First of all, it should be clearly understood, our topic has nothing to do with repressed or aggressive nurses.
On the Internet, an
R-N homoglyph is a simple but effective means that may be used to steal your identity. A simple homoglyph combines two letters of the alphpabet in a way that looks like a different letter. Lower-case letters "R" and "N" (r & n), when combined, bear a striking resemblance to the lower-case letter "M" (m) in many plain fonts (such as the one used in most address bars).
As in rn. Even if your visual acuity and processing of what you see discerns the difference in the previous example, the sensory task is more odious under the pressure of time, or in cases where figure-ground comes into play, as in
the following cases of identity trickery - displayed for educational purposes only:
Even if you look at the above examples carefully, in your address bar, you may have trouble seeing that they really say (in lower-case) RNBNA.com in the first example and ARNERICANEXPRESS.com in the second. If you don't believe it, type them into your address bar and look at them carefully, then press "enter" to be taken back to this post. If an intelligent, discerning adult can be tricked like this, think of the serious mischief that could be caused by a scammer abusing the domain RNYSPACE.com (an actual case where we were successful in getting the predator's site rnyspace shut down - again, that's RNYSPACE.com).
The attack of the homoglyphs is one of many, many good reasons why you should avoid clicking on links in emails. Other good reasons include:
- homoglyphs are easily constructed from the alphabets of other languages including the Cyrillic (Russian, Serbian, etc.) whose characters closely resemble the alphabet of the English language;
- The "From:" return address is easily spoofed;
- Corporate logos are easily cloned;
- Your personal identifiers such as name, Social Security number last 4 digits, driver's license id, license plate number, race, sex, national origin, magazine subscription propensities, income level, etc. are constantly being mined, bought and sold by marketing agencies and government entities;
- Various nefarious types may be looking over your shoulder, sifting through your trash and rummaging through your paper recycling;
- What the main protagonist (portrayed by Leo DiCaprio) in Catch Me if You Can using all his native wiles and abilities can now be done by any idiot with access to a personal computer:
- You are probably so overwhelmed with data you might not likely be able to detect the drip, drip, drip of a nickel and dime scam carried out over a lengthy time period;
- The fact that you may be good at detecting scams may provide you with a false sense of security as even the most astute can fall easy prey to a so-called "spear phisher" (one who targets you based on some scant personal knowledge, readily available, such as employment history garnered through hacking of resume sites, etc.
Want to see some scary stuff. Put the word "aRNerican" ("arnerican") in google and peruse the results (or just
click here).
