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The Unstoppable 'Tech Support' Scam
Barence writes "A pernicious new type of scam is targeting British computer owners, reports PC Pro. The con is both fiendishly clever and ridiculously simple. The fraudster cold-calls the customer and tells them that Microsoft has detected a virus on their PC, then invites them to download a piece of remote-assistance software. No doubt reassured by the lines of indecipherable code flitting across their screen, the caller assures the customer they can make the virus vanish – but first, of course, they want payment. £185 to be precise. The spoof site behind the scam is approved by McAfee's Site Advisor and bears Microsoft logos, something which both companies have failed to act upon. Meanwhile, an assortment of British regulators have said there is nothing they can do to stop it."
The only thing you need to stop this unstoppable scam is for people to be unwilling to shell out a significant sum of money to some c**t who calls them up out of the blue.
I mean, £185, when you didn't know there was anything wrong with your computer in the first place? You'd need to have more money than brains to shell out for that.
Perhaps they could get the people who have been scammed to report the telephone number and work with the teleco's to find out where the scammers are hiding?
This worked in my city when Scammers would steal wallets and purses and then call later claiming to be the police, and to meet them in "unmarked white police vans".
It's true, you can't fix stupid - but the smarter ones can... you know... at least provide useful information aiding in the capture.
This does provide yet another argument against the camp which thinks that understanding the tools they use is not important.
The message I get from all this is that computers really aren't ready for prime time. They're more like automobiles from the first decade of the 1900s.
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
God, there are some real scumbags in the world.
And a lot of fools.
God, there are some real scumbags in the world.
Yes, but they are non-violent and require the cooperation of their "victims". Thus, they are like ticks, leeches, mosquitoes, flies, and worms: they are unpleasant and downright nasty but they serve a purpose. They provide a limiting function. They disincentivize ignorance and stupidity by making it more painful, just like those natural pests disincentivize improper sanitation. By becoming knowledgable and savvy, the "victim" can have total control over whether he/she is successfully targeted.
Really now, all it would take is a small amount of healthy skepticism. Let's assume the scammer is so good that there are no other "tells". A user would only need to say to the scammer "Microsoft found a virus on my PC did they? Let me get back to you" and then call Microsoft. As unpleasant as calling Microsoft would be, it beats giving money to a scammer. It's the same well-known principle used for dealing with suspicious communications from banks. If you don't know if that e-mail is really from your bank because you don't have the technical skill to determine that, then you ignore it and call your bank at their published phone number. Then it doesn't matter if it's the most clever phishing e-mail in the world.
It doesn't exactly require a genius to understand these things. It just requires that one not leap blindly into what they do not understand while expecting a good result. That's general advice for life, not just computing. I personally believe that almost everyone is capable of understanding these simple concepts, they just can't be bothered to think. Perhaps they need a little incentive. Perhaps by providing one the scammers are serving a purpose, even though I fully agree with you that they are scumbags. That's why I'd liken them to a carrion-eater or a parasite.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
How so?
People still don't understand cars and if ANYTHING goes wrong with them, they don't know why.
Consider, also, that a computer's software is custom to each person as they add in more software packages and settings.
That's roughly akin to someone buying a car and having custom parts put on without knowing much of what they do. They still have no clue when something goes wrong.
How many people can do much more maintenance on their car than fixing a flat tire? That's not much different than someone knowing how to run an antivirus once in awhile, imo.
Just like the poster you're replying to was saying, it is important to understand the tools we use so we know how the things we use work.
If we don't understand that then we're just as much in the dark be in computer trouble or car trouble.
They disincentivize ignorance and stupidity by making it more painful, just like those natural pests disincentivize improper sanitation./quote?
Yet the only reason why we care to disincentivize ignorance and stupidity is because those scammers exist. Your logic is viciously circular. They need to exist to protect people from themselves?
So you think an automobile scam along similar lines today wouldn't work? Get the list of automobile type ownership from the licensing authority (most sell this information, or its easily available elsewhere), cold call the owner and inform them that a voluntary safety notice has been issued on their vehicle, would they like priority booking for just $99 over the phone...
Uninformed people are still uninformed, regardless of how long the technologies been around.
A lot of it is psychological; users convince themselves that computers are too complicated for them to understand, so they are.
We had an app at work that ran on a Windows CE-based palmtop that nurses used to record patient notes on their visits and then synced back to a server when they got back to base. The users never had any problems with this at all. Then, when the palmtops were up for replacement, they swapped them out for notebooks running XP with exactly the same app (newer version, same UI) and sync process and suddenly none of the users were able to cope any more.
Despite the fact that the processes were identical, they saw the notebooks as "proper" computers as opposed to the palmtops that were just electronic notepads in their minds and they convinced themselves that as a proper computer it was too complex for them to understand. So much of the trouble with technology is users creating barriers in their own minds and it's largely of "our" own making for trying to convince users throughout the 90s that computers were easy to use and would do everything for them, when we all know that isn't true.
and then after six months your machine crawls to a halt unless you give them more money for the next version
Six months? Well, that eliminates Windows at least. And OSX 10.3-6 have been on a two year cycle. The only OS I know that releases every six months as clockwork is Ubuntu, but I think you're doing it wrong...
