This is an important warning to all homebrewers. There is a strong possibility that someone is harvesting email addresses from one or more homebrewing forums and is using a fake website to plant malware or exploit visitors in a phishing scheme. In order for this possible scheme to work, homebrewers would be targeted and the rogue site would be made to appear like a legitimate site of interest, in this case "Sam Adams". This is why I'm suspicious and posting this warning; today I received the following email from snipped-for-privacy@bostonbeer.com ...:
***Begin*** Bill VelekHere is your login information for the bostonbeer.com Web site.
Email : snipped-for-privacy@alltel.net Password :
If you would like to change the password indicated above please follow the link below.
You can access your customized information by entering the login information above when asked.
http://216.139.237.127/
***End***Because I couldn't recall making any attempts to register on that site, and because the use of an IP address is a telltale sign of phishing efforts, I decided to investigate by manually entering the URL for bostonbeer.com ... which took me to a site that _looks_ like a legitimate Samuel Adams site. But knowing how easy it is to copy a site, and that most phishers will usually try to trick visitors by making things look as authentic a possible, I did some more digging. First, Sam Adams already has a website under the name of
This is _mighty_ suspicious, so I've notified the Sam Adams company and asked for verification; meanwhile, I caution everyone to be very leery of any such emails.
Cheers.
Bill Velek - PERSONAL sites =