Prepare For Massive Wave of Earthquake Scams

wiredmikey sends this quote from Security Week: "Today's tragic events of the 8.9 magnitude earthquake and resulting tsunami, as sad as it is, is a dream for scammers and fraudsters around the world. Tragic events are always something scammers use to their advantage, helping them prey on and exploit innocent victims. Scams are already spreading across Facebook, which started in a matter of minutes after the news broke of the earthquake in Japan. As I write this, scammers are hard at work, registering new domains and cranking out templates for their fake donation sites. This will be followed with massive volumes of email spam, Tweets through Twitter, and Facebook posts, as scammers gear up to solicit donations from around the world." As coverage of the earthquake and resulting tsunami has proceeded, collections of videos and pictures are showing the extent of the devastation. The NY Times makes the excellent point that things could have been much worse if not for building codes and quake-resistant engineering. A state of emergency was declared at one of Japan's nuclear plants, after the earthquake caused cooling problems at one of the reactors. No radiation leakage has been reported, and the US Air Force has helped by delivering coolant by air.

Always do your research before donating

[sandytaru]

Not just to charities created because of tragedies, but to any charity at all. Websites such as Charity Watchdog (http://www.charitywatch.org/) exist to allow you to confirm how legit any given organization is. (When in doubt, just throw ten bucks at Red Cross International or Doctors Without Borders.)

Re:arguably

[Leafheart]

what technology has japan used or is japan using thats saved so many lives?

Japan has an impressive Earthquake alert system. They picked the shaking 1 minute before it main force hit. That gave time for most of the people to evacute the buildings as needed. Same goes for the Tsunami. Where they didn't have time to react though, like in Sendai, which was absurdly close to the epicenter, the death tool was worst.

Re:White cars

[Anonymous Coward]

Not really. The relevant video [cnn.com] also shows plenty of black, grey, green, and blue cars being washed away too. And boats!

Re:arguably

[timeOday]

It's not robotic rescue dogs, it's building codes that reduce the need for them in the first place.

Compare to China recently where a less powerful [nytimes.com] quake sent brick buildings toppling onto and killing tens of thousands of people, including government buildings such as schoolhouses that collapsed and killed the children inside.

Building codes are one of the areas where it's almost impossible to argue against the need for government regulation.

Re:Red Cross is Legit

[Anonymous Coward]

Please don't. 90999 may be legit, but we don't want to be teaching people to donate by sending off texts to random numbers. If you want to give to Red Cross, go to their website, it's much easier to see where the money is actually going there.

Re:Relax

[GameboyRMH]

An important note: if you don't receive any of the tax cuts, do not be alarmed. The tax cuts will be distributed to the rich and should trickle down to you shortly.

Re:coolant huh?

[ShavedOrangutan]

The governor of Louisiana declined requests by President Bush to have the National Guard enforce state laws, and didn't request any additional troops until 2 days after Katrina. The President does not have the authority to just send the military into a state.