Take two teens, add text messaging, remove common sense and stir it together with just enough cleverness to make the mix dangerous and you have this story out of Salt Lake City, Utah.


A Scam By Any Other Name

After some sleuthing, the two 14 year old pranksters managed to obtain the cell phone number, along with the car make and model of a member of their church. Then, using a combination of phone calls and text messaging they convinced their victim that he owed the Utah Highway Patrol $150 for a speeding ticket.

There were two major flaws in their plan.

The first was that they left their home phone number for the victim along with the fraudulent messages. The second was they picked a tactic often used by high tech identity thieves, and thus managed to raise the ire of the Utah Bureau of Investigations.

The boys face misdemeanor charges for the prank, but this story does provide a more general lesson.


Web 2.0 Roundup

Never, ever believe something just because a text message says its true. Even if the message isn’t outright spoofed, it doesn’t take a huge amount of social engineering to create a convincing case for just about anything over a mobile phone. If someone is looking for personal information, and their story doesn’t seem to pan out — you owe it to yourself to investigate before giving them anything.

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