My PC is hacked
I just received a call from an indian microsoft technician. He informed me that my PC is sending a ton of error messages to microsoft. Most likely it has been hacked, and he would help me by remoting in and fixing the problem for me. I just wonder... Is it my PopOs or my Manjaro PC that sends all this info to microsoft?
If it's sending information to Microsoft then it has clearly been hacked. Likely by Microsoft. It was very nice of that young man to break protocol and blow the whistle on this whole thing. You should send him an itunes gift card as a thank you.
Microsoft? More like Hackrosoft!!1!!
But I've sent all those to the CIA!
These are the same people - CIA just outsourced their call center to India & they have to send all gift cards back to the CIA, you just cut out the middleman.
What ever u do, DO NOT REDEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEM THAT GIFTCARD SIR, SIR I BEG U DO NOT REDEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEM
You reminded me of those YouTube vigilantes that troll Indian scammers. One installed the remote desktop app they use and let them access a honeypot linux machine just to mock their incompetence and confusion. Then proceeded to take control of their machine steal their data and wipe out their computers. Their reactions are hilarious. It's sad that a lot of very smart people are dragged into it by thugs that leverage debt and physical threats to force them into the scam call centers.
I ended up on a massive Whatsapp group populated primarily by Indian women after I took a content writing class a few years ago. Made several very good friends. I've asked them about the whole Indian scammer thing. One of them said she knows a few, and they do it because they literally don't have other options for employment. Which makes sense. Rampant, unfettered capitalism forces people to make decisions that go against their conscience for the sake of survival. I feel bad for scammers sometimes, other times I feel less charitable when they're scamming my dad...
Whole situation just fucking sucks.
I've done a lot of thinking about the scam market, and there is no way it isn't some kind of "CIA is behind the cartels" situation.
Primary target? Elderly Americans.
Objective? Bring generational wealth to institutions.
FCC could stop the vast majority of this shit by using techniques similar to DKIM via VOIP to stop spoofing (STIR/SHAKEN). This problem is solved. Has been for a while.
I can only assume they don't drop the hammer because they can take a cut instead.
So you’re buying that explanation that a scammer is escaping poverty by putting a bunch of someone else’s into poverty?
You just defined Bezos. Lol. You just got double scammed.
As much as a person could find a reason to feel sorry for them they unnecessarily verbally abuse people they are scamming and that was a choice they made. Their hands are not clean from playing a villain.
And escaping poverty by putting someone else in poverty …that’s the capitalist game. No ethics is part of the package. They are not victims.
I have seen those, so first I played along a bit. "Oh, these hackers must be very good. Please help me". But I had things to do so I cut it short.
I never thought one of them would call me. I'm so much outside the target demographic. They might be getting desperate to find targets.
You don’t need threats, that’s the career path for CS degrees
All that malware should be running without problems. Wine's gotten pretty good by now.
Ah yes, I remember back in the day we had to build WINE with unofficial patches to get malware to work. How times have changed.
But how's Siddhartha going to find the Event Viewer!?
Can someone confirm if syskeying works on Wine?
Proper malware often still doesn't run. Cheap executables to encrypt your stuff and so on the other hand work well.
Which is why wine should be run as its own unpriviledged user...
I still chuckle about the fact that WannaCry the ransomware software has a WineHQ entry
One time I kept a guy on the phone for about ten minutes just playing dumb. Then he's like, sir, what version of Windows do you have?"
I say, I'm not sure but it's the one with the little penguin icon.
We actually had a good laugh about it together
Lmao
I won free airline tickets once and was shocked and appalled when they said I COULDNT use them to go to the moon. I fought long and hard for the right to use those tickets the way I wanted but alas.
Set up a fake Windows VM to fuck with them
There was a good version of windows 7 set up for this. Command prompts wouldn't work right, and really messed with them if you gave then access.
I let one in once and managed to reverse the remote desktop and took over their computer.
That was fun.
Fucking with scammers is a public service.
its a dangerous virus known as 'Linux' which can completely replace your precious Windows installation! be careful, there is a lot of propaganda pushing free (as in communism) software
I once played along just to waste their time. Got to the point where I had to go to a site and get my IP address.
