I usually keep my professional blog free politics that do not concern web development/digital privacy/security, but under the current climate, I have a feeling that line will be blurred a bit.

I was on FaceBook, and a friend of mine shared a t-shirt with Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson wearing a shirt that took a pro-Standing Rock protest standpoint. Instinctively, I clicked the Like button and decided to check out the shirt more, as I've been one to buy such things to support causes, including a shirt by a local Portland Company where proceeds went to Planned Parenthood.

FaceBook Post of faux shirt

That's when things got fishy; the page redirected to another website, standwiththestandingrock.com/support redirected to teezily.com, a site that had zero information other than general sizing and color options for the t-shirt. I poked around and didn't see any notes about profits or sales. Next, I went to standwiththestandingrock.com, which again redirected to another site. Clicking back, I noticed the original photo of The Rock looked mighty fishy, so I did a quick reverse image search.

Original image

I re-read the copy, nowhere did it say proceeds went to Standing Rock protesters or any native tribes, simply just show "support" in very engrish like writing. Clever. A WhoIS search returned no information on standwiththestandingrock.com other than it was registered on November 7th.

While there wasn't any real "scam" in the traditional sense (I'm sure I'd of received a shirt), it was precisely tailored to make me fill in the gaps if I weren't paying attention.