Dose of Paranoia - 16-Nov-2024
It gets worse... and then it gets worse
Wow! A bunch of people actually signed up for the newsletter - pretty exciting! I think I am going to make Saturdays the normal publication day, so here is the first scheduled Dose for your reading pleasure… feel free to share the link to deserving friends and family using the button at the bottom… on with the show…
Infosec
The more things change… attackers have resorted to QR code bearing snail mail (remember paper letters?) to try and bamboozle Swiss residents into downloading a mandatory “Severe Weather Warning App” which of course is actually an infostealer app which yoinks credentials for hundreds of banking and other apps from victims’ phones. When I first heard this, I thought that this must be a very targeted espionage kind of thing - I mean the cost of a stamp these days in the land of yodeling and chocolate is CHF 1.20 (USD $1.35). But there is no mention of specific targeting in the story. This is an expensive campaign, showing both the value of getting malware onto random victims’ phones and (possibly/hopefully) the difficulty that bad guys are having with other attack methods as people get more security savvy(?)
(And speaking of old things coming back again… I remember the first time this fad swept the US - now Chiiiina has caught on.)
Frauds and Scams
Scam of the week… I have seen a large uptick in PayPal invoice/money request scams this past week. In this annoying grift, the victim receives a totally legitimate email from PayPal requesting that they pay the scammer for products or services that were never ordered. The invoice “helpfully” contains a “customer service phone number” that the victim is encouraged to call to cancel the allegedly impending charge. Calling the number connects you to the scammer who then extracts personal and payment card info to “cancel the charge.” Except there ain’t no order to cancel - this is a function of PayPal which allows anyone to send a request for payment to anyone - nothing bad is going to happen if you simply delete the email and go on with your day. What makes these scams extra annoying is that they use a legit PayPal feature that real businesses depend on, so the emails are actually coming from PayPal. PLEASE, no one tell any politicians about this…. (There is also a variant of this that uses DocuSign as well)
Scam(s) of the decade… Enshittification of the government continues on a number of fronts, even before the new administration motorcade arrives in DC. One example - these very non surprising statements from current and ex federal attorneys. A focus on cryptocurrency enforcement will be replaced with a new and much more important focus on persecuting immigrants who have the temerity to want a better life and an opportunity to contribute to society and our economy. Great news for scammers, fraudsters, and criminals, who (IMHO) are the only people other than speculators (who I have nothing in particular against) with real use cases for cryptocurrency in the US. I sooooo wish I didn’t have a conscience - the opportunities here are gonna be just amazing.
Some GOOD news on the scam front - Google is rolling out a feature to its Pixel phones which uses AI to detect potential fraudulent intent in calls in real time. They claim that the model is on device and preserves privacy. If it really does, this could be helpful in protecting vulnerable folks from the bad actors.
Want to do something fun, good and easy?
There are a ton of folks in Ukraine who want to improve their English language skills and ENGin provides a way for YOU (yes, YOU) to help them do that. By spending time online providing basic English instruction or just giving them an opportunity to interact with a fluent English speaker, you can do something concrete to help them access better jobs in Ukraine or abroad. I’ve been doing this for over a year and the hour a week I spend with my conversation buddy has been fun for me too. If you are looking for a way to help the people of Ukraine without dragging your lazy ass off the couch, this is a great way. More information here.
Another good thing you can do… get the $%^&# off of X/Twitter… you can stop putting money into the pocket of an actual illegal immigrant deserving of deportation. Preferably to Mars. Without a spacesuit.
Fun Stuff
Sometimes scammers actually put in a decent effort - like these guys who dressed up as a bear and damaged expensive cars to rip off their insurers. Yeah, they got caught, but you have to admire the imagination and work involved.
Radio Shack! - If you are of a certain age and a certain nerdiness, you remember paper catalogs and in particular, those of nerd temple Radio Shack which were a treasure trove of cheap gadgets you didn’t know you needed, electronic parts of all kinds, and most importantly for me, the TRS-80 computers that were my gateway into tech. And remember the battery of the month club? Yeah… I’m old.
Cool stuff to watch and read - AppleTV has some really good stuff to watch these days - Silo just started Season 2, offering a world so dystopian that pretty much anything on the news seems cheerful and sane. And I am in mourning having finished the most recent season of Slow Horses which is the absolute best spy show ever. If you don’t have AppleTV, read the books for both of these (Silo / Slow Horses) - great stuff!
For your listening pleasure - Blue Monday - on 1980s Casio keyboards and on 1930s instruments