it matters, I live in New Hampshire, and my cell phone is from Verizon Wireless.

Facebook a privacy problem? Never would have guessed.

Slam I Am — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 19:47:24 -0800

Someone has accessed a friend's Facebook account more than once, despite the fact that my friend changes passwords on a regular basis. How? My friend logs out of Facebook after each session, and surfs on an unsecured wireless connection. I'm told no one else has had access to the computer.

What are the possible ways this is happening? What should be done to prevent it?

Do you know any fake James Bond title songs?

lord_yo — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 15:55:27 -0800

Do you know any fake James Bond title songs? I'm looking for songs that sound like James Bond title songs, but aren't. They could be parodies (like "The Man Made of Guns" by Kris Straub), fake title themes (like on Arling & Cameron's "Music for Imaginary Films"), or just songs that seem inspired by James Bond themes (such as Robbie Williams's "Millennium"). Any recommendations?

This question brought to you by the letters AA-BB-CC-DD-EE-FF

jfuller — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 12:50:26 -0800

My son lives four hours away. I'm trying to do phone support for him on his PC (XP pro), which won't connect to the internet. In asking him to try various things and report what (if anything) happened we discovered that ipconfig /all is reporting his MAC address as 00-11-22-33-44-55. Nuh-huh! Fuller violently shakes head until pea brain rattles. I built this PC myself back around Christmas and documented it from soup to nuts. That is NOT NOT NOT it's true MAC address. Can anyone suggest where it might be coming from?

I know of two ways to spoof a MAC address in XP, one done using the NIC's properties (Advanced/Network Address/Value) and the other being a registry hack. The NIC's properties have not been diddled with; and I had him search in regedit for the string that's being reported as the spurious MAC address. Not found. Where else might a phony MAC address be imposed on the system?

Oh, google. It's no help because so many people use that string to describe the form of a MAC address ("Look for a number that looks like 00-11-22-33-44-55.")

Gibberish blog using our company name

Joleta — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 09:12:15 -0800

What is this gibberish blog using our company name? Our company librarian found this gibberish "blog" while searching for mention of our company name online. A Whois search says the registration was created today and is private. The Sponsoring Registrar is GoDaddy.com Inc., and the Registrant Organization is listed as Domains by Proxy Inc.

What is the purpose of someone doing this? Is it merely to collect money from Google Ads? How can we pursue getting this site shut down? Through GoDaddy or Domains by Proxy?

Driving Miss Daisy spoof?

bolognius maximus — Sat, 20 Jan 2007 21:00:41 -0800

Does anyone remember a spoof of Driving Miss Daisy? Hopefully someone knows what I'm referring to. It was a spoof of Driving Miss Daisy. I think it was on Saturday Night Live (but I could be remembering incorrectly). I don't think it was the episode with Toonces, the driving cat. What I do remember is that Miss Daisy is in the back seat nagging at Hoke, and at some point he says, "I know what you want, Miss Daisy, and I'm gonna come back there and give it to you!" (or something to that effect). Does anyone remember seeing this? Hope that someone has some info. Thanks!

No, I don't want to send a copy to Arnie, I just want to read it again

antifuse — Mon, 23 Oct 2006 03:26:05 -0800

Help me find this ANCIENT, early-internet Conan The Barbarian fanfic/spoof story! My google fu has failed me! When I was 15 or 16 years old (so, around 1993-1994 or so), I was working at my mom's company as a summer student. One of the other summer students was a year or two older than me, and I like to think of him as my first real geek mentor. He would get me copies of Doom add-ons, and various other things from this thing he called an "FTP". It was incredible, the amount of stuff he had access to. Any way, the only real gem (aside from the Aliens Doom game, which scared the bejesus out of me) that sticks out in my mind was a fairly long (could have been novella length) text file, which was in several parts, chronicling the adventures of Conak (I think?) the Barbarian. Obviously, Conak was based on Conan, but the story was humourous in nature. At the time, I was really into Douglas Adams style humour (well, still am, I guess, but I was just getting into it at the time) and I found this story to be somewhat similar to Adams' style. I really found it hilarious at the time, but I never got to finish it, because it was posted in parts, and the summer finished before the last part was posted (maybe it never was?). I'd really like to find it again, to a) see if it holds up to my memory if it being absolutely hilarious (it probably won't) and b) see how it ends!

My google(yahoo, askjeeves, msn, any search engine I could find)-fu has yielded no results! Certainly, *somebody* must have been in that scene at the time. I'm 99% positive that he wasn't accessing internet directly, as I don't recall ISPs being available then, but rather through a local BBS (using FidoNet? Is that even what FidoNet was for?) or something. This would have been in the Greater Toronto Area. I *would* try and track down the dude himself, but I can't remember his name.

Someone's stolen my email address!

serialcomma — Mon, 16 Oct 2006 22:33:32 -0800

Someone's signing up for internet accounts using my Yahoo email address. Help! Yesterday, I received an email from MySpace asking me to activate my account. The problem? I never signed up for a MySpace account using that address. And though I obviously didn't activate the account, there is now a MySpace Music page linked to my email address.

Then, today, I received an email from a particular actor's message board, asking me to click the link in the message to activate the account. And, you guessed it, I didn't sign up for an account there either.

