Anonymous

I really enjoyed the movie V for Vendetta, and I see the similarities between the movie and Anonymous (the group).

Anonymous Protest

About half the comments I get on this blog are spam, but I must say they are getting better. Some of them actually address the post, which usually has something to do with what they are selling. I let them stay. I don't have that many commenters that I can afford to cut off half of my readers because of some nigelling little issue of commercialization.

And then I got a comment from Anonymous about a POS (Point Of Sale) terminal with the suggestion that I Google POS skimmers. POS skimmers? What the heck is a POS skimmer? I'm thinking it's a person who is skimming credit card info at POS terminals, you know, by watching customers to see which keys are pressed to get the PIN number, maybe catching a look at the card and memorizing the name and number. That would be pretty difficult. Maybe they are photographing the card to get the name and number. Um, actually, no. POS Skimmers are credit card terminals. They look just like regular credit card terminals, but they keep all of the credit card information for later retrieval, or phone it home.

Anyway, what I got was a surprise: skimmers for sale.

Splash screen from deleted YouTube video.

So credit card scammers have a presence on the internet now. I guess I shouldn't be surprised. Most of the big time scams are pulled off behind closed doors by people we never hear about. Why should the little guys be any different?

So the question I have now about the comment from Anonymous is: is it spam from a POS skimmer vendor, or a legitimate comment from a citizen concerned about fraud? Or is it from a citizen concerned that we are not getting our fair share of the loot? When the country is run by kleptocrats, is it any surprise when the citizenry takes up theft as a means of making a living?

Update February 2017 replaced missing picture, replaced missing video with splash screen image.