Be warned - be smarter! Updated: September 1,
2004
What
to watch out for: For AAF
veterans, be on the lookout for an invitation from Yahoo to an e-mail
list named Army-Air-Corps.
The list is moderated by "Army-Air-Corps@yahoogroups.com",
"Barry Anderson", "Brooke Rowe", or recently
"Otis Willie". These names are just some of the false
identities used by Phill Coleman and The
American War Library. You can view a
list of over 30 identities that have been used by Coleman and the AWL
- [jump there now].
Note that "Army-Air-Corps" is but one military related list run by Coleman, he has many others and is farming e-mail addresses from web site guest books and e-mail lists in an attempt to populate his lists. If you run a web site, a warning note to your site visitors may be in order.
The goal of all these e-mail lists is to generate publicity for his commercial bulletin board system - The American War Library.
|
AWL Documents 1. Coleman's YahooGroups
invitation to Army-Air-Corps. 2. Coleman's canned
response to complaints about AWL. 3. A post by Coleman using an alias, pretending to attack himself in the guestbook - warning, contains offensive language. 4. Post to Army-Air-Corps by two Coleman aliases claiming HeavyBombers.com (ArmyAirForces.com) is racist. |
|
American War Library /
Phill Coleman USENET Spam This one individual sent out approx 623 posts to over 30 different news groups. For some groups, his posts accounted for more than 60% of the group's total traffic. That's double his spam output just 4 years ago. AWL never posts its own content - because it doesn't have any. Instead Coleman sends extracts from current news articles or material from other web sites (without their knowledge) as a vehicle for promoting AWL. Identity of the sender was the "Otis Willie" persona using e-mail americanwarlibrary@pacbell.net. |
How does it work? As with any scheme, it depends on your gullibility to succeed.
What's the problem: The primary problem is this. Although it's promoted on the Internet, the information supposedly contained within the American War Library is not actually on the Internet. You will have to pay to access the database on his commercial bulletin board service (BBS) in addition to paying the long distance dial-up fees required to connect to it. Sure, you can poke around for free (while paying that long distance bill), but if you want to access the information you'll have to pay. Only after you've paid do you realize that the American War Library doesn't have the information you want and there are no refunds.
Is it Illegal? While we don't have a fake "lawyer" persona like the AWL has used in the past, we cannot point to anything specifically illegal. We can point to the "there's a sucker born every minute" business model.
False identities: The American War Library/Phill Coleman uses dozens and dozens of false identities to both promote and defend his commercial bulletin board service. Since he's also a Spammer of USENET (the news group system), the aliases come in very handy.
Is Phill Coleman a real name? We think so. All of the registered American Library domains are registered to Phill Coleman of either "American War Library" or "American Heroes" based in Gardena, California.
Racist attacks: When Phill Coleman is exposed, you can expect an e-mail from one of his personas attacking you for being racist OR attacking himself in the guise of a "fellow racist". It's a sick and disturbing tactic employed by Coleman, but one that he's employed time and time again. See our AWL Documents in the right-side info column for some examples actually sent to HeavyBombers.
The Bait: Voluminous posts to newsgroups and other lists parroting legitimate news stories and news releases, all with the tag line of one of the personas (usually Brooke Rowe but it varies) and links back to the main site.
Another tactic is the placement of "helpful" posts in web site guestbooks or e-mail discussion lists suggesting that answers to a particular question can be found via one of the American War Library run e-mail lists or web sites.
Unsecured Credit Card Transactions: The "library" is collecting credit card information via its different web sites through non-secure web pages. In other words they're not using SSL (an encryption layer that prevents your secure information from being exploited), which pushes your critical information--in the clear--. If you know anybody who's been foolish enough to fall for Coleman's junk, have them cancel their CC's and get new numbers!
Content Claims: Coleman claims to have "The World's Largest On-line Military, Veteran, and Military Family Registry Over 27 Million Listings and growing daily". However, the only individuals to ever vouch for the information are of course aliases of Coleman himself.
Here's just some of the content the American War Library claims to have:
"Veteran and military associations, Who's Who, War Correspondents, Employment opportunities, Glossary of terms and abbreviations, films and books on war/military, over 210,000 Killed- and Missing-in-Action names, Reunion notices up to a year in advance, over 74,000 Associations, Honorary Diploma program, Veteran Organization RetroActive Decorations program, War Wings dedicated to all of America's military missions, ethnic American Wings, Unit and Ship histories, downloadable graphic images, association membership applications, and dozens of other categories."
My favorite is his "Military Service and Discharge Certificate Replacements" service complete with official sounding regulations and dire warnings if you submit a falsified DD-214 or other discharge document.
The "Reuniting Veteran and Military Families" section is worth mentioning. The American War Library will let you place, for free photos or text of the loved one you are seeking. But you guessed it, you can't access that information for free.
Then there's this one:
"The KIA Wing collects the names and burial locations of every American who died while serving in uniform. To date The KIA Wings lists over 437,197 Fallen Americans dating back to The Revolutionary War."
Misappropriation of Materials: Others who have checked into this scheme have uncovered a pattern where the AWL will take content from other web sites and post it on the commercial bulletin board system as AWL's content. This I haven't confirmed but it would be typical considering his other activities.
Farming E-mail Addresses: This activity has been confirmed independently through numerous sources, including HeavyBombers.com/ArmyAirForces.com. Coleman/AWL farmed addresses from our list and from the bulletin boards & guest books of numerous W.W.II AAF related web sites which he used to send out invitations to his Yahoo Groups based Army-Air-Corps list.
Another site has claimed that Coleman sells these addresses to spammers or other volume based list services, that we cannot confirm but it would also not be a surprise if true.
Why a BBS? Running his own bulletin board service (BBS) means that no outside or independent organization can validate the data nor can they easily observe his activities.
Remember, the information you seek is PUBLIC INFORMATION and is readily available to you at no cost - with a little research on your part.
Alternatives: See our Research Guide - and it doesn't charge a dime!
Is that all? The American War Library/Coleman also has a veteran's picture gallery scheme going which appears around major holidays.
Remember - The only defense of the American War Library or Phill Coleman will come from one of his many different aliases. It's an elaborate scheme that he obviously puts a large amount of work into - hopefully it's not paying well, but he's been at it since at least 1996, perhaps earlier.