Mistyping Gmail.com URL lures you into a pay-per-message scheme

A reader of my recent article on a page faking YouTube design to lure you into subscribing for a pay-per-message you receive scheme for mobile phones, told me that they came across a very similar one by typing wikipdia.org instead of Wikipedia.org. I noticed that also typing gmial.com instead of gmail.com takes one to exactly the same page design. Prominent is the “G” letter with a font that reminds a lot of Gmail/Google (but not of Wikipedia btw).

This time their last page seems broken, since it does ask for your phone number, but the UI to enter it is missing

Redirecting twiitter into a YouTube-styled reward lure scheme

While I was trying to visit twitter I suddenly was faced with this page, which although very well designed looked immediately suspicious to me, first of all because of the redirects I noticed happening at the address bar and also because the landing URL was using the word “rewardz”.

Moreover the page seems to be mimicing (or blatantly copying) YouTube’s design (esp. the red/white “You” which might also be a trademark of YouTube [is it?]):

I right clicked the back button in Internet Explorer 9 and found out that I had mistyped twitter.com into twiitter.com which led me to secredir.com and redirected me to video-rewardz.com passing it as parameter on the URL the twiitter.com so that they can track which typos were more successful in leading you there.

So I followed the links (although not suggested to do so on totally unknown websites you get redirected to, especially if you don’t have all security updates installed on your system) to record what it tries to “sell” you:

Then you see a progress dialog and you land into this page (suggesting they don’t have any more Macbook Air to make you think that others have been trusting them and “winning”):

And then you get to the truth (with small letters at the bottom). You’re supposed to give your mobile phone number and then get signed up for a costly pay-per-message subscription for ringtones or whatever mobile media assets for a chance to win (yeah, sure).

Windows Phone 7 – Minimize cellular data connection usage

Lately, several posts (e.g. http://www.1800pocketpc.com/2011/01/09/windows-phone-7-3g-woes.html) were mentioning issues with overcharging related to cellular data connection usage of Windows Phone 7.

From what I read later on, after looking into those incidents, Microsoft said that a certain popular application has been identified that was exchanging too much data without need and they’re working with its manufacturer to fix it.

To be safe though, better follow these tips:

1. At “Settings / Phone Updates” it has option “Use my cellular data connection to check for updates”. Should uncheck that.
2. At “Settings / Feedback” it has option “Use my cellular data connection to send feedback”. Uncheck that too.
3. At “Settings / Cellular” select “don’t roam” and also
4. At “Settings / Cellular”, close “Data connection” if not using it, to be safer. Use “Settings / Wi-Fi” instead. It’s unfortunate that Windows Phone 7 doesn’t keep settings for multiple wi-fi networks and forces you to re-enter password etc. every time you move to another wi-fi network (say move between home, work, a local café, some friend’s house etc.)