I told him it was 127.0.0.1, and he just said "I think you be messing with me now sir" and hung up. :D
You could've told him your local IP (192.168.(1..255).(1..255)), is completely useless outside your home network but looks real enough.
Anybody with a bit of technical knowledge will recognize a local IP address
Definitely. You should buy Google Play gift cards to pay for his services straight away.
My father in law called me because he talked to a MS support rep about how his computer was dying. He was running Linux Mint.
lol
Hello my name is Deepak John Smith. I’m Microsoft. You clearly have wirus you madarchod
Now please type dablu dablu dablu in your address bar
And you have no Windows VM ready to troll him?
No, this is the first time something like this happened to me. i dont even get it. In my country mostly young people speak english. Isnt the target demographic the elderly?
I did the opposite one day when I was bored. Wasted an hour with them and a Linux VM. Think they were the ones that had my Dell service ID for a tablet I previously owned.
A friend's neighbor just fell for this. She received a call from the "nicest" Microsoft tech and decided she'd let them into her PC. Within 10 minutes after hanging up she received a call from her bank asking if an $800 debit was valid. It took her weeks to clean up the mess.
Naievety tax
Well Manjaro is known for DDOSing the AUR. So there is that
I gotta say, you got me on the first half
Curious question, is it "safe" to let them enter into a VM that runs windows? And is there an easy way to record their ip (to hand over to the police)
lol I'm sure the Indian police will definitely not throw that info in the bin
Depending on the type of VM it may not be completely sandboxed. Not worth it in my opinion. Also the police aren't going to do squat. Hell they wouldn't do anything even if they were down the street not to mention they're on the other side of the earth.
Ehh. With enough digital forensics performed, you can generally get the information to authorities who will do something. For the average power user, this level of forensics is more than you're going to be able to perform on your own. Simply having an IP address really isn't sufficient. One unsubstantiated claim with an IP address doesn't constitute enough evidence for them to take action, especially by someone who lives in a different country.
I only say so because I've seen the lengths some people have gone to in order to track down scammers and similar nefarious individuals and "companies", and it is quite involved. Far more than what I would expect any single person to take on by themselves and frequently requiring extensive knowledge of the tools used, the vulnerabilities in those tools, and a fair amount of legwork (literally traveling around to collect information)... Which isn't to mention a good amount of funding. At the end of the day, you're just cutting off one of the heads of the Hydra, and they'll be back in short order. There's no shortage of morally bankrupt people willing to exploit and extort people with more money than sense, or at least, without enough technical understanding to know better. The problem isn't exclusive to India, and with a billion people, there's bound to be a disproportionate representation of scoundrels in that region whom are happy to rob anyone and everyone of their last dime just to get rich.
Bluntly, it's more of a statement on humanity than it is of India, the Indian people, or their culture. These garbage people exist everywhere.... Snake oil salesmen come to mind.
It's probably better to get in contact with the people who are professionals at this if you want to help out.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
This is just microsoft executing their Extinguish stage.
Sounds like you need an anti-wirus
You’d better send them an iTunes giftcard quickly just to be safe
Does kitboga still have his tipline active where you can give him scammers numbers?
Good idea, I submitted.
My Boomer dad got taken in by one of these scams. They didn't manage to do much damage, thankfully.
Yea l knew someone that gave remote access out to one of these scams. Couldn't be sure they didn't leave a reverse shell so we just formated the drive and reinstalled windblows.
Kitboga, please relog back to your account.
I once looked in Event Viewer and was gobsmacked by the number of wiruses and hackers in my compyooder.
Microsoft are NEVER, repeat NEVER, going to call you about your computer.
I didn't have too much patience for him, but he was totally sending me to eventviewer!
Heh
Obligatory podcast episode: https://gimletmedia.com/shows/reply-all/6nh3wk/
This just reminds me of how much miss reply all
The problem appears to be connected to your bank account and can only be fixed if you buy some apple gift cards...
Hello, my name is sideshow bob and I’m the worst comedian in the world.