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Listen To a Microsoft Support Scam As It Happened
itwbennett writes You know full well that Microsoft will never call you and ask to "access your computer" to help fix a problem. Yet this is a ruse that many unsuspecting computer users fall for and wind up with their machine hacked. CSO writer Steve Ragan, turns the tables during a phone call with a scammer — and he records it all for us to hear. Do yourself a favor and play it for your parents.
And here's a written transcript of all actions taken by the Indian government to stop this scam:
Do not click this link. You have been warned.
LOL If you have only Mac's at home, you've already been scammed.
fake support calls are eerily similar to 419 scams in confidence artistry but it bears remembering why and when these scandals have taken place. In nigerias case oil discovery led to british and american interests propping up a series of dictators favourable to their interests yet despotic to their own people. After a few violent uprisings, oil export dropped to 40%, and largely has never returned. nationalized exports, systemic corruption, and a dearth of unemployment with a sizeable population of educated adults led to the 419 artistry and arguably an increase in piracy.
in Indias case, rampant corruption and high unemployment combined with a tech industry that favours low worker pay and aggressively combats everything from workplace safety to union organization and benefits has led to the tech support scam, born from the confidence and trust of americans and europeans accustomed to the dulcet tones of the south asian tech support worker.
Good people go to bed earlier.
depending on his locality, that might be illegal speech.
(and yes, there IS such a thing in the US too.)
Better story:
dont tell them that you are onto them. Instead, monitor the honeypot and see what they install later, what they use the compromised VM for, and build an actual case against them.
It's one thing to say "these people are taking over computers". it's entirely another to clearly show what they do with the computer afterwards, and build a profile that can be used to detect compromised systems based on activity patterns, then publish.
Windows are a horrible magnet for this because they're popular, not because they're difficult to use. If Macs had the same market share, they would get targeted too.
As this story points out, typical Windows users are a horrible, horrible magnet for scams like this
FTFY.
If you had legions and legions of the clueless descending on, say, Linux, you'd get these same scams preying on clueless Linux users. You don't, because generally Linux users are much more tech savvy and don't fall for them, so it isn't a target rich environment like Windows is.
So yes, Windows sucks, we all know it sucks, but in this case, PEBKAC. I hate Windows but I can't blame it for doing what its owner asked it to do.
why "Windows makes it so hard to do stuff"
It's what you learn on. I learned on Windows, when I use a Mac I'm utterly lost and think "Why did Apple make it so hard to find anything?"
I'll guarantee that if you and I spend the same amount of money on a Windows and Apple boxes that I *will* get superior hardware, but that yours is tested by Apple to be compatible with their OS. We'll both get operating systems that we understand where all the moving parts are and will both think that we got the better deal. If MS were to have full testing and approval of every piece of hardware and software and all drivers ever installed on every Windows workstation since the beginning of time it would be known for its stability as well. Instead MS went for maximum flexibility, with the result that their software is installed on most of the desktop computers and around half the servers on the entire planet.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
Trouble with trolling them is that they don't really care. The worst you'll accomplish is getting some low-paid (probably illegally low since you know, illegal business anyway) phone drone fired and replaced with the next one.
Your time is more valuable than theirs..
Define "stupid." Would you be able to tell when an auto mechanic is BSing you? When your contractor does a half-assed job building your home but still charges you full price? Any of 1000 other scams that are out there attacking areas of knowledge you haven't studied?
Just because a person can't tell a mouse from a memory stick doesn't mean they're stupid -- it means they don't know about computers. And that's still a large portion of the population, even among the younger crowd ("can use Facebook" does not indicate "knowing about computers" in any useful sense.)
Because most people have no need to know. Just like you don't need to know how to design and build the car you drive or the house you live in, most people don't need to know every detail about computers in order to use them.
There is (or at least should be) an argument that because computers (/phone/tablets/etc) are increasingly storing large chunks of our critical information that we should be training everyone in at least basic security.
Of course that's easier said than done. Its hard to make a full-term course out of that to push in public education (where they don't have the funding to support existing courses anyway.) Doing it as one of those three-day seminar type courses would be great except how do you convince more than a handful of people to attend? And nobody wants to see registration and licensing for basic computer usage (enforcing a minimal amount of training in order to obtain the license) -- even those who think programmers should be licensed generally wouldn't go that far.
So until someone figures out how to educate the entire country (/planet!), just calling people "stupid" and shutting down the conversation isn't helping anything. Or you know, since you're apparently perfect at everything (otherwise you'd be "stupid" too) maybe you can be the one to figure out how to solve the problem!
Define "stupid." Would you be able to tell when an auto mechanic is BSing you? When your contractor does a half-assed job building your home but still charges you full price?
Generally yes. I know enough about these things that I already have a pretty good idea what is going on with a car that I can take it to a mechanic and not get ripped. For example, does your car make a funny noise? Well you can do simple tests to try and narrow down what makes the noise change, and this gives you a good idea of what the problem might be. I just don't have the time, the tools, or the shop space to do a lot of these jobs myself, so I pay someone to actually do what I need them to do.
Same on the house. Simple jobs I do myself, other ones I will hire someone to finish things out. In many cases I might not know exactly how a tradesman would do a particular job, so I will watch for a bit so I can learn something.