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?

  • peto@lemm.eeEnglish
    2582·
    8 months ago

    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.

      • Evil_Shrubbery@lemm.ee
        6·
        8 months ago

        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.

  • dustyData@lemmy.world
    110·
    8 months ago

    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.

    • Dharma Curious@startrek.website
      862·
      8 months ago

      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.

      • M500@lemmy.mlEnglish
        46·
        8 months ago

        If I had the opportunity, I’d still wipe the scammers computer.

      • Maalus@lemmy.world
        184·
        8 months ago

        It’s always an excuse that criminals make - that they don’t have any other options for employment. It’s a shitty excuse when 95% of the country is employed and don’t scam people. It’s easy money for them, nothing more.

      • foggy@lemmy.world
        2010·
        8 months ago

        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.

        • DaGeek247@kbin.social
          2·
          8 months ago

          I can only assume they don’t drop the hammer because they can take a cut instead.

          you have way too much faith in a government agencies ability to see, understand, and act on a situation.

        • smeg@feddit.ukEnglish
          31·
          8 months ago

          Do you really think only Americans are targeted by scammers?

          • foggy@lemmy.world
            31·
            8 months ago

            I think 80 year old Americans have a disproportionate amount of global wealth, so they are a, as I said, primary target. Yes.

            Give it 15 years and then focus will shift to be predominantly toward UAE.

            • Reacher@lemmy.world
              93·
              8 months ago

              As a European I can assure you 80 yo Americans are living in poverty compared to most Europeans.

              I know that Americans can’t see the other side of the ocean but scam calls are made everywhere.

              I love these Americans who live in their tiny bubble of “America is rich as hell”. In Europe we mostly compare America with countries like Russia and other large but poor countries.

              • foggy@lemmy.world
                42·
                8 months ago

                Americans wealth index only trails behind Iike 3 EU countries. Your statement is googlably false. (Germany, Norway. Not France Not Britain, not Spain, not Italy…not most of Europe).

                Edit: also, laughs in GDP

    • Norodix@lemmy.worldOP
      4·
      8 months ago

      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.

  • lseif@sopuli.xyz
    702·
    8 months ago

    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

          • fxdave@lemmy.ml
            3·
            8 months ago

            Once someone asked if somebody knows how to run this old game in a linux community.

            The game was “capitalism lab”. I said no, we are communists.

            The guy then deleted his post.

    • dan@upvote.au
      12·
      8 months ago

      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.

    • Ooops@kbin.social
      3·
      8 months ago

      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…

    • Kusimulkku@lemm.ee
      3·
      8 months ago

      I still chuckle about the fact that WannaCry the ransomware software has a WineHQ entry

    • arglebargle@lemm.eeEnglish
      101·
      8 months ago

      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.

    • XEAL@lemm.ee
      8·
      8 months ago

      There was a very custom theme for Gnome 2 that made it look like Windows XP…

  • Water1053@lemmy.world
    481·
    8 months ago

    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.

  • Blackmist@feddit.uk
    English
    36·
    8 months ago

    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

  • spaghettiwestern@sh.itjust.works
    32·
    8 months ago

    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.

  • abbadon420@lemm.ee
    25·
    8 months ago

    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)

    • glitch1985@lemmy.world
      15·
      8 months ago

      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.

      • MystikIncarnate@lemmy.caEnglish
        111·
        8 months ago

        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.