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
I don't know where these people are going to school. I went to a public school in the USA, went to a decent university, grad school, and now job that actually utilizes critical thinking skills. I, and my high school friends, didn't turn out to be the fools that you would assume that we would be by going through public schools at each step. It's more likely that being ignorant is the easy way out and that's what people would rather choose instead.
It's the big secret of people who are 'knowledgeable' about computer.
50% of the time when 'help' someone do something, like send email...we don't know anything any more than they do. we're just reading the damn screen and doing what the logical thing would be, and we're not scared of doing the wrong thing. I mean, people ask me to help them send an attachment using a webmail system I'd never seen before:
Why don't you click on the 'Attach file' link there and select the file? Okay, where'd you save the file? Okay, select it, and then type something in the body, and press send. There you go. Yes, that's me, a computer genius, reading the screen like that and having the ability to use common dialog boxes.(1)
And another 25% of the time we're solving problems by applying basic computer knowledge. Like, very basic. Like 'able to learn in 10 hours' basic. Stuff like 'The World Wide Web works by your computer talking to another computer through even more computers.' and 'Video files tend to about 10 times as big as mp3s per minute.' and 'Wireless signals are often encrypted'.
And another 20% of the time it's stuff we've either run into before, and thus know what to do, or we fricking google it. Lacking the basic computer knowledge above just turns that 25% into this also. (I'm often like this on a Mac.)
There is almost no 'skill' involved at all. Half of it is just a willingness to say 'Okay, this looks right, let's try that'.
Only about 5% of the stuff people who are 'knowledgeable' about computers do for others as 'tech support', mainly stuff like buying/building computers, and programming, and other 'creative' stuff where you aren't fixing something that's broken, actually require any skill.
I mean, I have a younger brother who doesn't have any formal computer training outside of high school and an Office class for his associate degree. He's an auto mechanic.
But he grew up with a nerd and a half-nerd, so he knows how to operate his computer, and any questions from him are things like 'Should I go with AGP or should I pay more for PCI-E?' and 'This game is giving some sort of Direct X error on startup, and all I can find are suggestions to reinstall it and Direct X...which I've done. Ideas?'. This is because he learned 'the secret' to solve computer problems: Do the obvious thing, and if you don't know what that is, google what's wrong. And backup your computer so if it blows up, you can just reinstall.
1) Yes, yes, we've all fallen prey to the stupid inability to see things right in front of us, and someone else points it out instantly, but I'm not talking about that here.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
A lot of it is psychological; users convince themselves that computers are too complicated for them to understand, so they are.
Where does this perception come from? Nothing is too complicated to understand if you work at it. I think people are just lazy and don't want to work at understanding the world around them.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
I have enough empathy to be honest about their weakness. Would you prefer I help them to remain in denial so that they forever remain victims? It's amazing how angry people sometimes become when you tell a victim that he/she doesn't have to be a victim anymore. You'd think that would be welcome news, a message of hope.
Except you are doing nothing to help people either identify or overcome their weaknesses before they are harmed. Instead, you are creating a baroque rationalization to legitimize your own indifference to the harm being committed to a fellow human being, as gullible and foolish as they may be. This is why your position isn't a message of hope because it boils down to "Meh, why should I care what happens to those losers anyway?"
I also reject the notion that an individual has to be a helpless victim, at the mercy of anyone who would wish to do him/her harm. To tell people that they are helpless victims who can do nothing to better their own situation, who will always be exploited by criminals, who are completely screwed since the regulators won't protect them and they cannot protect themselves, well, I say that is sociopathy. It's telling them that they are forever doomed to just bend over and take it. Does it ever occur to you that this victim mentality is precisely why we have so many petty criminals?
My longing to live in a kinder, wiser, more sane world is beyond my power of expressing it. Really, there are not words for how badly I wish to see that. The way to get from here to there is to be honest about our weaknesses and our problems, to seek realistic solutions to them. This absolutely includes the notion that an individual can better himself or herself, that honesty about one's shortcomings and understanding one's weaknesses is the first step towards overcoming them. It's not "blaming the victim". It's "empowering the victim". And you can't stand it, can you?
I see, so it's either a nanny-state or the jungle with no other options available? How about you as an informed and savvy computer user, who by their own admission longs "to live live in a kinder, wiser, more sane world is beyond my power of expressing it", could help by giving a class on how to spot potential computer fraud? No matter what your situation is currently, you probably have the ability to teach people like this how not to be a victim. For example you could approach your local service/charity groups in your community or even a community college. If nothing else, you could record a tutorial on the subject and host it on a personal web-site.
In the unlikely event that you are already doing something to actually proactively help people, I offer a preemptive apology. Yet, due to the nature of your post it probably isn't warranted.
In conclusion, you certainly a have the right to your indifference towards others and no one can or should force you to care about anyone else. However, at least have the decency to be honest about your indifference and not use some faux-intellectual smoke-screen to pretend that you, or these criminals for that matter, are really doing the people harmed by fraud some sort of favor!