[visionlist] strange solicitations

[Hoover Chan]

Apologies in advance for cross-posting but given the proliferation of cyber
security issues in e-mail and out on the Internet in general, I thought
this might be of some use for our community.

First, a reminder to be very careful about clicking on suspicious links,
replying to unsolicited e-mails and opening unsolicited file attachments.

I personally have received emails that seemed to come from administrators
at my institution asking me to transfer funds and pay invoices.I got this
clarified by reaching out to the administrators either in person or by
phone to confirm.

On other occasions, our I.T. department actually sent out test probes to
help remind people to be careful. These looked legitimate and I'm thinking
that this might be an emerging best practice at many institutions to remind
users to exercise safe computing.

On a more directly relevant note to the issue of journals fishing for paper
submissions purely out of profit motives, Im reminded of Jeffrey Beall's
list of predatory journals. I think he stopped publishing the list but
here's a pointer to a paper on his experiences doing this (
https://www.biochemia-medica.com/en/journal/27/2/10.11613/BM.2017.029).

Makes me wonder if anybody has something similar with what I might call
"predatory" conferences?

Anyway, a very timely topic.

Wishing you all safe computing and of course staying physically safe and
healthy.

Thanks.





-- 
Hoover Chan              hoover.chan at gmail.com  hchan at mail.ewind.com  -or-
hchan at well.com hoover.chan at ucsf.edu

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