Reporting Graffiti in Hawaii

One of the biggest problems in fighting graffiti in Honolulu is figuring-out who to call. Sure, you could call the police, but it's not their job to clean it up and their involvement may amount to nothing more than filling-out a report. Typically, the police want to be called if someone sees vandals actually defacing a surface, so they can come over and make an arrest.

The difficulty is compounded by the fact that their is no single number to call to make a report. As you can see from the table below, the location of the graffiti makes a difference in who you are supposed to call. The City and the State assume no responsibility for graffiti placed on each other's property and neither one notifies the other is someone mistakenly reports to one body when it actually belong to the other. Meaning: if you report graffiti to the Mayor's office and they find-out it's on State property, they won't pass the word to the State. You'd have to do that, assuming you knew who to call in the first place. I'm not even sure if the Honolulu Police Department would notify the Hawaii State Sheriffs if they were in that situation.

In other words, nobody is talking to anybody else. So, it's up to the people to find-out who to call.

This has not been an easy task. When I called the State Department of Land and Natural Resources (DLNR), they had no idea of who I should call to report graffiti on State property. I had to keep looking around until I found the correct department.

So, the table below contain all the phone numbers that I was able to gather. Some of them may be out-of-date, but it's my best effort. I'm willing to accept any help that may be offered.

It would be a good idea if the City and the State dealt with graffiti the same way they deal with potholes: have one number to call and whoever answers the phone would relay it to whoever's job it is to clean it up.

Duane Browning

GRAFFITI CLEAN-UP ASSISTANCE

Honolulu Police Department Graffiti Hotline: 808-723-3475

Graffiti hot-line [recording] (Mayor's Office): 808-296-9473

Bus shelters (TheBus): 808-848-4500

Drainage canals (Dept of Facilities Maintenance): 808-484-7600

Hawaiian Electric boxes and meters: 808- 548-7311 or email ecustomer@heco.com

Parks (Dept. of Parks and Recreation): 808-768-3001

Sidewalks and streets (Dept. of Facilities Maintenance): 808-484-7600

State highway facilities (Dept. of Transportation): 808-837-8047

State Property (State Central Services Division): 808- 831-6734

Traffic signs and signal boxes (Dept. of Facilities Maintenance): 808-484-7644

Water department facilities (Board of Water Supply): 808-748-5000

Eng Wang, Still Scamming

People are reporting that they've received text messages that say they've won something from Best Buy. Naturally, these are all lies and some of them are perpetrated by our old friend, Eng Wang.

Here are some of the domains Eng Wang owns:

• bestbuy2013.net
• bestbuycardcode.net
• bestbuycodeverify.net
• bestbuypromocode.biz
• codewinners.net
• winningcode.net

They all share the same WHOIS information:

RSP: KalyHostURL: http://www.kalyhost.com/
created-date: 2012-11-24 03:35:01updated-date: 2012-12-03 00:30:04registration-expiration-date: 2013-11-24 03:35:02
owner-organization: owner-name: Eng Wangowner-street: 4954 Wei Shenowner-city: Hong Kongowner-state: owner-zip: 5495839owner-country: CNowner-phone: +86.852485354842owner-fax: owner-email: engwang100@yahoo.com
admin-organization: admin-name: Eng Wangadmin-street: 4954 Wei Shenadmin-city: Hong Kongadmin-state: admin-zip: 5495839admin-country: CNadmin-phone: +86.852485354842admin-fax: admin-email: engwang100@yahoo.com
tech-organization: tech-name: Eng Wangtech-street: 4954 Wei Shentech-city: Hong Kongtech-state: tech-zip: 5495839tech-country: CNtech-phone: +86.852485354842tech-fax: tech-email: engwang100@yahoo.com
billing-organization: billing-name: Eng Wangbilling-street: 4954 Wei Shenbilling-city: Hong Kongbilling-state: billing-zip: 5495839billing-country: CNbilling-phone: +86.852485354842billing-fax: billing-email: engwang100@yahoo.com
nameserver: ns1.xta.net 69.64.54.41nameserver: ns2.xta.net 50.97.137.60

Duane Browning 

BestBuyGold.net Textspammer

People have reported receiving spam via text on their cellphones which tells them that they won a gift card and directing them to visit bestbuygold.net.

"Thanks for your recent entry into out contest! You were victorious. Please enter 8747 at www.BestBuyGold.net to claim"

Going to the site, I was redirected to http://111.123.180.9/bb// which looks like every other scam site posing as one offering you a Best Buy gift card. Nothing special about it.

I decided to try a WHOIS search and discovered this:

DOMAIN: BESTBUYGOLD.NET
RSP: KalyHost
URL: http://www.kalyhost.com/
created-date: 2013-01-28 16:10:10
updated-date: 2013-01-28 16:21:44
registration-expiration-date: 2014-01-28 16:10:10
owner-organization:
owner-name: James Louis
owner-street: 4948 West Easy Brook Lane
owner-city: Portland
owner-state:
owner-zip: 44839
owner-country: US
owner-phone: +1.4938839920
owner-fax:
owner-email: jameslouisx2013@gmail.com
admin-organization:
admin-name: James Louis
admin-street: 4948 West Easy Brook Lane
admin-city: Portland
admin-state:
admin-zip: 44839
admin-country: US
admin-phone: +1.4938839920
admin-fax:
admin-email: jameslouisx2013@gmail.com
tech-organization:
tech-name: James Louis
tech-street: 4948 West Easy Brook Lane
tech-city: Portland
tech-state:
tech-zip: 44839
tech-country: US
tech-phone: +1.4938839920
tech-fax:
tech-email: jameslouisx2013@gmail.com
billing-organization:
billing-name: James Louis
billing-street: 4948 West Easy Brook Lane
billing-city: Portland
billing-state:
billing-zip: 44839
billing-country: US
billing-phone: +1.4938839920
billing-fax:
billing-email: jameslouisx2013@gmail.com
nameserver: ns1.xta.net 69.64.54.41
nameserver: ns2.xta.net 50.97.137.60