The address being used is myfirstnamemylastname@yahoo.com. So is there a particularly inept person trying to impersonate me? (It doesn't make sense to fake being me when the confirmation emails come to my address, right?) Is someone screwing with me? Or is this a scam of some sort?

Also, in what may merely be a weird coincidence, my last name is the same as the actor whose message board I am now apparently a member of.

I've written to MySpace and have not yet gotten a response; I can't find a contact email for the message board. I've changed the password on my Yahoo account and directed all potentially sensitive emails to another address.

Anything else I can/should do? How worried should I be about this?

running firefox with outlook web access

yonation — Mon, 06 Feb 2006 12:51:53 -0800

is there a way to make firefox work with outlook web access, in "premium" mode? my company just switched to the incomparable outlook web access, which looks quite nice in internet explorer but gives you a shitty, feature-poor version in anything else. i want to use firefox, as IE obviously sucks (i had no idea you couldn't even right-click and save the page, for example), and it doesn't seem like there's anything inherently special about IE that would make it run better with outlook premium; just regular M$ stuff. anyone have any suggestions? familiarities with the program?

Love Rhapsody. Hate territorial restrictions.

skylar — Mon, 05 Dec 2005 15:34:15 -0800

Rhapsody has launched for free on the web, and it's compatible with Macs. Great - except I'm based in the UK, and they're using IP blocking to prevent non-US residents from using the service. So what's the most efficient, most reliable, least painful way for my UK-based Mac to spoof Rhapsody into thinking I'm in the States? I don't mind paying a little.

OSX version hack?

sergeant sandwich — Mon, 17 Oct 2005 14:52:32 -0800

OSXfilter: I want to fool applications on my Powerbook into thinking that I'm running a different version of the Mac OS than I really am. Can I? How? I am currently using an older version of the Mac OS (Jaguar 10.2.8). A particular app that I want to use requires Panther and bails out immediately upon start-up, complaining about my system version. I want to make the application try to run, despite whatever buggy behavior doing so might cause.

I suspect that there is some function in the system API whereby applications can fetch the current system version. I further suspect that this is a string stored in some file, somewhere, that I can edit to spoof the application into thinking I'm running Panther. Basically I'm thinking of something analogous to the firefox user-agent HTTP spoofing. Does anyone know how to do this, or if it's even possible? Thanks!

How do you get a stolen yahoo account back?

-harlequin- — Fri, 12 Aug 2005 02:43:43 -0800

How embarrassing - I actually got password spoofed and my account stolen. How can I get my Yahoo account back? Has anyone who lost a Yahoo account to a spoofer managed to get it back? How? How long did it take?
I have filled out the form here, and gave details of the (yahoo geocities) site housing the spoof, and asked that the email address change be undone, and the password reset. That was Monday. It's Friday now, and the spoof site has been deleted, and I have received a "Support Satisfaction Survey" which I suspect might mean that the case has been closed, but I don't have the account back.
What is the next step to take?

(Please don't suggest getting a new account or dropping this, the question is how to do I get the stolen account back.)

(I noticed that when I was emailed a receipt-confirmation copy of the information I submitted via the form, some extra information was attached to the form, like browser type, etc. Included in that was the fact that I was logged into the account that I was saying was stolen (Yahoo has a two-layer cookie security system, and I was still logged in when I filled out the form, even though I couldn't make changes to recover my account). I assumed this would demonstrate I wasn't trying to fraudulantly claim an account that wasn't mine, but I wonder if it was interpreted as suggesting the account was still in my control and nothing needed doing?)

Does anyone know Yahoo's policy for these cases?
I read elsewhere that a subpoena might be necessary. Does that sound right, and if so, how would I get one of those?

Email Spoofers

grumblebee — Wed, 19 May 2004 09:31:50 -0800

Someone is spoofing email -- making it look like it's coming from me -- and offering to sell people computer equipment. It looks like this is a scam to collect ebay ids. I know about this because one of the guy's emails was returned to me (it couldn't get through to the person he was sending it to). I have his email address. Can I do anything? [more inside.] About a month ago, I got an email from ebay saying my account was suspended because they believed someone had broken into it. I've been busy, and I haven't had time to re-instate my account (I have to fax all sorts of stuff to ebay).

In any case, here is the email that this guy is sending people:

======
Dear _______________,

Dear eBay Member, I am a reseller of electronics and we have items such as Sony Vaio Laptops, PDAs, MP3 players and Digital Cameras I know there may be a lot of people sending email offers and disappearing with the money but I am not such a person. I can send you the item in advance and you can send me the payment after you check it out. Let me know, you have got nothing to lose. Email me at fordsprairie@earthlink.net with your eBay id so that I can check feedbacks before trusting for a transaction.

Thank you,
mgeduld

========================

mgeduld is MY ebay username. I have already forwarded this to ebay, but I was wondering if there was anything else I could do.

I was wondering if someone here with a valid ebay account would be into emailing him/her and asking for more info about the laptops, etc. To see if he'll be stupid enough to give away any info about himself.

Mmmm, tastes like phish!

banished — Thu, 01 Apr 2004 05:20:08 -0800

I believe this is one of those PayPal lookalike steal all your personal info pages. What are the steps one goes through to report something like this? And to whom? Of course, in light of this thread I don't feel like doing anything about it personally, so anyone else feel like a good netizen today?