I know all of you want to help, but be careful who you give to:
In a spree mirroring the online gold rush that accompanied Hurricane Katrina, online speculators are scooping up hundreds of Hurricane Rita-related Web domain names, and Rita-themed Internet auctions have begun.
Scammers often use such Web sites to trick people into making donations, authorities said. The quick proliferation of questionable activities spurred the federal government to work with Internet service providers, computer security companies and anti-spam groups to shut down and prosecute owners of fraudulent sites, according to several participants in the ad hoc task force.
The group has already closed more than 40 Web sites falsely claiming to raise money for relief organizations, said Tom Liston, a security consultant with Washington-based Intelguardians.com and an incident handler with the SANS Internet Storm Center, a nonprofit group that tracks online-hacking trends.
Stick to groups you know and trust, and if anyone has a list of known scams, let me know and I will post it.
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The quick proliferation of questionable activities spurred the federal government to work with Internet service providers, computer security companies and anti-spam groups to shut down and prosecute owners of fraudulent sites, according to several participants in the ad hoc task force.
I certainly don’t support scammers, and I do find them morally repugnant.
But I do wonder about the legality of randomly shutting down sites.
If I were moved to start a charity to help Rita victims, would I be shut down? That seems wrong to me. How does one decide what is legitimate? Do I have to be a 503(c)? Have been around for a few years? (If so, how do you get started?)
I worry about “the federal government” (whatever that means) deciding who is legit.
DougJ
Watch out for David Safavian. He was out to scam the government of millions of dollars in hurricane relief.
Glen
A word: check out what your employer is doing; corporations tend to check out real or alleged charities thoroughly. For Katrina, mine matched employees’ donations one-for-one. I contacted friends and family members who did not have similar advantages. Together, we doubled $500.
I mentioned this to a brother, whose employer was doing the same thing. He hadn’t realized the possiblities, but then he started organizing his friends.