From what I have seen, the email address jameslouisx2013@gmail.com is associated with no other websites. The site is registered through Kalyhost, so I will be reporting this site to them as soon as I am done writing this blog. The server belongs to Softlayer and they will be getting an email from me soon.

The site BestBuyGold.net is simply a redirect to http://111.123.180.9/bb// and I discovered this site is registered in China. Of course, this is no surprise, since every Best Buy scam site I have blogged about comes from there.

Other websites that serve as a redirect include:

• BestBuySurprise.biz
• bestbuysurprise.com
• bestbuysurprise.mobi
• bestbuygiveaways.mobi

Websites that are no longer online include

• bestbuysurprise.net
• bestbuycashcards.net
• bestbuypromotion.net

It makes me wonder if the Chinese have nothing else to do, aside from attempting to scam Americans.

Another link maing the rounds is bestbuybonus.net but that site is apparently down. However, the spammers haven't gotten the message and continue to textspam people.

If you enter any four-digit number in the box, it again redirects you to another site. This one is freegiftcardworld, an anonymously-registered site with its domain IP out of the Netherlands, but with servers located in the USA and the United Kingdom.

Duane Browning

Geo-centrism Debunked

Despite centuries of scientific progress, there are still people out there who believe that the Earth is the literal center of the Universe and that everything orbits our planet.

Never mind that they have no scientific basis on which to base these claims and no explanation regarding how this is supposed to work, aside from "God did it.", they persist in their ignorance in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

Here are three (so far) videos posted on YouTube which give thorough explanations as to why Geo-centrism    is scientifically and mathematically impossible.

If you run into someone who actually believes that the Earth is the center of the Universe and everything rotates around it, please forward these videos to them. Depending on how deluded they are, it may or may not change their minds.

Duane Browning

PotentialProstitutes.com = Scam?

UPDATE: the website written about in this blog has been deleted.

I found out about http://potentialprostitutes.com/ from a YouTube video I saw today and I immediately saw that this could be a scam.

The website claims

Currently we operate based on the efforts from motivated members of their local community who have at one point or another come into contact with a potential prostitute online and feel they can be a threat. All of our offenders have been reported by local members who feel these offenders should be taught a lesson before their actions escalate.

The website offers a search engine where you can lookup "potential prostitutes" in your area or anywhere else in the world. Submissions to the site are anonymous, with no proof required that the person being reported is, in fact, a prostitute or a sex worker of any kind. In fact, there is real potential for stalkers to post their victims' names and phone numbers to the site as a form of harassment.

Aside from tormenting their victims, there is no financial motivation to add content to the site, as they do not pay money for submissions.

To have a "report" removed from the site, they require cash payment of $99.95 to be made to them before they will do so. Also, there is nothing to prevent them from simply posting it again in the future. As a result, a totally innocent person could spend hundreds or even thousands of dollars to remove libelous posts from this site with absolutley no guarantee that the removal will be permanent.

Supposedly, this site's goal is to help people "protect themselves" from becoming victims of these "potential prostitutes. But, with no verification process to ensure that the people whose information is posted there are in fact prostitutes, it simply serves as a possible venue for harassment and libel against innocent victims.

The website's owners claim to have been sued many times by individuals who were angry over their faces, phone numbers and cities of residence being posted there, but has always won their cases, due to protections afforded them by the Communications Decency Act, which provides them immunity from liability since the posts on their site are from people using it, not the website creators themselves. However, a number of issues show that both of these claims might not be true.

As far as having been sued "on many occasions", the website itself was only recently created, back in October 2012, according to a WHOIS search of their domain. As also noted on the search, their IP address shows that the site is run from Europe, specifically Germany, and so it would be German law, not US law that governs liability. The site's administrative contact is a Swedish national, not an American.

Due to the European source of potentialprostitutes.com, they would be under the legal jurisdiction of courts in their respective countries and not entitled to the protections of US law.

Add to this the fact that they require payment to be made to remove any content, even if the person mentioned on their site is totally innocent of any crime. This can be construed as blackmail, which can have consequences for the site owners in civil and criminal courts of any country.

The site also uses pictures taken by individuals other than either the site owners or the users. Some of the pictures posted were taken either by the individuals named, professional photographers or by a government agency. That being the case, they could find themselves on the receiving end of legal action being taken against them under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, since photographs are the legal property of the person who took them.

Potentialprostitutes is owned by the same people who run http://predatorswatch.com and both sites claim to want to protect people from becoming crime victims. Their Facebook page has already been deleted, but they have a Twitter account available which has not been used siince October 2012.

One possibility of this site's possible future use will be as a save haven for prostitutes who want to advertise themselves, if Backpage is pressured to remove their Adult Services sections. Given that posting is free, while Backpage costs money to use, Potentialprostitutes would look very attractive to pimps eager to save every dollar they can.


Duane Browning