APC Oldest UPS Promotion



  • I just received an e-mail from APC and I just felt it promoted WTF!

    We're looking for the world's oldest APC UPS still working in homes, offices or data centres! Just tell us about your APC unit, how you rely on it and what it protects. If we publish your story we'll send you a FREE digital photo frame!

    You can submit your details here: 

    [link]http://www.apccemea.com/litweb2.nsf/OldestUPSEnglish[/link]

     JR


     



  • I'm half tempted to write about that old 1800's UPS I've got that's been handed down for generations as a family heirloom. Seriously, who cares about who's using the oldest UPS?



  • I don't see a WTF in this at all. APC is doing what other companies have done for years - promoting the longevity of their products. Timex watches 'Take a licking, keep on ticking'. Maytag washers - last forever. We heard about a truck that just went over 1 million miles just recently. This is just the same type of thing.



  • I'm not convinced that domain actually belongs to APC.  If this *isn't* a phishing attempt, APC isn't doing a very good job of making that clear...

     

    Of course, if it is, the data they're acquiring seems pretty harmless... 

     

    The whois looks legit, but that's the only positive indication I've got 



  •  @merreborn said:

    I'm not convinced that domain actually belongs to APC.  If this *isn't* a phishing attempt, APC isn't doing a very good job of making that clear...

     

    Of course, if it is, the data they're acquiring seems pretty harmless... 

     

    The whois looks legit, but that's the only positive indication I've got 

    Looks like a phishing site to me...

    The whois doesn't match apcc.com (or apc.com), so I am not sure how it looks 'legit'.



  • Given that EMEA is a common acronym for "Europe/Middle-East/Africa", it's APCC EMEA.  Also explains the "European" spellings in the OP.



  • Also, if you go to the root site (apccemea) it redirects to apcc.



  •  Neither example you give rule out a phishing site. Feel free to enter your info though.



  •  

    If we publish your story we'll send you a FREE digital photo frame!

    Yeah ... [url=http://news.google.com/news?q=photo+frame+virus&ie=UTF-8&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&sa=N&tab=wn]I heard about those frames ...[/url]

     



  • That's quite an ingenious way to infect a system!

    To stop people worrying about Phishing, the link came from the APC newsletter subscription and all the message headers checked ou.  No one is putting a gun to your head to submit.



  • @jrobbio said:

    That's quite an ingenious way to infect a system!

     

    Yeah, start an international branch of a company. Operate as if nothing is amiss for decades, just lulling everyone into a false sense of security...

    FWIW -- APCC is the original domain (American Power Conversion Corporation), APC was registered later because that's what you see in the logo. Some of their NS and MX records point to stuff in .apcc.com and others to .apc.com.



  • @kirchhoff said:

    @jrobbio said:

    That's quite an ingenious way to infect a system!

     

    Yeah, start an international branch of a company. Operate as if nothing is amiss for decades, just lulling everyone into a false sense of security...

    FWIW -- APCC is the original domain (American Power Conversion Corporation), APC was registered later because that's what you see in the logo. Some of their NS and MX records point to stuff in .apcc.com and others to .apc.com.

     

    What does that have to do with apccemea.com?



  • apccemea  = American Power Conversion Corporation; <font size="-1">Europe, the Middle East and Africa, but I already thought we established that?</font>

    <font size="-1"> Lists apcc.com servers for MX and NS; doesn't seem to have anything in the zone other than a www A record pointing to a server in Amsterdam which does a 302 to global.amcc.com. That subdirectory looks to be hosted by their Amsterdam office and is probably a European-only contest sponsored and managed by the local staff (which could explain why it isn't on the corporate global site). </font>



  • @kirchhoff said:

    apccemea  = American Power Conversion Corporation; <font size="-1">Europe, the Middle East and Africa, but I already thought we established that?</font>
     

    That is what has been assumed, yes.



  • And they are using Lotus Notes and Domino to do the data collection (the rest of the APC sites are Lotus Domino server as well)... not the first choice of platform I would associate with a phisher. I don't think anyone would willingly use that product if IBM gave it away. Ugh.



  • @DrPhil said:

    I don't see a WTF in this at all. APC is doing what other companies have done for years - promoting the longevity of their products. Timex watches 'Take a licking, keep on ticking'. Maytag washers - last forever. We heard about a truck that just went over 1 million miles just recently. This is just the same type of thing.

    Well first of all, I can't imagine that any UPSs are really old enough to get excited about. And it's unlikely that it would be owned by an individual, so they're awarding a digital picture frame to some sort of hosting company.



  • @kirchhoff said:

    apccemea  = American Power Conversion Corporation; <font size="-1">Europe, the Middle East and Africa, but I already thought we established that?</font>

    <font size="-1"> Lists apcc.com servers for MX and NS; doesn't seem to have anything in the zone other than a www A record pointing to a server in Amsterdam which does a 302 to global.amcc.com. That subdirectory looks to be hosted by their Amsterdam office and is probably a European-only contest sponsored and managed by the local staff (which could explain why it isn't on the corporate global site).</font>

     

     The Real WTF is that you're the only one here who knows how to verify the identity of a website.  You're right about NS servers (MX doesn't matter since a phisher could just point the MX at the legit IP).  The host is not in Amsterdam, I assume you got that from the ARIN whois database, but that's the address for RIPE.  GeoIP puts the host in Ireland.

     

    Edit:  Forgot to mention that the RIPE whois database says the IP is owned by APC.   So it's about as legit as anything can be on the Internet.



  • If you look at the submit code, they store all the contact information in cookies and load it in automatically on repeat visits.  I guess so you can share your hundreds of stories about old UPSs? 



  • @bstorer said:

    If you look at the submit code, they store all the contact information in cookies and load it in automatically on repeat visits.  I guess so you can share your hundreds of stories about old UPSs?
     

     

    LOL, awesome.  They're looking for the oldest UPS, though, so nobody should be filling out the form more than once.


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