Thanks to Top Entrecard Droppers

A little "link-love" for the top Entrecard droppers.


Stud Kickass: The Webcomic 31
Entertain Me 29
Austin Counsel Lawyer Blog 28
Where the Long Tail Ends 27
Hong Kong, iPod and Joomla 19
Free Womens Blogs 15
Gas Saver 15
Retire in Paradise 15
Cutie Booty Cakes 14
LWGodsil's Jadis Jewelry 14

Thanks for the visits -

Be Safe!

Be Your Own Detective - Basic Interviewing

The basics of interviewing – what do you really need to know?

Well, first you may need to know what you want to find out. What is the purpose of your interview? Is it a witness or suspect you are interviewing? Is it a pre employment interview? What facts are you looking for? - Those are all things you should consider when conducting an interview.

I often get asked – how can I tell if they are telling a lie? The real life answer is – you can’t. What you can look for are indicators of deception, but these indicators are not universal across all cultures. So I will give you a brief, and very incomplete quick lesson on looking for indicators of deception. I say deception, because sometimes the stress of the answer is not because the person is lying, but simply that they are under stress of the question, or fear that you will not believe them. People often display exactly the same behavior when they fear they will not be believed as when they know they are lying.

First, start the interview with some basic open ended questions. Ask the person to tell you about themselves, or even speak about a past incident that is non threatening. Observe the person’s behavior as they speak.

When you start to get to the nitty-gritty part of the interview, be sure and ask some non-threatening questions. Do this off an on throughout the interview as a chance to pause and for you to observe more “normal” behavior.

Here are some common indicators: Licking lips,

touching nose (ever wonder where the growing nose idea came from in Pinocchio?), blinking, eyes darting, looking down and to their right

are all common indicators of deception. If a person looks up and left, it is usually just an indication of thinking about an answer - not necessarily a sign of deception. The eyes are a window to the soul, but you need to learn to read them. There are also indicators like the three whites of the eyes (the "Buckwheat" look, or deer caught in the headlights).

Now some people do these things normally and just because their nose itches it doesn’t mean they are lying. Look for these behaviors as a change from normal behavior when they are speaking.

If a person over emphasizes and answer – like “no, no, no, no!!” or saying “I swear on my mother’s grave!” or anything similar – chances are they are lying. Once again, look for these answers outside of a normal answer.

What about voice stress analyzers? Apparently, voice stress analyzers are the poorest tool used to determine deceptiveness. In blind studies they are less than 50% effective.

What about lie detectors? The polygraph can be more better described as an art form than any kind of science. While polygraph examiners will argue that they are quite effective, the National Academy of Science studied the process and determined that they are pretty much totally ineffective. They are a useful tool to get suspect to confess, but that doesn’t mean they work.

I will make an entire post or more about lie detectors later -

Stay Safe!

Koffi Anann Email Scam

OK, I received this email the other day. I find it funny and interesting, because I have before, and now do work with the UN.


United Nations Compensation.‏
From:
United Nations (mailer@un.org)
Sent:
Tue 9/16/08 8:02 AM
Reply-to:
jimoviazenith00001@gmail.com
To:
Attn:Sir/ma. How are you today and hope all is well with you and family?You may not understand why this mail came to you,but i will implore you to take your timeto carefully go through this mail.

We have been having a meeting for the pass 7 months which ended 4 days ago at our office head quarters New York(UNITED NATIONS).

This email is to all the people that feel they have been scammed in any part of the world,the UNITED NATION have agreed to compensate them with the sum of US$150,000.This includes every foreign contractors that may have not received their contract sum, and people that have had an unfinished transaction orinternational businesses that failed due to Government problems etc.

We found your name in our list and that is why we are contacting you,this have been agreed upon and has been signed. You are advised to contact Mr. Jim Ovia of ZENITH BANK NIGERIA PLC, as he is our representative in Nigeria, contact him immediately for yourCheque/International Bank Draft of USD$ 150,000. This funds are in a Bank Draft for security purpose OK? so he will send it to you and you can clear it at anybank of your choice.

Therefore, you should send him your full Name and telephone number/your correct mailing address where you want him to send the Draft to you. Contact:Mr. Jim Ovia immediately for your

Cheque:Person to Contact Mr. Jim OviaEmail: jimoviazenithbankplc0001@gmail.com Thanks and God bless you and your family.Hoping to hear from you as soon as you cash your Bank Draft. Making the world a better place Regards, Mr. Koffi Anann Former Secretary (UNITED NATIONS).

I could not help myself - I decided to send a respose:


Sir:

I received your email through my hotmail account. Which is below. I think that the UNITED NATIONS will not find it humorous that you are running this email scam in the name of UNITED NATIONS. I also believe that the honourable Kofi Annan would not be pleased with you using his name in this scam. He may not be too concerned since you have spelled his name wrong.

Since I am currently working with the United Nations Mission in Liberia, I believe that they can find me to pay me if they would so see fit to do so.

Please do not contact me any further reference this or any other of your scams. Also, as you can see, I have copied UN Security on this issue.

I hope you have a nice day

I told one of my colleagues here at the UN and he nearly fell out of his chair laughing.

Post Disaster Identity Theft Scams

I have been busy - so I have fallen behind in my posts. I have been very busy at my "real job" and a Hurricane has hit my home ( all is basically ok) - so I have been distracted.

