Today in the news

Whether it's because of April Fool's day or not, the news lately has been nothing short of bizarre.


Gas Prices

There was an article in an online newspaper on April Fool's day that spoke about a 30-cent per litre increase in the price of gasoline. Thankfully, that turned out to be just a gag.

But four days later, it's certainly no joke that the price of gas has actually risen by 10-cents per litre. That works out to rise of 45.5 cents per imperial gallon, overnight!


Privacy Concerns

The Epsilon Corporation, responsible for much of the bulk email sent on behalf of large and respectable corporations, suffered a security breach this past weekend, resulting in the unauthorized release of client names and corresponding email addresses for many of the people in their vast data banks. Although they are quick to note that no passwords or other information was compromised, just having access to a valid list of matched names and addresses will give spammers the luxury of sending you PERSONALIZED spam or phishing emails... not just of the "Dear Customer" variety, but rather "Dear Jack"...

I have already received an apology from Best Buy - one of Epsilon's clients - advising me of this breach, and to be aware of any unauthorized emails I may receive that refer to me by name. The fallout from this breach will last for years, as those people whose email addresses will remain unchanged will continue to fall victim to phishing attempts for years to come.


Car Prices

The situation in Japan following the March 11th earthquake is starting to affect our local industry (automobiles) here in Canada. The price of fuel-efficient cars is rising across the board, partially in response to rising prices of Japanese cars (caused by the reduction in supply). That doesn't bode well for my plans to replace my older vehicle this summer.


Scams aimed at greedy currency collectors

Snake-oil salesmen are alive and well. There was a "story" that took up a full page in our local newspaper today. Consumer protection rules require that advertisements masquerading as news articles are identified appropriately; but if anyone missed the very small print disclaimer at the top of the page that identifies the "story" as an advertisement, it would seem that the US Treasury had released some rare, uncirculated $2.00 American bills for purchase by a lucky few Canadians who lived in very specific postal areas. In fact, as the story went, only people who lived in areas matching a pre-printed list of postal codes were eligible to make their purchase. From what I could see, every postal code in Canada was listed except for Manitoba and Nunavut, although there may have been one or two missing zones - I just couldn't tell. For only $58.00, you could own TWELVE, uncirculated $2.00 bills. These bills would be delivered as three sheets of four bills each. In more small print, the ad stated that the company "World Reserve Monetary Exchange" was not affiliated with the US Mint.

The image above shows the full page ad. The image below shows a portion of the ad. Note the very small print at the top, and the "very official looking" security detail, partially obscuring a crest that looks remarkably similar to "official" government crests.