Gameover - The Latest Malware Threat Has the FBI Issuing Public Warnings

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has issued a warning to the American public about a new internet attack they are calling "Gameover." 

Read their press release here.

Seems that the evildoers send you an email that looks to be from a very official looking site, informing you that's there has been a problem with a recent financial transaction.  You're instructed to follow the link provided in the message for further details. 

Wham.  If you click on that link, you've allowed the malcious software ("malware") access to your hard drive, where it will spend its time locating and forwarding the user name and passwords for your financial accounts.  Yes, like your checking account.

It's serious stuff -- they're taking lotsa bucks from people and it's called "gameover" because by the time that you know you've been hit, they're already finished with you and taking your hard-earned cash.

PC World has a nice article discussing how this latest threat is another version of the Zeus malware from a few years back.  Along with it, a discussion of the past year's internet thievery highlights.

Here's the thing.  Don't open those attachments connected to emails even if you know the person unless you are expecting them to be sending you a document.  And even then, it's nice to have your security software in place to scan the attachment before it's downloaded.  (Yahoo! Mail provides this via Norton, nice freebie.)

Drew Peterson and the TV Movie: I Admit It – I’m Gonna Watch Rob Lowe

I’ve been keeping up with the Drew Peterson case for it seems like years now (hey, it has been years if you count this December 2007 post) and truth be told, part of me is kinda irked that he’s getting to feel so darn important because now, yes, there is a Lifetime TV Movie bearing his name.

You know he loves this.  He’s even talking to the media via his attorney. 

And I hate that.

However, I am going to watch this movie.  From the previews, Rob Lowe looks to be giving an excellent performance and his hair looks perfect for the role, to boot.  I’m happy to see Penny from the Big Bang Theory getting a chance to show us that we really do need to know her name as an actress (besides hosting whatever awards show she’s doing).

Maybe this movie will help some battered wife out there get the heck out.  At least, that is what I’m going to be telling myself … because this is one guilty pleasure that I’m not going to miss. 

Nonlawyer Firm Ownership – I Think It’s Scary and Wrong.

Read today over at Law.com about a growing trend in having law firms owned by NON-lawyers.  Wow. 

To read the article, originally published by Corporate Counsel, check out “IBM General Counsel Robert Weber on Nonlawyer Firm Ownership.”

I agree with Mr. Weber.

Perhaps this is the final nail in the coffin of law being a profession and not a business.

Long ago, when all those challenges to solicitation regulation began hitting the U.S. Supreme Court right along with the local and state bars and there was an outcry that “country club solicitation” was unacceptably elitist … and the doors were opened to lawyer advertising and such, well I thought I got it.

Law practices were profit-making enterprises, after all. 

We would lose our professional status, our integrity, if this dam broke, I remember some of the elder statesmen (and stateswomen) of the local bar warning during bar cocktail parties.  How old school I thought.

Now, I remember what they said.  And I think they were right.  It makes me sad.  And it makes me wonder about our country and our society if lawyers don’t own law firms anymore.   Remember Shakespeare’s line about first thing, kill all the lawyers? 

It wasn’t because lawyers are shady or slimy or manipulative or greedy.  It was because lawyers and the legal system hold the society together like a steel skeleton in a skyscraper. 

Where are we going here?  Are we killing all the lawyers here with the concept of nonlawyer firm ownership?

Child Abuse in All Parts of Town: When Will This Reality Finally Be Recoginzed?

Over the past two weeks, there has been a big story out of Texas where a YouTube video was published by the daughter of a Texas judge, showing him beating her (it's graphic and I'm not posting it here, you can read more about this case and all the horrid details here).

Texas Judge William Adams may have had his career destroyed by this video - but he's not going to be charged with child abuse, in all likelihood.  Why not?  The statute of limitations has expired. 

Meanwhile, everyone is talking about the Penn State scandal - where a respected coach has now been charged with child sexual abuse after allegedly preying on young boys for years.  You can read the Grand Jury transcript describing what happened to six victims here.  

Bigger deal in the Penn State scandal is the cover up:  not only did a graduate student who testified that he saw one young boy being sexually abused in the Penn State showers by this coach not go to help the boy, he ends up on the Penn State coaching staff.  Oh, and did he tell anyone about what he saw?  Yes.  He told his dad, and he told head coach Joe Paturno ("JoPa"). 

So, now the PennState beloved and revered head coach is in a big scandal of his own.  And it's rumored that there's another shoe that's going to drop here, the story is bigger than what's being reported even now - and it's a big, big story already.

Here's my point:  I know from my years as a volunteer working with kids as well as serving as attorney/guardian ad litem in the local CPS Court that the abuse and neglect cases that get dealt with in the system are almost 100% from the lower (lowest) socioeconomic levels of the community.

Once  -- ONCE -- I remember an investigation into child abuse that was in the more affluent part of San Antonio.  What happened?  Zip. 

There are lessons to be learned from the Texas Judge YouTube video and the PennState Scandal.  We need to learn them.

Kids are neglected and abused in all parts of town, but it's still a big taboo in our society to consider this kind of evil exists at higher socioeconomic levels.  Why?  I don't have all the answers here.  Social stigma?  Peer pressure?  Powerful people?  Approval?  Money? 

I don't know all the whys and wherefores.  I do know one thing.

This needs to stop and one good thing that can come from these two news stories is a wake up call that child abuse happens everywhere, not just on the other side of the tracks. 

Texas Border Shootout Near McAllen - and Other Texas-Mexico Border News This Week

News today out of the Texas Valley is the latest shootout at the border.  This time, it's near McAllen and one Texas rancher told reporters he saw men in helicopters shooting other men down on the ground.  Let's hope all that happened on the Mexico side of the Rio Grande.

For local news coverage, read this story in The Monitor.  

Also in the news: the border agents at McAllen's Hidalgo-Reynosa International Bridge popped the trunk of a car going from Texas into Mexico because the driver was acting really nervous when they stopped him (that's routine, there on the bridge).   Looking down into the trunk, the agents saw a young man in handcuffs with duct tape over his mouth.  

The driver has been arrested for kidnapping and the kid (nope, that guy in the trunk wasn't an adult) has been checked out by doctors. 

Third story.  Last week, down in Mathis (which is pretty close to Corpus Christi and not really a border town at all) on a Farm to Market Road (FM 666 -- spooky, right?) a shiny Lincoln SUV was cruising along when it was spotted by U.S. Border Patrol and signaled to pull over.  Choosing instead to speed off, the Lincoln didn't stop -- and the 20 year old Mexican national who was driving didn't stop for a Border Patrol agent who stood in the road trying to flag him down. 

The kid, only 20 years old, was seen as a threat to that agent and the agent shot him - the guy in the road shooting the guy behind the wheel, killing him. 

Lots of agencies are investigating this incident -- the FBI, Homeland Security, etc. -- and it's not clear what if anything was in the SUV that day.