Con-men - and con-women take advantage of those most distracted. Actually, when you think about it, distraction is a key factor in the con. To pull off the con all you need to do is have a distraction, cause a distraction while you pull the actual con.

There are not a lot of things more distracting than a hurricane! For those of you that know me, my home was right in the path of the brunt of Hurricane Ike. Fortunately no flooding and limited damage.

So what about the scams?

It seems that there are those who are trying to take advantage of limited power, possibly no phone service, and even no NCIC/TCIC checks by police after a Hurricane.

My wife contacted me (remember I am in Liberia at the moment) concerned over some calls that made her suspicious that someone was pulling off some identity theft scams. She reported it to the police, but their whole system was down like many of the phone lines so they could not do much.

Here is the shameless plug part - I was able to track down someone involved in the scam through two different services. I could not do it with just one of them. I am not sure why, but that is the way it worked out. I tried a reverse email search with Net Detective Plus (link on top of page) and came up empty. I was able to get a reverse email lookup from CIS - the same company as the person search box on this blog which accesses Court Records.org. However, there was not much information on the person by name and address from CIS. So I went back to the Net Detective, and I was able to get a date of birth and phone number on the person. My wife passed the information on to police.

How the scam may work:

I believe that the scammers check on people in the path of the storm where they know there may be no phone or internet service (not to mention power). Also people may still be displaced or returning to the area after evacuation. They try to make purchases or get loans with your name and phone number. Of course you are displaced, so you are now using a "different" phone number.

The fortunate thing is that these folks had not gotten specific details like social security number and the like. However, some companies rush things for storm victims as their way of assistance in a time of need, so they may skip some of the details they normally check.

I do not have a final version to this story yet, but I will shortly, and I will update the post.

Update: Be Caylee Anthony's Detective

After Casey was bonded out – she ended up back in jail (for fraud- what a surprise!)

The first release came when “Bounty Hunter” Padilla bonded Casey out of jail but his statement that he could get her to tell him about Caylee over a burger and fries was a little naive. He may be able to track down people who run but he lacks interviewing/interrogation skills.

Casey is a most likely psychopath so you are not going to "buy" favors from her. She's all in this for herself and always has been.

The lieguy has several interesting small posts about this case

– and Casey is now released …again!

Atlanta, Ga. 9/05/2008 01:41 PM GMT (TransWorldNews - Top Story)

Casey Anthony, mother of missing three-year-old daughter Caylee
Anthony, has once again been freed from jail after her $500,000 bond was posted
by her parents..

Anthony has been named a person
of interest in Caylee’s disappearance but has not been called a suspect. She was
jailed for nearly a month after she was charged with child neglect and lying to
investigators. The 22-year-old mother was then jailed a second time last weekend
when police arrested her on unrelated charges of check fraud.

The story can be found here.

Here is the problem with getting information out of a psychopath like Casey:

• More appropriate details provided by psychopathic offenders compared to nonpsychopathic offenders when lying (but no difference when telling the truth)
• No difference in narrative length between the true and false conditions among psychopathic offenders, and for both groups, truthful narratives were longer than false narratives
• For psychopathic offenders, spontaneous corrections more frequent when lying compared to telling the truth. This is opposite to the finding with non-criminal populations - according to CBCA, the presence of spontaneous corrections is thought to be associated with credibility.
• Psychopathic offenders judged less credible than non-psychopathic offenders, even when telling the truth. Seven times less likely to be judged credible to be precise.
• Narratives produced by psychopathic offenders were judged to be less coherent overall than narratives produced by non-psychopathic offenders.
  

Of course then there is the chloroform. Now what would Casey need chloroform for?

The detection of chloroform in the trunk of the car driven by Casey Anthony,
along with evidence that she researched the chemical on the Internet, does not
bode well for the mother of missing 3-year-old Caylee Anthony, in the opinion of
investigative criminal profiler Pat Brown.

“I think it’s pretty damning information,” Brown told TODAY co-host
Meredith Vieira on Friday. “There’s no reason for chloroform to be in that
trunk. You’re not going to use it as a cleaning fluid around your house.

“I think I’d like to see them all on a polygraph,” Brown said. “I think
they’d all fail."

That story is found here.

Of course, no one has found little Caylee. It seems more and more like she will not be found alive.

I will have a few things to say about polygraphs in a later post.

Stay Safe!!!

Be Your Own Detective - Investigate Domain Names

What is funny to me is that a "new" .ME domai name is being offered some places. The ads says "it is all about me."


Well, there are .me domain names available. Just like there are .uk and .jp domain names. Yes if you registere a .me domain name it just stands for the country of Montenegro. One of my favorite places to visit is I get a chance. It is not any really big deal.

Once Again Time for Thanks

Top 10 Entrecard droppers

First Door on the Left 22
Melissas Homeschool 22
Confessions of a Fitness Diva 22
Cutie Booty Cakes 21
Kutsara at Tinidor 21
Health Nut Wannabee Mom 20
pusang maganda 19
60 Were Enough 17
Bisdak's Footprints 17
Stud Kickass: The Webcomic 16

Thanks droppers for stopping by - I just thought I would give some in return.

I have not kept up with posts and it shows - Sorry for the lack of new stuff, but my "real job" has kept me kind of busy, and has also left me where I just don't feel very creative. Don't worry - I will be making plenty of new posts soon. :)