Dose of Paranoia - 2025-07-12
It gets worse before it gets worse...
Important Stuff
If you are running Windows 10 on your home computer, you should be thinking about your options for the upcoming October 14th End of Life date for the venerable operating system. There are some options to keep receiving really important security patches past October - you can pay Microsoft $30 or take one of these other options. You can upgrade to Windows 11. But do something… running an unpatched version of Windows is a recipe for getting yourself hacked.
Infosec/Scam Stuff
You are(n’t) gonna have a best seller - Some enterprising Pakistani criminals are raking in millions of dollars by duping elderly would be authors into paying them to make their books into bestsellers, with lucrative movie and TV deals to follow. As usual, the scammers use psychological techniques to build trust with the victims, and play on their egos and pride in their literary creations, but at the end of the day, they simply collect fees and provide nothing in return. I have seen some messages on my LinkedIn recently offering to help me “publish my story” or “write books about my awesome security expertise” and I think these are entrees to similar schemes.
The bank (doesn’t) come to you - Fraudsters are getting more and more sophisticated and brazen - in this case actually showing up at victims’ homes to “retrieve a compromised debit card” and then to actually use that card to make thousands of dollars of purchases and withdrawals. Of course, banks will never ever ever send someone to your home for things like this. This is one of those scams we need to alert the senior citizens in our lives about - they (we?) may be used to a time when customer service actually existed and this, combined with the psychological techniques and access to account information used by the criminals can make them susceptible to schemes like this.
Throw another scammer on the barbie - An Australian bank has deployed AI “victims” to lure scammers, waste their time, and divert them from harassing real customers. In one case, the Aussie AI bot was able to keep a scammer on the line for 55 minutes! I like this idea - it protects customers, raises costs and friction for scammers and collects information to help track down the fraudsters.
I’m shocked I tells ya - Apparently, if you are stupid enough to sign up for Trump Mobile (to get that American made, no, wait, American values inspired golden garbage Android phone) they will start charging your credit card for, um, something before providing you with, um, anything. And you can’t get them to stop. I am shocked, I tells ya, that our Felon In Chief would put his name on something not totally on the up and up. Maybe these morons should call the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to complain. Oh, wait.. At least in this case, those being scammed totally deserve what they get. Maybe they should take an example from “Unique Truth” who has had it with Trump.
Tech Stuff
AI, get off our leg! - Big tech is desperate to get us to use the crappy AI “features” that they have spent billions on - and if you are using an Android phone and don’t want Gemini’s “help” with tasks that any moderately sentient human can do on their own, you need to deactivate access to your data - again. Like everything else in the world, 99% of AI is garbage and I find it interesting that tech firms are having to try and force feed this crap to users via underhanded tactics like this. Does not seem like you have a useful product, bro. Reminds me of the hucksterism and hype around putting my toaster on the blockchain.
What are people actually using AI for? - This infographic is a bit of a mixed bag. While the largest use case for AI seems to be amongst software developers, it is a bit worrying to me that the runner up is asking questions about “history and society.” I think coding is a place where AI can be helpful, but I am way less confident in LLM’s abilities to tell the truth about history and society. While anything involving Elon Musk is going to end up being evil garbage (like Elon Musk) stories about his evil garbage Grok AI spewing racist theories and consulting Musk’s (evil garbage) opinions before answering questions are shall we say a bit worrisome.
One more AI related story before I get off this kick - apparently, ChatGPT now “remembers” users’ interactions with the platform and builds up a “memory dossier” which it can use to “enhance” future interactions. I’m sure that this would never be used to create privacy nightmares beyond my wildest dreams… and I am sure that this will also be something that won’t totally invade our privacy and (further) enshittify the web. OK that was actually two stories. Sue me.
Fun Stuff
If I ever make it to Copenhagen, I think I shall pay my respects at the Time Traveler’s Grave…
We can all sleep a bit more soundly knowing that pro se plaintiff Adam Strege is busy going to court to sue (and I quote) “Launching nuclear missiles kill all planets people” and protect us all from… something. Unfortunately, the judge in his latest case just didn’t get the urgency of his suit. Look out for nuclear missiles I guess.
This week’s news from Japan… this is just peak Japan - a Nagoya based street gang called the Lucifers have had enough of the rough and tumble life of crime - so they have a gang disbanding ceremony at the local cop shop. Seems reminiscent of the Jets and Sharks of West Side Story with a bit of bushido culture sprinkled on top. I wish the now crime free Lucifers the best…
Final thoughts for the week - OK - no giant surprise here… the more stupid bullshit people believe in general, the more likely they are to approve of our Felon in Chief. Like 70x more likely. We are living in an age where stupidity and disinformation are ascendent (hopefully for now) and social media, 24 hour news, and media corporations bowing the knee to corrupt politicians are the norm. It’s a bad time to be an intelligent person. It’s a great time to be an idiot. And it is a great time to be a scammer, fraudster or criminal as our “leaders” normalize and incentivize this type of behavior. I’m so glad I don’t have kids… and my hat is off to those of you who manage to guide yours through this mess and have them turn out to be good, intelligent people. They are the ones who (might) get us out of this mess and back on the right track. No pressure.