Re:Tech-Support Scams Prompt Google to Act
by ashleyn on Saturday September 01, 2018 @09:34AM
(#17891761)
I didn't use adblock on my phone until recently because until Brave came out, it was such a pain in the ass (root, vpn, etc). But eventually I couldn't take it anymore. I got regular reminders of how badly ads have ruined the modern web. Any small to midsize blog had a 1-in-4 chance of crashing the browser with fake "YOUR PHONE HAS A VIRUS" ads that pull you right out of what you were reading. Extremely irritating and it's no shock to me why Brave was conceptualised.
Re:Tech-Support Scams Prompt Google to Act
by jhoh on Saturday September 01, 2018 @10:31AM
(#17891993)
Did just that for a long time but recently switched to brave. Chromium just feels way more snappier on Android and I prefer its UI much more over Firefox which does many things that annoy me (e.g. ignoring theme-color tags).
Re:Tech-Support Scams Prompt Google to Act
by scarface74 on Saturday September 01, 2018 @12:13PM
(#17892489)
iOS has a built in “content blocking” framework. Third party Ad blockers basically submit blocking rules to iOS in JSON format and the ad blockers work both in Safari and in apps that use the newest WebView.
The advantage is that the third party ad blockers aren’t able to intercept your web browsing directly and can’t invade your privacy.
Re:Tech-Support Scams Prompt Google to Act
by tunap on Saturday September 01, 2018 @12:47PM
(#17892681)
Even with an adblocker, you can still see Goog's ad results in search. Amidst the ubiquitous Amazon & Ebay results, or in lieu of, many results are scammers... who pay for top results in other ways(SEO).Ever search for Windows Licenses pre-10? If I didn't know better I would think $25 was the normal price for genuine COAs.
I wonder if Dregslist will ever have a similar 'drain the swamp' moment w/ their scammers...
Re:Tech-Support Scams Prompt Google to Act
by gregmac on Saturday September 01, 2018 @11:53AM
(#17892373)
I just listened to an interesting podcast about these scams [1], but in this case they were mainly making outbound calls. The podcasters actually travel to India to track them down, and it's kind of crazy the way they run their operation.
What I thought was really funny was the scammers literally type "Zeus troan found" into the console (typo included) and people are falling for this and giving them money. Crazy just to let someone remote into your desktop though..
Re:Tech-Support Scams Prompt Google to Act
by e40 on Saturday September 01, 2018 @12:19PM
(#17892516)
Crazy just to let someone remote into your desktop though..
A lot of times it's the old and infirm. A friend's father is going through the beginning stages of dementia and he got taken by the "MS support" scam.
Remember: 1) they wouldn't do it if it wasn't profitable, and 2) it only takes a small percentage of folks to fall for it to make it profitable.
It disturbs me that our system of government and commerce does give a shit about this problem. The people who are caught doing this are given a slap on the wrist. I talked with a lawyer in TX once (googled a case, called him) and in the 00's a company was caught and convicted of terrible scams. They paid the fine and kept doing it, just in a slightly different way that was harder to get caught.
With that said, when your loved ones are facing mental health challenges that make them susceptible to fraud, someone needs to step in to assume a guardianship role. That's not to say the government has no role; they should be prosecuting these cases harder, but there is no magic bullet. Everyone could be doing a better job.
Turns out I've been using adblocker for so long that it didn't even occur to me that the scammers were purchasing Google ads.
The advantage is that the third party ad blockers aren’t able to intercept your web browsing directly and can’t invade your privacy.
I use 1Blocker.
I wonder if Dregslist will ever have a similar 'drain the swamp' moment w/ their scammers...
What I thought was really funny was the scammers literally type "Zeus troan found" into the console (typo included) and people are falling for this and giving them money. Crazy just to let someone remote into your desktop though..
[1] https://www.gimletmedia.com/reply-all/102-long-distance-part...
A lot of times it's the old and infirm. A friend's father is going through the beginning stages of dementia and he got taken by the "MS support" scam.
Remember: 1) they wouldn't do it if it wasn't profitable, and 2) it only takes a small percentage of folks to fall for it to make it profitable.
It disturbs me that our system of government and commerce does give a shit about this problem. The people who are caught doing this are given a slap on the wrist. I talked with a lawyer in TX once (googled a case, called him) and in the 00's a company was caught and convicted of terrible scams. They paid the fine and kept doing it, just in a slightly different way that was harder to get caught.
With that said, when your loved ones are facing mental health challenges that make them susceptible to fraud, someone needs to step in to assume a guardianship role. That's not to say the government has no role; they should be prosecuting these cases harder, but there is no magic bullet. Everyone could be doing a better job.
[1] Code that drives it: https://pastebin.com/r4L2ufkp